Six leaned back. She did not let go of his throat, though her ringers loosened just a fraction, making it easier for him to breathe. "And those… things? What Chenglei became?"
The Jiangshi. Hopping ghosts. Vampires.
"No such thing," she said immediately. "Tales of old stupid men who do not know better."
Then call them a virus, if that makes you happy. Think of them as your biological weapon. Your terrorists. Either way, you know they're dangerous. You can't ignore that.
Six's jaw tightened. Joseph did not look away. He studied her eyes as closely as she studied his, and felt her thoughts press against his mind. He tried not to listen. He did not want to. Still, he knew a moment before she acted that her fingers were going to loosen once again, and he fought the urge to rub his throat as her hand slid down to press hard against his chest.
"Drive," she said. "If you try to paralyze me, I will rip out your throat."
"What about destroying evidence?"
"The car is still evidence."
"I'm not turning myself in," he said, keeping his hands in his lap.
Six narrowed her eyes. "All I want are answers. You will drive. I will talk. You will speak only when spoken to."
"Yes, ma'am," he muttered, and put the car in gear. He tapped the accelerator and drove down the street. He took a right at the first intersection, weaving around pedestrians and motorcycles and other cars running the red light. Paper lanterns had been strung across the road; he saw, in front of the shops, men and women sweeping furiously with their brooms. Cleaning out the bad luck, making way for good. He wished it were that easy.
Six said, "What are you? How do you control people?"
"I use my mind," he said.
"Who taught you? Were you part of a government program?"
Joseph almost laughed. "My family taught me."
"So what you do is… genetic."
"Somewhat."
Six remained silent. The surrounding buildings became larger, newer, opulent in their modernity, glittering shopping centers and sidewalks crammed with young people. Shanghai—the largest mall in the world, a city devoted to business and commercialism. Shallow, but pretty. Joseph had a weakness for bright lights, especially now, when most of them were red for the New Year holiday. There were fireworks here, too, set off by kids, laughing and screaming in front of monstrous hanging billboards decorated with foreign celebrities hawking watches and designers.
Six's fingers tapped her thigh. "You called them Jiangshi. Hopping ghosts. Like in the stories."
"Not quite like the stories," Joseph replied. "Those creatures are not lost souls. You can't stop them with a block of six-inch wood at the threshold of a home—they are not scared of sunlight—and you can't hide from them by holding your breath. That is fantasy."
"All of it is fantasy," she muttered. "But if I were to pretend it is not, then what of the rest?"
"That they're dangerous? That they kill by stealing a person's life essence?" Joseph gritted this teeth. "That, unfortunately, would be true. It's why I call them vampires."
"Western folklore. Vampires steal blood."
"World folklore," Joseph corrected her. "And blood is the same as life, no different from energy."
Six studied him. Her hand was still on his chest. Her palm felt warm. "How do you know all this? Did your family teach you?"
Joseph glanced at her. "Yes."
"And these… creatures? What do they want with you? And what do they have to do with the terrorists? Chenglei—"
"Was unexpected," he interrupted. "That man was not always a vampire. In fact, the last time I saw him, he was very human. He worked in conjunction with a terrorist organization run by members fresh out of Central Asia, Indonesia, and Xin Jiang. Business matters. A. money man. No ethical qualms, either. Chenglei himself was not a native Chinese. He was born in Jakarta. His uncle could be considered one of most radical clerics in Southeast Asia."
"I know most of this," Six said. "We had Chenglei under surveillance for quite some time. We wanted his contacts."
"You didn't get them, I assume."
"Some. Not enough. Tonight, after seeing who he was meeting with, I planned on bringing him in. Permanently."
"Ah," Joseph said. "Too late now. Not that you need to worry. I suspect everyone you're looking for will be easy enough to find."
"And why is that?"
Joseph sighed. "Because the man the vampires recruited wants me dead. And you're becoming one of them."
Chapter 3
When Six was only five years old, she remembered quite clearly being led into a small office that was extraordinary in its luxury. Two wooden chairs with patched cushions on the seat; a dark wide desk covered in pens and paper, one lamp; a small ink painting of a tea pot; and best of anything, a window with a view beyond the gray concrete walls of the gymnasium training center. She remembered caring more about that view than the people she had been brought to see.
There were three adults in the office. Two men. One woman. All wearing dark pants and dark jackets, buttoned just so with their short collars straight and pressed flat against their throats. The men wore caps. The woman had black hair shot with silver, cut to her chin. Six had never seen any of them before.
"That's the one," said the woman. "Her family?"
"None."
"Her name?"
"None. Our recruiter found her in Shandong Province a year ago. The village was feeding her. She wandered there from the hills. They called her Six, because that was the date they found her."
"Skills?"
"Some. No artistry. But she's fast."
The woman knelt in front of Six. She poked the girl's forehead with one hard finger. It hurt. She began to do it again. Six knocked her hand away. The woman tried once more time, faster. Six stepped out of reach, her hand raised again. The woman smiled.
"Good," she said. "We'll take her."
Six remembered the woman. She remembered that the woman never had a name. She was simply Aunt. The Aunt who ran a small school for girls, where, in addition to being taught reading, math, and science, they were also educated in a variety of physical activities, many of which involved hurting people. Or at least, people wrapped in layers of protective padding. The real fighting came later. When she was thirteen.
But what struck Six, as she sat in the passenger seat of a strange car, beside a strange man with her hand pressed against a strange chest, was that for the first time in twenty years, she remembered what it felt like to be herself again. The self she had been as a child, hungering for more, knowing her place and dissatisfied with it, looking and looking for that high view of something beyond her life.
She had lost that. She had forgotten that. But now she remembered, and it was the only reason she did not subdue the man at her side. It would have been easy, despite his skills. She had a sense of him now. Somewhat ruthless, but not hard. Not toward her.
But she wanted more. More than answers. What she had stumbled upon was a mystery beyond that which she had set out to solve, and the outcome mattered. She had a chance to see over the wall. She had a view. But the view now was not enough.
Six studied the man. His face was full of planes and angles, shadows dancing over his skin as the lights of the shopping district flickered, burned. His expression was mildly stressed, his mouth set in a hard line. Six remembered the taste of his lips.
"You said earlier that I had been poisoned." Six touched her cheek. It hurt. The skin felt hot. She recalled the wet tip of a tongue, and suppressed a shudder. "Poisoned by a scratch?"