triquetra of the Roman Church etched into its face. “I took this off him just before I made my escape. A daring bit of work, really. He had a whole entourage with him. At least one professional bodyguard in a mask. And his lover threw a few knives at me, too.”
The knob of the front door clicked as a voice said, “Shifrah, you didn’t tell me we were having company tonight.”
The words came from beyond the front door, giving them a brief moment to look up to see the door open and a young Mazigh in loose blue trousers and a loose white shirt step inside. His hand rested lightly on the matte black revolver holstered on his hip, half-hidden by his black leather jacket.
“Kenan.” Shifrah cleared her throat. “This is Aker. An old friend of mine.”
“Ah. A friend.” Kenan nodded as he closed the door behind him. “Professional associate? Colleague? Partner?”
“We worked together back east for a year,” she said carefully. She had been with Kenan long enough for him to understand that she had slept with more than a few of her previous partners, friends, and targets, but he had never accepted that part of her past gracefully.
Kenan looked down at Aker. “And are you working now?”
“Always.” Aker stood up with an easy smile. “But not to worry. As I was just telling our dear Shifrah, I wasn’t after one of your countrymen. Just an Espani fencer.” He held up the stolen triquetra medallion. “You see?”
Kenan’s stern face hardened slightly. “What fencer?”
“No one important. His name was Quesada.”
Kenan’s revolver spun out if its holster and snapped up to point across the table at the shorter man. “You killed Lorenzo Quesada?”
Shifrah stepped away from Aker and held up one empty hand. “Kenan, please put the gun down. We’re all friends here.”
“You killed Lorenzo Quesada?” Kenan repeated.
Aker’s eyes danced from Kenan to Shifrah and back again. “Shifrah said you were in the business yourself. You know how it is. It was a job, nothing personal.”
“Then I guess Shifrah didn’t do a very good job explaining what business I’m in.” Kenan thumbed the hammer on his revolver. “I hunt down escaped convicts. I bring in thieves and killers that the police can’t find. I uphold the law. And Lorenzo Quesada was not only a friend to me, once, but a friend to the queen of Marrakesh. He saved my life. He saved her life. And now your life is forfeit. Give me that medallion. Now. Get down on your knees. Now.”
Aker raised an eyebrow. “A gun. How typical. Do you have any idea of the power of the sword I’m carrying?”
“Is it a magic sword that can draw itself and fly across this room faster than a bullet?” Kenan’s voice was deadly flat.
Aker hesitated only a brief moment before flinging the gold trinket in Kenan’s face. Kenan snatched the triquetra just before it would have hit him in the nose, and in that instant when his hand was up across his eyes, Aker ran. The Aegyptian bolted into the next room and hurled himself out the open window into the narrow alley behind the house. Shifrah reached for Kenan’s arm, but he was already running into the next room, and he fired twice out the open window. “Damn, he’s fast.” He turned back toward the front door.
Shifrah stopped him with both of her hands on his chest. “Kenan, stop. Let him go.”
“Get out of my way!”
“No, listen to me! Aker is a contractor. We work for the same broker. I know him. He’s just doing a job.”
“And so am I.” He shoved her aside and flung open the door, and stopped short. There was a knot of strangers marching up the street and they all turned their heads at the sound of the door opening. Three of the strangers were Tingis police officers. The fourth member of their group was a woman in a long blue dress wearing a white porcelain mask framed with long red-brown hair. There was a hatchet in her hand.
“He’s got a gun!” yelled one of the officers.
“He’s got Master Lorenzo’s medallion!” yelled the masked woman.
Kenan slammed the door and held it shut as the officers crashed against the other side. “What the hell is going on?”
Shifrah snatched up her white jacket and slipped it on, feeling the long knives inside it clink against each other and against her. “Out the back, now!” She dashed to the other room and vaulted out the open window just as Aker had done a moment ago. A glance back revealed Kenan hopping out behind her and running down the alley.
“Shifrah!” he snarled. “I’m not spending one minute in a cell for your damned friend. Where is he? Where is he staying?”
“I don’t know,” she called over her shoulder. “I didn’t even know he was in town until he showed up tonight.” At the end of the alley she ran out into the street, darting left and right through the heavy press of the evening traffic. She ducked around porters with baskets on their heads, and around rattling carts full of huge wire spools, and around giant lumbering sivatheras, and around clanging trolley cars racing down the tracks in the middle of the road. On the far side of the road she dashed into another alley and heard footsteps right behind her.
But they weren’t Kenan’s heavy pounding steps.
Shifrah drew one of her stilettos and spun around in time to see the masked woman in the blue dress take two running steps up onto a barrel against the wall and leap high into the air with her hatchet raised to strike. Shifrah hurled her knife into the woman’s belly, but the hatchet fell like a lightning bolt to knock the knife away. The masked woman landed as light as a cat, swinging her hatchet in short vicious arcs. Shifrah tumbled back, falling and rolling and dodging and scrambling to avoid the relentless whistling blade of the hatchet.
“Stop it, you psycho! I didn’t do anything wrong!” Shifrah drew a second stiletto but the hatchet smacked it out of her hand before she could throw it. She reached for a third knife but the hatchet was suddenly hooked behind her ankle and it yanked her leg out from under her, dropping her hard on the cobblestones at the end of the ally. Shifrah groaned as the pain shot through her back and leg and the knife fell out of her hand.
“Freeze!”
Kenan. Thank God.
The masked woman turned to look at the man pointing a revolver at her. “You!”
Kenan fired once at the wall next to her head. “I don’t want to hurt you, but I will if I have to. Now listen to me. I didn’t kill Quesada, and I don’t know the man who-”
“Liar!” She dashed at him.
Shifrah tensed, waiting for the shot that would kill her. But the shot never came. She looked down the alley to see Kenan grappling with the masked woman. He had his free hand on her wrist holding the hatchet, and she had her free hand on his wrist holding the gun.
Damn it, Kenan. Why didn’t you shoot? Never mind. I know why.
She staggered up to her feet and forced herself to run back down the alley on an aching leg. Once behind the masked woman, Shifrah deftly slipped her arm around the stranger’s neck and squeezed. With Kenan restraining the woman’s arms, it only took a moment to choke her into oblivion. The woman fell to the ground.
Kenan frowned. “Did you kill her?”
“I don’t know. Maybe.” Shifrah heaved a sigh and rubbed her back. “You all right?”
He nodded. “Yeah, but we need to find your friend. Now.”
“Fine. Let’s go before her friends catch up to us.” She eyed the end of the alley for the police officers, but there was no sign of them. Yet. Then she saw Kenan putting the golden medallion into the sleeping woman’s hand. “What are you doing?”
“Her clothes and accent were Espani. She must be one of Quesada’s friends or students. I want the triquetra to get back to the right person. Besides,” he stood up and holstered his gun. “I don’t want to give these people another reason to try to kill me. A little good will can go a long way sometimes.”
Shifrah frowned. Her instincts all screamed that this situation was already completely out of control. They couldn’t go home. They couldn’t be seen on the street. The odds of Kenan being recognized by an old comrade from the army, the marshals, or the Air Corps were pretty good, and keeping company with a one-eyed woman probably wasn’t going to help him blend in. Her training told her to get out of the city. Now.
Training.
