The Queen of the Dead by Vincenzo Bilof

him dead for the past few years because he never returned from Egypt to fulfill his promise. She never thought she would see that statuesque face again, the dark hair combed over his forehead, his lips lingering between a smirk and a scowl.
    Jim had survived the Egypt mission, but had gone AWOL shortly after. He became a killer; roaming across the country and murdering random civilians. He was apprehended by Bob Fields and Nick Crater; he was sent to Eloise Fields in Detroit, Michigan, where most of the vehicles were now parked. Eloise Fields was an asylum.
    Jim was still alive.
    They could have asked her to hunt him down when he went on his initial killing spree.
    They didn’t trust her before, but they were desperate now.
    Why didn’t he come back to her?
    Why did he break his promise?
    It was easier to believe he was dead. Easier to believe he was KIA and would never return.
    “This is beyond my skill set,” she said. She never turned down a mission before, because they only assigned targets that could be seduced and destroyed.
    “Explain.”
    “My area of expertise doesn’t include rescue missions in a war zone,” she said. “Detroit, according to this data, is in the hands of hostiles. I’m an assassin, sir.”
    She glanced into the other room at the creature that resumed life when it should have been dead; nearly fleshless and hairless, it stared at the two-way mirror with bulging eyes.
    “You don’t have a choice. We’re dropping you into Detroit, so I suggest you take the mission.”
    They needed her for the mission because nobody else was left, or because it wasn’t a sanctioned job. They left Traverse to rot in a loony bin, only to want him back, after spending years chasing him. An entire city falls apart and they want to pull out a single madman.
    None of that mattered. Jim was alive.
    “I will complete my objectives,” she said. “After I review the data, I will acquire the target.”
    While the dead thing struggled against its bonds in the room across from her, Rose could only think about Jim. The memory of him remained.
     
    ***
    Shirtless and lean with muscle, Jim stared through the window in Beirut’s twilight glow. He watched the traffic while Rose stretched over the bed and watched his fingers play with the drapes, his eyes searching for nothing.
    It was his idea to make her job more complicated. Her targets lay beside her on the bed, a man and a woman, both spies who worked for different agencies. Neither spy knew the other practiced the art of espionage. Rose managed to seduce both of them, and asked them to let her friend watch.
    Jim had watched.
    Afterward, they had sex between the nude corpses.
    Her classified mission had become a pleasure-cruise of pain and sensation. This was the last time they would be together, and he wanted it to be memorable.
    “We’re supposed to have a conversation now.” Jim’s voice was disconnected from emotion, as it always was. “It’s going to be a conversation about our past and our future.”
    “We’re both going to repeat ourselves,” she said.
    His trademark smirk appeared. “They haven’t needed me for a field operation in three years. They’re sending me to die. I’m not useful to them anymore, and the men on my team are supposed to die too, I’m sure. The best killers are like beasts. They can’t be tamed forever, so it’s better to have them killed on a mission they can’t complete. It’s how things are done. They’ll kill me before I’m beyond their power.”
    Jim was the only man she knew who had something interesting to say. He was Sun Tzu reincarnate; he conceptualized war and violence as systems of belief rather than actions.
    “This is a time for honesty,” she said. “Say it now or say it never.”
    “I thought you were going to be the one,” Jim said. “I always believed they wanted me to train my replacement. But I guess they can still use me before throwing me away. I asked you to at least let me know when they