She was, after all, a girl who knew how to fly.
Nefertiti
My stilettos clicked against the floor of the basement library. The walls were embedded with shelves from floor to ceiling, carrying texts from every epoque and every genre. I’m a self-taught scholar and so I know that knowledge is power, but my books served more of a purpose than to just feed my mind. They absorbed sound. Though the muted hubbub and music of the club upstairs leaked into the library, no sound ever wafted up from this basement. I eyed the glass box in the middle of the room: it was ten square metres and, crucially, soundproof. I couldn’t afford to take any chances. Two of my girls stood guarding it, their weapons concealed expertly within their kalasiris, the two thick straps of the form-fitting sheath dresses covering their chests. Underneath each strap lay a thin spindle of a dagger.
I nodded at them and they opened the door to the glass box. I was immediately met with the stench of stale sweat and the sound of muted whimpering. In the middle of the box was a man tied dexterously to a chair, bare chested in his underwear. There was no mark or bruise on him and not a single drop of blood on the floor. My girls had done well. I hated mess. The man’s eyes widened at the sight of me and the whimpering became louder. I bent over so I was at his eye level.
‘I see you know who I am, Mr Hemti. I don’t usually come down to visit when we have special guests over, because I trust my girls to . . . entertain to my standards. But I made an exception for you.’ I held a hand out and, within a second, a carving knife was placed in it. The chair rocked a little as the man squirmed, the muted squeals increasing in volume, and, wordlessly, the girls moved to hold the chair in place, gripping its back.
I smiled straight into Mr Hemti’s watery eyes. ‘I wanted to give you this gift personally. A souvenir from your visit.’ I deftly sliced into his thigh and carved out the image of a sun disc. It couldn’t have taken me more than a minute and the pain couldn’t have been more than that of an intricate tattoo, but Hemti squealed like a mad boar. I rolled my eyes. Men were so dramatic. I handed the knife back and retreated a little so blood wouldn’t drop on my shoe.
‘Ungag him,’ I commanded.
My guards ripped the tape from Hemti’s mouth, and he spat out the cloth that was stuffed into it. ‘Please! I have a family! I am an honourable man. I have a wife and baby son! Please, I’ll do anything . . . I have money! Land! Anything you want, you can have it.’
I let him go on while I watched him impassively for a few seconds before I held a palm up, shushing him. I chuckled lightly. ‘I know you have a family. How do you think my girls knew exactly where to find you? It was your wife who sent for us, Mr Hemti.’ His eyes widened and he shook his head.
‘No! No—’
‘A beautiful woman, strong and smart. She told us that you beat her. We saw the bruises, the marks. She said that she’s lost two babies. Yes. You’re a real family man.’
He started shaking now, spitting as he begged. ‘I’ll stop. You don’t know how disrespectful she can be sometimes, she— Please don’t kill me. Please. I won’t lay a finger on her again!’
I raised my hand again and kept my voice soft and genial. I hated rough noise.
‘Mr Hemti, please, I’m not going to kill you. I’m not a brute like you. And I know you won’t lay a finger on her again.’
Relief flitted across his pathetic, sweaty face as his body sagged, panting. I was used to seeing the faces of desperate men and, as I expected, along with the relief, I saw the old menace beginning to take the place of fear.
‘Thank you. Thank you—’
I continued cheerily: ‘You won’t lay a finger on her again because you won’t be able to.’
His brows furrowed in terrified confusion as I continued. ‘Everything,’ I ran my eyes across him, ‘on your body that you used to hurt your wife shall be removed. I think that’s reasonable.’ I smiled widely as dark realisation flooded through him and he began to tremble. ‘I’m sure you can understand, Mr Hemti.’
I nodded at my girls and they gagged him again, muffling his screams. ‘Ladies, will you please take our guest to the abattoir?’
‘Yes, madam.’
I tilted my head apologetically at Hemti’s pale, damp face. ‘It’s just a funny little nickname we like to call it. Now, I hope you’ll excuse me, Mr Hemti. I have a club to run and a show to put on. If you breathe a word of what happened to you here to anyone, your tongue will be cut out. Your wife and child are in a secure location with plenty of money to tide them over, so don’t worry about them. However, I assure you that if you try to look for them, I will know about it. You don’t want that to happen, Mr Hemti.’