Shanghai traffic was lighter than usual, but the Bund surprised them by being quite crowded. It seemed to Six that every family had taken the afternoon to travel down to the heart of the city and see the sights. Days off were rare for most; the New Year festivals guaranteed at least one.
"We must stay away from the waterfront," Six told Joseph, after being dropped off by the cab. "There will be undercover military there for sure, and they will know my face. Xiu must have been discovered by now."
As she spoke, her eyes seemed to blur, vision worsening almost to blindness until suddenly, without warning, everything snapped back into focus. Six gasped. She could see… everything. The individual pores on a woman's face—who was standing more than fifty feet away. The brand name on the buttons of a man's jacket, far across the street. Her vision swooped and burned like she was an eagle flying, and it was dizzying, frightening.
"Check," she said. "Is the poison—"
"No," Joseph said grimly. "It hasn't progressed. But you're still suffering the side effects."
"Just as long as I do not suffer anything else. I am still me, correct? I still… feel."
"You have your heart," he said quietly. "I won't let you lose it, Six."
"You will not have a choice, if the poison spreads."
Joseph said nothing. The street they were on was the main artery running parallel to the Bund. The architecture was European in origin, neo-classical designs from the twenties up to the forties. Immense monoliths that had stood the test of time far better than most modern Chinese buildings constructed in only the last few years.
Six and Joseph did not take a walking tour of those massive buildings. Instead, they walked into the Peace Hotel and found a bench in a little nook off the main foyer, crowded with tourists, most of them from America and Europe.
They sat, holding hands. Joseph began a search with his mind. After a moment, he invited Six to join him, and she found herself swept into his thoughts, carried alongside him as he traveled another world, seeking danger.
He found it, almost immediately. Right on top of them. A sickening lurch of knowledge that made them both reel.
There is a bomb in this hotel, said Joseph, horror leaking from his thoughts. My God. It's a person. A person—
Six was already running, the location in her mind, the face of the man. She barreled through the crowd, ruthless, battling her own feelings of shock. She had expected this in theory—the Peace hotel had always been on a list of possible targets to be wary of—but thinking and knowing were two separate things, and there was a part of Six that could not believe it was happening here, now. Not now.
The crowd thickened; she did not think. She jumped. Her body flew over the tops of heads. She heard gasps. She gasped. But there, ahead of her, she saw a stocky man in a heavy coat, and she forced herself to move faster than she ever had before. Faster than was humanly possible.
The suicide bomber never had a chance; he barely saw her coming before he hit the ground. Six did not kill him. She broke his wrists instead, cracked his knees by stomping hard—and then, as he lay on the ground screaming she flipped open his coat and looked at the bomb. It was not terribly sophisticated; she had trained on harder targets. Six pulled the necessary wires.
Joseph appeared behind her. He knelt, placed his hands on the man's temples, and began to chant. This time, Six stayed out of his head. She stood and pulled out her badge. Showed it to the hotel manager who came running, pale and frightened. Showed it to the crowd, and in her best English, told them to please exit the area in a careful manner. They did, without hesitation. She gave the hotel manager a number to call, just in case they had not already.
"Joseph," she said.
"Got it," he murmured. "There are seven other locations. We can't reach all of them in time."
Six grabbed a nearby man and stole the cell phone out of his hands. He began to protest—she showed him her badge. Dialed fast with one hand. Ying picked up on the second ring.
"The terrorists are planting a series of bombs around the city," she said quickly, and then had Joseph take the phone and rattle off the list of names and locations. Six took back the phone, listening as Ying shouted to someone in the background. She heard the call go up, loud and fierce. For a moment, a feeling of nostalgia, a sliver of regret that could have been grief struck her, but then she looked at Joseph standing beside her, and felt such freedom it stole her breath away. She was making her own path now. Walking her own road.
"Six," said Ying. "What happened between you and Xiu? She doesn't remember anything. You are in such trouble."
"I cannot explain," Six said. "But I am still on your side. Please, no matter what happens, remember that."
"What happened?" Ying asked. "This is not you, Six."
"Goodbye," she said. "Tell the others for me."
Six ended the call and tossed the phone back to its owner. She could hear sirens, and flagged down the hotel manager one more time.
"Guard this man," she said, pointing to the terrorist still writhing on the ground. "Step on his wrists or knees if he gives you any trouble. Do it anyway, for fun. The police will be here in a moment."
"Y-yes," stammered the man. Six and Joseph ran. A police cruiser careened around the corner just as they walked through the revolving doors. Six tugged on Joseph's hand and made him slow to a walk, which they did—very quickly—in the opposite direction. The flow of the crowd made it easy to get lost. A lot of people were leaving the hotel.
"You found something else," she said to him, jostled on all sides by strangers. Her sense of hearing threatened to overwhelm her. She tried to subdue the sounds crashing in her eardrum, and much to her surprise, they subsided to something resembling normal. She wished her heart rate would do the same.
"Him," Joseph said shortly. "I found him."
He stopped walking. Six bumped against his side. His hand tightened and she followed his gaze to a man and woman standing in the middle of the sidewalk, staring at them. Eye contact was startling; Six felt those two sharp gazes reverberate down to her gut, and she knew without being told that they were vampires. Human shells, hollow cores. Just like her, if she was not careful. If the poison began to move again.
"I wish I had my dagger," Joseph muttered. "I should have kept a spare at the house."
"We will get you a new one after this," Six replied, and that brought a brief smile to his face.
"You and I," he said softly. "What a team."
"Yes," she said. "I like it."
The vampires moved close. Six and Joseph waited. The crowd parted around them all like water.
"Hello, sister," said the woman. "Hello hello."
"We have a message," said the man. "You should come with us to hear it."
"Really, we're guides," added the woman.
"I think you know who sent us." The man pointed. "It's a short walk."
Joseph and Six did not look at each other. They were already inside each other's heads. And they both knew what they had to do.
They followed the vampires down the long, gently curving street, walking away from the Bund. Sirens filled the city, a wail occasionally interrupted by the shot and blast of firecrackers. The sound made her jumpy, though she tried to hide it. Joseph knew, though. He felt the same.
They were led to an office building that was still fairly new. All glass and steel. There was a security desk, but no one manning it. The woman keyed in a code, the elevator dinged, and the four of them crowded into the small space—vampires on one side, Joseph and Six on the other. She still had the gun she had taken from the guard. Its weight was comfortable beneath her shirt.
"We were sorry to hear that Chenglei passed on," said the man to Joseph. "He was a very good person."