“How’s Ana?” he asked finally, when the silence threatened to swallow them both. “She gonna make it?”
“She’s stable, they tell me. But they need to get her to a real hospital soon.”
He nodded. He didn’t say how unlikely he thought that possibility to be.
“I talked to John,” she said.
Michael gave a bark of a laugh. “Did Beetle Boy give you my ‘assignment’? What am I doing tomorrow? Kitchen help? Bandage detail? Maybe I should sweep the sidewalks so no one dirties their sandals while running away from the Djinn?”
Kate let out her breath through her nose. She was wearing jeans and a tong-sleeved denim shirt with a large leather pouch around one shoulder, bulging with what Michael suspected were smooth, polished stones from around the riverbank, perfect for throwing. “You know what? John’s right about you, Michael,” she told him. “You refuse to listen to anything he has to say because you don’t like him, and that’s stupid. It really is. We can’t win here without taking out the Djinn, and we can’t take out the Djinn without everyone’s cooperation. Sobek, John, Lohengrin, and Bugsy are making those plans now; maybe you should be with them, helping.”
“The way you’ll be with Beetle Boy when he goes after the Djinn?”
Kate grimaced at the name, but only shrugged. “If that’s what he thinks is best,” she said, “yes, that’s where I’ll be.”
“Then that’s where I want to be, too.”
“Why?” she asked. “You think I can’t take care of myself, Michael? You think I need your protection?”
He walked over to where she stood. She watched his approach with near-defiance in the tilt of her head and the narrowing of her eyes. He towered over her as she looked up at him. “I want to be there because you’re there. No other reason. I’d think that would be obvious by now.”
“Michael—”
“No,” he said. His arms, moving, sent bars of shadows flowing over her body. “Listen to me. I can’t change what I did back in L.A., Kate. I was an asshole, I’ll admit it. It was a fucking game and I treated it that way. But there was something genuine between us, and I really craved the feeling I had when I was with you. You felt it too, at least at first; but that feeling’s never left me. Maybe what I did, being with Pop Tart and the others, killed it for you. I don’t know. But I can pray that something’s still there.”
When she didn’t answer, he allowed himself to hope. He hurried into the silence. “I can’t change what I’ve done, but I can change. I can. I have.”
She stopped him with a lifted hand that seemed to shake slightly against the moon-shimmer of Lake Nasser. “Michael, I really don’t know how I feel about any of this.” She stopped, shook her head again. “I can’t think about it now. I won’t. The truth is that it’s not important. Not here, not now. Maybe afterward, if …” She wouldn’t finish that sentence. “I’ve already told you: I’m not here for John, not at the core. And if you’re here for me, then you’re here for the wrong reasons. So why are you here, Michael? Tell me.”
Her eyes scanned his face, the question held in them waiting for his words like a knife. “Maybe afterward…“ He clung to the words, playing them over and over in his mind.
He opened his mouth. He tapped his chest nervously, sending the sound of a low drum into the night. His arms flexed and broken glass ground under the soles of his sneakers, but the words wouldn’t come.
“I thought so,” Kate said. “I’m sorry for you, Michael. I truly am.”
Fortune didn’t put him in the reserves. Michael wondered if that was Kate’s doing, or simply because there were no reserves. But he wasn’t with Kate, Fortune, and Lohengrin. He was teamed with Bubbles and Rustbelt.
Hive’s wasps had warned them that the Djinn was leading Ikhlas al-Din and the army up the eastern bank of the Nile from Aswan, though the Caliph himself remained cocooned in the mansion he’d commandeered in the city of Aswan. “If they manage to cross the High Dam, if we can’t stop them here today, we’ve lost everything,” Fortune told the gathered aces in the predawn dark. “All that matters is this moment.”
By the first hour after dawn, they had moved north on the eastern bank, the High Dam towering two hundred feet over them as they marched away. Michael, Rustbelt, and Bubbles accompanied a battalion of the Living Gods headed by Aliyah, positioned on the Aswan Road nearest the dam’s eastern terminus, holding the newly drained slopes between the Aswan Road and the Nile. Fortune, Kate, and Lohengrin joined with Sobek, Taweret, and the rest of their joker followers—farther north on the road and blocking it entirely. Hive ran communications from the High Dam, his wasps already placed.
All of them—aces and jokers—rested behind sandy earthworks erected hastily the night before, as the shadows shortened and the day’s heat began to rise. Michael’s bald head was encased in an Egyptian army helmet painted a sandy orange, and he wore a Kevlar vest, far too small, that was bound to his torso with elastic bandages. Rustbelt, his right arm still bandaged but out of the sling, was pounding on Bubbles with his left hand, as she glanced at Michael, her face rounding with new weight. “You, too,” she said. “Hit me.”
He punched her in the arm. She sneered at him. “That all you got, Little Drummer Boy? Now I see why Kate dumped you. You’re weak, pathetic, and useless.” This time, when he hit her with an anger that surprised him, she staggered backward but grinned fiercely. “More,” she told him. “Don’t hold back. We don’t have much time.”
She was right.
It started with machine gun fire to Michael’s right—a rough cough answered by a sibilant, fast stutter. Somewhere close, a voice screamed in Arabic. An invisible giant’s boot thumped against the artificial dune sheltering them; a moment later sand dusted the sky in a thundering spout of orange and black. Michael could hear the sinister, grinding clank of tank treads; the ugly snout of one drifted over the crest, the tricolor flag of the caliphate painted on the side. Michael could see a soldier standing up in the turret. The man shouted down into the tank’s interior, reaching for the machine gun mount as the turret swiveled toward them. But a bubble the size of a beach ball had formed between Bubble’s outstretched palms, and it floated away from her toward the tank. The metallic shriek when it struck the vehicle was tremendous. Caterpillar tracks broke like rubber bands; the lopsided frisbee of the turret went spinning away, and the chassis split open raggedly, as if a divine can opener had ripped through it. There were body parts mixed in with the twisted steel.
Aliyah stood. The dark-haired young woman lifted her arms and a hot wind roared around her, sand lifting and swirling like a cloak encircling her, a tornado coiling, lifting and rising, the wind a shriek and howl: Simoon, the terrifying wind of the desert. The sand devil widened and thickened further, so that Michael had to shield his face from the blowing sand. The orange-red tornado, howling, went twirling northward toward the enemy. The Living Gods shouted and began running up the sandy slope in pursuit.
“Okay, fellas,” Rustbelt said. “Here we go.” They ran, Michael staying behind Rusty and Bubbles for the protection they could provide. By the time they reached the summit of the dune, Michael could hear the occasional bullet pinging from Rustbelt’s riveted skin, and Bubbles had gained back all the weight she’d lost.
From the top of the dune, Michael could glimpse the panorama of the sandy battlefield, the scene before them spread out like a movie set.
… Figures spilled down a low rise just to the north, black against the sand. The horde seemed uncountable despite their losses from yesterday, and Michael despaired. Banners fluttered among them—most with the black, green, and white flag of the caliphate, though he also glimpsed the eight-pointed Islamic star of Ikhlas al-Din. The Caliph’s forces had evidently given up on air support—the sky was empty. The followers of the Living Gods rushed toward them, with some of the Living Gods themselves among them. The insistent chatter of small arms fire and the sinister ka-thump of mortars and RPGs rattled the air as they began th
eir descent.
… Across the Aswan Road and ahead, clouds of green wasps swarmed. Lohengrin’s armor gleamed white and cold as he charged toward the enemy, and just behind the German ace, Sekhmet had taken Fortune once more. The great lioness roared and flame spouted from her mouth as she leapt into the fray, claws tearing at the ranks of the caliphate. Kate, farther back, flung rocks that struck the Caliph’s soldiers like missiles.
… and there wasn’t time to see more, as Rustbelt and Bubbles, with Michael close behind, were suddenly in the midst of fighting themselves. Rustbelt’s massive arms swung like pistons, as those nearest him retreated with curses in Arabic. Michael swung around Rustbelt’s left; a soldier fired at him, the burst hitting the center of his vest. The tremendous impact drove Michael to the ground. The soldier stood over him, and he was too dazed to react. He saw the muzzle pointed at his face …
… but a bubble the size of a orange wafted past above him, and the soldier went tumbling back in a spray of blood. Michael stared at the body for moment before pushing himself up, bruised and sore but intact, the vest hanging from a few shreds of bandages. “Thanks, Bubbles!” he shouted, but he couldn’t see her anywhere. The followers of the Living Gods were flowing past him, charging into the fray, and it was suddenly hand-to-hand combat. A bayonet-tipped rifle emerged from the crush, stabbing at him. It was all he saw, but Michael managed to grab the muzzle. He pulled with all his strength. A man came flying from the press around him, and Michael flung the man screaming back into his own people. There were weapons on the sand, and Michael picked up four of them with his lowest hands …
… “DB!” he heard Rustbelt call, and saw the ace swarmed with soldiers, like a praying mantis beset with fire ants. Michael ran toward him, firing his quartet of AK-47s without bothering to aim, feeling the furious kick of the automatic weapons as they bucked in his hands. Bullets sparked against Rustbelt’s body, and whined as they caromed away, but bodies were falling from him as well. Rustbelt rose with a groan and a cry and shook off the rest.
He pounded the last few of the soldiers heavily into the sand, leaving red craters. Michael looked away, trying to gain his bearings again.
They were in a valley between low dunes. The wind devil of Simoon scoured the top of the dune ahead of them. He didn’t know where Bubbles or the rest of the followers of the Living Gods had gone. “Come on, fella,” Rustbelt said, “we’re done here.” He lumbered up the dune with Michael struggling after him. The sand dragged at his feet and filled his sneakers, clinging to his sweating body and chafing at the belt of his jeans. He was bleeding; the bandages wrapped around his wounded arm were soaked, and there was a long, ugly gash on his right side between his top and middle arm, the blood mixed with gritty sand. Michael hadn’t felt the bayonet that had left that mark, but now he felt the pain and the stitch in his side.
Rustbelt reached the top of the dune. He stopped, and Michael heard the ace grunt.
“Shit.” Michael saw the issue as he scrambled up next to Rustbelt. For the moment, they were alone in an oasis of relative calm. The main force of the army was focused on the road snaking through the landscape a quarter mile to their left, on the east bank, north of the dam. There, smoke rose from the twisted hulks of personnel carriers and tanks. The troops of the caliphate and the armed jokers of the Living Gods were engaged in a fierce firefight. In the midst of it, in the smear of the tracer rounds and the explosions from mortars, the aces of both sides had come together.
The banner of the Djinn waved, bloody and threatening. Around him, the armies swarmed, but the Djinn stood untouched, a tower in the midst of the plain, his hands lifted to the sky as if in praise. The followers of the Living Gods were running away from him in wild retreat, firing their weapons over their shoulders to no effect. Even from this distance, Michael could feel the tinge of fear radiating from the ace. Uncertainty burned in his stomach. This would be a quick and brutal assault. The Caliph intended to take the High Dam and end this, and the Djinn was going to make certain that the job was accomplished swiftly.
Michael didn’t see any way to stop it. The Djinn dwarfed everyone, and the fear he produced was spreading outward in a wide crescent in front of him. Taweret was among those fleeing, running over her own people in her panic. Michael watched the Djinn reach down and pluck a trio of jokers from the running troops behind Taweret. His fist squeezed, and he flung the broken bodies at the Living God and her priests, chortling in his bass voice.
“If we only had Ana,” Bubbles said, and Michael started to see her standing next to him. “We’d see how that bastard likes being buried under a hundred feet of sand.” Rustbelt grunted in answer.
But they didn’t have Ana. They didn’t have King Cobalt or Hardhat or Holy Roller. They didn’t have the hundreds of jokers who had died yesterday. Those who were still standing were exhausted and injured, and there would be no Peregrine to call “Cut!” when it was obvious they had lost.
The wind devil of Simoon raged to the Djinn’s left flank, her sands tossing tanks as if they were toys, her fierce winds ripping flesh from bone and leaving skeletons on the sand in her wake. The funnel cloud bent toward the Djinn and he opened his arms as if to welcome her, unmoving. “No!” Michael heard Lohengrin’s cry even from where he stood. “Simoon, don’t!“ But she ignored the warning. The tornado tossed aside the Djinn’s guards. Her funnel touched his outstretched hand and he roared as if in pain, snatching his hand back as blood rained on his troops. Simoon curled her winds toward him; they whipped the Djinn’s robes, they lashed his face and body and he retreated a step back. For a moment Michael felt hope. But he braced himself in the sand, reaching for her again, this time with both hands as if he were grasping something hidden in the twisting column of the tornado. The winds abruptly ceased to howl and sand fell like rain; the Djinn’s massive hands were flayed and bleeding, but in them was Aliyah, naked. They could see her mouth open in a scream. “Bubbles—” Michael said. “Can you … ?”
“I can’t,” she said. “Not while he’s holding her.” Michael could see Kate with a stone in her hand, evidently with the same doubt in her mind. Lohengrin called challenge and Sekhmet roared, but the Djinn’s huge fingers closed over Aliyah’s head and shoulders, around her hips. With a grimace, the Djinn twisted his hands as if he were snapping a dry twig.
“Oh God,” someone said, and Michael didn’t know if it was Bubbles or Rusty or himself.
The Djinn tossed the halves of Aliyah’s corpse to either side, trailing gore. He laughed. New skin slid over his wounded hands, as if painted on by an invisible brush. He pointed at the cluster of Sekhmet, Kate, Lohengrin, and Sobek. He took a stride toward them that covered yards.
Rusty started to lumber down the dune toward the others. Bubbles and Michael followed, stumbling through the sand. They were going to be too late, Michael knew. Already he could feel the fear clogging his throat and making each step more of an effort.
Lohengrin ran toward the Djinn, armor gleaming and sword shining; Sekhmet roared, flames jetting from the lioness’s mouth; Kate brought her arm back and flung stones at the giant ace; Sobek, crocodile mouth gaping, snarled as he advanced, his finger holding down the trigger of the AK-47 he held; a clot of wasps arrowed toward the Djinn.
“Hurry!” Rustbelt shouted over his shoulder as they ran. He stumbled, over-balanced and went rolling down the slope of the dune. Michael and Bubbles slid through the sand behind him.
The Djinn took another step and was within arm’s reach of Fortune’s group. Shadows played around him even in the brilliant sunlight, as if he were surrounded by unseen figures; he loomed over them like a god. Sekhmet was slapped down in midleap; Kate’s stones went careening away; Sobek was down, bleeding from a head wound; a puff of breath from the Djinn banished the wasps. The giant reached toward Lohengrin, ready to pluck him from the sand. “Deus Volt!“ they heard the German ace cry, and Lohengrin’s sword slashed at the hand that curled around him—two massive fingers fell like tree trunks to
the sand. The Djinn roared, and the sound drowned out everything else. His other hand came down and struck Lohengrin open-handed. The ace went flying, slamming hard into a disabled tank.
The glow of ghost steel faded. Where there’d been a warrior drawn from myths and legends, a pudgy blond boy now sprawled, unconscious.
“Fuck.” Michael spat out the word along with a mouthful of sand. They’d reached the bottom of the dune. Bubbles was helping Rusty to his feet. “Hit me!” she shouted at him, at Michael. “Hit me now!”
Ahead, Kate and Sekhmet were the only two still standing. Kate reached into her bag of stones; Sekhmet roared defiance. The followers of the Living Gods were fleeing the confrontation, while the Djinn’s elite guard spread out around the giant once more. Between Michael and Kate, there was little but open sand. “Come on,” Michael said, as Rusty slammed a fisted hand into Bubbles’s stomach. “We gotta get there.”
They ran. As they did, Sekhmet roared once more, the sound louder even than the Djinn’s laughter. Fortune bounded in one leap toward the Djinn; Michael saw Kate shout at him—“No!”—and desperately begin to fling stones. The Djinn stood calmly. Shadows pulsed; his figure shimmered. Kate’s stones slid harmlessly through and past the Djinn.
And Fortune: the lioness of Sekhmet leapt toward the Djinn, and he rushed forward to embrace the Living God. He was too slow this time. Sekhmet twisted in midair, slipping past his maimed hand. She slashed at his bearded face with her claws, ripping a quartet of bloody lines down his cheeks. Strips of flesh curled back from the wounds. The flames from her mouth set his beard afire.
The Djinn pulled her from his face as more flesh tore. He held Sekhmet in one hand; his fingers tightening around her body. The lioness screamed, an awful shrill of torment. The flames gushing from her mouth went to smoke as he threw her hard to the ground.
The lioness fell, but it was Fortune, naked and unprotected, who lay crumpled on the sand. The Djinn crouched and picked him up again, a smile twisting under his dark beard, his cheek bloodied and torn. As he held him tendrils of smoky vapor began to curl from the scarab embedded in Fortune’s forehead toward the Djinn, wreathing around his body and sinking into his flesh. Fortune screamed in his hands, wordless and horrible. Kate, weeping, flung stones.