Inside Straight

Melinda M. Snodgrass Dark of the Moon

Somewhere off to her right gunfire erupted.

Anywhere else in the world people would flee that sound, but here in Baghdad it was just one theme in the symphony of celebration. The sharp chattering of a machine gun set a high-pitched counterpoint to the deep bass booms of rockets. A shower of golden sparks hung in the night sky, and edged the needle-like spires of minarets like a benediction. The sparks seemed to fall in slow motion. The light from the fireworks briefly lit the faces of the crowd. Men whirled and danced. Tears glinted on their cheeks, and their mouths stretched wide as they chanted for their Caliph.

Kamal Farag Aziz, the new president of Egypt, had come to Baghdad to submit himself to the Caliph and make his nation one with Syria, Palestine, Iraq, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia, under the restored caliphate. In Cairo, Baghdad, Damascus, East Jerusalem, and Mecca, the masses celebrated. In Lebanon, Qatar, and Kuwait, the leaders of the few remaining sovereign Arab states were shivering.

Lilith pulled the edge of her shimagh across her nose and mouth. Partly it was to disguise the fact she was a woman, but it also kept the dust, raised by thousands of shuffling, stamping feet, from choking her. Only in Iraq could you smell the rich, moist tang of water and reeds, chew on grit, and endure nighttime temperatures in the high nineties. Her robe clung to her body, and she felt a trickle of sweat inching its maddening way down her spine. When Saddam had lived in the palace the acres surrounding the building had been given over to lush gardens. The Caliph had chosen not to take water from Iraqi farmers, and allowed the gardens to die.

From her vantage point near the palace wall Lilith could see the looming bulk of the palace. The white marble walls were washed in a kaleidoscope of colors as the fireworks display continued. A man dressed in snowy white robes and keffiyeh stepped out onto a third-floor balcony. He paced, rested his hands on the carved balustrade, peered down into the crowd, paced again, and vanished back into the room.

Idiot, Lilith thought. Get yourself killed by a stray bullet.

She waited until one particularly spectacular fireworks display lit the sky and every head craned back in that particular kind of amazement unique to yokels. Then she swept the folds of her dishdasha and jalabiya around her body and felt that strange, internal snap, as the surface beneath her sandals changed from dirt over concrete to less dirt over polished marble.

Prince Siraj gaped at her. He was handsome, but his smooth round face and the bulge of a belly against his robes showed the dangers of sufficient food for a Bedouin. No matter that the royal house of Jordan had been out of the desert for four generations. Two thousand years of subsistence living was bred deep in the bone, and it whispered constantly that this meal might be the last for a long, long time.

“Are—” He coughed and tried again. “—Are you the one Noel sent?”

“You better hope so.” Lilith stepped into the room. A breeze off the Tigris stirred the white fabric of the mosquito netting that swaddled the bed. An elaborate mosaic of multicolored stone covered the floor. It depicted King Nebuchadnezzar hunting waterfowl in the rushes. But of course, Saddam had been a secularist. Lilith wondered how long until the Islamic purity patrols of the Caliph would destroy this art.

“I have your clothes.” Siraj lifted the folds of black material from the bed and thrust the abaya and burqa into her hands.

She pulled off the shimagh, and her waist-length black hair tumbled free. Siraj stared at her. At five-ten, Lilith was a couple of inches taller than the prince. Her only worry was the silver eyes, legacy of the wild card, but fortunately the Muslim requirement of modest downcast eyes for women worked to her advantage.

“Noel said you were in school together?” she asked as she dropped the tentlike garment over her body. With one of her blades she cut discreet openings in the material that she could reach through.

“Yes. At Cambridge. We were great, good friends. He loves our culture.” The sentences emerged in agitated little bursts of sound.

“Would a friend put you in this position?” Lilith asked. The mesh was disconcerting to look through, and the veils reduced her peripheral vision. She felt naked beneath the layers of cloth.

“I can be a bridge,” the prince said as he paced around the room. His hands kept clasping and unclasping. “Between our two worlds.”

“It’s just one world,” Lilith said, then added, “Do you have the map?”

“Yes.” He handed her a piece of paper, and hurriedly pulled back his hand when their fingers brushed.

Lilith wondered at the avoidance. He had been educated in England, and lived for long periods in the West. Perhaps it was just the proximity of the Caliph that had him jumpy. She looked down at the paper. It looked like a cross section of a honeycomb. “A little hint would help. You know, insane religious nutters sleep here,” Lilith said.

Siraj flushed at her drawling British delivery. “He changes rooms… frequently.”

“Well, that’s… irritating.”

“He’s become increasingly paranoid.”

“Understandable. He was nearly assassinated by his sister.” She gave Siraj a bright smile, then realized he couldn’t see her features. Ridiculous culture.

Siraj plunged on as if she hadn’t spoken. “Even though I’m on his council, I think… well, I think he doesn’t trust me any longer. It started when the Righteous Djinn arrived. The Djinn disapproves of Western education. He thinks it taints us.” The hand washing had become even more fervent. “You mustn’t fail.”

“Relax. Tonight you have a pro.”

The prince looked around as if expecting the walls of the room to collapse in upon them. “It may not be as easy as you think. The Djinn accompanies the Caliph everywhere. He is enormously strong, and he can become a giant.”

“Good thing we’re indoors.”

Her light response didn’t please Siraj. “Since you find the Djinn unworthy of concern, you might remember that there is also Bahir.”

“I’m very aware of Bahir.”

But it didn’t stop the nervous flow. “Bahir can teleport. Many an enemy has been surprised to find his scimitar suddenly behind them. It’s the last surprise they have before they’re beheaded.”

“Little flamboyant, don’t you think? A gun would be easier and far more certain.” She was very aware of the pistol strapped to the inside of her thigh.

“Well, yes, it’s a stereotype, but it’s also symbolic. The street loves it.”

“All that symbolism is why the Arab has found himself despised and dismissed.” Lilith looked at the map again. “I can’t just go teleporting into rooms hoping to find the Caliph. Do you have any idea where he’ll be?”

“He’s at the banquet now,” the prince said, “with the Egyptians. Aziz.”

Kamal Farag Aziz. Egypt’s new strongman had come to power when the meddling Americans had forced a free election that swept out the secularists in power and swept in the fundamentalists of Ikhlas al-Din. “Is your absence going to be problematic?”

Siraj shook his head. “I took ipecac. No one doubted I was sick.”

“Ah, ipecac. Every British schoolboy’s delight.” Lilith paced. “Well, I can’t crash the party.” The folds of the burqa twisted around her legs. “Is the Caliph a typical male? Is he going to stay with the boys ’til dawn?”

“He is a serious man, not given to frivolity.” Siraj paused. Lilith seized on the thoughtful look. “What?”

“He is close to Nashwa, his first wife. He often shares his triumphs with her.”

“Good thing I’m a girl.”

“What are you thinking?”

“That I’ve always wanted to see the inside of a harem.”

There were a pair of soldiers on guard outside the door to the women’s quarters. Their dull dun uniforms were brightened by the presence of the green kerchief tied at their throats. Their eyes swept across her and dismissed her in a blink.

In a thick country accent, Lilith said, “The Caliph has sent this for his beloved wives, but the Caliph, great is his glory, will not mind if his brave and loyal soldiers sample a few of the delicacies.”

They echoed her words of praise, and Lilith held the tray while the young men helped themselves to sugar. She noticed they both had dirty fingernails. Lilith then slipped under their arms and tapped lightly on the door. The heavy panel fell shut behind her, cutting off the bass rumble of male voices.

The large room she had entered was lovely, but not grandiose. Through a whitewash of paint she could make out the faint colors of a mural that had once graced the left wall. The air was redolent with the smell of rosewater and orange oil.

Two women stood at the window, peeking through the curtains at the continuing fireworks display. Red, blue, gold, and green light washed across the fabric and their faces. One was enormously pregnant—her face was swollen and her fingers puffy. From the way her belly hung, she looked to be within days of delivery. The other woman was at that midpoint in a pregnancy when a woman seems to glow.

Curled up on a couch was a much younger woman—late teens, maybe early twenties. She was far prettier than the other two, and not just because she didn’t look like a gravid cow. She flipped the pages of a French fashion magazine with such rapidity that she couldn’t actually be absorbing anything. Her lower lip thrust out, and a frown furrowed the golden skin between her brows.

Lilith offered the food tray first to the pregnant women. They grabbed at the sweets with greedy fingers. She moved to the young wife. The girl took a small slice of melon.

Lilith took the chance. The worst it would earn her would be a slap. “I went to school in Paris,” she said softly. “Before my father sent the family home.”

“Your accent,” the girl said. “You sound Saudi.”

“I’m from Kuwait.” There was a wealth of emotion in the final word. “Have you been here long?”

“Three months.”

“You must be homesick.”

The girl started to cry.

“I’m sorry, mistress. Would you like me to leave?”

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.

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 burqaaround 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 telegraphed 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.