The Girl with a Thousand Faces

Chapter 1 Madam Ghost Talker

MADAM GHOST TALKER

Late afternoon, and the Walled City was a fleshy soup. Human pedestrians slicked past each other in narrow alleys, bodies filmed with sweat. Sad-faced ghosts peered out from corners or hovered on filthy eaves. Steam rose from mildewed gutters, suffusing both living and dead alike.

In among the shifting crowd, Mercy Chan paused at a crossroads, peering down the different alleys and struggling to recall the directions that her boss had given her not an hour before. The district was a maze, even for those who knew it well.

Should have written the directions down, she thought sourly. It was too hot to remember things that weren’t written down.

Every part of Kowloon was layered in shade, but the lack of sunlight brought no relief.

The lower levels in particular were full of machineries and factories; they built up heat, like an oven.

Mercy was trying not to bake in that dark oven.

She tugged at the soggy neck of her plain linen shirt, peeling it from her skin in an attempt to create a little air circulation.

But there was no air to circulate, only humidity.

She was supposed to be wearing a triad jacket—white and green, Cobra Lily’s colors, patterned in a snakeskin brocade—but she could not be bothered with long sleeves in this heat.

Besides, Bao didn’t like her jacket, wouldn’t sit on her shoulder when she wore it. Even less incentive to ever put it on.

Since she’d chosen a regular sleeveless vest, the ghost cat had deigned to accompany her, compacting himself into a white, fluffy-looking bundle of fur.

He nestled between the crook of her neck and shoulder, emanating a tiny radius of chilly air.

A long tail curled over her upper arm in languid rest. It was a good, safe comfort to know he was there.

Bao opened one bright-red eye, stretched out a claw, and raked her collarbone lightly.

“Stop that!” Clearly, she’d stood in one place too long for his liking. “If you get bored so easily, why do you come with me?”

The ghost cat yawned.

“Some use you are,” she said, affectionate. “Be a good little hunter and find this rogue spirit for me, since you’re in such a hurry.”

Nose twitching, he leaped from her shoulder and began drifting serenely above the sweat-soaked masses.

A few people flinched, but most ignored him, recognizing that he was no threat.

Main streets like this one were guarded carefully by triad exorcists, and the only ghosts who traveled along it openly were those—like Bao—who had special exemption.

Mercy, who could not float eerily through the air, began shoving her way through the crowd after him. The sooner she got this done, the sooner she could get back to the fan-cooled bliss of her own flat. And have a damn bath.

Kowloon was as much vertical as it was horizontal.

She was currently about three levels up on the east side, walking through a warren of noodle-thin “roads” made of metal sheets laid across pipes and struts.

Five-foot-nothing and she still had to duck in places beneath low-hanging signs or protruding construction.

Directly beneath her sandaled feet was another street, or possibly the interior of someone’s house.

She could hear people moving about on all sides: above, below, around her, for several streets up and down and extending to the sides, pierced with loud clangs from the metalworking shops on the ground level.

Bao appeared to be heading for a particular flat one level up. She could just see it from here. The windows were boarded but an unearthly light seeped from the cracks, visible in the city’s perpetual semidarkness.

“Good job,” she said.

Bao flicked his tail and darted ahead of her.

He led her off the main road, up a rickety staircase and down a short alleyway that was devoid of light.

Garbage crusted the gutters while rusted, irregularly spaced doorframes sank into the surrounding concrete.

Her job never took her to friendly places.

He floated across a narrow gap between buildings; Mercy jumped it with practiced ease. At the end of the alleyway was a pair of doors, almost next to each other. Judging by the number etched into its frame and the eerie light seeping through the cracks, the left door was the one she wanted.

Unfortunately, someone had secured it shut with a chain and a padlock.

“No easy way through there,” she said to the cat. “Perhaps the neighbors can be of help.”

Bao leaped up to sit on her shoulder and curled into an indifferent lump, as if to reply, I did my bit; the rest is your problem now. Which was perfectly true.

She approached the unlocked door. Nobody answered her knock, so she simply pushed it open.

Dilapidation greeted her. A stove, a couch, a folding table, two plastic stools, and a broken TV all crowded for space against one wall, while a narrow pallet took up the opposite side.

There was no toilet, no closet, just a few unwashed dishes, and clothes of dubious hygiene in a pile.

Like most homes, this one sat in semidarkness; electricity was expensive in Kowloon, and unreliable.

On the far side, two men sat hunched over a small dining table, talking intently in low voices.

They looked to be in their early twenties—young enough to be her sons, if she’d had children.

One of them bore a rat tattoo winding around his neck, cheaply done and the ink bleeding across lines.

The other wore a series of thin gold bracelets on his wrist. Both looked up as she entered.

“Cobra Lily sent me,” Mercy said, when they continued to stare at her in silence. “I hear the place next to yours has an exceptional ghost problem.”

“We are the ones who called on Cobra Lily.” Rat Tattoo rubbed his nose and added guardedly, “You are the exorcist?” His disbelieving gaze took in this early-fifties woman, stocky frame draped in a washed-worn shirt and battered shorts.

The broken flip-flops on her feet and the fuzzy cat on her shoulder.

The smattering of cheap tattoos on her skin.

“Ghost talker,” she corrected, cheerfully. “Not exorcist.”

His scowl deepened. “Even worse! We pay our dues, we pay them on time, and Cobra Lily sends some … middle-aged shopkeeper? What are you going to do, gossip it to death?”

Bao chose that moment to open those red, red eyes.

There was an intake of breath from both men, the shared recognition of a ghost cat. Maogui were no laughing matter.

For the first time, Rat Tattoo seemed to notice the branching lightning scar that ran from Mercy’s shoulder to her wrist, and his forehead creased in uneasy alarm. His hand drifted to the watermelon chopper that hung from his belt.

“Don’t you dare draw that knife! And I am here for what I can do, not for how I look,” Mercy said sharply. Middle-aged shopkeeper, indeed! Young people had no respect these days. “Do you want my help, or not? Hungry Ghost Festival is just around the corner.”

The men exchanged glances, clearly absorbing her warning.

Ghosts were already a pain at the best of times, but during Ghost Month—and on the nights surrounding the festival in particular—they could be especially dangerous.

The veil to the underworld was thinnest, and the dead at their strongest, on those inauspicious days.

“Fine, but you’d better be competent, little auntie,” Rat Tattoo said, releasing his chopper grudgingly.

He had a strong Mandarin accent, although his Cantonese was very good.

“The old lady died a few days ago. She won’t go away, nor will she let anyone inside for long, and she is violent if disturbed.

That’s why we asked Cobra Lily for an exorcist.”

Mercy kept her face still and neutral. Almost everyone who died in the Walled City returned as a ghost, these days. Nothing unusual there; this city was a pit trap for spirits, its energy saturated with years of violence.

But those who died peacefully did not usually linger very long. Even those who died brutally could often be placated by offerings or apologies. Either these men were missing information, or they were hoarding facts.

“How did you know her?” she said. “Are you just neighbors?”

Unease flashed across Rat Tattoo’s face. “She was Ng Chungpo’s grandmother.” He gestured at his bracelet-wearing friend. “He lives here, next to her.”

Chungpo remained silent and drummed his fingers on the tabletop. For someone who had recently lost a grandmother, he didn’t seem very upset. Bored, even.

“I see,” Mercy said, when it became clear the bereaved man had no interest in replying. “How long has she been a concern? Was it you who chained everything shut?”

Her gaze kept straying to Chungpo’s bracelets; they did not seem like the kind of thing a streetwise young man would wear in these parts. She could imagine them having belonged to his dead grandmother, though.

“Few days.” Chungpo spoke at last, picking sullenly at his lip. “She keeps crying and ranting. Won’t talk to anyone. We only boarded up the door because we were afraid.”

Rat Tattoo leaned forward. “Will you banish her?”

“I will certainly speak to her,” Mercy said, carefully. “Can you let me into her place?”

Five minutes later, they stood crowded around as Chungpo jammed a key forcefully into the lock. Loose chain links slithered to the ground in a messy coil.

“Now what?” Rat Tattoo ran his thumb repeatedly over tobacco-stained teeth. “Do we stay here, or—”

“No. Come with me.” Mercy pressed a hand to the peeling wood and gently nudged it open, stepping inside.

With a mutter of swearing, the two young men edged reluctantly after her. A waft of cooler air rolled over them, pleasant relief from the sticky heat outside. Bao leaped down from her shoulder to stand next to her, tail lashing.