God's War Part 34

Anneke frowned at it. "Better not tell Inaya."

"She's sleeping?" Khos asked.

Anneke nodded.

Khos looked toward Inaya's door, and the worry crept up on him again. A stupid promise he'd made, to protect a woman who did not want his protection, but a woman who had nothing in the world now. He could buy her freedom, and his, but he feared that would cut her heart far worse than losing her boy to the front when he came of age. Khos wasn't so sure he liked his solution either.

"I don't give a s.h.i.t about Inaya right now," Nyx said. Anneke took the box outside. "We need Nikodem to trade for Taite. If we're going together, we need to go now. I can walk well enough. I've waited too long."

"You're just going to let Taite die?" Khos asked.

"n.o.body's dead yet. Did you hear what I said?"

"He will will be dead. How are you going to get Nikodem after all this waiting?" be dead. How are you going to get Nikodem after all this waiting?"

Nyx regarded him as if he were an annoying insect, something she'd found plastered to the bottom of her sandal. "Have some faith."

Khos clenched his fists. "In what? You? You don't even have faith in yourself."

"Remind me again, did I renew your contract?"

Khos walked away from her, and sat in a ratty chair. Too small for him. Nothing fit him in any country.

Anneke returned and squatted next to Nyx. "If he ain't already dead, boss, we should bring him in like we brought you in. Fair's fair."

"Life isn't fair," Nyx said.

As he looked at Nyx, at her mutilated hand and scarred legs, Khos realized that Rhys, her shadow, wasn't in the room. Unless Rhys had gone out for food, that made him late from his trip to Bahreha. Khos looked again at Nyx and tried to read her. Was she worried about her tardy magician? Or did she care as little for him as she did for the rest of them? They had risked their lives to go after her, pitted themselves against bel dames. But she sat here on the divan and refused to bring back Taite? It'll be me who has to tell Mahdesh, he thought. Me who has to tell him his lover is dead.

And Khos would be the one left with Inaya.

"So lay this out for me again," Nyx said to Anneke.

"Low security up front," Anneke said, pointing to the hand-drawn blueprints on the table. She'd been running recon since Khos and Rhys came back from the waterworks. "The back has an emergency exit. The alarm's working, so we can get out, but our getaway needs to be right outside the door, 'cause if security don't know we're there by then, they'll know once that alarm goes. Nikodem has magicians with her. All the time. Mid week, all but one of her magicians goes out to socialize at the local boxing gym. That's the best time to move."

"When does she go out with the magicians?" Khos asked. "Just during fights, like when we saw her?" Nikodem would get them Taite. He needed to keep his mind on the f.u.c.king note.

"So far as I can tell," Anneke said. "It's not like I've had a lot of time for recon, and you've been... occupied."

"So once we get past the security at the desk, we need to separate Nikodem from her magician," Nyx said.

Khos ignored Anneke. "That's a tall order," he said. "We don't have a magician."

"No, but Anneke and I have firepower and some bug repellent. It could give us the time we need."

"How do you want to get in the back?" Anneke asked.

"We'll go in the front."

Khos shook his head. "How we going to get past security?"

"Trust me," Nyx said.

Khos sighed. Trusting Nyx never turned out well.

From the other side of the door, Inaya's son began to cry.

Evening prayer came and went, and Nyx found herself standing at the window of the main room, looking out over Dadfar through the lattice. Looking for Rhys.

Inaya crawled out of her room for the first time all day and sat with Anneke and the kid. She looked skinnier-and paler, if that was possible. Anneke fixed her some condensed milk and force-fed her a roti.

Khos walked up next to Nyx. "See him?"

"He's tougher to see in the dark," Nyx said, and smirked, but something clawed at her belly. Rhys was late. Very late. How long until Raine started to send him back in pieces too? She'd been a fool to send that stupid magician out on his own. A b.l.o.o.d.y f.u.c.king fool.

"He'll be all right," Khos said. "He's a magician."

Khos towered over her. Even in the warm room, she could feel the heat of him next to her.

"We both know what kind of magician he is," Nyx said. They stood a long moment in silence. Then, "You know I intend to bring Taite back."

"Sometimes I don't know you, Nyx," he said softly.

She looked up at him. The light in the room was low. Anneke kept a couple of glow worms in a gla.s.s. Lanterns used fuel, and gas was expensive. In the dim light, Khos's expression was difficult to read, but Nyx always thought he looked sad. She had signed this big sad man because she had sensed something in him that she'd never had-a protective loyalty toward her and the team that transcended petty disagreements about s.e.x, blood, and religion. When she looked at him now, she wondered what would happen when those loyalties conflicted. Would he choose to side with her or with Taite? Taite or the wh.o.r.es? And where did Inaya fit into this? She had seen him stare long at her door and go rigid when her baby cried.

"n.o.body knows anybody," she said. "We're all working on blind faith."

She watched a hooded figure come down the street and strained to see, but the figure pa.s.sed by their building.

"You're saying your secret to getting up and going forward is blind faith?" he said, and she heard the amus.e.m.e.nt in his voice.

"No," Nyx said. "Lately, it's been whiskey." She peered down at the street again.

"I've been thinking about how to get past the desk," Khos said. "I think I know some people who will help us."

"Khos, the only people you know in Chenja are wh.o.r.es."

"Exactly," he said.

"We'll have a problem with com, not having Rhys and Taite."

"So we'll put together something else."

"Is there something wrong with your communications?" Inaya said from behind them.

Nyx and Khos both turned. Anneke was lying in a pile of blankets on the floor, working with her guns. Inaya stood at the end of the divan, her son in her arms.

"We usually use Rhys. Taite receives his transmission through the com," Nyx said.

Inaya hadn't washed her face in a while, and her hair was greasy. She looked like some street beggar. "You don't have regular transceivers?"

Nyx shrugged. "Anneke, Taite give you any manual transceivers?"

"I have a box of com gear," Anneke said, "but transceivers take a long time to synch up. Don't have the time or the money to take them in and have somebody do it."

"I can do it," Inaya said.

Nyx smirked. "You can do it?" She looked her up and down, pointedly. can do it?" She looked her up and down, pointedly.

Inaya narrowed her eyes. "Where do you think Taitie learned to repair a console? Did you think that fat man employed him for his looks?"

"You're kidding me," Nyx said.

Inaya said to Anneke, "Show me the box." She glanced back at Nyx. "I a.s.sume Taitie didn't tell you why we had to leave Ras Tieg."

"I don't pry into the affairs of my team," Nyx said.

Anneke walked over to their pile of gear and started moving boxes and duffel bags around.

"Our parents handled communications for the Ras Tiegan underground, rebels against Ras Tieg's tyrant, the uncle to your foolish Queen," Inaya said. "They were also shifter-sympathizers. My mother was a shifter, and my parents' politics were... frowned upon. When they killed my mother, my father took her place and trained Tiate and I. When things got bad politically, when the streets..." She choked up, and Nyx thought she was going to cry again, but, remarkably, she swallowed it. "I could marry. Taitie was too young."

"So when things got hot, you smuggled him out of the country."

"He did the same for me, later."

"You don't act like a rebel."

"We rebel in our own ways."

"Here," Anneke said. She dragged a box toward Inaya. "Should be a couple transceivers in here. Some might be broken."

"All right, then," Nyx said. "If you can give us com, then maybe we're ready to run. Anneke, I want you to get me a couple of empty cake boxes from that friend of yours who owns the teahouse."

"Cake boxes?"

"Khos," Nyx continued, "I want to talk to some of your wh.o.r.es tomorrow, early. I'll need a half hour of their time and yours."

"I'll go down and tell them," Khos said. "Where do we want to meet them?"

"That diner in the Mhorian district, just before dawn prayer."

Khos put on his burnous and headed out. "It's about f.u.c.king time," he muttered.

"Anneke?" Nyx said.

Anneke straightened. "Eh, I'll go get her up. The teahouse is still open." She concealed her shotgun beneath her burnous and followed Khos.

"Hey, you f.u.c.ker!" Anneke called after him. "Give me a ride!"

Nyx turned and watched Inaya open the box and pick through its contents. She kept the kid in a sling so he had easy access to her breast. Unlike a Nasheenian woman, she didn't keep the breast bared. Instead, she kept an old tunic slung over one shoulder so it covered the kid's head and her breast. An odd affectation, as it wasn't as if Anneke, Nyx, and Khos hadn't seen b.r.e.a.s.t.s before.

Nyx sat on the divan and watched as Inaya set out the transceivers. She opened the little tool kit with her small deft fingers. She shook a couple of the transceivers and frowned.

"This equipment is in terrible shape," she said.

"So Taite always told me," Nyx said.

Inaya did not look at her but pulled out one of the com picks and began prying open one of the transceiver cases. "You're doing this to bring him back?"

"That's the idea," Nyx said.

Inaya worked in silence for a time. Nyx pulled out the diagram of the residence.

"So why wouldn't Taite tell me you were rebels in Ras Tieg?" Nyx asked.

"You used to cut off the heads off Nasheenian rebels. Why would it be different with us?" A low buzzing sound came from the transceivers. Inaya poked at its innards.

"Seems like you hate me a lot for somebody who doesn't know me."

"I know all about you. You're an unG.o.dly, s.e.x-crazed woman."

"I'm a... what?"

"I've read all about women like you, the sort who use everyone around them for pleasure. You're worse than the sort who cavorts only with women. At least they're honest. UnG.o.dly, but honest."

"I'd say I was doing a great job submitting to G.o.d by submitting to my desires. Who do you think gave me desire in the first place?"

"G.o.d does not want us to kill, yet we are able to kill. If you were truly following G.o.d's desire, you would repress your own desires and marry. Marry a man."

Nyx settled back on the divan. "Tell me your marriage was happy."

Inaya's cheeks flushed faintly. Ah, yes, that color. Nyx covered her mouth. She's fixing your transceivers, Nyx thought, be nice.

"Is that why it takes a near-death experience to get you to shift?" Nyx said. "You like it too much?"

Now Inaya's face went bright red. "Do not judge me. You know nothing about me."

"If G.o.d wanted you or me different, He'd have made us that way. I'd think you'd be more unhappy with all the killing I do than with all the men and women I f.u.c.k."

"Sometimes killing is necessary."

"Sure, of course. b.l.o.o.d.y G.o.d and all. You and Taite must get into some pretty good arguments."

"Taite doesn't kill people."

Nyx said, "I mean about the s.e.x."

"Men have certain needs, needs that are unnatural in women. Brothels are a sin, but I can understand his needs for female companionship."