Chapter 9: The Brothers Khalid and Ahmed
Once upon a time, there were two brothers, Khalid and Ahmed. Khalid and Ahmed fought as children, as brothers did, but soon they learned to turn their aggression in other directions, as they became devoted followers of Laquinta, which was a very powerful presence in southern Egypt.
Things were well between the brothers until Ahmed went out and got married, against his family's wishes, to a woman named Latifa from the neighboring Hormel tribe. There was nothing wrong with the Hormel
per se
, but most of them were Schiar Laquintans, and Ahmed's families were Suttis.
Schiars and Suttis hated each other like poison. They both believed in Laquinta, the Great God of Blood, but each had slightly different ways of worshipping him. These slight differences were deemed heretical by the Schiars and Suttis respectively, and as a result, Schiars and Suttis had been trying to kill each other for approximately 1400 years. Sometimes they took breaks when they joined forces to fight unbelievers, but when the fight against outsiders was over, they would invariably return to their own intra-religious genocide once again. It had been going on so long that it was considered normal for Schiars to kill Suttis and Suttis to kill Schiars.
And yet... some Suttis were friends with Schiars. And some Schiars were friends with some Suttis.
When Ahmed saw Latifa drawing water at the well for her goats, and saw her heavy, Arabic breasts, he decided immediately he wanted to be more than just friends with her. He immediately struck up a conversation with her, based on the one thing he knew they had in common.
"Hello there," he said, going up to the well. "Do you love Laquinta?"
"Of course I love Laquinta!" her dark eyes flared, her eyelashes fluttering. "And you?"
"More than anything," said Ahmed, giving a broad smile.
It was all downhill after that.
Of course, they had to date each other in secret, given the animosities their religions had for one another. But finally the day came when Ahmed felt confident enough to introduce Latifa to his family... as his new wife.
Mother was apoplectic. Father's reaction would probably have been worse, if he hadn't died of an acute case of Ass to Mouth Disease from his favorite falafel stand. But Ahmed's older brother Khalid was the one with the truly angry eyes. "What have you done? You have married this pig, this Schiar? You have disgraced us all!"
Ahmed launched himself at his brother, and they pummeled each other furiously. They might have harmed each other seriously if Mother hadn't shot Father's blaster into the air and commanded them to separate.
It was obvious that Ahmed couldn't continue to live with the family, so he built a shack on the hill where he tended goats and promised Fatima that great things would be in store for them.
Only, they weren't. Ahmed came home one day to find Fatima hanging from the ceiling, the words WHORE emblazoned on her forehead.
He knew who was responsible. And so two days later, Ahmed returned to his childhood home and executed Khalid's wife, Mursha, and his five year old daughter, Shoha, while Khalid was out escorting the camels to market.
When Khalid returned from the market to find his own family dead, he hunted down Ahmed. Ahmed was waiting for him at his hut, and stabbed Khalid in the belly when he entered. Khalid, feeling the life draining from him, summoned up the energy to raise his blaster, and shot Khalid in the chest. Then they both fell down, side by side, and slowly died together.
"I hate you," Khalid whispered, his face inches from Ahmed's.
"And I hate you," said Ahmed.
And then they died.
Only, they didn't, not really.
They turned into
kalaks
. Ahmed became a Shade, and Khalid became a Fiend, which was somewhat more powerful than a Shade. The two were startled to find themselves in a glowing, spectral form. They were expecting to be transported to paradise where Laquinta promised them 69 virgins to pleasure them eternally, some as young as nine years of age, the age of one of Laquinta's seven wives.
But in this form... they didn't even have bodies. It took them a while to figure out that they could go inside other people's bodies, and longer to learn how to control them. When they did figure out their situation, both their thoughts turned to the same idea: extinguishing the other.
*********
For the next 94 years, Ahmed and Khalid murdered each other. Sometimes they were students in Oslo; sometimes they were construction workers in Pittsburg; sometimes they were random people in Los Angeles; but they were always near each other, always hunting one another.
At the moment, Ahmed and Khalid were strangling each other with their bare hands in the long study room in Sterling Memorial Library at Yale University. Normally the room, which could seat 200 students at the rows and rows of long desks, was totally quiet, no matter how many people filled the room.
But today the room was raucous, as the sounds of Ahmed and Khalid fighting each other filled the hall.
"Security, someone call security," a wimpy beta-male voice bleated. A circle of students gathered around Ahmed and Khalid, who were in the bodies of two students, desperately trying to kill the other. None of them interfered.
Suddenly two members of campus security showed up, a skinny 90 pound girl, and an even skinner 85 pound girl, both dressed in black, both with multiple face and body piercings.
"All right, break it up, break it up you two," said the 90 pound, who was clearly in charge. She moved to separate them as Khalid, on top of Ahmed, finally got a chokehold. Khalid barely registered the girl trying to pull him off. He flung her away with a dismissive hand. The 90 pound girl flew into the edge of a book case and cracked her skull. She fell to the ground in a daze.
The other 85 pound girl, traumatized by what had happened to her companion, fainted by her side.
"Now I have you, Ahmed!" said Khalid. He squeezed, and squeezed, and the life drained out of Ahmed's host. In moments, Ahmed stopped moving.
And then everyone was treated to an amazing scene, as Ahmed's
kalak
emerged from the dead body, and Khalid's
kalak
emerged from his. They chatted with each other amicably as they flew up and up and through the library ceiling.
"You always win. This is no fair," Ahmed complained.
"How could it be unfair? Your infidel was just as strong as mine," said Khalid, chuckling. Shades and Fiends looked very much alike, both glowing sheets vaguely in human form, with glowing red eyes, but Fiends had more bulk and substance to them, so Khalid was a little larger than Ahmed.
"But you are a stronger ghost. I always have trouble taking control of my infidel."
"That is because you displeased the Great God of Blood by marrying a disgusting Schiar whore-pig."
"Hate you, Khalid!" The shape of Ahmed started to swirl dangerously around the shape of Khalid as they flew above New Haven.
"Hate you, Ahmed!" Khalid yelled, fighting him back.
*********
They both eventually calmed down, as they always did, and agreed to play a new game. Khalid had spotted a packed football stadium from the air which had definite possibilities.
