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Aayun smiled. "I had to see for myself if you were broken."
"Oh?"
"I had to see if you've really become some kind of altar boy. And if so, why?"
His heart was pounding now. "What have you learned, Aayun?"
Aayun said, "I don't really know, and that's my dilemma. You could be broken, but you could also be licking your wounds and lying low until you figure out your next move. After all, you've had bad luck in picking patrons. Gault failed you. Twice, by my count. And Hugo Vox outlived his relevance."
"Doesn't say much for my effing judgment, though, does it?" muttered Toys.
"Oh, if we're to talk about judgment, let's start with why you killed my sister."
He spat more blood. "Your sister was insane."
"She was brilliant."
"She was a classic example of the mad scientist, sweetie, let's face it. She created an actual doomsday weapon."
"It was because she believed in--"
"Stop," he said. "Just stop. You can effing kill me if you like, but please don't subject me to a lecture on the virtues of Dr. Amirah Malaki. She and Sebastian made quite the pair. He was a self-absorbed narcissist with delusions of economic grandeur, and she was a brilliant back-stabbing soulless witch. And let's add El Mujahid to that mix. He let his wife whore herself to Sebastian in order to fool him into thinking they were a team."
"Sex is a very useful weapon," Aayun said flatly. "It makes men unbelievably stupid."
"Okay, touche, love, but it doesn't whitewash anyone involved. We're all whores of one kind or another. Amirah fucked Sebastian stupid, and he believed that she was his ally. The Seif al Din pathogen was only ever supposed to be used as a scare tactic, as part of the biggest extortion gambit the world has ever seen. But your sister and her husband actually tried to release it and start a global pandemic. They would have killed everyone. You do grasp that, don't you? Seif al Din could not be stopped once it was out. And don't give me that claptrap about them wanting to use it to preserve their twisted version of Islam. They would have killed billions of Muslims with it."
"They wanted to save the faithful and--"
"Bullshit. They turned themselves into fucking zombies! Sure, they were smarter and could speak, unlike the rest of the infected, but they were still effing zombies. Think about that, Aayun. They perverted their own bodies and were willing to destroy the whole world. Do you think Allah would have approved? 'Cause I bloody well don't."
Aayun shook her head. "I don't care about that. I'm not a Muslim. Not anymore. I don't believe in that any more than I believe in your idiot who got nailed to a tree with a promise of salvation on his lips, which, I should point out, was a failed promise. Has anyone ever been saved by Christianity? Or Islam? Or anything? No."
"So this is what? Revenge?"
The smile on Aayun's face changed. Twisted. Became darker and stranger.
"Of a sort," she said softly.
Aayun got up and walked a few yards away, stopping in front of a packing case that was about the size and shape of an old-fashioned phone booth. A crowbar stood against it and she picked it up, weighed it thoughtfully in her hands, and then fitted the crow's foot into the gap between the front of the box and the closest side.
"What are you doing?" Toys asked quickly.
"Oh, you'll see," she said between grunts of effort. The green wood squealed as she pried the box open.
"Aayun," he called, and he hated the sound of fear in his own voice. "Aayun, whatever you're doing . . . don't. Come back. Let's talk this through."
She paused in her work and looked at him over her shoulder. Her face was flushed with effort. "You are a murderer, Toys. My sister killed a lot of people, but you're right . . . she was actually insane. She was always insane. I think God drove her mad, or at least the twisted vision of God that she always clung to. Her and El Mujahid. That was no loving God. They worshipped a monster. They believed in fatwa and jihad and all of that bullshit. They thought they were still fighting the Crusaders to protect the Holy Land. No matter what any of us tried to tell her, she would never listen. It was 'Allah wills this' and 'Allah wills that.' And I've seen people like her all over the world. I've traveled, Toys. I didn't lie about that. I actually went looking for God, for hope, for something to believe in, but no matter where I looked all I found was lies, propaganda, false hopes, and more insanity."
She gave another pull, and the wood cracked a little but didn't give way. She repositioned her crowbar.
"Maybe you weren't looking in the right places," said Toys. His heart was still hammering, but it hurt. Not physically, but for her.
Aayun shook her head. "Oh, please. Spare me the proselytizing. I was never the audience for that kind of thing. Not even at home. Not even when I pretended to be a good and dutiful little Muslim and went to the mosque and pretended to
pray. I wanted to be, but God kept disappointing me. I was hoping that you were haunting the church as some kind of dodge, some kind of protective coloration, but you're not. You actually believe. You actually think you're going to be saved."
"No," he said. "I don't think that at all."
