The Liminal People Read Online Free PDF Page A

nowhere and called me out in the most bizarre way possible.
    â€œMy employer says he knows about you. He says for you to know about yourself, you should come with us and meet him.” I went to their Jeep and reached for a hand to get in. Both men recoiled.
    â€œWith respect,” Suleiman said, “my employer also instructed us not to touch you in any way.” In its own way my life as a healer prepared me for being treated as a threat, so there were few words between me and the razor-necks until long after I made my first peace with Nordeen.
    They drove me out to a clear piece of desert and flagged down a low-flying aircraft. Within a few hours I found myself in a small villa just outside of Marrakech. Creature comforts such as food, water, a bed, and a roof over my head were distant memories. I greeted them like war buddies long thought dead. One luxury I was better without was a mirror. It was as though I had absorbed my patients’ illnesses, not cured them. I was pockmarked and blemished from the sun on all the spots of my face that weren’t covered by a kinky mat of hair. Whatever pigment, other than rust, that had once colored my eyes seemed to have retired years ago. I examined my body visually for the first time since the Mog and found that I looked like someone who had crossed African cities, savannah, mountaintops, and desert on foot with no supplies. I had feet, and then I had calloused rhino-hide skin between where my feet ended and ground began. If I weighed more than ninety-two pounds it was not due to food. My clothes, before Nordeen’s donation of silk pants and a loose-fitting djellabah, were gifted to me by some of the poorest people in one of the poorest nations. Any thoughts of godliness felt like a joke at that moment.
    Razor-necks don’t operate in Marseilles. Angelwise Crew, the Question Marks, even the Brunfeld Collective, none of them set foot in Marseilles. It’s a no-fly zone for scams, deals, anything illegal. Nordeen always had special prohibitions against me coming here. All he’d say about it is that it used to be cursed and now it’s protected. That’s exactly why I’m here.
    I pay my tab with the card then put it in an envelope and mail it to one of our drop houses. It’ll take a month before it gets back to him. No way in hell he’s not tracking every purchase, every cash withdrawal on it. Wouldn’t expect any less of him. But I’ve got to handle this on my own. And the boss has a way of making things more . . . difficult than they need to be.
    So I ditch the hotel, burning the credit card for sure, and take a cab ride from an Algerian up to Avignon. He gets paid in cash. I utilize one of my old drop houses and pick up a much smaller bundle of cash and three different IDs. Next to the Palais des Papes, I find a hotel at the end of an alley with no internet service and no links to any crew I know of. It’s the perfect spot to wait and see. I told Nordeen I didn’t want to track mess in his house with this. In truth, I don’t want to bring him anywhere near Yasmine.
    â€œYou’re a king playing the role of vizier to sycophants and insignificants” were the first words the boss said to me. They were coughed out between battles against rising sputum, sometimes settling in a draw. Behind me Fou-Fou, Suleiman, and a host of other loyal murderers sat outside the door. I felt most of their pulses rise, their throats close, and their jaws clench as we set about entering the room and approached the small sand igloo that the man rested in. As usual he was covered in blankets and shadows. I made out two eyes perched immediately over a pit of darkness, all a child’s height above the ground. But nothing else.
    I’d never met anyone I couldn’t feel before. Still haven’t, though I’m sure there are others out there. At the time, it was the first confirmed surprise regarding my power I’d