Infidel by Kameron Hurley Page B

attention.”  
    The girl moved to shove her hands into her pockets. Hesitated. Left them free. One of the first rules of self-defense was to always keep your hands free—so you could grab a weapon, or use your hands as one.  
    “Go sort the dead notes in the back, Hind,” the matron said to the kid.  
    Hind sidestepped behind the matron and ducked into the back.  
    The matron spread her palms on the table, cocked her head at Nyx. “I can see you’ve been in the business awhile. Most don’t reach our age.”
    I’m only thirty-eight, Nyx wanted to say, but this old woman—this crone—was likely no more than forty.  
    “You handle black marks against bel dames?” Nyx asked.  
    “No. That’s a council job. I already called her. She’ll be coming down to chat.”  
    “Council? The bel dame council?”
    “Been a council job the last four or five years now, since the new gals got elected.”  
    “Didn’t know there was an election.”  
    “They happen hard and fast around here. Usually ’cause somebody got cut up. Just elected two new ones. Shook things up. Been some… interesting times, last few years.” She palmed the burnous. “So, what you bring us?”  
    Nyx heard at least two people take up positions outside the front door, blocking her escape. It felt good to have somebody make a fuss over her again, at least.  
    Then the door at Nyx’s left opened—the door leading back into the bounty reclamation offices.  
    A familiar figure entered. Her hair was completely white now, tied back from a pinched, hallowed face. The years hadn’t been kind. A long scar marked her from nose to ear on the left side of her face. Whoever had given it to her had taken half the ear as well. She wore loose black trousers and a tight, sleeveless tunic the color of sage. Her hands were fine boned, like her face, but heavily veined and wrinkled. You could always mark a woman’s age by her hands, even among the First Families.  
    The matron at the counter nodded at her. “This is Fatima Kosan,” she said. “Fatima handles all the black marks.”  
    “I know who she is,” Nyx said.  
    “They told me when you breached the gate,” Fatima said coolly. “I requested a personal notification if you ever blooded the gate.”  
    “How many people you kill to get that council seat?” Nyx asked.  
    “Enough,” Fatima said lightly.  
    “I’m here to deliver a head. That’s all. This honey pot tried to kill the daughter of the Ras Tiegan diplomat, Erian sa Aldred. Maybe me too.”  
    Fatima approached the counter. She walked with a barely perceptible limp. Nyx figured the right knee had been replaced, maybe a year or two before.  
    Fatima pushed open the top of the burnous, a bold thing to do, considering Nyx and the head hadn’t been through a filter. Nyx could have brought in any kind of Mushtallah-based contagion and killed the lot of them. But Fatima, best Nyx remembered, wasn’t stupid. She just knew Nyx well.  
      “Make sure she’s one of ours,” Fatima told the matron, “and get her to the Plague Sisters.”  
    Nyx pulled the red note from her dhoti. “Found this on her.”  
    Fatima took the red note and examined it. “We’ll have it tested. Where’s the body?”  
    “Last I saw it, Mashad and East Efran, in the alley behind a Heidian deli. Don’t know the name, but the food smelled right.”
    The matron took the head carefully, as if it were a child.
    Fatima rested a hand on the counter, faced Nyx. Her eyes were soft and brown, but the hollows were deeply lined now.  
    “You looked better back when you were teaching me the laws of blood debt,” Nyx said.  
    “Long time ago,” Fatima agreed.  
    “Before you sent me to prison and tortured me?”
    “Before you started doing black work, yes.”  
    “You got the girls outside for a reason?” Nyx said, nodding to the front where she’d heard the bel dames take up position.
    “Nyxnissa, if I wanted you killed, I’d have