“I’ll take a pass on meeting up with the cobra.” Erik grinned. “But I wouldn’t say no to the treasure.”
Chapter 39—Unsitely
The pickup came to a screeching halt. Sand spun up in the air and floated back down onto the hood. “We are here,” the driver announced. Although his coloring and features suggested that he was Arabic, he was dressed in the garb of a Nephilim—black suit and tie with a white shirt. His feet were encased in black socks and leather shoes. The attire was completely impractical as desert-wear, but he seemed oblivious to that fact.
Looking around guardedly, he spoke in a low voice to the two other occupants of the truck’s cab. “It would be best if you both wait here until I am sure no one else is about.” He climbed out and quietly shut the door behind him.
His companions offered no comment until he was out of earshot.
Leroy Hunt’s eyes followed the retreating shape of their guide. Shaking his head in disbelief, he said, “I just gotta ask. What rock did you all find him under? I thought that Brother Hammy was one squirrely dude, but this feller’s got him beat by a mile.”
“Brother Mohammed is a recent convert from Islam,” Daniel explained. “He still retains many of his old ideas.”
“Yeah, of course, his name’s gotta be Mohammed,” Hunt muttered. “The day I run across an Ayyy-rab who ain’t named Mohammed, I’ll eat my hat.”
“Ayyy-rab? Oh, I suppose you mean an Arab.”
“Ain’t that what I just said? Clean out your ears, boy.”
Daniel disregarded the rebuke. “I think Brother Mohammed is having some difficulty adapting to the ways of the Nephilim.”
“All I gotta say is we better watch our backs. I spent some time in Eye-rack during the war, so I know what I’m talkin’ about.”
“Where?”
Hunt looked bemused. “Ain’t you never heard of Eye-rak, boy? ‘I-R-A-Q.’ Eye-rak. Another one of them Ayyy-rab countries. Ayyy-rabs is all crazy. You know how they pray? They bang their skulls against the ground five times a day. Sure as shootin’ that’s bound to scramble what little brains they had to start with.”
Hunt must have noticed Daniel’s skeptical expression because he quickly added, “Don’t give me that look, boy. You tell me what feller in his right mind is gonna make his women folk throw a bed sheet over their heads before they go out grocery shoppin’?”
“I suspect you’re put out because it’s difficult to obtain liquor in Arab countries,” Daniel suggested. Hunt had been unusually edgy ever since they’d arrived in the south of Egypt where establishments which sold alcohol were few and far between.
“Don’t you get me started on that! Yesterday I went to buy a bottle of Jack, and the shopkeep looked at me like I was tryin’ to score a bag of heroin. You wanna know the real reason why these camel jockeys are spoilin’ for a fight all the time? It’s because they don’t drink!”
“Really?” Daniel tried to keep the sarcastic tone out of his voice, but Hunt’s increasingly outrageous opinions made it harder every day.
“Damn straight! If they drank, wouldn’t be so much killin’ all the time. They’d be too busy nursin’ a hangover to care. Just look at what happened back in the States. The year Prohibition got voted in, the murder rate across the whole damn country shot up seventy percent.”
“Are you certain?” Daniel felt genuinely surprised.
“God’s truth. I ain’t makin’ this up. And what do you think happened the year Prohibition was scrapped? The murder rate dropped right back down to where it used to be.”
“You don’t strike me as the sort of person to collect statistics, Mr. Hunt,” the scion demurred.
“That one stayed with me because it made a heap of sense.”
“Drinking doesn’t seem to have diminished your liking for violence,” Daniel said softly, wondering if he’d gone too far.
To his amazement, Hunt chuckled at the observation. “Son, you didn’t know me before I discovered the sweet salvation of the bottle. What you’re seein’ now is the kinder, gentler me.”
Daniel shuddered inwardly at the thought of what Hunt might be capable of without his favorite panacea.
“Ayyy-rabs!” The cowboy snorted in disgust. “Bat-shit crazy every last one of ‘em! Can’t be trusted. If you know what’s good for you, you’ll watch your back!”
“Duly noted, Mr. Hunt.” Daniel cut the mercenary’s ethnic rant short. “Here he comes.” The scion secretly had to admit that Brother Mohammed was unusual, even by the standards of the Nephilim. He was vigilant to the point of paranoia which gave him a perpetually wild-eyed look. Of course, finding any converts in the Middle East had been difficult considering the fervent religiosity of the region. Still, Daniel found himself wondering whether the brotherhood might not have been better served by letting this particular acolyte find a different cause to die for.
Mohammed opened the driver side door. “It is safe,” he whispered. “You may come out now.”
“Much obliged for the intel, Brother Mo,” Hunt said tartly.
The three men trudged up a small dune to survey a jumble of rocks sticking out of the sand.
“Oh, my Lord!” Daniel exclaimed in dismay. “It’s been vandalized.”
“How in the name of blazes can you tell that, boy?” Hunt sounded astonished. “We’re in the middle of the goddam desert!”
“Blasphemy!” Mohammed hissed darkly.
Hunt ignored him and continued. “You dragged me out here cause you needed to look at a heap of rocks. There’s your sand. There’s your rocks. What else do you want?”
Daniel stepped forward a few paces to contemplate the wreckage of Nabta Playa. “I expected to find a calendar circle. I expected to find order. Not this... this...” Words failed him. He sat down on the hot sand and sank his face into his hands.
Hunt walked back to the truck in disgust. He leaned against the bumper, cursing under his breath, as he shook sand out of his snakeskin boots.
Mohammed crouched on the ground next to Daniel, waiting anxiously.
The scion rubbed his eyes. He blinked several times, but the offending vision remained. Nabta
