George nodded. “I didn’t care. I loved her for who she was. Her family history meant nothing to me. When we found out she was pregnant with you, she broke down and told me everything.”
“One thing still doesn’t make sense — more than one thing, really?” She collected her thoughts. “What does this have to do with Mom’s canopic jar? I thought you guys bought it from a street vendor outside of Cairo before I was born.”
He shook his head. “A lie, I’m afraid. Your mother stole it from her father the night she disappeared. A close friend of hers smuggled it, and her, out of the country an hour later aboard a ship to the UK. Then, she headed to New York.”
“And the jar itself?”
“This is going to sound crazy, but —”
Zahra smiled, interrupting him.
“What?”
“
“Touché. Your mother’s canopic jar is the only evidence of hellstone that has ever been found.”
“Hellstone? I remember Mom mentioning that before. I thought it was just a spooky way of describing igneous rock?”
George nodded. “She did, and sort of… Hellstone is believed to be the secret to unlocking Anubis’ plague. Something within the rock itself reacts negatively, or positively, depending on what outcome you desire, to heat. I personally believe there’s some sort of bacterium that’s responsible.”
“So, it’s not the jar itself. It’s just the hellstone they’re after?”
“Correct. I even had a colleague of mine back in New York run some tests on it years ago, and it came back as a substance similar to something found inside of a meteor, though he didn’t know about the possibility of bacteria.”
“Hang on, Dad.” She pieced it all together in her head. “You’re telling me that I’ve had this rock in my possession for over a decade, and that it’s crawling with tiny microbes from space — from another world.” She pointed at the ceiling. “Aliens, Dad. Aliens!”
He grinned, looking very amused. “Not at all. I think that wherever the hellstone came from — an undiscovered cave system, maybe — naturally houses the bacteria. The fact that the rock is from space is just coincidence.”
“Oh,” Zahra said, feeling a little stupid. She had jumped to the most outlandish explanation first, rather than the most realistic. She glanced out the kitchen window again. Coincidences, chance, luck… They didn’t usually get along with Zahra, unless it related to her ability to stay alive.
“You said the scroll leads to somewhere. Where does it lead you, exactly?”
“Supposedly to the Temple of Anubis, a place made entirely of hellstone — the jar’s origin.”
“Oh, and that’s really bad considering the length they went to steal Mom’s jar.”
“Yes, it’s not good news. I doubt Khaliq had enough hellstone to do any real damage. He needs the full quarry to enact his plan.”
She pushed her coffee aside and leaned forward. Her hands found her face, and she closed her eyes and rubbed her forehead.
“Oh, there’s one more thing.”
Zahra paused and parted her fingers enough to see her father. She sighed and leaned back in her chair. “Why do I have a feeling I’m not going to like what you’re about to tell me?”
George looked extremely uncomfortable. He knew whatever he was about to reveal would seriously piss off his daughter. “Your mother, her last name wasn’t really Hassan.”
Zahra took a deep breath and turned, and fully faced her father. “Fine, then, what was it?” she asked through gritted teeth.
“It was,” he cleared his throat, “her last name was—”
“Just tell me!”
“It was Ayad, Zahra. Her last name was Ayad.”
Zahra didn’t verbally respond. She just stood and walked away, placing her hands on the kitchen counter. She looked at her reflection in the window as her father added onto the dogpile of information.
“Her brother was once the leader of the Scales of Anubis.”
“Khaliq’s father?” Zahra asked, already knowing the answer.
“Yes,” he sorrowfully replied. “It also means that Khaliq is—”
Zahra spun, tears freely falling. “It means that psychopath is my cousin!”
Zahra finished rinsing her face off in the guest bathroom. Patting it dry, she glanced up at herself in the mirror and wondered how someone like her could be related to a person as wicked as Khaliq Ayad. Then, there was Ifza. She was part of Zahra’s family too.
No, she told herself. Just because they shared the same blood, it didn’t make them family. Zahra was nothing like the Ayads.
She took a deep breath and tossed aside the hand towel. Zahra exited the bathroom and rejoined her father in the kitchen. He was still nursing his second cup of coffee, though he didn’t look all that interested in it.
Zahra sat. “You okay, Dad?”
He gazed up at her, his eyes wet. “No. How can I be? My son…” he sniffed, “my son is with that madman, and I’m here, safe and sound… and scared.”
Zahra reached a hand out, and her father took it. “Look, Dad, I have to go. Baahir needs my help.”
“Zahra, no.”
She held up a hand. “He has no one else. I’m going to Cairo tonight, but—”
“But what?”
“Do you have any contacts down there you can trust? Maybe someone who knew Mom?”
