God's War (35 page)

“Said that to a woman? How old are
you, Rakhshan?”

“You sound like my father.”

Abdul-Nasser grunted. He rubbed at
his arms. “Eh,” he said.

Rhys moved to the door. He waved the
red roaches away and unbolted the doors. They moved easily. He wished all bugs
were as well-trained as his uncle’s.

Abdul-Nasser stayed close behind.
Rhys could smell him. Rhys turned, looked into his uncle’s weeping eyes.

“I did the right thing,” Rhys said.

Abdul-Nasser said, “That is between
you and God.”

Rhys gripped the old man’s arms.
“Stay away from the venom,” he said.

“Be careful among the women,”
Abdul-Nasser said.

Rhys made to pull away, but
Abdul-Nasser held him.

“And know this,” Abdul-Nasser said.
“You are our last boy, the only one with our name. Whatever you do, whatever
you need, you come to me. Ten hours or ten years from now.”

“I know, Uncle,” Rhys said.

“Good.” Abdul-Nasser released him,
and quickly shut the door.

Rhys pressed his hand to his satchel
and the transcription, reassuring himself it was still there. He started back
through the corridor and down the open stair. He could still hear Kine’s voice
talking with antiseptic clarity about the things Ras Tiegans had done to
shifters, the things Nasheen would do to shifters. The eradication of a people.
The end of Chenja.

He walked back to the taxi ranks.
The call sounded for afternoon prayer, and he found the mosque nearest the
ranks and knelt. He unrolled the prayer rug from his back. He submitted to the
will of God and hoped he was not praying for the end of Chenja, and Nasheen,
and the shifters; hoped he was not praying for the end of the world. After, he
went for lunch at a Mhorian restaurant that served halal food; the bus was not
due for hours. The afternoon heat kept the crowds away from the taxi ranks, and
after lunch he sat out under the shade of the weather stalls at the ranks and
waited.

He read from the Kitab and pushed
away thoughts of Kine and bloody shifters. A bus pulled up ahead of him. When
he looked at the sign in the window, he saw that it was headed for the city of
his birth.

Rhys stared at the bus. He thought
of what his mother would say if she saw him. Would she ignore him? Shriek? Turn
away? He wanted to think that she would open her arms to him and invite him to
her table. She and his aunts would cook a heavy meal—eight dishes—and his
father would come home and laugh and smoke and tell him how proud he was to
have a magician for a son.

“Rhys Dashasa?”

He stirred from his dream, then
jerked himself awake. How had he done that? It was dangerous to fall asleep in
public, even while sitting on your purse.

Rhys squinted up at the bulky figure
in front of him. He did not recognize him. Two more dark figures stood off to
the man’s right. Rhys saw very little. The sun was directly behind them.

“What do you want?” Rhys asked,
raising his hand to his brow. “I think you have me mixed up with someone else.”

“No, I don’t think so,” the man
said.

Rhys’s fingers twitched. He searched
for a local swarm of wasps.

“Let’s not be hasty,” one of the
other figures said, and something rolled toward him, blowing smoke.

Rhys coughed and raised his hands.

The large man grabbed Rhys by the
burnous and dragged him to his feet. Rhys reached for his pistols, but the man
twisted both of Rhys’s arms neatly behind him.

A magician stood just to the left of
him, one hand raised, a swarm of wasps already circling her head.

“So you’re her beautiful boy,” the
man said. “I didn’t see you much at the Cage. Thought you were just a rumor.”

“You’re mistaken—” Rhys began.

“No, I think not,” Raine said. “Let
us see if she cares any more for you than she does her little half-breed.”

Khos sat outside the diner in a
too-small wicker chair, a pistol at his hip and the taste of excrement still in
his mouth. Children played in the dusty street beyond the cool shade of the
billowing red awning that cloaked the sidewalk. Little Mhorian girls, too
skinny and already veiled, scurried among the poles that propped up the awning,
shooing hungry bugs from the twine grounding the poles. The girls slathered a
thick bug-repelling unguent on both pole and twine. The acrid stink of the
repellent made Khos’s eyes water.

It wasn’t much past dawn, but the day
was already hot. Khos sweated beneath his burnous. A girl came by with a tray
and served him a tiny cup of tea, black as pitch. She lowered her eyes as she
served him. He was careful not to touch her. She tucked the tray under her arm,
pressed her palms together, bowed, and backed away from him.

Khos wished the chair was larger. He
stared out at the children and the passersby. This early, the only people on
the street besides the dirty children were the creepers. They slunk along the
sidewalk with giant nets over their shoulders, their faces hidden by their
floppy hats.

He saw Mahrokh crossing the street.
She stood out easily among the dregs of the blue dawn. She went veiled when she
wasn’t working, and that was just as well. Chenjans—male and female alike—had
been known to stone whores in the streets when they appeared during the day
without an escort. But he marked Mahrokh by her significant height—nearly as
tall as he was—broad shoulders, and confident walk which reminded him of Nyx.
She carried a rectangular package under one arm, and the sight of it made his
heart skip. He looked back up the street she had appeared from and into the
long morning shadows between buildings, but saw no one following her.

She stepped around the refuse in the
streets and up onto the sidewalk, and then he saw her eyes: blue-black and
already squinting to make out his countenance, though he couldn’t imagine she
would mistake him for anyone else, even with her fuzzy sight.

He stood and pressed his palms
together, bowing.

Mahrokh set the package on the
table, and did the same.

They sat, and Khos called over one
of the Mhorian girls. “Another tea,” he said.

“No honey,” Mahrokh added.

When the girl had gone, Mahrokh
turned to study him. “You look better. Still terrible, but better.”

“I hope that improves,” he said. He
sipped at his tea to clear the taste from his mouth. Shifting into a dog to
bathe had its advantages, but a clean tasting mouth wasn’t one of them.

Mahrokh reached beneath her burnous
and pulled out several glossy papers. She pushed them across the table to Khos.

Khos stared at them. The edges were
already beginning to disintegrate.

“They’re tailored to destruct in
several hours,” Mahrokh said.

Khos fanned the images out on the
table. A few pieces from the ends of each flaked away as he did. A beaming
young boy, seven or eight years old, peered out from the pages. He was the
color of the desert—far too pale and flat-nosed to pass as anything but what he
was. And though his hair was dark, his eyes were unmistakably blue.

“We’ve had to transfer him,” Mahrokh
said. “To avoid the Chenjan draft.”

“They’re drafting half-breeds here
as well?”

“Yes. It started last year.”

“Where is he going?”

“Tirhan. They’ve been a neutral
country since they broke away from Chenja. We send our highest risk boys
there.”

Khos tentatively touched the face in
the picture. He imagined what it would be like to grow up in fear. His heart
ached. He pushed the pictures back at Mahrokh.

“Keep them,” she said. “They’ll be
gone soon enough.”

“Is there danger in the crossing?”
Khos asked. “I’ve never tried to get into Tirhan.”

“Our network extends deep into
Tirhan. I already have an interested family. His look is a little off for
Chenja and Nasheen, and no doubt he’ll be a little odd in Tirhan, but he will
not stand out as much. I think he’ll be happier there. And certainly safer.”

Khos nodded. He did not trust
himself to speak. He slipped the pictures into his vest pocket.

“And do you have news for me?” she
asked.

“Three boys are coming in from
Nasheen in three days,” Khos said. “One of my contacts will be escorting them
from Azam to Dadfar. You’ll need to take them from there.”

“I will tell my women,” Mahrokh
said.

Khos nodded at the package. “Should
I ask about that?”

Mahrokh’s body seemed to shrink. She
gazed long at the package. “That was sitting on our porch this morning.
Addressed to your woman.”

The Mhorian girl arrived with
Mahrokh’s tea, then pressed her palms together and bowed her head. Mahrokh
returned the gesture and drank.

Khos continued to stare at the
package. “You and your women need to be careful,” he said.

Mahrokh did not look at him. “We are
careful. Those who trouble your woman would not trouble us. We have
protection.”

“Protection? You mean Haj?”

Mahrokh looked up at him. “You know
of Haj?”

Khos felt his cheeks flush. He
tugged at the hood of his burnous in an attempt to hide his face. Why did he
still react like that, after all this time among women? Haj, who knew something
about Nyx and just enough about Inaya—and too much about him.

“I’ve met her,” Khos said. “How much
do you know about her?”

“She’s quiet. Since she’s
sympathetic to the cause, I assume she lost a man at the front. All of us
have.”

“What do you know about who she runs
with?”

“Those she uses to protect us?”

“Yes.”

Mahrokh shrugged. “Very little.
Mostly Nasheenian women, as she is. They’re reliable, efficient, effective.”

“Could you ask around? Tell me what
you can find out about her?”

“Certainly. Does she concern you?”

“I’m just interested. Thank you,
Mahrokh.” Khos finished his tea and stood. “Would you like me to walk you to
your street?”

“No, no. I know my streets far
better than you do. I’ll finish my tea.”

He reached for the rectangular
package, and tucked it under his arm. He bowed his head to Mahrokh. “Take care.
And remember what I said about being cautious.”

“I am always cautious, my Mhorian.”

Khos walked back onto the street,
through the cluster of children. They held out their hands to him as he passed
and called to him in Chenjan. He had no money to spare, or he would have
spilled it into their hands. Looked into every beaming face, and thought of his
boy.

Tirhan. On the other side of the
continent. The end of the desert.

The way to the safe house was long,
and by the time he arrived, the package was starting to stink. His stomach
knotted.

Khos went up the narrow stairs. As
he climbed, the air got hotter and closer until he longed for a window, a
breeze, a view of the ocean. When was the last time he’d seen the ocean? He
pushed into the room.

Nyx sat on the divan with her feet
curled up under her. Her cropped hair was loose. She had just washed it. She
and Anneke sat over a set of what looked like blueprints for a residence.
Anneke was scribbling things onto the margins.

Khos set the box down in front of
Nyx, on top of the map.

Nyx stared at the box.

“What the fuck is this?” she asked.

“From the brothel mistress.
Addressed to you.”

Anneke grimaced.

Nyx reached for the box and pulled
off the brown paper. The stink coming from the box got stronger.

“Shit,” Nyx said, and yanked the lid
free.

Inside was a severed hand lying in a
pool of blackish congealed blood.

No note, this time.

Khos looked away. “What are you
going to trade for him?”

“Throw that out,” Nyx told Anneke.
She thrust the box at her.

Anneke frowned at it. “Better not
tell Inaya.”

“She’s sleeping?” Khos asked.

Anneke nodded.

Khos looked toward Inaya’s door, and
the worry crept up on him again. A stupid promise he’d made, to protect a woman
who did not want his protection, but a woman who had nothing in the world now.
He could buy her freedom, and his, but he feared that would cut her heart far
worse than losing her boy to the front when he came of age. Khos wasn’t so sure
he liked his solution either.

“I don’t give a shit about Inaya
right now,” Nyx said. Anneke took the box outside. “We need Nikodem to trade
for Taite. If we’re going together, we need to go now. I can walk well enough.
I’ve waited too long.”

“You’re just going to let Taite
die?” Khos asked.

“Nobody’s dead yet. Did you hear
what I said?”

“He
will
be
dead. How are you going to get Nikodem after all this waiting?”

Nyx regarded him as if he were an
annoying insect, something she’d found plastered to the bottom of her sandal.
“Have some faith.”

Khos clenched his fists. “In what?
You? You don’t even have faith in yourself.”

“Remind me again, did I renew your
contract?”

Khos walked away from her, and sat
in a ratty chair. Too small for him. Nothing fit him in any country.

Anneke returned and squatted next to
Nyx. “If he ain’t already dead, boss, we should bring him in like we brought
you in. Fair’s fair.”

“Life isn’t fair,” Nyx said.

As he looked at Nyx, at her
mutilated hand and scarred legs, Khos realized that Rhys, her shadow, wasn’t in
the room. Unless Rhys had gone out for food, that made him late from his trip
to Bahreha. Khos looked again at Nyx and tried to read her. Was she worried
about her tardy magician? Or did she care as little for him as she did for the
rest of them? They had risked their lives to go after her, pitted themselves
against bel dames. But she sat here on the divan and refused to bring back
Taite? It’ll be me who has to tell Mahdesh, he thought. Me who has to tell him
his lover is dead.