Chapter 1 Madam Ghost Talker #2
This flat was a more cheerful replica of the one she’d just left.
A sofa bed in tolerable condition, the walls scrubbed clean, and Buddhist paraphernalia lining rickety wooden shelves.
The old lady had been devout; there was a shrine to the wealth god, some small statues, a bowl of fruit left out for hungry spirits.
A few ancient newspaper clippings were pinned to the wall, headlines shouting about the end of the war; they were decades old, yellow with age.
On the far side of the room, an elderly woman bent over a charcoal cooker, stirring something in a wok. A dark button-down shirt draped loose over her stooped shoulders, spine humped with age and poor nutrition. She did not look up at their entrance.
The ghost herself.
Quite corporeal, too. If not for the slightly translucent quality of her flesh, the old lady might almost have passed for a living woman. That solidity, and the degree of the coldness in here, suggested a spirit of notable strength.
Or notable anger.
“This is her,” Chungpo said. “My dear old Ahma.” A hint of irony underpinned the affectionate term.
“No shit.” Mercy cleared her throat then said, more loudly and more politely, “Good afternoon, grandmother.”
Silence.
“What are you doing?” Rat Tattoo said, in a low hiss. “You are supposed to banish her!”
“She doesn’t talk to anyone,” Chungpo added. “She won’t talk to you, either.”
“Shut up, stupid eggs,” Mercy told them, then raised her voice again. “Grandmother? Can you hear me? Please answer, if you can.”
The men were right to be cynical. Despite having unfinished business, ghosts were not always willing to communicate, and it sounded like they had already tried that here.
But ghosts did answer to Mercy. Always. She had a way of speaking, of putting force into her words, that seemed to draw their attention.
As usual, it worked. The elderly woman paused in her stirring and partly turned her head.
“Is that you?” Her face was still hidden by a fall of shoulder-length hair, black strands shot thickly with gray. “Aiyah, you were gone so long!”
Another waiting woman, Mercy thought resignedly.
There were many kinds of waiting-women ghosts, from wives pining for dead or unfaithful husbands, to mothers wasting away as they hoped for the return of a child, to young girls with broken hearts, and so on.
She felt sorry for them, but also annoyed by them.
Bad enough to spend your life waiting on other people; even worse to spend the afterlife doing it, too.
Still, it was the kind of opening she needed.
“Sorry, grandmother.” Mercy took a cautious step forward. “I am just a guest in your home. The person you were waiting for is … Actually, who are you waiting for?”
Feverescent eyes peered through a veil of monochrome hair. “My grandson. My handsome, clever grandson!”
“Oh? Did he go somewhere?”
“Out.” The ghost seemed to dim briefly, like a faltering candle. “My grandson went … out … when I got sick. He said he would get a doctor and come right back.”
Chungpo wiped his hands, as if his palms were sweating.
“But he did not come back, did he.” Mercy was swept with a sense of resignation; she suspected where this was going. “Did he leave you here? Alone, and sick?”
“He is coming back.” The ghost shivered. “Very soon. Very soon!”
Cheeks reddening, Chungpo edged back into the shadows.
“Why haven’t you banished her?” Rat Tattoo cut in. Even in this cold room, he was flushed and red, too. “End her suffering! What kind of exorcist are you, anyway?”
“I’m a ghost talker, not an exorcist,” Mercy said, sharply. “Interrupt me again and I’ll bind your spirit to a bedpan.”
She couldn’t really do it, but Rat Tattoo didn’t know that. He blanched and fell silent.
To the old woman, she said, “Listen, grandmother. If your grandson was going to come back, why did he lock and bar the doors?”
“I … don’t know.” The ghost finally tilted her head up, and there was nothing horrific or scary about her features. Only a pained sadness in the sunken face. “He took my money when he left. Said it was to pay the doctor.”
Chungpo swore under his breath.
“Fuck a crab,” Mercy said, and sighed. “Grandmother, you are dead. I don’t know if the sickness killed you or starvation did, but either way, the only ‘help’ your grandson gave was to hurry you along and make sure you could not escape death.
He waited till you were bedbound, stole your money and your jewelry, and locked you in here to die. ” She looked at Chungpo. “Am I right?”
The man glared. Gold bracelets clacked on his wrists as his fists curled.
“No!” The ghost began to cry with black tears, smoke trickling from her nostrils. “No, he would never!” Long cooking chopsticks dropped from fragile hands and dispersed into ethereal mist. Her body flickered like a television with a bad signal.
Rat Tattoo grabbed Mercy’s shoulder with some force. “If you are accusing us of—”
Bao hissed, fur standing on end. He was only a small ghost, but the sudden noise was enough to make the man release his grip in shock.
“You must have known, in those final moments, what your grandson had done,” Mercy said, stepping sideways to avoid Rat Tattoo’s grasp, still keeping steady eye contact with the elderly lady. “Or you would not be lingering here now, attacking anyone who tries to move you out of this house.”
“No, he would not … he…” Pallid lips writhed in sudden anger. “How could he leave me like that? His own grandmother. I took days to die!”
“Ghosts always have unfinished business,” Mercy said, softening her tone. “Ghosts always want something. What is it you want, grandmother? You can tell me.”
It was true. The dead who returned were not quite who they used to be.
Dying damaged the different parts of the soul, and what lingered on was the hurt, the betrayal, the grief.
The dead came back because they had unfinished business, always, and ignoring that context was deeply shortsighted.
In Mercy’s professional opinion, anyway.
“I want…” The ghost shuddered, grew taller and broader.
The stick-thin shoulders filled out, broadening with muscle.
Ghostly etherealness solidified into weighty spirit-flesh.
Her eyes went wide, the red light behind them bright as a beacon.
She opened her mouth, jaw unhinging as smoke poured out. “I want justice!”
“Thought so.” Mercy dived for cover behind the rickety sofa-bed.
Rat Tattoo, quick on the uptake, dived to the opposite corner.
Only Chungpo remained, frozen and terrified, crouching in a corner. “Ahma—”
The ghost shrieked and vomited a stream of fire. Everything in front of her melted or caught alight. Mercy, already too hot, felt a fresh raft of sweat break across her skin.
Chungpo screamed and launched himself through the single window, narrowly avoiding a fiery death.
He burst through the cheap glass and landed on the eaves just outside.
Mercy could no longer see him, but she could hear the frantic slap of his feet as he desperately leaped to another balcony with a crash.
“What did you do!” Rat Tattoo yelled, still cowering. “What the hell, what the hell, what the—”
“Chungpo!” the ghost moaned, loudly enough that the picture frames rattled. “My murderous, ungrateful brat!”
“Go after him, get your justice!” Mercy called out, hands cupped over her mouth. “You can do it, grandmother!”
The ghost vomited another jet of fire and took off, lithe and fast in death as she had not been in life.
She flew through the same window, speeding after Chungpo.
Moments later, screams and yells echoed from the streets beyond as terrified pedestrians fled from the spectacle of a red-eyed, fire-breathing old woman.
Even that did not last very long. Chungpo howled, the sound entangled with the roar of his grandmother’s flames. His cries cut off abruptly as death took him. The noise of fire faded to a trickle; her vengeance was satisfied.
The sudden stillness was breathtaking. Bao sat in the center of the quiet room, cleaning perfectly white paws. If he was calm, that meant the danger had passed; the old lady was at rest.
“Job done.” Mercy stood and dusted the ash from her hands, trying vainly to fan some air on her face. It was hot as a metal furnace in here, not helped by the sofa still being on fire. “We did good, little cat.”
“Are you crazy?” Rat Tattoo grabbed her arm, whipping her round so hard it gave her a crick in the neck. “That ghost killed him because of what you said!”
Mercy punched his throat with her free arm. Rat Tattoo wheeled backward, gagging, and tried to draw his watermelon chopper.
In a blink, Bao rippled and grew larger, tiny body burgeoning to the size of a leopard. A bone-white, fluffy-as-a-cloud leopard. He leaped at the startled young man, knocking him to the ground. Enormous, claw-tipped paws pressed stocky shoulders to the floor, heavy with unexpected weight.
Rat Tattoo lay flat, breathing hard from the punch to his throat. Still clutching the chopper.
Mercy drew her own knife and knelt over him, the blade tip pressed to the underside of Rat Tattoo’s chin. “Stop opening your mouth, small son. Stupid things come out every time you do.”
He stared at her, eyes round like teacups. He had rather delicate skin for such a hard man.
“Did you know that some ghosts can change how corporeal they are? Easier for them to do if there is less light.” Mercy prized the watermelon chopper from his hand, examining the blade; it was dull and cheap, notched in four places.
“That is why ghosts in Kowloon are so strong, compared to the ghosts in the rest of Hong Kong. It is always dark here.”
She tossed the cleaver through the ruined wall of the burning flat, into the alleyway beyond.
“Bao is particularly strong, because I have been feeding him for years. Not only can he change his size and corporeality, but his bite will fuck you up—whether it is night or day, whether you’re a living human or a dead spirit. ”
Bao growled in agreement.
“You murdered Chungpo,” Rat Tattoo said, tightly. “Cobra Lily will not be impressed!”
Mercy laughed. “My boss, whose name is too good for your mouth, doesn’t take kindly to anyone in Kowloon who kills women.
Especially one’s own grandmother. Chungpo was already dead no matter what I did, you wooden chicken.
I just saved Cobra Lily the hassle of doing it herself. Believe me, she will be happy.”
Rat Tattoo’s eyes swam with insults, but for once, his mouth was silent. He was learning.
“Be glad I don’t mark you down for accessory to his murder. You are not innocent either, are you?” she said, pointedly. “Covering for your friend, lying to—”
Catch him.
The urge. It struck her with blinding force, her hands spasming with that sudden rush of violent desire.
Hold him.
Her knife wobbled against his skin; he swallowed.
Drag him to water and keep him down until his blood is salt and his eyes are food for the fishes—
Mercy breathed in deep, then breathed out slowly again, struggling for control. She mentally counted to ten until the irrational moment passed. That darkness in her, whatever it was, which gave her such unpleasant ideas and whispered to her at night, had no place here.
She didn’t know why those thoughts plagued her relentlessly, only that they did. It was simply a part of herself that she had learned to live with.
Rat Tattoo had not missed the flux of emotions passing across her face, or the dangerous twitching of her hands. He went completely still, like a frightened mouse.
“Whatever, I’m done.” Mercy stood up and put her knife away, trying to conceal the tremor in her limbs. “Bao, let’s go!”
Bao withdrew from the prone man, his form shimmering and compacting down. By the time he reached Mercy’s side, he was again the size of a small kitten.
Rat Tattoo scrambled upright, face red from anger and shame. “Fuck you, dog-faced bitch! Fuck your mother, fuck your father and your uncle and your bastard demon cat! May your whole family fall down in the street and get run over!”
“Too late for curses,” she said, stepping through the burned door. “I have no family.”
His swearing echoed after her all the way down the alley and halfway down the next block. But he didn’t actually follow her, and she didn’t look back.