City of the Plague God: Chapters 1–7

I tugged at the unyielding roll-down security shutter.

"So, who's in town? Spielberg? The head honcho from Disney?"

He was more vain than a Real Housewife of Beverly Hills and blew most of his salary on top-of-the-line bodywash and Versace aftershave.

I liked smelling of sautéed onions.

There he was, grinning in front of the Ziggurat of Ur, sitting on a camel at the ruins of Nineveh, and dusty from his motorcycle trip to the brick mounds at Lagash, remnants of when the country had been known by its ancient name: Mesopotamia.

The deadly chilies my dad put in it were part of the reason our deli was so popular. Everyone, at some point, tried the Baghdad—"pure shock and awe to your taste buds," Baba always said. Only the hardiest came back for more.

The alley behind our deli stank. Worse than usual, I mean. A putrid, hot stench lay as thick as syrup.

A pair of cracked pince-nez balanced on the end of his twitching nose.

"This will not bode well for you. We shall wreak revenge, we two."

"We are the Great Misfortunes of Mankind, the Asakku," said Idiptu. "Or, in common parlance—"
"Demons," I replied.

Over ten feet tall, even hunched over, he shuffled through the mass of insects. Instead of dispersing, they coalesced into him, clustering in the folds of his ragged cloak, disappearing into his mouth, and flying around his head like a screaming halo.

Idiptu doffed his bowler hat.

"Who's...What's out there?" asked Daoud, his face ashen.

Gaping holes in his cheeks exposed the sinews of his jaw, and his nose was a pair of rotten holes.

She stood in the doorway, dressed in midnight black with her face hidden by a ski mask, carrying a gleaming scimitar.

The ninja paused, her foot poised in the air.

"T'would be unwise after that performance," he said ingratiatingly to the ninja.

There are few things fouler than watching huge white maggots writhe inside jars of apricot syrup.

She wore kohl around her dark eyes—the only makeup she bothered with—amplifying their brooding intensity.

It was subtle, but Belet rose to the balls of her feet. Guess she was getting ready to run.

The woman stretched up, tall and lithe.

She removed her sunglasses, and her smile hit me like a thunderbolt, electrifying every atom. The taxi driver stared, too, agog.

She smiled, and I think the word for it is beatific.

There was a sudden smattering of applause from across the street.

She took my hand, and her whole demeanor transformed as she gazed into my eyes.

I could get identities for the police, learn who to go after for damages, and maybe even find out what their relative had been looking for.

She pushed the front seat up so she could climb into the rear and then, firmly and decisively, pulled the seat back into place.

A tawny cat sat upon a couch, gazing at me.

A framed charcoal sketch by Toulouse-Lautrec showed her sitting at a café, fingers idle on a cup.

Beside that hung a somber, dark painting of her in black silk...yet Ishtar, or her historical doppelgänger, smiled amusedly at me, as if remembering a joke only she understood.

Medieval chain mail hung next to ornate layered samurai outfits and richly inlaid steel-plate suits.

An avalanche comprised of a hundred thousand memories, experiences, sights, smells, sounds, and feelings swept over me.

Men, smooth-limbed, muscular, tanned, and beautiful in their youth, offer their lives at the altar of love. For one
 another, for their kings, their people, and, most of all, for the Spartan queen, Helen, who watches from the battlements of the impregnable city.

The sound pierces the dull drone of the aircraft engines, and then there's an ominous pause before the thunder of another explosion.

The bombings began at dawn and have continued unabated.

Then she sees him, picking over the mangled bodies of those who didn't get to safety in time.

Patches of jaundiced skin dangle from his face, and the rest is covered with weeping sores.

His rheumy eyes narrow.

"I was left to feed on their hatred. Fortunately, they hate for the most inconsequential reasons, as you must have noticed. If someone looks different, speaks with an accent, prays at one house rather than another...anything, really."

Steel screams against steel as she slices a wing with her blade, and the plane goes into a spin. Ishtar sprints along its fuselage and launches herself at the second bomber.