SSS-Class Profession: The Path to Mastery

Her feet were faster than reason.

I threw myself backward just in time, her fingers slicing through the air where my throat had been. The couch flipped as I vaulted over it, the springs squealing like outraged mice. Elliot scrambled out of her path, ducking behind a lamp far too thin to stop any real threat.

But real threats, you see, didn't always wear the shape of demons.

Sometimes, they looked like young women in hospital gowns with hair askew and eyes full of nightmares.

"Really now!" I cackled, springing into a crouch with a flourish. "We've scarce shared a 'top o' the mornin',' and already you're lungin' for ol' Jester's neck! How terribly rude—most folk at least offer a spot of tea before the murder!"

She didn't respond. Her breath was ragged, the whites of her eyes too wide, too unblinking. The leftover cuts across her knuckles gleamed red under the flickering light.

She charged again.

"Ah-ah!" I chided, whipping a curtain from the window and twirling it 'round like a grand, silken cape. "Tut-tut, dear guest—we do not lunge at our hosts! It's dreadfully impolite... and honestly, quite draining. Manners first, murder later!"

I tossed the fabric toward her as a distraction and spun to the side. She tore through it like wet tissue, her shoulder crashing into the wall behind me.

I didn't wait.

She stumbled, and I swept in—wrapping one arm around her waist and another behind her knees. Up she went.