Page 19 of The Girl with a Thousand Faces
The journey was short, and anticlimactic. Kit Ling simply guided them up a floor via some stairs, and into a gray, overly tidy office. The colors were so muted that Mercy felt for a moment as if she’d stepped into a black-and-white television broadcast.
“Please sit,” Kit Ling said, and took her own seat behind the desk.
There was only one chair. Cobra Lily perched on it while Mercy, naturally, stood at ease behind her.
“I will get straight to the point,” Kit Ling said. “Kowloon has a ghost problem, and it is very serious. I am aware of your neighborhood’s unfortunate history and how Japan treated it, but we live in the present now, and cannot always look back at the past.”
“We have many ghosts, yes,” Cobra Lily said, coolly. Her index finger tappedrapidly against the armrest: a sign of fury, in her. “Which, as I said downstairs, my organization is adept at managing.”
Technically, it was Mercy that had said that, but she didn’t quibble with her boss’s version of events.
“Are you, though?” Kit Ling lifted out a thick binder and began laying papers, one at a time, across her desk. “Please ask your exorcist to examine these reports.”
Mercy glanced at Cobra Lily, who gave her a nod, before stepping forward and peering over. The documents detailed a slew of deaths, with fuzzy photographs clipped to the top. Names, times, dates, and locations; all of them in Kowloon.
“These are reports of dead bodies,” Mercy said, after a moment. “Strangling victims, it would seem.”
“Multiple strangling victims over the past year,” Kit Ling corrected. “I don’t have enough space to lay them all out, but rest assured we have gathered records on dozens. And many more civilians who have been reported missing, lately.” She waved the thick binder like a flag. “We believe they’ve all been killed by some sort of demon. It seems to attack when people are alone, often bathing.”
The demon who killed me wanted me to ask you a question.
Just a coincidence, Mercy told herself, yet a shiver ran through her. The inclusion of water was another uneasy clue she couldn’t ignore. What the hell was going on in her district? Maybe she’d been too quick to dismiss the encounter with the water fetcher.
Cobra Lily said firmly, “That can’t be. We would have noticed—”
“Or maybe, you are not as on top of the ghost problem as you believe,” the councilwoman said. “How many other ‘problems’ are slipping by unnoticed? Can you be sure you are tracking everything?”
Cobra Lily stared, apparently speechless.
Mercy found herself saying, “We hear your criticisms, Miss Tsang. But how will demolishing Kowloon solve any of those problems?”
“That’s easy. With the walls down, the fengshui of the neighborhood can be realigned. Streets can be straightened, widened, and cleaned. Buildings can be rebuilt to have proper space and light, sewer and electrical systems integrated with the rest of Hong Kong. And appropriate warding can be constructed. Ghosts will have nowhere to hide.”
“It is better to talk to ghosts than to banish them, surely!”
“Not when they reach a certain threshold, I’m afraid. Government guidelines are quite clear.”
“But it is our home. Our property.” Mercy spread her hands. “We have a right to our existence.”
“Small comfort to those who die for your desire to have triad jurisprudence,” Kit Ling said crisply. “Look through the data and see for yourself.” The councilwoman held out the hefty binder. “No, I insist, we have other copies. In the meantime, the demolition application will take a full week or more to process, before we begin the next stage. Come back to me with proof you have handled this drowning ghost, and dealt with the corruption in your ranks. If you do that, I will allow you to file an appeal.”
“… I see.” Cobra Lily rose slowly, adjusting the creases out of her clothes. “Chan, take the councilwoman’s ‘reports,’ please.” She flung down her own useless documents, brought so carefully all the way from Kowloon, then swept out of the room with a stiff spine and a face like granite.
Mercy picked up Kit Ling’s binder. “Goodbye,” she said, so awkwardly that it sounded ruder than silence would have been.
“Don’t worry,” Kit Ling said with an unpleasant smile. “We’ll meet again.”
Cobra Lily stormed out of the government offices, her expression like a thundercloud. Mercy hurried after her, the binder of death records clutched ineffectually in her arms. Neither of them spoke.
The enforcers stood up as Cobra Lily arrived back in the foyer, clearly alarmed and off-balance. The triad queen walked past without saying a word. Mercy caught their collective gazes and gestured surreptitiously for everyone to follow.
Ten minutes later, they were piled back into the same cars they’d arrived in, heading home in deafening silence. Cobra Lily sat like a carved statue, hands in lap and lips pressed together. Still not speaking, which was a very bad sign.
“Were you lying?” Cobra Lily’s curt, cold question cut across Mercy’s ruminations, pulling her abruptly from the depths of memory to the surface of the present.
“I’m… sorry, boss?” Wrong response; it sounded weak and feeble to stammer. But Mercy really was caught off guard.
Cobra Lily hissed an intake of breath. “About having met her, Chan. Did you know that Council bitch?”
