Inside Straight

They gathered at the top of the High Dam, all the aces and several of the followers of the Living Gods—at least all of them who could be there. A few were missing: Kate was still with Ana, and Holy Roller was also in the infirmary—after his panicked flight from the Djinn, plowing over and through everything in his path, his body looked as if someone had scoured him with a divine file.

As Michael glanced around, he could see few aces who were unscathed. Lohengrin appeared none the worse for the battle, untouched through his armor; Aliyah was tired but uninjured, and of course Hive looked just fine, though he was currently missing everything below his hips, his torso propped on the ledge next to Fortune. But the rest… The least wounded, like Michael, bore scabbed and stitched wounds from the battle. Fortune’s body was visibly bruised and battered. Rustbelt’s arm was wrapped and in a sling; Bubbles looked decidedly anorexic, her pupils nearly lost in the caverns of her eye sockets. The two Living Gods present appeared little better. Sobek was missing teeth, and the great bulk of Taweret’s hippopotamus body was mummy-wrapped in red-stained bandages. They had been among the last to escape Sehel.

Feluccas patrolled the waters between the Low and High Dams, and on the western side of the Nile the banks were dotted with campfires from the refugees who had fled from Syrene and Aswan. Lines of them clogged the roads leading south. Michael had been told that there were at least five thousand camped on the road between the High Dam and the airport, mostly the elderly, the infirm, and the very young. In the middle distance, the island of Philae was ablaze with lights: some natural; some, Michael suspected, wild card driven. Farther out, past the remnants of the Aswan Dam, there were few lights burning where once villages had lined the banks of the Nile. The old Nile channel had been scoured clean of life.

“… we must prepare for tomorrow,” Fortune was saying. “The Low Dam is gone and we’ve taken out most of their air power—they now have to cross the Nile here at the High Dam.”

Sobek grunted his agreement. “The Caliph will send his army south again as soon as it’s light, pursuing those our resistance saved.”

“Maybe, but those bastards took huge losses yesterday,” Hive interjected. “If I were them, I wouldn’t be quite so anxious.”

Sobek’s crocodilian snout wrinkled, as if he were scowling. “They took losses, yes, but that will only anger them. They will come, and they will be crying for revenge.” Next to him, Taweret shifted her immense weight almost daintily. Sobek translated. “Taweret says we could retreat to Abu Simbel—we might still reach there.”

“They’ll just follow us out into the desert and kill us there, where we have no cover at all,” Fortune answered, and other voices murmured agreement. “At least here we know the ground, and we have the advantage of the river.”

“Then send a team to Aswan. Kill the Caliph,” Sobek told him. “It’s his army.”

“Yeah, there’s a great idea,” Hive grumbled. “Wasn’t killing the Caliph what started this shit in the first place?”

Taweret and Sobek both started to answer angrily, but Fortune’s voice rose over theirs. To Michael’s ears, it didn’t sound like Fortune at all. “Enough of this. There’s no other way for them to go, and we will make our stand here.” Fortune paused. No one spoke. “Good. Now—here’s the crux: we need to deal with the Righteous Djinn. He’s the real head of the beast, not Caliph Abdul—if the Djinn is removed, the loss would demoralize the army. They’d break. I’m certain of it.”

“And just how do you propose to do that?” Michael asked. Heads turned toward him. “Maybe some oracle told you about a fatal weakness? Maybe a poison arrow in the heel?”

Fortune scowled at Michael’s interruption. “We could start by making sure that people obey the orders they’re given,” Fortune answered. “We were lucky yesterday that the Djinn didn’t decide to cross here at the High Dam, because there wasn’t anyone to stop him if he had.”

Yeah, like I’d have been able to stop that guy, Michael wanted to retort. He wanted to rage and fume at Fortune, at his combined arrogance and hubris. Who the fuck elected you God? Michael swallowed the bile, and it burned all the way down. Fortune glared at him, but now there was a smirk hiding in the corners his mouth.

Lohengrin spoke before Michael had decided what to say. “If the Djinn touches you, you are lost. He will slay you and drink your powers. We all know that. But he can’t touch me. My ghost steel will protect me. The Djinn should be mine.”

Simoon gave a bitter laugh. “The Djinn is killing my people, Klaus. If he tries to grab me, I’ll rip the flesh and muscle right from his hands. Believe me, I can take him.”

“Look, none of you know what powers the Djinn has stolen from those he’s killed, what he can do, or what his vulnerabilities might be.” That was Fortune again.