Holidays Are Hell

by Kim Harrison

  Great. He was about to get his ass handed to him.

  Xiu is coming, he told Six. Any advice?

  Xiu? She sounded genuinely surprised. She never handles prisoner questioning. She does not have the temper for it.

  What do you mean, she doesn’t have the temper for it? Six—

  His cell door opened. Xiu stepped inside. She appeared unarmed, but Joseph was not fooled. He stood, holding his ground, watching her face, studying her mind. He found nothing helpful. All he knew for certain was that she was not a vampire, but that was little comfort.

  Xiu was pretty. Her face, however, lacked Six’s blunt honesty—and her eyes held a sly light that he disliked immediately. Not straight or true; he felt her cruel streak the moment he looked at her.

  Joseph? Six’s tentative voice filled his head, surprising him. What is happening?

  Hold on, he said, wary. I don’t know yet.

  I am coming, she said immediately.

  Xiu stepped deeper into the cell. It was small; her movements brought her quite close. Again, Joseph refused to back away. Small defiance. He knew it was not worth much.

  “Hello, stranger,” murmured the woman. “That is your name, yes?”

  “If you like,” he said, pouring power into his voice, hoping to hook her. He did not. His power slid over her mind, washing off so easily that for a moment he wondered if he had any kind of gift at all.

  “Stranger, stranger,” said the woman again. “How interesting that you are here.”

  “Very interesting,” he replied carefully, even more wary now. “I don’t quite understand the reason why.”

  “Treason,” she said easily. “Aiding and abetting men who wish to destroy this country and take precious lives.”

  “I’ve done nothing of the sort.”

  “You are calling me a liar, then?” Xiu smiled. “No need to waste your energy on denials. I know what you are. I know who you are.”

  Joseph said nothing. This was not a fight he could win. Not like this. He pushed harder with his mind, skin puckering with the sudden chill, a side effect. He drew more energy from the room—energy that was heat—and continued searching for a way into Xiu’s thoughts.

  A process interrupted when she coldcocked him in the face. Her fist moved fast—but he was able to twitch backward. The movement saved his teeth, but his nose flashed pain. He tasted blood, felt the hot dripping rush from his nostrils.

  Xiu hit him again. He tried to fight back, but the odds were so uneven he might as well have been trying to take a swing with his arms and legs cut off. He could not even entertain the idea of biting her ankles. She was simply too fast, too strong; like Six, training so long and hard that fighting was the same as breathing.

  So he took the risk. He had to. He opened his mouth and began to chant. Low soft tones, a rumbling roar as soft as distant thunder. The language of his grandparents, of the steppes and endless skies. Vocalizing was unnecessary when using his powers—language was not the same as will—but it made a difference to his strength, his focus.

  Except nothing happened. Joseph could not reach inside her heart. A barrier stood around her spirit, with not even a tendril free to control. She might as well have been made of stone.

  Xiu stood back from him, smiling. “Now this is quite interesting. A puzzle.”

  Joseph stopped chanting. His throat hurt. “Who are you?”

  “Just a girl,” Xiu said, but there was something in her forced giggle that was so not girlish, so much a parody, that Joseph took another hard look at the edges of her mind, and found something so startling—and so obvious—he wanted to slip his head underneath her boot for an added stamp of stupidity.

  “You are not Xiu,” Joseph said, slowly standing, swaying.

  “Not Xiu,” said the woman, pursing her lips. “But Xiu enough, I think. Enough to get close to you, Joseph Besud. And to certain information I need.”

  Joseph shut his eyes. He could feel the possession, now that he knew what to look for. Another mind, layered over the woman’s. A natural barrier, made by virtue of there being one too many people inside a single body.

  “So you’re the new hire,” Joseph said. “All of this, to help terrorists murder people.”

  “All of this,” said the possessed woman, “to help myself. You aren’t much of a necromancer, are you?”

  “Enough of one that you want me dead.”

  “That was part of the bargain struck with the vampires. Nothing more.”

  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.

  Walk away, walk away, said a tiny voice inside her mind. It is not too late. Walk away and save yourself. Do this and your life will be over. You will lose everything.

  Six gazed down at Joseph’s body, covered in blood, beaten. His eyes were still strong, though, cold and dark and hard, and he looked at her as if he could see straight into her heart, as though he could see and did not mind to see, and it struck her how much that meant, how vitally important it was that someone, someone, know her. Know her for more than some badge. Know her for more than a weapon.

  I know who you are, Joseph said inside her mind, his eyes shifting darker, softer. I know you, Six.

  I do not know you, she replied.

  You’ll learn, he said. We both will.

  Six tore away her gaze and looked at Xiu. “You had no authority to question this man.”

  “I have all the authority in the world,” Xiu said smoothly. “As do you, though I am surprised to see you here. Ying said—”

  “—the truth,” Six interrupted. “That the wire went dead and I disappeared, that she did not know what happened. You, on the other hand, embellished.”

  “Also the truth,” Xiu replied. “Or do you deny it?”

  That you might give up your duty for a man? For Joseph?

  Six said nothing. The other woman smiled. Joseph tried to stand. Six did not look at him. Part of her wondered how he had let Xiu hurt him so badly. His throat appeared unharmed. The air was cold.

  Inside her mind she heard his voice again, quick and urgent.

  Careful, Six. Xiu is not the woman you know. Her mind has been taken over by another. My rival. He is here to gather information for his employers. And kill me.

  Sick heat flushed through Six’s body. Is there a way to drive it out of her?

  I’m sorry, Joseph said. All you can do is make Xiu’s body uncomfortable for him.

  Six steeled herself. Uncomfortable. She could do that. No use wasting time, either.

  She lunged, fists striking fast, hard. Xiu dodged and whirled, kicking off the wall, coming back at Six with enough speed to break bone. Six cut sharp to the right and jammed two fingers into Xiu’s kidneys. The woman grunted, but did not go down. She spun again, her knee catching Six in the gut, her elbow connecting with her jaw. Six dropped, kicking out. Xiu blocked her heel, but Six twisted fast, feinted, and managed to catch her other knee. Bone cracked. Her leg bent backward. Xiu screamed.

  Six knocked her down with a hard fist. Pounced, landing on her chest, pressing her elbow against Xiu’s throat. She tasted blood, and spat it out on the possessed woman’s face.

  “Let her go,” she muttered. “Now.”

  “Go where?” rasped Xiu, and her eyes were indeed strange, unfamiliar. “Into you? There will room enough before long. Your soul is going to run away from your body, girl. In a day, you’ll be nothing but a shell.”

  “No,” Joseph said, staggering close. “No, I won’t let you have her.”

  Six gritted her teeth. “And you cannot have Xiu, either. Not alive, anyway.” And she pressed even harder on the woman’s throat, cutting off her air. Xiu’s eyes bulged, her face turning purple as she grappled and writhed. Six refused to let go. She was careful not to crush her windpipe, but her strength was inexorable, and Xiu finally went limp.

  Six, very cautiously, eased off. Her heart pounded. There was a ringing in her ears. “Did it work? Is Xiu alone in there?”

  “Yes,” he whispered, staring at her. “Are you okay?”

  “No,” she said, looking at him. “No, I am not.”

  Six leaned close to check on Xiu. She was still breathing, though the next time she looked in the mirror it would be an ugly sight. There was also a very good chance that Six had just ended her colleague’s career in Squad Twelve. A broken knee was not an injury someone like Xiu could fully recover from. It would be easier for the military to replace her with a younger, newer woman.

  Two women, she thought. You just ruined yourself, as well.

  Fear crushed down on her heart; she could hardly breathe with it. Six had just ended her own life. Twenty years of knowing nothing else, and now—now—

  Joseph touched her. He wrapped his arms around her shoulders and tugged her close until her back pressed against his chest and the rise and fall of his breathing mirrored her own. He felt strong, solid. And it was a comfort, no matter how unfamiliar, or small. His mouth pressed against her hair. “Everything will be fine,” he murmured.

  Six turned to face him, searching his eyes. “How can you say that? How can you believe?”

  A grim smile touched his mouth. “Because I just do.”

  Because I just do. Another kind of faith. A new clock. Six touched his lips with her fingertips. His blood was still wet. She stood on her toes and kissed him, tasting the hot metallic burn, the spice of ginger. His mouth was hard, as were his arms as he crushed her close and tight.

  Six broke away, breathing hard. She glanced down at Xiu, then bent close, rummaging through her pockets. She found keys and took them.

  “Come,” she said to Joseph. “We have to leave. Now.”

  She went to the cell door and peered out. There were no guards in the hall. No one had heard Xiu scream—or if they had, no one wanted to investigate. The members of Squad Twelve were not known for needing help. It was a reputation they encouraged.

  Six stepped into the hall, and took Joseph’s arm. “Head down, look weak, beaten.”

  “Oh, yeah. Difficult,” he muttered.

  They walked down the long tiled corridor past gray metal doors marked with numbers. Six heard groans coming from inside some of the cells. She thought about Joseph being beaten and clenched her jaw. Kept her gaze straight and narrow. One turn in the corridor, and the cellblock gate appeared. Two guards in full military uniform stood on either side of the heavy metal door. Another man sat at a desk that held only one phone and a sheaf of papers. All of them stared at Joseph.

  “I am moving the prisoner,” Six said. “Agent Xiu will be along when she is finished…cleaning up. Do not disturb her until then.”

  “Shall I call ahead for a transport vehicle?” asked the man at the desk, who very carefully maintained no eye contact.

  “That will not be necessary,” Six said. A request for transportation would go through the main switchboard, and be automatically routed to the other members of her squad. “In fact, I would ask that you not call anyone about this prisoner. It is a very sensitive matter.”

  “Of course,” he said, and reached behind him to dial in the combination of the electric lock. He hit a red button and the door clicked open. One of the guards held it for her. Six stopped and took his sidearm. She did not ask. He did not
protest. Simply stared into the air above her head. He was very young. Eager to please. Six hoped none of them would be punished too severely for letting her escape with Joseph.

  They passed through the cellblock door and entered another corridor that split into three directions. Security cameras hung from every corner, but Six knew they were manned by low-level guards who would know only her face and nothing else. Her face would be enough to grant free passage until Xiu was discovered. Or until Six and Joseph ran into any other members of the team.

  They took the stairs. Joseph gave her a questioning look when they started walking up.

  “This building is only three stories tall,” Six explained quietly. “But there are six sublevels beneath it. We are on number three.”

  His mouth twitched. “I don’t rate a six? How disappointing.”

  “Not really.” She let herself smile. “That level is the morgue.”

  They reached the main floor without incident. Six heard a great deal of activity beyond the corridor, but where they stood was the hall used only by the janitorial staff. Six and Joseph were able to exit through the back door without incident.

  Sloppy security, Six thought. She had never paid much attention to just how sloppy, until now, and it embarrassed her. She had taken too much for granted. Twenty years, training to be the best, riding on the laurels of elitism—and now, all of it gone, with the realization that she was still vulnerable, in other ways. It was a taste of humility that she did not need.

  The night air was cool and damp. The military offices sat in the center of a walled compound. Most of it was parking lot, filled with military vehicles and the occasional bus. On the other side was a small training ground. Six heard men laughing, followed by the hiss of a burning fuse. Three seconds later, a ball of sparkling flame shot into the air, rushing high above the trees lining the wall. Six heard a whine, followed by a sharp explosion. She could have shot her gun and no one would have noticed.