and rusted roofs of a sprawling shantytown, broken only by the occasional serrated palm. Beyond that, low desert hills shimmered in the rising heat.
The call sounded for mid-morning prayer.
Nyx looked behind her again. No sign of Anneke. A soda run wouldn’t take the magician long. Without Rhys next to her, Nyx would be shit in a fight with a magician.
She pulled the crowbar from the loop at her belt and wedged it into the doorjamb of room tres-bleu- chose.
Tej once told her that sometimes the old tricks were the best ones.
Nyx popped the door lock, and front-kicked the door.
The door swung open.
Nyx dropped the crowbar and released her whip. She needed Nikodem undamaged, for now.
A small dark woman stood at the center of the room, wearing calf-length trousers and a thigh-length green tunic. She turned her face to the door, and Nyx knew her in an instant. Gray eyes met hers—too big-eyed for beauty.
Nyx strode right toward her without clearing the room. A mistake. She knew better.
“Nikodem? I’m here to get you out,” Nyx said. “Your sisters have a bounty on you. We need to move.”
Nikodem smiled, and, watching that smile split the broad-cheeked face, Nyx knew that everything she’d worried about was true.
“Oh, I know,” Nikodem said, “and you’re terribly hard to get rid of.”
Nyx heard the unmistakable whir of an organics gun being powered up.
She looked toward the bathroom.
Dahab pointed a double-barreled organics gun at Nyx with her good arm.
“Good morning,” Dahab said.
Nyx stepped left, crouched low, and snapped out her whip at the gun. The whip caught. Nyx pulled. The gun went off and sprayed the chair behind Nyx. Smoke rose from the upholstery.
Nikodem sprinted for the door.
Nyx jerked the gun from Dahab’s grasp, freed the whip. The gun clattered across the floor. Nyx lashed her whip out at Nikodem’s ankle.
The whip caught again. Nyx pulled again. She took Nikodem off her feet and yanked her forward.
Nikodem reached beneath her tunic and came out with a throwing dart.
Dahab ran for the gun on the floor.
Nyx heard the floorboards in the hall groan. If the magician was back with the soda, she was fucked.
Nyx yanked out her pistol, and fired off a few rounds at Dahab with her bad hand, but—as was typical—didn’t hit anything. She felt a sharp pain in her shoulder and saw Nikodem’s dart jutting out of her flesh. She yanked it out and threw it back at her. She hit Nikodem in the face, with the flat ass-end of the dart.
Nikodem yelled at her in some alien language, and then Dahab was on her feet and pumping the organics gun to reload it. The gun whirred.
Nyx shot at her again.
Dahab ducked.
Nikodem started pulling at the whip around her ankle.
Somebody stepped into the doorway.
Nyx prepared to be assaulted by a swarm of wasps.
Instead, Anneke shot Dahab in the head with her shotgun. Dahab’s brains splattered the wall behind her.
The woman crumpled.
Anneke pointed the gun at Nikodem. “We get paid even if you ain’t breathing,” Anneke said.
“And how will you get a dead body out of this hotel?” Nikodem said coolly.
“Want to find out?” Nyx said.
Anneke slung her gun over her shoulder and put her knee into Nikodem’s back. She bound her with sticky bands and then gagged her.
“Move, move,” Nyx said. “Everybody heard that goddamn shotgun.”
They fled into the hall. A few doors stood half-open, and when the residents saw them, all the doors swung shut. Nyx supposed that if she had seen herself running down the hall dragging a gagged woman ahead of somebody carrying a shotgun, she would have shut her door too.
Nyx pushed Nikodem down the stairs. If they wanted her dead or alive, they wouldn’t mind getting her with bruises.
On the second floor, Nikodem stopped walking and sagged. Nyx threw the woman over her shoulder, and her whole body screamed at her. She stumbled. Nikodem tried to bite her ear.
Anneke punched Nikodem.
They ran down the stairs, and pushed out onto the first floor. Order keepers generally took anywhere from eight to forty-five minutes to show up after a call was placed, depending on the neighborhood. The on-premises security would be heading up.
Anneke sprinted down the corridor and pushed open the back door. The alarm went off.
Nyx stumbled into the hot, dusty parking lot.
Khos waited in the buzzing bakkie. “Inaya says the keepers are two minutes away.”
Nyx wrapped Nikodem in a cooling tarp, and stuffed her into the trunk. Nyx squeezed in up front next to Anneke.
Khos hit the speed but slowed once they cleared the parking lot, to avoid suspicion on the street.
“She alive?” Khos asked.
“Does it matter?” Nyx said.
Anneke clenched her jaw and squinted at Nyx.
“You should be happy,” Nyx said.
“You about bit it that time, boss.”
“Not for the first time.”
“No,” Anneke said, “but it was the first time you almost bit it for doing something real stupid.”
“You all want Taite back? This is how we do it.” Her leg throbbed. She had fucked up her ankle on the stairs, and Nikodem was a lot tougher to carry with only three fingers on her right hand.
“Khos, you have your whores tell Raine’s messenger we’re ready to make a deal for Taite.”
“I’ll drop you off and drive over there. You both all right?”
“Swimming,” Nyx said.
She had her bounty. She should be full of grim optimism, but Taite was in pieces and Rhys was missing—and she had no fucking idea how she was going to pull a slick switch for Taite and get Nikodem back across the border alive.
Good thing she didn’t intend on delivering her that way.
31
Khos unloaded Nikodem from the back. Her legs were bruised from trying to kick out the trunk. Once she had a clear view of him, she kicked out at him too.
Her nose was already bloodied from a hit she had taken from Nyx or Anneke. Khos hit her again, hard this time. She went limp.
Khos put her over his shoulder, shut the trunk, and walked up the long flight of stairs to their room. Nyx was just pushing in the door. Khos heard a shriek.
Nyx swore, and Anneke darted inside.
Khos pounded up the stairs.
Inside, Nyx was on the floor with Inaya on top of her. Inaya screamed and pulled at Nyx’s butchered hair. Nyx caught both of Inaya’s wrists and told her to calm down.
