This chapter, or "Did I just write a 1600 word story about a guy calling another guy and both guys are characters in the most underrated book series ever"

Anyway, I said there would be oneshots, so here's a oneshot! I don't own any of the characters or the city of Las Vegas. (Would be so awesome if I did though. I swear I'll go to Vegas one day just to revel in Ifrit glory.)

Where does the name "Odair" come from? I made it up... it's a stupid name. I think a true son of Iblis deserves a really stupid name. "Rudyard" is a stupid name. "Dybbuk" is a stupid name. And now, there's "Odair". Enjoy!

For Nimrod a birthday wasn't complete without the surprise phonecall.

He couldn't remember the exact year in which it had started, but it had gone on ever since. It would mostly happen in the evening, sometimes earlier, sometimes at night, but never after midnight when it wasn't technically Nimrod's birthday anymore. He had developed a habit of staying up late on his birthday, not going to bed until the call came. It had become a little routine for his butler and him.

"Call from overseas, sir" Groanin would say, approaching Nimrod with the phone. In the first year of it, he had thought it to be his sister until Groanin had raised an eyebrow and added "Las Vegas".

"Oh!" Nimrod would exclaim, for all the world acting very surprised. "What could someone from there want from me?"

Groanin would answer with a shrug, year after year.

"Well, let's see" Nimrod would say and answer the phone. "Nimrod Godwin, what can I do for you?"

And an evil voice would drawl: "I wish you an unhappy birthday, Marid."

And then the mysterious caller would hang up.

And Nimrod would spend the rest of the day having the happiest of birthdays, as usual.

The call had only startled him the first time. In the years after, he had been rather annoyed by it, but as time went by, he had come to accept it, and now he could barely imagine a birthday without it.

Groanin had long stopped asking about it.

Whenever the call came, Nimrod had already prepared himself to strike up a conversation with his mystery malefactor, but to no avail. The voice didn't want to chat. It delivered its message, then hung up. That was it. But it was the only form of communication he ever had with the enemy, so he made a point of always being at his house in London for the whole day and rarely inviting anyone over, even when he came to better terms with Layla and her family. They would only ask questions.

He began to make assumptions on what the caller was up to, going just by the sound of his voice. The call would always come from Vegas, no exceptions, and the voice would always be the same, male, soft, familiar. But there were small differences each year.

Most of the time, the voice just sounded mean, happy to toy with him, sometimes it added an evil laugh for good measure. Sometimes it sounded neutral, sometimes angry or at least unhappy, sometimes like the caller had just fallen out of bed. Different time zones, Nimrod supposed, or just a lazy Ifrit's lifestyle. Two or three times, the words had been so badly slurred that Nimrod had felt obliged to ask "Are you ok over there?". But he was hung up on, even then. He had spent a few minutes being genuinely worried, but the call came back next year, indicating that the enemy had not died of alcoholic poisoning.

Nimrod told himself that he was probably obsessing over unimportant detail here, but life proved him otherwise. He had once prevented an entire American city from being eradicated, going only by the alarming tone of the voice in his birthday message. No other Marid had quite seen to the bottom of that.

What also differed was the background noise. Sometimes it was quiet, sometimes he could hear muffled conversation and the sound of glasses clinking, sometimes it sounded like he – the voice – the mystery voice – was calling him from a crowded casino. Once he had heard someone yell "HA! Royal flush!" in the background, and the voice – his voice – had yelled back "Oh FUCK it!" before hanging up on him. But there wasn't much to be made from things like that.

Then one year, the call stopped coming.

Nimrod sternly told himself not to mess himself about. Of course he had known where the call had come from. And of course he knew that it wasn't going to ever come again. You couldn't call anyone from a jade suit of armor. And it was better that way.

So all in all there was no reason – no reason whatsoever – to hang around waiting for the phone to ring.

It did ring once, and it did come from America, but it was New York, not Vegas, it was Layla congratulating.

He went to bed early, feeling miserable.

At a quarter to midnight, Groanin found him in the kitchen making himself a cup of tea. He hadn't found any sleep.

"I do say, sir. I searched the whole house for you and find you down here?"

"I couldn't have troubled you at this unholy time of night with my need for tea. Please go back to bed, Groanin."

"I would, sir, but there's a call for you from overseas." Groanin raised an eyebrow. "Las Vegas."

Nimrod, who had just come to terms with never going through this routine again, all but ripped the phone from Groanin's hand. "Yes?" he breathed into the receiver.

"I still wish you an unhappy birthday, Marid" the same old voice said, and Nimrod had known each and every nuance of that voice for such a long time that his memory automatically supplied him with the fitting expression on Iblis' face as he had said it. Small smile, downcast eyes... yep, that was the one.

Then there was a click and the phone was hung up.

Nimrod stood frozen in his kitchen and just listened to his wildly beating heart for a few seconds. Then he said: "Groanin, I need to fly to Vegas."

"That's a new one, sir" the butler remarked.

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a good djinn in possession of a good survival instinct must watch his step in Vegas. But Nimrod felt like stepping down hard this time, so he just positioned himself in the middle of Las Vegas Boulevard and waited for Ifrit activity.

He didn't have to wait more than half an hour until a young djinn approached him. He was the spitting image of Iblis, only younger – it took a close look to spot small differences such as the haircut, the lack of beard, a slightly more crooked nose. The young man also lacked the pinstriped suit that Nimrod had rarely seen Iblis without; he was wearing a simple black silk shirt, dress pants and no tie.

"You're Nimrod, right? Nimrod Godwin? I thought you'd show up around now." The Ifrit's stance was casual. He stayed a safe distance to Nimrod, but he did not attack.

"Odair Teer" he now introduced himself. "And I'll not harm you today."

"I'd like to see you try" Nimrod thought. "You're Iblis' son, right?"

"Firstborn" Odair nodded.

"Oh, so you're soon to be reckoned with."

Odair's face said "Huh?"

"You're next in line for the Ifrit, aren't you?" Nimrod clarified.

Odair scrunched up his face in what looked like distaste. "Probably" he said. "My brothers and I are currently squabbling over who doesn't get to do it. Not very surprisingly, nobody wants Dad's job. We all know where it brought him."

Nimrod realized that the Ifrit's black attire probably meant he was in mourning. He cleared his throat. "Hmm. It might sound strange coming from me, but I'm sorry for your loss."

His opposite shrugged.

"I'm here because – "

"I know what you're here for." Odair took a cellphone out of his pocket. "My brothers and I are in the process of going through Dad's stuff. This is his private phone. And I mean private. No business stuff on here. But you know what is on here?"

"I... have a good guess" Nimrod said.

"Yep, your little message. He set this phone to send this voicemail to you every year, same date, same time."

"By George" Nimrod whispered.

"Indeed" Odair said tiredly and ran a hand through his hair. For a second he looked remarkably like his father. "We – that is all the Ifritsons – are of the opinion that Dad lost it. He just kept raising the bar on himself until... an enantiodromia, holy shit, what was he thinking? That's why we didn't help – we just stole the jade. Only Rudyard helped, but he – well, he was just a stupid kid. Now look where they both ended up." He sighed. "I don't even know why I'm telling you this. I haven't quite gotten a grip on everything, I'm afraid."

He raised the cellphone. "Do you want this? We've erased all classified stuff." He tossed it to Nimrod, and Nimrod caught it.

"Now get the hell out of town, Marid. Truce is over."

"Farewell, Odair" Nimrod said to the Ifrit's retreating back.

Back at home, Nimrod invested a day in flicking through messages Iblis had written to his sons and ex-wives and a small but significant amount of random drunk texts. He found nothing of any relevance to the Marid. Iblis had kept business and private affairs strictly separated, or his sons had been very thorough in erasing the important stuff. Odair wanted him to see something, and it was not Ifrit affairs. The background picture showed Iblis and all his sons, a great big bunch of evil, rows of pearly white front teeth smiling into the camera.

He found his birthday message and listened again. Small smile, a little sadish, and downcast eyes. Iblis had known or at least suspected that he wasn't going to get out of the whole Xian business alive, and he had made it a priority to tape this message.

Not even death could stop Iblis from wishing Nimrod an unhappy birthday.

Well, this was incredibly corny and probably OOC, but oh well. I felt like it was just some totally ridiculous thing, Iblis "true evul biatch" would do... next chapter in a week or so.