Day of the Djinn Warriors (5 page)

“Very well, then,” said Nimrod, continuing. “You, Philippa, will accompany Groanin and me to London, where we will attempt to locate Faustina’s body, and then bring it back here to be reunited with her spirit.”

“Wait a minute,” said Philippa. “I thought you said you
knew
where her body was. You said it was in a private clinic for sick djinn.”

“I did,” said Nimrod. “But it isn’t. It seems that there was some kind of clerical error. This is common enough in British hospitals. Believe me, they’re always mislaying patients and bodies, not to mention people’s organs. The ambulance forgot to pick her up, apparently. So, it seems her body is still where Faustina left it. In Madame Tussaud’s.”

“The wax museum?” said Groanin.

“That’s right.”

“Ugh,” he said. “I don’t like the sound of that. Waxworks are creepy sorts of places. Ghosts and such like. Worse, probably. When I were a lad, Tussaud’s used to pay a man a thousand pounds if he dared to spend the night in the Chamber of Horrors. Them as did went off their heads. Or had their hair turned white from the sheer terror of it.”

“Thank you, Groanin,” Nimrod said crisply. “That will do.”

“There’s something else I don’t understand,” said Philippa. “If John’s going to the spirit world to look for Faustina, how can I go to London with you guys? What about Dad? Don’t we have to stay near him to counter the effects of Mother’s Methusaleh binding?”

“It’s very simple,” said Nimrod. “You’re going to give John all your power. And he’s going to leave his body here at home. He’ll only need a little bit of djinn power to come out of his body. The rest will remain here, near your father. This will counter the binding, as you say.”

Philippa made a face. “You mean I’ve got to breathe into his ear now?”

“I’m afraid so,” said Nimrod.

“Don’t think I’m looking forward to it, either,” said John. “I think I’d rather see Akhenaten’s ghost than let you taste my ear.”

“Now, now,” said Mr. Rakshasas. “They are short of news those that speak ill of their own blood.”

“Okay, bro, I’m sorry,” said Philippa. “Look, I’m really grateful to you for going to the spirit world instead of me. And I’ve been thinking, you won’t have to go all the way back to Cairo to enter the ethereal world through an Egyptian temple portal. You can do it right here in New York. At the Met. They have a temple there — the Temple of Dendur.”

“Light my lamp,” said Nimrod, “of course. It’s the only Egyptian temple in the Western Hemisphere. A gift to the United States from the people of Egypt in 1965.”

“Except that the museum is closed right now,” added Philippa. “Mr. Groanin and I tried to go there earlier today.”

“Closed?”

“The museum attendants are on strike,” she explained. “They said that it’s because the building is haunted. According to the guy we spoke to, the ghostly activity seems to be located in the Sackler Wing and in the Chinese art galleries on the second floor.”

“The same thing would appear to have happened in London, sir,” added Groanin, showing Nimrod his newspaper. “And in Paris and Berlin, also.”

“Interesting,” Nimrod said thoughtfully. “Perhaps John and Mr. Rakshasas will be able to find out more when they go to the Sackler Wing.”

“The Sackler Wing?” repeated John.

“That’s where the Temple of Dendur is located,” said Philippa. “At the Met.”

“When shall we start?” John asked.

“Now, of course,” said Nimrod.

“Aye,” said Mr. Rakshasas. “There’s no time like the present. Except when you’re dead.”

John gulped. “Will we see real dead people in the spirit world?”

“Not as such, no,” said Mr. Rakshasas. “The dead look real enough to one another in the spirit world. But they aren’t people. Not anymore. Which is why they tell no tales. Sure, there’s many a thing that’s been learned after a trip to the cemetery.”

P
hilippa returned John’s power, and at the same time, transferred her own power to him by blowing in his ear. Then, John said his good-byes to her, to Nimrod, and to Groanin, after which, accompanied by Mr. Rakshasas, he went up to his room, lay down on the bed, and, leaving almost all of his power inside his body, set about trying to raise his spirit up to the ceiling.

For a moment it was like growing taller, much taller, except that when he looked down, he found himself staring at a tallish, good-looking, dark-haired boy he hardly recognized. For a moment, he thought it was Dybbuk. And it was another split second before he realized with a jolt that he was looking at himself.

“Sure, you’re doing just fine,” said a voice beside him. It was Mr. Rakshasas, of course, whom he couldn’t see but,
oddly enough, whom he could smell quite distinctly. His body was now seated in John’s favorite armchair. “Would you like to hold hands or do think you’re old enough to try without?”

“I think I’ll try without,” said John, who disliked holding hands with anyone.

“Mostly we’ll get along quite invisibly,” said the kindly old djinn. “But if we get lost, stand somewhere cold so that I can see you a bit and I’ll come and find you. Only try not to do it where there are people about, or they’ll think you’re a ghost.”

“Okay.”

“If you start to panic about being a free spirit, or feel like you’re starting to suffer from astral-sickness, then just slip into a mundane’s body for five minutes and have a rest. Sure, it’ll give that person a nice déjà vu moment, so don’t worry about it.”

“What’s a déjà vu moment?”

“When someone has the illusion of having previously experienced something that they’re actually doing for the first time.”

“Right.”

“But it’s only in the physical world that we’ll feel like ghosts. Once we enter the portal, it’ll be like we’re real again. I’ll be able to see you and you’ll be able to see me. Not to mention other spirits we might encounter along the way.”

“That’s what I’m worried about.”

They floated down the stairs, through the front door of the house — without opening it, of course — and headed toward Central Park. At Mr. Rakshasas’s suggestion they traveled about ten feet off the ground, so they wouldn’t go through any people, which also made it seem easier to cross the street.

On Fifth Avenue, they turned right and floated along to the Metropolitan Museum where the striking attendants were still assembled on the steps. John had the sense that Mr. Rakshasas moved much more easily as a spirit than as a body. Much faster, too. He didn’t know how much faster until, floating up the steps, he saw several horrified attendants pointing through the glass doors of the 81
^st
Street entrance. And arriving at the door himself, he saw what they had already seen — the faint shape of Mr. Rakshasas floating, ghostlike, across the huge expanse of marble floor. John guessed what had happened. It was a warmish day outside and, despite the Met being closed, the air-conditioning was on. The cooler air inside the museum had made Mr. Rakshasas almost visible.

“Get that TV crew up here,” yelled one of the attendants. “There’s a ghost heading toward the membership desk.”

John watched as, quite unaware of the excitement he had caused, Mr. Rakshasas disappeared behind the membership desk, heading north to the Egyptian galleries and the Sackler Wing. And wishing to avoid being filmed by the TV crews that were now pointing their cameras through the glass doors — he was sure that they had just missed filming Mr. Rakshasas — John decided to seek another way into the Met.

Floating above the heads of the people now peering through the doors in the hopes of seeing a real ghost, John went around the other side of the museum and flew up a level and in through a tall sloping window. Once inside the museum he floated through the Chinese galleries and was just about to head downstairs to the Sackler Wing when he noticed that one of the museum’s glass cases had been smashed and the exhibit removed. Curious, he stopped for a moment to read the description card and saw that a priceless collection of jade once displayed there had apparently been stolen. And it occurred to John that the theft might have had something to do with the ghosts that were supposedly haunting the museum. None of that seemed important now. He had to catch up with Mr. Rakshasas.

On the floor below he found the Sackler Wing of the museum and a small sandstone temple that was not unlike ones John had seen in Egypt. Except that the temple was itself in an enormous modern hall, and surrounded by a little lake of water. A glance at the information on the wall of the hall confirmed what John suspected: This was the Temple of Dendur.

Imagining that Mr. Rakshasas must already be here, John called out to him. “Mr. Rakshasas?” he said. “It’s me, John. Where are you?”

To his surprise, there was no reply. John called out again and, standing almost immediately over an air-conditioning unit in the floor, made himself less invisible. It was curious
to see himself in this way — there and yet not there. Like a reflection in a pool.

“Mr. Rakshasas?” he said, a little louder this time. “Here I am.”

“Quiet, John, quiet,” whispered Mr. Rakshasas.

Instinctively, John looked around and saw nothing. He felt Mr. Rakshasas pull him away from the air conditioner and saw his own body fade to nothing as his spirit grew warmer again.

“What is it?” he whispered to the figure he now felt but couldn’t see standing next to him.

“Sure, I don’t know,” whispered Mr. Rakshasas. “But I’m thinking it’s something strange, right enough. Ssssh. Look. Look there, John.”

Through the south door of the Sackler Wing came a strange figure, about seven feet tall, wearing gray knee-length robes, “fish-scale” body armor, a small chin beard, an elaborate topknot hairdo, and carrying a long sword. It was a man, and yet not a man, for the brighter gray of the figure’s expressionless face and the way his empty eyes never moved made John think that it was only the image of a human being. The figure’s movements were hardly natural, either, but jerky, as if he was not used to walking or to swinging his powerful arms, so that he resembled a very ancient kind of robot. Given this, John might have expected to hear footsteps on the polished marble floor; but the strange-looking man moved quite silently, almost as if he wasn’t there at all. The
figure walked straight past the recessed doorway where John and Mr. Rakshasas were standing, and a strong smell of damp earth pricked their invisible nostrils, as if they were seeing something that had been buried for a very long time.

“What is it?” whispered John.

The creature stopped and stared as if searching for the source of the noise. Clearly, there was nothing wrong with the thing’s hearing, and John wondered what it might have done with the sword if it had seen them. It waited for almost a minute, staring at but not seeing them with its peculiar blank eyes, before continuing slowly on its way until it reached the museum wall, where it stopped and then disappeared around the corner.

“Whatever that was,” said John, “I don’t think it was friendly, do you?”

“I do not,” said Mr. Rakshasas.

Growing cooler again, they became more visible.

“Over here,” said a voice.

Looking across the gigantic hall, they saw another figure beckoning to them from the doorway of the Temple of Dendur. But this one couldn’t have looked more different from the frightening creature they had just seen. This one was wearing the costume of a Victorian gentleman.

“Quick,” he called. “Before he comes back again.”

John and Mr. Rakshasas crossed over to the temple, and as they stepped between the two columns on the exterior, they both immediately took on their physical appearances again. John breathed a sigh of relief, pleased to see the return
of his own body — or at least the shape of his own body. Even if it was in black and white instead of color.

“Well, that’s a relief,” he said. “Being invisible is a lot harder than it looks. If you know what I mean. But why are we in black and white?”

“Because only the living world is in color,” said Mr. Rakshasas. “It’s color that makes life worth living, I’m thinking.”

“That makes sense, I guess,” said John.

Mr. Rakshasas pointed out some of the carvings on the temple walls. The ankh — the symbol of life — the lotus blossoms bound with papyrus, and the various hieroglyphs that described the gods of the afterlife that had once been worshipped here: Isis, Osiris, and their son, Horus. “We’re here,” he said simply. “This is the gateway to the world of spirit. Now where’s that fellow gone? The one who called out to us.”

“Here, sirs,” said a voice, and through a false door in the temple stepped a fat, balding little man with bad stumpy teeth, a squeaky, foreign sort of voice, and wearing a rather dirty white suit. He bowed very gravely. “Leo Politi at your service, sirs. I’m the Ka servant for this temple.”

“The what?” asked John.

“Every ancient Egyptian temple had its Ka servant,” said Mr. Rakshasas. “In death, he was responsible for serving the spirits — the Ka — of those who entered the temple. But sure, I never heard of an Italian doing it. And certainly not one who, from the look of his shirt and tie, has only been dead for the blink of an eye.”

“I’m Greek, actually,” said Leo. “From Cyprus. But you’re right about the other thing, sirs. I’ve only been dead since 1872.”

John was a little surprised by the little man. Leo Politi didn’t much look like a ghost, but that’s what he was.

“If you don’t mind my asking,” said Mr. Rakshasas. “How did someone who’s been dead for less than one hundred and fifty years become the Ka servant of a two-thousand-year-old Egyptian temple?”

“I went to Egypt to negotiate a contract to supply Turkish delight to the Egyptian royal family,” said Leo. “On my day off I went to see this temple and, in a bored moment, like others before me, I carved my name on the wall. Here it is. See?”

Leo pointed to the spot on the wall of the temple where the name
POLITI
was still clearly visible.

“But, in order to do it I erased the hieroglyphs of an important Egyptian priest, who was the previous Ka servant of this temple, thus condemning myself to replace him in eternity. Soon after that, I was bitten by a mosquito, died, and then found myself here. I’ve been with the temple ever since. When it was still in Egypt, things weren’t so bad. But since this temple was given to the Americans, things have been very quiet. No new dead people for me to guide. Just tourists. You are my first new dead people in years. Tell me, sirs, have you been dead long?”

John frowned. “Who said anything about being — ?”

“Not long,” said Mr. Rakshasas, interrupting John, and shooting him a look that was meant to persuade him to keep his mouth shut on that subject. “But tell us, Leo. What’s the story with the fellow with the sword?”

“I think maybe he is an exhibit,” said Leo. “But I am not sure. He marches up and down as you can see, sirs. You’d better make sure he doesn’t see you. He’s not very friendly. I think it’s what he’s supposed to do: scare the attendants. Since he arrived, this whole museum has been in turmoil. The museum now has several ghosts.”

“Ghosts?” asked Mr. Rakshasas.

“In the museum, sirs, yes,” said Leo. “At night they are especially noisy.”

“That explains why those guys outside are on strike,” said John.

“It is true, sirs,” said Leo. “These ghosts have driven away all of those fat attendant fellows.”

“But what caused this to happen?” asked Mr. Rakshasas. “Where did these ghosts come from, Leo?”

“I don’t know for sure, sir,” said Leo. “But I think from inside the fellow with the sword.”

“Inside him?” repeated Mr. Rakshasas. “How extraordinary.”

“Shhh, here he comes again. If he sees you, you must both run away. Only don’t worry about me. He will leave me alone. Because of the Ka servant’s curse, I am obliged to stay here, whether I like it or not.”

Leo pushed John and Mr. Rakshasas up against the false door so that the creature with the sword would not see them. As before he moved slowly, silently, and like something automatic.

“Those clothes he’s wearing,” observed John. “And all that armor. He doesn’t look every Egyptian to me.”

As before, the strange figure halted in front of the north wall of the Sackler Wing, then turned abruptly and marched around the corner.

Leo breathed a sigh of relief and wiped the sweat from his smooth round face with a grubby white handkerchief. “There. He’s gone.”

“What will happen to us if we don’t run away, Leo?” asked John.

“Those who get too near, he simply absorbs,” said Leo. “He soaks them up. Like a sponge. Really, I saw him do it. I think he is trying to absorb all of those he released earlier on.”

“Now why would he do a thing like that?” asked Mr. Rakshasas.

“That I cannot explain, sirs,” said Leo. “But of late there has been a great deal I cannot explain. More so than at any other time since I became the Ka servant of Dendur.”

“Such as?” asked John.

“Before these ghosts appeared in the museum and scared off all those fat attendants, I’m thinking there was a kind of earthquake. In the spirit world. That’s the best way I can describe it.”

“An earthquake?”

Leo nodded. “The spirit world shook, most violently. After that, things in the world of spirit were very quiet for a while. It was like no one was there. And then the man with the sword came and the hauntings began. To be honest with you, sirs, when it first started happening, I was a little relieved that I wasn’t on my own. That there were indeed other spirits around. Until that moment I had started to think I was the only ghost left around here. And that scared me.”

“I can imagine,” said John.

“Now then, sirs,” said Leo. “Where would you like me to guide you? To the Underworld? To Purgatory? Or have you a mind to haunt someone yourselves, perhaps? An ungrateful relation. A nasty boss. An unfaithful wife. In which case I can direct you straight to their home. Myself, I think I should love to haunt someone.”