“Rattle the gates of people like that and they send out their hounds,” the inspector said. “Let’s nab this imposter. If Worthington’s involved, the person he has pretending to be al-Jahiz is likely some small-time con artist. Or worse, a theater actor. I know how to crack both. They’ll give up whoever put them up to this.”
It made sense, she supposed. But by Sunday night, she was on tenterhooks.
She sat in the back of a police wagon, one in a procession that rumbled through Cairo’s streets. Hamed sat directly opposite, in a pressed Ministry uniform—silver buttons gleaming and pants sporting a perfect crease. He looked like a picture right out of a guidebook—down to the red tarboosh. The only thing out of place were his shoes: black military issue, with thick ridges. The three other men sharing the van—all broad-shouldered and thick-necked—wore the same.
Fatma had thought of putting on a uniform. For about ten seconds. Suits were so much more comfortable. This one was a coal gray: sober and minus her usual flair. Well, except for the ivory buttons on the jacket and waistcoat. And perhaps the cobalt-blue tie with slashes of mandarin was a bit showy. However, her shoes were a perfectly ordinary black—though on the glossy side. They were made for running and jumping. She’d come prepared too. Just more fashionably.
“You’re expecting a crowd out there tonight?” Hamed asked. His hands idly gripped a black truncheon sitting across his lap.
“If what I saw Friday night is anything to go by.”
“Do they really think it’s him?” another agent asked. “Al-Jahiz, I mean?”
“Some do. I think others are just curious.” There were no posters advertising tonight. Not a word in the papers. But you could find evidence of it everywhere—scribbled on walls in back alleys or whispered in underground dens. Cairo was at times a two-sided coin with completely different faces.
“I’ve heard things,” a third agent ventured. “That he performs wonders.” His look said he was waiting for her to confirm or refute it.
“I didn’t see any wonders.”
“But there was an Ifrit?” the fourth quipped. He sounded hopeful, which was crazy. No one should want to come across an Ifrit.
“All I saw were some tricks with fire,” Fatma answered.
An uneasy quiet settled before Hamed spoke up. “Doesn’t matter who he says he is or what magic tricks he performs. We’re Ministry agents. Nothing we can’t handle.”
“What about this other man?” The skeptic again. “Who you say can become more than one person?”
Fatma grimaced at the memory. “Hoping the four of you can handle him. Or them.”
“That’s what these are for.” Hamed held up the truncheon—a rod almost long as his arm, with a bulbous head. A flip of a lever at its base set off a humming whine, and the head crackled with blue bolts. The others cheered, lifting their own truncheons. One even thumped his chest with a fist. Men, Fatma decided for perhaps the hundredth time, were so strange.
When the police wagon stopped, Fatma was the first out, landing on the uneven ground in a small puff of dust. She nudged up her bowler with her cane and looked about. Under the light of a full moon that hung in the black canvas of the sky, the City of the Dead sprawled in every direction.
El-Arafa, the Cemetery, as most called the old necropolis, lay nestled at the foot of low hills. They had once been an ancient quarry for limestone, and their tops still carried a broken and sawed-off look. The Cemetery sat in the valley between: a dense grid of tombs and mausoleums built up over 1,200 years. The families of Egypt’s rulers had been buried here—military commanders, Mamluk sultans, even some Ottoman bashas. Their tombs were miniature palaces and had been the site of spectacles, even Sufi schools. El-Arafa became a hub for seekers of wisdom and custodians overseeing its care.
But that was long ago.
The late years of Ottoman rule had seen most of the Cemetery’s well-to-do inhabitants leave for more alluring parts of Cairo. Rapid urbanization following the coming of the djinn had only accelerated matters, as middle-class Cairenes flocked to new developments with modern conveniences. The influx of farmers, peasants, and immigrants into the city meant a fresh set of inhabitants for the necropolis—mostly impoverished. The mausoleums had fallen into disrepair, many crumbling—some no more than rubble. There was no running water, no gas lines or steam-run machinery, not even paved roads. Still, people made do, building small dwellings; others even taking up residence inside the tombs. It was as if this place constructed for the dead couldn’t help drawing the living.
“Nothing like a trip to the slums,” someone muttered.
Fatma turned to see Aasim beside her. No one made a trip to the City of the Dead a regular habit. Maybe pilgrims looking for blessings from the Sufi mystics who still dwelled in the monasteries, though their schools were long closed. There were festivals at some of the more well-kept mausoleums. But most Cairenes steered clear.
“Think of it as you getting out more.” Fatma looked to a nearby building. From behind a curtain on a second floor, a woman watched the caravan of police assembling at the outskirts of her home. Beneath her, two young boys jostled for a view.
Aasim
