Chapter Two The Jackal’s Tithe #2
“I tried,” Daria sobbed. “I e-even t-tried undressing in front of him. . . .”
“Well, clearly you weren’t appealing enough,” Darsh Jana jeered at his only sister.
“What good are you? I ask you to do one thing—persuade the Jackal to forgive a debt—and you can’t even do that!
You have no marriage prospects, no useful talents—you’ll be a spinster all your life, a burden in my household. ”
Hasan opened the door and came back inside, but Darsh, so caught up in his fit of rage, didn’t seem to notice him.
Daria kneeled in front of Darsh, who stood with his back to Hasan.
The tea tray had been overturned, the glasses shattered, chai running in rivulets across the floor.
Daria looked up from where she was picking glass off the floor and caught sight of Hasan.
Her eyes widened. Before Darsh could turn, Hasan grabbed him by his collar and wrenched him around so that he was facing the photograph of his dead parents.
Hasan met Darsh’s eyes in the frame’s reflection. “What kind of brother whores out his younger sister in the presence of their parents’ image?”
“H-Hasan?” He’d gone pale as a Welk, shaking hard. “If this is about the money, I’ll have it next week, I promise—”
“You’ve run out of time.” Hasan shook his head. “I’m here to collect. If you don’t have money, then I’ll take something else.”
“But I have nothing else!”
“Untrue.” Hasan smiled. “You were willing to give me your sister.”
Darsh stilled. “Surely you don’t mean Daria—”
“Oh, I do,” Hasan promised. “She’ll come with me.”
He released Darsh and spun, catching Daria by the wrist. “You have three minutes to get dressed, and then we’re leaving regardless of what you’re wearing. Make it count.” The second he released her, she ran from the room.
“You can’t take Daria,” Darsh said. “She’s my sister.”
“Your sister?” Hasan laughed. “And what kind of brother have you been to her? You are a burden. Instead of paying off your own debts, you try and sell her innocence. Instead of finding her a caring husband, you force her to lie with your own mistakes. Why is it that you protest to my taking her? Is it because you care for her well-being? Or is it because you can no longer use her for your own ends?”
Darsh was silent, struggling to choke down his misplaced pride, no doubt. Finally, he gritted out, “I’ll be a better brother. I’m sorry.”
“It’s not me you should apologize to. It’s her.” Hasan jerked his chin at Daria, who had reentered the room in a worn-out salwar kameez.
“I’m sorry,” Darsh said, not quite looking Daria in the eye.
She reached for him and rested a hand on his shoulder. “It’s okay.”
“Great,” Hasan said. “Truly heartwarming. Now let’s go.” He seized Daria’s wrist again, but her brother leaped in their path.
“But I apologized!”
“The apology was for her, not me,” Hasan snapped. “An apology is not going to replace the fifty thousand gold crowns you owe me.”
Darsh lunged at Hasan, fists balled, but Hasan had seen this coming a mile away. Without releasing his hold on Daria’s arm, he swung his free hand through the gaping hole in Darsh’s stance and struck him squarely in the chin. Daria cried out as Darsh hit the floor. He didn’t get up.
When they were outside, Hasan whistled through his teeth. Immediately, Vinay threw down his paper and stood, crushing his cigarette under his heel before coming to Hasan’s side.
“Hold her,” Hasan said, “but be gentle.”
Vinay had a hundred questions in his eyes as he pried Daria from Hasan’s side, but Hasan knew he wouldn’t ask them. Vinay’s time in the gang had taught him that there was a time and place to question the boss, and this situation wasn’t one of them.
Hasan kneeled at the foot of the door, grateful that he’d made a large enough offering to Aganath that morning.
Flexing his hand, he reached for the energy humming against his skin and concentrated, warmth flooding up into his shoulder and down his arm.
He channeled his daivyakhi through the tips of his fingers until it flickered to life, forming a ball of fire the size of a pomegranate.
He held it to the base of the wooden door until the flames caught onto the dry wood.
In the scorching heat, they grew without much encouragement from him. He stepped back, satisfied.
“Stop!” Daria shrieked, thrashing in Vinay’s grip. “My brother’s inside!”
“He knew this would happen if he didn’t pay,” Hasan said.
“You said you’d be merciful!”
“I was merciful. That’s why you’re not in there with him.
” As the meaning of his words sank in, Daria stopped struggling.
Hasan dusted off his hands on his pants.
“I wouldn’t worry about him, anyway. If there’s one thing a weasel like him knows, it’s how to wriggle out of tight spaces.
Come on. Let’s go, before the crowds gather. ”
With that, they left Darsh Jana’s house, smoke filling the alleyway behind them.
“I won’t ask you if you know what you’re doing,” Vinay said, too quietly for Daria to hear over her own keening. “The real question is whether your brothers know.”
“What do you think?” Hasan whispered back. The mission had been to collect fifty thousand crowns. Instead, they’d scavenged a frightened, grieving girl.
Zeyar was going to be pissed.