Inside Straight

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 their 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.