“Four Auld Stag, four Stella,” he shouted over the din.
“I hear the drums echoing tonight,” sang Toto.
Two different bartenders immediately saw Hatem and nearly fell over themselves trying to fill his order. When they were done, his bill was taken and five shots of scotch and four bottles of beer were waiting for them. Hatem grabbed two shots and a beer for himself, then motioned for the other three to grab a shot and beer each.
“That’s not your order!” Jonas shouted to Hatem. The driver shook his head and smiled.
“They treat me very well here, and I do the same for them,” he shouted back.
“The moonlit wings reflect the stars that guide me towards salvation.”
Jonas, Simon and Dylan each took a beer and a shot. They looked to Hatem for what to do next. He gave them a devilish smile, then shouted, barely audible over the music and hubbub of the club. “Follow me to the greatest treasure in Egypt.”
Hatem led them through the club; drinks held high. They moved past a multitude of women dancing and gyrating, skimpy outfits revealing too much for Jonas’ taste as they brushed past. He pointedly kept his eyes up and to the front, Hatem barely in his peripheral vision. The group ascended a set of stairs, taking them past several more silent bouncers and into a private room.
“It's gonna take a lot to take me away from you.”
The music was cut by a surprising amount when the door closed. He could talk without shouting. The room was open, with three large semi-circle booths set against the back wall. Each booth had deep red plush couches and shoulder height backing. They could comfortably seat two, but four could squeeze in.
Two silver poles stretched from floor to ceiling. The half of the box that hung over the dance floor had glass floors and walls. They could see down, but thanks to tinting and low lighting in the room, nobody could see them.
Jonas took the middle couch while Simon and Dylan took the far couch. Jonas could just see over the barrier to where Dylan had his hands clenched in his lap. Hatem took the couch nearest the door. Jonas settled in, enjoying the comfort of the soft couch.
“This is good, yes, but could be better.” Hatem waved at a man beyond the glass room they were enclosed in and shouted. “Bring the women!”
The man, whether he heard or not, nodded and hurried off. Jonas sipped his shot as he sat confused in his booth.
“Hey, who are—” he started to ask.
The door opened, allowing a blast of sound in. Six Egyptian women entered the room. Each was very fit, wearing very little save some gossamer veils. Jonas could just make out their nipples through the veils in the dim light. They waved their hands above their heads and shook their hips. Each had a distinct visual theme, mostly around bright colors. One was in orange, another a delicate red, a woman in all blue, one in bright yellow, one in all white, and the last that entered was in lavender. Every one of them had bracelets and bangles that matched, as well as a head dress that held their hair up. They even had matching chokers made from lace. Their stomachs were exposed.
The one wearing lavender broke off for Hatem’s booth. The one in yellow danced to Jonas’ booth, and the two in red and orange danced to the third booth where Simon and Dylan sat. The last two stayed at the poles, dancing around in full view of all the men. The crazy lights from the dance floor lit their white and blue veils in hypnotizing patterns.
“Hello, handsome.” The young woman said to Jonas. Her sheer veils put everything on display. He looked her over with approval. She slid onto his lap, dancing and making the charms and bracelets on her arms jangle with each gyration. Jonas heard Dylan start to make a fuss in the booth over.
“Uh, miss,” he started to say.
“Chill, man,” Simon said to his friend. Dylan hadn't signed up for a lap dance and looked deeply uncomfortable with it.
Jonas leaned back and watched the young woman. The stress of the previous few weeks started to melt away as she danced.
Hatem spoke over the music. “My friends, perhaps we should try something more fun?”
21
“Hatem, I just want to relax,” Jonas said. The dancer leaned her head over the divider and he heard her snort something energetically.
Hatem laughed. “Nonsense. Have some of this my friend, you will feel better.” Before Jonas could react, Hatem extended a hand over the divider and pushed a small spoon of white powder up Jonas' nostril. He inhaled it without thinking. The left side of his face immediately went numb.
“What the fuck? Did you just give me cocaine?!” He rubbed at his nose, feeling the odd sensation travel up the side of his face, into his ear and along his sinuses.
“No, my friend. This is so much better.” Hatem punctuated the sentence by inhaling a large dose himself. He leaned back with his arms over the back of the couch.
Simon was muttering in the corner, feeling the woman dancing on him. Dylan still looked uncomfortable, trying to shrink away from the woman on his lap.
“Then what the hell is it?!” Jonas was nearly shouting at that point. The woman on his lap shrank back, looking at Hatem before she continued. An idle wave seemed to be enough for her. She began gyrating on his lap again. Jonas’ face felt hot, his arms and hands even hotter. Something in him was fighting to get out.
“Come along, you be fun like us,” the dancer said.
An animalistic side took over. His eyes focused on her with feral intensity. Her hips were wide, her lips full, breasts perky. She was eighteen, fertile, and he wanted her. He felt his nether region throb in response to her seduction, a response that caused a lost voice deep in his mind to cry out. He reached up, feeling the softness of her gossamer veils. He looked up, intent on taking her. Her eyes were bloodshot and rolling wildly.
Something deep inside Jonas fought the strange sensations overwhelming him. “What was that drug?”
The panicked voice of reason was shoved down again by a surge of lust. It felt like a wall formed inside, locking away his own emotions. He gripped the choker that held her veils in place with both hands and ripped it apart. Her clothing fell away, leaving her nearly naked in the dim light. He smiled wickedly, running his hands down her front.
She leaned in close to his head and started to whisper to him. “Rakitaki gives strength.”
Her breath across his ear raised goosebumps.
“Rakitaki gives power, stamina, everything you could want,” she continued.
Her actions became more erratic. She smashed her chest into his face, smothering him. His face burned with the drug. He reached for her ass. His arms ached. His hands were on fire. He didn't know how to deal with the pressure, the heat, the pain from whatever he had been dosed with. His whole body felt tight, like a rubber band twisted to the point of breaking. She was light and heavy at the same time across his lap.
“What's wrong?” Asked the dancer. Her voice was hoarse, perverse, wrong for some reason. Jonas couldn't put his finger on what was bothering him. His mind was fuzzed with adrenaline, lust, and a surge of power. He felt like he could do anything.
She leaned over to a mirror on the divider between them and Hatem to snort another line. He felt panic rising. She smiled at him with entirely too many teeth, causing the panic to break through the strange barrier in his spirit again. Something was deeply wrong. He looked at Simon and Dylan, and they looked completely out of it. He drew his arms to his chest, trying to comfort himself. She leaned forward, smiling at him. He screamed out in his own mind. His body reacted on its own.
Jonas watched his arms shoot out, feeling a detached curiosity at the strange feeling. It was as if he had taken a back seat to his own body. The woman on his lap shot away at an incredible speed. Before she had even hit the glass, he had moved out of his booth and grabbed the dancer holding Dylan down. He ripped her free by her shoulders and threw her toward his own dancer. They both burst through the glass, falling in slow motion to the dance floor ten feet below.
Simon began to react to the startling di
sappearance of Dylan’s dancer as Jonas tore his fanged woman free. He turned toward their host; dancer clutched in his iron grip. Time was still at a crawl. Hatem had cleared his own booth, standing between Jonas and the door to freedom. His bared canines were elongated, sharp, tobacco yellow and threatening. Jonas threw the woman at Hatem, both barreling through the thick glass encasing their room.
Sound returned as time did. Suddenly the bassline of the song was throbbing inside their chests. Jonas felt entirely too much energy inside as he fought against his instinct to flee. Simon and Dylan looked confused. Their eyes were no longer glassy. Jonas couldn't see any hints of powder near their noses.
“Were you dosed,” he roared to be heard over the music. The two remaining dancers cowered in the far corner, whimpering at his feral brutality.
“Dosed? With what?” Simon shouted back.
“Whatever that drug was! Dude, I just threw four people through windows,” Jonas bellowed.
“Yeah, uh, I think we need to leave,” Dylan said.
“Now,” Jonas reaffirmed. They shoved their way out of the club, ignoring the confused looks as they did so. Men were fighting through the crowd toward Jonas, violence evident in their attitude. Women were screaming on the dance floor, and he could smell blood in the air. The music had suddenly stopped. Two men stepped in Jonas’ way, fists clenched and ready to fight. Jonas didn’t hesitate, he stepped in and slammed the first in the chest with an open palm. The man flew back into the second and they both crashed to the ground.
The way to the door opened up with that move. The crowd moved out of Jonas’ way as he snarled at them. They shrank back when they looked at his face. Jonas and Simon provided cover for Dylan. When they arrived outside, the staff seemed confused. One of the bouncers looked beyond Jonas at the destruction inside. He stepped in the way of Jonas and Simon.
“We need our car back,” Jonas snarled.
“Where is Mister Bitar,” the man replied.
Jonas fought to control himself, straightened his back, then spoke. “Occupied. We're leaving ahead of him. Pull the car around.”
“I’m not letting you leave,” the massive man said as he cracked his knuckles.
“I’ve got this,” Simon said as he stepped up. He was just as tall but not as wide as the bouncer. When the bouncer swung, he stepped in and under the punch and caught him with an uppercut to the solar plexus. The bouncer fell to the ground wheezing. He turned to the second bouncer who held his hands up and backed away.
“The car, now,” Simon said. He looked at Jonas in concern. Jonas was feeling twitchy, ready for anything. He felt like he could bend a steel beam.
The attendant nearby nodded and ran off, appearing a minute later with the BMW they had arrived in. Jonas took the driver’s seat, with the other two in the back. They were all still on edge. Jonas’ head hurt; his mind was still fuzzy. He looked to the sky, confused that it was hazed with pre-dawn light. Clarity was slow to return, though he felt more in control than he had a minute before.
“How long were we in there?” Asked Jonas. Neither of his passengers replied. “That looks like dawn. There's no way we were in there for more than an hour, let alone four,” he continued.
“Shut up and get us out of here,” Simon shouted from the back seat. Jonas shifted the BMW into gear, thankful it was an automatic. Hatem really had spared no expense on the car they were stealing. He hit the gas, peeling out of the roundabout as two thumps sounded on the rooftop.
“What was that?!” Dylan sounded hysterical.
Jonas ignored the question and floored the accelerator, trying to shake whatever it was loose as he whipped around the corner. He got back on the main road they had come in on. He yanked the wheel back and forth, speeding down the road and rocking wildly across all lanes. Other drivers honked and flashed their high-beams. The pounding on the roof grew in intensity as he tried to shake their unwanted passengers. One of the rear windows exploded inward as the dancer in yellow leaned in, screaming incoherently. Jonas turned onto a dry straightaway, accelerating to more than a hundred-ninety by the speedometer on his dash. The wind howled through the burst window.
A horrible shriek came from the roof. A hand, dark and gaunt, nearly gray, reached down and slammed through the windshield. Wind howled and the glass cut Jonas’ face as it burst inward.
A raspy voice screamed over the wind, shouting a word that was nearly lost in the howl.
“Rakitaki!”
22
Jonas threw an arm up to cover his face as he slammed on the brakes. The surprise passenger was flung forward, allowing Jonas a glimpse of their face. Hatem bounced off the hood, the dancer in yellow following. They hit the ground and tumbled for fifty feet in front of the still slowing car.
Hatem and the dancer got to their feet in a flash. A crash that should have broken bones and ruptured organs instead only left them unbelievably pissed. They held hands out like claws, fangs bared. They raced toward the car, howling at the top of their lungs. They had closed to within twenty feet of the car, when the sun crested the horizon.
Light streamed in through the broken windshield. Jonas felt like he was on fire. He started screaming, then dove into the shadowed footwell on the passenger side. The veins on his hands were pulsing red. The violent glow of his blood faded away as did the pain. He stopped screaming and lay on his side, panting heavily.
He could still hear people in agony outside the car. Slowly, hesitantly, he raised his hand into the dawn light. When he didn’t burst into flames, he sat up and looked over the seat at Simon and Dylan. They weren't looking at him, instead out the windshield.
He turned to see what had the other two transfixed. Two pillars of fire were on the side of the road. They looked like trees twisted like groveling bodies, knees on the ground and hands upraised. Then, as suddenly as the flames had appeared, they were snuffed out. The trees that stood on the side of the road looked like Joshua trees, something he had seen only in books.
He blinked hard, then rubbed his eyes. Finally, he asked a question aloud. “Where did they go?”
There was no response from the back seat. Jonas looked back at the other two, only to find them snoozing peacefully. Mystified at their response, he reached back. He shook Simon's shoulder, but he just snorted in his sleep. A second shake caused him to wave Jonas' hand off. Dylan responded in the same way. Confused, Jonas shut off the car and got out. He walked over to the trees. They were tall, skinny, with branches only at the top. It looked almost like someone praying to the heavens above.
“Hello?”
He expected no answer, and got none. He circled the two strange trees, looking for anything that would explain why they were in the spot Hatem and the dancer had been in only a minute before. He scratched his head. Two minutes later, he was no closer to understanding the situation. He slowly walked back to the car, hoping an answer would spring at him. Stranger still, all he could see was the long black streaks the tires had left on the road. There were no cars in sight.
Jonas opened the driver’s door, which stirred the sleepers in the back.
“Where did you go?” Asked Dylan.
“I was looking for Hatem,” Jonas said in a daze.
Dylan rubbed sleep from his eyes with balled fists. “Who?”
“Hatem. The guy who owns this car.” Jonas stared at the redhead in confusion.
“I was wondering where we got it from.” Dylan let out a mighty yawn before continuing. “I don't know who you're talking about, but we should be getting back.”
“Hatem... he invited us to the club,” Jonas said. He had an idea and started digging in the glovebox. It turned up nothing except a handful of coarse napkins and a dirty map. He stuffed them back in the glovebox.
Dylan shook his head. “You wouldn't shut up about a club you heard about. Never said anything about being invited.”
“But he put the hole in the windshield, and the dancer broke the window...” Jonas trailed off.
“What h
ole in the windshield?”
Jonas turned around, astonished to find the windshield intact. He touched it to make sure. He felt like his mind was breaking apart. “But it was just here...” He turned around and looked at the back window. It, too, was whole.
“Shut up and drive already,” Simon rumbled from the back seat. He shifted to his side, placing his hand against his head as a pillow. “I want to sleep in a real bed before we go back to the dig.”
Dumbstruck, Jonas turned the key in the ignition, only to find it had a tag on the keyring. He searched his memory, certain there hadn’t been a tag before. He read the side, thankful it had English under the Arabic words at the top of the tag.
'Cairo Luxury Rentals'.
It had a phone number and address at the bottom. Confused about the night's events, Jonas put the car in drive and returned to the road. The return trip took significantly longer. He refused to do over 90 miles per hour, even when he was being passed and honked at. They arrived at the hotel around noon.
“Thanks. What a weird party that was,” Dylan said as he stretched. Simon patted Dylan's shoulder, then walked silently into the air-conditioned lobby. Dylan turned back to Jonas; a question written all over his face. “What are you going to do with the car? Do you have it for another couple of days?”
Disturbed, Jonas looked out the windshield. “I think I'm going to go return it.”
“'Kay,” Dylan said sleepily. He turned and shambled after Simon. Jonas pulled the map of Cairo from the glove box and set about trying to figure out where the rental agency was.
He found it after a few minutes of searching, surprised that it was within walking distance of the hotel. It was in what he'd heard of as an upper-class area, called Zamalek. He drove off, shaky because the city-wide game of bumper cars was still new to him. Five minutes later, he pulled up at a small building with 'Cairo Luxury Rentals' across the front in both English and Arabic. It was squat and gray, the opposite of what he thought a luxury company would want to look like.
Rakitaki: A Jonas Quartermain Adventure Page 17
