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The Skeleton Key

She ith a knife at her throat

Or so she thought

Seichan ca sleep, feeling so into her neck She instinctively knew not to move Not yet Wary, she relied on her senses, but heard no whisper ofof air across her bare skin, detected no scent of body or breath that was not her own She smelled only a hint of roses and disinfectant

Am I alone?

With the sharp pressure still on her neck, she peeked one eye open and took in her environment in a heartbeat She lay sprawled in an unknown bed, in a room she’d never seen before Across the bed, the covers were finely textured brocade; above the headboard, an old tapestry hung; on the mantel over a fireplace, a crystal vase of fresh-cut roses sat beside an eighteenth-century gold clock with a thick marble base The time read a fewatop a walnut bedside table Froh the sheer curtains, she assu

She picked outFrench, adown the hall outside the room

Hotel room, she surmised

Expensive, elegant, not what she could afford

She waited severalsure she was alone

She had spent her younger years running the slukok and the back alleys of Phnom Penh, half feral, a creature of the street Back then, she had learned the rudimentary skills of her future profession Survival on the streets required vigilance, cunning, and brutality When her former employers found her, and recruited her from those same streets, the transition to assassin proved an easy one

Twelve years later, she wore another face, an evolution that a part of her still fought, leaving her half for for that soft clay to harden into its new shape But ould she become? She had betrayed her foranization called the Guild—but even that name wasn’t real, only a useful pseudonyanization remained shadowy, even to its own operatives

After her betrayal, she had no hoiance to a covert US agency known as Sigma She had been recruited to discover the true puppet masters of the Guild Not that she had much choice She had to destroy her former masters before they destroyed her

It hy she had come to Paris, to chase a lead

She slowly sat up and caught her reflection in a mirror on the armoire Her black hair was mussed by the pillow, the eht

Drugged

Someone had stripped her down to her bra and panties, likely to search her for weapons or wires or perhaps purely to intiray T-shirt, and leather hboring antique Louis XV chair On an Eed in a neat row,a mockery of their lethality Her SIG Sauer pistol was still in its shoulder holster, while her daggers and knives had been unsheathed, shining stingingly bright

As brilliantly as the new piece of jewelry adorning her neck

The stainless-steel band had been fastened tight and low A tiny green LED light glowed at the hollow of her throat, where sharp prongs dug deep into that tender flesh

So this is oke me up

She reached to the electronic necklace and carefully ran a fingertip along its surface, searching for the ht ear, she discovered a tiny pin-sized opening