Sacrifice Read online

  The old man’s aura was a medium brown with strong veins of red and black. Black meant evil and hatred. The bright red, in combination with black, indicated deep-seated anger. Brown, the dominant color, told Maliha that he was a selfish man who lied to further his goals, the kind who would stab his mother in the back if doing so bettered his life.

  Maliha let her vision float around the camp, seeking out other auras. It was the surest way to find Glass. In the crowded northwest corner of the camp, the auras were tightly mingled and individual identities were lost in the throbbing dome of muddied red: machismo, and lots of it. It had to be where the women were kept.

  Moving to the three-o’clock location, she found two sentries chatting together and smoking, the red glow of their cigarettes obligingly marking their locations as targets.

  As she crept closer, she could hear them talking. Maliha was fluent in Arabic and stayed her progress long enough to listen for scraps of helpful information. She shook her head in disgust. It was nothing but crude boasting about what they would do after their duty shift ended and they joined the celebration.

  Two slender throwing knives spun through the night and landed with precision, impaling two hearts drenched with evil. The men fell simultaneously. Maliha followed in the wake of her knives. She retrieved her knives and wiped them clean on the dead men’s clothing.

  Onward to twelve o’clock?

  It’s what she would do if she were alone, but with Hound waiting for news, she’d already been gone too long. She headed back. To her relief, he was right where she’d left him, agitated and digging a hole in the ground by shuffling his boots—a way to take action without going anywhere. She made some noise so he would hear her approach.

  He stopped shuffling. A red dot from the laser sight of the Israeli-built Tavor TAR–21 assault rifle he carried marked Maliha’s heart as a target.

  “Hound.” The circle fled from her chest.

  “Damn, woman, don’t sneak up on me like that. I could’ve plugged you.”

  “I doubt it. I could have gotten to you first.”

  “Bullshit. Is she there?”

  “I…”

  “Time to move out. We can’t just stand here while…” His voice trailed off.

  She quickly told him about the camp, the sentries, and where Glass was. They each checked their weapons and then headed out silently.

  When they passed the corpses of the guards Maliha had killed, Hound grunted in satisfaction.

  At the twelve-o’clock position, they were so close they could hear the Janjaweed in action: fists and sticks striking skin. Hound, kneeling next to her, was primed for action.

  “What’re they saying?” he whispered. There were no guards and no one could hear them over the raucous noises.

  Hound didn’t speak Arabic. “Better not to know.”

  “Fuck.”

  “Pretty much their plans, when they get done softening up the women by beating them.”

  Now that she could see the situation close up, Maliha felt the only way to proceed was to attack, distract, and try to get Glass out during the mayhem—basically, Hound’s original plan. Hound agreed, even considering the risk that Glass might not survive a surprise attack. After all, the Janjaweed could blast away with their rifles, but she and Hound couldn’t return fire indiscriminately for fear of killing Glass and the other women.

  She reminded Hound of his promise when he’d badgered her to come on this rescue—that it was her show and his role was to watch her back. She’d do the attacking and Hound would go after Glass. Then she moved away from him so the same burst of gunfire wouldn’t wipe them both out.

  Just as she arrived at her new position, she saw Hound running into the clearing, shouting as if the hounds of hell were after him—or he was the Hound of hell.

  No way is that watching my back.

  For a moment she was frozen with fear for Hound’s life. She watched him mow down several militiamen at the nearest campfire. The noise of the gunfire was like using a hornet’s nest for a piñata—suddenly men were running everywhere, taking up weapons that had been set aside for the evening.

  Maliha sprinted into the camp, sending her throwing knives at two men who were about to take aim at Hound. Not waiting to see the result, she drew the Glock with her left hand and used her right hand to pull the whip sword from its sheath around her waist. Keeping an eye on Hound, she picked off three more of the scrambling men and then another two who were heading for the horses to escape. Bullets puffed the dirt at her feet and whizzed by her, one leaving a streak of pain.

  She kept on the move, closing out the screams and the moans of the dying, killing in a bubble of total concentration, a berserker’s trance without the uncontrollable rage. When she got close enough for personal combat, she put the whip sword into action. As she swung the double-edged blades around, they bit into flesh at the throat or knocked a weapon away, along with the arm that held it. The whip sword whirled around her faster than the human eye could track, with only her skill in wielding it keeping one of the blades from slicing her own throat. Blood sank into the thirsty soil beneath her feet.

  Glancing at Hound, she saw that he had reached the area where Glass should be. She also noticed the red spreading rapidly on his clothes. He’d taken at least one bullet on the left side and was probably lucky he hadn’t been cut in half by automatic fire. Maliha needed to be where he was, and fast.

  Using the supernatural speed that was a remnant of her Ageless time, she sped toward him, a blur weaving through the camp to his side. The effort weakened her—not a good thing in a firefight like this. But there were times when the trade-off was necessary.

  She arrived near him in time to blast one of the Janjaweed coming up behind Hound with, of all things, a spear. She noticed that the tip of the spear was bloody even though it hadn’t touched Hound. It must have been used on the women. Angry, Maliha pumped another couple rounds into the dead man at her feet.

  “You okay?”

  “Yeah. Glass is…” He swayed a bit on his feet. “…over there.”

  Maliha spotted Glass not far away, sitting propped up against a tree. She was cradling an AK–56 in the crook of her arm and popping off short bursts at men who had been tormenting her only a few minutes ago. She looked dazed, and she wasn’t hitting many of her targets, but she was keeping them at a distance with her sporadic fire.

  “That’s my woman.”

  Glass’s condition hadn’t registered on Hound yet because he was so glad to see her alive. Maliha took in everything.

  Bad. Really bad.

  In the light of the cooking fires, she could see that Glass had numerous bruises that were going to look a lot worse in a few hours, including on her face. Blood trailed in thin streams from multiple cuts on her body. Glass’s head rocked forward in either dizziness or drowsiness, making Maliha suspect a head injury. Glass was holding and firing the gun with one hand because the other hand was lying limp on the ground. Spread out in front of her were two twisted and mangled legs showing splintered bone. The Janjaweed sometimes broke the legs of any woman who dared to fight back or tried to escape.

  Looks like Glass put up one hell of a fight.

  Hound went rigid beside her. He was finally seeing with his eyes in addition to his heart. Maliha grabbed an AK–56 from the loose grasp of a corpse and pulled Hound down into the shelter of a rock that wasn’t quite big enough to conceal both of them. He winced at the movement. Maliha squeezed as small as possible and tugged his bulk behind the rock just as bullets hit where his foot had been.

  “Take Glass to the evac point.” She pressed the GPS into his hand. He’d need it to find the coordinates of the pickup site.

  Hound shook his head.

  Not again.

  “Don’t give me that shit! You nearly got us all killed. You get her to evac and do it fucking now!”

  “I meant, what about you?”

  Oh. “I’ve got your back.”

  “There’s at least
twenty-five…”

  “I can count. Besides, I’m not wounded.”

  “You dodge faster.”

  “Get going. Starting cover fire in three…”

  He pulled her into a rough embrace. “I’ll always love you.”

  A surge of emotion blurred Maliha’s vision. She could tell that he thought he was saying good-bye forever. She’d loved his bravery and selflessness since the day she’d saved his life in Vietnam, then later loved him with deep passion and with loyal friendship. She traced his lips with her finger, saying all she needed to say without words. He pressed her hand to his lips and kissed it.

  “Go save your woman. Cover fire in three, two, one.”

  She moved to the side and laid down thirty seconds of fire, three hundred bullets on missions to steal lives. Hound scrambled toward Glass and made it safely. He was limping on the left side, though.

  I hope he can get himself to evac.

  Three Janjaweed had come out of hiding and were heading after him as he escaped from the camp, and he wasn’t making swift progress. Maliha ran to intercept them. One went down after a flying kick to the head and the other two with twisted necks.

  A fourth man shot Maliha before she had a chance to deal with him. Automatic fire stitched a zipper down the outer curve of her right thigh and a sliver of flesh separated. Maliha dispatched the man with a kick that shattered his trachea and sent him to the ground choking for his final breaths.

  Quickly she felt for the extent of her injury. A chunk the size of a well-used bar of soap was gone, leaving a shallow crater. Expecting another assault any second, Maliha tore a section from the shooter’s clothing and tied it around her thigh tight enough to apply pressure to the wound but not tourniquet tight.

  About twenty of them left.

  Thinking about the way these men had beaten the women they’d captured, and the plans they must have had for rape before being interrupted and attacked, she vowed that the only way any of them would get past her and pursue Hound and Glass was if she were dead. She was no stranger to torture and knew what awaited them if they were captured.

  A single tree nearby offered a good view of the path Hound had taken. She would have climbed it for an aerial view, but like other vegetation here it was stunted by the harsh climate. Still, it was as good an observation point as she could find.

  She waited behind the tree, watching the camp for signs of pursuit. Five minutes later, much sooner than she expected, a line of men on horseback came into view. Hound didn’t stand a chance of outdistancing horses.

  Jump out and kill everything in sight with automatic fire? Too risky at twenty to one. Some could slip by.

  She was keenly aware that if she were alone, she’d take that risk, and more.

  This business of watching over others will be the death of me.

  She needed an edge, the advantage of…a horse. Instantly the plan fell into place. Ambush the last rider. Pick off the others from the rear. She moved silently and waited for the horses to pass.

  Go.

  Maliha ran toward the horse, stopped just short of a collision, and sprang upward, her right leg arcing over the horse’s rump. A fresh burst of pain came from the wound on her right thigh, nearly crippling her with its intensity. She pushed away the pain and slit the rider’s throat before he could yell a warning to the others. Maliha lowered the body slowly toward the ground. The horse reacted to a dead weight sliding down its side by snorting, tossing its head, and skittering sideways. As soon as Maliha was able to drop the dead man, she leaned low over the horse’s neck, calming it. Then she urged the horse forward to catch up with the others.

  She took the next rider by surprise. She thought of tying his horse to her own but figured that would cut into her maneuverability. She pointed the riderless horse back to the camp and lightly slapped it.

  Unfortunately, the two riders at the end of the line had pulled up side by side to talk. The picking-off stage was over. Maliha was about to dig her heels in and bring her horse to a run, but was upstaged by the horse she’d sent back toward camp. It had turned around and now came flying past her at a full gallop, then past the pair of militiamen, and on up the line.

  The jig’s up.

  Reacting quickly, Maliha slid down her horse’s left side, away from the men, and clung on with her left foot in the stirrup. The startled animal took off running, appearing as a second riderless horse to the Janjaweed. It would buy her a few seconds to switch plans.

  Suddenly a fierce pain struck the center of her body, so overwhelmingly powerful no amount of meditating or training could shut it out. Her arms and legs went limp and her head dipped perilously low to the rocky ground.

  No! Not now!

  The horse, further alarmed by the shifting weight of its rider, veered to the left, swinging Maliha into some bushes and knocking her loose from her already tenuous position. She rolled awkwardly, her arms crossed over her painful midsection. A bullet slammed into her right leg, sending her sprawling backward on the ground. Ripping at her clothing, she yanked the cloth away from the source of the pain on the front of her body.

  She knew she’d lost her chance to stop the Janjaweed. Knowing what was happening didn’t make it any easier to accept. Carved into Maliha’s skin from between her breasts to just below her navel was a scale put there by Rabishu’s fiery claw when she’d given up her immortality. In the pan on one side were miniature figures representing the people she’d killed as a demon’s assassin. The other pan held people she’d saved after becoming mortal. The deal for breaking her contract with Rabishu was that she had to reposition the scale—saving as many lives as she’d taken—before she died, or suffer terrible consequences at his hand for eternity. She didn’t get rewarded one-for-one. Anu, the chief Sumerian god, had his finger on the scale and determined the extent of her reward.

  Her scale had come to life. The lines traced on her skin glowed red, lit by the fires of the Underworld. Animated figures were on the move across her belly from lives taken to lives saved. Every Janjaweed she’d killed would have been responsible for multiple deaths in the future. The figures left burning footprints, like drops of acid on the skin, as they moved. As she writhed on the ground, she was a helpless target.

  Maliha was dimly aware of other centers of pain—sudden sharp impacts, including a staggering one on her head. She managed to raise her arm to cover her face, and a rock struck her wrist, bringing blood. They were stoning her! It had happened before, on the terrible day centuries ago when she was declared a witch. Even her husband had cast a stone. The Janjaweed must have decided they wanted nothing to do with the demon of a woman who had flames dancing across her belly.

  The last figures had climbed into the pan on the saved side, and the scale was rebalancing itself—another round of agony as the pans swung through an arc on her skin.

  The stoning abruptly stopped.

  They’ve gone after Hound. No…

  She heard a sound that was familiar but puzzling. A sword powerfully swung, impacting flesh. She heard it again and again, and now picked up shouts abruptly cut off and the lesser sounds of the dying.

  Just then the second part of the demon’s bargain hit: the ticking clock. Whenever she saved a life, she aged an unpredictable amount of time, making it harder to save more lives. Age meant vulnerability, slowness in moving and in healing. Eventually, there would come a time when she couldn’t take on a band of Janjaweed.

  Maliha felt the tug of moving forward in time. Sounds faded and all she could see was a gray tunnel stretching out in front of her. She advanced in the tunnel as though there were a tether around her waist, reeled in by some unimaginable force at the end of the tunnel. Then the tunnel dissipated, leaving only the desert around her. Anu controlled her erratic aging, too, and she hadn’t traveled far—barely aged at all—this time.

  When she became aware of the real world again, a man’s body fell heavily to the ground just inches away from her. A second or two later, his head landed.
>
  The swordsman!

  She reached for the only weapon she could use in this position, her knife. A hobnailed sandal pinned her arm before she got anywhere near the sheath.

  Her heart beat against her ribs and her mouth was dry. Every muscle in her body tensed in anticipation of the sword’s descent. Decapitation was a sure way to end her life—there was no way she could heal from that.

  The end to her dreams was at hand. She’d lost her bargain with the demon, just as he’d said she would. Looking up to greet her death with eyes wide open, Maliha gasped at what she saw.

  Standing over her was a Roman centurion. His silver armor gleamed in the moonlight and blood dripped from the long sword held at his side.

  Must’ve hit my head…

  She felt powerful arms gently lifting her body, mindful of the hurts she’d suffered.

  Must have really hit my head.

  Chapter Four

  Maliha tossed back the thin blanket, pulled up the hospital gown she was wearing, and checked her injuries. There were bruises and shallow cuts from the rocks thrown at her, and the top of her head was tender where she’d been hit by a stone. Most of the bruises were fading and the rest would be invisible within hours. Pressing on the neatly bandaged bullet wound on her calf, there was no sharp pain. It would heal in two or three days.

  She couldn’t say the same for the thigh wound. She peeked under the dressing and found a red crater in her flesh.

  No bikinis anytime soon.

  She usually avoided hospitals and doctors because she didn’t want any witnesses to the speed or manner of her healing. Maliha sat up and swung her legs over the side of the bed, grimacing at the pain emanating from her thigh.