Holidays are Hell

Liar, Joseph thought. Xiu smiled. "Professional secrets, Mr. Besud. You cannot blame me for wanting to be the only man of my kind. To be honest, I never thought about what that would mean until I was introduced to this latest opportunity."

Joseph shook his head. "Who the hell are you?"

"No one," Xiu said, her voice taking on an odd multitonal quality inside his mind. "No one you need to be concerned about any longer." She leaned forward, her smile turning sly. "Nor do you need to be worried about Six and her imminent transformation. I have plans for that one."

Joseph threw himself at Xiu. He was no match for her strength, but he did not expect to fight—just to touch, to get his hand on her bare skin. That was all he needed. Physical contact always made him stronger.

She let him get close, though the smile on her face turned into a scream as Joseph's fingers grazed her cheek and he shoved a mental spike against the other necromancer's barrier, stabbing it again and again with his mind. He felt a crack, caught the edge of another heart, and tried to latch on, to track, to hunt.

Xiu slammed her fist into his groin. Joseph staggered, throbbing waves of pain spinning lights in his eyes. He tried to straighten, to fight, but another blow caught him in the chest and the impact was so fierce he went down like a rag doll, limp. He crawled, struggling to stand. His body made fun of him.

Xiu knelt, just out of reach. Her eyes were dark, furious. "A poor trick, Mr. Besud."

"Go to hell," Joseph muttered. All he could taste was blood.

"Perhaps," Xiu whispered, leaning close. "Or perhaps I will bring hell here, to you."

Joseph heard running. He felt a familiar heart. The cell door slammed open.

Six entered. Joseph met her gaze. He could not read her expression-smooth, cold—but he felt the edge of her mind and her emotions were neither.

Xiu rose slowly. "Six. Good of you to join me."

Six said nothing. She stared only at Joseph, her gaze traveling from his face and body, to the blood on the floor. Her jaw flexed. Her eyelid twitched.

No, Joseph thought, grim. Not good at all.

At thirteen years of age, faith had become something of a cornerstone in Six's life, though she rarely thought of it as such. Simply, her existence ran on routine, the steady ticking of a clock that parsed out chores and exercises and studies like some endless heartbeat running concurrent to the one inside her chest, and which could not be stopped or slowed, not at risk of ending her existence.

And then, one day, her faith changed. The clock began ticking to a different beat.

It began early. She rose for breakfast with the other girls, and Aunt was there, waiting. She picked three. Six, Xiu, and Shu. Led them beyond the school walls to a white windowless van. They got in. Aunt sat up front beside the driver, another of their instructors. The van drove for thirty minutes, and when it stopped Six emerged, blinking in the sun, staring at a tall brick structure the size of a warehouse. No windows. Only one door. Aunt made them go in. She said, "I will return later to let you out," and then the darkness closed around the three girls and they heard the lock turn.

They realized, soon after, that they were not alone. They realized, too, that they had been brought there to die.

Six remembered. She remembered men three times her size, moving in the darkness, hunting her. She remembered fighting them. She remembered killing them. She remembered the taste of that first death, how happy she was for it, how proud, because she was still alive, unharmed. Fierce; the need to survive was stronger than anything she could name.

She remembered, too, the screams. Shu. Broken leg. Cornered. Six had found her, saved her. She found Xiu, too, but later. Very close. Xiu could have gotten there first. Saved Shu some pain. But she had not. She had left the girl, used her as a distraction so she could run and hide.

There were nine men, total. Nine bodies at the end of the day, when Aunt came to unlock the door. She looked at each one, examining the way they died, the killing blows. She said not a single word. No praise, no apology.

She took the girls home. Shu healed, returning to the old routine. Xiu and Six did not. Aunt moved them on.

And here we are, Six thought, staring across the small cell at the other woman, who watched her with a stranger's eyes—eyes that Six knew almost as well as her own—eyes that had betrayed her down in the debriefing room, when Xiu had implied to the station commander that Six might be capable of inappropriate behavior. That she might give up her duty for a man.

Words to kill a career. Words enough to ostracize, blacken, send away—or worse, to put her in prison. A woman with her skills, after all, could not be allowed to run free if there was not the utmost faith in her honor and integrity. A woman like her, after all, would make a dangerous enemy.