Chapter 13: Relying On Luck

John's cell phone beeped.

"Sounds like you've got a text," Philippa commented, and yawned.

It was around 5:00 the following morning, and all of them, (John, Philippa, Nimrod, Mark, Groanin, and Creemy) were quite exhausted, having searched for Holly, Cas, and Azazel all night. The sun was just mounting over the horizon as Creemy drove them back to Cairo.

John yawned as well and pulled his phone out of his pocket to see who had texted him. His eyes almost popped out of his head when he saw who it was from.

"It's from Cas!" he shouted, loud enough to make everyone in the Cadillac suddenly feel very awake.

"What does it say?" Nimrod asked, ignoring, for the moment, his irritation at the very act of text messaging.

John opened the message and read it quickly to himself before repeating.

"It says: 'hol- in nile. look 4 hipflask. hurry! -cas.'"

"Holly's in a hip flask in the Nile?!" Mark was very worried. "Will she be okay?"

"Being what she is, and being as intelligent as she is, I'd say that she will be quite all right." Nimrod nodded.

"Never mind all that. We ought to be trying to find the lass. I say, we should be out there looking for her in the river!" Groanin brought their attention back to the issue at hand.

"Yes, you're quite right, Groanin. Creemy, take us to the Kasr Al bridge, would you? If luck is with us, then we ought to be able to find her." Nimrod told his Egyptian chauffeur.

Mark wasn't quite sure that relying on luck was the best tactic to take, but since Nimrod was a djinn, Mark supposed that luck would have to do for now. In the driver's seat, Creemy nodded and accelerated the Cadillac, heading for the Kasr Al bridge, a bridge in Cairo spanning the width Nile River that was not too far north from Nimrod's house in Garden City.

Several minutes later, Nimrod, Mark, John, and Philippa were searching through the shallows under the Kasr Al bridge, quite ignoring the horrible mud stains they would have after they found the hip flask.

However, it was none of those searching the shallows who found the hip flask that was Holly's prison. It was Groanin, or, more accurately, it was the middle-aged Egyptian peddler Faruq Qadir who had found the jade-capped hip flask only a few meters upriver, where it had washed ashore and caught his eye, glittering in the morning sunlight.

He had picked it up and looked around to try and see if anyone had perhaps dropped it from the bridge, and seeing no one, Faruq Qadir smiled and placed the expensive-looking hip flask at the top of his cart full of the junk he liked to call his 'wares,' mostly old, discarded glass bottles in a variety of shapes, battered and dented cooking pans, small bits of jewelry that he had been able to buy from another peddler, in the hopes of selling it to some gullible foreigners at a profit. His newest acquisition, however, looked to be almost brand-new and would doubtless fetch a very nice price for Faruq, enough to buy plenty of bread to feed his young children. The prospect made Faruq smile even wider and whistle cheerily as he made his way down the road that ran alongside the Nile River. Business was never as good in the daytime as it was at night, when the desert city cooled off and people went out to shop and socialize, but it was still relatively early when he reached the Kasr Al Bridge and saw the foreigners mucking about in the shallows under the bridge, apparently looking for something. At the same time as Faaruq Qadir paused to stare at Nimrod, Mark, John, and Philippa searching the shallows under the bridge, he was spotted by Groanin, who muttered to himself about

"Bloody Egyptians gawping at everyone," before he spotted, shining at the top of the heap of wares in Faruq's cart, the hip flask. Groanin's eyes widened, and he wasted no time in hurrying to inform his employer of his discovery.

"Nimrod, you'd better get back up here and have a look at this! I think I found the lass, or at the very least her hip flask!"

"Really? Where?" Nimrod looked up at his butler hopefully, and Groanin pointed to the Egyptian peddler, who was beginning to move past them already.

Before Nimrod had time to react, Mark was out of the river like a shot and was shouting after Faruq Qadir "Wait! Please!" in his clumsy Arabic.

Faruq turned and stopped, smiling broadly when he saw Mark sprinting towards him. "Ah, what can I do for you my young friend? I am Faruq Qadir, peddler of many useful items Would you like to see my wares? Perhaps a glass perfume bottle to give to your lady friend for her latest scent, or a nice hat woven from Nile reeds to keep the sun out of your eyes?" Faruq asked him in Arabic, pulling one ware after another from the cart. Mark barely understood a word of any of what Faruq Qadir was saying, but nevertheless he shook his head.

"No. I want that." He pointed at the jade-capped hip flask. Faruq Qadir was delighted, though he knew that he had to sell the item cleverly if he and his children were to eat well that night.

"Ah, this is a very fine item, very fine indeed. Made from the finest-"

"You can skip the formalities, just give us the hip flask. Here, this should be adequate." Nimrod rescued Mark from having to try and understand to Faruq Qadir speak quick and persuasive Arabic. Faruq Qadir watched carefully as Nimrod pulled out his wallet and extracted a wad of greasy bank notes, worth easily five times the monetary value of the hip flask. Faruq Qadir could hardly believe his luck, and, taking the piastres, wasted no time in handing over the hip flask, bowing gratefully and unable to stop himself from smiling as he went on his way with a spring in his step.

By now, John and Philippa had joined the others on the bridge, dripping with river water and mud, but no one particularly cared. Everyone was more interested in examining the hip flask.

"That's the one Azazel had, I'm sure of it!" Philippa announced, examining the cap. "Is that jade?" she asked Nimrod, who put on his glasses to get a better look at the object.

"Yes, Phil. It is jade. Which means that I can't open it. You do it, Mark. Just as soon as we get back onto shore, that is." Nimrod led the way up to the sidewalk, Mark, John, and Philippa following closely. Mark still couldn't quite believe that they had found the very same container that his little sister had been abducted in. Perhaps, if this was really the same hip flask that Holly had been in, then perhaps she wasn't there anymore.

"What if she's not in here anymore?" John asked, voicing Mark's doubts as though he had read Mark's mind.

"We'll just have to wait and see, won't we, John? Go ahead and unscrew the cap, Mark." Nimrod told John. Nervously, Mark did as he was told, and when the jade lid of the hip flask was removed, Mark braced himself for whatever was about to happen.

Only nothing did.

"That's strange," Philippa said.

"Strange indeed," agreed Nimrod. "Either Holly is no longer in there, as John suggested, or she has been rendered unable to perform a transubstantiation and exit the flask. Perhaps I had better pop in there and see what's the matter. Don't wave it around while I'm in there, Mark."

Nimrod turned himself into white smoke and transubstantiated himself into the hip flask. When he had rematerialized within the metal container, Nimrod almost gasped. The interior of Holly's hip flask was a shambles from its fall from the hotel window and its rough journey down the Nile. Keeping his head, but fearing the worst, Nimrod began to search for Holly, calling her name over and over with no response. There was a red leather armchair resting on its side next to a large television screen that had smashed to pieces. The small, chrome table had overturned, along with the red, egg-shaped chair that sat next to it, food from the pantry was scattered everywhere, along with broken shards of glass from a computer screen and an electric lamp that had been shattered. Finally, beside the bright red radio, Nimrod found his daughter, unconscious, her right arm crushed beneath the fallen refrigerator, and her black hair matted with dried blood from a head wound likely caused by the quite significant impact that the radio must have caused. First Nimrod attempted to move the refrigerator manually, but failing this, he made it vanish, and examined Holly more closely. She was breathing, but only just. Nimrod carefully picked her up, taking extra care with her arm and head, and with another iteration of "QWERTYUIOP," Nimrod created what was the equivalent of a hospital room, with equipment that was high-tech enough to rival that of any top hospital on the planet.

"Nimrod!" Mark called into the neck of the hip flask just as Nimrod carefully set Holly down on the soft hospital bed he had created. "What's going on in there?"

"Holly has been knocked unconscious, and her arm has been badly broken. She's much too delicate to transubstantiate right now!" Nimrod called back, and suddenly, he was struck by an idea. "Mark, tell Creemy to drive us back home, and when you get there, put the flask on the radiator in my library. The twins will show you. The extra heat ought to help revive Holly."

"Okay," Mark replied, and set about doing the task set him, while Nimrod sat in an uncomfortable wooden chair at Holly's bedside, and busily setting her arm in a cast, djinn-style, with the bandages, needles, and other equipment working by themselves. While this was being done, Nimrod examined Holly's injured head once more, carefully bandaging it up without the use of his power, and then set about taking an x-ray photograph of Holly's injuries.

Holly woke up, what seemed like several weeks later, and saw Nimrod, sitting at her bedside reading a copy of The Daily Telegraph, and checking on Holly's condition every few seconds with a look of genuine concern.

"Nimrod?" she croaked, her throat completely dry from lack of water. Holly didn't remember much before she had been hit on the head by the radio, but now both her head and right arm throbbed, as though they had been subjected to the most painful of traditional tortures.

"Yes, Holly. It's me. Can I get you a glass of water, or something?" Nimrod asked, throwing aside his newspaper.

"Water sounds good," Holly smiled, and sat up as best she could using only her left hand for support. Nimrod stood and fetched her a glass of water from the kitchen sink, which he had fixed up nicely. Holly looked around the hip flask, blinking from the bright, white light that illuminated it now. Everything seemed to have been fixed, and there was not a broken television or overturned chair in sight. Nimrod came back and handed Holly the small glass cup he had filled with cool water. Holly drank it thirstily, wondering when she had last had something to drink. "Are we still inside the hip flask?" Holly asked Nimrod, and Nimrod nodded.

"Yes, Holly, we are indeed still inside the hip flask. I've modified it to suit your current needs." Nimrod said.

Holly blinked around the flask for a few more seconds, and then asked another, much more serious question.

"Was what Azazel told Cas true? That I am your daughter, and Cas is Azazel's brother?" Really all that Holly felt like doing was simply lying there, immobile, until the pain passed, but Holly had to know if this was true.

"Yes, Holly. Azazel spoke the truth. In point of fact, I only figured it out yesterday afternoon, after I defrosted." Nimrod said gently. Holly nodded slowly. She supposed that she did, in fact, look quite similar to Nimrod, and she recalled that when she had first met Nimrod, in her dream that she had experienced while her wisdoms were being extracted, that he had seemed familiar to her somehow, in the way that one feels when they see an actor or actress that they almost but not quite recognize in a movie they are watching. Holly also recalled, from her dream, that Nimrod had mentioned having wisdom teeth with deep roots, just like Holly did. In Holly's mind, Nimrod being her father was the thing that made the most sense to her now.

"To tell you the truth, I'm not entirely surprised." She confessed, and looked up at the open neck of the bottle. "Can't we get out of here now?" Holly asked.

Nimrod shook his head. "No, I'd like you to not use your djinn power for a moment or two longer. Your head took quite a beating from that radio, and that's not to mention your arm. We're on the radiator in the library of my house in Cairo, and it may be another moment or two until you're strong enough to perform a transubstantiation. After we've done that, then will be the time to find Castiel."

"Do you know if Cas is okay?" Holly almost had tears in her eyes at the mention of her best friend. Nimrod sighed and shook his head.

"No, unfortunately. When Azazel discovers that Castiel essentially delivered you back to us safely, Azazel will be quite furious, I imagine." Nimrod frowned.

There was a short pause while Holly digested this information. "I hope Cas will be all right." She murmured, looking down at her broken arm.

"As we all do," Nimrod assured her. Holly looked up to discover that Nimrod was gazing intently, and a little melancholically, at her face. Holly felt herself flush and she looked away quickly.

"What is it? Do I have dirt on my nose or something?" Using her good hand, Holly rubbed the bridge of her nose self-consciously.

"Hm? Oh, no! No, not at all, Holly. It's just... Well, you look so like your mother. I don't know why I shouldn't have recognized you on the spot."

Holly looked back at Nimrod, studying him critically, examining the genetic similarities they shared. "I look sort of like you, too, you know." She reminded him. Nimrod smiled thinly.

"Yes, I suppose you do. It looks like you inherited my nose. Sorry about that."

"You made a joke." Holly noticed.

"Hm." Nimrod nodded. "Yes, I suppose I did."

"It was funny. Sorry I didn't laugh, but you know, I'm still worried about Cas." Holly's voice caught in her throat as she reminded herself. She took a few deep breaths to calm herself.

"I know, Holly."

"I think I inherited your eyes, too." Holly said, changing the subject quickly. Nimrod's light brown eyes met Holly's, and the two smiled weakly at each other.

"So you have." Nimrod agreed. "Though I believe the shape is more evocative of Alexandra than myself."

"Genetics are weird." Holly commented.

"They're only science. Although I suppose you want to see a photograph of Alexandra, don't you?"

"Do you have one?"

Nimrod sighed, and reached into his jacket pocket, quickly withdrawing a red leather wallet, from which he extracted an old, black and white yellowing photograph of four people. Two of the people were obviously Nimrod along with John and Philippa's mother, Layla, but the other man and woman Holly didn't recognize.

Nimrod pointed to the tall black woman in a white wedding dress standing next to him in the photograph, smiling her dazzling smile, as the Nimrod in the photograph grinned blissfully, all dressed up in a formal suit. "That's Alexandra. Your mother."

"Oh." Holly peered at the photograph. Nimrod was right: Alexandra did resemble Holly quite a bit. Holly saw similarities in their hair, the shape of their faces- nothing more extraordinary than a normal familial resemblance.

"Who's that guy standing next to you?" Holly asked, shifting her attention from Alexandra as she handed the photograph back to Nimrod. "Is he Alexandra's brother or something? They look really similar."

Nimrod gave the photograph a fleeting look before placing it back where it belonged in his wallet. "Yes. He died several years ago though." He answered, quiet with bittersweet grief. Then he cleared his throat and stood. "In any case, I think that you've now recovered enough that I can take you out of here without causing you a fatality."

"But I'm too weak to-" Holly protested, but Nimrod interrupted her.

"I'll help you, don't worry. Come along." Nimrod took Holly's left hand, and transubstantiated himself and his daughter out of the hip flask, observed by John, Philippa, Mark, and Groanin.

When Holly materialized, closely following Nimrod, she immediately collapsed into a squashy red leather armchair, breathing heavily and crying quietly.