Chapter One: Nightwalker

It was well after midnight in the garden. He was not alone. Aphids crept and crawled across his bare skin, and a hot wind blew in from the desert. The unseasonal sirocco was an excuse for madness. Men would use it as a rationale for particularly savage beatings, claiming the wind had driven them to it. Isra had no patience for weak men or liars. He did, however, appreciate the beauty of the well-tended garden.

The topiaries of Hasim Rakhman’s palace were legendary, all manner of fabulous beasts carved out of the shrubbery to stand guard over the merchant’s equally legendary maze. Isra stood in the shadow of a leonine predator. The scent of jasmine was thick in the air, overpowering other, far subtler musks from the many more delicate plants in the garden.

He hadn’t moved so much as a muscle for more than a quarter of an hour. In the landscape of shadows, even the slightest movement, a finger moving to scratch an itch, was exaggerated and could so easily betray him. Despite the fact that Rakhman had a dozen men patrolling the gardens, none of them had marked Isra’s presence—but then, he was good at what he did. Even so, Isra was well aware that the longer he waited before making his move, the greater the chance of him being discovered became. It wasn’t magic, just was simple mathematics. Probability. He used the skill in his other life, when the sun was up and the Nightwalker didn’t exist. It was the kind of thinking that had helped make him rich.

But with the sickle of moon high in the sky, he was very much the Nightwalker now, and his instruction had been clear: kill Hasim Rakhman on this night. The client was very particular about the timing. It had to be tonight. He would make sure Rakhman was vulnerable, and it was up to Isra to exploit that weakness and get the job done.

And the reason his client could assure him the principal would be vulnerable? He was captain of Rakhman’s personal guard. The price of loyalty? About half a year’s salary. That and a shapely woman eager for said guard captain to take her overweight husband’s place in bed. Permanently.

It was always the same. No matter how complicated clients believed their motives to be, they always came down to lust. Be it for money, power, or sex, it was always about craving more.

But that didn’t explain why there were so many guards in the grounds tonight. Sweat trickled down into the bay at the nape of Isra’s neck. Still he did not move.

He hadn’t stayed alive this long by walking blindly into traps, and this was some kind of trap. He harbored no illusions about that. It would have been easy to slip away into the night and leave them to whatever game it was they were playing, but he had an obligation. The contract was open. He was the Nightwalker. He was the killer who never failed to execute a contract. He breathed in deeply, savoring the heat in his lungs. He could understand why the heat of the night drove men to thoughts of passion and murder. People were simple creatures at the best of times. The constant heat robbed them of the ability to think, reducing them to the most base of instincts. It didn’t matter that they wouldn’t stain their hands with the blood, they craved it just the same. Who was he to deny them? There would be blood tonight, he promised himself.

He studied the marbled facade of Rakhman’s palace, his eye drawn to the veranda that led into the merchant’s study, and caught a glimpse of his employer, the regally handsome captain of Rakhman’s force pacing back and forth within. He was huge, and more than capable of snapping a weasel like Hasim Rakhman in two like a brittle twig—a corpulent, sweaty one, but a twig all the same. But his hands had to be clean. That he was here rather than in some public place making the kind of spectacle of himself that would ensure he had an alibi only added to Isra’s sense of unease.

Again the thought of simply slipping away into the darkness and leaving them to get on with whatever petty little game they were playing at occurred to him, but again his damned professional pride got in the way, killing the notion in a heartbeat. He had been paid to do a job, and he would do it to the letter of the contract. And if it wasn’t what his erstwhile paymaster wanted, well, it would serve him and his dead master right.

Hasim Rakhman came out onto the veranda, alone. He had a cup in his hand. Isra could see the wraiths of steam curl up from the hot drink. The fact that he was dressed rather than in some silk nightgown was another telling detail that betrayed his trap. Rakhman wiped his brow with a large white handkerchief. The temperature had dropped several degrees in the time Isra had taken up his vigil, which meant that it was fear rather than heat that was causing the fat merchant to sweat. And the longer Isra made him wait, the more jittery he was becoming. It would have been a mercy to put him out of his misery, but the Nightwalker was not in the business of mercy.

Isra broke away from his hiding place and ghosted through shadows. So complete was his mastery of his own body that he didn’t displace so much as a single leaf on any of the many plants and bushes he crept past. Rakhman’s men continued their patrols, oblivious to his presence.

Isra was within six feet of the fat man when he decided to spring the trap. Still it took Rakhman a moment to get through the shock of disbelief before the alarm was raised.

“Seize him!” Hasim Rakhman cried, waving his handkerchief above his head. Isra smiled coldly, enjoying the soon-to-be dead man’s frantic signaling. He could flap about to his heart’s content. No amount of it was going to save him. The guards were ready to slam shut the steel jaws of their trap, but Isra only needed a second to close the gap.

The captain of the guard rushed out of the study, sword drawn, but did nothing to prevent his employer’s death, so perhaps there was at least a grain of truth to the lie Isra had been sold? The Nightwalker didn’t hesitate. He had his knife out, already balanced in his hand. Hasim Rakhman screamed in panic, flapping about all the more desperately now as he tried to protect his face, but left his stomach wide open for the assassin’s curved blade. A single slice of the cruel knife quickly stained the man’s shirt red. His hands clutched at his stomach. He howled in pain. The Nightwalker granted him one last scream before he drew a gash across his throat—deep, from ear to ear—and silenced him once and for all.

With the deed done, the captain chose his moment to close the gap between them, calling, “To me!” as he did. In that moment Isra grasped just how many snares had been set within that initial trap. The captain had never intended his master to survive the night. The fat man had trusted him, and that had cost him his life. Isra did not trust anyone.

“Time to make peace with your god, assassin,” the captain rasped. His grin was every bit as cruel as Isra’s knife. His eyes darted left, betraying the rush of the first of his guards. Isra dropped his shoulder and thundered his elbow into the trachea of the man on his left. The guard went down clutching his throat. Isra spun away from the captain, sweeping out his right leg to dump the second running guard on his backside. He stamped on the man’s face, driving his heel into his nose and rupturing it.

Isra gave the fat man a final glance, to be absolutely sure that he was beyond saving, and launched himself upward, using the great earthenware pot that housed a lemon tree to push himself to within grasping distance of the balcony railings above. He swung his legs up as the first sword sliced through the air, missing him by inches. The lemon tree teetered, then toppled, the great pot shattering and the noise creating the moment of confusion Isra had hoped for. The Nightwalker hauled himself up over the balcony rail as the sword clattered against the marbled wall. He moved quickly now, grasping the trailing vines that grew up around the balcony doors, trusting them to hold his weight as he scaled the side of the palace. He risked a glance down over his shoulder. The captain wasn’t about to give up his prey, not when he needed someone to pay the metaphorical price of his master’s death. He was stronger than Isra, but the assassin was more agile. In a fair fight the assassin wouldn’t have stood a chance, but there was nothing fair about a moonlit chase across the rooftops of Katapesh when death was on the line.

Isra bounced on his toes and pushed upward again, reaching for the roof. He broke his cardinal self-imposed rule of climbing by stretching a few inches beyond what was comfortable. Off-balance, he worked his fingers into a crack in the masonry. Isra swallowed the panic instinct, forcing himself to breathe evenly as he lifted himself carefully upward, gradually taking all of his weight on three fingertips. Then he drew his right leg up, keeping his body pressed flat to the marbled wall, until his instep dragged over another crack, this one barely a wart across. Again, it was just enough. Between fingertips and toes he had the leverage he needed to boost himself up high enough to grab the gable. He slapped his right hand flat on the clay tiles and for a sickening moment he hung there, forty feet above the ground, clinging on by his fingertips. He kicked out, scrabbling for purchase until the tarred sole of his shoe gripped something on the wall, and then he was over the top and lying on his back looking up at the sickle-shaped moon.

He didn’t have time to catch his breath. Isra rolled over onto his stomach and pushed himself up.

Had the captain been as thorough as Isra would have in his place, the assassin would be dead now—he offered his silhouette to the moon as he ran across the rooftops. All it would have taken was one well-placed archer. But the captain wasn’t as good as Isra.

The assassin moved fast, circling the domed roof. He was light and nimble, his trade relying on guile and speed over brute force. The man following him was anything but. Isra noted the grating slip and crash of tiles behind him with grim satisfaction as the captain of the guard lost his balance. The captain’s sheer muscle mass made him far less dexterous than the assassin, which was exactly what Isra was banking upon.

With luck, the man would either fall, ending his pursuit the hard way, or give it up the easy way. Either worked just fine for Isra—but then, given his position, beggars could hardly be choosers.

He found what he was looking for on the far side of the roof: the flag post flying Hasim Rakhman’s family standard. He didn’t need to peer down over the edge. He knew his city well. The market lay beyond the wall of Rakhman’s property with its mismatch of colorful tents all squashed together. He smiled grimly, thanking Norgorber once more for looking out for his favorite son. Miracles, in Isra’s experience, had no need to be any more miraculous than a well-positioned flagpole in a time of great need. He had practiced leaps like this a thousand and one times before. He started to run, lengthening his stride to use gravity to the full, and launched himself off the roof into the air, kicking out.

“The Nightwalker always finishes the job.”

It felt like flying, even though it only lasted for a heartbeat.

Isra snatched at the flagpole just below the trailing ropes of Rakhman’s fluttering standard. The assassin swung through a quarter-circle before releasing his grip, completely changing the direction of his fall. As he came down fast, he reached or his knife. The blade was still slick with the dead man’s blood. Isra didn’t have time for the luxury of philosophy—the blade had taken one life and was about to save another. That was just the way it went.

He hit the silk roof of one of the trader’s pavilions hard, tumbling head over heels as he bounced and slid from the roof of the tent. Moving instinctively, Isra stabbed the blade into the fabric, using its resistance to arrest the speed of his fall. It wasn’t so much that he allowed himself a glance back to the roof of Rakhman’s home as the geometry of his fall afforded him one, but either way, the captain of the guards was nowhere to be seen. Only an idiot or a hero would attempt to follow him down this way, and it was clear the captain was neither.

Isra didn’t allow himself the satisfaction of thinking he was away, not yet. He moved fast, running between streets to a low point amid the garden walls and narrow stinking alleys and scaled the side of one of the hovels, moving from wall to window ledge to overhanging tree limb to rooftop in a series of gambits, and then took off across the roofs, leaping and scrambling from house to house. This was his city, up here. No one knew the high paths like he did. Finally he felt safe enough in his escape to take stock of the mess.

He had been set up. There was no other way of looking at it. He had been hired because he was the target. They wanted to lure him into the jaws of their trap and spring it closed on him.

No, he corrected himself. He wasn’t the target. The Nightwalker was. There was a subtle difference, in that no one knew he was the assassin.

So someone wanted the Nightwalker dead. Well, that was going to make things interesting from now on. Perhaps it was time to lie low for a while, just concentrate on being Isra, the lecherous wastrel squandering his family’s hard-earned fortune on wine, women, song, and more women. There were certain benefits that went along with the role, obviously—there was nothing so expensive or exotic his money could not buy it. But man could not live on such frivolities alone. For now, though, that was a bridge he would have to cross when he came to it.

A tile slipped traitorously beneath his foot. The shift beneath him sent Isra skidding precariously close to the edge. He teetered there, arms windmilling wildly until he caught his balance. He cursed himself. He had been careless, and it had almost cost him dearly.

It had also saved his life. A single rooftop away, he saw the unmistakable shape of the damned captain charging like a bull across the tiles, bearing down on him.

Isra spat a curse, and in a heartbeat was running again. This time there was an element of fear in his blood. The captain was relentless. Isra was going to have kill him, but he had no intention of going toe-to-toe with the warrior. He needed to use the terrain to his advantage—after all, this was his city. The captain belonged in the world below, not up here.

He cast about, looking for somewhere narrow and preferably precarious. There were dozens of obvious locations that suited his purpose. Katapesh was littered with minarets and sharp-angled rooftops. Isra ran for the nearest, racing along the crest of a great hall, using the spine of the watershed as a path. The captain came crashing behind him, clay tiles crushing beneath his heavy boots.

“You really don’t have to do this,” Isra called, gasping for breath as he swung himself up onto another rooftop. He wanted the man to think he was running out of ideas as quickly as he was running out of breath. His plan depended upon it.

The captain planted his hands on his knees, doubling over as he battled to catch his own breath. When he looked up Isra was already on the move.

A wooden stair coiled around the outside of the minaret. Isra hit it running, the captain not far behind him. The captain didn’t waste his breath on words.

And then they were at the top, a few feet between them, the captain moving menacingly toward the assassin. It was a long way down. The platform was precarious, the wood rotten in places. It creaked and groaned beneath the big man’s weight, but it wasn’t about to break. Isra wasn’t going to be that lucky.

“We can go our separate ways, never see each other again,” Isra offered, doing his best to sound reasonable.

“I don’t think so,” the captain said. He drew his sword.

The sun was beginning to come up behind the captain, giving him wings of fire.

“Well, you can’t say I didn’t offer,” Isra said flippantly. “Shall we dance?” He extended a hand, goading the big man to come at him.

The big man did.

Isra waited until the very last possible moment, danced back, and then pretended to stumble. As the captain launched his attack, the assassin went to ground, crying out to mask the fact that the fall was an act. As the captain came in for the kill, Isra swept his right leg around in a tight arc and took the big man’s feet out from under him.

For one agonizingly long moment, the stretched-out silence between heartbeats, it looked as though the captain might save himself.

Then he was falling. Unfortunately for him, those wings of fire didn’t help him fly.

Isra turned his back. He had no desire to watch the man die. His secret was safe. That was all that mattered. He climbed slowly down the wooden stairs. It was time to go home, get some sleep, and in the morning go back to being the good-for-nothing merchant prince squandering his family fortune.

But first, time to do what the night’s dead men had failed to do: put the Nightwalker to sleep once and for all.

There was a drop box hidden away in a deserted part of the city. It was where Isra collected his assignments from Mirza, his agent, and when necessary left messages. The assassin worked blind. Mirza had no idea of his identity. He didn’t need to. He was there to filter hits and provide a layer of safety between Isra and his Nightwalker identity.

The pair had long ago established a signal to denote that the assassin was laying aside his knife: a black pearl. Isra wore one on a string around his wrist. As he reached the drop box, he snapped the string and opened the lid, ready to put an end to the game. He’d almost gotten himself killed tonight, and he was in no hurry to repeat the experience. What was the old adage? Go out on top before you go out in a box?

He dropped the pearl into the metal box and closed the lid.

Isra was three steps away before he realized that the pearl hadn’t made a sound as it hit the bottom—meaning that it had fallen on something soft. He took a deep breath and went back to the drop box. Isra opened the lid again and reached inside.

There was an envelope. Another job. It would be the last, Isra promised himself, tearing the envelope open.

Inside was a single slip of paper with a name written on it.

Isra Darzi.

It was an impossible assignment. No matter how legendary the Nightwalker was, there was no way he could complete the kill.

Isra Darzi just wasn’t the suicidal type.

Chapter Two: The Masquerade

The fact that someone wanted him dead was a bitter pill for Isra to swallow, but not a particularly surprising one. Act like an idiot long enough, splashing the cash and taking it as gospel that every woman in the city had been put there for your pleasure, and you were going to incur a certain amount of jealousy. That was just part of the image he had cultivated to hide the Nightwalker from prying eyes. And he was good at it. No one in their right mind would suspect Isra Darzi was capable of anything beyond getting drunk and making passes at the lithe, long-legged ladies.

Of course there was the risk that went along with the kind of women he chased—or rather the husbands of these beautiful creatures, who had the nasty habit of thinking they owned them. But that was all just part of the game.

And Isra was rather fond of the game.

No, the thing that disturbed him was the fact that, of all the assassins in the city, the Nightwalker had been hired to carry out the kill. The Nightwalker was by far the most sought-after killer in Katapesh. His contracts commanded vast sums of money because they were always completed. Always. Like death and taxes, the Nightwalker was one of the few things that could be relied upon. Which of course made this whole thing slightly farcical. How was he supposed to kill himself and uphold the legend of the Nightwalker without actually killing himself?

At least three people knew his services had been retained: the client, his agent Mirza, and him. Mirza wouldn’t talk—it wasn’t in his interest to slay the legend, not when he lived off the commissions it brought in. So that left the client.

When someone wanted a man dead, it usually went one of three ways: One, they blustered and shouted about it drunkenly in a tavern, making idle threats. Two, they made some half-assed attempt themselves and generally botched it. Or three, they got serious about it. And the Nightwalker was very much part of option three.

So the question was twofold: who wanted him dead, and of that long list of jilted lovers, cuckolded husbands, and bankrupted merchants he’d left trailing in his wake, who could afford the price?

He felt reasonably sure he could discount the traders, given that when he was through with them they were invariably too poor to rub two coins together.

Katapesh was a thriving city. Anything and everything could be and was traded, no matter how exotic or expensive. In any mercantile hub there were rich men—lots of them. Where one man could profit at the misfortune of another, it was assured that the rich and powerful would cluster around like vultures waiting to pick off the dead and dying. Isra had rivals. He wasn’t naive enough to think otherwise. Two or three were certainly wealthy enough, but they were also the closest things he had to friends. Not that friendship meant they could be ruled out. How many times had one friend stabbed another in the back?

Then there were the jealousies that went hand-in-hand with being family. His own brother-in-law, Faris, married to his sister, Sana, made no secret of his envy. But Faris was a coward. He was the kind of man who chose option one, getting drunk and blowing hot air, listing all of the tortures he’d visit on Isra’s skin. But once the drink had worn off Faris would crawl back under his stone. Isra had very little time for the man, but his sister seemed to be taken in by his “charms.” They had a young son, Munir, who thought his father could do no wrong, though the boy’s affection was not always returned. Invariably when Isra went round to play the favorite uncle, Munir would end up with his arms wrapped around the assassin’s legs, begging him not to go.

But if it was one of this select group of suspects—friends and family—then from what he knew of them, they were all more than capable of carrying out the killing themselves, and would quite probably have enjoyed it. They certainly weren’t afraid of getting their hands dirty. So that would have put them squarely in the option two category. It all came down to means, motive, and opportunity. He couldn’t control means, but the client certainly had them, as well as a motive. What he could control was the opportunity.

Isra already had the first inklings of a plan coming together in his mind. He needed to draw the knife for his would-be killer.

It would need to be carefully orchestrated. But if he could manipulate his enemy into attacking him, and make sure it happened in front of a whole host of witnesses who would willingly testify to the seemingly unprovoked assault, full of outrage and shock that one of their own could go bad, he could kill three birds with the one proverbial stone.

Well, kill one bird—the client. Safeguarding both his identity as the Nightwalker and the assassin’s untarnished reputation were more like protecting the other two birds, if you were going to be picky about it.

Of course it would have been a lot easier if he knew who wanted him dead.

∗ ∗ ∗

The social scene was such that two days was not considered to be too short notice for a party; exclusivity demanded a certain amount of secrecy, after all. Lavish banquets could be brought together in a matter of hours. But then, with the market stalls filled to overflowing with every treat imaginable—and many unimaginable—Katapesh was a gourmand’s paradise. The cost was of no concern. Wealth necessitated a certain extravagance as far as Isra’s carefully cultivated reputation was concerned.

Invitations had been dispatched to the great and the good, the rich, the devious, the powerful and the influential—in short, anyone who was anyone in the city received the enigmatic card with the time, the date, and Isra Darzi’s crest. He liked the simplicity of it, treating the invitation as a summons rather than a request. It appealed to his sense of importance in terms of the social structure of the city. He was fairly certain that whoever wanted him dead would be there, blindly oblivious to the fact that they were the guests of honor.

Knowing the way the mind worked, Isra was fairly safe in thinking that anyone who failed to attend could be ruled out. Hosting the party—and a masquerade at that—was effectively painting a target on his own back. The masks assured a level of anonymity that would make it so much more difficult for any would-be killer to resist the chance to wield the knife himself.

It all came down to managing the opportunity. Isra had to ensure that each of his suspects had equal chance, not only to slit his throat, but to get away with it—hence the masks. They offered the illusion of facelessness, and in his experience cowards were braver when they didn’t think people could see them.

The notion of a masked ball appealed to Isra’s sense of humor. On the morning of the masquerade he had a second package delivered to each of the four men he suspected of wanting him dead: animal masks. There was a different one for each of his would-be killers, each reflecting his own thoughts on the strengths and weaknesses of the recipient’s personality: a calopus, a jackal, a lizard-skinned razorscale, and a mongrel dhabba in turn. It amused Isra to take the joke a little further, and along with each mask was a note assuring the guest that his host would be donning an ass’s head.

In fact, Isra had no intention of actually being at the gala for more than a few minutes, and certainly not in the guise of an ass. Yet such was the expectation when it came to Isra Darzi, ever the joker, and the deception could only help with his shell game. In reality, Isra would be far up above the party, lurking among the rafters or in the shadows of the eaves. Watching. He had tethered his proverbial goat as bait, now all he had to do was wait and see who came for it.

∗ ∗ ∗

“An assassin cannot afford mercy—nor expect any for herself.”

Isra donned his mask. He had chosen to be a great black-feathered bird. Guests were still arriving, and the chatter as they mingled was at first muted, the music of the string orchestra swelling to fill the domed chamber, its echo giving the notes a haunting quality as they swam around the animals below.

Dragon danced with camelopard, lion with janni and sand eel. Robbed of their features, every woman was more beautiful simply by the grace of her movement, the curve of hip and thigh, and the suppleness of her limbs as she moved across the dance floor. Each man, on the other hand, seemed to take on the persona of his chosen mask, the bulls pushing through the crowd, the pugwampis skirting the edge and watching the women, the calopi prancing and the peacocks preening. Human behavior never ceased to amaze Isra, and here, playing out beneath him on the dance floor and around its skirts, was a perfect encapsulation of city life and the social strata of Katapesh. The pig and the boar, he saw, gravitated to the food, eating with their hands.

The music changed, the tempo picking up. It was reflected on the dance floor with the animals moving gracefully from partner to partner, taking hands, bowing heads, drawing bodies close in the anonymity of their masks so that they might push up against each other in ways they never would have dared without them.

The ass moved through the crowd, tossing his head back and braying every now and then, before leading a swan onto the dance floor. The ass assayed a bow, and then began a crudely amusing courtship dance. For five minutes he was very much the center of attention. Isra took the opportunity to slip down from the rafters, moving swiftly and surely to the balcony, then from the balcony down into the press of bodies below. The mask was snug. Sweat trickled down the back of his neck, mingling with the stitched feathers to make a heady musk.

Isra moved freely amongst the assembled guest without actually getting involved in conversation with anyone. After all, everyone knew the ass was the host. No one wondered or cared about the great bird flitting through their midst. He kept visual contact with his doppelganger, never letting the ass’s head out of sight. He hadn’t prepped his standin beyond telling the man to make sure he was seen, to play the gracious host, to flirt outrageously with the women, and to carouse and make merry—meaning the actor had no idea quite how much danger he was in. As long as he remained the centre of attention he’d be relatively safe, though of course more than one assassin used the sheer exposed nature of public gatherings and the press of the throng to cover his actions. But those were professionals. Isra was dealing with ruthless businessmen here, not ruthless killers, though they did share certain instincts. It was when Isra gave the signal for the ass to move out onto the balcony, out of prying eyes, that things could turn interesting.

Isra slipped out through the balcony doors. He had driven three metal spikes into the wall to make a ladder. Success or failure came down to preparation, and that meant controlling every variable he could possibly control. He climbed them quickly, pressing his back to the sandstone. He was gambling that any would-be assassin wouldn’t look up. It was a safe bet. The killer would want to drive the knife home and get off the balcony fast. Anything over a few seconds out there would increase the chance of discovery.

The ass’s head lingered with a small group of women for a while before making his excuses. The balcony doors opened, and the man came through. He leaned on the balcony rail, taking the night air. It was a blessed relief to be out here in the cool, and for once Isra found himself hoping it would take the killer a while to pluck up the courage to do the deed, just so that he could enjoy the relief from the sweaty heat of the ballroom.

No one else came through the doors for five minutes, and then the only visitor was a woman intent on getting him alone. She came up behind the ass’s head, wrapped her arms around his waist and whispered something into his cauliflower ear. The decoy brayed out a laugh, slapped the woman on her own ass and sent her scurrying back into the ball.

Isra’s muscles began to cramp, but he’d spent hours in worse situations. It was all about discipline and keeping the blood circulating. He flexed and relaxed his thighs, working the individual muscles one at a time.

He lingered a few minutes more, and with nothing happening was about to give up on the fishing expedition and send the decoy back inside, ready to believe that he’d been wrong, when the unmistakable head of the black jackal peered in through the balcony arch. His brother-in-law, Faris.

Isra didn’t move. He willed Faris to announce himself, to come out onto the balcony and slap the ass heartily on the back, all good friends together.

Any hope Isra still maintained was dispelled by Faris’s single furtive glance. The jackal gave a signal to someone else behind him, then disappeared back into the crowd of revelers. The music swelled again, then lowered, partygoers whooping and cheering as the belly dancers began. The bells on their hips and toes and wrists replaced the strings, creating an entirely new melody.

A woman, wearing the head of a meerkat, slipped out through the door and onto the balcony. There was nothing seductive about her movement, and she clearly had no intention of flirting with the ass. It took Isra a heartbeat to realize Faris’ game: he had bought another assassin with him.

Isra slipped down from his perch without so much as a whisper from the fabric of his clothing, and half-stepped, half-stumbled deliberately into the meerkat’s back, pushing her off balance, then grasping at her as though to hold himself up, just a moment before her blade would have plunged into his standin’s back. The meerkat cried out in surprise, losing her balance, but before she could react, Isra swept her feet out from beneath her and dropped onto her back, driving his knee into the base of her spine, hard. He cuffed her around the temple with the hilt of his knife with enough force to leave her reeling, and then looked up at the confused decoy.

“She’s drunk,” Isra said. “I will take care of her. You’ve done well, but you can go now.”

The ass nodded, maintaining the silence he’d been paid for, and went back inside to enjoy the gyrations of the belly dancers. It was the way of things. He had done what he had been paid for, no more, no less, and no explanations were needed. After all, he had no idea that Isra been playing the part of guardian angel, nor how close the assassin’s blade had come.

Isra slipped his hands beneath the meerkat’s mask and pulled it off to get a proper look at the woman. He didn’t recognize her, but her pale complexion marked her as an outsider. The fear was only evident in her eyes, and she was quickly mastering that.

Isra bent down so that his face was only inches from her ear, and whispered, “Do you know who I am?”

The woman didn’t try to move—not that she could have with his weight pressing down on her.

“I am Isra Darzi,” he said, slipping the blackbird mask from his face. He placed it on the floor next to her mask. He saw the momentary realization flicker through her eyes. He was the mark, and she’d been fooled into showing her hand.

“Yes,” he whispered, nodding. “But I am also so much more than that. You might know me by another name. They call me the Nightwalker.”

The woman struggled desperately, wriggling around like a worm beneath him, but no matter how fiercely she fought him, she couldn’t free herself from the pressure of Isra’s knee in the base of her spine.

She tried to cry out, but the assassin pressed her face so hard to the floor that she could barely spit out a muffled groan, and that was more than drowned out by the cheers for the belly dancers.

Isra grasped a tangle of the woman’s hair, yanking her head back, and then leaned in close, like a lover, wrapping his free hand around her neck and up beside her jaw. He didn’t say a word as he released her hair and brought his hand around to cup her other cheek. He gave both a sharp twist. She twitched, dead nerves giving one last command to her muscles, bucking beneath him, and lay still.

He had been taught the technique as a child, killing chickens for the kitchen table. There wasn’t much different between the physiognomy of the species when it came to their necks and the damage breaking them caused. Killing, done properly, was about ending life, not enjoying the suffering of the victim.

Isra slipped the bird mask back onto the dead woman and picked up the discarded mask that she had been wearing.

Faris would be looking for her to re-join the festivities, and despite the obvious biological differences, Isra and the woman were actually a similar build, so if he moved quickly there was every chance he might pass for her as he slipped back into the crowd of bodies.

But first he had to dispose of the corpse.

He pitched the dead woman off the balcony, wincing at the crash it made as it landed in the bushes, and turned to go back inside.

Isra caught the briefest glimpse of someone rushing away from the balcony doors. Someone who wasn’t supposed to have been at the masquerade. Someone that may well have witnessed everything. Someone who, more tellingly, might well have heard everything…

That in itself wouldn’t have been cause for undue concern. Loose ends could always be tied up. But Isra knew it wasn’t going to be that simple. He couldn’t believe the damned fool Faris had brought Munir—his own son, and Isra’s nephew—with him to the party.

Isra really didn’t want to have to kill the boy.

But, all things considered, he would happily wring his brother-in-law’s neck.

Chapter Three: Fortune Favors the Dead

For Isra to claim that he was a master of disguise was akin to saying cash was king down in the Nightstalls, capable of buying everything from rare strains of poison to souls, either figuratively or literally depending on which gossip you listened to. It was well known that commerce was the only god worth praying to. That was the essence of the Golden City.

It went without saying.

But it was also wonderfully understated.

Disguise wasn’t simply an essential talent given the Nightwalker’s line of work; it was something the assassin took peculiar delight in. Isra Darzi had always been fascinated with masks, and how a man might be one thing and appear quite another. The greatest mask of all was the one he wore every day when he pretended to be himself, and that one required no mask at all.

Passing himself off as the would-be assassin had been deceptively simple. All he had needed to do was switch animal heads and adjust his gait slightly. It was the most basic of physical theatrics, but people were easily fooled, especially when they saw what they expected to see. Faris expected his brother-in-law to be the one doing the dying, so Isra gave the man what he needed. He made sure his brother-in-law caught a glimpse of him making his escape, then discarded the mask and moved quickly to retrieve and dispose of the body he’d thrown from the balcony. It suited his purpose for Faris to believe that his assassin was still alive. Isra was confident, almost arrogant as he walked through a room, because if he didn’t already own it, he almost certainly could if he so desired. The new walk gave the impression of someone with far less confidence and a more furtive nature.

Part of him still refused to believe that Faris was behind the contract. After all, they were close.

Friends.

Isra dredged his memory for things that had transpired between them, trying to recall any possible slight, but coming up with nothing. Was it money? Jealousy? Some half-assed notion of prestige? Did Faris expect to inherit everything—the house, the businesses, the network of contacts and traders spread out across the kingdom—after his brother-in-law’s death?

Isra barked out a bitter laugh. Faris was going to be in for one hell of rude awakening when the will was read and named the boy, Munir, as Isra’s heir, with Mirza as his agent, acting as trustee to ensure his interests were looked after until the boy was of an age to assume control himself.

The assassin had never expected this to be a permanent arrangement, assuming that he would have a son of his own eventually. He had wanted to ensure that the family wealth would not only remain within the family, but be tied to it by blood, rather than by something as ephemeral as lust.

Isra’s head was full of treachery as he walked through the bazaar.

The Obari winds blew unfettered through the tents and stalls. The sea breeze offered blessed relief from the hot winds that had been blowing in off the Mwangi Expanse.

The bazaar was full of bustling life. Everything they said about the Emporium was true: everything was for sale here, no matter how esoteric or exotic. Isra made his way to a less familiar part of the tent city, the air rich with heady spices that in no way masked the redolent tang of narcotics. Open pitches and overflowing tables spilled out into the narrow allies between the traders’ tents. Many of the merchants had traveled far from Katapesh to bring back the toys and trinkets of distant lands. The further, the rarer, the most costly.

Representatives of the trade guilds walked the aisles, making sure that their pay masters weren’t being cheated out of their due. More often than not they looked like grubby-faced urchins and downtrodden souls. Without official emblems, their affiliations were impossible to tell.

Over the belling tops of the tents, one of the many minarets of Katapesh pierced the clear blue sky. This one was part of Abadar’s temple. It was also the tower from which Hashim Rakhman’s guard captain had taken his swan dive.

A shock of white hair cut across Isra’s path, the sharp-nosed Garundi turning to look him straight in the eye, then turning away. There was a moment, when their eyes locked, that Isra thought the Garundi was another one of his brother-in-law’s pets, but the man seemed to realize he was staring and broke eye contact without so much as twitching, never mind reaching for a hidden blade. Isra was tempted to ask for directions, just to prolong the man’s discomfort, but decided against it, primarily because he didn’t fancy removing the scarf from his face. Why increase the risk of being recognized just for a little sport? His intention was no grander than anonymity. He wanted people to see a man lost in the maze of stalls and tents. Thousands of people a day passed through the bazaar, making the chances of being recognized slim. Pulling away the scarf, even for just a moment, took that slim possibility and raised it. How high, he had no way of knowing, but it wasn’t worth the risk.

The hook was baited. He had sent a message to Faris, supposedly from his hired knife, despite the fact that her corpse could quite happily rot in its current resting palace for months without ever being found. He didn’t need months, he only needed hours. The message had said simply: “Bara the Fortune-Teller’s tent. Sunset.”

Isra arrived early and paid the fortune-teller off, buying the tent for an hour with enough coin to almost certainly buy the pitch outright. He didn’t want to be disturbed. He had a feeling things could quickly turn ugly, especially if his brother-in-law didn’t come alone. Isra had long since learned to trust his gut instincts.

Faris sent his two bodyguards in first, then entered the tent himself.

Isra stepped in close and grabbed the first guard, twisting his wrist until the man cried out in pain, then twisted some more, pushing hard on the elbow and breaking the man’s arm in one swift, precise movement. He cast the man aside, ramming an elbow into his temple as he stumbled. The guard’s legs buckled and he went down. He wasn’t going to be getting up in a hurry.

The second guard had no more luck, despite the fact that he had drawn his knife and lunged towards Isra. The assassin’s instincts saved his life. He stepped aside from the blow, grasped the bodyguard’s arm at wrist and elbow, and turned the blade back on its wielder. The curved knife sank deep into the stunned man’s chest. A blood-red rose blossomed on his shirt. The moment of shock was all it took for Isra to finish him.

Isra hadn’t wanted this; death had never been his intention.

“Their deaths are on your hands,” Isra spat. “I hope your money’s good in the afterlife.”

“Not even family comes between Faris and profit.”

Faris turned on his heel, looking to flee, but Isra hooked a foot out and dumped him on his face. The man went down with a grunt, reaching out for the tent flaps of the door to stop himself from falling and nearly pulling the entire construction down on top of them. With all the noise, there was no way the other stallholders could have failed to hear what was going on, but discretion in this case was the best way to keep trouble from their own door. The bazaar lived on a basic premise: it’s always someone else’s problem.

“Money?” Faris snapped, only hearing the one word and ignoring the rest as he blustered and struggled to rise. “You’ve had your money, and I’ve still no proof that the bastard is dead. Without his body, I cannot claim his place, so you can forget all about money.”

So, when it came down to it, this was all about money after all.

Blood and money.

Isra removed the scarf from his face. He savored the shock and fear as it crept over Faris’s own.

“How…?” The man sank back down. He looked, quite literally, as though he had seen a ghost, which of course he had. “You’re dead… I saw…”

“The question isn’t ‘how,’ brother, it’s ‘why.’ Why would you want me dead? Why did you think that you’d be able to take my place? If you had asked me for anything, I would have given it to you. Anything at all.”

“Give?” Faris spat. “I don’t want your charity! I want more than that. I deserve it!”

Isra was torn. He wanted the best for his sister, Sana, and for his nephew. They were the innocents in all of this, but they were the ones that were going to pay the highest price. Killing Faris would destroy them, even if they never knew who was behind his death.

“There’s only one thing you deserve, Faris,” he said slowly. “But fortunately for you, I love my sister more than I hate you. So there has to be away out of this—some way we can both get some sort of satisfactory resolution that doesn’t involve spilling your guts all over this tent.” He thought about it for a moment. “You want to be in charge? You want control over the family interests? You’d consider that a victory?”

“Of course,” Faris said. “But that’s not going to happen now, is it?” He gestured to the two dead men.

Isra followed the direction of his movement, but his mind was elsewhere.

This was the moment. It all came down to this.

Could he trust Faris? What would happen if he gave the man the opportunity to play the part he wanted so desperately?

Suddenly, Isra wanted to laugh. They were in the middle of a fortune-teller’s tent, dead men left and right, and he was trying to look into the future. He might as well look into the crystal ball now and ask the mists to part…

“What are you thinking, Isra?” Faris suddenly sounded like Isra’s brother-in-law again, rather than the man who’d paid money for his death. “Talk to me.”

And then, as Isra knew it would, came the question he had hoped his brother-in-law wouldn’t ask.

“Where did you learn to fight like that? How did you manage to overcome…?” Faris didn’t quite finish the thought. He didn’t need to.

“The assassin you sent to kill me?” Isra said bluntly.

Faris nodded.

Isra made a decision. “I have a secret, Faris. I’m going to tell you something now that will change the course of your life, and mine; a secret that has been gnawing away at me for a long time now. It is an itch that needs to be scratched.” He locked eyes with the man on the floor. “You might say that I’m two people. There’s the Isra you know—or think you know—and there’s the other me, the other Isra that’s now consuming my life. Making money offers no thrill. There’s no pleasure in a deal well struck. Not compared to my other life.” He crouched down so that the two of them were on the same level. “You see, I am the one they call the Nightwalker.”

The cogs whirred away behind Faris’ eyes. “You? No…” The fear returned, yet as quickly as it came, a look of cunning stole in to replace it.

“Here’s what I’m thinking, Faris,” Isra said. “If you want to be the head of the family so desperately, then why not? I could disappear. It wouldn’t be difficult. I haven’t been seen since the party, and it’s not such a huge stretch of the imagination to pretend that your assassin succeeded.”

Faris thought about it for a moment. “What would you do?”

“I would be free of the bonds that weigh me down, free to do something that I get satisfaction out of. Something more challenging.”

“Killing people?”

“Or just starting fresh without the expectation of being a drunk with too much money and too little sense. I’m tired of this life, Faris.”

Faris looked incredulous. “And you would be out of our lives for good?”

Isra wasn’t going to lie. “No. Not for good. You’d have control of the day-to-day things, but I’d still want a hand in decisions that affect the business. You would be the public face of the family, the man everyone dealt with.”

“I’d be your puppet, you mean?” Faris’s lip curled.

“That’s not how I’d choose to see it.”

“How you’d choose? Your words are slippier than a sand eel, Isra. I’d be your puppet, dancing to whatever string you decided to pull.”

“Think about it, Faris. It’s the best I can offer.”

Faris laughed. “Oh, I shall think about it. Long and hard, brother. I shall think about nothing but, but I shall bide my time. Decide in haste, repent at leisure, as they say. I have much to consider. Perhaps I should just reveal that our beloved Isra, patron of flophouses and pesh dens, is the fearsome Nightwalker? Let’s see what becomes of you then. You think you have enemies now… imagine what it’ll be like when half of Katapesh finds out you’re responsible for the death of a friend, or family member, or employer. Go on, imagine—think about what you’ve done, how your crimes have impacted their lives, and the ripples of them spreading out from person to person. Imagine how much they hate you.” Faris smiled grimly.

“I wouldn’t make threats if I were you,” Isra said.

“You wouldn’t? I don’t believe that for a minute. You’re a bastard, Isra.”

The man they called the Nighwalker looked at the huddled merchant in front of him, seeing him properly for the first time, and realized that he may have made the biggest mistake in his life by sharing his secret.

It had to end here, one way or another.

“I tried to offer you a way out of this, Faris, but you’re a bigger idiot than I gave you credit for. I’m going to make you a promise now, and I want you to think very, very seriously about it before you say anything. If you so much as think the word Nightwalker, I will make sure you’re dead before the thought can reach your lips. I offered you a way out because I love my sister, not out of any kindness I feel toward you. You’ve mistaken love for weakness. Instead of taking me up on my kindness, you’ve proven I can’t trust you. So here is my final offer: leave Katapesh and live, or stay and die.”

“Leave Katapesh?” The merchant’s eyes were wide, incredulous. “Are you serious?”

“Deadly,” Isra said, and stood. “Take you wife and son and start a new life far away from here, Faris. Get on the first boat out of the city and start fresh somewhere else. Be the head of your own family, out of my shadow.

“Because if you’re still in Katapesh when the moon rises, I will find you. And I will kill you.”

Chapter Four: Death in the Family

Blind optimism wasn’t a particularly useful trait for an assassin. Isra was neither blind nor optimistic. He knew full well that Faris could not be trusted, no matter how generous an offer his own skin was.

Isra knew people, be they the rich and greedy of one tier of society or the guttersnipes and backstabbing thieves of another. He lived in both worlds. He was surrounded on all sides by the best and the worst, and the worst always outnumbered the best. That was just the way of things. He knew full well his sister’s husband wasn’t going to be true to his word. Nevertheless, he had decided to give the weasel a chance to prove him wrong. He owed Sana that much. Still, he was angry with himself for giving Faris the opening in the first place. He had known he couldn’t trust him with his secret, but had desperately wanted to believe he could. The old adage held that blood was thicker than water, with family being blood. But Faris was not blood. He was scum.

Had Faris been anyone else in the world, he would not have left the fortune-teller’s tent alive. That Isra had allowed Faris to plot murder and walk back out into the Nightstalls without sporting a second smile cut into his throat from ear to ear was testimony to the fact that Isra was as capable of being willfully naive as the next man.

But that didn’t make him stupid.

He followed in shadows, slipping between stalls and tents. When their cover ceased to be available, he climbed higher, working his way onto another roof, never letting his traitorous brother-in-law out of sight for even a moment on the long walk back to the home the man shared with Isra’s sister.

Faris kept glancing back over his shoulder to see if he was being followed. The movements were nervous, scared. But like a fool, he never looked up. This was not the behavior of a man grateful to be given his life and about to keep his end of a bargain. Far from it. This was the furtive, shiftless behavior of a man who trusted no one because no one had reason to trust him. It was the circle of lies. Faris was afraid for his life because, in Isra’s position, he would have been planning the exact moment to slip the knife in between his brother-in-law’s third and fourth ribs, ending his problem. So right now, even as he pushed and bullied his way through the crowded streets, Faris would be scheming, trying to find an angle, a way to gain some sort of advantage even as he ran for his life. That was just the nature of the beast.

Isra had to give Faris credit, though—he was at least doing his best to make shadowing him interesting, slipping into a hovel and out the back door, climbing garden walls and cutting through one of the bathhouses. Had he just looked up he would have saved himself a lot of sweat and trouble, given the baking sun, but as it was dark stains ringed the loose white shirt that clung to him as he moved, while Isra matched him step for step.

From his rooftop vantage, the assassin could see everything, Katapesh laid out like a doll theater beneath him. The height of the midday sun meant that he cast no shadow down onto the streets below.

Faris showed no sign of being in a hurry to go home. Rather, he was making a tour of the city, visiting certain establishments, very particular houses and places of business. These were all places where messages could be left for the kinds of people who do not want to be found easily, those magicians and alchemists who did not wish to treat with the masses, but dabbled in unsavory concoctions to gain whatever effect they so desired.

He was going to have to be on his guard for whatever nasty surprise Faris in mind.

Another hour of this, and then Isra realized that Faris had retraced his steps, returning to a shop that had already benefited from his patronage. Only it wasn’t a shop, it was a pesh den. The one where he had first slipped out through the rear door and made off over the wall. And suddenly it all became clear: the fool still thought he was being followed, but that the eyes watching him belonged to a bigger fool than him. His little detour was supposed to have gone unnoticed, with Isra tricked into thinking that Faris had been inside losing himself in some narcotic haze all this time. Perhaps the revelation of Isra’s second life hadn’t been enough to dispel the illusions he’d woven around his first one after all?

He watched Faris walk tall, happy to be seen on his journey back to his home.

The man was whistling.

He deserved to die just for that.

∗ ∗ ∗

“Every face is a mask.”

Night fell fast. That was the twin curse and boon of living in a desert land.

Isra visited the house he had bought for his sister and her family. He was an unwelcome guest. He had never resented the gift, nor even considered it an act of generosity. She had married for love instead of money, and that had always made him happy.

The bargain he had struck with himself was simple enough: if Faris treated her well, then he would make sure sufficient money came in from investments for them to live well. And despite his duplicity, Faris at least loved and cared for her and wanted to provide for his family, just like any man would, even if no amount of money would be enough.

They weren’t going to be on any boat tonight, meaning Isra was about to make a widow of her. For all his arguments to the contrary, Faris was right in one thing: Isra was quite capable of being a cold-hearted bastard.

Under cover of darkness, Isra wore yet another mask, this one transforming him into the Nightwalker.

In the unlikely event that he was seen, people would walk away. That was the beauty of being one of the most renowned and feared men in a city. Even though the chances that he was hunting them were slim, no one was willing to take the risk when the alternative was to run and live.

Faris would be waiting for him. That was inevitable. Isra could only hope the man had the good grace to do it somewhere private. He had no wish to kill the merchant in front of his sister, and especially not the boy. The trauma of watching his father die would scar Munir for life, turning him into the real victim tonight. No, Isra wouldn’t let that happen.

The house was larger than they needed, the gardens far more ornate than was practical, with a huge fishpond that looked like a knife scar in the moonlight. The main house was three stories high; the top floor taken up with the sleeping quarters, the middle floor with Faris’s study and work rooms, and the ground with kitchens and artisanal spaces. The huge gabled roof was weighed down by overhanging eaves.

From his hiding place, Isra could see Faris pacing back and forth before the study window. He appeared to be alone, but Isra wasn’t about to risk taking anything at face value. He made sure his mask was in place. Appearances could always be deceptive.

He had a decision to make. Or, more accurately, he had the first of many decisions to make. He couldn’t go into the house through the front doors, that was a given. He had already planned out a relatively simple traverse up and across a vine-covered wall that would take him up onto the roof. From there he’d swing down again, coming into the house though the open window of the room where Faris had chosen to make his stand. There was every chance that Faris was both hoping and expecting him to enter the house by that route, and had planned for it. Poison on the windowsill, a needle in the shutter to deliver it straight into his bloodstream, or a crossbow bolt lined up ready to punch through his heart and push him out of the window to a tragic death… or any of many other scenarios. But the truth was any other way could be just as dangerous, if not more so, because they entailed having to move through the house from room to room without dragging his sister and her boy into the middle of things.

Of course it all hinged on whether Faris had decided to make his stand or not.

∗ ∗ ∗

Faris was ready for him; he must have heard Isra’s footsteps on the roof.

There was a moment when Isra was vulnerable, as he slipped in through the window. Faris could have lunged then—he had a dagger gripped in his hand—but something made him step back.

He waved the knife, motioning for Isra to stay back. It was as though he’d completely blocked the death of his two bodyguards from his mind. Perhaps it was a coping mechanism?

“I’ve decided to stay,” he said.

The mask covered Isra’s disappointment. “Unfortunately, that isn’t your decision to make. I was quite clear when I told you what would happen if you tried to stay here. We both know you can’t be trusted, and you’ve had all the choices I’m ever going to offer you. You made the wrong one. And now I won’t trust you with anything, least of all my sister.”

“Trust!” Faris spat. “You talk about trust when all you do is lie? Everything about you is a lie, Isra. You pretend to be one thing when you’re really another. You offer me everything I want, but without actually giving anything away. You are a liar, plain and simple. I could kill you now and no one would blame me.”

“No one?”

“Look at where you are, who you are. You’re not my brother-in-law here; you’re an assassin. You’re the Nightwalker. You’ve broken into my home. I don’t know it’s you beneath that mask, Isra. I have a right to protect my family.” His grin was cruel. In his headl, he was already making all of the excuses he would need to cover himself with the Pactmasters.

“I didn’t want to have to do this,” said Isra, closing the gap between them.

Before he could get within striking distance, Faris hurled a high-backed chair into his path.

Isra danced back a step, staying out of reach.

“What’s the matter?” called a voice from the other side of the door. Sana.

Isra wanted to call out to her, to tell her not to come in, but he knew her well enough to know that that would only bring her into the room. She was contrary like that.

“Quickly,” Faris cried, a fake note of panic in his voice. It was ludicrous pantomime, and no one in her right mind would have been taken in by it. His eyes were bright with bitter mirth. There was no smile.

Sana didn’t get help.

She opened the door just as both men knew she would.

“What’s wrong?” she started to say, but then caught sight of the Nightwalker standing by the window.

Isra held out a hand, trying to calm his sister before she could panic, but he knew the sight of him there, in her house, was a terrifying one. He should have left then and there, just taken two steps back and jumped out of the window. But he didn’t. Instead, he remained rooted to the spot, while she moved closer to her husband.

That solidarity cut deeper than any knife possibly could. Even though there was no way that she could recognize him, it hurt Isra that she would go to this snake for protection.

Instead of pushing her behind him, though, Faris put her between him and Isra, using Sana as a human shield.

It took her a moment to grasp that all was not as it had seemed, and then a note of genuine fear crept into her voice. “What are you doing?”

Faris ignored her. “Put down your knife,” he said.

“This is between you and me,” Isra said flatly. “There’s no need for her to be dragged into this.”

“Please Faris,” Sana cut across them. “What’s this about? What’s happening? Who is this man?”

“So many questions, dear wife,” Faris rasped in her ear. “All you need to know is that this is the man who wants your husband dead.”

She wasn’t satisfied. Panic was slowly being replaced by anger. The fear remained, kept in check by some very basic survival instinct. “You’re hurting me, Faris.” She didn’t try to break free of his grasp.

“He will not attack a woman. He only kills those he’s paid to kill. He’s honorable like that. He won’t kill someone who simply gets in the way. Don’t you know who he is?”

No. Please, no. Don’t tell her. Isra gritted his teeth. He could only make the plea in his mind. She would recognize his voice. Maybe not instantly, but it would come to her eventually. He didn’t want Sana to know what he had become. The extent of his folly was driven home in that one moment of clarity.

“Do you want her death on your hands Nightwalker?”

Mute, Isra remained motionless, fighting every single muscle in his body as they tensed, ready to explode with brutal force.

Any lingering hope that this might resolve itself peacefully died then.

This wasn’t going to end well for Faris.

“Do you know where I’ve been today, Nightwalker?” Faris raised an eyebrow. His ugliness seemed to become more physical with every breath he took, as though the blackness inside was manifesting itself on his skin. “I have been to see the alchemists, apothecaries, and every practitioner of tainted magic I could track down. And can you think why?” It was a rhetorical question. “No? Then let me tell you, brother.” Isra winced, hoping Sana would miss the familiarity in the taunt. “I’ve coated the runnels along the edge of this blade with a poison so toxic that I need only touch the steel to flesh for it to take effect. It’s a very particular poison. It will paralyze in moments, but not kill. That will only happen if I break the skin. There is no antidote. Nothing that can be done to reverse the process. Do you take my meaning, Nightwalker?”

Until that moment, Isra hadn’t noticed that Faris was wearing gloves, but now it made sense. The man held the blade only inches from Sana’s throat. His words had the desired effect: she stopped struggling against him. The first tears broke and ran down her cheeks as her world was turned upside down. She was a feisty woman, always had been, but she wasn’t physically strong enough to free herself. Certainly not without her bastard of a husband touching the poisoned dagger to her cheek. She knew it and he knew it.

“Better not cut yourself, then.” Isra said.

“This blade was meant for you, Nightwalker.”

“Did you really believe I’d let you close enough to prick me with it, Faris? You’re a bigger fool than I took you for. Put it down and let her go. It doesn’t have to end like this.”

“Oh, but it does,” Faris said.

There was movement on the other side of the door. Both men heard it.

Faris’s grip around his wife’s throat tightened, an element of panic stealing into his face as the boy, Munir, appeared in the doorway. “Father?”

The boy caught sight of Isra then, but rather than being frightened by the black-clad assassin, he didn’t seem to be concerned at all. Isra remembered the moment back at the ball when he thought the boy had seen him. Did he know? Or was he just too young to understand what was happening here?

“Get out of here, Munir. Back to bed. Now.”

“You’re hurting her.”

“Don’t argue with me, boy. Bed.”

Faris turned his head. It was the smallest of movements, but Isra sensed this might be his only chance to end this well. He closed half of the distance between them before Faris realized he was on the move.

A look between rage and disbelief flashed across the merchant’s face. Then, coldly and deliberately, Faris yanked Sana’s head back and drew the blade across his wife’s throat.

Arterial blood pulsed, the first spray describing a huge arc that spattered down Isra’s face and chest, the second and third smaller, until the blood barely bubbled from the wound.

“I might not be able to fight you, brother dearest, but I can take someone you love.”

Rage like nothing he had ever experienced surged through Isra. It was thunder in his blood. Lightning in his veins. It was a desert khamsin inside his skull, pounding relentlessly against his temples, trying to shatter the plates of bone. It was a djinn whipping up sand to blast his skull to dust.

Isra had never killed in rage. Ever. The Nightwalker was always in total control of mind and body. Death was clean and swift, delivered with one eye on escape. Control meant no mistakes, no unnecessary suffering.

But Isra wanted Faris to suffer. He wanted him to scream and beg and plead for his life. He wanted to break him and every bone in his worthless body. A thousand cuts could never be enough. He wanted to flay the skin from his back, to shred the flesh as he peeled it away from his bones. And he wanted Faris to feel it all.

He pulled twin daggers from the sheathes on his hips, blades flashing in a blur of motion. He cut high, across Faris’ cheek, and low across his belly, opening the gut up. Faris dropped the poison-tainted blade, falling to his knees and clutching his stomach as a rope of intestine slowly began to unravel through his fingers. He tried desperately to force his guts back inside his body. He was dead, but didn’t realize it.

Isra could have left him then. It would have taken days for the murderer to finally die.

But that wasn’t enough.

Faris’s screams curdled in his throat as Isra opened a second cut on his face, matching the first. “Smile,” the assassin said coldly, and cut again, scraping the knife across Faris’ forehead. Blood streamed down into the man’s eyes.

The assassin walked around the dead man, grasping a tangle of hair and wrenching his hand back, scalping Faris. It was brutal and ugly. His hands were slick with his brother-in-law’s blood, but it was his sister’s that burned him.

He pushed the man to the floor. Blood soaked the boards.

Isra walked around him again, then pulled Faris over onto his back and went to work once more.

Faris’ body was so far lost to shock that he almost certainly couldn’t feel a thing.

Isra didn’t care.

Heavy footsteps sounded on the bottom stairs. Two men, Faris’s help, came rushing up the stairs, too late to save anyone.

The assassin’s blades peeled away layers of skin and meat, scraping down to the ribs. He reached in, snapping two of the bones so that he could reach in and tear out the heart. Isra wanted to feel it stop beating in his fist, but Faris was already gone.

Isra was so blind to his surroundings that he missed Munir bending to grip the poisoned knife in both hands. The first he heard was the slap of bare feet on bloody floorboards as the boy ran at him, blade gripped thrust out before him.

Isra looked up a fraction of a second before the boy could plunge the knife into his throat and reacted instinctively, slapping the boy’s wrists so hard his hands sprang open and the poisoned blade spun away, clattering to the floor. The force of the blow sent the boy sprawling through his parents’ blood. Isra picked up Faris’s knife and plunged it into the man’s corpse.

It was over.

The footsteps pounded reached the top of the stairs, dragging him back to the present.

He had to get out, and quickly.

Isra snatched up his knives, and with one backward glance to check on the boy, slipped through the window again just as two men burst into the room. They were muscle-bound thugs built for intimidation, not for running across rooftops, and they knew it. Neither made a move to follow as Isra leaped from the window ledge and disappeared into the night.

∗ ∗ ∗

Half an hour later, he was cleaned up and changed into his normal attire, and had the reek of alcohol back on his breath; he was Isra the merchant prince once again, though today all the cares of the world had come home to roost. He would never be the same again. He was grateful that he could enter his sister’s home by the front door this time.

There was no need to climb the stairs. He knew what was up there.

He was shaking as he listened to the bodyguard describe what had happened, and how he had caught a glimpse of the bastard Nightwalker disappearing through the window. The man made himself sound like a hero. He had given chase, but the assassin had used black spells to throw him off the roof and he’d barely escaped with his life.

It was all rubbish. Isra didn’t care. Let the man pretend.

“I’ve sent word to the Pactmasters,” the bodyguard said, “but there’s not much they can do for Master Faris or your sister. Do you want to see the bodies?”

Isra shook his head. “No.”

“Young master Munir is in his playroom. I fear he saw everything.”

“I’ll take him with me. Then, when I’m gone, I want you to burn this house to the ground. I don’t want him to have to see it ever again. Will you do that?”

“I don’t think—”

“I’m not asking you to think. I’m asking you to do one thing for me. I’ll see you are well paid for it. Can I trust you?”

The man nodded.

“Good. Trust’s so important.” Isra meant it on levels the bodyguard couldn’t possibly grasp.

He went through to the boy’s playroom, hesitating at the doorway to put on yet another mask, though this was the most difficult one of all to draw down. He had just made the boy an orphan. He didn’t know if he was going to be able to look the child in the eye and lie—or worse, if he wasn’t going to have to. He wasn’t sure what he would do if the boy knew… But he’d find out soon enough.

He knocked once on the door and opened it.

Munir lay on a cot-seat, his face turned away from the door. Isra wondered if Munir had consciously chosen to lie facing his parents’ bodies on the other side of the wall, or if it was coincidence.

He sat on the edge of the bed and rested a hand on Munir’s arm.

The boy didn’t react.

Isra made a promise to himself and to his sister in the room beyond: he would take the boy under his wing and be the father he deserved.

He spoke softly, saying anything that came into his head, but the boy didn’t seem to hear any of it.

The one thing Isra didn’t say was that everything was going to be all right.

Isra gathered Munir into his arms.

“Is there anything you want to bring? A toy? Something special to you?”

Munir didn’t answer. He pressed his face into Isra’s chest.

Isra could feel their blood on his skin. No amount of scrubbing had been able to cleanse him. Surely the boy could smell it on him? Surely he knew who Isra was? What he had done?

Munir didn’t fight him as Isra carried him out of the house for the last time.

Tomorrow it would be a ghost, just like the boy’s parents.

The only ghost Isra had ever intended to create was the Nightwalker’s. But something else had happened in that room. Instead of dying, the Nightwalker had become immortal.

That side of him, the killer, would live forever.