“We’ll come to that. But first I need to know if you’re capable of protecting us again.”
“You know I am.”
“Good. I have a target for you.” The bel dame rubbed her hands together, opened them. A grainy blue-gray mist appeared between her hands, and took the shape of a woman. In that moment, she wondered if her impression of this bel dame was correct. There were no bel dame magicians. Shifters, yes, but no magicians. I still have no sense of her, she thought. The blindness was crippling. Like being half a person. Demimonde, the Ras Tiegans said. She had had a Ras Tiegan lover once, hadn’t she? A bitter girl with a fragile heart.
“You see this woman?” the bel dame magician said.
“I’ve seen many women.”
“I want her dead.”
“That’s all?”
“That’s all. She exiled herself sometime after her… retirement. Few know where, but with the pardoning of so many criminals, there are a good many powerful ones on their way back to Nasheen. They will have old scores to settle with her. I have it on good authority that she’s conspiring to make trouble for the Families.”
She laughed. “What is she, a mutant? A rogue conjurer?” She leaned forward, bared her teeth. “Tell me something nasty came down from the moons. One of those organic demons, or a blood djinn—”
The bel dame shook her head. “She’s just a woman.”
“You would wake me for… a woman? Just a woman?”
“There is far more than one head at stake. But I must see if your… rehabilitation has been effective.”
“To see if you can control me?”
The bel dame did not answer.
She laughed. “Does she have a name?”
“Do you?”
“I suppose I must.”
“And does it matter?”
“Not now.”
“I’m counting on it.” The bel dame slapped her hands together, and the mist cleared.
“I’ll get you more information after your deprocessing. You and her will have some things in common. Hard to catch. And powerful. Far too smart for your own good. You understand?”
“Send a monster to kill a monster.”
“Something like that. One more thing. She will not show herself easily. You will have to root her out. Exploit those with an interest in her—and those she has an interest in. They may not be trustworthy, but they will be skilled. Can you kill her?”
“You know why I’m here?”
Some emotion passed over the bel dame’s face. Something like dread or fear. Finally. “Of course. Everyone knows why you’re here.”
“Everyone who remembers.”
“Yes. Though all the ones who were there when you did it are good and dead now. Only you mutants live on.”
“Then you know what I can do.”
“Good,” the bel dame said.
“I have a name,” she said.
The bel dame regarded her. The Plague Sisters were tense. One of them stepped forward, fast, and plunged a syringe into her thigh. The bloody thing bit into her, and blinked up at her dumbly. She hated live syringes.
“I have a name,” she repeated as the gray haze covered her mind again, dampened the world.
“You do,” the bel dame murmured. “But no one out there remembers it. Praise be to God.”
9.
Nyx did not go back to Mercia’s that night. She made a few calls and got drunk on cheap whiskey at a bar with a name she couldn’t pronounce, and slept it off in a gutter somewhere. She woke to find a grizzled war vet trying to steal her sword. She ran him through with it and left him wailing there in the street as she stumbled off to find a cheap room for the night.
She needed to put together a team. But it had to be a team of strangers, people she could run through as easily as she had that war vet. Everyone was in danger, now. Everything was on the line. Fatima promised that more information about Raine’s whereabouts would be forthcoming. She was going to need the whole scenario—where he disappeared from, who last saw him.
In the morning, she cleaned her weapons and herself and rented a storefront from a venom dealer in one of the less pristine parts of Amtullah, close to a rank of rickshaws and makeshift Ras Tiegan eateries. Most war vets developed a taste for curry at the front. Ras Tiegan expatriates living in Chenja always did well during skirmishes when the border switched. Both sides ate their food, and harbored little animosity for them as a people. Nyx knew it would be a good place to find men and women who knew how to shoot straight.
Putting up a sign in the door saying you were looking for mercenaries generally wasn’t done, even in Nasheen. You told people you were looking for magicians and “bug killers” or “precision bug hunters.” Using that language would dissuade the order keepers for a while, but it wouldn’t fool anybody trying to track Nyx’s movements. She kept a watch on the street, looking for anybody paying too much attention to her business.
When she put up the sign, she expected to get a fair number of hedge witches and venom-addled tissue mechanics knocking on her door, but those could be weeded out pretty quickly.
What she didn’t expect was the long line of boys standing outside.
Nyx spent the morning interviewing boys between the ages of seventeen and thirty-six, most of whom should have been mixing up burst shells and developing contagions at the front. There were some real surprises, though—two or three were actual, God-fearing, certified magicians. When she turned them away, it wasn’t for lack of skill—she just didn’t respect them. If you were going to hump a team into the desert after some group of reckless rogues, you had to respect that team.
As she sat in the storefront memorizing names and faces—she learned most things by rote—she thought about how much it was like being at the front. When they sat down, she had a knee-jerk impulse to ask them for their orders, like she was back in Sharifa screening sappers.
There were fresh-faced young boys not a day over sixteen who hadn’t been at the front six months when they got pulled home. There were bug-addled twenty- and thirty-year-old veterans with missing eyes, severed limbs, poorly patched-together heads that barely kept their brains in, and worse; boys wearing long sleeves who twitched and jittered in their seats, trying to hide signs of venom addiction; young, bearded men with eyes deep and empty as dry wells; and the hardened ones, the distant ones, the ones who did not look at you but through you, off just beyond your left shoulder where the war still raged, where their best friends bled out, where a buddy took a bullet or a burst they were too scared to take themselves. Boys who had pushed their friends into fire, or abandoned them during a surge, listening to their cries as the Chenjans tore them apart; and there were the soft-spoken, matter-of-fact heroic boys, the few who had lived. They talked the least, said “sir” the most. They were the ones who’d done what she hadn’t, and what most living folks never would—they lost their limbs, their skins, their sanity to take a burst or a bullet for a friend, for a squad, to save a mission.
Those were the ones she worried about most. The heroes. Heroes were unpredictable. They’d be the most likely to die in the desert, throwing themselves to some unnecessary death to save some damn fool. When you hired a mercenary, you didn’t want to hire a hero. You wanted men and women with guns who liked living enough to use them.
She took a break for midday meal, which suited the men in the queue just fine, as they dispersed for noon prayer. She ate up on the roof, watching the men wander off. She noted that one of them did not—a hunched beggar sitting against the cracked tile of the building across from hers. She resolved to keep an eye on him.
That night, discouraged, she settled into the bare office, and lay under the desk in case the bursts started again and the roof fell in. Habit.
Tomorrow would be a long day. If Fatima knew she was back in Nasheen, other people would too. They would come searching for her. She needed to move quickly, before too many people found out she was back in the country.
Nyx slept lightly
.
When she heard a scraping at the door, she woke instantly. The pale blue dawn had turned the world gray. Nyx saw the light cutting through the slats of the shuttered windows. She listened.
More scraping, scrabbling at the front door, like somebody was trying to circumvent the security. Nyx came up in a crouch. She drew her scattergun and padded into the reception room. She waved her hand in front of the door before remembering it was the old-fashioned solid kind, not a smart door like her store in Mushtallah.
She unlatched the door and yanked it open. Pushed her scattergun out ahead of her.
The scattergun snapped a young man right in the center of his forehead. The man flailed back, grabbing at his face.
“Get going before I put a bullet in it!” Nyx said.
The man stumbled off the stoop, peering at her through splayed fingers. He snorted something. Like a laugh.
“You couldn’t hit a bakkie at that distance,” he said, and snickered again. She recognized him then—the petulant mouth, the slightly bent spine.
“Eshe?” Nyx said.
He pulled his hands away.
“Shame you didn’t get prettier,” Nyx said, holstering her pistol.
“You aren’t exactly beddable either,” Eshe said.
“I know some folks might argue that point.” She glanced left, right, down the misty street. The stink of munitions was still heavy in the air. “Get the fuck inside before some other old woman shoots you.”
Eshe woke to the pungent aroma of frying dog meat. The smell was intoxicating. Getting over the Nasheenian border meant shifting, and he was still starving for meat. There was never enough protein in the world after a few days in form.
He rubbed his eyes and rose from the hard pallet in the reception room of the storefront. He saw Nyx standing at a hot plate on the other side of the room. There was a wash basin next to the plate, with actual running water. In Ras Tieg, he could never afford that kind of luxury. All the water came from barrels on the roof. He pulled his knees to his chest and watched Nyx. There was something comforting about her muttering at the frying pan, shifting her generous weight back and forth on her bare, scarred legs. She had put on a lot of weight since the last time he saw her, so if he didn’t know how powerful she was under all that flesh, he might think to call her soft or fat. But it wasn’t the sort of fat he saw on rich people. It was the bulk of an aging boxer who had long since stepped out of the ring.
“You gonna sit there and stare, or eat?” Nyx asked.
Eshe grinned and got up to help her.
The meat was tough and stringy, barely edible, probably something she had bought and rehydrated for the occasion.
“How much you pay to rent this storefront?” Eshe asked. They sat in the reception room as the sun came up. The floor was covered in bug carapaces. Eshe saw two cracked windows and a broken flesh beetle skin that filtered the worst of the sun’s rays—a cheaper solution to getting an operational filter. It wasn’t random chance that brought him to her. He had contacted her house in Druce before he left Ras Tieg, and Anneke said she was heading to Amtullah with some diplomat. Nyx in the company of a diplomat was strange enough. He half thought Anneke was using some kind of code that meant Nyx was going to prison.
Once he knew where she’d gone, she was easy to find. The boys on the street knew where to find all the most dangerous women in town. When he told Nyx how easily he found her, she hadn’t looked pleased.
“Too much,” Nyx said. “But I’m not staying long.”
“This about the job? The one you talked about last night?”
She nodded, but didn’t look at him.
As they ate, the call to prayer sounded, long and oddly mournful this morning. Eshe stilled for a long minute to listen. It tugged at something inside him. He had missed that sound. He set his food down and unrolled his prayer rug.
It was good to be back.
When he finished praying, he saw Nyx staring at him. “What?” he said.
“I don’t know I’m going anywhere you’ll like,” Nyx said.
Eshe shrugged. “I got tired of Ras Tieg. I like our work better. Come on, Nyx. I can help. I have a lot more experience now.” She had told him about the job the night before, but it wasn’t until now that he realized she hadn’t invited him to join her.
“Experience with what?”
“Just… everything. You’ll need a shifter on your team, won’t you? Somebody good with a knife? You know that’s me.”
She stared into her bowl. Something twisted in her face, something like resolve.
“Yeah, I’ve gotta have somebody I can trust.”
“You can trust me.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of.”
“I don’t get it.”
“Fatima’s sending some people with me. A magician and a bel dame. Best intel she’s got says Raine is being taken north, into Khairi. The magician’s supposed to act as a guide through Khairi. But I can’t trust her magician. Or her bel dame. I need my own team.”
“Call Suha then. Aren’t there other people you’ve worked with, too?”
Nyx shook her head. “It’s bad enough taking you.”
“So you’re taking me? I mean, hiring me?”
“You negotiating now?”
“Are you paying?”
“We’ll see. Listen, lots of boys think the bel dames took Raine. If that’s so, he’s probably dead. I heard the monarchy’s on the way out, but what comes after that?” Nyx said. “Electing some man to the low council? The high council? That’s as close as they’re getting.”
Eshe shook his head. “From what I heard, the Mhorians have had some influence. Might be nice for something fresh, though, you think?”
Nyx snorted. “There’s no new thing. Just the same old shit in different clothes.”
He had forgotten just how grim Nyx could be. Inaya was lively and optimistic by comparison.
“Well, it’s not like things can go on the way they are,” Eshe said. “The Queen’s got no heirs, and her successor isn’t around anymore.”
“That was an accident,” Nyx said.
“Yeah, well, tell Nasheen that,” Eshe said.
“You pissed at me?” She peered at him.
Eshe started. “No. I just… It’s just strange to be back.” She hadn’t asked him yet about Ras Tieg, or Inaya, or anything that had happened to him since they parted. He knew she didn’t like to ask questions outright. She said it was rude to ask personal information from trusted people because it implied you didn’t trust them. But he wanted to tell her about Inaya and the Fourré, and the priests he had killed and how crazy the Ras Tiegan bordels were compared to Nasheenian brothels and how much he had missed the wild swagger and careless confidence of Nasheenian women.
He wasn’t sure what he expected to come back to, but now he found himself watching Nyx hopefully, like a kid. He knew better than that. He wasn’t a kid anymore. But he felt safer and more wanted around her than he had with anyone else in a long time.
She left her dirty dishes on the floor, and stood. “You in, then?”
He tried to sound casual. “As long as there’s work to do.”
“Always work to do,” Nyx said.
“You never turned down a job, right? I never have either.”
He got to his feet. When they stood next to each other, he was nearly as tall as her, which made him tall in Ras Tieg. It was strange what a few years could do. Despite the height, and the extra bulk, she was smaller than he remembered, and a lot older. The hair braided back against her scalp was long and thick—not the sort of hair you wanted to drag with you into a fight, unless you wanted to give your attacker a handhold—and he could just make out a few silver threads. But her ragged face, scarred throat, and mismatched skin said volumes about who and what she was—and why nobody should fuck with her. He half hoped he would look that ravaged at her age. Maybe people would take him more seriously.
Nyx rubbed her eyes. “Good. I’m kinda tired of
exile. Maybe you are too.”
“Yeah,” Eshe said, but it wasn’t the rioting, tar-tasting streets of Nasheen he was yearning to get back to. For once, he wanted to feel like he was needed somewhere, like he actually fit. Being with Nyx was the closest thing to feeling like he was home. Like somebody gave a shit.
Nyx said, “Let’s get started then.”
Three hours and twelve candidates later, Nyx was ready to close up shop. The sun was low in the sky, and evening prayer would be coming on soon. Fuck having her own magician. She would rely on Fatima’s and take her fucking chances.
Eshe escorted the next one in. When Nyx looked up, she saw a tall, lean man fill her doorway. That in itself was not remarkable. But his face was. He might not yet have been thirty—hard to tell. He had the aspect of a good boy made old by war. His skin was puckered with wind-scoured creases—fine lines at the edges of his eyes, his mouth. Unlike the ravaged bodies she’d been processing all day, he was whole. She saw the tail end of some broad scar peeking up from his collar, but that was it. His eyes were hazel-gray—shifty, she thought—set in a dour, handsome face with a strong jaw. His dark hair was sun-kissed a deep brown, dusty, and unkempt—it just brushed the nape of his neck. Nice hair, for a war vet. Most shaved it clean or had it all burned off.
If Mercia was attractive for her plainness, this man was remarkable for his beauty—particularly in a place where smooth skin and supple limbs didn’t last long.
“Have a seat,” Nyx said.
He hesitated, one hand on the back of the chair. She figured out the reason for the hesitation, or thought she did. “No need to salute,” she said. “I haven’t served in a long time.”
He bowed his head slightly as he sat, like some Tirhani businessman. “I am Ahmed al Kaidan.” His voice was soft, but she caught the hint of a speech impediment; gentle slurring that turned the end of his words to mush.
“Did you have a rank?” she asked.
He passed a token to her. A black scarab in tailored resin. “I’ve been told I can bleed on this, and it will verify my service,” he said.
Nyx had seen a few of these tokens from other hopefuls. Some new thing the government was doing to help discharged boys find jobs without a lot of paperwork.
Rapture Page 9