Daniel Abraham - Inside Straight

The girl’s hand clutched at Lilith’s sleeve. “No, tell me about Paris.”

Lilith mingled her actual visits to the city with evocative scenes from movies. She talked of the restaurant boats draped with lights sliding beneath medieval bridges, and setting the reflection of Notre Dame in the water to dancing; of strolling through the outdoor stalls on the left bank of the Seine where old men with hunched shoulders and shabby jackets peddled even older books. To Montmartre, where children fed the pigeons, and aspiring artists painted the famous church. Lilith took her rapt listener past the open doors of bakeries where the smell of bread and pastries hung so rich and heavy in the air that you could practically chew it.

The young wife’s eyes held excitement, but also resentment. Lilith wove a tale of her own frustration with an autocratic father who had been inspired by news of the rise of the new caliphate, and had sent his family home so her brothers could be part of this renaissance of Islam. “While he stayed in Paris,” the young wife said, and a touch of acid laced the words.

Lilith shrugged. “Yes, but he’s a man. So are they all, except for our glorious Caliph, long may he live and reign.”

“Yes, he is a good man,” the girl admitted.

“What is he like? Have you spent much time with him? Is there a chance he will come by? I would love to see him. I’ve only seen him at a distance.” Lilith rushed the questions and statements, giving the girl no opportunity to answer.

The wife laughed. “No, sorry. He won’t come. He always sends for one of us.” The lush lower lip protruded again. “And it won’t be me. Not tonight. He’ll want to talk to Nashwa.”

Nashwa, late forties, first wife of the Caliph, and mother of his son and heir, Abdul-Alim. Daughter of a prominent Yemeni businessman. “I will go and offer her refreshments,” Lilith said. She stood and gathered up her tray.

“She’s in her room,” the youngest wife said, and pointed vaguely down the hall. Lilith started away. “By the way, I’m Ameera. What’s your name?”

“Sura,” Lilith answered, and enjoyed the private joke. It meant to travel at night.

“How dare you? You knock and receive permission before entering.”

Jeweled beads on the edge of the headdress emphasized the black frown that twisted the older woman’s face. Nashwa was far from a beauty. In fact she was plain, and her voice clanged rather than lilted. She had to be the wife of the Caliph’s heart, otherwise he would have divorced this hatchet-faced woman.

Lilith didn’t respond to the rebuke. She crossed the room in four long, fast steps, grabbed the woman’s arm, and forced it up behind Nashwa’s back, immobilizing her. Lilith then pictured the room in the Uffizi Gallery that held the collection of Roman busts, and took them there.

There was that dislocating moment of dizziness and extreme cold. The stone floor beneath her slippers gave way to the softer sag of wood. Nashwa screamed in her ear. Lilith released the woman, wrapped her hand in the folds of her burqa , and gave the frame of a large painting a tug. Alarms began their shrill-throated cry.

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.