God's War

“You do,” the woman said.

But the first name Nyx said aloud was “Arran.”

The boy Tej had died for.

“You’re Jaks,” Nyx said. And some old wound throbbed. The old bullet wound in her hip. “Jaksdijah. The boxer. I killed your brother.”

“You remember.” She placed a rough hand on Nyx’s forehead, tenderly, though her eyes and teeth were predatory. She smoothed back Nyx’s hair.

“Nikodem had Yah Tayyib patch you all up, one last time,” Jaks said.

“For what?” Nyx said.

“For me,” Jaks said. “Then for your sisters. I’m told they’ll do far worse, but I wanted you first. It turns out someone on the bel dame council has wanted you for some time.”

Nyx grunted. “Who?”

“I’m just a businesswoman. Your sisters say someone on your council wants you. They said they’ll take you dead if they have to. I needed you alive, but I don’t need to deliver you that way.”

“You can’t do worse to me.” Nyx tried to think, tried to get her muddled brain to push back the gauze of sleep and drugs. She had the queen’s protection. Somebody on the council was going over the queen.

The council was split.

Jaks pulled her hand away, kept grinning. “I have your team,” Jaks said.

“Why should I care?” Nyx tried moving again. Flexed her remaining fingers. She ran through the inventory of her team. Rhys had been in the cell. She figured Khos took off with Inaya, Anneke had been in some firefight with the bel dames. Taite was dead. The only one she was certain they had was Rhys.

“Because I’m going to let you fight me for them.”

“What?”

Nikodem broke in. “You and that other hunter were the last I had to concern myself with. Your little magician had some transmission transcripts on him, I heard, and I needed those in order for my work to continue. Your queen is not as forthright with her information as she should be. I’d have preferred to get them myself. Rasheeda was assisting me.”

“Kine’s records,” Nyx said.

“On my world, you two would never have been called sisters. Impossible, with your differences in class. She wanted to make life. You want to destroy it.”

“You don’t know shit about either of us,” Nyx said.

“I know enough. You have an interesting past, Nyxnissa. It was fortunate that your past served me so well.”

“I’m half dead. You expect me to fight?” Nyx said.

“No,” Jaks said. “I want you dead. At my hand.”

“I have a good team,” Nyx said.

“For a woman who prides herself on her independence, you sure do rely a lot on a bunch of gutter trash,” Jaks said. “Let’s see how well you do without anyone to hide behind.”

“I did well enough with your brother.”

Jaks didn’t punch her; she smacked her, hard, across the face. Blood tickled Nyx’s nose. She sniffed.

Jaks leaned over her. “And what a noble, powerful woman you must be, with the strength and courage to murder a boy in his bed.”

“He was contaminated and he ran.”

“And you didn’t?” Jaks said. “Rasheeda, get her up and taped. I want my fight.” Jaks took Nyx by the chin. “Let’s see how well you do in a fair fight.”

Nyx put those names away in her head. Dahab and Rasheeda. Rasheeda and Luce had been the ones to warn her off the note back in Mushtallah. If they were telling the truth, it meant they’d come from the bel dame council. Fatima, Luce, and Rasheeda had tracked her down and tortured her, looking for Kine’s papers, but not to give them to Nikodem. They had said nothing about Nikodem. They’d said they needed to get the papers out of Chenja. So Luce and Fatima were working for the council members that wanted Nikodem back and Nasheen’s secrets safe, and Dahab was working for Nikodem and Chenja or whatever part of the council believed in whatever Nikodem was doing, and… Rasheeda was playing both sides.

Which was why Rasheeda played dumb when Fatima accused Nyx of killing her sister. Rasheeda had killed Kine for Nikodem, then turned around and played Fatima.

Well, fuck.

“Fair?” Nyx said. “I’m half a corpse.”

“Then all I need to do is kill the other half,” Jaks said.

Rasheeda and Dahab unstrapped Nyx from the table. Dahab glared at her with her new, foreign eye, a bland point of darkness.

Rasheeda was making strange chirping noises.

“I don’t want your squirts taping me up,” Nyx said. “Where’s Rhys?”

“You’ll see your magician soon enough,” Jaks said. She was already at the door.

“You want to fight me?” Nyx said. “Rhys knows how to tape hands. Your bel dames aren’t boxers. They’re bloodletters.” And Nikodem loved magicians.

Jaks paused.

Nyx waited.

Nikodem stood next to the slab, collecting what was left of the bands that had bound Nyx to the table. “Let her have him,” Nikodem said, turning to Jaks. “He’s been drugged.”

Jaks looked them both over with her black eyes, hesitated for a long moment. Cool air blew in from the doorway, oddly humid. The hall was dim.

“Sure,” Jaks said. “Dahab, you get him. And stay here with them. When you’re done, you and Rasheeda bring them both out to the ring. Got it?”

Dahab and Jaks walked off into the hall, leaving Nyx with Nikodem and Rasheeda.

Rasheeda found a chair, turned it backward, and straddled it, facing Nyx. “Long time, sister,” she said.

“Not really.”

“When we cut off your head, I’m going to eat your eyes,” Rasheeda said. “Like I ate your sister’s.”

“Must have been tasty, my sister.”

“Mmmmmm….” Rasheeda licked her lips.

“Not much you could get from her, though.”

“Protein.”

“Uh-huh.” Nyx kept her ace slack. Rasheeda could smell discomfort. Worse, she fed on fear. “Don’t know what the fuck a bunch of bel dames were doing casing the house of a government worker.”

“Mother’s orders,” Rasheeda said, and chirped. What was with the chirping? When did that start? “The papers were for Nikodem, but the blood was for you.”

“How thoughtful. How long have you been working both sides?”

Rasheeda snapped her teeth. “It keeps me honest,” she said.

Dahab walked back in, but the only thing she had a hold of was her gun. “Nikodem, his hands are broken. He can’t wrap shit.”

“Then get Tayyib to fix him,” Nikodem said.

“I don’t like magicians.”

“If he troubles you, sever his head,” Nikodem said. She gathered up some instruments lying next to the sink and put them into a black organic bag. “Come, I want this over with. I have things to do tonight.”

Dahab and Nikodem walked out.

Rasheeda continued to peer at Nyx.

“Your sister told us all about you,” Rasheeda said, leaning over the back of the chair. Her eyes were empty. “Died screaming in the end. She was a bloody fucking screamer. The worst kind.”

Nyx wanted to watch Rasheeda’s eyes bulge and pop out of her head, wanted to watch her face darken and her tongue hang out like a dog’s.

Instead, they waited for a long time, in silence.