Two short hours ago, a dozen Bantu bounty hunters had emerged from the shadows to answer Aker’s call. They each came alone, but they were all nearly identical in the dark. All of them tall and lean, armed with an inventive arsenal of throwing weapons, and judging from the soft whistles and clicks that two of them had exchanged during the fight, they were probably from one of the Shona or Zulu kingdoms.
The chase had been a blur of running and hiding, the hiss of a slender spear through the air, or the warble of a throwing axe, and the bullwhip crack of Kenan’s revolver.
We got three of them, at least.
Shifrah sighed. “It was hard enough. Is he still in there?”
Kenan rolled to his left to look down over the edge of the roof at the house across the intersection. From their vantage point, they could see both the front and right side of the building, while the other two sides sat wall-to-wall with the neighboring houses. He rolled back. “No sign of life yet. It’s still early. He probably thinks we’re dead.”
“We will be dead if those other bounty hunters find us up here. How many bullets do you have left?”
“Fourteen shots in all, if there’s time to reload.”
“Not a lot, is it?”
“Nope.”
Shifrah arched her back to stretch her arms and legs. As she tilted her head back, she saw the dark bare foot just above her hair. “Kenan!” She sat up with her stiletto in hand and heard the revolver yanked free of its holster. Then she saw the man standing on the peak of the roof clearly and realized that he was not who she had expected. “Wait. Who are you?”
He had looked Bantu at first, both tall and dark, but as she looked at him right-side-up now, she saw that this was a very different sort of person. His skin wasn’t merely dark but absolute black, so impossibly black that she could see no lines or shadows or textures on his face or hands, which made him resemble the marble statues of the Roman saints she had seen in Italia.
He wore a simple white garment that folded across his flat chest like a robe, but it had no sleeves and so the corded muscles of his arms rippled down his sides in sharp contrast to his clothing. The garment continued down to his knees where his bare legs emerged. Thick golden bracelets covered his wrists and a thick golden belt hugged his robe tight around his waist. He wore his black hair braided back into a thick mane and each braid ended in a golden bead, and they clicked against each other as the morning breeze swept over the roof. A small golden pendant rested on his chest at the end of a black cord around his neck, and he held a slender black staff in one hand.
Slowly, he lowered his gaze from the distant horizon to look at her and Shifrah saw a strange shape on his head.
A hat? No. A mask!
The mask too was perfectly black, but from her angle she could see nothing more about it.
“A woman with a blade and a man with a gun. You are the two travelers from the west, are you not?” he asked.
Shifrah blinked.
His voice. He’s not a grown man yet.
“Yes, we are. Who are you?”
“A messenger. And a guide. I was sent to help you.” He gazed down at her without a trace of emotion in his eyes. “You are searching for a murderer named Aker El Deeb and for his sun-steel sword?”
“Yeah.” Kenan kept his gun trained on the man. “Who are you? Who sent you?”
“A friend of a friend.” The man turned to look at the detective. “Strange. Are you ashamed of your love for this woman because of what she is or because of what she’s done? Or are they the same thing to you?”
Kenan’s hand faltered and he glanced across at Shifrah. “What? What are you talking about?”
“For a lawman and manhunter, you are surprisingly careless with your body language,” the man said. “Regarding your task, you will find that El Deeb is in that house there.” He pointed across the intersection.
“Yeah, thanks, we know.” Shifrah lowered her knife. “That’s why we’re here, watching him. We can’t just go in there. We’ve got half a dozen bounty hunters prowling the streets down there looking for us, and we don’t know which room Aker is in, and if he pulls that sword on us, we’ll probably be dead in half a minute.”
“Indeed.” The stranger grimaced. “My cousin asked that I help you complete your task so you might safely return to your home. But if you are too afraid to act, then I must act in your stead.”A sudden gust of wind rose from behind him, whipping his white garment and his black braids forward. And then the man himself simply dissolved into an outline of white mist, which was whisked away on the wind and off the roof.
“What the hell!” Kenan snapped his gun back up to follow the pale cloud as it glided across the intersection and vanished into the side of the house where Aker slept. “What the hell was that?”
“I don’t know. A ghost, maybe?” Shifrah crept quietly up to the peak of the roof where she could sit more easily.
“Do you have any friends of friends who are ghosts? Because I sure as hell don’t.”
“I don’t know!” She frowned at the house, and then at Kenan. “So you’re ashamed that you love me, eh?”
“I’m not ashamed of anything.”
“Then you just love me?” She grinned.
I don’t know if anyone has ever loved me before. Certainly not Aker or Salvator. Maybe Omar, but not like this.
“Shut up or I’ll tell him to read your body language.”
Shifrah shrugged, but she also squared her shoulders and straightened her back and legs as she stood at the peak of the roof, watching the house across the street. “Do you think he’s in there right now, killing Aker and getting the sword for us? And if he does, do you think we should pay him or something?”
Kenan shrugged back.
The wind shifted abruptly and now it blew back toward them, buffeting them in the face. Shifrah blinked and raised one hand to shield her eye, but between her fingers she saw a pale haze fill the air just in front of her, and sudden the black man was standing before her, his golden bands and beads shining in the early morning light and his staff planted on the tiles beside him.
“The man you seek is sleeping on the ground level of the house, two windows to the left of the front door. He has placed his sword on a small table at the end of his bed, just below the window. Break the window and you will be able to reach the sword,” he said.
“Why should I believe you?” Shifrah asked. “Why should I trust you?”
The man blinked, and then gestured to Kenan. “You want to be with this man so badly that you have fantasized about bearing his children. You want an apology from him, but you know he will never offer one. And so you will forego the apology as soon as he makes even the slightest overture toward reconciliation.”
“All right, stop, stop!” Shifrah swallowed. She felt her heart rebounding against her breastbone.
How the hell is he doing that? And he’s wrong anyway. I never fantasized about bearing any children. I just wondered what we might name our daughter…if we ever had one…someday.
Kenan was grinning and trying to keep his shoulders from shaking. “I think we believe you. At least about the window and sword.”
“The mercenaries are moving in this direction,” the stranger said. “You must be quick. Do not attempt to kill El Deeb. Only take his sword. He will follow you to retrieve it and you can kill him at your leisure. After you take the sword, you must follow this street due west to reach the rail yard.”
“Escape on a train? Works for me. Got it, thanks,” Kenan said.
“Then my task is complete.” The stranger lifted his black staff.
“Wait! What’s your name?” Shifrah asked, staring into the man’s eyes.
“Anubis,” he said. He struck his staff on the shingles and a blast of wind tore across the roof, scattering his body like smoke in the cool morning air.
Shifrah shook her head. “Definitely not a ghost.”