re-introduce you to the people in charge. Things have changed a bit in the last few years.”
“I want to see Omar. Or look for him, I mean. Ask around, see what people know. He might still be out there somewhere.”
“Yes, and Atlantia might still be above sea level, but I wouldn’t bet on it.” Aker paced away. “But I’ll take you around, just the same. I am curious to see who’s been sending you your jobs lately.”
“Any ideas?”
“Just one.” And he left.
Shifrah waited until he was gone before she followed him back to the hatch and climbed below to find Kenan. The scowling Mazigh detective was waiting for her in her bunk, stretched out with his hands behind his head. “Are you seriously considering killing me?”
Shifrah paused in the open doorway, then stepped inside and shut the door. “Not seriously. But it is on the table. It’s all up to you now. Why? Should I kill you? After all we’ve been through? I’d rather not.”
She sat down beside him and looked down at his face. He wasn’t quite grown yet, still showing traces of softness around the eyes and jaw, though his nearly perpetual frowning had done much to age him. He didn’t sleep enough, which shadowed his eyes, and he didn’t eat enough, which kept him lean even though he never exercised. She had tried several times to get him to run and spar with her, but he said it reminded him too much of the army, and what was the point of training with a knife when he had a gun?
“I thought all of this was behind you,” he said. “I thought we were building something. New lives, new work.”
She shook her head. “No. It was a new life for you. Same one for me.”
“And this Omar person is the one who got you into it? What happened? Did he find you on the street, saw some potential, and trained you up as his pet killer?” Kenan didn’t look at her. His tired gaze drifted across the ceiling.
“Hardly. I started knife fighting when I was fourteen. First kill at sixteen. First contract at seventeen. And all long before I met Omar.”
“And none of that bothers you?”
She could feel the smug condescension radiating from his whole body. They’d been down this road before many times, in one fashion or another. “Did you think I was some poor starving waif living on the street and stealing my bread? Or maybe I was selling my body to fat drunken slobs?” She shook her head. “I’ve never stolen anything in my life. And no one has ever touched me without my permission. I kill for a living, and I kill because I’m good at it. I don’t create the work, I just take the jobs, and there was no shortage of jobs in Marrakesh, I might add. Husbands who wanted their abusive wives killed. Wives who wanted their cheating husbands killed. Business partners. Gang members.”
“So it’s just business to you. You don’t feel anything?”
She glared at him and smacked him on the forehead. “Did you know that there are special accountants in Marrakesh whose whole job is to guess how many people will be killed in this factory or on that railroad?”
“Sure. They’re called actuaries.”
“Right. Because your precious modern businesswomen all know that their factories are going to kill people. Guaranteed. But since it’s cheaper to pay off the victims’ families than make the factories safer, they don’t. They let the workers die for no reason, year in and year out. And most of them die horribly mangled, screaming, while their friends watch them in agony, unable to save them.” She pulled out one of her Italian stilettos and held the blade over his eyes. “But every person I kill dies on purpose, for a reason. Maybe they’re good reasons, maybe they aren’t, but never by accident. And never in agony. Always quick, in the back, sliding in between the ribs, straight into the heart. No suffering, no fear. Just a moment of surprise and it’s over.”
Kenan pushed the knife away from his face with one finger. “It disappoints me that you think your way is better.”
“And it disgusts me that you don’t.” Shifrah put away her stiletto and leaned away. “We’ll be in Alexandria soon.”
“Then we need to get ready to leave.”
“There’s no rush.”
“Yes, there is.” Kenan sat up. “Don’t you find it just a little strange that we weren’t off that train in Carthage more than a minute before Don Lorenzo’s wife was swinging a knife at me? Haven’t you been wondering how they got there ahead of us?”
“No. She wanted revenge, but we got away. These things happen.”
“Stop saying that!” He glared at her and for a moment she saw real venom in his eyes. “These things may happen to you all the time, but they don’t happen to normal people. They don’t happen to me! Now, I’ve been thinking about this all day and the only way to get from Tingis to Carthage ahead of us would be to fly, but there were no scheduled flights last night.”
“So it was an unscheduled flight.” Shifrah shrugged.
“There are no unscheduled flights, unless you’re not in the Corps. And I only know one freelance aeronautics engineer and pilot in Tingis. My old boss, Captain Ohana. Personal friend of the Don and his wife. And if they were willing to fly to Carthage to catch us, then they’ll probably be flying on ahead to Alexandria to try again.”
Shifrah smiled. He’s so rigid, so boxed in by his laws and rules. “Kenan, I don’t think they were trying to catch us. I’m pretty sure they were trying to kill us.”
“Which is why we don’t want to be on this boat when it arrives in Alexandria. They might be waiting for us again.” He stood up. “I’ll go talk to the captain about borrowing the dinghy so we can row to shore before we reach port.”
She caught his arm. “Let me. Unless you speak Eranian?”
His frown faded and he nodded. “Fine.” He sat down again, and this time looked her in the eye. “Listen, I’m sorry. I know you didn’t do this. I know you didn’t kill Quesada, but your friend did, and he brought this mess to our doorstep and ruined my tidy little world. This is not what I was expecting when I came home for supper last night.”
“I know. And I’m sorry if I don’t seem worried enough, but this is what most of my life has been like. Everything ends, sooner or later. Being alone, with Omar, with Aker, with Sal. And now Marrakesh is over, too. Time to move on. I’m happy to take you with me, wherever I’m going, but you’re the one who is going to need to adjust to the world out there. Not the other way around.”
“Maybe.” He nodded. “But you’ve changed more than I have. You’re not so cold as before, not so angry. You seem pretty happy most days, and I mean happy in the normal way, not the crazy way. I was starting to think you and I might be together a long time.”
“Married?” She raised an eyebrow.
“Maybe, maybe not.”
“When we get to the city, you’re going to see some bad places, and meet some bad people, and hear some bad things about me.” She leaned close to his neck where she could smell his sweat. “You might not want to marry me after that. You might get the idea that I’ve been a bad girl.”
“A little late for that.” His mouth hovered near her ear and he whispered, “How long until we arrive?”
“Long enough.” And she pulled him back into the bunk.
Afterward, when she was dressed, Shifrah left their little cabin in search of Aker. She caught him admiring his glowing sword down in the shadows of the cargo hold.
“How’s your friend?” he asked.
“He’ll be fine. He thinks we should leave and row ashore in case we run into Don Lorenzo’s wife again.”
Aker grunted. “Who cares? Did you see me back there fighting that fencer? He couldn’t come near me. He was afraid of me.”
“He was afraid of your sword, the one glowing because it’s practically on fire.”
“Two hundred and fifty souls,” Aker said. “The blade isn’t hot enough to be dangerous until it claims fifty and it isn’t considered a true seireiken until it claims two hundred. This one holds two hundred and fifty. But the truly great blades, the heavenly swords, hold thousands. Only the masters have them. They say the blades glow perfectly white, and a single stroke can set an entire mountain on fire.”
Shifrah tried to get a better look at the sword in his hand, but he slid it home into its ceramic scabbard and let his loose green robe obscure the grip at his belt. She said, “That fencer at the rail yard has a name, by the way.
