The creative team behind the new monthly series AIR brings together ancient and modern Middle East with a Vertigo twist. A stolen hookah, a spiritual underworld and a genie on the run change the lives of five strangers forever in this modern fable set on the streets of the Middle East's largest metropolis. This magical-realism thriller interweaves the fates of a drug runner, a down-on-his-luck journalist, an American expatriate, a young activist and an Israeli soldier as they race through bustling present-day Cairo to find an artifact of unimaginable power, one protected by a dignified jinn and sought by a wrathful gangster-magician. But the vastness of Africa's legendary City of Victory extends into a spiritual realm --- the Undernile --- and even darker powers lurk there...

Julie Martin's life is crumbling before her eyes. Bill collectors are constantly harassing her, she barely has enough money to feed herself, let alone her dog, and she's wracked with guilt over the mental debilitation of her sister. Then her life changes even more when a strange metal rains down from the sky and clings tightly to her skin.