Inside Straight wc-18 Read online

  Lilith teleported back to Nashwa's room in the Baghdad palace. The Italian police would hold the woman for hours. By the time they accepted her story and affirmed her identity she would be a widow.

  Back in the room Lilith threw off her drab black burqa and donned one of Nashwa's. It was still black, but the material was of top quality and it was shot through with metallic silver thread. She settled the headdress over her hair and felt the sapphires and pearls jiggling cold and sharp against the skin of her forehead. Over it all she tossed the outer robe that shrouded even her eyes. Lilith sat down to wait.

  Three hours passed before she was summoned.

  The Caliph had sent four guards to escort his chief wife. She might be a mere woman, but the guards were obsequious because she was the Caliph's woman. Chief wife. The mother of his eldest son. Nashwa wielded bedroom and pillow power. Lilith touched the knives that rested in sheaths on her thighs and the small of her back, and the gun she had for insurance. They turned down another hallway. This one was narrower still. Three floors below, Lilith could faintly hear the rumble of male voices and the wail of musical instruments. She caught a whiff of roasted lamb and cinnamon. Her stomach grumbled. Lilith promised herself dinner and a glass of cabernet as soon as she was back home.

  They went up a narrow staircase. Two soldiers led the way. Two walked behind her. They were now on the top floor, and the roof and ceiling radiated the heat accumulated from the day's sun. Sweat trickled slick and sticky between her breasts and down her back. She longed to scratch at the itch beneath her bra strap.

  How dreadful to be the ruler of much of the Middle East and have to live in such discomfort because you're so afraid.

  One of the soldiers tapped on a closed door. There was a muffled response. The door opened, and the soldiers bowed Lilith into the room. The door fell shut. Someone behind her had closed it, but she was in blinders from the layers of clothing and veils. She concentrated on what she could see through the mesh that covered her eyes.

  The room was small, whitewashed, its walls adorned with flowing script. Verses from the Koran. Yes, it looks like the bedroom of a religious wingnut, Lilith thought. A narrow bed and a side table with a glass water pitcher were the only furniture. Oddly, the bed didn't rest against the wall. It was pulled out a few feet, and there was the cut of a door in the plaster. Bolt hole.

  She heard the footfalls of the man who had closed the door behind her and turned to greet him. But it wasn't the Caliph. It was the Righteous Djinn. He was taller and younger and broader. The lips exposed between the black beard and mustache were thick and moist, and he sucked at the lower lip like a child contemplating a knotty problem. Oddly, his eyes were gray.

  He was still normal size, but quite large enough for Lilith's taste. He wore boots beneath the traditional white robes, and she wondered if the clothes enlarged with him, or if he ended up a thirty-foot naked giant.

  "Honored One?" the Djinn said, but it wasn't a greeting. A query hung in the words.

  I'm supposed to do something, Lilith thought, but I don't know what. Oh, bloody hell.

  "Lady, we must speak." His voice was a bass rumble, and he had a peasant's accent. "I must know that you are . . . yourself." It was one of the better euphemisms for mind control that Lilith had heard, but it didn't help her situation.

  It had been only a delay of seconds, but it was enough.

  The Djinn's face hardened with suspicion. He lunged forward. Lilith danced back, and caught her heel on the trailing hem of her burqa. The Djinn managed to get one arm around her waist. He was frighteningly strong. The pressure drove the hilt of the knife sheathed at the small of her back deep into her skin. He ripped away the concealing veils to reveal her silver eyes. "Abomination!"

  Lilith tried to teleport and found the power retreating like a wave, while lethargy blanketed her limbs. Now she understood how Sharon Cream, Israel's strongest ace, had been subdued. A wild card power was at work here.

  She felt the first licks of panic. She pushed them away. It was the fear that killed you. She forced herself to analyze. The ability to drain her power was probably a mental power. They required concentration. Concentration could be broken.

  A warm sense of well-being flooded her body. Rather than fight it, Lilith allowed herself to go completely limp.

  The Djinn gave a grunt of satisfaction. The full lips were lowered toward her mouth. She reached through one of the cuts in her burqa and closed her hand around the butt of her small pistol. His mouth was on hers. The reek of his breath caught in her throat. Pig. She pulled free the gun, pressed the barrel against his elbow, and pulled the trigger. The report echoing off the walls was almost drowned out by the Djinn's bellow of agony. The most painful injury to the human body had once again worked its magic. The injured arm fell limp to the ace's side. Lilith drove the heel of her boot down onto his instep, then spun away. The Djinn swung his good arm, and clipped her gun hand. The pistol went flying and she fell to the floor. Her legs were flaccid. His eyes were wild, curses emerged in a staccato roar, and the arm dripped blood as he charged down on her. With the last of her strength Lilith gathered her power, felt the snap, and teleported just as she heard the door crash open and the confused bellows from the guards.

  She ended up in one of the hallways she had traversed only a few moments before. She would have only seconds before the alarm would be raised through the entire palace. Quickly she pulled out the map. It was time for a bit of misdirection. They would be looking for a woman. So, let's give them women.

  Snap. She was in the laundry where women labored in the heat. Lilith grabbed two of them, swept the folds of her burqa around all three of them, and teleported away. The women's screams set her ears to aching as they appeared in a first floor hallway. The marble walls amplified the sound. There were male shouts and the thunder of booted feet running toward them. As Lilith teleported away she heard the chatter of a Kalashnikov, and a woman's piercing scream. She couldn't believe her luck. They had actually opened fire. Panic had clearly gripped the palace. It could only help her.

  Lilith grabbed two more serving women and two of the dancers who were eating in the kitchen. She used them to season the stew of growing confusion. A stitch sent white hot pain up Lilith's side, and her shoulders and back were aching. It hadn't been easy controlling the hysterical, struggling women. She rested against a wall in an alcove and waited for her breathing to slow. She heard a high and querulous tenor voice call out. Abdul the Idiot has taken command. Perfect.

  "Lock down all the gates. No. Wait. Not until the military arrives. Turn on all the lights in the gardens."

  "That will kill our troops' night vision, my prince," another voice warned.

  "Oh, yes. Well, issue night goggles."

  "They have night goggles," came another voice.

  "Oh, yes, right."

  "Shouldn't we stay with your father?" another asked.

  Which implies the Caliph has changed location, Lilith thought.

  "No. We must find the crusader assassin."

  Lilith teleported back to Prince Siraj's room.

  He gave a shout of alarm then relaxed when he saw her. "What's happening? Have you done it? I heard gunshots."

  "Pandemonium. No. Yes," Lilith said. "How much does the Caliph love Nashwa?"

  "A lot."

  "Is he a coward?"

  "No."

  "Thank you." Lilith teleported away, certain now where she would find him.

  The Caliph whirled as the pop of displaced air announced her arrival.

  In the dimly lit bedroom the green glow that emanated from his body was apparent. His black hair was flecked with gray and his beard had two long streaks of silver that ran from the corners of his mouth. He was dressed in white robes and she could see the line of puckered brown across his throat where a sister's knife had once failed to cut deep enough. Then he had only been the Nur al-Allah, and the restoration of the caliphate had only been a dream.

  The Nur's eyes telegraph
ed the lifting of his pistol. Lilith seized a pot of face powder off Nashwa's dressing table and flung the contents into his face. He jerked his head to the side, and spoiled his aim. But it had been a near thing. Lilith felt the heat from the muzzle flash across her face, and the report set her ears to ringing. There were female screams from beyond the door.

  She ran for the bed. As she passed the door she slammed it closed and threw the bolt. It wouldn't hold for long, but she only needed minutes. Jumping, she landed on the mattress and used its spring to increase her speed and the height of the jump. She lashed out with her foot as she arced over the Nur's head, and caught him hard on the jaw. With her trailing foot she kicked his hand and wrist, and felt bones snap.

  The second kick had the desired result—he dropped the gun—but it wrecked her trajectory and she fell harder than she'd hoped, onto her hip. Clenching her teeth against the pain, Lilith rolled to her feet and drew a knife from the sheath strapped to her leg. The Nur shook his head, trying to throw off the effects of her first kick.

  Lilith rushed forward, but he turned to face her and drew the ceremonial dagger he wore in his leather belt. The hilt might be jewel encrusted, but the blade was all business, and a good deal longer than Lilith's knife. They circled each other in the knife fighter's hunched and forward-leaning stance.

  "Who sent you?" His voice was rough, like an old crow. Once it had been liquid velvet and had enthralled thousands.

  "The world." Lilith shifted sideways as he made a quick lunge. She slapped aside his hand, and let her knife slide up his arm to cut the tendon above his elbow. The wound made it almost impossible for him to keep hold of the knife. Thundering kicks set the bedroom door to shivering.

  "You can kill me, but you cannot destroy what I've built here."

  "You're right. But we can own it." She allowed a tinge of her accent to color her perfect Arabic. It had the desired result.

  "Infidel! Crusader!" He lunged for her again.

  "Don't forget imperialist." She kicked a small ottoman in front of him. It tangled between his feet, and he went crashing to the floor. She let him get to his knees then darted behind him, drove the knife into his chest, and tipped it upward searching for the tough muscle that was his heart. The steel found its mark. Blood, warm and sticky, poured across her hand, and its tangy, sweet scent filled the room.

  The bedroom was off-limits to security cameras. She had to find some way to shift blame. Five for one. She remembered the old motto of the Black Dog and his joker terrorists. The Djinn had seen her eyes. Knew she was a wild card.

  The door was almost down. "The Black Dog sends his greetings," she shrieked in a high-pitched voice. For an instant the blows on the door stopped, then renewed with increased fervor.

  Lilith picked up the Nur's pistol, and teleported away. She needed four more victims. The final misdirection.

  3. Jonathan Hive Sells Out

  Jonathan Hive

  Daniel Abraham

  2: JONATHAN HIVE SELLS OUT!

  JONATHAN WENT OVER THE release form again, flipping the paper back and forth. The time he'd spent trying to parse memos from Senate campaigns just didn't help much when it came to these West Coast entertainment wonks. The whole point of the exercise, after all, was to get something he could write about. If the first thing he did on day one was sign away his rights, he might as well go fill out an application at Starbucks and be done.

  He looked up and down the parking lot. Great silver buses and trucks filled the place, sound equipment and shoulder-mounted cameras making their way to the secular cathedral of Ebbets Field on the backs of scrungy-looking technicians. A folding table had been set up with a tarnished coffee service and a few boxes of donuts. Several of the other prospective contestants were milling around, trying to size each other up.

  "Is there a question I can help you with?" the flunky asked through a practiced smile. She was early twenties, long-faced, and mean about the eye. Normal-looking people who lived in the beauty pits of Hollywood too long seemed to get that feral I'm-not-a-supermodel-but-I-might-kill-one look after a while.

  "Oh," Jonathan said, whipping out his own smile, "it's just . . . I'm a journalist. I have this blog, and I don't quite know what I can and can't talk about there. If I did get on the show, I couldn't really afford to take however many months just off."

  "Of course not," the flunky said, nodding. "This is just the release for the tryouts. If you're chosen for the show, there's a whole other process."

  Which didn't even sort of answer Jonathan's question. He smiled wider. They'd just see which of them could nice the other to death.

  "That's great," he said, shaking his head. "I just had one or two tiny questions about the wording on this one?"

  "Sure," the flunky said. "Anything I can help with. But it is the standard release." Meaning move it, loser, I've got a hundred more like you to get through.

  "I'll make it quick. I really appreciate this," Jonathan said. Meaning suck it up, jerk, I can stall you all day if I want to.

  The flunky's smile set like concrete. Jonathan killed half an hour niggling at details and posing hypothetical situations. It all came down to the same thing, though: If he wanted in, he'd sign. If he refused . . . well, the field was full of aces who were there for the express purpose of taking his place. He kept up the tennis match of cheerful falsehoods until the flunky's smile started to chip at the edges, but in the end, he signed off.

  He sidled over to the coffee and donuts just long enough to confirm that he didn't want anything to do with either, and then a vaguely familiar blond guy with a clipboard rounded them up and led the way across the tarmac and into the entrance of the ballpark. They were divided into ten groups and then each led to a camera and interview setup where a small bank of lights were ready to make him and all the others glow for the camera. Of his group, he got to be the lucky bastard who went first.

  "Don't worry about the camera," the interviewer said. "They just want to see how you come across through the lens. Just pretend it's not there."

  She was much prettier than the flunky, dressed a little sexy, and willing, it was clear, to flirt a little if that made you say something stupid or embarrassing for the viewing public. Jonathan liked her immediately.

  "Right," Jonathan said. The five-inch black glass eye stared at him. "Just like it's only you and me."

  "Exactly," she said. "So. Let's see. Could you tell me a little bit about why you want to be on American Hero?"

  "Well," he said. "Have you ever heard of Paper Lion?"

  A little frown marred the interviewer's otherwise perfect brow. "Wasn't that the ace who—"

  "It's a book," Jonathan said. "By George Plimpton. Old George went into professional football back in the 60s. Wrote a book about it. I want to do something like that. But for one thing, football's for the football fans. For another thing, it's been done. And for a third, reality television is for our generation what sports were for our dads. It's the entertainment that everyone follows."

  "You want to . . . report on the show?"

  "It's not that weird. A lot of guys get into office so they can have something to write in their memoirs," Jonathan said. "I want to see what it's all about. Understand it. Try to make some sense of the whole experience, and sure, write about it."

  "That's interesting," the interviewer said, just as if it really had been. Jonathan was just getting warmed up. This was the sound bite fest he'd been practicing for weeks.

  "The thing is, all people really see when they see aces is what we can do, you know? What makes us weird. These little tricks we've got—flying, or turning into a snake or becoming invisible—they define us. It's doesn't matter what we do. It just matters what we are.

  "I want to be the journalist and essayist and political commentator who also happens to be an ace. Not the ace who writes. This is the perfect venue for that. Just getting on the show would be a huge step. It gives me the credentials to talk about what being an ace is. And what it isn't. Does t
hat make sense?"

  "It does, actually," the interviewer said, and now he thought maybe she was just a little bit intrigued by him.

  One step closer, he thought. Only about a million to go.

  "Okay," she said. "And Jonathan Hive? Is that right?"

  "Tipton-Clarke's the legal last name. Hive's a nom de guerre. Or plume. Or whatever."

  "Right. Tipton-Clarke. And what exactly is your ace ability?"

  "I turn into bugs."

  American Hero was the height of the reality television craze. Real aces were set up to backbite and scheme and show off for the pleasure of the viewing public. And it was hosted, just for that touch of street cred, by a famous celebrity ace—Peregrine. The prize: a lot of money, a lot of exposure, the chance to be a hero. The whole thing was as fake as caffeine-free diet pop.

  And yet . . .

  He'd woken before dawn in his generic little hotel room, surprised by how nervous he felt. He'd eaten breakfast in his room—rubbery eggs and bitter coffee—while he watched the news. Someone tied to Egyptian joker terrorists finally assassinated the Caliph, a Sri Lankan guy with a name no one could pronounce had been named the new UN Secretary-General, and a new diet promised to reduce him three dress sizes. He'd switched channels to an earnest young reporter interviewing a German ace named Lohengrin, who was making a publicity tour of the United States to support a new BMW motorcycle, and then given up. He dropped a quick note to the blog, just to keep his maybe two dozen readers up to speed, and headed out.

  The subway ride out to the field had been like going to a job interview. He kept thinking his way through what he was going to do, how to present himself, whether his clothes were going to lie too flat to crawl back into when he had to re-form. He'd half-convinced himself that his trial was going to end with him stark naked. He could always pause, of course. Leave a band of unreclaimed bugs just to preserve modesty; like a bright green insect Speedo. Because that wouldn't be creepy.