Seated at a long coffee-colored table across from Merira was a man. Fatma had never seen a man in the temple. She’d thought the followers of Hathor all women. But as she caught sight of his face, she wondered if he were a man at all. His complexion was completely gray, with bland undertones of olive, as if his actual color had been faded in the sun. He had no hair at all. None on his rounded scalp, even his brow. Despite that, his strange skin didn’t look smooth. Instead it held a leathery quality, and she imagined it feeling rough under her fingers.
“Agent Fatma,” Merira introduced, “this is—”
“You may call me Lord Sobek,” the man spoke. His voice was almost guttural. And his teeth! Were they sharpened to points? “Master of the Waters,” he went on. “The Rager. Lord of Faiyum. Defender of the Land. General of the Royal Armies.”
There was a stretch of silence. Merira kept a stoic face. The young attendant fixated her gaze elsewhere. Siti sighed, pulling up a chair and inviting Fatma to sit. “This is, um, Ahmad.”
The man scowled but nodded sharply.
“Ahmad is the high priest of the Cult of Sobek,” Merira explained.
The name clicked on in Fatma’s head. Sobek. The crocodile-headed god of the old Egyptian pantheon. She looked over the man, who wore dark brown robes that frayed at the ends. Not exactly high priest attire, but there was something decidedly crocodilian to him. Now that she looked closer, she could see what she’d mistaken for black eyes were actually a deep penetrating green. Like a Nile crocodile.
“Two of our own were lost in last night’s tragedy,” Merira said.
Fatma turned to her. “A man and a woman. You knew them?”
Merira nodded, arranging a set of black tarot cards upon the table. Fatma didn’t understand why a priestess of Hathor needed such things. Tarot cards for divination were likely a European invention with some Mamluk influences, not a practice of the pharaohs. But here she was in an Englishman’s suit. So perhaps, not one to quibble.
“The man was a high priest of the Cult of Anubis.” Merira overturned a card, depicting a black jackal holding a reaper’s scythe. “The woman was a high priestess of Nephthys.” She flipped another card—a seated woman holding a staff.
Nephthys. A funerary goddess as Fatma recalled.
“Nephthys,” Ahmad spoke, “was my divine consort. The wife of Sobek.”
Fatma frowned. “I thought Nephthys was Set’s sister-wife.” Siti shook her head quietly. Too late. Ahmad’s generous nostrils flared as he gritted his sharp teeth.
“Why is everyone so slavish to texts written thousands of years ago?” he snapped. “Gods can change. Grow apart. Try new things. Besides, Set was a jerk. He never knew how to treat her properly. How to worship her.”
Fatma looked on dubiously. Were they talking about gods or people?
The anger drained from Ahmad’s eyes, and he reached into his robes, drawing out a photo—an image of a woman. “Nephthys. My love. My divine one.”
The woman in the picture was young, quite pretty—with a joyous smile that extended to her eyes. Quite a contrast to the charred remains she’d seen last night.
“May God give you patience,” she told him. “May I ask her given name?”
“Ester,” he spoke softly, withdrawing the photo. “Ester Sedarous.”
A Coptic name. She was a Christian. Or had been, once.
“What was she doing there last night?” Fatma asked, directing her question to Merira. “Did Lord Worthington join one of your temples?”
“Quite the other way around.” Merira turned over another card. This one depicted an old bearded man in purple robes holding a glowing lantern. “The Hermit seeks truth.” She flipped another card, and Fatma’s eyebrows rose. It was a replica of the banner at Lord Worthington’s estate: two interlocking pyramids making up a hexagram encircled by a fiery serpent devouring its tail, all above a scimitar and down-turned crescent.
Fatma had no idea how the woman did that, and didn’t much care. “Enough, Merira. I want to know everything you know. No more parlor tricks. Just talk to me.”
The high priestess sat back, disappointed. She did love her dramatics. “The Hermetic Brotherhood of Al-Jahiz.” Her fingers tapped the card depicting the banner. “The hexagram, a symbol of alchemy representing the great elements.” She touched the four zodiac signs and the all-seeing eye respectively as she spoke. “Air, fire, earth, water, and spirit. The sun and moon for the many unknowable worlds that may be. Beneath, the sword: honor in defense of rightness, of purity, the balance of life and death. Under that, the down-turned crescent—the light of wisdom in the face of darkness.” Her forefinger traced the fiery serpent. “The unending and eternal quest. Quærite veritatem. Seek Truth.”
Fatma was puzzled. Since the return of the djinn, esoterics and spiritualists had flocked to Egypt—an array of men in odd hats. But one dedicated to al-Jahiz? “I’ve never heard of any such thing.”
“Neither had I,” Merira replied, “until we were approached to join. The Hermitic Brotherhood of Al-Jahiz was founded by Lord Alistair Worthington. Sometime in the late 1890s.”
“A decade or so after the routing of the British at Tell El Kebir,” Fatma noted. “Lord Worthington was instrumental in brokering the peace and independence.”
“For which he was granted special privileges,” Merira continued, “the so-called English Basha. It seems he put them to use, founding his secret brotherhood. They’ve spent years hunting every trace of al-Jahiz. They reportedly have a vault of relics.”
Fatma recalled the ritual room at the estate—built, it seemed, as a dedication to al-Jahiz.
“It does seem a bit contrived, doesn’t it?” Merira asked. “I was certain there was some nefarious plan, when he called on the heads of the temples.” Her
