He gulped as Aasim scowled deeper.
“Why don’t you make yourself useful. Run to the kitchens and fetch me some coffee.”
The younger man started. “Coffee?”
“Coffee,” Aasim repeated. “Do you not know what that is? Do I need to explain coffee to you? Should I begin reciting a history of coffee? No? Then why are you still here? Yalla!”
With some stammering, the young policeman scurried off.
“You enjoyed that entirely too much,” Fatma accused.
Aasim’s lips set into a smirk. “You know what’s funny? I don’t even like coffee. Tastes like dishwater to me. I do, however, love breaking in new recruits.” He turned to Fatma. “Good evening, agent. You’re looking very”—his eyes took in her suit—“English.”
“This one’s American. From New York.”
“I don’t believe such a place exists.”
She made a face at him. “You have some case here.”
Aasim scratched a shaved chin. “You haven’t seen the worst of it.” He invited her to walk beside him. “Hope we didn’t wake you. But I thought it prudent to call the Ministry.”
“You asked for me personally, of course?”
“Of course. I know how much you enjoy a challenge.”
“I do have a personal life, you know.”
He shook his head. “I don’t believe that for one instant either.”
“Well, at least catch me up.”
“We got a call sometime before ten,” he began. “From the estate’s night steward.”
“Hamza. Met him,” Fatma noted.
“Man was a wreck. Came in and found the bodies. Called every station he could screaming about murders. Most here are Giza policemen. But they reached out to Cairo for help. We got here and found all this.”
They stopped before a mass of white sheets that smelled of burning. Or was that the policemen all standing about, puffing on their Nefertari cigarettes? At seeing the inspector they hurriedly put out the thin brown sticks. Aasim detested smoking at his crime scene.
“Twenty-four dead,” he informed her, pulling his glare from the officers.
Twenty-four. Merciful God.
“All burned to death,” he added. “Hoped covering them up would mask the smell.”
“You called the Ministry over a fire?” But even as the words left Fatma’s lips she noticed the obvious. No scorch marks. In fact, no burn marks anywhere.
Aasim handed over a kerchief. “You’ll need this. Stinks like burned hair under there.”
Fatma followed him to one knee as he pulled back the sheet. Even with the kerchief pressed to her nose, the stench was strong. The scorched corpse looked like charred wood, the blackened head with emptied sockets that poured out wisps of smoke. Whoever he’d been, he’d died screaming, his gaping mouth showing soot-stained teeth and bits of gold replacements. What stood out, however, was his dress: long black robes over a dark gray suit, with white gloves and a black tarboosh still attached—and unscathed.
“Only the flesh is burned,” she murmured.
“Very unusual for fire, don’t you think?” Aasim asked.
Fatma only paid him half attention, her mind running through various controlled conflagrations, of the magical and alchemical varieties: fires that could melt steel, stick to surfaces like oil, or even be shaped into the likenesses of beasts. Fires that consumed flesh but left clothing untouched? That was new. Pulling out a pair of Ministry-issued spectral goggles, she fitted on the copper-plated spectacles and peered through the round green lenses. Magic was everywhere. Not on the clothing. But it clung to the corpse in a faint luminous residue.
“They all like this?” she asked, removing the goggles.
“Every last one. Well, except our friend here.” Aasim gestured to a corpse set apart from the rest. Pulling back the sheet revealed a burned body dressed in the same unblemished clothing. But something was wrong. It took a moment to actually see it.
“His head’s on backward,” she remarked, unable to keep the shock from her voice.
“Don’t see that every day, do you? We were confused too until we turned him over.”
Fatma leaned down to inspect the bizarre corpse.
“His face. There’s no screaming. He didn’t die by fire. This happened before.”
“You have any idea the strength needed to do that to a human body?”
“Can’t say I’ve given it much thought. But I’m guessing inhuman strength?”
Aasim sighed. “Back when my grandfather was a policeman, the most he had to worry about were pocket pickers. Cheaters trying to beat up the market inspector. On an exciting day, maybe a counterfeiter. What do I get? Magically burned bodies and inhuman strength.”
“Not your grandfather’s Cairo,” Fatma retorted.
Aasim grunted his acknowledgment. “Thank ya Jahiz.”
Fatma stood, looking past the shrouded bodies to take in the room itself. For the first time she noticed the ceiling, with its concave underside like a honeycomb. Muqarnas. A Persian style that had flowed to Egypt along trade routes centuries past. The blue walls with gold and green repeating flowers were Persian too—but with hints of Andalusian, and some Arabic calligraphy. The columns running along the sides were Moroccan and inscribed with verses from the Qu’ran. It wasn’t uncommon to see all of these styles in Cairo, given the city’s long history as a crossroads of culture. But like the rest of this house, something about the room’s construction made it appear more a mishmash than anything approaching aesthetic coherence: an outsiders’s valiant but overwrought attempt at authenticity.
There were items on the walls too, under glass boxes. She spied a book, bits of clothing, and more. To the back a white banner hung. Two interlocking pyramids on its front formed a hexagram, displaying an all-seeing eye in its center surrounded by seven small stars. In each corner of the hexagram were signs of the zodiac, with a sun disc placed at its left and a full moon on its right. The odd assemblage was encircled entirely by a fiery serpent devouring its tail. Beneath sat a gold scimitar above a down-turned crescent that ended in fine points. Her eyes flickered to the black tarboosh still worn by the dead man with his head turned backward, bearing the same gold sword and crescent.
“What is this place?” she asked. “Who are these people?”
Aasim shrugged. “Some kind of cult maybe? You know how Occidentals like playing
