Kameron Hurley - God's War

“How about aliens? You ever seen any of those?”

Husayn’s face opened up. “Aw, hell, the aliens, yeah, I remember them. Aw, yeah, that fight.”

“I might be looking for one of them. She met up with you at that fight in Faleen. Name’s Nikodem Jordan.”

“Blood and hell, Nyxnissa, what’re you getting yourself into?”

“Nothing I can’t handle.”

“I heard that before.”

“What did she talk to you about?”

Husayn sighed. She spared a look at the sparring kids and then went and picked up another of the corner stools and plopped it down next to Nyx. She sat, leaning in close, so her sweat dripped on the mat at Nyx’s feet.

“She was a real strange talker, that one. Was pretty nice, hearing she was so interested, but those magicians, they said not to talk about boxing or bugs too much, you understand?”

“Magicians like Yah Tayyib?”

“Huh,” Husayn said, and spit. She wiped at her face, grimaced. “He wasn’t the one cutting black work. Can’t fault somebody for doing their job.”

“Let’s say this isn’t personal. What if I told you Nikodem was back—and missing—and the queen had me looking for her?”

Husayn guffawed, but when Nyx’s expression didn’t change, she sobered. “No shit?”

“No shit. It’s cloak-and-dagger work though, all right?”

“Right, all right. This real spindly girl comes in and talks to me before the fight. I was pretty riled up, you know. I get all anxious before a fight, and answering questions—from dogs or aliens or whatever—is not something I got any interest in.”

“What did she want?”

“Wanted to know how we trained, what it felt like to be a boxer, whether or not the bugs or inoculations got in the way. Best I could figure, she thought the bugs made us feisty or some shit, ’cause she couldn’t imagine us going around bashing each other up for fun. She must live on a real dull world.”

“She say anything about why she was here? What she was working on?”

Husayn shook her head. “Naw, and I didn’t think to ask. Magicians all around, you know? I figured she was under their protection. Whatever project magicians got going, you leave it be. You remember.”

“Yeah,” Nyx said. “I remember.”

“Something else she said, though—wanted to know if I’d ever fought a shifter. I told her we don’t allow shifters in a ring, and she said why not? I told her it was ’cause they had an unfair advantage. She thought that was stupid, you know, since we’d fight magicians and all. I had to tell her being a magician just means you’re using bugs. Magicians can stop using bugs. They can even drug up the bad ones to keep them from using bugs. But shifters, it’s in their blood. They’re half us, half something else. Told her the First Families used to call them angels. She was real interested in that.”

“Huh,” Nyx said. “She didn’t know the composition of shifters?”

“Naw, she thought they were just like magicians. Called on certain bugs or something to change them up. I told her no, they were something else, something that got fucked up at the beginning of the world. Told her shifters live half in this world, half in the afterlife. Angels.”

Nyx nodded. It was a popular idea—shifters being angels or demons—but she had known too many shifters to buy into that one. So Nikodem was interested in knowing about shifters. Bugs and shifters. We’re all trying to cure the war, Kine had said. If shifting was genetic, in your blood, could you parse it out?

Do something dangerous with it? Use it to make other things? Gene pirates muttered about that kind of shit all the time, but Nyx had stupidly believed it wasn’t something Nasheen or Chenja would consider. Too fucked up.

“Thanks,” she said. “I better clean up and talk to my crew.”

“Yeah, I saw some of them come back in when you hit the mat. Isn’t much of a safe house if they keep wandering around in broad daylight,” Husayn said.

“Thanks. I’ll talk to them,” Nyx said.

“Nothing of it,” Husayn said. “You spend six weeks here, I could get you back into shape, you know.”

“We won’t be here that long,” Nyx said. The bel dames would burn them out.

Husayn shrugged. “Too bad. I keep wanting to whip that dancer of yours.”

“In more ways than one, I’m sure,” Nyx said.

Husayn winked. “That Chenjan accent turns me frigid. But you know, your little black man’s not a half-bad boxer.”

“Rhys doesn’t box. He’s a dancer.”

“He does box. He’s a magician, ain’t he? And he’s in good shape. A little small, maybe, but there are a lot of women at that weight. I’ve been working with him since he got in. I thought he was training with you.”

Nyx knit her brows. “Not with me.”

“Well, he’s not bad.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

So Rhys was boxing now, despite his long-suffering abhorrence for blood and violence. When had he started that up? It explained how he stayed in shape. He was probably taking lessons from Husayn just to spite Nyx. If she had fewer things to worry about, she might have let it get to her. As it was, she’d spent the last two nights mostly drunk and driving, trying to ward off nightmares of Kine lurching out of the tub, seeking her out with cold hands and bloodied eye sockets. It was not enough that she still dreamed of her dead brothers and her dead squad. Now her sister clawed at her as well. Too many dead.

Nyx hopped out of the ring. She landed badly and winced. She was hungover, and everything was starting to hurt again.

Nyx headed into the steam room. She cleaned herself up and slipped into the closet where Husayn had built a stairwell that went up into the attic.

Nyx found Anneke with her forehead pressed to the floor. Anneke prayed facing north in the center of a vast array of weaponry. Taite had set up a makeshift com center in a far corner, and he and Khos were playing cards on the console. It looked like they’d all slipped in while she fought. What, had they been at lunch?

Rhys had hung up a sheet to screen his sleeping area from the others. She heard him praying, too low to make out the words, as usual, and figured it must be about noon.

She was hungry. They must have eaten.

“What have you all got for me?” Nyx asked.

Khos leaned back in his chair. “What happened to the bakkie?”

“What happened to your face?” Taite said. They were playing for locusts, and one of the bugs was creeping off the table. They must have seen the bakkie in the garage.

“You still need me to fix that window?” Anneke said, coming up from her prone position.

Nyx found a seat on a threadbare divan at the center of the room. There were some deflated speed bags in one corner, and a lone punching bag hung from the long main beam of the ceiling.

“I missed you all too,” she said.

“Anneke and I checked out some of the mercenaries on the note,” Khos said, shoving his cards back at Taite. Taite poked at one of the locusts. If they were just a little harder up, he’d likely eat them. “Two more dropped their notes. If I didn’t know better, I’d say somebody was convincing them it was a good idea. We’re down to one bounty hunter and two mercenaries.”

“The ones who dropped had pretty good money in their accounts after they did,” Taite said. “I hacked into Raine’s com for about a day before he patched the leak. As of three days ago, he’s still after the note.” Nyx saw the statue of Taite’s little Ras Tiegan saint stuck up on the top of the com console. It was good to know that some things were constant.

“Where’s Raine at?” Nyx asked. She wondered how much of her own gear they’d managed to get out.