Snake Agent: A Detective Inspector Chen Novel by Liz Williams

said reluctantly. "I won't put Chen Wei in danger."
    "He is already in danger, and was so from the day you first set eyes upon one another. If you left him, and vanished to the furthest depths of the storm-breeding ocean, or to the highest winter peak of the Zhai Fu Lo, it would make no difference. If they chose to do so, the wu'ei could still hunt him down."
    "I know," Inari whispered. She had always known that this day would come: the day on which she had to face the truth. She wanted to pretend that the man she had seen on the harbor wall was no one of importance, and perhaps it was true, but it still didn't matter. The consequences of her actions were inescapable. "I could not have done otherwise," she said. "You know what I am. Demons cannot help but use , however greatly they may love. And I could not face marriage to—to that person."
    "Yes, Dao Yi, your betrothed," the badger said. "We have heard nothing from him since the day you left Hell."
    "My family paid him the dowry," Inari said, and even to her own ears her voice sounded hollow and unconvincing. "That was what Dao Yi wanted, after all: not me."
    "You know better than that," the badger said.
    Inari rose and paced to the window. It was now quite dark. She could see her own image reflected in the candlelight on the glass: a pale, pointed face, and eyes like wells of blood. She turned this way and that, trying to imagine herself human, as if she wished hard enough, transformation would come. Change flickered in the reflection beyond her shoulder: the badger, a teakettle once more, in silent rejection of all that she was trying to pretend.
     

Twelve
    Chen, Zhu Irzh and the ghost surfaced in a street that Chen did not immediately recognize. He stood taking deep breaths of comparatively fresh air and glanced around him. His trouser legs were sodden, and clung unpleasantly to his shins. He did not dare look down at his shoes. The street was narrow: the usual welter of machine shops and cafés, all silent under the moon, their facades hidden behind steel shutters. Turning, Chen glimpsed a peaked roof and realized where they were. They were standing at the back of Kuan Yin's second temple, in Xiangfan below the Garden District.
    "Well," the demon said softly.
    "You came here? Through the temple?" Chen asked, nonplussed. The sudden sensation of betrayal rose in his throat, though he knew perfectly well that the temples were gates between the worlds. The demon gave a fluid shrug.
    "It's as good a place as any other. Besides, it's not far from where I live, in my world. What's it to you?"
    "Kuan Yin is my patron."
    "Mmm." Zhu Irzh murmured in surprise. A flicker of unease crossed his face. Surely, Chen thought, surely the goddess will not let him steal Pearl's soul back to Hell from her own precincts? The same thought had evidently crossed the demon's mind, too. He adjusted the cuffs of his silk coat with some semblance of embarrassment. Thunder cracked in the distance and heavy drops of rain began to drum on the corrugated iron roofs around them. Zhu Irzh's head snapped back.
    "Rain," he said, dismayed. A single droplet fell from the heavens and streaked Zhu Irzh's cheek like a tear. The demon hissed in pain and clapped a hand to his face.
    "I suggest we get out of the wet," Chen said, silently thanking the goddess that Zhu Irzh was clearly not of the same storm-loving lineage as Inari. He took the demon's arm and drew him aside. "You want to talk to Pearl, don't you? Well, so do I. And she'll feel safer in the temple."
    Ducking beneath an awning, Zhu Irzh said, "Detective Inspector, you know that if it were up to me, I'd be perfectly content for you to put Pearl Tang on the next Celestial boat and that would be that. But I have my orders."
    "Who's your superior?"
    "Supreme Seneschal Yhu."
    "Perhaps if I spoke to him, explained the situation—"
    "No!" the demon said hastily. "That is, there are political complications."
    "There usually are. Look. It's going to pour in