A screaming tornado of insects swirled around the room, coating the walls in glistening black, purple, and green. They curtained the windows and crawled over me, trying to enter my mouth and ears even as they stung me.
“Where is it, boy? Where is it?” roared the giant “boss” creature, his hulking, fly-infested body bent over so his head wouldn’t scrape the ceiling. He snatched up an empty vase on one of the tables, sniffed at it, and then threw it on the floor. He opened cabinets and flung their contents left and right like a dog digging for a bone. Next he ripped down one of Mo’s pressed flowers and broke the frame into splinters. He plucked out the plant and held it between his finger and thumb before grinding it into dust. Then he yanked down another, and another, his fury rising with each one. “It has to be here!”
No, no, no! In that awful moment, I didn’t care that he was twice my height and had ten times my strength—I had to save those pictures. The wok had rolled to the opposite side of the room, too far for me to reach. With teeth clamped and fists tight, I hurled myself at his back.
The giant spun around—lightning fast—and grabbed me in midair. His fingers locked around my neck like an iron collar. He drew me nearer. “Tell me where it is, boy.”
Leathery patches of skin hung off his face, among patches of raw red flesh seeping with pus and crawling with flies. Gaping holes in his cheeks exposed the sinews of his jaw, and his nose was a pair of rotten holes. But nothing matched the darkness of his eyes—pure black and overflowing with hate. I shivered, unable to escape their drowning, endless depths. He squeezed my throat. “Where is it?” he hissed, his stench poisoning what little oxygen I had left.
What is he talking about? I kicked out feebly, my strength all but gone, like the air in my lungs. Blackness crawled in from the edges of my vision.
“Let him go,” said a voice from behind me.
Through the haze of semiconsciousness, I was expecting a cop, but instead I got…
A ninja?
Sure, why not? Things were crazy enough, so why not a ninja? She stood in the doorway, dressed in midnight black with her face hidden by a ski mask, carrying a gleaming scimitar.
The sword’s single edge shimmered with exceeding sharpness, but I wished she’d brought a bazooka. She raised her blade. “I said, let him go.”
The giant dropped me with a hard thud. He gestured at his two minions. “Deal with her.”
Idiptu was crouched on a dining table, grinning. “My pleasure, Boss.” His thick legs catapulted him at the girl.
The ninja threw her whole body into a blinding spin, swinging her right foot up in a high arc. Her boot heel smashed Idiptu in the side of the jaw like a wrecking ball. Teeth burst from his mouth as he sailed into our shelf of syrup jars. His bowler hat spun over the countertop.
The ninja paused, her foot poised in the air. Then she lowered it back to the floor as lightly as a ballet dancer. She turned to Sidana and, I swear, arched her eyebrow. “You next?”
Maybe she didn’t need a bazooka after all.
Sidana scurried over to his unconscious, toothless friend. “T’would be unwise after that performance,” he said ingratiatingly to the ninja. “Not to mention your mother’s importance.”
Mother? Wait…they know each other?
The ninja gripped her sword in both hands and turned back to the boss. Things were about to go epic.
The giant scowled. “Do you really think you have a chance against me? Even with Kasusu?”
The ninja pointed her scimitar at him. “Let’s find out, Uncle.”
Uncle? Uncle?!
“Just hang on, habibi!” Baba began smashing at the security door lock from the other side with what sounded like a fire extinguisher.
“No!” I cried. “It’s not safe!”
The giant exploded into a roaring hurricane of insects and rammed the front windows. The glass shattered, and the security gates were torn clean out of their frames. The steel clattered on the sidewalk as the whirlwind rose into the night sky.
“I’m coming!” yelled Baba.
Sidana heaved Idiptu out the now-demolished windows, leaving only my sword-wielding savior. She flicked the blade into a round leather sheath and headed for the back door.
“Wait…” I said.
She paused.
“You have to tell me—” Sirens wailed nearby. I turned my head to see blue-and-red police lights illuminating the street and a crowd gathering outside. “What’s going on? He…He was looking for something.…”
But when I turned back to hear her answer, no one was there.
The apartment door crashed open, and Baba barged in, wild-eyed and waving the fire extinguisher, with Mama beside him. Cowering behind them was Daoud.
“They’re gone,” I said, collapsing to my knees. Without adrenaline to keep me going, all my terror turned to pure exhaustion.
Baba froze, gaping at the devastation, while Mama said, “Habibi, oh, habibi…” and wrapped her arms around me.
Baba stumbled over the wreckage and knelt down beside me. “What were you thinking, facing them all by yourself?”
Why did he even need to ask? “The deli, Baba…”
Mama squeezed me tighter. “The deli, Sik? The deli doesn’t matter!”
They didn’t get it. They just didn’t.
“Look at what they’ve done.…” Daoud picked up one of the broken frames and tried to gently lift the flower out. It crumbled in his hands.
THEY’D DESTROYED OUR HOME.
I thought it had looked bad at night, but in the glaring light of morning, I could see the whole extent of the damage. Mama shuffled around the carnage, dazed, whispering, “Laa, laa, laa…”
The police had come and gone. They’d taken pictures and statements and had scheduled a time for us to go down to the station to look at mug shots. See if we could recognize the guys behind the attack.
Recognize them? How could I ever forget guys who looked like toads and rats, and a giant made of a billion flies? But somehow I doubted they’d be in any police database.
Had it really happened the way I remembered it? I’d tried to explain what I saw, but the police officer just shook his head and said I was in shock. Mama and Baba didn’t know what to make of it, either, and Daoud…he claimed he hadn’t seen anything. It was too dark in the alley. He hadn’t even stuck around to help us clean up, saying he was “too upset.” Typical Daoud.
I went down the counter with a big trash bag, adding the cabbage to the rest of the mulched vegetables. Everything had gone bad—vegetables, fruit, meat, everything. Maggots had somehow even found their way into airtight jars. There are few things fouler than watching huge white maggots writhe inside jars of apricot syrup. And the decay wasn’t limited to food. The wooden tables had rotted overnight—one had collapsed into sawdust. The gas pipes to the cookers had a worrying coat of rust on them.
“Pizza! Hot outta the oven!”
Our across-the-street neighbor Mr. Georgiou barged in with four big pizza boxes—two-footers. He swept his gaze over our deli—or what was left of it—and for a moment, his face fell. Then he slapped his mighty belly, holding his pizzas aloft as if he were carrying the Super Bowl trophy. “Who wants a slice?”
“For breakfast?” I asked.
We cleared space on a table, and he laid the boxes down, glancing over at my parents. “How they doing, Sik?” he whispered.
Baba sat at the other remaining table with all his papers out, on the phone with the insurance company. “Six months?! We need to restart the business today, not in half a year!” He rustled through the sheets. “What do you mean, health code violations?” His knuckles whitened as he gripped the handset. “No—don’t you dare…Hello? Hello?”
Mr. Georgiou shook his head. “This place’ll be up and running again before you know it. Better than ever.”
“How?” It hurt seeing our home so…contaminated. I wanted to bulldoze it flat. “How do you know?”
Mr. Georgiou grinned. “This t
ime your parents have you to help, Sik.”
Me? How was I going to fix any of this?
But I had to. This destruction was my fault. I hadn’t fought hard enough. And what had Boss Bug been after? It made no sense—we didn’t have much. I gazed at the wreckage. And now we had even less.
Mr. Georgiou rested his big hands across his bigger belly. “Leave supper to us. Livia’s cooking up a lasagna for you guys. Halal, of course.”
“Of course.” The pizzas smelled delicious—he’d been generous with the garlic and anchovies—but I had no appetite. “Thanks.”
“Look after your folks,” said Mr. Georgiou, and then he headed back across the street to his pizzeria.
“Don’t I always?” I said to no one.
Mama sighed and continued sweeping up the broken glass, dead flies, shattered frames, and Mo’s flowers. She put all the dried blossoms in a separate pile and gazed at them, fighting back tears. Those pressed flowers were worthless to anyone but us. They were all we had left of Mo, and they’d been destroyed out of pure maliciousness.
She caught me looking at her and offered a smile. A sad, fragile one. “It’ll be fine, habibi. Inshallah.”
“Yeah, Mama. Inshallah.”
God willing.
Mama and Baba were refugees. They knew what it was like to lose everything overnight, and ever since the first time, they’d lived with the dread that it could happen again. Now that fear was back in their eyes—they couldn’t hide it. I felt it, too, a black mass clogging my throat. It would choke me if I wasn’t careful.
I would make everything better for them. Somehow I’d fix this. I reached for her broom. “Let me help.”
She looked me over and frowned. “Are you still itching?”
Oh, that. I was lathered up in calamine lotion and had swallowed a bucketful of antihistamines with my morning orange juice. My face was a volcanic red landscape of bites and stings with blue patches of bruising under the eyes. I should have been in a coma, but I barely felt a thing. “It looks worse than it feels.”
“Fine, in which case there’s no reason to miss school,” she said.
“School? What about here? We haven’t even started on the kitchen yet. You need—”
Mama fixed her gaze upon me. “To school, young man.”
“I could—”
“Now.”
I snuck into the back of the classroom halfway through social studies. Mr. Grant didn’t notice my late arrival—he was too busy arguing with one of the other students. Good. Maybe I could sit quietly and think up a way to save our deli. After all, you went to school to get smarter, right? I took the empty seat next to Jake.
He stared at me, horrified. “What the heck, Sik? You infected?”
“Bad night at the deli.” I flicked up my hoodie. I could do without the whole school staring at me.
“You missed an epic game last night! We’re level twenty now—we’re fighting demons! Can you imagine that?”
“Actually, I can,” I replied. “Whoa. Level twenty? We were only fifth when I last played.…”
“It’s been a long time.” Jake nudged me. “You should come back, Sik. There’s always room for another hero.”
“My folks need me at the deli right now. You know how it is.”
I could see his disappointed resignation. I’d used that excuse a hundred times, maybe a thousand. We didn’t need to go over it again.
I glanced up front. “What’s all the drama?”
“Belet.”
I should have guessed.
How could someone make so many enemies so quickly? She’d been here only a few days and was adding Mr. Grant to her already long list.
Despite being Iraqi like me, Belet spoke in a snooty British accent. It was obvious she belonged in some uptown prep academy, not a run-down public school like Hudson Square. Her baggy gray pants did not look cheap, and the same went for the tight top that covered her from wrist to neck. Her sneakers were plain white, but I bet they cost more than our monthly rent.
Rumor had it that she’d been kicked out of every decent school in the city until only we were left. Watching her in action, it was easy to believe.
She suddenly turned and looked straight at me from under the bangs of her tight bob. She wore kohl around her dark eyes—the only makeup she bothered with—amplifying their brooding intensity. Belet seemed stunned by my presence, or perhaps it was just my face. It had drawn a few strange looks on the subway. Then she focused her attention back on Grant.
“Jefferson stole all his best ideas,” she declared. “And from one man: Cicero.”
“Jefferson’s inspirations were wide and varied,” said Grant wearily.
Belet rolled her eyes. “If your knowledge of history stretched back farther than 1620, you’d know that I am right and you are wrong.”
Grant chewed on his mustache, never a good sign, and the vein in his temple throbbed, an even worse sign. “Careful, young lady. I have been teaching this subject for twenty years.”
“Incorrectly,” Belet replied matter-of-factly.
I winced, almost feeling sorry for Grant. Belet fought dirty.
His vein turned deep purple. “I didn’t quite catch that.”
Belet hooked her thumbs into her pockets. “Cuiusvis hominis est errare. Nullius nisi insipientis in errore perseverare.”
Now, I didn’t understand Latin, but I understood that someone had just gotten burned.
“I beg your pardon?” said Grant through gritted teeth.
“Any man can make a mistake,” said Belet. “But only a fool keeps making the same one.”
I laughed. I didn’t mean to, but it slipped out, louder than it should have. What can I say? It had been a tough night, and I needed something to lighten my mood, even if it was Belet.
Grant took off his glasses and wiped them on his tie. “Do you have something to add, Mr. Aziz?”
Uh-oh.
“No, sir. It’s just I’m a big fan of, er…Latin.”
I know, I know. Of all the dumb things to say, that was perhaps the dumbest.
“Really?” Mr. Grant grinned like a shark about to have a big, juicy meal. “Perhaps you could share your enthusiasm with the rest of us?”
“Nope. I think Belet’s doing fine without me.”
Grant’s smile widened. “I insist. Stand up.”
Okay, I was caught. Might as well try and make this as painless as possible. Everyone turned to me, and the shock of my cream-covered battlefield of a face ran all the way from Belet to the back of the classroom. A few even flinched.
Latin…What did I know about Latin? Math was my specialty—you spend enough time at the cash register and you learn to love numbers, because each and every one means dollars and cents, and enough of those mean business is booming.
That gave me an idea.
“We’re all waiting,” said Mr. Grant, enjoying bringing everyone else into my public torture.
“Okay. Here’s my favorite quote.” I took a deep breath. “E pluribus unum.”
Grant’s jaw tensed, and his gaze narrowed. “And do you know what that means?”
“Sure do.” I grinned. “Another satisfied customer.”
Someone giggled. Grant snapped his fingers and pointed at the door. “The principal’s office. Both of you.”
“The principal’s office is thataway,” I said, pointing left.
“Which is why I’m going thisaway,” replied Belet, pointing right. “Enjoy your detention.”
“You’ll get in even more trouble, Belet.”
“Oh, I think I can handle it.” Then she turned around slowly, frowning. “But thank you for your concern.”
“Okaaay. I see the concept of human interaction is new to you, but if you don’t come to the principal’s office, she’ll blame me, and I don’t need any more grief right now.”
“Why aren’t you in hospital? You look hideous.”
“I’m fine, but thank you for your concern.” How did things get so awkwar
d so quickly?
She just stood there staring at me. Then her phone rang.
She ignored it.
“Aren’t you going to answer that?”
“It’s just Mother,” said Belet. “She’s the only one who has my number.”
“No friends, huh?” Now, that didn’t surprise me at all.
There was a strange tension between us as we faced each other, and it kept building as the phone kept ringing.
“Just answer it, will you?” I snapped.
At last she did. “Yes, Mother?”
It was a very smart-looking smartphone. The screen shimmered as though coated in a pearly oil. Like everything else she owned, it appeared insanely expensive.
“Nothing out of the ordinary,” Belet said. “Just a regular day.”
So, getting sent to the principal’s office is pretty routine for you?
“No, Mother. Do not collect me. I can make my—” Belet scowled. “I’m sure I can use the subway. It’s not complicated.”
She’d never taken the subway before? Some people…
“Fine. You can pick me up, just this once.” She turned her back on me to whisper, “No, Mother, it’s not like that.…Yes, yes, I love you, too. Obviously.”
Belet ended the call and dangled the phone between her fingers, clearly not happy about what she just agreed to.
“I know I’m going to regret asking this, but why don’t you want your mom to pick you up?”
Belet’s scowl deepened. “I don’t see how this is any of your business.”
“You’re ashamed of her?”
“Not ashamed, but parents can be embarrassing.”
”C’mon, there must be something she—”
“Look who it is.”
We both turned as three guys headed toward us, one of them punching the metal lockers as they approached.
Great. Zack and his gang of two. You must know the type. Big everywhere except in the brain cells. “Hey, raghead. Your parents still serving dog meat?”
“Only on Wednesdays,” I replied.
Zack pulled off my hood and grimaced. “Jeez, you mutating, or what?”
Hobbs stepped back. “Don’t get too close to him, Zack. It’s Ebola for sure.”
City of the Plague God Page 3