Chapter 9: A Hidden Tomb
Vidor snapped his phone shut and looked grimly at Henry's body for a moment before addressing his companions. "Nimrod, if you would go back to the 'Lion and translate those hieroglyphs. It appears that my friend managed somehow to get himself fired, and I will definitely be questioned. However, I see no reason that the rest of you should waste time along with me. The hieroglyphs cannot wait. Once we regroup, then we can begin to worry about young Cas. All of you, go. You as well, Ingrid." Vidor knelt down beside Henry and felt for a nonexistent pulse, in order to mask Holly's fingerprints. "It would be best if they didn't know that any of us but myself was here."
Nimrod nodded. "We'll take a whirlwind. The 'Lion isn't all that far, now is it? QWERTYUIOP!" A whirlwind sprang up beneath his feet, growing slowly. He beckoned for Holly, Mark, and Ingrid to join him on the whirling funnel of air. Carefully, and trying hard not to fall over, Holly stepped up, taking her father's hand when, despite her attempt, she stumbled before regaining her balance.
Mark came next, followed by Ingrid, who seemed very quiet and scared. Holly could understand that, and silently patted the girl on the back, smiling sympathetically. Ingrid remained silent.
In a matter of seconds, Nimrod had made his whirlwind rise several hundred feet into the hot Egyptian sky, causing Holly, who disliked whirlwinds only a bit less than airplanes, in regards to her fear of heights, for the simple reason that in an airplane, Holly couldn't see the land or water below her unless she purposely looked out the window. At least in an airplane, she could forget (with the help of a charcoal pill) the fact that she was flying so high above everything in a precarious metal tube.
Holly was pulled away from her comparison of airplanes and whirlwinds when she became aware of Ingrid pulling on her sleeve.
"Yes, Ingrid? What is it?" Holly asked, noticing with strange fascination Ingrid's look of awe as she regarded Holly.
"Are you the one that everyone talks about? The only true djinn prophet ever to exist?" The small, redheaded Norwegian girl questioned her.
Holly smiled again, rather ruefully, it seemed to everyone else, and nodded. "That's what Gabriel tells me. I'm the Prophet of the Djinn, destined to do something great. I have yet to figure out what, but I've already helped save Europe once, and I bet we're going to upscale to the world now. We've got no idea what Azzy's planning."
"Who is this 'Azzy' you speak of?" Ingrid demanded, so exuberantly that Holly found herself laughing in spite of the grimness of the situation she'd just left.
Wiping a tear of mirth from her eye, Holly began to answer the child. "Well, he's-" but then broke off, thinking quickly. If Ingrid knew that Cas's own brother was the most evil djinn currently on the planet, then Ingrid was liable to become quite unnecessarily afraid and suspicious of Cas, and who knew what would happen then? Quickly, Holly changed trains of thought. "He's... Iblis Teer's nephew. Bad lot, all of those Ifrit. His actual name is Azazel, but I call him Azzy because... well, I don't really have a reason. I'd assume because I think it would annoy him if ever I called him that to his face. He's really truly evil, and I take small victories when I can."
Ingrid nodded, then paused. "When you at last call him that, I believe I would want to know his reaction, should it prove to be comical."
Holly grinned. "I'll be sure to tell you if it's funny, Ingrid." Then both girls became very quiet. "I'm worried about Cas," Holly confided in Ingrid.
"I remember that my mamma once told me to never worry about one who is protected by the angels, because the angels are much more powerful than us djinn could ever hope to become."
Holly nodded. "You're quite right, Ingrid. I ought not to worry about him."
Cas was panicking. "Holly? Nimrod? Anyone?" He called down from his whirlwind, and seeing no one, worried that something horrible had happened to the others. He still wasn't quite used to being in control of his very own whirlwind, and about twenty feet above the sands of the Egyptian Sahara, it began to get a little unruly. Part of it was that the whirlwind had accumulated quite a lot of desert sand during its prolonged sojourn there. Sensing that he was losing control, and not really wanting to fall twenty feet, not even into sand, Cas gently began to let it down. He only got close to halfway before the whirlwind flew completely out of control and came out from under him, making Cas fall the remaining ten feet. He wasn't really hurt, but he stood up feeling rather winded anyway.
"So, you've finally decided to come." Sneered a voice with an accent that was very decidedly from the American deep South.
"Who's there?" Cas shouted. He hadn't seen anyone just a moment ago, but now a sinister-looking, lanky, dark haired man, wearing an expensive-looking dark green suit, and had a rather curly mustache, stood in the shadows between two of the huge sand dunes. In a moment, the sinister character had closed the distance between them.
"It's only me. Really, I was under the impression that you had come to assist me, Castiel. After all, we are family." The man drawled.
Immediately, Cas tensed. "Who are you?" he asked suspiciously.
"Jirjis Ibn Rajmus. The leader of the Ifrit. I was recently made aware that your brother had planned to kill me when I was vacationing in Spain. Know anything?"
Cas shook his head firmly, ignoring the hand that Jirjis had extended. "I want nothing to do with you djinn!" He shouted. Jirjis sighed, as though Cas had disappointed him in some way.
"So it is true. Dimme Teer's lost son has grown up to be a sappy one. That's rather unfortunate, although I may even prefer it to what your brother is becoming. Quite a danger to the Ifrit, and all others, I'm sure you'll agree." Jirjis looked slyly at Cas.
"What do you want?" Cas asked, sensing that Jirjis was attempting to make Cas more inclined to listen to him. Jirjis sighed, knowing that he had been found out.
"One of these dunes is similar to what is known as a plenum wall, only it's a sand dune. Do you know what a plenum wall is, Castiel?"
Slowly, Cas shook his head. "No idea. Now what exactly does this have to do with me?"
"Dimme's old hideaway is under this plenum dune. An ancient tomb that she took a liking to, though really, it isn't much more than a hole in the ground." Jirjis explained. "As one of her closest living relatives, you're more likely to find the fake dune that my cousin created."
Cas nodded. "Ah. Well, if that's all, then I'd best be going, hadn't I? I'd hate to keep my companions waiting."
"But what about the tomb?" Jirjis shouted at Cas.
Cas turned to look the powerful Ifrit right in the eye. "Not my problem. Whatever's in there, you're not getting it. Not on my life."
"Famous last words, boy! HEMATOPHAGOUS!" Jirjis snarled.
Cas was absolutely sure that he'd be nothing more than dust in a matter of seconds, but all of a sudden, out of nowhere there came a flash of bright heavenly white light.
"Really, you've got to at least try and stay out of trouble!" Cas blinked, and saw Castiel standing beside him, grasping a strange-looking sword of fire that was glowing steadily with the bright white light of Heaven. "Right then. We'd best get you back to the others, shall we?" Castiel grabbed Cas by the elbow with his free hand, and the two were gone from the dunes with a sound like fluttering wings.
Jirjis fell to his knees in sheer disappointment. He had been so close, and now there was nothing but horrible, crushing letdown. The angels were always ruining everything.
"Yeow!" Cas shouted, landing uncomfortably on his heels in the foyer of the Golden Lion, the force of his landing sending a jolt up his spine. Castiel was now gone, and Cas felt painfully alone. That is,until he heard running footsteps rapidly approaching him from somewhere nearby.
A moment later, Baksheesh burst through a door at the far end of the foyer. "Oh! It is you, Cas. Are you all right? Where is everyone else?"
"I'm fine, and I've got no idea where the others are. I just hope that they haven't gone looking for me." Cas said to the other boy, just as the front door banged open.
"Don't worry, Cas, we haven't." Said Nimrod. "Holly, check that one off of our to-do list."
Holly grinned broadly, and ran over to give Cas a big hug, much to his surprise and that of Baksheesh. "Where have you been? Why did you leave?"
"I didn't really choose to light off to Heaven, you know. Gabriel had no idea why I teleported there." Cas tried to pry his friend's fingers away, without success.
"Gabriel? So you did see him, then? What exactly did he say?" Holly asked impatiently, releasing Cas from her deathly tight hug and allowed him to breathe for a moment or two.
"Yes. And all he said, really, was asking me how I'd managed to teleport up to heaven. Oh, and he says hi, if that's what you wanted to hear."
"Well, now, if you'd all kindly excuse me, I have some hieroglyphics to translate. Mark?" Mark offered his sketch of the hieroglyphs to Nimrod, and Nimrod took it, nodded to Baksheesh, and began mounting the stairs. "I ought to be done in about a half an hour."