"What?" Nadia never thought the prophet would return in her lifetime. But it made sense. This felt like the end of days. That explained so much of what had happened; why Nadia had been tested. A spark of joy glowed in the ashes of her soul.
Farridah squeezed Nadia's hand, smiling. "A new prophet has arisen. She says that our value is ours alone to decide."
The slave market came back to her, that back room where they settled the price of each girl. Like a stiff wind, that painful reality extinguished the spark of hope in her chest. As if reading Nadia's mind, Farridah said, "They can sell us like chattel. But in our minds we can be free. That is what she says."
The prophet was a woman? "She?"
"Yes, it is a woman. She has produced a miracle, bringing a female fighter back from the dead. She can save us all."
"But…" Nadia hated to admit that her honor was gone. But as she looked around the room, she knew that these women knew—the same had happened to them. "He…my morality is gone." She whispered it, her voice low and hoarse.
"No." Farridah shook her head. "Nothing can take it from us."
Before Nadia could argue further, the door was flung open and the guards motioned for them to come. "What's happening?" Nadia asked.
Were they being punished for praying?
"Morning prayers," Farridah said, pulling on her burka.
All the women filed out of the container. The courtyard was filled with the soldiers guarding the oil field and its infrastructure. They all faced Mecca.
The women were expected to do the same.
As Nadia kneeled before her captors’ god, kneeled before the devil, her mind struggled with the concept that Farridah had offered.
Was it possible that she could decide her value? That no matter what happened to her body, Nadia's soul could be free? Was this new prophet real? Or another devil in disguise?
As she stared down at the phone on the rough cement floor in her owner's container, Nadia knew. She knew that the prophet was real. That God had called upon her.
Chapter Fifteen
Sydney Rye
Above me, stone, dark and rough, glimmering with reflected firelight—a cave ceiling.
I try to swallow, and searing pain radiates from my throat. My eyes burn, and my lids slip closed again. I sink back into darkness.
The prickle of someone watching me.
A shadow passes across the darkness. Blue barks, and tension bleeds from me. He will do what's right. I shouldn't even be alive. But I can't remember why. Is it because I'm evil?
Time passes in new ways; I've never seen such a thing—it's a swirling kaleidoscope. I can see time now.
It is endless and nothing. All jumbled up on itself.
I hear my voice; I'm speaking, but to whom, I don't know. What words, I can't make out. They are just a silver pattern across my eyelids, a tangle of time and space.
Chapter Sixteen
Shaheer
Pain radiated from Shaheer's jaw through his entire body.
He'd been dreaming of a wolf with one blue eye and one brown. The wolf snarled and barked a gunshot sound as its eyes flashed mercury gray.
A woman's prone, naked, pale body lay in the center of a pool of blood.
The sun beat down, burning him. Hellfire.
His eyes fluttered open, bright light entering his pupils, ratcheting up the pain a notch. He blinked again, a room slowly coming into focus: white walls, bright lights.
His mother's face appeared above his, her cheeks wet with tears, and eyes swollen from crying. When his gaze locked onto hers, she opened her mouth in a soundless cry. She turned away, and he saw her lips move, but he could not hear her.
Shaheer only heard a throbbing ringing. He blinked again, his mind lost between his dream and this reality.
But the pain anchored him—his brain clamped onto the radiating waves of hurt, and they held him in the room. He looked down at his body under clean, pressed sheets in a narrow bed. IV lines entered his arms just like that woman in the woods.
His mother took his hand and squeezed. He raised his gaze to hers, and she kissed his knuckles.
His mother spoke to him, but he could not hear her.
Was he deaf?
He tried to speak, but excruciating pain silenced him. Shaheer raised his free hand to touch his face but his mother grabbed it, holding it down and shaking her head, speaking more. He couldn't hear her.
What was happening?
Fear joined the pain, almost an equal throbbing ache. Shaheer had changed. That woman, that wolf—they'd done something to him.
A nurse came in wearing a niqab, her hair and face veiled, but her eyes uncovered. She spoke to his mother, who covered her own face moments before a doctor entered.
A tall, gaunt man with silver in his hair, the doctor examined Shaheer with eyes as dark as a moonless night. He spoke, but Shaheer couldn't hear him. The doctor pulled out an instrument and leaned down, looking into Shaheer's ears and then said something to his mother. Her eyes welled with fresh tears.
Her pain stabbed him in his heart. She loved him so much.
And he loved her.
He'd almost died. The reality of the hospital room, the gunshot sound, began to piece together in his mind. The vision of that wolf snarling at him filled his mind's eye. His mother had acted like that, protected him from bullies, protected him from his older brothers, even from himself.
The doctor wrote on a pad of paper, and he held it up so that Shaheer could see. Your hearing is damaged. You were shot. But you will survive.
He tried to touch his face again, to touch the pain, but the doctor shook his head. Returning to the pad of paper he wrote more and then held it up.
You were shot in the face. We were not able to save your jaw or tongue. You will never speak again. You are lucky to be alive.
The paper throbbed in his vision as blood rushed in his ears.
Why did Allah do this to him?
Chapter Seventeen
Mulberry
"You know Joyful Justice does not condone torture."
Zerzan's lip twitched. "What Joyful Justice condones does not concern me."
She was right. Mulberry had no power over what she did with Abu Mohammad al-Baghdadi. And personally, he didn't care what happened to that asshole. Six feet under the desert sand seemed about right to Mulberry. He just didn't want to be the one to dig the hole.
Mulberry swabbed at his brow with his bandana. It was hot as hell. They sat in the shade, but the temperature must still be well over a hundred degrees.
This place was torturous.
At least the small compound, far from the front lines, was safe…for now.
"I understand you will do whatever will forward your cause, but in our estimation, and according to every study out there, torture does not work."
Zerzan sat with her back against the stone wall, her cargo pant-clad legs spread wide, her black tank top sticking to her skin. The thick scars on her neck extended to her shoulder, fading into thin white lines as they reached her arm.
Zerzan's prisoner, whom Mulberry had yet to see, must be dying unless they were keeping him underground. Which was possible. They had a labyrinth of caves that they used for cover.
Zerzan sat forward, placing her elbows on her knees. "Do you know anything about brain washing?"
Mulberry blinked sweat out of his eyes. "No." He swigged from a canteen of warm water.
"I have been studying it." She played with a knife, using it to clean the dirt out from under her fingernails. "You know, that is how they convince these children to grow up to be men who will enslave women."
"Is it?"
Mulberry mopped at his brow again.
"They say that Allah waits for them. If they do not follow his rules, to the tiniest detail," she held up her hand, her finger and thumb a millimeter apart, "then they will burn in hell. Allah will grow many layers of skin on them. And then he will burn each one off."
Mulberry shrugged. "Sounds
pretty terrible. I can see that as a motivator."
"Yes, the fear of eternal torture is a great motivator." She cocked her head. "But not torture here on earth?"
Mulberry smiled. "I can see why they made it burning. I can't take much more of this heat."
Zerzan nodded. "It will get cold tonight."
"Right, I remember." He'd been there over a week. Zerzan had brought scatterings of news to him while he sweltered, feeling useless. Soon he would be fighting again, though. Allied forces were going to start bombing oil fields, and the Peshmerga would go in and clean up, killing or capturing any Daesh fighters and taking control of the production.
Daesh made a lot of money off oil, and this strategy promised to at least cripple their financing even if it wouldn't do much for hearts and minds. And it would move Mulberry into the territory where he was most likely to find Sydney Rye.
A low whistle cut through the heat of the day, and Zerzan sat up, the knife raising with her, ready for action. Mulberry turned, pulling his own pistol from its holster at his waist.
Zerzan ran from the cover, and he followed; the sun beat down on his hat-covered head, and he swallowed against a dry throat. He was not built for the desert.
Zerzan crouched behind some rocks, and he joined her. Another whistle cut through the air. "What's going on?"
"Approaching, probably civilian. We've had some refugees coming from the Daesh territory. We are making headway into the urban areas along the border, keeping Daesh out of the open desert and off the roads with bombings from the US. So now we are going in and fighting house to house. Often we find families that need evacuation."
Mulberry squinted into the bright day. Down the mountain, through the haze of heat, he saw figures moving. Zerzan raised a scope and looked through. "It's a family."
She stood and yelled something. One of her soldiers ran down to meet the refugees.
Zerzan handed Mulberry the scope so that he could watch. It was a man and woman with several children.
He followed Zerzan down to greet the family as they reached the edge of the small compound. He carried a large bottle of water, and when the mother saw it she began to weep. In her arms she carried a bundle, an infant.
Zerzan and her soldiers moved them to a cave entrance, and Mulberry poured the water into their canteens. The father and mother helped their smaller children first, two little boys, then a girl on the cusp of womanhood. She stared at Mulberry with wide eyes, frightened and intrigued. "I won't hurt you," he said. She drank the water her mother offered hungrily, her gaze sharpening as the liquid filled her.
The baby mewed, and the mother swiped at fresh tears, giving the infant fresh water from a bottle. She turned to Zerzan and, spotting the scars on her neck, dropped to her knees. Zerzan stepped forward and, taking the woman by the arms, lifted her to her feet, saying something to her in Kurdish.
Zerzan's eyebrows rose at the woman's response. She asked several questions, and Mulberry could tell from the expression of the soldiers around him that the answers surprised them. Zerzan gave commands to her soldiers and then left the cave.
Mulberry followed. "What did she say?" he asked.
"She is a follower of the new prophet."
Mulberry ran a few steps to catch up with her as she strode over to a cave with a metal gate set into the stone. "What did she say?" Zerzan didn't answer. "Hey!" He grabbed her arm.
She turned quickly, her knife point slicing through his T-shirt and landing, burning hot, against his skin, but not cutting him. Mulberry froze, a fresh wave of sweat breaking out on his skin. "Don't touch me," Zerzan hissed.
He removed his hand. "I'm sorry." Zerzan went to the gate and spoke to the guard there, who opened it. She disappeared into the darkness.
Mulberry did not see her again until the sun was setting, the sky turning a deep blue, the stars beginning to twinkle in the twilight.
He sat on a rock outcropping, looking at the valley below. There was nothing but wilderness as far as he could see. What was he doing here? How could he ever find Sydney?
If she'd been as injured as Robert claimed, she must be dead. His best hope was that she was taken prisoner and in a hospital somewhere.
And what about this new prophet? What did that mean?
From what Mulberry knew of Daesh philosophy, they believed Muhammad was the last prophet. And that everyone must follow Muhammad's exact teachings, and model the behavior of the first Muslim converts. They basically ignored the centuries of thought and theology that had passed since Allah first spoke to Muhammad.
If the Muslim refugee family believed in a new prophet, then they were not Daesh followers. They could be Shi’a or Sunni. Daesh believed Shi’a were as bad as Mulberry. Worse even. They were Muslims, so knew enough to know how to behave. But Shi’a believed that Muslim leadership should be decided by blood—that they must be the descendants of Muhammad. And the Sunni believed that the most pious Muslims, no matter their ancestry, could lead.
Mulberry was raised in a Catholic household, but his mother left the church after her divorce. And his father could hardly school him in morality, when he'd left his mother for a much younger woman. Mulberry had been divorced himself. And sex outside of marriage was one of his favorite pastimes.
And look where it got him? Burning in hell.
The sun dropped behind the horizon, and the temperature began to plummet. Mulberry wrapped his arms around himself and waited.
Zerzan approached as the black of night began to creep up the east side of the world. She was right behind him before he heard her soft footsteps on the rough ground.
She took a seat next to him on the rock. "Sorry again," he said, his voice low and gruff. "I'm an asshole."
"Yes," she agreed, a small smile on her face. "What does Sydney do if you grab her like that?"
"Kick my ass or kiss me silly." He sighed, his heart aching. Mulberry clenched his fist and rubbed at the spot, trying to ease the tension.
Zerzan laughed.
"Will you tell me what the woman said, about the new prophet? Please."
"They say she brought a woman back from the dead. A gray-eyed woman who has a wolf inside of her."
"Do you think…Sydney would never claim to be a prophet."
"True." Zerzan nodded, bringing her knees up to her chest, suddenly looking much younger. Mulberry had a decade on her, and yet he'd follow her into battle. She and Sydney were so alike. "Sydney never claimed to be an inspiration, yet Joyful Justice, an international vigilante network, formed in the wake of her violent retribution against her brother's murderer."
Zerzan flicked an errant stone off the tip of her boot. "Besides, Sydney is not the prophet. She is the miracle." Zerzan brought her gaze to the horizon. "The new prophet—they say she is a woman. That she wears a burka and represents all women."
"A female prophet? Is that a thing?"
"Depends on your religion," she replied, smiling over at him. "That family," she gestured toward the barracks where the refugees rested. "They escaped because of her teachings. Apparently, the husband, Muhammad, saw her. He is a herder and met Her in the grazing land. She appeared before him, like an apparition, carrying a body. Two dogs were with Her, one pure white, one with mismatched colored eyes."
Mulberry's fist tightened. It had to be Blue.
"She laid the woman on the ground. He thought she was dead; she was pale, and her eyes were closed, her lips blue, blood all over her. The woman in the burka, the prophet, laid hands on her, and she opened her eyes." Zerzan cleared her throat. "He said they were the color of storm clouds, but even more beautiful. Muhammad dropped to his knees. And the prophet laid her hands on his head, they were gloved and crusted with blood. She told him that she had word from Allah that the caliphate was wrong. That when Muhammad said to follow him and his immediate followers—the first converts— he meant to return to the path of the first religions."
"The first religions?”
"Yes," Zerzan turned to look at him. "You
know, the very first evidence of religion is from ancient Mesopotamia." She pointed at the ground. "Archeologists date statues of fertility goddesses as the oldest religious icons—the first pious people prayed to women."
"So the prophet told the herder to pray to women."
"Yes, he went home and prayed to his wife, and she said they had to leave. To protect their daughter. To fulfill Allah's will."
"My God."
"Do you believe?"
Mulberry stifled a laugh even though there was nothing funny about the question. "Believe what?"
"In God."
"That's a complicated question."
"Not really."
"I don't believe in God in the way the Bible tells it." His mind wandered back to the church of his childhood, the incense, dark wood and stained glass, the priest’s sermons filled with promises and threats.
"What way do you believe, then?"
Mulberry looked away from her, out to the horizon. "I think there is something bigger than me."
"Women?"
He laughed. "In part, I guess. What about you?"
"I think religion is very dangerous. But I think this prophet could be an answer to our prayers."
"Your prayers?"
"Prayers are just desires expressed. I have desires; I express them. We have created a secular, equal society, and we have built it, in part, because we, women, understand our value." She gestured with her hand toward the family again. "That woman has been given her value by her husband. She has been told that she is worth worshiping by someone she used to worship, or at least think of as superior."
"Okay, so this one family got convinced. I don't think we are likely to have a whole new religion come out of it."
Zerzan looked over at him. "Why not?"
"Well," he stared at her. "I mean. Come on?" He smiled. She continued to hold his gaze. "What? Are you serious?"
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