attachment for the brace. Not to be worn every day, of course, and never around the house. But on business trips or when working late nights because, well, even a city as civilized as Tingis had its dangers for a woman walking alone in the dark.
Bastet swung into view around the end of the last freight car. “You might want to come see this!”
Taziri jogged to the end of the line and looked out over the train platform and saw two figures running toward the end of the rail yard. The first was a hawk-faced woman in a white jacket with a patch over one eye and a sword in her arms.
Why does she look familiar?
The second runner was a young man with a stubbly scalp, a black leather jacket, and a matte black revolver in his hand.
Well, I know why he looks familiar.
Taziri stepped out from the freight cars and raised her empty hand. “Hello Kenan!”
Both of them slowed to a jog as they looked for the source of the cry, and then seeing the Mazigh woman, they jumped down off the platform and hurried across the gravel yard.
“Captain?” Kenan hustled forward, his face shining with sweat. “You? You’re the one who sent the guide?”
“Guide? What guide?” Taziri swung her gun-arm to the woman in white. “Who’s your friend?”
“This is Shifrah,” he said. “You wouldn’t know her, she’s from the east.”
“Oh, I know her.” Taziri nodded.
I couldn’t forget that face. I guess she didn’t spend too much time in jail after all.
The one-eyed woman frowned, then glared. “You!”
“You’ve met?” Kenan asked.
“Your captain here tried to blow me up,” Shifrah said.
“Your girlfriend here tried to hijack the Halcyon. The first Halcyon,” Taziri said. “Back in Arafez during the riots.”
Kenan blinked. “Well, we can chat about that later. We have the sword used to kill Don Lorenzo, and the killer is chasing us with quite a few of his angry friends. Is this your locomotive? We need to go, right now. The guide said we could leave from here.”
“What guide?” Taziri said. Frowning, she lowered her gun, but kept an eye on the woman in white.
“The guide,” Kenan sputtered. “The big black guy with the magical disappearing act?”
“Anubis!” Bastet stepped out from behind the freight car. “Anubis came to you? He told you to come here?”
“Yes, right, Anubis. That’s him.” Kenan nodded.
“Idiot!” Bastet kicked a pile of gravel across the yard. The stones flew over the rail lines and crackled against the old train station like gunfire. “I sent him to help the others. Mirari and Tycho. Not you. That big idiot!”
“What?” Taziri’s gaze wandered up to the platform again. There was a dust cloud rising behind the little train station office, and a vague chorus of angry voices echoed across the streets. “Is Anubis the cousin you went to visit last night? What did you tell him to do?”
Bastet crossed her arms and pouted. “I told him there were two foreigners in the city and he had to help them get the seireiken with the Espani’s soul in it. I told him the name, Aker El Deeb. I even told him what they looked like. A short man with a gun and a tall woman with a knife wearing a mask.”
Taziri looked over at Kenan with his revolver, and at Shifrah with her eye patch and a lone stiletto in her belt. The captain started to laugh.
“I’m not that short,” Kenan muttered.
“Not as short as the man we’re talking about.” Taziri smiled. “But you’ve got the sword, and that’s what matters right now. I’ve got a little science experiment set up back here. We’re all ready to set Don Lorenzo’s soul free. Or as ready as we’re going to be under the circumstances.”
Kenan made a sour face. “You too? With the souls and the ghosts?”
“It’s all real, Kenan,” Taziri said. “Just accept it and move on.”
“Moving on is a good idea. Once we’re out of the city, you can do all the science experiments that you want.”
Taziri shook her head as she walked back toward the Halcyon. “We’re not going anywhere until Qhora and the others get back. And besides, this big bird is out of petrol. The only way out of here is by hitching a ride with another locomotive.”
Kenan glared at her. “I’m sensing a running theme with your career in transportation. Crash this, cripple that. Can’t you keep anything working?”
Taziri stopped and turned to face him, finding him a hair shorter than herself. She said quietly, “The Halcyon III works just fine, thanks. I had no idea we were going to fly as far as Alexandria, but we had to chase a certain murderer out of Carthage. Maybe if a certain detective had been more interested in catching killers than helping them escape, none of us would be here right now.”
Kenan looked away. “Yeah, well, we all have our problems.”
“Look alive, people, we have a visitor.” Shifrah pointed back at the platform.
Taziri turned and saw a young man trotting toward them. He wore green and he appeared to be unarmed, but the two taller gentlemen jogging behind him both had single-shot pistols and long knives in their hands. She leveled her revolver at them. “Is that who I think it is?”
“Aker El Deeb.” Kenan nodded. “Watch yourself. He has anger issues.”
“I want my sword!” the man in green yelled.
Shifrah held up the sheathed blade and called out, “This sword?”
“Careful,” Kenan muttered. “He’s got friends.”
“Only two,” Taziri said.
“No.” Kenan pointed at the station platform. “More than two.”
Taziri watched as a small battle of at least three dozen men raged into view and began creeping closer to the rail yard. The men were yelling and punching and wrestling and grappling. Fists were flying, knives flashed in the sun, and the occasional tooth or spatter of blood flew through the air. A frightened crowd of gawkers had formed a ring around the violence, all of them pressing back a good distance from the fray, all of them pale and wide-eyed, but none of them trying to flee.
“My sword! Now!” Aker pointed at Shifrah. Both of his Shona associates aimed and fired. One bullet twanged off a freight car by the woman’s head, but the other struck her square in the shoulder and she dropped the seireiken as she stumbled back into Kenan.
The detective caught her as she fell and quickly helped her back around the freight car and out of the line of fire. Taziri fired two shots back at the men, missing both by wide margins, and then she too dove out of sight behind the freight cars.
Bastet hovered at the corner, peeking out. “He got the sword…and now he’s leaving!”
Kenan looked at Taziri. “You didn’t pick up the sword?”
“I was a little busy covering you!”
“I’ll get him!” Bastet grinned as she hopped out into the open.
“No, get back here!” Taziri reached for the girl, but she was already too far away.
Bastet yanked the curved bronze sword off her shoulder and swung it around in a lazy arc through the air, and then swung it down sharply into the gravel at her feet. A tiny shockwave raced through the earth, but from behind the freight car Taziri could only listen to the small rocks pelting the men and the men roaring obscenities back. Bastet scampered back to the others and said, “Okay, that made them really mad. And bloody. They’re coming back here. Should I get the cats back here?”
Taziri shook her head at her as Kenan leaned Shifrah against the wheel of the freight car. The woman was clutching her shoulder, her eye half-lidded, her lip trembling.
Taziri guessed the bullet had shattered the one-eyed woman’s collarbone, or something equally important and painful. The detective moved in front of his companion, raised his revolver, and whispered, “We open fire the moment they step into view.”
Taziri frowned. “I’m really not keen on a gunfight at point blank range. Get her into the Halcyon.” She pointed at Shifrah. “Those gunmen out there are carrying single-shot irons, so they are out of bullets for the moment. Let
