Where Is Manar?
Book Two: Sorry, Ma'am — This Body Is Not for Rent
Chapter Ten: A Meal on Hold
—
With the final rattle of the bike's engine dying under Dajja's weight, and the heavy silence of the wilderness settling in, Dajja exhaled his smoke with agonizing slowness. He cast a suspicious look of appraisal toward me — one I didn't quite grasp, yet it made me feel as though I'd committed a monumental blunder without realizing it.
"I'll admit, Maytham... I didn't expect you to possess this kind of ambition. I thought you were just a guard dog following orders. But to lay your hands on it? That takes a dead heart."
Internally, I was desperately trying to remember what exactly I'd laid my hands on. Did he mean that digital scandal? Or Sami's nonsense?
"Dogs grow up," I said with a coldness I tried to cloak in mystery.
"Sometimes," he nodded, watching the horizon. "But tell me — how did you handle it? That sort of thing isn't easily tamed. It devours its owner."
Tamed? A digital scandal isn't tamed — it's sent with a click. It seemed we were traveling through two entirely different tunnels of understanding.
"I didn't try to tame it," I replied, my honesty laced with sarcasm. "I dealt with it exactly as it is."
Dajja froze. He looked at me like a man hearing a philosophical answer from the mouth of an idiot. "As it is... most who touched it lost their minds or were consumed by its flames. And you say you dealt with it 'as it is'?"
Flames? A scandal burns a reputation, but his tone suggested actual fire and peeling skin.
"Circumstances don't give you time to think about consequences," I added, trying to find an exit.
"True," he exhaled a thick cloud. "And how did you find it?"
"Through someone who was very close to you."
Dajja stopped exhaling entirely. He turned toward me, and I felt something shifting behind his dark lenses — not ordinary anger, but a weight like mountains about to collapse. "Close to me?"
"Yes."
"And where is he now?"
I offered a small smile, as much malice in it as there was ignorance. "I think you know the answer better than I do."
A long, desolate silence followed. He looked at his cigarette, then at the grey wilderness swallowing the horizon, before returning his gaze to me. "And when you found it... what did you do?"
"I sent it directly to you. I thought you deserved to know."
"You thought I deserved to know," he repeated slowly, weighing every letter on a golden scale. He turned toward Fidda. The wolf-woman didn't move, but her ears rotated toward him at a sharp angle — a predator awaiting the signal for slaughter.
Then, with a terrifying calmness, he said: "Maytham... I'm not talking about Munaf."
Everything inside me stopped. Then why the hell have you been chasing me across half of Iraq?
"I'm talking about the artifact that came out with you from the temple."
My mind went blank. He wasn't talking about the video. He was talking about something else. Something that escaped with me from the Temple of Ninmah.
"What artifact?" I looked at him with genuine bewilderment. "What artifact are you talking about? The only piece I know under your backside right now is a dead piece of scrap metal." I said it while seriously trying to remember if there had been any archaeological junk in the temple at all.
Dajja stared at me for a long time, puffing smoke, as if weighing my stupidity on that same golden scale. "The same dog I know," he muttered to himself, with a tone of disappointment mixed with acceptance.
—
Suddenly, the wind died.
It wasn't a normal stillness — it was a sudden vacuum in air pressure that made my eardrums scream. I was still trying to piece together the images: the temple, the tremor, Sami... but Dajja noticed something else. I saw him freeze, his cigarette caught halfway to his mouth. Fidda turned slowly toward the horizon, her ears rotating at an angle I had never seen — the angle of absolute, primal danger.
Then came the sound. It wasn't one noise, but the screeching of millions of wings, the friction of repulsive bodies — a ringing felt in the marrow before the ear. I looked at the sky. It was no longer grey.
A massive black mass eclipsed the winter light — bats, insects, and nameless hybrids — plunging toward the earth as if pulled by a diabolical thread. The mass began to coalesce at a single point, slamming together and merging; wings vanished into skin, eyes sought sockets to settle in.
Fidda took a step back. In that moment, blue tattoos erupted across her skin like veins pulsing with hidden electricity. A thick, cold vapor emanated from her, cloaking her entirely. Suddenly the mist cleared to reveal a sight that defied the laws of logic: Fidda was no longer one. Her body had split into three identical versions — three wolf-women standing in a triangular formation, locking down the perimeter.
The black mass tore open to reveal a delicate, marble hand, followed by a face so pale the winter light seemed to flee from it. It was Emma. She stood amidst the wreckage of the creatures that had dissipated, her black gown untouched by a single drop of mud despite the filth of the desert.
She looked at Dajja first, then at the three versions of Fidda, and back to Dajja.
"Hello, pups," she said with a quiet mockery — the tone of a woman settling an ancient debt.
"Emma," Dajja replied, his voice coated in a caution I had never heard from him before.
Fidda (or the three of her) opened and closed her mouth, and in the end decided on a dignified silence. It seemed Emma was the nightmare even the mercenaries feared.
Her eyes landed on me. She tilted her head slightly, as if connecting a voice to a face.
"You," she said softly.
"Me?" I looked behind me in desperation. "There's no one else here."
"The voice that promised me a meal."
I remembered Babylon — that night I thought I was talking to a switchboard operator or some lost girl on Dajja's radio.
"You... Emma."
"And you're Maytham," she smiled — a cold smile that didn't reach her eyes. "You still owe me a meal."
In that moment I realized that promising food to an entity that emerges from a swarm of bats was the stupidest decision in a career full of stupid decisions. She had been watching us. Which meant she had heard everything.
She looked out at the wilderness and said, as if reading words written in the air: "An artifact... left the Temple of Ninmah... and no one here knows exactly where it is."
Dajja went silent. Fidda went silent.
—
WOOF WOOF WOOF WOOF!
[My Second Mother] is calling.
My phone started barking at the worst possible moment. I glanced at the screen. Sami. Not now, man.
"Aren't you going to answer?" Emma said, clearly amused. I heard Dajja mutter: "Tsk... another mating bark."
"No need. It's nothing important," I said, hitting silent. The barking continued in my head.
"Well... where were we?" Emma continued. "Were you in the temple when the tremor hit?"
"Yes. But I don't remember what happened after."
"Interesting... and how did you get out?"
"I don't know. I found myself crawling out of the well."
She smiled cunningly. "Then how did you get past the mercenaries? And the sorcerers and the Transcended outside the barrier?"
Her question hit a nerve. How did I do it, exactly?
WOOF WOOF WOOF WOOF! [My Second Mother] again.
"Who was the first person you remembered meeting after you left the well?" Emma asked, grasping the end of a thread.
"It was my br—" I stopped. Sami! Suddenly the gears turned. My mental clarity, my returning memory — everything started when I met Sami.
Dajja's voice cut in: "It was his dog of a brother. Who else? Is that him barking now?"
"Answer him," Emma said. My hand moved against my will — invisible strings pulling my fingers. I answered.
"Tck... Hello, Brother Sami. Been a while since we heard your voice." The cursed password slipped from my mouth.
Silence for a second, then his worried voice: "Who and where?"
I looked at Emma. Beautiful? Yes — but in a way that makes you think about your will before approaching her.
"She's a beautiful sister, but... I don't know, I think I'm in the Basra desert."
"My Second Mother? Interesting," Emma said, taking the phone from my hand. I couldn't refuse — my body obeyed her as if she were its rightful owner. She hit speaker.
"Decided to get married at last?" came Sami's mocking voice.
She looked at me and smiled: "Hahahaha! Look, boy — we got your Second Mother's approval. Don't worry, I won't eat you now... maybe later if I get bored!"
Dajja laughed from a distance: "I was right. He's a dog."
"Tsk... Dajja!" Sami's whisper, then sharp: "Hello, Miss. It seems you're taking care of my brother since he's still breathing in the middle of the 'Nation of Dogs'. I owe you one."
"Oh, the Nation of Dogs? Did your brother tell you? If you truly owe me — I love good food and entertaining shows."
Fidda (all three of her) said in a voice that permeated my skull: "Then the artifact has passed to him."
"As long as my brother is safe and not a lunch special — I swear on the honor of the Great and Honorable Barbers' Union of Basra, I'll treat you to a full feast!"
A funereal silence. Emma looked at me as if to say: Is this your brother? Is it genetic, or do all barbers specialize in speaking nonsense? Meanwhile Dajja made a sound like a broken engine — perhaps a failed attempt at laughter.
Emma covered the speaker and looked at me: "His mind still works."
Dajja retorted: "Are you sure he even has a mind?" The Fidda trio agreed, nodding.
"Hello? Anyone there?"
"Boy... a question," Emma said with absolute authority — the kind I had only witnessed in our Aunt Mona when she caught us for a disciplinary lesson.
"Yes, go ahead."
"When did this boy tell you about the dogs?"
"Two days ago."
"Hmm... have you felt anything strange during these two days?"
"Not really. Everything's normal."
"Then... why didn't you help your brother while he was in trouble?"
A deadly silence. Then Sami's voice, pained: "Ack!" Suddenly it changed. Not Sami anymore. Heavier. Colder. An echo that didn't come from a human throat: "Listen, you wretch! Stay out of things that don't concern you, or I'll make you regret it!"
The blood froze in my veins. The voice from the phone wasn't the Sami I knew — it was a metallic ring, a voice from the deep abyss, carrying the coldness of graves. Whoever was speaking through Sami's phone was no longer Sami.
Emma didn't flinch. "Just as I thought... it's Asas.* Listen to me, boy: you are the master of your own body no matter what happens. Remember those words!"
"I told you to SHUUUUUT UUUUUP!"
A metallic screech erupted from the phone, shattering the sound barrier. The device began to heat in Emma's hand until smoke rose from it. The phone exploded — shards flying like burning embers in the cold air. Emma looked at her hand: not a scratch. She tossed the wreckage into the mud and looked up.
"Asas... the artifact is with Sami." No surprise in her voice. She had been looking for this thread for days.
—
Dajja stepped toward me with rhythmic strides — the steps of a man finishing overdue business. "Alright, Maytham... playtime is over."
Fidda moved her three selves to close the circle around me. No phone. No bombs. My silver pistol: just a heavy piece of iron. I thought to myself: Well... it was a good run.
But Emma's voice cut through: "Dajja."
The man stopped instantly. He turned toward her slowly. She stood with the same calm, looking at him like a grandmother watching a child mess with her belongings.
"This boy," she said simply, "owes me a meal."
Silence. Dajja weighed the options. Loss versus gain.
"Emma... this has nothing to do with you."
"Everything that interests me becomes my business. One of the privileges of age."
The Fidda trio dissolved, returning to a single form. Dajja took a step back.
"His time will come, Emma."
"Surely. But not today. And today is enough."
Dajja gave me one last look — one I didn't understand — then turned and walked away. Fidda followed in silence. I was left alone with Emma in the mud and the shards of my broken phone, wondering: Is Sami okay?
The only thing I knew for certain: Sami, for the first time in his life, was no longer single.
Tsk.
"And will the Barbers' Union ever forgive me for losing their honor in this desert?"
—
* Asas (عسعس) — An Arabic opposite word: one that carries a meaning and its exact reverse simultaneously. "Asas al-layl" means night advancing in its darkness, and also night retreating at the approach of dawn. Historically tied to the asas — the night watchmen who patrolled the dark.
— End of Chapter Ten —