Thieves of the Black Sea. Joe O'Neill
Images of Fez, Aseem, and Tariq came into view. A red handprint dissolved like sand through an hourglass.
The sound of hundreds of thousands of people crying out shattered everything.
The images were so prolific and horrifying that she awoke with a start and sat up in her bed, completely confused by her surroundings. Her pulse raced and she felt her heart beating as if she’d just run a marathon. Beads of sweat dripped down the side of her face and her hair stuck to her neck.
Unable to shake the nightmare, Zijuan walked over to a basin and splashed cold water on her face.
She lit a lantern and laid a small rug down on a dry part of the dirt floor so that she was able to sit down cross-legged. She then removed a scroll and fifty sticks of equal length from a small chest. Breathing deeply, she began to throw the sticks across her tent. After making a series of throws, she interpreted the sticks’ positioning.
She was performing a variation of I Ching—an ancient form of fortune telling.
With each throw, she felt herself grow tense, each outcome more ominous than the previous one.
“Tariq…,” she muttered with her last throw.
She stared at the sticks in disbelief. Never had the readings been so foreboding, and never had she felt such fear. She was about to pick up the sticks when a voice came from outside her tent.
“Zijuan, are you awake? May we enter?” Sanaa asked.
“Yes, please come in,” she answered.
Malik and Sanaa entered the tent.
“Sit down,” Zijuan instructed.
Malik and Sanaa sat down on the rug. Outside, the rain started to pour down harder and Zijuan could hear thunder in the distance. The smell of smoke and charred flesh lingered in the tent. The smell had been thick in the afternoon, when they’d cremated hundreds of dead soldiers before the flesh could rot. The welcome rain had begun to wash the smell away.
Together in that small tent sat the three deadliest, and most respected, assassins in all of Morocco, and perhaps all of Arabia and Africa.
“We’re having nightmares.”
“Both of you?”
“Yes,” they replied at the exact same time.
“Tell me about them.”
“We see Tariq, Fez, and Aseem, but they are in a foreign city with some kind of captain. A large black cat. Then we see strange men, one Caucasian and the other Asian, and then a war of some kind and a red handprint. We can’t make sense of it,” Malik explained.
“How long have you been having these nightmares?”
“Since the boys disappeared into the clouds. The day of our victory over the Caid.”
Zijuan sighed.
“What is wrong?” Malik asked as they sat across from Zijuan.
“I have been having the exact same nightmares. I didn’t understand them until I performed an I Ching reading just before you came to my tent. I believe that Tariq and the boys are alive, but are far away. I believe they are, for the moment at least, in safe hands. They must engage on a quest of some kind and we must not interfere. This quest will be very dangerous and some—or all—of them may perish.”
“What are you talking about? I don’t understand. What quest?” Malik asked.
“I do not know,” said Zijuan.
“Can we help them?”
“No, it was clear to me that they must complete this quest on their own accord.”
“How is it possible we’ve all been having the exact same dreams?” Sanaa asked.
“Everything is connected, Sanaa. Our thoughts and our actions, both in the physical world and the spiritual one. Think of everything like a spider web, all woven together. Most people forget, or refuse, to believe in such an interconnected world. But I believe that the world is headed for a dark place, and what is happening now is breaking through our consciousness and enabling us to know the whereabouts of the boys.”
“And we can do nothing? Just sit back and hope they survive?” Sanaa asked.
“But they are so young,” Malik said worryingly.
Zijuan nodded.
“I will meditate for them each and every day to try to tip the scales in their favor. As I have answers, so will the both of you.”
Sanaa listened attentively. By nature, she was subdued and stoic, but the disappearance of the boys had been weighing on her.
“All I care about is that they are alive,” she whispered.
Zijuan stared at the husband and wife across from her. They were the two people she trusted more than anyone else in the world.
“I don’t know why we were all given the exact same dreams, but it’s not a coincidence. The Red Hand is reaching out to us—for what reason, I am not sure.”
Malik nodded his head as he listened.
“You’ve always had a gift for the metaphysical, Zijuan. We will listen to your premonitions. If we are told that we must not interfere, then so shall it be. Please know that Sanaa and I will do anything for those boys.”
“I know. And please, if you have any new dreams, please describe them to me immediately.”
Sanaa stared straight ahead. Her face was lean and angular, and her black hair was tied in a ponytail that hung to the small of her back. A dagger was omnipresent at her side, even at night, in the safety of Zijuan’s tent.
“I can’t help but think of Tariq when I first saw him being tortured and held prisoner in the Caid’s kasbah. Never once did he complain or cry or whine,” she said.
Malik took her hand.
“Or when I started training him with the other boys in the mountains, how eager they were to learn, and how brave.”
“Perhaps it is not an accident they were chosen for this quest? Perhaps all of their learning and perseverance has been to prepare them for the test and trials ahead?” Zijuan replied.
“Like training?” Sanaa asked.
“Exactly like training,” Zijuan agreed.
“That makes me feel a bit better,” Malik answered before sighing deeply and continuing.
“We will retire to our tent. Thank you, Zijuan.”
Sanaa and Malik stood up, bowed gently to Zijuan, and then exited the tent, back into the driving rain.
Zijuan stared at the scroll she had laid out in front of her. A weight seemed to hang from her shoulders as they slumped when she stared at the scroll.
She hadn’t told Malik and Sanaa everything. There was an evil force at work in the world. Zijuan had never felt such a malevolent and brutal presence in her thoughts. This evil presence had somehow been awakened and was plunging the world into a darker and more sinister time than any in history. She couldn’t shake the sick feeling in her bones. She’d never felt anything like this—such evil and such terror. The gruesome images and voices of all those suffering people lodged in her mind.
Even more troublesome was her realization that Tariq, Fez, and Aseem could be on a collision course with this darkness.
CHAPTER
— 2 —
THE CALL OF THE HUNTER
1914—AMSTERDAM
The harbor of Amsterdam lay under a blanket of gray and smothering fog. Smoke belched from the many chimneys of the factories