by Dakota Banks
The doorman she’d known for years, Arnie Henshaw, was on duty. He tipped his black shiny-brimmed cap to her.
“Take your bag to the thirty-ninth floor, Ms. Winters?”
“Yes, please, Mr. Henshaw.”
The instructions were for the benefit of the assistant, summoned with a crisp snap of Arnie’s fingers. Maliha’s relationship with Arnie was well established. He was on the fringe of her secret life but didn’t know the details. He was well aware that there could be all kinds of weapons, legal and illegal, in her bags. Arnie had known her for fifteen years, but she hadn’t aged much at all in that time. Whatever he thought about that, he kept to himself. He knew she led a shadowy double life, but not the details of it, and that suited both of them just fine.
Arnie also knew the truth about her life at the Harbor Point Towers—that there were two places she called home. One was her public apartment on the thirty-ninth floor, sometimes shared with Hound, Amaro and Xia Yanmeng, the third of her trio of close friends. Maliha rescued Yanmeng and his wife, Eliu, from certain death in a prison during the Chinese Cultural Revolution. With three men occasionally staying and working at her place, she’d needed more room. She’d bought the apartment next door, an expansive three-bedroom space, when the owner moved to Barcelona for the climate. Remodeled and immense, her public home now had a private suite for her, plus three guest bedrooms and a communal space. She liked all the room, but it wasn’t where her heart lived. That was reserved for her secret haven, where she surrounded herself with treasures she’d collected during her long life. The haven was the center of her life as a former assassin and the base of her quest for redemption.
It was also the place that Jake Stackman had broken in to the last time she saw him. Not to steal anything, but just because he figured out how to get past her advanced security measures and wanted to surprise her. He surprised her, all right. The secret haven was designed to be impenetrable by humans. Maliha assumed anyone who got in had to be Ageless, the servant of her own or another demon, sent to kill her since she’d told Rabishu where he could shove her contract.
A rogue, that’s what they called me now. Not quite Ageless, not quite human either.
The secret haven was just nine floors above her public home. She headed there now. She’d bought two condos on the forty-eighth floor and torn out their guts to make one large, semicircular space with a coveted view of Lake Michigan. It was a view for which others would pay extravagantly, but for Maliha security came before scenery. The window was coated with a blast-resistant film and covered at all times with special cellular shades that were metal on one side and decorative cloth on the other.
She entered numbers into a keypad at the door and placed her eye up to the retinal scanner. The door, steel-plated and bomb-hardened, slid aside. Bright lights in the foyer came on, intended to blind anyone who wasn’t expecting them. Light bounced off the metal floor and ceiling of the foyer, multiplying the effect and turning the brightness level to near lightning-bolt intensity.
Maliha threw herself across the light chamber and pressed a nearly invisible switch that disabled a nasty “welcome mat”—waves of darts shot from the ceiling, leaving an intruder both blinded and pin-cushioned. In a final safeguard, if the disabling switch wasn’t pressed, the lobby sealed into a steel box and air was pumped out of it. An Ageless person could survive the darts, but even the Ageless had to breathe.
Her safe haven was surrounded by a metal tube exactly like the foyer, meaning that anywhere the safe room touched another wall, there was a buffer zone that could be filled with darts and evacuated of air.
The bright light faded and Maliha entered a short hallway that ended in a sharp left turn. Once in the main area, there was a cocoonlike feeling due to walls and deep carpets the color of eggshells and black cellular shades on the windows.
“Lights, soft.”
Twinkling low-voltage lights suspended from the ceiling came on, along with a band of light built into the walls that was adjustable in intensity. Although the space was large, it was defined by the different uses—bathing, food preparation, sleeping, weapons cache, exercise area, and private museum.
Maliha put her shoes in a bin near the door and dropped her clothes into another bin. Usually she went naked in her haven, or wore a light robe. This time she picked out a robe and set to work cleaning the few weapons that had survived the car crash and the stint in Sudan. Master Liu had impressed on her that her weapons came before leisure, and it had been bothering her that she hadn’t had an opportunity to clean them before this.
A sharp thwack across the back with a fighting stick brought her aware. Master Liu had returned. His face was as fierce as she’d seen it, but he didn’t shout. His quiet voice was lash enough.
“Your comfort is never to be placed above your duty to this school or the respect you pay to your weapons. Look about you.”
The floor was blood-smeared in places and so were some of the swords, knives, sticks, and other weapons used during the marathon session. Her uniform was marked with red from wounds beneath it. Maliha pulled up to her feet and began to work. At the first light of dawn, she fell asleep in her cot in the cabin behind the school. An earned sleep, with the school’s floor and weapons spotless and her body freshly bathed.
When her weapons were spotlessly clean, she restored them to their places in wall and shelf displays, where they shared space with an assortment of edged weapons and modern ones, gleaming swords and dull black Special Ops pistols, side by side.
Her wounds inflicted in Darfur were feeling much better, especially the bullet wound in her calf. The thigh wound, with the chunk of flesh removed, was still giving her trouble, but she could ignore it if she set her mind to it.
Maliha showered and called Randy Baxter, her connection to the normal twenty-something world, the one where it was possible to have fun that didn’t involve body-slamming someone unless it was foreplay.
“Are you alone tonight?” Maliha said. Randy knew her as Marsha Winters.
“Depends on why you’re asking.” It was a webcam communication, and Maliha could see that Randy was in the middle of dressing to go out. She fastened a score of buttons up the front of a white cotton dress, and then bent over to shake out her curly reddish-blonde hair.
Maliha peered at the screen. “Is that eyelet lace?”
“Yeah. Shows a lot of me underneath. Like it?”
“It’s terrific. Are you going out with Power Balls?” Randy had private nicknames for her guys.
Randy nodded. “You’re actually available for a girls’ night out?”
“Mm-hmm. And I want to get your take on Jake.”
“Already gave you that. Marry the guy.”
“You don’t know everything about him.”
“Yum, juicy. Girls’ night out and rampant gossiping. You’re not going to freak out and threaten to cut the hands off some guy because he groped you, are you? I mean, that was a little embarrassing.”
“Way too mellow for that.” I’ll go straight for his dick instead.
“I can detect the scent of wine on your breath from here. You must have gotten a head start. Let me call PB and tell him I’m sick.”
“Call me back when the deed is done. I’ll pick you up.”
Randy’s brow crinkled on the screen. “You shouldn’t be driving, Ms. Mellow. Let me get us a taxi.”
Maliha hadn’t been drinking, and chose her occasions carefully when she did. It didn’t make sense when spending eternity as Rabishu’s plaything—the penalty if she didn’t balance her scale—could rest on a single physical or mental response to a sudden threat.
“I’ll come in the limo.” Which reminds me that I need a new car.
“You are my beloved sugar mommy. Thirty minutes?”
“If I can decide on a dress fast enough.”
A quick call summoned one of her limo drivers, positions filled by a married couple who lived in the same building in a one-bedroom condo, courtesy of Maliha. They
were highly paid to make sure one of them was available whenever Maliha was in Chicago, trained in defensive driving tactics, and imperturbable. Tonight it was the wife, Ryba, a taciturn Eastern European woman. Ryba knew her way around the personal and vehicular defenses the limo carried and wouldn’t hesitate to use them. Having her as a driver seemed overkill for a night out on the town. If Ryba ever faced the baby-stroller-in-the-road challenge, she’d probably step on the gas if the safety of her passenger was at risk. At least Maliha felt secure with Ryba, if not socially correct.
Before getting dressed to go out, Maliha placed a quick call to Amaro.
“Don’t you ever sleep?” she said when he picked up promptly.
“Not often. What’s up?”
“I have something fun for you to do while you’re working on the depressing stuff. I need a new car. You know my car was totaled in Massachusetts.”
“No! Tell me about it.”
She gave him an abbreviated version. “I was banged up a lot but nothing serious. The car had a great custom crash system. Anyway, I’m thinking of another McLaren or a Pagani Zonda F. Why don’t you dig around and see what you can come up with? Don’t buy anything, though. I have to make sure my customizer can work with it first.”
“You’re kidding, right? Can I go on test rides?”
“This is for your spare time. You need to wrap things up with the abducted Darfur women. But yeah, you can do some test rides. Just say you’re the purchasing agent for an anonymous buyer and provide a credit letter from one of my Swiss accounts you have access to. They’ll guarantee that there is more than enough on deposit to pay in cash.”
“Cool. Wait a minute—there are more Swiss accounts I don’t know about?”
“Bye, Amaro.”
Maliha was sure she’d have a car soon, and have spared herself the tedious search. She pulled her thoughts back to her evening out. Randy was escapism, a way to set aside the deeper purpose of Maliha’s life, and was worth the little pretenses needed to keep up the illusion of normal life. Maliha picked a long, slinky blue dress with spaghetti straps that was cut nearly to the waist in the back, low enough to earn a disapproving look from Ryba.
Maliha loved it when men admired the tattoo on her back, a hawk that spread its wings over her shoulders. It was a remarkable gift from Master Liu. The tattoo drew attention away from the Chinese character branded on her shoulder, and that was fine with her. That brand was more private. It was her symbol of acceptance as Master Liu’s granddaughter and a member of his school—the completion of her training. While it was an honorary title, it was one they both took seriously. Her scale, her hawk tattoo, and the shou—long life—character on her shoulder were the tripod on which her life rested.
Why didn’t I run straight to Jake’s arms tonight? That’s where I’d like to be. But we have to clear the air. Why am I being such a coward about it?
“So what’s wrong with Jake? Does he want kinky sex or something?”
Maliha and Randy were crammed into a corner of the Only the Lonely Club, their table no bigger than a handkerchief. The place was packed in spite of its name, which conjured images of people sitting in silence, one person per table, the tables far apart and poorly lit. This interior of this club was brighter than daylight. The majority of the space was used for a dance floor containing so many mostly vertical people that they were in three hundred and sixty degree contact. Having rebuffed numerous requests to dance, the two women were talking with their heads tucked close together. Some lipreading was involved, even at that range.
Maliha smiled. Whatever Randy meant by kinky, she would bet that Randy’s concept was mild compared to situations Maliha had extricated herself from over the centuries.
Jake doesn’t even register on the kinkiness detector.
“No, nothing like that.”
“’Cause if that was it, you let me know and I’ll have a talk with him and call him off. After all, I did introduce you two.”
Randy had set up the blind date that sparked the romance between Jake and Maliha, so she thought she had some degree of responsibility if anything went wrong. But the thought of Randy having to protect her from an unwanted sexual approach nearly made Maliha laugh aloud. She bit her lip instead.
“No, really. You don’t need to talk to him.”
“He’s gay then.”
“Nope. Hey, this isn’t an interrogation. It has to do with his background. When I start seeing a guy, I ask a friend who does background investigations to check him out. I have to worry about stuff like that because of my books. You know, guys wanting to be Dick Stallion in the flesh. I asked him about Jake, and it turns out Jake has a gap of about five years during which he didn’t exist.”
Randy’s eyes narrowed. “Did your friend investigate me?”
Of course.
“Of course not. You’re a girl.”
“Okay then. Forget I asked.”
“When I say Jake didn’t exist, I mean he had no public records at all. No driver’s license. No IRS filings. No phone records. No dental records. Poof. Gone.”
“That’s what’s bothering you? That just makes him mysterious.”
That’s not the only thing that makes him mysterious. There’s the Incident, too. Damn, when I start thinking in capital letters I know things are bad.
“I mean, look at you. You write books. You do research for your books. You write more books. You live a dull life. You need to walk on the wild side. Jake is good for you. The dark, mysterious stranger who sweeps you away to…”
“To what, exactly?”
“Something exciting. A different kind of life. Marsha, it’s what we all dream about.”
“What if he did something bad during those years? He’s a government agent.”
“You mean like secret missions where he assassinates the bad guys?” Randy’s eyes sparkled. “I’m jealous. I should have kept him for myself. Wonder what his nickname would be. Want to part with the anatomical details?”
“You’re talking about the movies, Randy. Secret missions and all that. I mean, what if he’s a run-of-the-mill murderer?”
“You mean he was in prison for five years and the murders stopped? Or he started a fresh life after doing away with the wife and kids? Now you’re the one talking about the movies, Marsha. How likely is that? Do you think our government would let that kind of person be in the DEA?”
In the blink of an eye, if it served their needs.
“I guess not.”
Jake’s aura revealed a deep, probably murderous evil, overlaid with sincerity about doing his job and concern about protecting people. Maliha had glimpsed that same kind of aura—in the mirror the first and only time she’d tried to assess herself.
Randy tapped Maliha’s hand. She’d asked a question. “I said, do you love him?”
“Probably.” Yes.
“I’ll take that as yes. Then you have to love his flaws, too. You can’t wait for the fairy tale.”
It struck Maliha as something profound, coming from Randy who seemed so casual about her relationships. Buried in her statement was a genuine longing, something she’d never heard from Randy the Player.
Love his flaws. How about my husband, Nathan? I loved him when he married me and started a child in me. Should I also love that he stoned me and watched me set afire as a witch? I think she’s talking about flaws with a little f, not a big F. Which ones does Jake have?
“Hey, let’s dance.” Randy signaled that the serious stuff was settled as far as she was concerned.
Randy stood up, held out her hand to the first man who approached, and moved away to the dance floor. Maliha did the same, but she sat down after a while. The wound on her thigh was covered over so that it felt normal to her dance partners if they touched her, but it wasn’t fully healed underneath. The wound felt pulled in all directions from the dancing, reminding her that only a short time ago she’d been on horseback in the African desert.
Randy found someone to hook up with,
so Maliha rode home alone in the limo. All her nervous energy was gone and she was finally ready to sleep.
Alone.
Her haven welcomed her with its understated elegance and environment finely tuned to her solitary moments. With her bare feet enjoying the thick carpet, she wandered among the treasures. On the wall was a panel from the original Amber Room given as a gift to tsar Peter the Great in the early eighteenth century. The Amber Room was made entirely of tons of carved amber, accented with gold and mirrors. Looted and moved by the Nazis at the end of World War II, the room disappeared and its whereabouts have been a mystery since 1945. Most people think it was destroyed when the castle it was in was burned.
Maliha, then operating as Rabishu’s slave, was very active during the war, and one thing she did for herself was salvage a panel of the original room. It had sentimental meaning for her. For others it was a priceless treasure, but to her it was something she had stood in front of and admired at a ball given by a friend of hers, Elizabeth, Empress of Russia, only a few years before Elizabeth’s death.
Maliha moved from the carpeted area to the simple wooden plank flooring. It reminded her of the training platform of her martial arts school in the mountains of China, where Master Liu had taken her in as a resentful, awkward beginner. Master Liu was more than five thousand years old, an original Sumerian and priest of Anu. He knew he was the last one left, and he was forced to keep his immortal bargain with Rabishu for a reason far different from anyone else’s. He wanted to be alive to welcome Anu back to Earth when that time came, and to be the priest who would help the rest of the world understand the gods of its creation.