The atrium glowed faint gold. Light filtered up from the floors below, casting irregular shadows across their path. An enormous grunge brick facade of apartment blocks stood before the splendour of the wide multi-levelled hall. Its strange stunted windows that matched up with nothing sat lost and bewildered before the expansive grandeur. Tomas had called the place a shell. That felt appropriate to Kuai. This place had been stripped of its insides, its floors gutted and fixed up with an elegant interior that stood at stark odds with the poverty its outside suggested.

They had made their way quietly through the remaining doors on the fourth floor. As expected, it had thus far been silent. Their progress was slower than they would have liked as their flank was exposed to a sweeping staircases that spiralled from above them and stopped at each level before it trailed to the ground floor. Aside from a clunky looking lift, the staircase was their only option for moving between levels. With both the floor above and the one below as top priorities for their hunt, decisions needed to be made quickly.

Kuai motioned for his companions to follow him into a darkened bathroom, all tiled in jade mosaic.

"We could use the empty lift shaft to access the floors rather than the staircase." He had done so before when infiltrating a sixteen-storey glass business tower to assassinate a Hong Kong CEO on the top floor. The man had had a public face of stone, but when his life was on the line, he had begged and pleaded just like any other. "Provided the lift is in use on another floor, we can prise open the doors and use the shaft to get to the other levels."

"And pray no one calls the lift while we saunter along in our death-trap tube of death."

"That staircase is just as much a death-trap tube of death."

"Boys," Bi-Han grated, silencing them immediately, "Its not a bad idea. We can at least assess the situation when we've prised open the doors."

Kuai shot Tomas an I-told-you-so look and slunk after Bi-Han. Tomas poked him in the rib as he went passed. Kuai glowered at him and put his finger to his mask for quiet. Tomas mock copied him and rolled his eyes.

The fourth floor was relatively easy to move around now that they knew it was empty. The trouble was sound carrying from other floors that kept setting them on edge, and the risk that anyone at any moment might make use of the stairs, with their sweeping panorama of the open balcony.

Bi-Han stopped at the lift. The call button had an electronic display that read ′G'. Kuai blanked for a whole second, trying to think which number the symbol represented, before he recalled that it was not an Arabic numeral.

"Ground floor. That's good for now." Bi-Han murmured. He ordered Kuai with a finger and the two of them let ice run through their veins. Four hands glowed blue in the dim dark and glittering shavings of ice sprung to their fingertips. Two long icicles formed in their hands. Kuai knelt and wedged the ice between the doors while his brother did the same at the top. Tomas glanced about them as the cryomancers began to prise the lift door open.

"Come on, come on."

Kuai paused. Footsteps sounded above them. Tomas followed the sound with his eyes over toward the staircase.

"Sub-Zero, we should go." Kuai touched his brother's shoulder.

Sub-Zero shook him off, pulled his icicle back and slammed it hard between the doors. Kuai blinked. Ice furled up the split between the doors collecting and spreading as fierce white burrs stacking faster than the eye could see. The ice spread and hardened forcing the doors apart and pushing them aside. Footsteps sounded hollow on the staircase. Bi-Han pressed his palms to the wall of ice he had made. The ice retracted fast to him, melting under his touch.

"Move." He said and swung himself into the lift shaft.

"Smoke..." Kuai held the doors apart. Tomas glanced once more behind them to where the footsteps were sounding on the curling stair. He followed Kuai into the gaping black mouth of the shaft, careful to avoid the puddle of melted ice as he stepped.

The lift doors slid shut as soon as Kuai let go. Within was as dark as the Lin Kuei Temple at night. Kuai immediately felt a wave of calm slip over him. He reached with steady, searching hands for holds in the metal frame or cabling. Each time he pulled his weight up in the darkness he felt the pleasant strain and burn of his muscles working to lift his bodyweight up in the sheer vertical black. He could hear Tomas' breath rattle softly below him. He could feel his brother's breath chilling all the air above him.

As his eyes grew accustomed to the shadows, he could see the shape of the floor five door with its slit crack of light splitting its middle and faintly bordering its outside. The lithe form of his brother twisted and pulled himself up into the doorway, where he blocked out the light. From the way he stood, body pressed flat against the doors, Kuai guess there was very little ledge this side to stand on. He climbed up to his brother's level and reached out to the thick lift cables, hanging on them to see better.

"Where am I meant to go?" Tomas was under his feet.

"Shh!" Bi-Han had his ear pressed to the doors.

Kuai heard Tomas huff.

In the deadly silence they heard a faint bing. Kuai glanced down quickly and his eyes met Tomas's. The cables under Kuai's fingers groaned and began to move.

"Fuck." He and Tomas said simultaneously, jumping off to cling limpet-like to the shaft walls.

"Sub-Zero, the-"

"Shh!"

The cables whirred and began to move faster. There was not enough space for the lift to pass them. Standing here they were definitely going to be crushed.

"Sub-"

"Shh!"

"Bi-H-"

"Quiet."

Kuai felt the cool metal under his fingers warm with sweat. He swallowed. Tomas climbed up beside him and the both glanced anxiously up at Bi-Han, still leaning into the door.

"Fuck." Tomas whispered. "This is not how I wanted to die."

"You know how you want to die?"

The lift was a black square growing larger beneath them.

"I thought maybe, alcohol poisoning would be a good way to go. Here likes Tomas Vrbada, died of gross negligence in consuming ten times his bodyweight in good beer."

"Is the door below still open? Can we get back down to it?"

"Closed behind us. Be my guest if you want to go down and try get it open again."

The black of the lift swelled impossibly large in size. Kuai's breath seized sharply in his chest and he heard Tomas swallow and try to flatten himself further again the shaft wall. His fingers met Kuai's instead of the hold. Rather than shaking them off, Kuai's tightened his grasp around them and closed his eyes tight.

Another faint bing sounded below them. Kuai looked down. The black square had stopped getting larger. The cables were juddering to a halt. The lift had stopped below them at floor three. He disentangled his fingers quickly.

"You were fucking holding my hand, you baby," Tomas whispered in his ear.

"No, you held mine. You're the one that thought you were going to die." Kuai was blushing furiously anyway. A Lin Kuei assassin should face death without emotion or fear.

"Wait til I tell Bi-Han."

"If you tell him I'll kill you myself."

"Stop talking down there!"

Tomas leant in close so that their voices wouldn't carry,

"Did he even know we were in danger? Did he even notice? Please tell me he had a plan he was going to put into action in time."

Light split into the shaft with blinding contrast. A square of bright white ignited the wall above them. Bi-Han stood silhouetted in the open door way for a moment before slipping to one side. He motioned for Kuai to climb up and wait by the opposite side.

From his perch, Kuai could see out onto the west wing of the fifth floor. It's layout was much the same as the one they had just left. Though it was brightly lit, Kuai could see no sign of anyone.

"See anything?" His brother's voice was hushed. Kuai shook his head. "Stay calm. Someone's coming my way. On my command, kill them."

Kuai's stomach dropped and he felt the blood leave his face. Everything was happening too fast.

"Wait-"

"Get ready."

Kuai tightened his grip with his left hand on a wall pipe.

Hollow clomping footsteps sounded on the wood like oxen carrying water over cobbled village streets.

He saw the flicker of a shadow mar the doorway of light. It coincided with his brother raising a finger.

Kuai swung out suddenly. His right hand grabbed a hand full of clothes and his legs wrapped around a body. He swung back into the lift shaft Using the momentum and one hand, he snapped his victim's neck. The crack of bone sounded loud in the quiet. His legs released the body and it fell ragdoll-like, strangely weightless in its tumble, dead before a sound could be uttered. Her face was young and puzzled. Her glasses we still on, though slightly askew. They had a green frame, and clean lenses that flashed slight gold. Her hair was still neat, with only a few hairs stray. It was a beautiful auburn red. Kuai had never seen red hair before. Her nose was straight and proud. Her cheekbones pronounced and characterful. She took great care in her appearance, Kuai guessed. Her smart suit trousers had a press mark down the side, and her blazer had every button done up. Each button shone. The dark had swallowed her up by the time she hit the roof of the lift two floors below.

"Good. Let's move." Bi-Han stepped out of the dark lift shaft into more shadows on the fifth floor. Kuai followed him.

The first rooms they checked were empty. Tomas was no longer light-hearted, and Bi-Han's temper had dispelled into something much more amiable.

Kuai moved with difficulty, his mind returning to the perfect freeze frame image he had of his victim. And the way her body had taken away Tomas' laughter as she fell. He wondered what else had died with her.

Kuai pushed away a wash of conflicting thoughts that tried to eat through his stomach up to his throat. He looked at his brother, professional and never more at home in that mask and hood. A live body is just another closed door between me and my target. He had told himself this enough times but the message still had not stuck. It at least got easier every time though. The absence was always deafening, but it was quicker each time he killed to push the distraction away. He followed routine paths in his head that skirted the uncomfortable questions he felt rising. With Bi-Han before him as a role model Lin Kuei assassin, it was easier than he previously thought possible. I was probably only shaken because she was a woman. The Grandmaster says our enemies are no longer easy to spot. He says in a modern world, a woman in a fine dress might well be a trained killer. We are to remove obstacles without discrimination. Never underestimate the potential for any person to be an enemy. They are not like us. They have not been through what we've been through. They are not family. The Lin Kuei are family. People out there are not real the way Tomas is real, the way Bi-Han is real. The way people who rely on me are real. People who are put in danger when I hesitate. Why should a stranger with red hair take precedence over a friend who always stole food out the kitchen for us when we were still hungry. Or a brother who owned up to my mistakes and took punishment in my stead. The world out their lives its life oblivious to me. Why should I not live oblivious to it? It is hard enough to look after myself and my own with the Grandmaster eagle-eyes above us. I cannot be the keeper of all the world. What do I owe it? Let it see to its own keeping. And let it not get in my way.

Bi-Han sent him and Tomas to clear one rooms on the floor. They stood either side of the door way in perfect silence, just as they had not half an hour before hand on the floor below. That moment somehow now seemed a world away. There was something in Tomas' eyes. It looked part way between concern and something almost fearful.

"Kuai-"

"Shh." Kuai pressed his ear to the door. He held up a finger to indicate how many were in the room.

"Shall we let-"

Kuai brought the finger to his mask for silence. He could here the heavy sole of a rubber boot slap on a wood varnished floor. When he closed his eyes he could see a picture building of the room beyond the door. The slight echo to those footsteps suggested a large, spacious, sparsely furnished room mostly filled with hard surfaces. The rhythmic quality to the steps suggest a patrol. This would likely be one of the guards. The slight rasp of breath was familiar to him as the sound of breathing through material, probably a balaclava. When the footsteps stopped before the door there was a slight pause before the handle started turning, suggesting a change in hands. There might be a gun being held largely by the leading hand. He let the door open nearly a foot before he stepped swiftly and calmly into its gap. A figure dressed in black and over six-foot tall stood stunned for a second. Kuai did not even need to think. He reached out and grabbed the guard's neck. His fingers found the place where the balaclava stopped. He side-stepped behind the man formed a knife of ice. The man's reaction kicked in, but the rifle slung over his shoulder slowed him, splitting is attention between offence and defence. Startled fingers went for the trigger while his back arched ready to ram Kuai away. Kuai slit his throat whilst neither of those two things occurred. An explosion of gurgling red blurted out. The man began to rasp and gasp in his death throws. He hands flailed and went automatically to the knife in his neck. Kuai dragged the man backwards and stuck his blade back in deeper, ripping it through the flesh he found there and severing anything important still connected to the skull. When he finally let the body drop, the head lolled at a bizarre angle, with hardly and muscle left to attach it to the torso.

Tomas came in and gagged.

"Elder Gods, Kuai- you nearly ripped his fucking head off."

"Codenames only. Hit that light switch."

Blood seemed to be everywhere. Even Tomas had flecks on him. They all vanished under the cover of darkness.

"Lets move the body under that desk."

"I'm sure no one will notice the fuck off pool of blood in the middle of the room."

"If the light's off, they may not. Stop swearing and help."

They dragged the remains to an alcove under a handsome desk and stuffed in the limbs that spilled out.

"Oh gods. If someone finds this we're in so much trouble."

"Quiet. It had to be done."

They moved back to the doorway and looked out.

"My feet are covered in blood. I'm going to be walking it everywhere."

"Why did you step in it?"

"Are you kidding? There's enough blood to fill the Qinghai Lake here."

"Take your boots off then."

"It's probably all over your feet too."

They met Bi-Han half way down the corridor barefoot and covered in blood. Kuai's clothes had changed from blue to red. Bi-Han looked at him. There was silence for a moment, then Bi-han indicated that they should move on. One room remained unchecked. They took up each side of the door. Tomas stood behind him and hissed in his ear,

"Chill the fuck out, Kuai, you're scaring me."

"You can hold my hand again if you like."

"I'm serious, be careful. You're not acting yourself."

"We've got a job to get done, Smoke."

The door opened suddenly. An armed guard walked through, dressed head to foot in black with a bullet proof chest protector and a semi-automatic assault rifle slung over one shoulder. Behind him came a tall lean man with a narrow face, thinning hair and a crisp suit. He talked down his nose to heavy set man with greying waves of hair that framed an agitated, square face.

"How can they see nothing?!" The heavy set man was saying. His English was thick and barely comprehensible. "Did they dress up like these men here with hoods on their eyes so they are blind!"

The crisp man's lip twisted in displeasure. He did not turn his head to look behind and spoke in a clipped Russian accent.

"Our operatives are more than capable, if that is what you are implying, Mr Kasun."

Kuai's eyes widened and he tried to get a bet a look at his target without drawing attention from the three armed guards that followed up the procession exiting the room.

"You told me your friends in Moscow would take care this two days ago. I see no bodies. No bodies but your own all over Sankt Peterburg news. You told me General Korgev values my friendship. Where is this evidence. Where is my friendship?"

The party moved to the wide staircase.

"The Kremlin recognises your previous esteemed position in an independent sovereign state and accords you some privileges, Mr Kasun, but I think I do not need to tell you that your situation here is perilous to say the least."

"What? Perilous-?! You-"

"When the world wants a witch hunt, Mr Kasun, it is only a matter of time before a man's worth, even a previously very powerful man's worth, becomes... a burden upon the host nation."

The conversation faded down the staircase with them.

Kuai felt his limbs tremble from the taught stillness he had kept as the party walked passed, barely a few inches from his nose.

The three of them stood and breathed evenly for a few moments. Tomas broke the silence.

"Their footsteps stopped on the third floor. Let's finish this."

Author Note: Mission getting hotter, people getting colder :0

Thanks for the continued support everyone.