Halfway up, I catch a scent I know too well. I swallow a cough. Yaojing all have a spicy gingery scent. This one is mixed with the flinty smell of mountain streams and crushed chalk – a marker of the Celestial realms – and the honeyed fishy smell of hulijing. It’s all doused with enough lotus blossom perfume to addle a jiangshi’s sense of smell, but not mine.
Lady Soo.My dear grandmother Niang Niang’s favourite handmaid. The one who reported me for showing my legs. My hands and feet keep moving, but my attention is on the source of the stench above me: three rows up, an open window. I move sideways, towards the darkened windows on the far-right.
‘Big Wang’s a bigger fool than I thought if he thinks we’ll agree to his ridiculous project. A bank! In Hell? Niang Niang will never agree to it.’ Lady Soo’s nasally imperious voice drawls into the night.
She leans against the open window sill, her back to me. She wears her trademark yellow gown, her water sleeves so voluminous, swathes of silk tumble from her arms like cascading waterfalls. Her dark hair is piled high in an elaborate updo adorned with jewelled butterfly hair pins; all the accoutrements one would expect of a hulijing of her rank. In her hand, she swirls a bright green cocktail. A Suffering Bastard, by the looks of it, one of the hotel’s signature drinks and Lady Soo’s favourite tipple. I’ve served her a number of them over the years and been subjected to pinches and snide insults for the trouble. My nose itches.
‘I heard many ministers have been swayed by Wang’s arguments about the merits of modern banking. What if the Council overrides us?’ says a voice I don’t recognise from inside the room.
I keep climbing, uninterested in Council politicking. I also don’t want the mortal tattling to Big Wang that I’m not doing my job; I focus on my glass of three-day-old and count to ten under my breath for good measure.
‘That’s why we need the dragon pearl,’ Lady Soo says, and I slow as old bruises come blooming back to life. ‘Lord Black let slip in one of his tortuously circular speeches that the pearl has incredible power – power we could harness to protect the Hulijing Court from Wang’s machinations.’
The dragon pearl. Part of the deal Big Wang made when he bought me. My mother was desperate for the money to pay her debts, so when Big Wang made the pearl a condition for buying me, she had no compunction in stealing the thing from Niang Niang’s treasure vaults. In return, Big Wang cleared her debts and set up a generous line of credit at her favourite jewellers. The bauble reminds me that diamonds and pearls will always have more worth than I do.
‘And what of Lady Jing? Does Wang truly expect the Hulijing Court to welcome her back?’
‘She is nothing but an ill-bred arsonist who does not deserve her title, nor her position at court.’ Lady Soo sips her Suffering Bastard and I consider briefly scuttling down and spitting in her hair, but I stay put, proud of my self-control. She continues, ‘Wang’s an imbecile if he thinks we’ll accept that mongrel as an equal. Even her wastrel mother didn’t want her. Sold her to buy a huge canary diamond.’ She cackles.
It’s the cackle that releases raging wasps inside my head. My fingers tense on the stone ledge as the droning whine drowns everything out. Big Wang always pushes me to show her courtesy and respect. But what he doesn’t understand is that to her, it’s a weakness to exploit. I imagine grabbing one of the dark loops of hair piled high on her head and weigh the satisfaction of yanking hard and tipping her right out the window against the punishment I’d get fordisrespecting an elder and bringing dishonour on my ancestors.
Pish. It’s not like any injuries from the fall would be permanent. She’s a grown ass Celestial after all.
Mr Lee shifts on my back and I remember his presence with a start. My cheeks go hot. A mortal just witnessed my greatest shame laid bare. I clamber as fast as my limbs can move, trying to outrun the humiliation. Mr Lee’s arms and legs wrap tight around me as, at last, I hurtle over the edge of the roof.
Three
The Guardians
We crash through the topiary – taking out a few palm leaves – and land hard on Big Wang’s private roof terrace, the bronze pyramid above his living quarters a beacon against the indigo sky. The impact dislodges the mortal, and he rolls off towards the koi pond.
Bullhead and Horsey, Big Wang’s personal guards, jump to their feet. Their real titles are Lord Nioh and Lord Ma, but I call them as I see them – one broad, muscled, and stubborn, the other long-faced, long-toothed, and long-winded. They both wear black, ankle-length robes and brandish matching curved swords aglow with the blue flames of a guard of Hell. Both swords are aimed at me. When their brains catch up with their eyes, their stances relax, though they don’t sheath the swords yet.
‘Oh good, you brought the package.’ Horsey says, gesturing to the mortal who is curled up against the side of Big Wang’s koi pond, dry heaving. A tortoise lifts its head from the pond, then just as serenely disappears.
I raise my head and stare at the two guards. ‘You knew the package was a mortal?’
Bullhead, as usual, gives me hisit is what it isexpression. But Horsey’s looking down his long nose at me in that snotty way I despise. I slowly stand and put a hand on my hip, staring Horsey down. Making sure the effort is particularly noisome, I spend some time bringing up a gob of spit.
Horsey’s ears turn red. ‘Don’t you do it—’ he warns.
I smile, then hork at him. The gob of saliva lands by his right foot, missing his fabric boots by a few hairs. My aim is off today. I give him a demure smile and bow. ‘Thank you for the heads-up.’
‘Have some decorum, Lady Jing.’ Horsey’s face is pulled frog-like in that disapproving frown he always wears around me. ‘And for Hell’s sake, cover your legs.’
I yank down my qipao. ‘Thepackagewould never have made it here intact if I had been precious about covering my knees.’
‘Which is why we won’t mention anything to Big Wang, right, Lord Ma?’ Bullhead says, moving between Horsey and me.
Horsey’s frown etches deeper into his face. ‘She’s a full Celestial, well into adulthood. Her centenary is in a few short weeks and she has yet to learn the proper behaviour befitting her title. She’s as bad as a monkey infested with fleas. Can’t sit still, can’t follow instructions – how is she going to sit on the Council—’
‘I’m here, aren’t I? And I amnotjoining the rotted Council.’
Mr Lee chooses that moment to throw himself at the guards, kowtowing with renewed fervour. ‘This humble one has travelled far to bask in your glory. This unworthy one requests the attentions of the venerable Yan Luo Wang.’ He repeats different versions of this over and over.
His cowardice makes me want to puke.
‘What did I say about that overdressed drivel?’ My voice is a snarl.
