If the city of Marrakech is a living beast, Djemaa El-Fna is its heart. It is known as The Assembly of the Dead in my tongue, and no name suits it better. A vast plaza, edged on one side by the souk, the labyrinthine markets of Marrakech, it is home to snake charmers and merchants of spice and story, ill-kept monkeys chained to their eager pimps, tourists easily plied from their money and locals eager to part them from it.

Djemaa El-Fna is a wondrous sight, and I love it still, though I have not returned since I was first stolen from its streets. The whispers of its stories are sweet nothings in my ear, as the charming chaos of the souk’s stalls and the milling crowd of Djemaa El-Fna beckons me back to the haunts of my childhood. Those streets were the only parents I had, other orphans my only siblings.

It was in the maelstrom crowd of Djemaa El-Fna that I first found Whisperwind, or, rather, where she first found me. I would not know the importance of that day for many years to come. Even now, I do not understand that first meeting.

A young girl wandered through Djemaa El-Fna, a foreigner with ivory skin and black hair flowing out from beneath a wide-brimmed hat. She looked lost.

I didn’t care. I cared only about him.

Though dark of skin, my mark stood out worse than a fat, sunburned American. Despite the angry sun and the endlessly swirling dust devils, he was dressed in an suit. A suit that spoke of money. The price on his sunglasses alone could probably feed me and my brothers for a week. He could not hide his foreign body language behind that dark skin. I could see through it no problem, just like any of my brothers could. Easy prey, no? I followed him with my eyes, never losing sight as I lounged in the shadows cast by a vendor’s stall on the edge of the souk, the perfect place to ply my trade.

You might think there’s no pride in being a pickpocket. I’d say you’re wrong. We work hard, regardless of honour. I’d take food in my belly over pride in my heart any day. Wouldn’t you?

Working in the gangs wasn’t always easy, but it was better than being alone. You wouldn’t last long on your own. I was middle of the pack in my gang, just where I wanted to be. You have to find that balance, be useful to the gang, but not draw too much attention from those stronger than you, from those who’ll take you out if you’re a threat. I could be better, I could be at the top, if they knew about my power, but I liked it in the middle, it was safe.

He was moving, and fast. Chewing on a brochette, he left the food vendor’s stall. He scanned the crowd, searching for the next lucky fool who’d get a taste of his western money. Any luck and it’d be me, and he’d be parting with more of it than he was hoping. As I guessed, he started towards the souk, hoping to take in the sights and sounds of Marrakech’s biggest market.

He passed by my spot of shade, so close I could have reached out and grabbed the leg of his pants. I waited a moment, so he wouldn’t see me, then stood and followed him into the mess of stalls and the ebb and flow of people flowing through the veins of my city. The thick smell of steaming food mixed with the endless dust of the market, a heady mixture as comforting to me as the hug of any mother. I would welcome the man to my home the only way I knew how.

“Stop.” The voice was soft and childlike, but pitched just right to drift out from the cacophony of vendor’s catcalls, grilling food, angry bartering, shrieking monkeys and the raucous yells of wild-eyed transvestite dancers. A chill climbed my spine, and I stopped and turned to the young girl, who was hiding in the cotton drapes of a pottery stall. Her skin was white as the finest porcelain, yet her hair was dark as mine. Her face and eyes were lost in the shadows of her hat. Still, I could feel the chill of her gaze. A foreigner, but she spoke my language as if she was born to it.

“Do not,” she said, pointing toward my rapidly disappearing mark.

I turned and ran. I told myself, as I ran, that I didn’t want to lose my mark. That was a lie. I ran from her.

The man wound deeper through the souk. Most tourists enter and take their time, stopping at each vendor to catch their eye, trying on fake Nikes or getting high on majoun. This man, though, moved through the stalls like a local, like he knew where he was going.

I had trouble keeping up with him. He would disappear from sight, lost behind clouds of steam, or amongst a throng of shoppers, but around every twist and turn I would catch a further glimpse before losing him again. An uneasy feeling was tickling the back of my neck, like hidden eyes were watching from every shadow. We were near the outskirts of the souk now, away from the cloth stalls and back within the garden of stone buildings.

I called on the power within me, my little bit of magick, and wrapped myself in the calming thrum of its energy. The power came to me naturally as breathing. It pulsed with every beat of my heart and danced along the tips of my fingers, a cerulean flame invisible to others. It was my one bargaining chip in life.

With that power flowing through my veins, I did not fear the man. I pushed harder through the crowds, keeping him just at the edge of sight.

I could hardly believe when he turned the corner, heading into a quiet alley. I knew that turn, that alley, every one of my brothers did. Our gang used it as a drop spot, to ambush rival gangs or intimidate unsuspecting tourists.

Why would he go there? I wondered, swallowing the unease that swarmed just under the buzz of my magick. Who is he? I thought of turning back, of giving up on the mark. Someone else could have him. Or maybe I should go back, get some of my brothers, find the man again. We could share the profits.

I thought about it, but I didn’t listen. I don’t know why. I was greedy, I guess.

I hauled myself up onto the roof of one of the buildings that lined the alley. My brothers and I had long since established a series of hiding spots among the rooftops of the souk, hidden from anyone who did not know where to look.

The flat roof was empty except for one corner, where a tarp-covered bundle lay in the shadows cast by the sun. It contained simple tools and weapons, anything my brothers might need for a job. If I could quietly get behind the man in the suit, he’d be out before he even knew I was there. I’d have to be quick, though.

I knew there was a club there, a splintered baseball bat. We didn’t like to hurt the foreigners we robbed — it upset the balance in the souk and Djemaa El-Fna — but sometimes exceptions had to be made. It was safer than using my magick. I pulled back the tarp. The club was gone. All the things were gone.

Gravel crunched behind me, and I swung about, startled.

“Do not,” she said, pointing down to the alley. “He is a bad man. He will take you.”

The girl was standing in the middle of the roof. Her skin was flawless, a blazing beacon even against the sun-bleached horizon of Marrakech rooftops. Her hat was gone. She had the lifeless face of a doll. Her black eyes were like eerie pools of ink, and caught none of the sun’s harsh light. There was a wisdom in that stare that shook me deep.

She looked like a child, but she was not. She was older than this city, than the language I spoke. I can’t explain how I knew this. It was in the language of her body, in the words left unspoken on her lips. Her hands were enveloped in flame. The same magick that licked eagerly up my own arms.

A soft wind whipped the girl’s hair, whispering promises of what horrors lay in that alley below, at the hands of the man in the suit.

Again, I turned and ran. I dropped from the rooftop, landing hard on the street at the outskirts of the market. My knees buckled, but I scrambled back up. I ran as if Shaitan and all his demons were at my back. I fled for the safety of the souk, shoving through the crowds, leaving a trail of angry calls at my back, to find my brothers in Djemaa El-Fna.

Many years would pass before I saw Whisperwind again, but that is a story for another day.

Copyright © Aidan Moher, 2010

And there he was. The rich American. The fat American. My Husband. My knight in shining armour.

   Well, ‘shining’ maybe is not the best word. ‘Tarnished’. That is a better word. My knight in tarnished armour. Though, ‘knight’ is not the best word, also. I do not know a better one. It was his job to love me, to open up this new life, in this land of opportunity.

   He did not know my secret. And never will. God willing.

   My husband held a sign with my name on it. Alexandra. It was spelled wrong. Aleksandra. Alex, to my few friends back home in Ukrayina. No not home. Not any more. This was my home now, with this man. My husband. He had seen my photo, through the Internet, and I had seen his. Still, we were strangers to one another, strangers now linked at the hip.

   “Hello,” he said, his strange accent making a slur of the word.

   “Hello,” I said, pitching my voice high. He would expect it to be high and I was used to the charade. I did not know what else to say.

   “Let me git that for ye.” He reached down, one meaty hand grazing my ass, and grabbed the handle of my single bag of luggage. Its wheel was broken and it wobbled as he dragged it to the taksi, tossed it roughly into the trunk, without a care for my things.

   “Well, hurry up!” he said, gesturing to the open door of the yellow taksi. “We’ve got to get home ‘fore four. The Diamondbacks are playin’ tonight. Playin’ the fuckin’ Pirates. I ain’t gonna miss that game. You like baseball?”

   “I do not know it very well. We do not like the Pirates?” I said, and entered the taksi.

   “Fuckin’ assholes, the Pirates.”

   “Hey! The Pirates ain’t so bad,” said the driver. I could see his eyes in the mirror. They were kind eyes. Naive eyes. He looked back at us, a cute smile on a crooked face. “My Pa’s from the Pitt.”

   My husband did not say anything back. Just grunted and gave the man a slip of paper.

   “42nd and third?” the driver said. He smiled at me, not my husband. Oh how his eyes glinted with good humour.

   I looked to my husband, not knowing what to say.

   “Yah,” he said. “42nd and third, like it says on the damn paper.” My husband looked at me and rolled his eyes.

   The driver gave me another of those knowing smiles. I was caught between the gazes of those two men. The taksi started moving.

   We were far from the airport when my husband spoke again. “So, girl. Tell me about yerself. Tell me everything.”

   I told him much during that car ride, for he was my husband. But I did not tell him everything.

Copyright © Aidan Moher, 2010

There wasn’t much evidence to go by, not enough for my liking at least. Just an empty club, the maelstrom remnants of a dried out party, a skinny girl, a fat man and a very dead body.

   It wasn’t much, no, but I’d worked with less and come through the other end all right.

   The victim was tall and blonde, with a delicate face — handsome in a feminine, modelish sort of way. An Adonis. No signs of a struggle, but above his left breast, just visible through the open collar of his pink button-down shirt, was a welt, red and angry.

   I knelt next to him and pulled open the shirt. It was more than just a welt. It had the hot, blistered look of a bad sunburn. More startling, it was shaped perfectly like a handprint, as though someone had given him a shove with a hand-shaped branding iron. There wasn’t a mark on him otherwise. I’d seen things on the streets of Prague that’d make your skin crawl. I’d never seen something like this.

   A shadow fell over me, so I glanced up. A fat man in a damn expensive suit stood looking down, all piss and vinegar.

   The fat man spoke. He was the owner of the place, rich as fuck and as polite as you’d expect of his sort. “I’ve got a group of gentlemen coming in tonight who’re worth more than whatever shit town your mother raised you in. I don’t care who killed this cizinec. You’re going to make sure this place is open tonight, like none of this nonsense happened. I’ve got a reputation to keep.”

   “So do I,” I said. I didn’t tell him I was born in Prague, the same “shit town” that fed his gluttonous bank account. It wouldn’t do to make him angry, huh? At least not yet.

   By night the club was like any other in my city – a glitzy veneer of beautiful women, expensive drinks and lustful expressions painted with heavy strokes over top the reality of cocaine lines, high-class prostitution and fortunes lost and won through lucrative, alcohol-fueled foreign business deals. The Velvet Revolution had thrown my country from the pan into the fire, as they say, and sometimes it was hard to recognize it as the place I’d lived all my life. Still, it was better now. If you look at it from some certain angles. I guess.

   “Get it done,” the fat man said. “We’re opening those doors tonight.”

   “You’re not concerned that somebody was killed here last night, in your club?” I said.

   “Get it done.” He walked away, towards a plain door that led to the bowels of the building. Before he left through the fluorescent glow of the doorway, he snapped at the young girl behind the bar, literally snapped his fingers at her, and pointed a blunt finger my way. “Help him,” he said.

   She glanced my way, a bland look on her face, then took off the apron wrapped round her slim waist. The owner of the club stomped off through the door and left us alone. Just me and the pretty lady.

   “You’re here about him?” she said, jabbing a thumb at the body.

   She was like any other girl that worked at a place like this – pretty face, but nothing special, made exotic by the pulsing, toxic light of the night club. Dressed to entice, but no false-promises. Dark hair and sharp features made her look Slavic, her accent confirmed it. Likely, she pulled in more cash on a good night than I made in a week. She knew it, too.

   “Yes. You were here last night?” I asked. Easier to treat her as a piece of evidence than a pretty girl. I’m a lonely aging bastard, and I don’t need my dying hormones distracting me.

   “I might as well sleep in this shit hole,” she said.

   Most people I knew couldn’t even afford to pay cover for a club like this. Shit hole, indeed. “So you were here?”

   “Yeah. I’m always here.”

   “You’re not from here, from Prague or the Česká republika.” I made it a statement more than a question.

   “Pavol brings girls in from every corner. We deal with an international clientele here.”

   “You speak our language well. It’s not an easy one to wrap your tongue around.”

   “I’ve wrapped my tongue around much worse. I’ve been here a long time.”

   “How about him? Where was he from?” My turn to jab a finger at the victim.

   “Him? Tongue’s never been wrapped around any bit of him.” A damn devilish smile. “Blonde hair like that? Sweden. Norway, maybe?”

   His wallet, which was in the breast pocket of his jacket when I first searched the body, had no ID, but there were a couple of Swiss-issued credit cards, a few thousand koruna, a handful of euros and (the girl had good instincts) Swedish krona.

   “You didn’t talk to him?”

   “No. Margaret had a pull on him all night. She made out like a bandit, ’fore he died, I guess.”

   “Is she around? Margaret?”

   “Do you see her? You’d notice if she were, a rack like that.”

   “You know her cell number?”

   Surprisingly, she gave it to me. I rang the number, but got only voice mail. A quick message in Czech then a longer one in English. Sounded like she might be from Britain.

   “Not home?” the waitress asked.

   “No. No answer.”

   “Probably sleeping.”

   “Probably,” I said, but made a mental note to visit her apartment after I left the club.

   Awkward silence. Not something I was unfamiliar with in the realm of beautiful women.

   “He was supposed to be an asshole,” she said, finally.

   He looked like an asshole. Soul-patch, but smooth-cheeked. Even in death he had that cocky smile reserved for the rich, young and beautiful.

   “Asshole enough that he’d get himself killed?” I asked.

   “He’s got money, doesn’t he? Half the guys in here are a business move away from a bullet in the gut.”

   “Drug dealer?” I asked. He didn’t look the type, but sometimes it was hard to tell.

   “No. Clean as a whistle, if you ask Margaret. She’s always lookin’ for new clients. Especially when they’ve got money like him.”

   “You didn’t see anything last night?”

   “No. I found him dead here, this morning.”

   “I need to talk to Margaret.”

   “Yeah. Probably you do.”

   “You mind if I poke around?”

   “No. Pavol might.”

   “If I run into him, I’ll ask.”

   “Suit yourself.”

   She went back to whatever it is a pretty girl in a bar does before the doors open. People were coming to claim the body, run some tests. Could be drugs, no matter what she said. But that handprint told me it wasn’t.

   I followed in the footsteps of the fat owner and moved to the back of the building, hoping for some clues or, if I was really lucky, a stone-drunk murderer ready to spill his confession. Those aforementioned bowels of the building, where all of the club’s real dirty work happened, were surprisingly sterile. It’s like the club had an enema, knowing I was about to show up. Flushed all the shit. Doorways lined a long hallway, portals to the private rooms – to a heaven or hell (depending on who you ask) of sin, sex and spirits.

   I poked my head through a couple of doors. Some were large rooms, meant for private parties. Others were nothing more than hole-in-the-wall closets, a bed and little else. Mirrors were popular among the clientele, it seemed. So was silk.

   I found nothing of interest. They’d cleaned the rooms, and the victim had died in the main hall – dropped dead in the middle of a sweat-slicked crowd of dancers. If I hoped to learn anything, I needed to find the other girl, Missing Margaret. If she’d caught his eye, spent the night with him (or part of it), she might be just the evidence I was looking for.

   I passed through the main hall. A crew had arrived to remove the body and I stopped briefly to speak with them. They had a good look at the hand-print when I showed it to them, but said nothing.

   The body was done quickly, and I was finished with the club. I didn’t bid farewell on the way out, just left my card on the bar. The waitress and the fat owner weren’t around.

   Time to find my main girl Margaret.

   I stepped out of the unassuming doorway onto the street and squinted as sunshine washed over me. It was a cold morning in Prague and clear as you could ask for. A few steps down the sidewalk I bumped into another pedestrian, dark against the molten city.

   I mumbled an apology and tried to step around him. He stepped into my way again, bumping into me this time. He said something in a language I couldn’t understand. Middle Eastern, maybe.

   He stepped into the shade of the building, still blocking my way. I could see him clearly now — He was tall, wearing sweats and an old baseball cap turned backwards. A lean body, the subtleties in the way he held himself whispered of easy confidence. Dangerous bravado. His eyes were golden, cold as the day. Breath plumed from his mouth, hiding a twisted smile.

   “You poke your head in the wrong places,” he said, in thick-tongued Czech.

   Without another word, he lifted an arm and put a hand to my chest, fingers pressed lightly against my left breast.

Copyright © Aidan Moher, 2010