The highway wound through the mountain after identical mountain, the mile markers the only sign that they weren’t traveling in and endless circles. Kris glanced sideways as he drove, trying to get a feel for his carjacker. He was shorter than him, as most everyone was, and the loose fitting t-shirt and pants he wore made him seem young and vulnerable. He looked Asian, but the six words he’d heard him speak marked him as a Brit, and a moneyed one at that. If they’d met in Hong Kong, Kris would’ve followed him back to his downtown hotel, knocked him over the head, and sold him back to his old-money family for an amount that wouldn’t fit on a check. But the miniature, posh Brit had just drowned a man in midair with sorcery, so instead of whipping out his knives and skinning his carjacker alive, Kris was obediently driving down a dark highway to nowhere and following the speed limit.

“What’s your name?” The Brit turned to look at him. “I feel like I should know your name.”

Kris’ grip on the steering wheel tightened, and he swallowed thickly. This could be a trap. Supernatural creatures could use your name to control you. “Yifan,” he said after a moment. Just in case the demon could sense lies, he gave him his real name, but not the name he actually used. A loophole, he hoped.

“I’m Joonmyeon,” the Brit told him. “Or Joon, if you like. Some say my name is quite difficult.” He looked over his shoulder to the backseat. “What about your young friend?”

“Yixing,” Kris answered without hesitation. The fruitcake’s soul wasn’t his concern. “And he’s not my friend.” Granted, Yixing was the only person who had ever cuddled Kris for fifteen hours, but that was only because the flight attendants had adopted Yixing as one of their own before they even left the runway, and they would have noticed if he died. Mr. Yong had left very specific instructions about not attracting attention on this trip and which vital body parts would be forfeited if he failed. So, Yixing had been allowed to octopus his way into Kris’ lap for the entire trip, but unwanted, prolonged physical contact did not make them ‘friends.’

“So you’re just a courier,” Joonmyeon murmured, nodding to himself. “I wasn’t sure why Sarai wanted to kill you, but you must have seen too much.” Kris rolled his eyes. A simple “Say nothing” would’ve been much more polite than a gun to the forehead. He felt eyes on him and realized Joonmyeon was sizing him up.

“That’s a nice suit for a courier.”

Kris couldn’t figure out if that was a compliment, veiled barb, or if Joonmyeon wanted his suit, so he went with “Mmhmm.”

“Who do you work for?”

Damn. The demon had asked him a direct question, and Kris still wasn’t sure if he could risk lying. “Mr. Yong,” he said, figuring vague truth was good enough.

“Did Mr. Yong tell you where you were going? Or what would happen to Yixing when you got there?” Joonmyeon was facing him now, and there was a hard edge to his voice. Kris was suddenly quite glad that Yong had been so close-lipped about this whole job.

“He gave me an address. That’s it.” Joonmyeon relaxed back into his seat, lapsing into silence, apparently satisfied with the truthfulness of his answers.

Kris wasn’t blind. He’d seen the faint scars on Joonmyeon’s wrists when he was magically suffocating the guard, and the burns on his friend were worse than anything he’d ever inflicted. He knew the hospital bed in that room had been all dressed up especially for Yixing. Despite his rather brutal choice of profession, Kris wasn’t completely heartless. He would have left Yixing there if nothing had happened, but, all things considered, he was glad he hadn’t had to. The clingy kid was a a few cymbals short of a drumset, and he had grade A tar running through his veins, but that didn’t mean he should be treated like a science experiment. He looked into his mirror, watching Yixing sleep with his head thrown back, mouth slightly open. Kris had never been able to sleep around other people, his childhood had had too many knives in the dark.

The front seat lit up briefly as Joonmyeon the phone he’d been holding. It buzzed and meeped for a few seconds as it updated all of the calls and texts it had missed, and Joonmyeon scrolled through the long list of notifications. “All from the same person,” he muttered, then swiping them all aside to access the lock screen. It took him less than five minutes to guess the phone’s combination, and Kris told himself he wasn’t impressed.

Joonmyeon went through the phone’s folders, tabbing through the pictures so fast Kris was convinced he wasn’t actually looking at them, but just uploading them to some kind of cyborg cortex to analyze later. The Brit made a small sound of dismay as he came across something, and a video began playing. The voices in the recording were tinny and the volume was too low for Kris to make out what they were saying, but Joonmyeon’s hands were shaking as he watched. Then the screaming started.

“Stop the car.” Kris screeched to a halt in the middle of the highway and Joonmyeon launched himself out of his seat, falling to his knees in the slow lane, retching. Kris reached across the seat and slammed the door closed, mashing his foot to the ground as he sped away from the demon in human skin. He checked his mirrors to make sure the creature wasn’t following them and nearly swerved into the guardrail when he caught Yixing’s basilisk stare from the backseat.

“Go back for him.” Yixing’s voice was surprisingly clear and steady.

“You talk?!” Kris was a bit miffed that he’d spent all night wrapped around him like a starfish but hadn’t bothered to say a word.

“You can’t leave him. They’ll find him.” Yixing turned in his seat, like he could see Joonmyeon in the distance, but Kris was going 90 mph. There was nothing in the rearview but dust.

“He can take care of himself.” As long as the sun didn’t rise and turn him into stone.

“I’m going back for him,” Yixing announced, and opened his door. Kris jammed his foot onto the brake, whiplash snapping his head forward and tossing Yixing around the back seat. The basket case, apparently unfazed by his near death experience, tumbled out of the car, rolled to his feet, and began jogging back the way they had come.

“Hey, nutjob! That’s miles back!” Kris yelled out of his window, but Yixing didn’t even acknowledge him. Kris growled as he jumped out, chasing after him. He caught up with the kid and grabbed his arm, but Yixing whirled and sank his teeth into Kris’ hand. Kris yelled as he tried to pry his hand free, his cries echoing into the night as he felt enamel scrape against bone. He jerked his hand free and stared at Yixing in horror, as the kid the blood from his teeth, shark-like, before turning and running off into the night. Kris let him go, wringing his throbbing hand. He hurried back to the car, anxious to see how bad the damage was. He wondered if humans could have rabies.

Kris reached out to close Yixing’s door, then caught sight of Joonmyeon’s friend, crumpled into the floor of the back seat. He stared at him for a moment, then dragged him out of the car by his ankles, stopping short of letting his head hit the ground. He contemplated leaving him in the middle of the road, but, on a night this dark, that was basically murder. He awkwardly hoisted the small person over his shoulder, wincing whenever he had to use his mangled hand, and carried him to the shoulder of the highway, where Joonmyeon would be sure to find him. Eventually.

Back in the driver’s seat, he held up his hand to the ceiling light. The meat between his thumb and forefinger was clearly imprinted with each of Yixing’s sharp, crazy teeth, blood welling up in the deep holes. He would need stitches, and he started the car, already searching for the closest hospital. Before he could set foot to pedal, the dashboard lit up with an incoming call. ‘Pick Up’ the caller ID read, and Kris jabbed the answer tab by the steering wheel.

“Mr. Yong!” Kris couldn’t keep the trepidation out of his voice. This job had gone so far sideways, he would probably have to live as a deaf, mute, limbless eunuch when he went back to Hong Kong.

“Hm,” Yong grunted. “You picked up on the first ring.”

“Always, sir,” Kris grimaced as pain lanced through his hand, and he raised it to his face, morbidly fascinated by sight of his blood vessels rebuilding themselves like a fast-forwarded knitting demo.

“I was led to believe you’d been captured.”

Kris peeled the new scab away, and there wasn’t even a scar underneath. He moved his thumb back and forth experimentally. “I escaped, sir.”

“Good for you.”

“They’re not human,” Kris whispered, rubbing his fingers over the healed area. “It’s the only explanation.”

“They?” Yong asked, a little eagerness entering his voice. “Others like Yixing?”

“Worse.” Kris gripped the sides of the dashboard. “I saw one conjure water from nothing, and then drown a man with it. I barely got away.”

“Oh,” Yong said, disappointment weighting the syllable. “But you still have Yixing, yes?”

Kris thought about this. “Yes.”

Then he got a request for a video chat, and his forehead thudded against the steering wheel. He let the request ring a few more times, then tapped to accept. Yong’s narrowed eyes looked up at him from the dashboard, a little sweat beading his brow.

“That wasn’t the first ring, Kris.”

“Sorry, sir.”

“Show me Yixing.”

“…Sorry, sir.”

There was a high-pitched rasping sound in the background, and Yong dabbed his forehead with his sleeve, a whetstone held in one hand. A row of scythes hung from a pegboard behind him, ordered by size and curvature. “What did you say? I didn’t hear you.”

“I need to pick him up.” Kris had never felt cleverer as he lied through his teeth, all the blood in his body rushing to his brain to fuel his awesome creative prowess. “I left him at the hotel while I went for gas.”

“Yixing’s life is your life, Kris,” Yong said, the rasping sound starting up again. “Don’t leave him alone for long.”

“I’ll go back right after this call.” Kris could feel years of his life slipping away the longer this conversation went on.

“Stay out of sight for a while,” Yong went on. “I sent Yixing to Kangshin to repay an old favor, but he seems to be have trouble keeping track of his belongings. ”

“It’s like they grow legs and run away,” Kris quipped, clearly delusional from the stress of this phone call. He stretched his lips over his teeth in what he hoped looked like an amused smile as Yong chuckled.

“It would be a shame to let our rare jewel ‘grow legs and run away,’” Yong said, resting his chin on his newly sharpened axe. “I’ll wire some additional funds to your account, so take good care of him.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Kris.”

“Yes, sir?”

“If you can’t find him in fifteen minutes, I’m sending the Butcher to cut your throat.” The call ended with a beep, and Kris sat, stunned, for three seconds. Then he threw the car into drive and roared back down the highway, tires smoking.

He nearly ran Yixing over. Fortunately, Yixing only bounced just a little off of his hood before the car stopped fully. Kris leaped out and raced around to the front of the car to snap a selfie with Yixing’s face in it, sending it off to Yong with four minutes to spare, hoping that yellow stripes in the background wouldn’t tip him off.

A text buzzed back almost immediately. From Butcher: ‘Throat safe. : ( Had dibs on your loft.’

Kris couldn’t even text back a snide reply because his thumbs were suddenly four times larger than they used to be and all of his bones were gelatin. He sat down heavily in the middle of the highway, and Yixing opened his eyes.

“Ow.”

Kris did not apologize. Payback for his hand.

“You’re in trouble,” Yixing told him as he sat up, rubbing his shoulder.

Kris lifted his phone with his weak, floppy wrists. “Boss says I’m good.” Then he felt something cool and wet snake around his neck, and slither up the side of his face. He passed out.

When he came to, Yixing was kneeling over him, pinching his cheek, and Joonmyeon was scowling above him, the spinning ball of doom hovering beside him.

“Where’s Minseok?” he gritted. Kris raised a hand carefully, pointing back down the road. “Get up and drive.”