The Cairo Diary (38 page)

The dragoman was at home, with his wife and children. Nobody was sleeping, despite the lateness of the hour. Rumors of a riot in the center of the city had reached them, and they were all waiting for news. The dragoman greeted Jeremy with an immense smile, counting the piasters the detective had just handed him by way of invitation.

The dragoman had identified several men, and had questioned them; and he presented the information to the detective, not leaving out any detail. Jeremy drank tea with him, and he was brought a handful of dates which he nibbled in silence.

After an account that was careful—the dragoman had an exceptional memory, retaining all the names of the protagonists—but useless to Jeremy, he concluded with what seemed to him to be the least important information: “That is not everything, effendi. I was also directed to two old men this afternoon. They cannot stop talking about this beast, this
ghul
, to everybody, they are becoming obsessed with it. They are annoying the people in the
qawha.
The first one says he knows who is behind it all. I met him just now, I don't think he has all his marbles anymore. For him, the
ghul
is his neighbor in disguise. He says his neighbor is mad, that he's a child-killer and—”

“Where does this old man live?” asked Jeremy, who was in a hurry to get to the end.

“In the northwest of Gamaliya, in Bab el-Nasr, very close to—”

“Too far,” cut in the detective. “What about the other?”

“He's a fanatical hashish smoker. He's been frequenting the
ghoraz
for too long. He says he knows where the demon lives. In a blind alley, in the southeast of the district.”

Jeremy spat out his date. “Not far from the Huisein mosque?”

“Yes, that's right.”

The Englishman leaped to his feet.

He remembered Azim, and his two witnesses, the two men who said they had seen the ghoul. One was an old hashish smoker. And it was close to the place where the underground tunnels ought to be.

“Take me to him,” he said. “Come along, time is short.”

*   *   *

They unearthed the old man at the back of a smoking club well known in the district, with his eyes red and shining. He did not balk at taking the two men as far as the entrance to the blind alley in question when Jeremy promised him a little money in exchange.

The narrow streets were deserted and dark.

They walked along carrying a lantern containing a small candle, which quivered in time with its bearer's footsteps.

The three men moved soundlessly under the
moucharabiehs
that made the narrow alleyways even darker, stepping around the empty stalls, until they walked down a confused maze of passageways, some covered, some dilapidated, which served as shortcuts.

From a distance, they resembled a little firefly, looking for the way out of a giant stone labyrinth.

At last they ended their nocturnal walk at the entrance to a blind alley made up of ruined houses.

“It is here,” murmured the old man in Arabic. “I'm not staying much longer, it's dangerous.”

The dragoman translated for the detective.

At which the old man seized Jeremy by the sleeve and waited.

The Englishman sighed, took a banknote from his pocket, and handed it to him. The man was about to leave when Jeremy held him back by the shoulder.

“Which house is it in?”

The dragoman acted as an intermediary between the two men.

“He says he doesn't know,” he reported.

“In that case, ask him if he knows where the Huisein mosque and al-Azhar University are.”

The old man hesitated, before pointing both arms to the right, in vaguely the same direction. This gesture seemed to direct their searches more to the houses on the right side of the blind alley.

“It's better than nothing,” grumbled the Englishman, handing the lantern back to its owner.

The dragoman instantly translated the old man's few words. “He says you can keep it. You'll need it more than he does if you intend to go in there.”

The old man was already walking away.

“Tell me, are you really going to enter these ruins to look for the
ghul
?” asked the dragoman anxiously.

Jeremy gave him the promised money. “There's no need to follow me. Your journey ends here, my friend.”

The detective turned his back on him without further ado, and plunged in among the crumbling façades, full of gaping holes like greedy mouths.

Jeremy heard the guide's footsteps hurriedly moving away.

The first building on the right side was impossible to get into, as the ceiling had collapsed. Jeremy swiftly checked out the second one. There was nothing inside but rubble. The third required more effort, as it included a cellar that he inspected carefully.

Inside the next one, he was astonished not to have access to a basement. He searched every corner, his dim lantern in his hand, until he halted before a sizable wooden chest filled with stagnant water.

He placed the lamp on the ground and leaned on the wood with all his strength to make the water bucket slide across the floor.

The hole was underneath.

Jeremy picked up his lantern again and descended the steps before swiftly coming back up to move the water-filled container back into position as best he could, in order to keep the entrance hidden and not reveal his presence.

Once he was down below, he could not miss the hole that had been made at ground level. A recent hole.

Had Frederick Winslow made it himself, in order to enter the archaeological underground chambers he so coveted? It was possible. Winslow was the type to search on his own, keeping to his own corner, not telling anyone about his discoveries except those close to him and his employer if any. Or had he not had time to finish, and Keoraz had completed the job himself, to ensure he possessed a lair nobody knew about, once the archaeologist had been eliminated?

Jeremy bent down and had to put his arm with the lantern through the hole to ascertain the endless depth of the passageway. The earth was damp, sweating in places, and many twisted roots hung down, like desiccated hands. Now Jeremy understood what Azim had said, “I thought I was going to die! I thought it had caught hold of me but it was a root, just a root!”

The little Egyptian's voice echoed deep in the tunnel, distant and ghostlike. “Just a root…”

Jeremy kneeled down and entered the passage headfirst.

He crawled as fast as he could, on the alert for the smallest sound. He soon began to breathe rapidly, paddling around in a swirl of mud and decomposing vegetation.

It became difficult to move forward with the lantern, forcing him to move it in stages. The candle flame almost drowned in its own wax when the jolts were too severe. He found a lighter, sticking out of the soil. Azim's. He recognized it immediately; his former colleague very rarely smoked, but was never parted from his lighter, always very proud to be able to light other people's cigarettes.

He must not feel claustrophobic, thought Jeremy. He wriggled about like a worm in the belly of the earth, twisting the different parts of his body to move forward in this humus-filled intestine.

Finally Jeremy emerged in the underground tunnel.

The dust filled his nose.

Once he was standing upright, the detective took his weapon in his right hand, and raised his lantern. The darkness swallowed up the edges, gnawed away at corners that were too sharp and totally engulfed all perspective beyond six feet.

He entered a large chamber. The feeling of insecurity suddenly took a firmer hold of him.

Don't make a sound,
he repeated to himself.
Be careful where you walk.… Be on the lookout. Don't hurry … there you are … don't leave anything to chance, make sure there is nothing behind you.

He turned around to carry out this command.

In his wake, the darkness had closed in again, depriving him of any points of reference. Was he going to be able to find his way back? Azim had managed it. All he had to do was follow the line of the wall …

Jeremy took a step forward and, in panic, hurriedly opened his lantern and blew on the flame.

The smell from the dying wick rose to his nostrils.

He had just caught sight of a glimmer of light.

Weak and moving, but a light all the same.

It was coming from a corridor on his left.

Jeremy approached, holding his breath so as not to betray his presence.

The corridor, which was very short, led to a modestly sized room whose details he could not make out from where he was standing. He put down his lantern and took his Colt in both hands. He moved toward the doorway.

The place was as sinister as it was pestilential.

Two candles danced on a worn-out table.

Beyond the table rose a pile of dead animals. Some of them were seething with plump maggots.

Someone was making a snuffling noise.

A long, sticky breathing sound.

Jeremy aimed his pistol in the direction in question.

And his entire being froze with the shock.

47

The ghoul was indeed there.

It was tall and misshapen. Its bald pate gleamed in the candlelight, one eye abnormally open, almost dangling, the nose eaten away by disease, the cheeks and lips missing, opening the whole jaw to the air. The creature was enveloped in a long robe of coarse cloth, as dark as its skin, with a voluminous hood pushed back onto its shoulders.

And it was playing.

The creature was holding George Keoraz, aged nine, in his arms. The child was motionless, inert and partially undressed. The ghoul was holding one of his arms, and using it to push along a little wooden train.

It snuffled again, tilting its head back. Sucking in through its teeth the spittle that the absence of skin could not hold in. When it did that, it resembled a wild beast sniffing the air.

Jeremy could no longer move.

It was then that it noticed him.

Its good eye locked onto him, then onto the weapon pointed at it. The eye turned toward something, lying on a stool.

Jeremy followed the look.

It was an assortment of elongated rings, each made to cover the whole of the last joint and extend beyond the end of the finger. The rings were made of metal, and ended in a claw, carved from bone and set into the end.

So that was the secret of those hands with their endless fingers and inhuman nails. A craftsman who worked metal in a souk had made them. It was just a case of paying the price—there was no shortage of bones or metal in Cairo.

Jeremy realized that the black giant was about to make a dash for his weapons.

Fear unlocked his body and he took a step forward, keeping a firm grip on the gun.

“Shhhhhh,” he hissed, hoping to dissuade the ghoul from attacking.

Did it realize the danger represented by a firearm?

It let go of George Keoraz, who collapsed completely.

“Don't do that!” yelled Jeremy, trying to get a little closer.

And it leaped for the stool.

Jeremy was forced to hold fire, as the child was in the possible trajectory of the bullet. He threw himself backward, trying to flatten his back against the wall so as to gain distance between himself and the ghoul, and to make sure that he was in a good position to take aim.

His shoulders made contact with the wall.

He refocused his eyes, just in time to see the monster's terrible face bear down upon the candles.

And blow them out.

48

A childish fear.

A feeling of powerlessness and insecurity that went back to a child's first, faltering attempts at speech. Written in the genes, a warning system from the reptilian brain, dating from the epoch when the whole of humanity knew what terrors could be lurking in the darkness.

That was what took hold of Jeremy.

The fear flowed out from the ancestral parts of his mind like the blood of a hunted animal that knows it is mortally wounded.

Jeremy began to pant.

The ghoul knew where he was when it extinguished the flames. He had to move. Immediately.

Jeremy moved his pelvis sideways; he had enormous difficulty commanding his body to move.

The claws whipped through the air, just in front of him.

Then once again.

The third salvo gouged the detective's forearm, and he let out a howl of pain.

He fell to his knees and dropped his Colt, which landed on the ground.

The ghoul plowed into the wall just above him.

Jeremy rolled forward; he detected a presence that just brushed past his shoulder. He rolled again, to move away from it.

The monster snuffled behind him.

Jeremy held his breath; it made him too vulnerable, giving away his position. He probed the earth beneath his palms, in search of his weapon. Advancing very slowly and carefully, in silence.

The ghoul collided with a large object to Jeremy's right.

The next moment, there was an enormous crack as the wood of the barrel split open as it hit the ground, several gallons of water pouring out.

The liquid reached Jeremy immediately, drenching his legs and his sleeves.

Feverishly, he felt all around him.

His weapon; he must find his weapon.

His fingers came into contact with warm skin.

The child's ankle.

He moved away and continued his desperate quest.

He was beginning to suffer from lack of oxygen; he must breathe more of it in. Soon, it would be impossible for him to go on without breathing more deeply.

The ghoul was moving somewhere behind him, ready to sink its lethal nails into his soft throat.

A metallic surface met his fingers.

It was his Colt.

He seized it firmly and raised it in front of his face.

His head was spinning. But he must not breathe in as hard as he needed to, must not allow himself to be pinpointed by the sound.

Now there were two hunters.

The first mistake would be fatal.