Thirst of Steel

by Ronie Kendig

  “I was right,” Dr. Cathey breathed, gaping.

  The professor’s pallor, the wildness in his aged eyes, froze Ram. That and the way the men watched him. Like a lab rat. As if they’d tested him. As if he’d proven their theory.

  “Do you sense it, Ram?” Tzaddik asked.

  He peered down into strange gray eyes that seemed to probe the very hollows of his soul. What was Tzaddik asking?

  “Do you sense the thirst of steel?”

  Ram slammed his forearms against Tzaddik’s chest, pinning him harder, then took a step back. Rattled by the rage inside him. “This is not the thirst of steel. It’s the thirst”—he cast around for a substitute—“for justice.”

  “But you are unreasonably angry,” Dr. Cathey said.

  Ram glowered. “You haven’t seen ‘unreasonably angry’ yet. What I have”—he held up his bruised arm—“is a disorder. Handled with medication. This isn’t a curse tied to a sword. It’s a blood disorder.”

  “Dude.” Cell came to his side. “What’s with the bruise? Why’re they going ape?”

  “It’s nothing,” Ram growled, irritated with himself for letting that slip.

  “Then why are you so angry?” Thor asked.

  “Because.” Ram steeled his fury. “False hope does no good. It drove my father crazy, and now it has my sister in danger. And all of us, if we cannot bring this war to an end.” He took a measuring breath, then reconsidered his words. “No, not just the war. The Arrow & Flame.”

  The arrow symbol for their swift response to the Hebrews. The flame for the boiling of their blood. At least, that was what he’d guessed.

  Dr. Cathey moved nearer. “It’s coming to a head, is it not?”

  Sitting, Ram threaded his fingers and bent forward, arms resting on his knees. “You are as feckless as those trying to reassemble the sword.”

  “Do not be quick to dismiss or mock,” Tzaddik said. “What you suffer may well be disease-borne, but remember where it came from. On that battlefield, where Gulat sought to destroy the Hebrews, he was trapped by his own thirst for greed and power.”

  “I am trapped, but not by greed or power.” Frustration squeezed Ram’s lungs. He hated what he’d had to fight all his life, what had too often left him weak. “All I want is to save my sister. Bring her back alive and in one piece. Get her away from him.”

  Dr. Cathey frowned, his head tilting in confusion. “Who?”

  Ram started. Lowered his gaze. Gave the second answer on his tongue. “Nur.”

  Discerning eyes held his, and Ram stuffed back the memories, the nightmares. The truth of what he’d seen as a teen.

  “What of your father?” Cathey asked.

  “What of him?” There was no way the professor could know his father sat in the catacombs of a church in Russia, held by Nur Abidaoud. Or that Ram hated his father. And telling him anything would only further endanger Tzivia.

  Tzaddik nodded. “Your answers grow more agitated and pronounced as we persist.” Creased eyes considered him, leaking sympathy and perhaps even understanding. But it was the former that boiled Ram’s blood.

  “Hey,” Runt said with a nod, “give it to us.”

  Concern carved through Maangi’s expression. “We’re your team. What’s going on?”

  “We got your six, man, whatever this is,” Thor said.

  With a sigh, Ram slumped. Might as well get it out there. “This stays here,” he growled.

  The team nodded.

  He huffed. “It’s called the Matin Strain.”

  “Mateen? Not Mattin, like Mattin Worldwide?” Thor asked.

  “Same name—minus a t—but distorted over centuries.” Ram hadn’t told anyone about this. “The disorder mirrors muscular dystrophy and hemophilia. Without proper medication, the strain enables the slightest injury to put me in the hospital or leave me dead.”

  “So it’s manageable,” Maangi ventured warily.

  “Injections every six weeks.” Ram hated explaining this. “Yes, it’s a disorder. A painful one. A torment I fight. Not because I am cursed.” He glowered at Tzaddik. “Not because a supernatural God, who I do believe exists, sought to punish my father and his fathers before him. But because I have the same tainted blood as Matin, a Nizari Ismaili said to have retaliated after losing his entire family to disease. Nothing more.”

  “Why didn’t you tell us about this?” Cell asked.

  “It’s significant,” Runt added.

  Maangi agreed. “Especially for a medic to know. Is this in your records?”

  Dr. Cathey came to his feet. “You must feel it, Ram. This—all of it—is connected. That you, one with the blood disorder, are searching for your sister. That your father is alive, and that Nur is involved in bringing the sword back together.”

  “My father has nothing to do with this!” Ram pinched the bridge of his nose. “Curse or no curse, the mission of this team remains the same: track down AFO operatives.” He looked around at Wraith. “We’re headed to France.”

  — NORTHERN VIRGINIA —

  “Dr. Cathey,” Haven said into her phone, annoyed that she was having to leave a second voice mail. As if he didn’t want to talk to her. “It’s me, Haven, again. I need your help with an artifact. Please call me back.” She left out mention of the bust. “It’s important.” What could she say to catch his attention? “Mr. Tzaddik has me looking for something. I think you can help.” Would that be enough? “Okay. Bye.”

  With a sigh, she lifted the pages photocopied from the auction house records and stared at the bust. She had to admit there was a level of creepiness to this that she didn’t want to entertain. In the sculpture, Elisabeth Linwood Russell wore her hair up in a traditional manner, curls framing her face. Head bowed, Elisabeth seemed to peer at her hands, held to her breast. Beneath the wrists and along her neck rested a tangle of scrolls. Haven squinted at the picture. It looked like . . . she wasn’t sure, but it didn’t seem to be made of marble.

  VVolt ambled into the room. He pressed his shoulder and side against her leg, looking for some love. She trailed a hand over his dense fur, then set down the pages. “Hang on a minute, buddy.” From the living room, she retrieved the journal and the photo album borrowed from Aunt Agatha. She returned to the kitchen island and flipped through the pages of the album. Found the tintype image of Edward with the bust. And stopped.

  “Huh.” She lifted the copied pages and held them beside the album photo. In the older picture of the bust, along with the intricate necklace, a diadem was set on the statue’s head, dangling a tapered gem at the center of Elisabeth’s forehead, beads delicately tracing the rolled hair along her crown.

  Chiji wandered in and placed a mug in the sink.

  “The bust,” she mumbled, angling to show him as he came up alongside her. “Look. The diadem on her forehead in the picture Aunt Agatha had is missing from the auction house photo.”

  Chiji frowned, mirroring her own consternation. “Perhaps Dr. Cathey will know what happened.”

  “If he ever calls me back,” she murmured just as her phone chirruped a reminder. She felt her heart catch: her doctor’s appointment.

  Chiji nodded. “I will pull the car around front.”

  She couldn’t argue. Couldn’t tell him she sort of dreaded this. Not the appointment, but not having Cole there. And not even having him know about the baby.

  Twenty minutes later, they sat in the parking lot of a business complex. Haven squinted out the windshield at the multistoried building with its glass and cement façade. She sighed and slumped back against the leather seat of her crossover.

  “You do not want to go in?” Chiji asked quietly, but his question was more a statement.

  “If I go in there,” Haven said, nodding to the building, “it gets logged into the system. If it gets logged, because I’m both the president’s sister-in-law and Cole’s . . .” She swallowed the words, remembering that she had never come clean with Chiji. Which felt like a betrayal. “It’ll be in the sys
tem, which means they will know.” She looked into his kind eyes and wished he was Cole.

  “And you fear this?”

  “I fear they’ll get wind and tell him before I can. I fear . . .” She bunched her shoulders. “What if he never comes back?”

  “He will.” A ferocity laced Chiji’s words. “Ndidi wanted a life with you. That is why he fights. That is why he will come back.”

  Haven peered at him. “You haven’t asked about this.”

  Mischief sparked in his dark eyes. “Why ask what is plain? You have changed much since you returned.”

  “Returned?”

  “From Israel. With him.” He grinned. “I do not think you merely prayed at the wall. But I know your character. You are his. I have seen it in your eyes. I heard it in his when he talked to me about doing this thing for him. Now there is another of Ndidi’s loved ones to protect. I will do my duty. Mine is not to question.”

  She sighed, dragging her gaze back to the building. “I don’t mean to be secretive. I’m sorry if—”

  “It is not a problem.”

  “He and I made a promise. Until he returns . . .”

  “Let us do this thing, then,” Chiji said, opening the door and unfolding his large frame from the car. He stalked around and had her door open before she could reach for the handle.

  They entered the building and made their way to the third floor doctor’s office. She signed in and waited for the official confirmation that she carried Cole’s baby.

  — HEATHROW AIRPORT, LONDON —

  Side by side with Abidaoud’s goon, Tzivia walked the concourse toward the rental car area, hiking her backpack higher on her shoulders. The long-legged brute gave no care for how hard she had to work to keep up. But she didn’t care either. Not about him. Her mind, her anger remained in Russia. On Abba. On the guys she’d killed. Mossad. That meant . . .

  Omar.

  How? How could he do this to her? Betray her? Send men after her? And oh, his anger when he discovered she’d killed his agents! It seemed for every ache she felt to be a good person, she dug another foot in the grave of the forsaken.

  At the rental counter, Kazimir handed over a credit card. The woman behind the desk flirted with the crooked-nosed thug who had been sent to babysit Tzivia. As the woman started typing, laughing with Rybakov, Tzivia noticed two men speaking German next to her at the desk. One was filling out a form, the other eyeing travelers, both leaving a mobile phone on the counter unattended.

  They should be more careful. Someone might nick it.

  In a flash, she snagged the phone and murmured to Kazimir that she had business to tend to, indicating the restroom sign on the nearby wall. Dialing as soon as she was out of sight, she prayed her deduction—that German guys in business suits with smartphones at the London airport probably had international calling capability—was right.

  When the line started ringing, she ducked into a stall and locked it.

  “This is not a recognized number, please—”

  Tzivia punched in the authorization code. A series of clicks preceded a male voice that said, “Hold please.” She tucked herself farther back, keeping an eye on the sliver of a space between the door and the support.

  “Tzivia?” Omar sounded worried—angry.

  “That was you, wasn’t it?”

  He sighed. “I could do nothing—”

  “You do something! Anything except send them after me.”

  “I did not send them. But Tzivia—you are no longer considered an ally. I warned you about pursuing the Adama Herev.”

  “What,” she hissed into the phone, “am I supposed to do? Let my father die?”

  “He left you—”

  “He was taken from me.”

  “That is easier to believe, is it not?” Omar sounded smug and insensitive, but he gave back what she dished out by the truckload.

  “They kept him to get the sword, Omar.”

  “You are not this stupid, Tzivia!” he barked. “Think about it—would they have kept him alive all this time? How long? How many years? And only now they order you to find it. And what progress, Tzi? You found the first piece weeks ago. You are on to the second, but still empty-handed.”

  He’d known. Mossad always knew. She touched her forehead. He was right—she wasn’t this stupid, but she was getting lazy. Sloppy. “You’re working against me. You want my father dead.”

  “I want you alive,” Omar said, his voice thick with meaning, “and the only way I can do that is to protect you from yourself.”

  Possibilities exploded through her mind. Was he here? Were they following her even now, in the airport? Tracing this call?

  Of course he was tracing it. As soon as she’d coded.

  A chill seeped through her. “I thought . . .” Her throat tightened, remembering what they’d shared. The nights in his arms. Waking to his scruffy beard and rich eyes. And now, feeling the searing sting of betrayal.

  It didn’t matter what she thought. It didn’t matter that she’d hoped for more with him. More life. More days. More happiness.

  Because he’d made his choice.

  So would she.

  “Make sure I don’t see you again. It won’t end pretty.”

  “Tz—”

  She slammed the phone against the tiled ledge of the stall, cracking it. She hit it again and again until the phone was in fragments. Like her heart. She let the pieces fall into the water and flushed.

  And from the Body Hew’d the Ghastly Head

  “It is for your own good, and for my own good, that it remain hidden,” Matin insisted time and again.

  For this reason, Thefarie agreed Giraude should remain. Doubts grew with each day that the Saracen knew the Adama Herev’s true location. But in the barest thread of hope that he might know, the knights must have an asset near to recover it.

  “You toy with me, Matin,” Giraude said as the morning sun climbed high over the barren land. “With all of us.” He thrust his jaw around the waking campsite. “You live here, abusing their hospitality, because they fear you have the sword.”

  “Fear?” Matin scoffed. “They hope! To them, it is power. To them, it is legitimacy of their beloved king.”

  Giraude lowered his gaze to his tin cup. They had forged the strangest of alliances and friendships since Matin saved his life that day in the tent. The Saracen had suffered setback after setback from his injuries, but Giraude oft wondered if he stole excuses to remain here—as had Giraude, because of Shatira, whom he had taken to wife.

  “My people want that sword destroyed. If they learn what I know—”

  “Why?” Giraude had not previously dared to ask. But it was done now. “Why do you hide it? If it is of benefit—”

  Matin tucked his chin. “If I return without the sword, they will kill me.”

  “So take it to them.”

  A smirk slid into his features. “If I leave here with it”—he nodded to the Hebrews—“they will slaughter me.”

  “You mistake them.” Giraude sipped the last of his wine. “These people are shepherds eking out a quiet life. That is all.”

  “King David was a shepherd.”

  Giraude laughed. “Aye, but once he became king, he sought rooftops and battlefields over tending sheep.” He shook his head. “This life was too arduous for even him.”

  “Did you know,” Matin said, gulping back his wine, which had been replenished from the skin he held, “that Solomon had nearly a thousand wives?”

  “That’s more trouble than I would entertain,” Giraude replied.

  “Just think,” Matin continued, “some of these shepherds could have royal blood.”

  An odd thing to say.

  “Giraude! It’s happening!!”

  He stood up from his spot near the fire, glancing over his shoulder at Devorah, Shatira’s older sister, who bustled forward. His heart dropped into his stomach as he realized what she was saying. “Now?”

  “She is with the women now. It shouldn�
��t be long.”

  He couldn’t move. Couldn’t think. He had never been so nervous—not even when he had faced the great Saladin with his brother-knights. Giraude paced, having blistered his knees in prayer since learning Shatira carried his child. Times were cruel. Life out here in the desert was hard. He had seen one of her sisters buried not three months past, shortly after Purim. Both her and the stillborn boy.

  It had nearly broken Shatira. Another reason Giraude remained, rather than uprooting her from her family. He would not shame her. Even if it meant his own shame in remaining with a shepherd healer instead of fighting the Saracens. Finding that sword.

  The lusty cry of his progeny quenched the parched day.

  With a breath of relief, Giraude hung his head as he and Yitshak waited outside the tent while the women assisted Shatira in bringing their child into the world.

  It was strange, to dwell among the Hebrews. But the injury to his side . . .

  Who did he jest? He stayed because of Shatira. And now the babe.

  The firm thump of the tent flap drew his gaze up. A handmaiden stood there, smiling. “A son. Healthy.” She held the flap open. “You can go in.”

  A shout arose among the men who had gathered, who then broke into song. Slumping in greater relief, Giraude could do nothing but thank his Lord Jesus for the double blessing of delivering his wife of the child and allowing them a healthy son.

  Yitshak smiled.

  “Come,” Giraude said. “Meet your grandson!”

  They both entered the tent and found Shatira resting on a pallet. The screaming babe was lifted from a basin of water and placed in swaddling cloths. Giraude went to his wife and knelt, kissed her sweaty temple. A handmaiden tucked the babe into Giraude’s arms. Something in him awoke, something he had not realized existed until he stared into the round face of his son. Eyes crunched, hair jet black like his mother’s, he seemed content to be held. To be adored.

  “You must tell him,” Shatira said.

  Giraude tore his gaze from his son. “Tell who wh—”

  But she was not looking at him. She was staring at her father. Hard. “Abba. He must know.”