“Are we there yet?” Shifrah smiled across the compartment at Kenan.
The detective glanced over at her, shook his head, and went back to staring out the window. Shifrah sighed and looked at the other bench seat in their little private room of the Eranian passenger car.
Aker lay very still, but his snoring was quite loud. Perhaps he was faking, but Shifrah doubted it. The Aegyptian had whimpered and moaned all through the long hours in the rail yard as Taziri arranged for the Halcyon to be hitched to a west-bound train.
Tycho had strapped his new sword across his back and gone in search of a doctor, and returned with a distinguished Hellan surgeon. The surgeon had clucked his tongue at Aker’s missing eyes and burnt scalp, but pronounced them relatively superficial and that he would be fine, though blind barring some extraordinary advance in Mazigh optical prosthetics.
The surgeon had then bound Qhora’s arm, stitched Shifrah’s arm and reset her shoulder, collected Salvator’s money, and left with a song on his lips.
By mid-afternoon the Halcyon had been coupled to the end of an Eranian train, the aging steam locomotive had rumbled to life, and they had all watched Alexandria clatter past the windows and shrink into the distance behind them. All except the Italian and the dwarf, who had watched the train leave from the platform.
Tycho had waved.
Salvator hadn’t.
Time to see where we stand. Shifrah sighed again. “I suppose I’ll need to get a private detective’s license when we get back. Who do I see about that?”
Kenan looked at her. “So you’re serious? About that? About us?”
She nodded.
“You’re just going to give up your old life, just like that?”
She nodded. “It was just a job, Kenan. People change jobs all the time.”
“Murder isn’t a job.”
“But executions are? But war is?”
He was silent.
“People kill people, Kenan,” she said. “Sometimes for money, or orders, or passion, or just by accident. In the great scheme of things, the death itself is always all the same. People die. The only thing that matters is why. What was in the killer’s heart? Hate and greed? Or honor and duty?”
“What was in your heart?” he asked.
She shrugged. “That I needed the money, and that the world would probably be a better place without my marks in it. It’s not like I was hired by sadistic monsters to kill innocent children. I was hired by monsters to kill other monsters. At least in the old days. In Marrakesh, I was mostly hired by the victims to kill the monsters. I tried to tell you this before.”
He nodded and looked away. “Yeah, you did.”
“So? What do you say?”
Kenan moved over next to her and looked her in the eye. “No more killing?”
“No more killing.” She smiled.
He’s cute when he tries to lose an argument gracefully.
“All right then. Agyeman and Dumah Investigations. We’ll give it a try.”
She kissed him. “Dumah and Agyeman.” And she reached for his belt buckle.
He glanced across the narrow compartment at their snoring prisoner. “Here? Now?”
She grinned.
I think I’ll name our daughter Ziva.
Shifrah pulled him to her. “Here. And definitely now.”