Chapter 12: Family Ties
As soon as he was sufficiently melted, Nimrod paced back and forth, shivering mightily and his mind racing.
"Mark," Nimrod said finally, for it took awhile for his thoughts to reach his mouth, "is your sister's middle name really Imelda?"
Mark nodded. "Yup. She'd never admit it, though." Nimrod nodded thoughtfully and paced some more.
"Did your parents name her?" Nimrod asked.
Mark thought carefully for a moment before answering. "I don't think so. Dad always said that the djinn who found Holly named her that." Nimrod whirled around, his sopping wet red tie smacking him squarely in the face. Impatiently, Nimrod pushed it away.
"A djinn found Holly? What did this djinn look like? Do you know?" Nimrod asked excitedly.
"Dad never said exactly what she looked like, but he always said that she was a very beautiful Englishwoman. Why?"
Nimrod ignored Mark's question. "I thought as much." he said grimly, and pulled his cell phone out, shook some of the water out of the workings, and dialed a number.
"Who are you calling, Uncle Nimrod?" John asked, although he suspected that he already knew.
"My wife." Nimrod replied as the phone rang. A few seconds later, miles away in Kandahar, Afghanistan, Alexandra picked up.
"Yes, Nimrod? What is it?" she said. Alexandra sounded slightly irritated, as she always did these days, but Nimrod knew better than to blame her for it.
"Alexandra, this is of the utmost importance. I need to know exactly what you named our daughter. Please."
"Holly Imelda... something. I've forgotten what last name she grew up with, not that it matters, really. Why, exactly are you asking me this, Nimrod?" Alexandra's voice now held a dangerous edge to it, and Nimrod knew that he must answer carefully.
"That last name wouldn't happen to be Coomes, would it?" He asked, in an effort to avoid the question.
"That sounds familiar... but you haven't answered my question, Nimrod. Have you found her?"
Nimrod took a deep breath, preparing himself to lie. "I think so. Thank you for your help, Alexandra."
Alexandra said farewell, not without a considerable amount of suspicion, and Nimrod quickly ended the call.
"What did Aunt Alexandra say?" Philippa asked her uncle carefully.
Nimrod sighed and shook his head. "I don't believe it," he said to himself. "I just don't believe it. My daughter and Azazel's brother- best friends. How did this happen? It is simply inconceivable."
"Does that mean-?" John began as he caught on, and Nimrod nodded.
"Yes, John. Holly is my daughter. And, if Azazel's taunting is to be believed, Castiel is his brother."
"Hold up a minute," Mark said, trying to process all of this new information, but Nimrod shook his head.
"We don't have a second to spare, Mark. Azazel will try to turn Castiel's head, and attempt to do the same to Holly. We simply cannot have either of them turn into evil djinn!" Nimrod snapped.
Mark blinked again in amazement, and finally spoke. "What?"
"You heard me, Mark. Now is the time for action. We must all go back to my house and collect Groanin. We need to plan our next move carefully."
"What is this, chess? My little sister and her best friend could be in mortal danger!" Mark retaliated.
"Do you think that I don't know that already? Hurry up!" Nimrod began to shepherd Mark and the twins over to the white Cadillac, and they all filed in.
"It may as well be chess. We've already lost both our knights." Philippa said, as Creemy started the car up. Nimrod nodded.
"Yes, Philippa. The knights are indeed gone." Nimrod sighed.
Holly shivered. She'd heard every word of Azazel's and Cas's conversation, but now all was silent, cold stillness, as though she had been placed in a completely sealed room. Even though she was wearing a thick, fur coat, a scarf, earmuffs, a fleece-and-knit cap, mittens, several pairs of woolen stockings, and had several warm blankets stacked on top of her, Holly was still freezing. She had even turned her oven up to its maximum heat (about 500 degrees Fahrenheit), and left the door of it wide open in hopes of warming herself, but nothing seemed to help. Not even her charcoal pills made her feel really warm. And unless she was sitting about two inches from the open oven, Holly didn't have enough power to make even one of the small, silvery pills.
Despite her best efforts, however, the temperature inside the jade-capped hip flask continued to drop steadily, over the span of several weeks, until Holly became so cold that she was in a state of semi-frozenness, lost consciousness, and fell into an icy dream.
There was Cas, grinning companionably as usual, but why did he have the body of a black-and-gold striped snake? And why was Nimrod wearing a white crown? Who was the tall, dark-skinned woman wearing a white tiara and standing next to Nimrod? Why were Holly's hands tied up? Why did she have a sudden craving for apples and sugar cubes? Who was that, whispering a word into her ear? And where on Earth did the red glow that illuminated everything come from?
Cas scowled at Azazel. Azazel, being sound asleep, didn't respond, but his pet Egyptian cobra hissed at Cas menacingly from its position on the mini-refrigerator. Cas scowled at it, too. Cas had never been frightened of snakes, not even the ones that were quite deadly, and had once made friends with a small garter snake that lived in Central Park, though he never saw it again. Careful not to make the slightest noise, Cas tiptoed over to the mini-fridge, and opened it. Not seeing the hip flask with his best friend in it, Cas opened the small metal door near the top of the mini-fridge and observed the contents of the freezer. Behind a hunk of raw, unidentifiable meat, Cas saw it! Without thinking, Cas reached in and picked up the silver hip flask. His eyes bugged out at the pain of touching the frozen metal, but Cas bit his lip, and quietly replaced Holly's hip flask with the one that had contained Cas, hoping that Azazel wouldn't notice that it didn't have a jade cap.
After several minutes of warming the cold metal flask up, Cas was able to put it down on the windowsill and carefully whisper into it.
"Hol," he whispered. "Hol, can you hear me?"
Inside the flask, Holly's eyes snapped open. She felt dizzy and confused, and still quite cold. Shivering, she removed her hat and earmuffs. Her hair had frozen and was strangely stiff, but even as she looked up at the jade stopper, she could feel herself melting.
"Cas?" she called, trying to warm herself up more, even as she was edging closer to her open oven. "Is that you?"
Cas breathed a sigh of relief. "Yeah, it's me. Are you okay?"
"Yep. I've been freezing, though. What happened to me, anyway?"
"You were in the freezer. Be quiet, Azazel's asleep, and I don't want to wake him up." Cas looked around to look again at the evil djinn, to be sure that he was still fast asleep.
"Really? Lemme out, Cas! It's awful in here, I hate it! How many days has it been?"
"Shh, Hol! What do you mean, days? It's only been a few hours."
"You mean to tell me that time is different in here? Aw, dang."
"In any case," Cas continued, "I can't let you out. I'm sorry, Hol, but Azazel will feel it. He's taken away my power, you see."
"I heard. A sesquipedalian binding, wasn't that what he called it?"
"Mm-hm. Wait, you heard all of that?"
"Yeah..." Holly wasn't sure where Cas was going with this.
"Did you hear what he said about your being Nimrod's daughter?" Cas sounded more excited now.
"Yes." Holly said. "Yes, I did."
"It means that you're actually a Marid! D'you remember what else he said, about your family and his family being old enemies? He probably hates you!"
"His family is your family too, Cas. That is, if Azzy's to be believed. Wouldn't that make you hate me, too?"
Cas went very quiet for a few minutes. "No," he said finally, sounding hurt. "Hol, I don't hate you. You're my best friend, and you always will be. I promise."
It may have been Holly's imagination, but she could swear that she felt a little crackle of something similar to electricity in Cas's last two words: 'I promise.' Despite this, Holly smiled. It was good to have such a loyal friend, even if he was related to her family's mortal enemies.
"And you'll always be my best friend, too, Cas. Now, since you can't let me out, what's your plan?" She grinned.
Cas frowned more intensely. "The hotel room we're in has a window overlooking the Nile. If I throw you out of the window into the river, then you'll probably drift downstream. I'm just counting on something washing you onto shore in Egypt, but even if you drift all the way out to the Mediterranean, at least you won't be in Azazel's freezer. I'll text John to tell the others that you're safe. But don't worry. I know that they won't rest until they've found you."
"Cas, wait!" Holly said, but it was too late. Cas had already dropped the hip flask into the raging river below. He smiled as he heard a slight splash down somewhere in the moonlit darkness below, and took out his phone to text-message John.