God's War

by Kameron Hurley

  Rhys joined the crowd of others moving into the mosque for prayer. The wave of women was far greater than that of men, a billowing tide of veils and burquas. He joined the trickle of old men, young boys, and the handful of household heads, and performed the ablution with them in the courtyard. He knelt with the other men in a neat row and praised God with them in one voice.

  Rhys found a moment of peace in the madness, and he clung to it.

  After, Rhys joined Khos in the bakkie. They circled the garret twice to look for movement or some kind of disturbance or for bel dames posting watch along the street. Rhys sent out a swarm of locusts to scout the area. They found nothing in the garret. No bel dames, no mercenaries. Nothing. He tried calling up some wasps to sniff out traps, but there were no local hives except for the one Rhys had set to watch Kine’s papers. He’d have to risk it.

  “You want to come up and help me detect explosives?” he asked as Khos parked the bakkie four blocks from the building.

  Khos grunted. “How’d I be good at that?”

  “All right.” It was worth asking.

  Rhys kept his hood up and walked to the door. The building manager had already replaced the lock that Rhys and Khos had broken while trying to get back in for their gear after Nyx was taken.

  Rhys pulled out one of his bug boxes and used a squirt beetle to spray the lock. The metal began to dissolve. Rhys pounded the lock free with his burnous-wrapped hand.

  He stepped inside.

  There was a dirty, pregnant white woman huddled on the stairs. Either she belonged to one of the other tenements or she had snuck in before the lock on the door was replaced. She wore a dirty hijab. He wondered what she was doing out of the foreigners’ ghetto.

  Rhys headed up the stairs and made to squeeze past her.

  She lifted her head. “Rhys?” she said, and tugged at his trousers.

  Rhys’s heart leapt. He reached for his pistols.

  “I’m Taite’s sister,” she said frantically. “You remember me? Rhys?”

  Her hair was a mess, partially hidden under the dirty hijab. The last time he’d seen Taite’s sister, she wasn’t yet showing her pregnancy. She had been beautiful and haunted. He didn’t remember her being so pale.

  “Inaya?” he said. “How did you get over the border?” A half-breed woman passing from Nasheen to Chenja? Across the border?

  “I can’t… I’m not….” She let out her breath.

  “What’s happened to Taite?”

  “Raine came for him,” Inaya said. “Taite told me you were here. I worked the way out.”

  “Worked out? How did you run the border?”

  “I just… did.”

  “Did anyone follow you?”

  “Not this time.”

  “Not this time?”

  “They couldn’t this time. But Raine followed me to Taite, back in Nasheen.” Her eyes began to fill with water. She looked like she’d been crying a good long while.

  “Has anyone else gone up past you? How long have you been here?”

  “Before dawn. I haven’t seen anyone but the man who came to fix the door.”

  “Good.” A Chenjan man with a woman—who was to all eyes foreign—would get him noticed. “Stay here,” he said.

  “Don’t leave me, please!” She grabbed his burnous.

  He took her hands, leaned toward her. As he touched her, he felt a curious lack, something he could not name. She had the feeling of a woman free from disease or contagion or petty hurt. Completely free. It was a slick, oily feeling.

  He released her hands. “It’s all right. I’m getting Khos. We’re just around the corner. Stay here. I’ll come back. I promise.”

  She choked back more tears.

  Rhys hurried outside. He found Khos and leaned into the bakkie window. “Taite’s sister is here.”

  Khos choked on cigar smoke. He put the cigar out on the dash. “Inaya is here?”

  “Yes.”

  “Oh, fuck.” He started to get out of the bakkie.

  “Don’t,” Rhys said. “The three of us walking around together—”

  “Her and I together is all right,” Khos said. He’d already gotten out. “I can take her. Is she veiled?”

  “She has a hijab.”

  “Good enough.”

  “Khos, she hates shape shifters.”

  “Yeah,” Khos said, and started tying back his dreads. “Did you ever wonder why?”

  “I don’t—”

  “How do you think a pregnant half-breed crossed the border?”

  “Oh,” Rhys said, and then, “Oh. But that’s impossible.” He remembered taking her hands. He remembered when he first saw her. “I can sense a shifter at three paces. I would have known when I met her.”

  Khos shrugged. “You’ve always been a shitty magician.”

  “Not when it comes to perception.”

  “What happened to her? She’s probably being tailed.”

  “Raine got Taite.”

  “Shit.”

  “Yes.”

  “All right. I’ll take her to a diner in the Mhorian district. You finish up what you need to do here and go tell Nyx what’s happening.”

  “Where will you be?”

  “Don’t worry about it. I’ll make my own way back to the brothel once she’s secure.”

  Rhys left a locust guard on the bakkie, and they both went to the building.

  Inaya stood when they entered. When she saw Khos, Rhys saw something in her face harden.

  “Khos will take you to a safe place, then we’ll get you back to Nyx. We need to clear things with her,” Rhys said.

  Inaya continued to stare at Khos, her expression grim.

  Khos held out his hand.

  She turned her head away.

  “Taite’s probably dead,” Khos said. “You come with me and maybe you live. You stay here and you get cut up by bel dames. You choose.”

  Khos walked back to the door and opened it for her.

  Rhys waited a tense moment. He saw a complicated play of emotions on Inaya’s face. Then she was moving to the door, awkward with her large belly.

  Khos followed her out.

  Rhys went upstairs and began the painstaking circle of their garret. It took him another half-hour, looking for traps, to convince himself that they hadn’t been here. He pulled Kine’s papers out of a hole in the floor that he’d covered over with a board and some more debris. He waved away the wasp guard. At least that had worked this time.

  Rhys bundled everything into his pack and headed out. He drove the bakkie to the brothel and then went up to talk to Nyx.

  Anneke said she was still sleeping.

  “I need to get her up,” Rhys said. He made to move to the door, but Anneke stepped in front of him. She barely came to his shoulder, but she had firmed up her jaw. Anneke’s stubborn look.

  “Let her be,” Anneke said. “Unless the fucking world is burning.”

  “Taite’s sister is here in Chenja. Raine has Taite.”

  “Raine?” Anneke said.

  He heard Nyx’s voice from inside, yelling for water and a pot to piss in.

  Anneke opened the door, and Rhys managed to push past her.

  Nyx didn’t look much better. One eye was still swollen shut, and her head looked too big. She had herself propped up on one elbow.

  “What the hell is this? You all want to watch me piss?”

  “Raine has Taite,” Rhys said, “and Taite’s sister is here. She needs sanctuary.”

  “Can I take a piss first?”

  Anneke brought in the pot, and helped Nyx squat over it. Rhys politely turned away.

  “Khos is having her wait in a diner,” Rhys said, “but we should bring her here.”

  Rhys waited until Nyx was done, then turned back. Anneke handed him the pot.

  “Go dump this,” she said.

  Rhys wrinkled his nose and took it out, dumping it in the street. Half a dozen blue beetles lit out from the gutters and began to feed. When
he returned, Nyx had been moved to the couch in the main room.

  “Don’t bring Inaya here,” Nyx said.

  “We can’t—”

  “Scout out another safe house. If you’re still certain she’s not being tagged, bring her there. We’ll follow. We can’t stay in a brothel forever. Underground or not, there are too many people who know we’re here. I don’t trust wagging Chenjan tongues.”

  “And what are we going to do about Taite?” Rhys asked.

  “You let me deal with that,” Nyx said.

  Rhys didn’t like her tone. “How are you going to deal with that?” he persisted.

  “You let me worry about it.”

  “We could find a safe house closer to the waterworks,” Anneke said. She had picked up one of her guns and begun taking it apart. “That’s where the fights are.”

  “Have you been down there yet?” Nyx asked.

  “Not yet,” Rhys said.

  “When we’re packed, I want you and Khos to head down there and report back tomorrow. All right?”

  Rhys nodded.

  Someone knocked at the door. Anneke picked up a rifle from under the divan and answered. The brothel mistress held a small package in her hands. “This came for

  you.”

  “You checked it for organics?” Rhys asked as he passed his hand over it.

  “Of course,” she said. “It came back organic, just not the sort you mean.”

  Anneke took the package and opened it up. She unwrapped a layer of stained

  gauze. Her expression was dark. She handed the package to Nyx.

  Rhys leaned in to get a better look.

  Nyx unfolded the gauze to reveal a perfectly formed ear, too pale to be Nasheenian or Chenjan. Underneath the ear was a note. Organic paper. It had

  eaten most of the blood. She held it up in her good hand.

  “What does it say?” Rhys asked.

  Nyx grunted. “Raine wants to swap Taite for Kine’s papers. But if he has

  Taite, he knows we burned all of those.”

  “The dictation sessions,” Rhys said. “Taite told me he was keeping them to see if he could get any names you wanted.” Taite wouldn’t have known what Rhys had kept.

  Nyx grimaced. “And I bet I have a real good idea where they ended up.”

  Rhys pressed his hands to his face. There was only one person Taite would have given the dictation sessions to. Why else would he have sent her here?

  “God be merciful,” Rhys muttered.

  “Inaya better hope so,” Nyx said, “cause if He’s not, Raine is headed right for us.”

  25

  Nyx had Khos carry her into the bombed-out building he and Rhys had found on the south side of the city. She didn’t like being carried, but she didn’t like the idea of walking any better. She had him put her down on a tattered divan, and when Anneke was done bringing up the gear, they started playing cards while Rhys and Khos went to go pick up Inaya.

  Nyx didn’t want to make any decisions until she could recognize her own face in a mirror. She needed to run a swap for Taite, she just didn’t know what kind. Raine wouldn’t have asked about transmissions unless Taite had told him they existed, and there was only one person Taite would give those to without ratting her out by name.

  She heard them on the stairs before she saw them but didn’t look up when Inaya arrived.

  Inaya came in yelling, quite a thing considering she had just come up four flights of stairs.

  “You bring my brother back, you black bitch,” Inaya said. She was still pretty. Fat and dirty, yes, but pretty.

  “Black?” Nyx said. “I’m not black.”

  “—or I swear to every saint—”

  “Cockroach brown,” Anneke said. She crowned her king, and swapped Nyx for an ace.

  “—I’ll tear out your heart—”

  “Cheap whiskey brown,” Anneke said. “We always end up with three extra aces. Who does that, huh?”

  “—and strip out your bones—”

  “I like being cheap,” Nyx said. “Anneke’s the black one. What’s this? Did you just steal my king?”

  “—from your skin and grind them—”

  “That’s an illegal move. What are you talking about?” Anneke said.

  “I’m just saying you’re pretty dark.”

  “—and grind them. You hear me? Grind them—”

  “What’s this? I told you, look at it, that’s another ace. That’s five aces in this deck.”

  “—into flour and pound you into bread!”

  “Are you done making dinner?” Nyx asked Inaya. Bread sounded real good about now. Food of any kind sounded good. What sounded less good was getting yelled at by some dumb pregnant Ras Tiegan. She took back her king and swapped out another ace. “I win,” she said.

  Anneke pounded the table.

  Inaya’s face was flushed. It wasn’t often Nyx saw anybody that color. Inaya kept her fists clenched. “I swear—”

  “I heard that already. Sit down before you bust something.”

  “Nyx,” Rhys said. He moved protectively toward Inaya, which just pissed off Nyx more. He called Nyx godless, but Taite’s sister with her Ras Tiegan bastard of a kid was virtuous? Bastard was a bad word in Ras Tieg. She wondered if Rhys knew that. “I think that maybe—”

  “It’s fine,” Nyx said.

  Inaya didn’t sit, but started clutching at her belly. She clenched her teeth and started huffing through her nose.

  “Yeah, hey, sit, would you?” Nyx said. A sudden sense of alarm sped through her. Pregnancy. Babies. Oh, fuck.

  Rhys went over to Inaya and helped her sit. Her whole body went taut, and she cried out.

  “Oh, shit,” Nyx said.

  Rhys put a palm to Inaya’s belly. “How long?” he asked.

  She thrashed on the couch, then went still, came back. “I don’t know.”

  “That’s all right.” He looked at Nyx. “We’ll need a midwife.”

  “With what money?” Nyx held up her right hand. “I’m still missing fingers and you think we can afford a midwife?”

  “We won’t find a respectable Chenjan woman who would do it,” Khos said. “I could take her back to the brothel. It’ll be tricky, but they know about babies.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” Anneke said, rolling up her sleeves. “I’ll do it.”

  “What do you know about babies?” Nyx asked.

  “My mom was a breeder, remember? Multiples are hard. Singles are easy.” She eyed Inaya over. “I gotta have help, and Nyx ain’t doing it.”

  Inaya’s eyes widened, and Nyx remembered she was Ras Tiegan. Modesty and all that. Worse than Chenjans.

  But the white girl grabbed Rhys’s hand, looked him in the face. “Taite trusts you,” she said. “Help me.”

  “Sure then,” Anneke said, and started waving around her hands. “You and Khos wait outside, Nyx. Rhys?”

  “I’ll heat some water,” Rhys said.

  Oh, hell, Nyx thought.

  Nyx and Khos sat in the main room and played cards and smoked a cheap cigar. They listened to Inaya shrieking. The room was stifling. The two of them swapped a sweat rag to wipe the damp from their faces. A swarm of flies circled at the center of the room.

  At dusk, Khos went out and brought back food for everyone. Inaya was still shrieking when he got back.

  Khos leaned toward Nyx over the remains of dinner, and whispered, “You think she’ll die?”

  “No more likely than with any other woman who gives birth.” She traded one of her cards. “Kid might die, though. No inoculations.” She had promised Taite inoculations, she realized, back when she believed they’d all live to bring in this note. She looked at her mangled right hand. She already knew they wouldn’t make it out whole.

  “But women still die doing it, right, even in Nasheen and Chenja?”

  “Of course, yeah. What, you thought this was going to be a party?”

  “What about Taite?”

  “I don’t
think he’s coming.”

  Khos grimaced. “I mean, what will you do about him?”

  “We don’t have anything to trade for him.” There was a lot going on with this note, and she was far enough behind to know that she was the player working with the least amount of information. It was a dangerous place to be. It got you mutilated. And dead.

  “We know where to find Nikodem, or at least where to start,” Khos said.

  “Yeah, but we don’t have her yet. I want you and Rhys to go to the waterworks tomorrow and ask around.”

  “You want to get her first?”

  “I think trading Nikodem for Taite is a safer deal.” And it would give her time to decipher the dictations and interrogate Nikodem when they found her. Trading Nikodem away without getting any information left her with exactly nothing…

  Inaya let out a long, low sound of distress. It was worse than the shrieking.

  “She sounds like she’s going to die,” Khos said.

  “Well, it happens.”

  “How can that be natural?”

  “What, death?”

  “Birth.”

  “No more natural than death.” She won the hand.

  Khos threw in his cards. “You’re making fun of me.”

  “You make it so easy.”

  Inaya’s noises were muffled now. She’d worn herself out. Then there was a long silence.

  Khos looked over at Nyx with his big, blue Mhorian eyes. “She’s dead,” he said. They were pretty eyes, if only because she didn’t see the color that often, but right now, with a woman bleeding and shrieking in the next room, he wasn’t terribly appealing.

  “Would you get off the death thing?”

  Nyx heard a baby cry.

  It was a strange sound, like a cat crying.

  And then there was another sound of crying—Inaya’s crying. Not shrieking, just crying.

  Nyx shuffled to her feet and opened the door into the little room with her good hand.

  Anneke was rubbing down the purple-red mewling kid with a clean towel. Was it supposed to be that color? Rhys was trying to soothe Inaya, but she was still sobbing, great heaving sobs.

  “What’s wrong?” Nyx asked.

  Anneke said, “It’s a boy.”

  26