For the next quarter hour, Taziri fumbled with her shining steel tools and her flimsy wicker basket to fix the cowl over the propeller to catch the blasting air and funnel it into the hole in the bottom of the basket. The next half hour after that was a foul-smelling pantomime as she tried over and over to tie, staple, and bolt the end of the slippery horse intestine over the hole in the basket. Time and again she would step back and pronounce the job done, only to watch the pale pink gut slip free and fall to the ground. When it was finally attached, Taziri’s shirt was plastered to her back with sweat and she could feel the sun’s heat radiating up from the gravel through her shoes. “First part’s done!”
Bastet sat up, blinking and yawning. “Oh good. Now what?”
Taziri pursed her lips.
Four thousand years old and she’s still a teenager.
“Go back to sleep. I’ll wake you up when I’m all done.”
“Okay!”
Chapter 25. Shifrah
Lying on the rooftop, they had an unobstructed view of the universe. A million stars on the left and a million more on the right. Shifrah sighed. A colorless blur was invading the eastern sky, swallowing up the stars beyond a gray veil.
“Are you awake?”
She smiled. “No.”
“You had me worried for a while back there,” Kenan said. He lay an arm’s length away on the hard roof tiles. The slope of the roof was very slight and they had both stretched out with their heads near the peak of the roof and their feet pointing down to the stone lip where the roof ended. “It must have been hard, fighting with just one knife.”
Two short hours ago, a dozen Bantu bounty hunters had emerged from the shadows to answer Aker’s call. They each came alone, but they were all nearly identical in the dark. All of them tall and lean, armed with an inventive arsenal of throwing weapons, and judging from the soft whistles and clicks that two of them had exchanged during the fight, they were probably from one of the Shona or Zulu kingdoms.
The chase had been a blur of running and hiding, the hiss of a slender spear through the air, or the warble of a throwing axe, and the bullwhip crack of Kenan’s revolver.
We got three of them, at least.
Shifrah sighed. “It was hard enough. Is he still in there?”
Kenan rolled to his left to look down over the edge of the roof at the house across the intersection. From their vantage point, they could see both the front and right side of the building, while the other two sides sat wall-to-wall with the neighboring houses. He rolled back. “No sign of life yet. It’s still early. He probably thinks we’re dead.”
“We will be dead if those other bounty hunters find us up here. How many bullets do you have left?”
“Fourteen shots in all, if there’s time to reload.”
“Not a lot, is it?”
“Nope.”
Shifrah arched her back to stretch her arms and legs. As she tilted her head back, she saw the dark bare foot just above her hair. “Kenan!” She sat up with her stiletto in hand and heard the revolver yanked free of its holster. Then she saw the man standing on the peak of the roof clearly and realized that he was not who she had expected. “Wait. Who are you?”
He had looked Bantu at first, both tall and dark, but as she looked at him right-side-up now, she saw that this was a very different sort of person. His skin wasn’t merely dark but absolute black, so impossibly black that she could see no lines or shadows or textures on his face or hands, which made him resemble the marble statues of the Roman saints she had seen in Italia.
He wore a simple white garment that folded across his flat chest like a robe, but it had no sleeves and so the corded muscles of his arms rippled down his sides in sharp contrast to his clothing. The garment continued down to his knees where his bare legs emerged. Thick golden bracelets covered his wrists and a thick golden belt hugged his robe tight around his waist. He wore his black hair braided back into a thick mane and each braid ended in a golden bead, and they clicked against each other as the morning breeze swept over the roof. A small golden pendant rested on his chest at the end of a black cord around his neck, and he held a slender black staff in one hand.
Slowly, he lowered his gaze from the distant horizon to look at her and Shifrah saw a strange shape on his head.
A hat? No. A mask!
The mask too was perfectly black, but from her angle she could see nothing more about it.
“A woman with a blade and a man with a gun. You are the two travelers from the west, are you not?” he asked.
Shifrah blinked.
His voice. He’s not a grown man yet.
“Yes, we are. Who are you?”
“A messenger. And a guide. I was sent to help you.” He gazed down at her without a trace of emotion in his eyes. “You are searching for a murderer named Aker El Deeb and for his sun-steel sword?”
“Yeah.” Kenan kept his gun trained on the man. “Who are you? Who sent you?”
“A friend of a friend.” The man turned to look at the detective. “Strange. Are you ashamed of your love for this woman because of what she is or because of what she’s done? Or are they the same thing to you?”
Kenan’s hand faltered and he glanced across at Shifrah. “What? What are you talking about?”
“For a lawman and manhunter, you are surprisingly careless with your body language,” the man said. “Regarding your task, you will find that El Deeb is in that house there.” He pointed across the intersection.
“Yeah, thanks, we know.” Shifrah lowered her knife. “That’s why we’re here, watching him. We can’t just go in there. We’ve got half a dozen bounty hunters prowling the streets down there looking for us, and we don’t know which room Aker is in, and if he pulls that sword on us, we’ll probably be dead in half a minute.”
“Indeed.” The stranger grimaced. “My cousin asked that I help you complete your task so you might safely return to your home. But if you are too afraid to act, then I must act in your stead.”A sudden gust of wind rose from behind him, whipping his white garment and his black braids forward. And then the man himself simply dissolved into an outline of white mist, which was whisked away on the wind and off the roof.
“What the hell!” Kenan snapped his gun back up to follow the pale cloud as it glided across the intersection and vanished into the side of the house where Aker slept. “What the hell was that?”
“I don’t know. A ghost, maybe?” Shifrah crept quietly up to the peak of the roof where she could sit more easily.
“Do you have any friends of friends who are ghosts? Because I sure as hell don’t.”
“I don’t know!” She frowned at the house, and then at Kenan. “So you’re ashamed that you love me, eh?”
“I’m not ashamed of anything.”
“Then you just love me?” She grinned.
I don’t know if anyone has ever loved me before. Certainly not Aker or Salvator. Maybe Omar, but not like this.
“Shut up or I’ll tell him to read your body language.”
Shifrah shrugged, but she also squared her shoulders and straightened her back and legs as she stood at the peak of the roof, watching the house across the street. “Do you think he’s in there right now, killing Aker and getting the sword for us? And if he does, do you think we should pay him or something?”
Kenan shrugged back.
The wind shifted abruptly and now it blew back toward them, buffeting them in the face. Shifrah blinked and raised one hand to shield her eye, but between her fingers she saw a pale haze fill the air just in front of her, and sudden the black man was standing before her, his golden bands and beads shining in the early morning light and his staff planted on the tiles beside him.
“The man you seek is sleeping on the ground level of the house, two windows to the left of the front door. He has placed his sword on a small table at the end of his bed, just below the window. Break the window and you will be able to reach the sword,” he said.
“Why should I believe
you?” Shifrah asked. “Why should I trust you?”
The man blinked, and then gestured to Kenan. “You want to be with this man so badly that you have fantasized about bearing his children. You want an apology from him, but you know he will never offer one. And so you will forego the apology as soon as he makes even the slightest overture toward reconciliation.”
“All right, stop, stop!” Shifrah swallowed. She felt her heart rebounding against her breastbone.
How the hell is he doing that? And he’s wrong anyway. I never fantasized about bearing any children. I just wondered what we might name our daughter…if we ever had one…someday.
Kenan was grinning and trying to keep his shoulders from shaking. “I think we believe you. At least about the window and sword.”
“The mercenaries are moving in this direction,” the stranger said. “You must be quick. Do not attempt to kill El Deeb. Only take his sword. He will follow you to retrieve it and you can kill him at your leisure. After you take the sword, you must follow this street due west to reach the rail yard.”
“Escape on a train? Works for me. Got it, thanks,” Kenan said.
“Then my task is complete.” The stranger lifted his black staff.
“Wait! What’s your name?” Shifrah asked, staring into the man’s eyes.
“Anubis,” he said. He struck his staff on the shingles and a blast of wind tore across the roof, scattering his body like smoke in the cool morning air.
Shifrah shook her head. “Definitely not a ghost.”
Kenan crept to the edge of the roof, his back to her. “There’s a ledge just below us. We can get down to the street right here. And then I think we just run for the window. Unless you’d rather bear my children instead.”
She knelt down beside him. “I’d rather throw you off this roof.”
He shrugged. “Maybe you’ll be in a better mood when we get home.”
Before she could respond, he slipped down off the roof and climbed down to the street. She scowled and followed. They paused a moment in the shadows and then dashed straight across the intersection toward the house where Aker slept. Kenan grabbed the lip at the bottom of the second window on the left of the door and nodded at her.
While he swept the street with his revolver, Shifrah leapt up and smashed her arm through the old wooden rods that barred the window. The rods splinted into pieces and she hooked her arm over the sill. She felt Kenan shoving her thighs up and she half-fell inside the room. The sword was lying on the table right in front of her, just as the stranger had described it. Shifrah grabbed the heavy scabbard and shoved herself back out of the window. As she fell back to the street, she caught a glimpse of the man in the bed and the young woman lying beside him.
“Run.” Kenan dashed to the left and Shifrah dashed after him, clutching the heavy seireiken in both hands.
After a bit of fumbling, she got the strap of the scabbard over her shoulder and let the sword bang and thump against her back as she ran. “Did you see them? The bounty hunters?”
“I heard them.”
“Are you sure?”
A gunshot ricocheted off the wall above them.
“Pretty sure,” Kenan grunted. “We need to lose them before we get to the rail yard.”
“So we’re trusting this Anubis person with our escape plan, too?”
“He was right about the window and the sword, wasn’t he?” Kenan bolted left down a long narrow alley.
Shifrah tore after him. “Do you have a plan for losing the bounty hunters?”
“Run really fast?”
“I didn’t think so.” Shifrah tried to picture the city in her mind. It had been so long since she had had to escape from anyone on the streets of Alexandria, but a few old memories swam to the surface. “Follow me.”
She pulled ahead of Kenan and led him down the next street. Their own footsteps echoed along the empty corridors of the city, and a low shout echoed from behind them.
“Where are we going?” he asked.
“Back to the arena.”
“Why?”
“We need the high ground.”
“This isn’t mountain warfare!”
“It is now!” Shifrah turned another corner and the arena came into view ahead. A quick glance over her shoulder showed her one of the tall Bantu hunters less than twenty yards behind them, and another figure in the distance just rounding the corner.
Shifrah sprinted into the long dark tunnel of the arena, speeding by the empty stalls and stairs, her footsteps multiplied a hundredfold by the close walls. The end of the tunnel was a spot of bright morning light in a sea of darkness that grew steadily larger with every step.
“Move-move-move! This is a shooting gallery!” Kenan hissed.
I know, I know.
Shifrah raced out of the mouth of the tunnel and veered to the left as the first bullet whistled out of the darkness. Kenan ran out behind her, ducking his head. She wheeled about and ran up the steep stone steps, climbing the rows of empty seats two at a time, and she waved Kenan down. “Shoot them when they come out!”
“Shoot them?” He drew his matte black revolver. “That’s your plan?”
“Just do it!” She clambered up a bit higher before crouching down in the seats to watch. The stone benches stretched out around the arena like the wings of a great bird, dotted here and there with a sleeping body. She took the seireiken off her back and waited.
The first Bantu ran out of the tunnel just as they had a moment ago. A large rounded pistol gleamed in his hand. Kenan’s first shot snapped the pistol out of the man’s hand, and his second shot shattered the man’s knee. The bounty hunter crashed to the ground, groaning.
The second man, however, was far more cautious. After a moment’s pause, a head and a pistol popped up over the lip of the tunnel and he fired at Kenan. The shot struck the seat in front of the detective, and he fired back. A splash of red leapt from the bounty hunter’s hand and he fell back down, out of sight.
Shifrah was up and running. She leapt up the steps as fast as she could, her legs already burning from the long sprint across the district. “Kenan!”
When she reached the top row, she turned right and found a wooden panel on the ground in front of her. There were two huge iron hinges on the left of the panel and a rusted iron lock on the right. Kenan jogged up behind her and looked over her shoulder. “There’s two more of them down there,” he said quietly. “When do we start using the high ground?”
“The what?” Shifrah carefully drew out the seireiken, and the bright fiery blade painted both their faces in golden orange hues. A quiet buzzing filled her ears, the soft babble of a hundred distant voices, but she ignored it as she touched the point of the sword to the wooden panel, and it instantly blackened and started to smoke.
“The high ground. You said we needed the high ground.”
“Oh, that. No. I just needed you to follow me.”
“What the hell?” He glared at her. “Then what’s the real plan?”
The wooden panel burst into flames. The boards crackled for a moment, and then slowly caved in, falling into the dark passage below. Shifrah smiled. “This is the real plan. Run, hide, shoot. Repeat as necessary. Don’t worry. You’re doing great.” She slid the deadly burning blade back into its clay-lined scabbard and dashed down the dark stairwell, which was now partially illuminated by the bits of burning wood that had tumbled down into it.
They both clattered down the steps as quickly as they could in the dark. Down and down, passing no landings or openings, until Shifrah stumbled onto a stone floor. The stairs had ended. They stood in a small dark room with a single ray of soft blue light slicing along the floor on one side.
A door. Shifrah pressed her ear to the door and listened. Nothing. No one out there.
She carefully tried the handle, but it too was locked. Damn.
Drawing out the seireiken once more, she again heard the buzzing of distant voices, and this time she paused to rub her ear and opened h
er jaw, hoping to dispel the noise. When the babble continued unabated, Shifrah shook her head and pressed the point of the sword carefully to the door handle. The metal quickly glowed, brightening from dull red to bright yellow. The iron twisted, sagged, and finally fell to the floor with a dull wet slap. The door swung open.
Shifrah sheathed the sword and slipped out into the dark corridor. To her left at the far end of the tunnel she saw one of the tall bounty hunters looking down on the arena field. To her right was the open street. They went right.
As they jogged across the street and headed west down the main avenue, Kenan said, “Well, that wasn’t much of a plan, but it worked. Two down and two lost. If we’re lucky, there won’t be any more after us right now, at least not until Aker realizes his sword is missing and puts out another call for hired help.”
Shifrah rolled her eye. “I smashed in the bars of the window in the room where he was sleeping, Kenan. He probably woke up and figured out that someone took his sword about two seconds after I took his sword. He’s already coming for us, right now. The only advantage we have is our two-minute head start.”
“Which we just squandered running around the arena,” Kenan said. “So the only real advantage we have is that Aker doesn’t know where we’re going. Unless he’s working with the man on the roof, Anubis, and this is all one big set-up.”
“Do you honestly think that Aker, a brainless, whoring, hash-smoking thug, is working with a mysterious man who floats around on rooftops?”
Kenan laughed. “Aker is part of secret society of men with magic swords, so I’d say that all possibilities are firmly on the table.”
“It’s not magic and you know it.” Shifrah glared at him. They were well into the Songhai Quarter again and the morning foot traffic in the street was quickly growing as the locals left their homes for the shops, markets, and the new Eranian factories. They wove into the crowd, shuffling along no faster or slower than anyone else. “I trust Anubis. He was right about the window and the sword, and he was right about us, and I’m going to the rail yard, like he said.”
Halcyon est-1 Page 86
