Busted Flush Page 0,48

wanted to have her ears pierced," Isis explained, Ellen hearing her words as if from the end of a long tunnel. "I would not let her until she was sixteen."

Ellen unwound her scarf and pulled off her pullover, shedding them along with her identity as she slipped on the T-shirt, adding the earrings, and then . . .

Aliyah yawned, coming awake muzzy-headed as if from a dream. In the back of her head, Ellen stayed silent, watching and observing as Aliyah shook her head and focused on Isis. "Mama?" She blinked. "When did you get here?"

"Aliyah," Isis breathed. "Oh, you are back. You are back. Nepthys be praised."

"Uh, when did I leave?" Aliyah looked around the messy cabin, taking in the oddments and fabric notions, then looking back to her mother. "Mama, where the hell are we?"

"We are in the bark of Nepthys. She has brought you back from the dead."

"The dead?" said Aliyah, standing up, then looked at Ellen's hands, her hands, in incredulity. Then she touched them to her small breasts. "Where the hell are my tits?"

"You are in the body of Nepthys. She has lent you her form."

Aliyah grabbed her chest and squeezed, feeling herself up. "I haven't worn an A cup since I was twelve." She scanned the room. "You expect me to believe I'm suddenly some flat-chested old lady so I can freak for the cameras? What sort of fucked-up illusion is this?"

Actually, Ellen thought, it's not an illusion. You're in my body. And I'm not flat-chested. Or old. Hell, I'm not even forty.

"Aliyah," Isis cried, tears forming in her eyes, "it is no illusion. You died in Egypt."

"Egypt?" Aliyah echoed incredulously. "I've never even been to Egypt!"

"Yes, you have. You were killed by a villain named the Djinn. But your uncle Osiris foresaw a way for you to return, and so I quested until I found Nepthys . . ."

"Then why don't I remember anything about it?"

Because, Ellen thought, when I channel someone, I can only channel them up to the point where they last touched or wore something. I'm channeling you from your shirt and earrings.

"Oh, this is utter crap," said Aliyah, "and I'm not buying it. Watch." She grabbed the front of her shirt and pulled, ripping it straight off over her head and tossing it into the corner.

The connection faded a fraction, becoming appreciably weaker, and Aliyah staggered.

Isis caught her. "Aliyah, my dear one. It is true. But Nepthys has brought you back."

Aliyah hugged her mother. "Egypt . . . why would I go to Egypt?"

"The Djinn was killing the Living Gods. You went with John Fortune to save them."

"The PA?" Aliyah had a flash of memory. It was as if a dam broke, belief and realization crashing through, coming out as tears and great gasping sobs. "Oh, Mama . . . Mama . . ."

Ellen stayed silent. It was best at these moments.

"Hush, Aliyah. Hush, my dear one. Mama is here." Isis rocked her in her arms, stroking Aliyah's hair, Ellen's hair, one and the same. "Mama is here. It is all right."

"I didn't tell you how much I loved you . . ."

"Nor I, Daughter," Isis said, tears at last beginning to fall, "nor I."

They held each other for a long while, rocking in time with the boat, Isis crooning some wordless Egyptian lullaby.

Volunteers of America

Victor Milan

TWO TALL MEN IN Nigerian Army uniforms stretched the young boy's arms out to the sides. A third stepped forward, raising a machete.

Screaming, the boy's mother bolted from the flock of Ijaw villagers kneeling under the patrol's guns. Sergeant McAskill, mercenary "advisor," bellowed a command. Beneath his boonie hat his face was redder than usual, clashing with his ginger mustache. A buttstroke took the mother down, blood and teeth flying. Her husband sobbed in his mush-mouthed wog English that they were innocent.

Watching from well back among the cluster of shacks that rose on stilts from pale green swamp weeds and white sand, patrol leader Captain Chauncey grinned in his beard. Sod that for a game of soldiers, he thought. LAND, the Liberation Army of the Niger Delta, had blown an oil pipeline two kilometers away last night. The lump of black smoke still hung in the sky to the northeast.

These people knew the game. Prices must be paid. And as for innocence - "It's bloody Africa," he said aloud, shaking his head. He inhaled deeply from his cigar.

The blade fell once, twice. It chopped the boy's arms off just below the shoulder. If