Jailers. Cursed. Otherworlders.

  The intel from the infiltration was a physical weight. The books sat open on the table, their old paper smell mixing with the cold. This world was not just primitive. It was active. It had provable magic, active gods, and... reincarnation.

  I was the proof.

  I looked away from the texts, toward the tall library window. It was snowing. Soft, white flakes drifted lazily in the moonlight.

  My breath caught. An unexpected memory.

  I had not seen real snow since...

  A wave of... something. An echo. A cold, empty ache.

  The snow. Christmas.

  My first year. Before Lyra. Before I was truly Viper.

  The memory arrived, not as a dream, but as a hard, clean file.

  Moscow. 2067.

  I was twenty. One year in. Still green. Still believing the IDIO propaganda. They said we were scalpels, carving out the rot. That we only killed those who deserved it.

  But that mission was...

  December 24th. Christmas Eve.

  The target Father Mikhail. An old orthodox priest.

  His charges were unclear. What I did know was that he was a former political opponent, his support was growing again, and he ran an orphanage.

  Designation: Social Tumor. The IDIO loved its euphemisms.

  It was snowing. The thick, wet kind that silences a city. The church was a wreck, a forgotten building in a poor district. The lock was open.

  I moved through the outer gate. Silent. The air smelled of old wood and varnish.

  I saw him on the front steps, his back to me. A big bearded, old man in a simple brown coat, hammering a nail into a broken piece of siding.

  Thwack. Thwack. Thwack.

  I moved. My boots made no sound. An easy job. Clinical. I was three feet behind him. I drew my sidearm, a 9mm caseless. I raised it, aiming for the base of his skull. A clean deletion. My finger tightened on the trigger.

  “Ah,” his voice rumbled, not even turning. “What brings you here, young man?”

  I froze. He had not heard me. He could not have.

  But aim did not waver.

  “Is it about the things I preach about our government?” he continued, still hammering.

  Thwack.

  He knew. And he kept hammering.

  My mind stalled. A data mismatch. This was not in the brief. Until now, I had killed monsters. Drug lords. Sadists.

  This was... different.

  “Father!”

  A new voice. A girl's. The church door slammed open.

  “I told you not to shout in the—”

  He finally turned.

  I flinched. My arm, without permission, pulled the gun back, tucking it behind my coat. A pure reflex. I hid my weapon.

  A witness was present.

  A thirteen year old girl stood in the doorway, glaring.

  “You said you would help with the star,” she snapped. She looked at me. Her eyes were too sharp.

  Father Mikhail looked at me. His eyes were not scared. They were sad. He glanced at my hidden hand, then at the girl. He made a choice.

  “Ah, yes,” he said, his voice booming with sudden cheer. “Leah, you are just in time. This young man is a new helper. He has come to help us prepare for Christmas.”

  He beamed at me. “His name is…”

  “Ivan,” I said. My voice was flat.

  “Ivan,” the Father repeated. “A good, strong name. Come, Ivan. Come, Leah. Let us go inside where it is warm.”

  He set one massive, calloused hand on my shoulder. Welcome.

  I should have shot him. I should have shot the witness.

  I nodded instead.

  We entered a large, dusty hall. A church, but the pews were pushed against the walls. Cots in their place.

  An orphanage.

  “Leah,” Father Mikhail said, “go wake the other five. Ivan and I will start on the tree.”

  Leah gave me one last, suspicious look and ran. “Wake up. Wake up!”

  We were alone again. He walked to a drooping pine in the corner. “Help me, Ivan,” he said, picking up a string of old, dead lights.

  My gun was a cold weight at my back. Protocol said the target was engaging. Compromised. Abort or execute.

  If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  I searched for an anchor. Logic. I looked at peeling paint. The icons. The dust. The cheap plastic tinsel.

  “This is a church,” I said

  I glanced at the lights. “Is this not frivolity? Sacrilege in a holy place?”

  An accusation to test him.

  He stopped and looked at me. Really looked. He did not see an assassin. He saw a something else.

  He laughed. A warm, rich sound that echoed in the cold hall.

  “My boy,” he said, “you think holiness is about silence?”

  He lifted the dead, tangled lights like a relic.

  “These are just wires and that tree is only a tree. But if we put them up, if we try, the children will see a light. They will not see the dust, or the cold, or the broken floorboards.”

  He met my eyes. “God is not found in perfect places, Ivan. He is found in the trying. In the mending. In the choice to create a little light when the world is dark.”

  He pressed the lights into my hand.

  “A night of joy for them,” he whispered. “That is a greater prayer than a lifetime of kneeling.”

  The other five children burst in.

  “Father, is it time?”

  “Good morning, you little devils,” he boomed. “Yes. And we have a new friend. This is Ivan. He is our caretaker for the night.”

  They swarmed me.

  “Ivan, hello.”

  “Are you strong? Can you lift me to the star?”

  I stood there, frozen, clutching the dead lights.

  Caretaker.

  Leah lingered in the corner, arms crossed. Watching. She knew.

  “This one,” Father Mikhail said softly, “is Alexei. He likes trains. This is Anya. She does not speak. This is Mika, and the twins, Sasha and Yuri.” He tipped his head toward the corner. “And that is Leah.”

  He lowered his voice. “Leah was abandoned by her mother. I found her in a snowbank. Blue.”

  I looked at Leah and it was like staring backward in time. Same file, different name.

  I, then spent the next four hours untangling Christmas lights. My mind split. The Professional screamed protocol. Violation. Compromised. Abort or execute.

  Still Ivan just worked.

  “Ivan, you are so tall,” Mika chirped. “Can you put the star on top?”

  I looked at the cheap plastic star, then at Father Mikhail’s sad, knowing eyes. I nodded and placed it with precise, economical care.

  They cheered. It unsettled me.

  Later, Leah found me. “Father asked me to help you with lunch,” she said. Flat.

  We moved to the small, cold kitchen. Alone. She handed me a knife and a bag of potatoes.

  I took the knife. It fit my hand. I peeled. Fast. Spirals falling in perfect ribbons.

  Ten potatoes later, she spoke.

  “You are not a helper,” she said.

  I did not stop. Shick. Shick. Shick.

  “I am helping Father,” I said.

  “I saw it,” she said, voice trembling, eyes hard. “In your coat. Outside.”

  I set the knife down. Turned to her. Thirteen. Brave.

  “You are here to hurt him,” she whispered.

  Programming screamed. Witness. Liability.

  Silence her.

  “No,” I said. The word came out before the protocol did. Another error.

  “You are,” she hissed, tears brimming. “He is all we have. He is a good man.”

  “I know,” I said.

  Her anger cracked. “Then why?”

  “Go back to the others, Leah.”

  “I will not let you,” she said

  “Go.”

  I could not look at her.

  After lunch, a thin soup, the kids dragged me outside. “A snowman, Ivan!”

  Absurd. I had killed forty seven targets. I rolled snow.

  Splat.

  A snowball hit the back of my head. My threat response detonated. I spun, hand dropping to the small of my back, muscles ready to break whoever—

  Alexei. The boy who liked trains.

  He froze at the look in my eyes. The yard went silent.

  I had to de-escalate.

  I looked at my hand, hovering near the gun. Slowly, I crouched, grabbed snow, packed it, and threw. A bad throw. On purpose. Three feet wide.

  He stared. A small giggle. Sasha shrieked with laughter and hit me in the chest.

  For the next hour, I was their target.

  At 16:00, My mission was a failure. The extraction window was gone.

  “Ivan,” Father Mikhail called from the doorway. The game stopped.

  “The children are tired,” he said as they filed past. “Thank you. You are very good with them.”

  I nodded.

  “I have to go to the market,” he said. “To confirm the orders for tonight’s feast.”

  My heart hammered. He was separating me from the children. Giving me an opportunity.

  “I would be grateful for your company,” he added.

  “I will come,” I said.

  At the door: “Father, wait.”

  Leah skidded in, clutching his coat, eyes on me. “Can I come with you? Please?”

  She knew. She was trying to shield him. Thirteen and a shield.

  He turned. Pain masked his face. He knelt.

  “Leah,” he said, voice thick.

  “Please do not go,” she whispered.

  “No,” he said, gentle and firm. “I need you to stay. You are the oldest. Watch over the others. Be the caretaker. Can you do that for me?”

  She swallowed her sobs and nodded.

  He left her trembling and walked out with me.

  The market was loud, alive. I, Viper, walked through a Christmas market with my target.

  “Father, a blessed Christmas.”

  “Mikhail, a sausage for your children.”

  He moved like a king. He was not a tumor. He was the heart of this district.

  The IDIO had lied. For the first time, I knew they had lied.

  I was not the only one watching. Two men in black coats. IDIO. Not market people. Shadows.

  Backup. Cleanup.

  The threat was clear. If I did not act, they would. And they would be sloppy. They would sanitize the entire orphanage. The children. Leah.

  No.

  My mission. My kill. My terms.

  He laughed with a baker. My hand was steady. I touched his shoulder. The laughter died.

  “Father,” I said. Ivan’s voice. Viper’s cold. “We need to talk. Alone.”

  He looked at my hand. Looked into my eyes. Nodded. He followed.

  I led him to an empty bridge I had scouted. Far from the church. Far from them. Snow fell. The river below was dark.

  He pulled a small metal flask and drank. Cheap alcohol.

  “Want some, Ivan?”

  “No.”

  Silence.

  “You are popular,” I said, Ivan’s voice strained. “Why do they not help you?”

  He took another drink. “People are people, Ivan. They are good. They are kind. They are convenient. They will do good when it costs them nothing. It does not make them bad. It makes them worried. About their own.”

  He stared into the water. “I was like that. I was a politician once. I wanted to save this country. I thought I had to be stronger than the monsters. One day I looked in the mirror and the monster was me.”

  He finished the flask. “I stopped. I found God. Or He found me. In that mirror. I came here. A church everyone had lost faith in. It seemed fitting.”

  He clapped his hands. A sharp, final sound. “Well. Time to go. We would not want the children to wait.”

  He turned to leave.

  Click.

  The sound of a hammer pulled back.

  He stopped and turned. I was there. Gun raised. A long pause. Snow fell between us.

  His eyes were not afraid. Only tired. He saw my gaze drifting past him. Conflicted. Lost.

  He sighed and closed his eyes.

  “If you think what you are doing is right, then do it.”

  My face twisted.

  “We all have parts to play in this world, Ivan,” he said softly. “I am sure you have a reason.”

  Then he did the last thing I expected. He turned his back and walked away.

  My hand trembled. I wasn't supposed to tremble. I tried to aim at the broad, defenseless back.

  He is a target. A mission. The children will die if he lives. He gave you permission. He is a fool.

  but he is a good ma-.

  BANG.

  The Snow turned red. Father Mikhail lay flat.

  Dead.

  My eyes opened.

  The library.

  The candle flame wavered. My hand... this small, Seraphina hand... was raised, pointing at a bookshelf. Trembling. An involuntary physical response. The memory clung to me. Like the cold.

  That was the moment. The first true crack in the programming. The first debit on my ledger.

  Maybe... maybe that was "My curse" in my old life. The reason Lyra...

  No.

  I shoved the thought away. I looked at the last book on the table.

  The Prophet’s Liturgy and the Theocratic Doctrines.

  A book about gods. Faith. Redemption.

  I shoved it. Not the thought. The book. It skidded across the wooden table.

  I was not here for philosophy. I was here for logic. I was Viper. I needed to re-establish control.

  I took a breath. In. Out.

  The room was silent.

  Too silent.

  Then-

  Creeeeak.

  The heavy hinge of the library door. It was opening.