The Egyptologist (Jinn Series Book 5) Read online

  The Egyptologist

  Jinn Series Book 5

  Ayse Hafiza

  Contents

  Let’s Connect

  1. Chapter One The Valley of the Kings

  2. Chapter Two The Man named Bradford

  3. Chapter Three The Prostitute

  4. Chapter Four The Murder of a Murderer

  5. Chapter Five New Beginnings

  Confessions of a Witch

  Afterword

  Also by Ayse Hafiza

  About the Author

  Disclaimer

  Dedication

  Dedicated to the Jinn.

  Let’s Connect

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  Chapter One The Valley of the Kings

  Scalding sands whisked through the air, each grain of yellow performing its individual dance in unison with all the other grains. These days were stifling hot, the kind of days that made it hard to breathe. Oppressive heat would burn holes in your throat, melting the tops of your lungs as excess fat would drip off your body in floods of perspiration. These days, the local Egyptian tour guides would wear fabric to cover their faces for protection from the harsh sands. Tourists often commented that traditional clothes were part of “the magic of the Orient”. We laughed at them, as this harsh climate is the reason they left their comfortable homes, predictable lives, and magical television sets. The western tourists were always the same, never dressed for the desert heat and always with a camera and a glinting bottle of water clutched in their hands.

  The Valley of the Kings was a strange place. Its harsh landscape evoked strong emotions due to its contrasts in colors and textures. With stunning sunsets against golden yellow sands, the cloudless azure sky acted as a mirror to the seas which were miles away. The River Nile allowed for fertile soils and crops to be farmed, these fertile lands competing with vast mounds of stone and mountain that made up the Valley of the Kings. It was beautiful, it was home.

  The Pharaohs of the past understood the fertile lands represented a worldly existence that was plush, luxurious, and springing many beautiful trees, a parallel to life itself. Whereas the valley was dry, arid, inhospitable, and hard. Dead to the human eye, this place attracted the dead.

  In general, humankind has always been scared of death. An adage existed that the human dead of the past did not belong side by side with the human living. The human dead were buried where they belonged, and that is why they were buried out in the wilderness of The Valley of the Kings, among our community.

  Our community is Jinn, and like your Pharaonic dead, we did not want to be in your company. We, or more specifically, my community, do not like to share our territory. We have a history longer than humankind on this Earth, and therefore more of a claim to the lands which your human ancestors did and undoubtedly your descendants will fight over.

  Humans can be savage and hold no interest for us; like the majority of my community, I stay away from your folk. Your lives are an average of seventy years, and if you make it to old age, how much are you expected to remember? It is such a short life span. Your elites take advantage of this and rewrite history books to fit with their agendas, continually manipulating each generation to fulfil their own agendas. In truth, I find your kind mundane, lesser, and a more fragile existence than ours.

  Although sometimes there has been shared history between our peoples. It's worth explaining that in our common history, there have been some in our community who took advantage of you. Our malevolent community encouraged misguidance in you and made you worship us. They did this out of vanity, which is the biggest sin of Satan—he made you believe you are better than your brother born in a different country, when in truth you are not. Humans, regardless of any differences, are all the same. The promises that the devils from our community make to your people cannot benefit you and neither can those devils keep promises made to you. You are deceived if you believe their suggestions.

  If today you don't believe worship of our kind is a common practice, look at any famous city you can think of—and you will find our markers. You will always find an obelisk in every major city. You may wonder, what is the significance of an obelisk? Why don't these contemporary cities have relics from Ancient Persia? Ancient Babylon? Ancient Mesopotamia? With so many great ancient cultures in your history, why does everyone in the world want an obelisk? Is it a global fashion statement? No, it is not! I’ll tell you why: because the elite of your community know that obelisks attract our kind. Often, the hollow insides allow room for us to live; for us they are act as a cross between a hotel and a lighthouse. They guide our kind as we travel around the world. After all, what is an obelisk if it isn't an elongated pyramid?

  Have you ever considered what an obelisk represents? They call humankind to the worship of the sun—the exact reason obelisks were stoned in some cultures, even until recently in Mina Saudi Arabia. Stoning pillar obelisks was part of the pilgrimage rites of Prophet Abraham, which those who follow in his footsteps perform.

  You may think you do not worship obelisks, but humankind so rarely reflects. Major cities that contain obelisks in the world are: Washington D.C, London, Istanbul, Caesarea in Israel, Vatican city, Paris, Singapore, and many more. These obelisks are symbols for the people denoting power and wealth, and for us, they remind us that your people still worship the Egyptian God, Ra. Ra was one of us, a devil by nature and dedicated to misguiding humans.

  Have your modern people ever considered how skyscrapers emulate the shape of the obelisk? That's how subtle our infiltration has been into your society. Why would the skyscraper builders do this? Well, they try to share in our magic through sacred geometry. The elites in your community want to harness our power to grow their following, riches, and position in society. They behave as if harnessing a Jinni is the same as harnessing a natural energy like solar or wind power.

  Why do your humans pay homage to us? Because you know we are superior beings, able to perform feats of might and power. Humankind often has strange ideas—colonial objectives and the constant lust for control and conquest.

  Still, some of you will be questioning our existence. Let me be plain: Jinn exist.

  The Pyramids themselves are proof of our existence. Can you honestly believe that humans carved huge blocks of stone, and thousands of them managed to push immense stones along on tree trunks and place them perfectly in the sands to create the mathematical perfection which is the Pyramids? In the blistering, sweltering heat? Do you honestly believe the lies fed to you from school books?

  The Grand Pyramids map perfectly to the constellation of Orion's belt. If the human race was capable of such incredible mathematical precision, where are your unusual architectural structures now? They don't exist, as your race is rudimentary.

  Even if your species could do this, where is the proof in the hieroglyphics? After all, every aspect of Ancient Egyptian human life was scribed into hieroglyphics, so where are the hieroglyphics documenting the construction of the Pyramids? They don't exist, because your species didn't make them.

  Jinn created the Pyramids. It was us, with no help from man. We did it because we lived with Pharaoh. We had an understanding with him.

  What was the point of mapping Pyramids to Orion’s Belt? I will t
ell you, because the heavenly realms are expansive and an entry to them exists among the galaxies of Orion’s Belt. Also, a little-known fact: our Pyramids can open a channel to them, which is why even today humans endlessly search the sky for secret openings into the heavens, and why powerful telescopes track the skies day and night.

  Before you humans feel lied to and manipulated, let me set the record straight. In some cases we had the advantage, but the opposite has happened too; your kind have controlled us. For example, the human glory days of Babylon was an era where we were subjected to human bidding. King Solomon possessed mastery over us. My ancestors worked tirelessly for him. In my community, we are told how our ancestors worked for him and that at the point of his death they carried on working, not realising that he had died, and it wasn’t until a humble worm gnawed away at his staff and his dead body fell to the ground that our ancestors realised they were free of human control and escaped.

  I point out these instances where humankind had advantage so your species does not feel like the loser. I believe that we should not compete and that we should consider ourselves even.

  As we approach the end of days, we try to live in places where you don't and we try to stay out of your way, and it’s best for your people if you stay out of ours. We can both happily stay in our own dimensions and co-exist, sharing the Earth.

  Now that you understand my opinions on these matters, I should introduce myself and tell you the story that prompted this very frank discourse on us Jinn and humankind.

  My name is Ornias, and I know so much about the Jinn, as I am a Jinni. I live with my family; my sister Amy and I are close. We are part of the community of the Valley of the Kings in Egypt. We've been here for centuries. We like it here in the desolation. The heat does not bother us, as our essence is fire. We don't need to stick to the shadows like the city dwelling Jinn who live among you. Humans come during their tourist seasons, and they leave too—we know they will come, and we don't pay attention to them. We didn't particularly like them entering into the tombs in which we live with the dead Pharaohs. It’s a large reason why lots of the tombs had curses, to stop humankind being nosy, but these days we've come to accept that humankind doesn't respect their dead.

  We thought humankind would leave its Pharaohs to rest in peace. Little did we know that our Pyramids and our Valley of the Kings would become a modern day wonder of the world, a freak show for the modern man to gawk at. Thousands of you would come and visit every year, with your sunburnt skin, empty plastic water bottles, and bags littering our environment.

  We are tolerant, and we know that in the end, you leave. We watched you arrive in your coaches. We watch as you take your photos, with your index finger positioned at the top of the Pyramids, or when you try to climb our structures. We watch your inherent disrespect, and we see that when you are satisfied, you go. You don’t pique our interest because in the end, you always go.

  Chapter Two The Man named Bradford

  Sometimes people came to the valley and stayed longer than the others: the Egyptologists. We were used to seeing them studying, taking photographs, digging the grounds, and making sketches. Egyptologists would have an extended stay far longer than the tourists, but they would also leave, often with promises that they would return to carry on their studies once they had more funding. Eventually, they would all go. They always did—the nature of this valley even after millennia is that it is still inhospitable to human life.

  There was one exception to the rule—one gentleman who decided to stay. He was a strange-looking man, short and stocky with a round red face and odd moustache. His thin, metal-rimmed glasses sat firmly on the tip of his nose as if they were a barrier between him and the rest of the world. He wore the clothes of the Egyptian locals, and he had a scholarly air about him. We didn't miss the fact that he also had a devilish glint in his unforgiving, aged brown eyes. He was the type of man who would have stories to tell if he ever opened up and chose to communicate with someone. He was a loner and spoke little; even so, we noticed he was economical with his time, and his words. He always came in the early mornings, and showed unwavering devotion to the task at hand, photographing various hieroglyphs, often scribbling in his notebook which he always kept on him, his only companion. He was clearly a determined man—an oddly short, portly determined man.

  There was nothing particularly remarkable about him, so although we were not interested in him, his tenure in the Valley of the Kings was the first thing that brought our attention to him. He was here for years before we decided to discuss him in our council meetings. He never had company apart from when he requested someone to build a ladder so he could examine the hieroglyphics near the ceilings in the tombs. Initially, we were patient with him, waiting for his departure. Enthralled by Ancient Egypt as he was, he seemed timeless to us, as though he did not belong to your modern-day selfie generation. We didn’t pay him any attention, we waited for him to leave, but he did not go.

  The longer he stayed, the more our curiosity grew. We wanted to understand what he spent his time doing. So many Egyptologists had come before and after him that we felt he must be doing some original works. What could be original now? Every aspect of the lives of the ancients had already been documented.

  We discussed this in the council meeting. The conclusion was that the council preferred to observe him, and I, Ornias, had this task. Given the job, due to my stealthy stalking, strength, and quick-thinking abilities, I was the one who was sent to follow him. My job was to observe him and report back with my findings, and by no means interact with him. Of course our Jinn stuck to the rules and knew not to communicate with humans.

  The first night of my secret reconnaissance mission I followed him home, keeping to the shadows all the way. It was odd to enter back into Thebes, or modern-day Luxor as it is now known, the town which was immediately outside the Valley of the Kings. I followed him along the backstreets. He lived in his own flat, not a fancy hotel. I believed this was fitting as he was anti-social from all that we had observed of him. Even the style of the apartment he chose had screened rooms. It was unusual for him to stay in a private apartment like this, as most of the other Egyptologists opted for more opulent surroundings. He clearly wasn't a man who liked company at any time. He was looking for privacy. For a moment, I felt a tinge of sorrow for him. He clearly had no friends, other than his notebook.

  His apartment had a couple of rooms and a lounge area which had thick rugs laid on the floor, which struck me as unusual—rugs insulate rooms, which are the last thing an apartment in Luxor needed. It was so unbelievably hot that flat tiles could burn the soles of your feet. The room was messy, with clothes strewn around, another sign that no one visited this man. He had a big desk in the corner. Above it, his photographs spread out in what looked like a random pattern. He stared at the hieroglyphs above his desk and intermittently, as if an inspired artist, he would scribble into his notebook. The lounge had dark, blood red walls; to me it looked like the inside of a lurid womb. It also had a musty smell, and when he came home, he opened the windows. I assumed the windows would never be opened if he wasn't in the room itself. He seemed an incredibly careful man.

  I was never curious about humans—I knew of our joint history, but never had any curiosity about a race that I felt was beneath us. All I knew was to stay away and observe, and this was my job. Why had this one caught the attention of the council, though? I didn't know, I couldn't answer that question. All I knew was that by stalking him it necessitated me being alone with him in his apartment.

  Removing his glasses and rubbing his thick hands over his eyes, he gestured in a way that I knew meant it had been a long day. He opened a bottle of whiskey pouring the russet liquid over four lumps of ice which he had taken from a small fridge freezer in the corner of the room. He had prepared the drink meticulously and from his actions I had a sense of his character. He stood at the window, drink in hand, and leaned gently against the frame, surveying the gardens looking into the suns
et beyond. He looked vulnerable, lost, and sad. He fascinated me. What was he thinking? What was his intention? What was he hoping to find here?

  I couldn't tell.

  If I could look in his notebook, I knew I could answer some of these questions. My only problem was that he always carried it. I needed to get access to it when he wasn't guarding it.

  I did what I did best, and that was to be patient and wait for my opportunity. What the council was looking for were reassurances that this Egyptologist would be on his way out of our lives soon. My only job was to supply this. His notebook was the only personal item that he had. I needed it for a mere few milliseconds to steal it away, to learn its contents, and then I could return it. That would give me the reassurances that our community needed. I waited and waited for him to put it down, to take his eyes off it, and if not, then I’d wait until he fell asleep. Until that time I would hide in the shadows of his lounge.

  He ate his food, which his landlady had sent up to him. They had the briefest exchange at the door, as she passed him his dinner. After this, he left his tray outside his door and prepared for bed. All the while his notebook was in the pocket, too close to him for me to take it away. After that, he put his book down on the table, curled up on his bed, and soon he drifted off to sleep.

  My chance was finally here. I picked up his book. I had barely opened it when his Qarin interrupted me. A Qarin is, a Jinni who has an individually duty assigned to him. Each human being had its own personal Jinn, which is his Qarin. He only could speak with me and not the human he followed. This Jinni was not of our community in the Valley of the Kings.

  "What are you doing here?" he asked. "Don't you know it's dangerous?” His anxious tone disturbed me.