God's War

“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.”