by Dakota Banks
It was an overcast morning with a slight drizzle that washed away most of the thin ice coating. She pushed away the chill in her bare feet and took off at a moderate walk that worked up to a jog. She couldn’t wait to get back to her hotel for a hot shower and a change of clothes. She didn’t have a room key or identification with her, and she smelled like a wet dog.
No problem.
But before cleaning and refreshing herself, she would see that her knives were spotless. Master Liu taught that comfort never came before showing respect to the weapons that kept her alive.
Maliha Crayne had originally gone to New York City for a happy event. Her new car, a black Zonda F, had been at a customizing shop. The previous car, a McLaren F1, had given its all in a crash. The shop had finished installing her custom-designed safety package of cockpit nets and expandable foam, plus other items that she’d found useful in the past.
The Zonda F coupe was made by the Italian manufacturer Pagani. It was light and fast, and looked like a black panther ready to spring. Maliha fell in love with it. Amaro, another friend of hers, had negotiated the purchase, a thrill for him, but this was the first time Maliha had seen the car.
It was all hers to drive home to Chicago. The drive wasn’t as fun as it was supposed to be, especially with her back wound. She had to concentrate on her driving and keep the pain suppressed as well as she could.
She pulled up in front of the Harbor Point Towers in Chicago, her lakefront home. The past few weeks of bodily injuries, guilt, and deaths on her recent case plus her pursuit of Xietai had taken their toll. She needed time to work on those things, physically and emotionally. She hadn’t alerted her friends to the exact time of her arrival, even her more-than-friend Jake Stackman, an agent of the Drug Enforcement Administration.
Not that she wasn’t thinking of him, fantasizing about another night in his arms.
Jake, her Ageless lover, had already told her the plans he had to cheer her up. While the plans sounded enticing, they didn’t include any rest for her, unless she counted short naps between periods of lovemaking. Maliha’s girlfriend Randy Baxter had a habit of assigning nicknames to her lovers based on anatomical features or talents in bed. Getting into the spirit of it, Maliha had dubbed Jake “Repeater.”
I’ll be ready for him in two or three days. She had a delicious thought. In the meantime, he can bring me takeout dinners. I’ll meet him at the door in next to nothing and just take the food.
She smiled for the first time that day, thinking about how her idea might play out. While she and Jake had some problems in their relationship, they were great in bed. But Jake had a few years mysteriously missing in his past. That left Maliha with the impression that he’d done something bad—so bad he couldn’t tell her about it because it would make it impossible for her to love him.
What if it was so terrible that we couldn’t stay together?
The thought of having a life with him was almost too much to hope for, but in the deep recesses of her heart, she knew that was what she wanted most.
She felt a phantom child growing and kicking inside her, as her daughter Constanta had done until she was stillborn in a dark, dirty jail cell, a small and helpless casualty of colonial injustice. Maliha put a protective hand over her flat abdomen to cradle the life within, but the illusion of pregnancy faded. Decades, then centuries, of living since then came rushing at her. She saw the split-second decision she’d made to become Rabishu’s assassin and felt the new Ageless power rushing through her blood after her first kill. Her training with Master Liu turned her into the perfect stealth killer, with a heart armored against feeling the human suffering she inflicted. Years rolled by and the killings became a blur, until she felt she was turning into an evil creature like Rabishu, sprouting claws and carrying the stench of death. Finally there was the one assignment that repelled her so much that she couldn’t carry it out. Defying her demon had been at once the most terrifying and the most liberating thing she had ever done.
The attentive doorman called for a porter and a valet. The porter unloaded Maliha’s three small bags on the curb, heading first for the rear of the car until she waved him to the front. One carry-on bag, a garment bag, and a grungy, beaten-up hard-sided case that weighed about a hundred pounds. It was her weapons bag. She’d gone to New York by commercial airliner, so the weapons she took had to be in checked luggage. She used to carry plastic knives with her on the plane, but with full body scans in some airports, there was no reason to take the risk since she didn’t really need them.
The doorman was unfamiliar, even though it was Arnie Henshaw’s shift. Maliha had a long-term relationship with Arnie. He didn’t know all the details of her life, but he understood that she fought crime. He helped her in the subtle way that a doorman could, such as warning her when someone was waiting for her. Arnie also knew about the two homes she had in this building. One, on the thirty-ninth floor, was her public home where she received guests. The other, on the forty-eighth floor, was her private haven.
The new man took care of the luggage efficiently and it was all going to the thirty-ninth floor, so there was no problem.
She turned to the valet, who couldn’t keep a big grin off his face at the prospect of parking her car.
“It’s the private garage on Level One.”
“I know, Ms. Winters. Didn’t you used to have a McLaren? I’ll take good care . . .”
“Yes. No drooling on the leather.” She tossed him the key and turned her attention back to the doorman. “Is Arnie taking a day off today?”
The doorman’s face got serious. “You haven’t heard, then?”
She shook her head.
“Arnie disappeared a couple of weeks ago. No one’s heard from him since.”
Surely he didn’t quit. He wasn’t old enough to retire.
“I’m sorry to hear that. We were friends.”
“I think he got tired of the job and took off for some place warmer. There’s a shitload of people, excuse me, who’d love to live the fantasy.”
“You don’t have to excuse yourself. My ears aren’t tender.”
He leaned in close and whispered, “Seems as though the police are looking into foul play, though.”
“Really? You’ll have to let me know if they turn anything up.”
“Will do, ma’am.” He put out his hand to shake hers. “Sounds like we’ll get along just fine. I’m Chester Rafferty, the new day-shift manager. Call me Chick. Anything else I can do for you right now?”
“No, thank you, Chick. Please call me—”
“Marsha. You’re Marsha Winters, right? The author?”
Maliha nodded. “I’ll just go upstairs.”
“You need anything, you let me know,” he called after her. “Including anything . . . medicinal.”
Maliha realized she’d been walking a little hunched over, favoring her back.
I look like I could use a stiff painkiller.
She straightened and turned around before she got to the elevators. “No thanks, and I should mention that my boyfriend’s—”
“A DEA agent.”
“How did you know that?”
“Just building gossip. I seem to be kind of a magnet for it.” He gave her a lustrous smile, and then rounded his thumb and forefinger into an “OK” sign.
She punched the elevator’s UP button.
“Oh, wait up, Marsha.”
Maliha turned back and headed for the doorman’s station.
“There’s a package for you. Came today. Just a minute.” Chick rummaged through the desk and came up with box about a foot square and four inches high.
On the way up in the elevator, carrying the box, she wondered if Arnie had taken off for somewhere with a tropical breeze. Maliha had tipped Arnie generously over the years for his cooperation and silence about her activities, and given him investment advice.
He’d be a millionaire by now. No reason he couldn’t live his dreams. I’m surprised he didn’t say good-bye, tho
ugh. Maybe he sent me a postcard from Bora Bora.
She remembered the considerate way Arnie had kept her from meeting Jake with blood on her face, early in their relationship when Jake didn’t know much about her.
“There’s a DEA agent in the lobby waiting for you, Ms. Winters. I told him you weren’t home and I couldn’t buzz him in, but this guy doesn’t take no for an answer. I think he’s prepared to sit in the lobby for days. He had a sandwich delivered from Dave’s Deli and read the Tribune.”
“You’d think he’d have better things to do with the government’s time. Thanks for your efforts, Mr. Henshaw.”
Arnie stretched his neck to look around her at the lone figure sitting in the lobby and shook his head. “You want to go up the back way?”
He meant the loading dock and a service elevator.
“No, I’ll take care of it. I wouldn’t want him to grow roots in there.” She turned to walk inside.
“Wait. Ms. Winters, you’ve got a little spot of . . . er, red paint under your right ear.”
She held still while he dampened a blindingly white handkerchief from a bottle of water and dabbed at her face. The handkerchief came away streaked with red.
“Don’t worry. I’ll take care of the, er, paint rag.” He folded the handkerchief and tucked it in a compartment of his desk.
She realized that Arnie had cared for her, maybe even loved her in a fatherly way.
I hope I was never unkind or indifferent to him. Didn’t know I’d miss him so much until I was stuck with Chick.
By the time she reached the door of her condo, images of people she cared about who’d died during her last case were occupying her mind, their faces in life and in death vividly remembered.
That was an advantage of being the demon’s killing machine—never looking back.
Her bags were outside the door, at her request. The door opened before she could do it herself, and Hound drew her inside. She put the box on a table and slipped into his welcoming embrace. She rested her head against his lopsided shoulder and pressed against the slightly hollowed right side of his body, remnants of injuries he’d gotten in Vietnam. He pushed her back to arm’s length. The pink scar that traversed one side of his black face looked like the Grand Canyon had been carved there, not in millennia by erosion but in the split-second impact of a piece of jagged shrapnel. She could see concern in his wrinkled brow and expressive eyes.
“Hold on while I get everything inside.”
She watched as he checked the hallway, then pulled her luggage inside and closed the door. The two of them carried everything into her bedroom. He took her hand and led her to a sofa. Her home was large, since she’d purchased the condo next door and combined the two to make one residence. She had a master-bedroom suite, three guest bedrooms, an expansive living room where she could entertain, and an eat-in kitchen that could handle all of their needs when she had a full house. Since it was her public home, where she might have to meet anyone, from the press to her publisher, the furnishings were expensive but neutral, so the space wasn’t personalized. There was also a hidden armory and a supply room that held everything from ink cartridges to disposable phones.
“Sit down,” Hound said. “I can tell by the way you cringed with my hand on your back that you’ve been wounded. Want me to look? Yanmeng thinks he’s better than I am at this doctoring stuff, but I just humor the old guy.”
She turned her back to him, and he gently raised her shirt. For travel, she’d wrapped layers of bandages around her torso. She flexed her shoulder blades. The wounded area felt stiff.
“I should change that bandage,” he said.
“Knock yourself out.”
Hound went to retrieve her well-stocked medical kit. While he was gone, she unwrapped the old bandages and stretched out on the sofa, belly down.
His gasp when he came back into the room told her that her back wasn’t a pretty sight.
“Christ, you look like you’ve been through a fucking wood chipper.”
“Felt more like a buzz saw, but I’m feeling better. How’s my tattoo?”
Maliha had a tattoo of a hawk across her shoulders, put there as a sign of respect by Master Liu.
“Let’s see . . . it’s intact. The wound starts below it.”
Hound cleaned her back with warm, wet towels, applied an antibiotic treatment, and put on new bandages.
“Mmm, thanks,” Maliha said. “You can rub my back anytime.”
“Be more fun if your spine wasn’t almost showing. Dampens the mood. Is it my imagination, or are you healing slower these days?”
When Maliha was Ageless, her healing was instantaneous. Since she’d broken her contract with her demon, she healed slower, and as she aged, she healed slower still.
“You’re right. Ten years ago, a wound like this would heal in a day. Now a deep wound takes a day to close up on the outside and a couple more to finish healing the inside. Something with a lot of skin loss like this one—” She shrugged.
“Doesn’t that prolong the pain you feel when you get injured?” He put a hand on her shoulder in sympathy.
She shook his hand roughly off and lowered her eyes so she couldn’t meet his. “I don’t need sympathy. Pain is part of my job description. Master Liu says . . .”
“Fuck Master Liu! He’s some ascetic hermit who counts snowflakes on a mountain in China and dips his balls in ice water for the hell of it. You’re not Liu. You live in the real world.”
Maliha couldn’t help smiling at the mental image of Master Liu running around naked, counting snowflakes, with a container of ice water clasped to his groin.
“Okay,” she said. “You have a point. As long as I remain worldly, I can’t approach Master Liu’s way of living. He would say I have barely started on my spiritual journey.”
“So you heard about Arnie leaving?”
Maliha nodded. “I don’t know what to think about the new guy, Chick, yet. It’s strange the way he finishes my sentences. Does he do that to you, too?”
“Yeah. Weird.”
“I want to track down Arnie. The police are treating this disappearance with suspicion and we should too. You and Amaro could get together and start tracing his credit card usage and phone calls.”
Hound looked indignant. “I don’t need the little squirt’s help for that. I’m a licensed private investigator. A dick and proud of it.”
Maliha laughed. It felt good. “Okay, I won’t tell Amaro you called him a little squirt if you can make sure Arnie’s absence is intentional. On top of everything else.”
“I know. You’re thinking about Lucius.”
Maliha hesitated. She hadn’t revealed to anyone her last words to Lucius as he died in her arms. I’ll do it. I’ll do it for us. I’ll kill the demons and then we’ll be together.
Lucius was in the private hell created by his demon Sidana, suffering constant torture. “I told him I’d bring him back, Hound. I don’t have the slightest idea of how to do that. Even if I kill the demons, does that mean he’s free? Or that he finally dies? Even thinking about what he’s going through . . .”
“Listen, you still have me and Yanmeng and Amaro. And Jake. You still have your goals. Maybe in time you’ll figure out how to free Lucius.”
Hound was a close friend of Maliha’s, one of three who worked with her and understood her situation of trying to wiggle out from under Rabishu’s thumb. Hound had been a medic in Vietnam. He didn’t know that Maliha had been responsible for saving him after shrapnel had left him looking like Swiss cheese on the battlefield. Years later, she hired him as a private investigator. They had a history as lovers, too, but that had cooled as Hound’s relationship with his girlfriend—and now fiancée—Glass, heated up.
Get a grip, woman. This isn’t a soap opera.
Maliha straightened up. “Arnie’s disappearance isn’t the only piece of news. Xietai’s dead.”
“Finally caught up with him, huh? So was he Ageless like we thought?”
�
�No. I’d sure like to know who trained him, though.”
“Get some rest. I’ll tell Yanmeng and Eliu.”
Maliha stood up. “Yanmeng already knows and I’m sure he’s told his wife by now. I brought his son’s knife back for him.”
It would be up to Yanmeng and Eliu to decide if they wanted a memento of their son’s life or not. If it were Maliha’s choice, she’d say no, but she wanted to be able to give Xietai’s parents a choice.
“I have something else I want to work on. Lucius gave me a key right before he, uh . . .”
“Was pulled into his demon’s hell,” Hound finished for her.
“Yes. He said the key would lead me to a lens shard he took from me.”
Maliha sought not only to balance the scales on her body but also to eliminate the Sumerian demons left on Earth. To do so, she had to collect shards of a lens made by the chief Sumerian god, Anu, then broken by him into seven pieces and scattered across the world. When she had all seven shards, they would seal together into a round diamond lens that would allow Maliha to read the words on the Tablet of the Overlord. By speaking them aloud, she could kill the demons one by one.
Maliha possessed two shards already, plus the Tablet of the Overlord. She’d retrieved a third shard, but Lucius had taken it from her, following the orders of his demon Sidana.
She pulled a key from her pocket. “It has a number on it, but I don’t know how to find the place it comes from. Once we do, it should be an easy retrieval.”
“Nothing seems to be easy where those shards are concerned. What if Sidana knows where the shard is and has guards set up around it?”
“A trap, you mean? I’ll have to deal with that if it comes up. The first obstacle is just finding the location. To start, send Amaro an image of the key and see if he can come up with anything.”
“What was Lucius’s full name? He might need to know if it’s the name on the key’s record.”
“Lucius Antonius Cinna. He used ‘L. A. Cinna’ as a public name. He said the Roman first name was for intimate use.” She handed the key over to Hound.
“So the rest of us are supposed to call him L. A.?”
