As I turned the knob, I heard startled yelps from inside. I pushed the door open, afraid Sheyenne was in trouble—and saw a terrified Korean family seated around a table playing dominoes. Parents, three kids, and an old grandfather.
“What are you doing here?” Sheyenne demanded.
Upon entering the apartment, I experienced a flood of memories, and not the good ones . . . not memories of how Sheyenne and I had started kissing as soon as we passed through the door, not the memory of her low-lit bedroom down the hall. No, what I remembered was when the landlord and I had found her sprawled and dying on the living room floor, already jaundiced and emaciated, too weak to move from the toadstool toxin.
This Korean family playing a game of dominoes did not fit the picture.
The three children screamed—not an unexpected reaction when a ghost floats through the wall and a strange zombie barges through the door. The father and grandfather stood together, ready to defend their home; the mother gathered her children. One young boy grabbed a handful of domino tiles and hurled them at me. “Go away!”
“He’s rented it already, Spooky,” I said. Her landlord had wasted no time. “This isn’t your place anymore.”
“But there’s got to be a clue in here. I know we missed something!”
I apologized to the terrified Korean family. “We’re very sorry. We didn’t mean to intrude. Wrong address.”
Dying had been hard enough for Sheyenne. Then she had to confront the fact that all the everyday details of her life were quickly and completely erased.
Yes, I could understand why Uncle Stan would try to cling to his lost loved ones. But he didn’t have to be obnoxious about it.
Although Brad Dorset looked skeptical about the suggestion, Robin continued, “I’ve had some successes with mediation in cases like this. While I’m not a family-practice lawyer, I am a specialist in unnatural law, and we do have many clients who are ghosts. I presume you brought the medium along so you could summon Uncle Stan?”
“I can go into a trance right here and call him.” Millicent Sanchez extended her forearms across the table so that her silver bracelets rattled. “Whenever you’re ready?”
Robin studied her yellow legal pad and double-checked her notes. “I have enough information for an initial discussion.”
Turning her hands palm up, the medium touched thumb and forefinger together and began to hum deep in her throat, as if practicing some form of Buddhist meditation.
Before she could finish her formal summons, the ghost of a chubby man appeared behind her, put both thumbs at the sides of his mouth, and stretched his lips in an inane clownish gesture. “I’m already here. I come and go when I want to!” He let out an exaggerated huff. “And I’m very offended. Jackie, you were always my favorite niece. This hurts my feelings!”
Jackie Dorset hung her head, her lip trembling as she fought back tears.
“She’s your only niece,” Brad said.
“You were never good enough for her!” The ghost loomed over Brad. “Jackie should have waited for someone better.” Uncle Stan stormed and wove around the room, fluttering papers, rattling the doorknob, setting up a spectral wind. “You’re not getting rid of me—I’m family! You have to keep me around.”
Hearing the ruckus, Sheyenne flitted through the closed door of the conference room and gave Uncle Stan a withering frown. “That’s not acceptable behavior from a ghost.” Stan huffed at her, and she was about to scold him further when the office phone rang and she whisked herself back to the receptionist’s desk.
The medium said in a thready voice, “The family respectfully requests that you leave them in peace, that you move on. Travel toward the Light.”
In response, Uncle Stan jangled her silver bracelets, then yanked off her scarf, flapping it in front of her face like a matador taunting a bull. Millicent Sanchez grabbed at the fabric, trying to snatch it out of the air, but Stan kept taunting her.
Jackie began sobbing. “Uncle Stan, stop it, stop it!”
“Sir, we’d prefer to keep this amicable, but if you persist in this unreasonable behavior, we will be forced to take formal legal action,” Robin said.
“Go ahead and try!” Stan chortled. “What are you going to do, send some charlatan with a Bible and a dowsing rod? Paint the house doors red?” He stuck out his tongue, gave a loud raspberry, and flitted past the kids—who looked up in shock and dismay.
“He deleted our high scores!” wailed Joshua.
“You can’t make me do anything I don’t want to do.” Uncle Stan hiccupped, then farted—mere affectations, since no air traveled in or out of any orifice of a poltergeist. Then his ghost vanished with a popping sound.
The Dorsets looked shaken and hopeless. The medium grabbed her scarf and tied it around her hair again in an attempt to regain her dignity.
“That could have gone better,” I said.
Brad Dorset rose from his chair, upset. He glanced down at his wife. “I know he’s your uncle, but we’ve got to do something.”
She turned to Robin. “Take whatever legal action is necessary, Ms. Deyer. Make him rest in peace, so we can get some peace.”
Robin escorted them out of the conference room and to the office door. “I’m sorry about this. We’ll do everything we can.”
Sheyenne was at her desk, talking on the phone, her expression filled with alarm. She hung up. “Dan, Robin—you’ve got to get to the museum right away—they need you!”
“What’s the matter?” I asked.
“It’s Ramen Ho-Tep—he’s taken hostages!”
CHAPTER 24
The Metropolitan Natural History Museum was a grand, ancient structure that belonged in an even larger museum itself. Strung across giant Corinthian columns, a fabric banner advertised SPECIAL NECRONOMICON EXHIBITION, LIMITED TIME ONLY: THE ORIGINAL BOOK AND ITS INFLUENCE THROUGHOUT THE AGES.
On either side of the stone steps, two immense pedestals held fearsome gargoyle statues. Real gargoyles loved to stand next to the statues, making faces and mugging for the cameras so that their friends could take souvenir photos.
Robin drove recklessly through the streets and pulled up in front of the museum, stopping so abruptly that the old Maverick shed more shards of rust. Her desperation to intervene with Ramen Ho-Tep became even more apparent when she parked the Pro Bono Mobile illegally close to a fire hydrant and didn’t even seem concerned about it. We ran up the steps, swimming upstream against a flood of evacuating patrons. A harried teacher herded an unruly class of fourth graders out of the museum.
The kids looked fascinated. “Why can’t we stay and watch?” cried one little girl. “That was interesting!”
“It’s not supposed to be interesting. This is an educational field trip.” The teacher ushered them along. “Go on, move.”
Robin and I ran through the front door, where an alarmed-looking cashier tried to charge us admission. I took command. “No time. This is a crisis.” I didn’t know if the mummy had threatened anyone; we just knew it was an emergency, something that was life or death . . . or other. “Where’s the Egyptian wing?”
“South hall,” the cashier blurted. “But it’s being evacuated.”
“We know.” Robin pulled out her pocketbook, flashed her bar card from the Board of Professional Responsibility. “I’m the attorney representing Ramen Ho-Tep. I need to see him before the situation gets out of hand.”
“You’re a little late for that,” the cashier said.
Robin and I were already running through the security scanner. Since we hadn’t paid admission—and also because I was carrying my .38—an alarm went off, but the museum guards were otherwise occupied. Robin seemed very upset to be breaking the rules, so I said to her, “Don’t worry, we’ll pay before we leave.”
Oddly enough, that mollified her.
We ran past the arachnid display, then the Sorcery and Alchemy Hall on our way to Ancient Egypt. In the central hall, we encountered the ambitious Necronomicon exhibit. The M
etropolitan Museum had pulled strings and fought challenges in court for the right to display the thick tome. Two lawsuits claimed the book posed a danger to the human public, although the time to worry about danger had already passed.
Though we needed to get to Ramen Ho-Tep, I hesitated, feeling an eerie connection to the magical book. This very copy of the Necronomicon, bound in leather made from the cured skin of infants and penned in human blood, was the reason I had come back from the dead—the reason all the unnaturals were now alive and abroad.
More than ten years ago, every rational person would have laughed at the possibility. Not anymore.
The planets had aligned in some sort of pattern that only astrologers considered significant. The original copy of the Necronomicon had inadvertently been left out under the light of a full moon, and a virgin woman (fifty-eight years old but a virgin nevertheless) had cut her finger (a paper cut, but a cut nevertheless) and spilled blood on the pages—which activated some buried spell and caused a fundamental shift in the natural order of things, unleashing ghosts and goblins, vampires and werewolves, zombies, ghouls, and all manner of monsters. Even the previously existing ones had come out of the closet.
The Big Uneasy.
Any further explanation, scientific or otherwise, was above my pay grade. The world had been dealing with the repercussions ever since.
“Dan, quit looking at the exhibits,” Robin called. “Come on—Mr. Ho-Tep needs us!”
We encountered a crowd at the entrance to the Ancient Egypt wing, but Robin pushed past the people. “I’m his attorney. Let me through!”
The large display chamber held papier-mâché replicas of a pyramid and a gaudily painted sphinx, a shelf filled with canopic jars, and a diorama of papyrus marshes with Egyptian mannequins.
And Ramen Ho-Tep, who held them all enthralled.
I heard the mummy’s distinctive British voice. “Not one step closer, you wankers! I’ll do it! I’m warning you—I’ll do it!”
Patrons who had been evacuated—by only ten or fifteen feet—watched in horrified fascination, leaning forward to get a better view. Three uniformed museum guards stood tense, ready to tackle the mummy to the floor; if they did that, he would probably shatter into bone dust and lint.
Ramen Ho-Tep had not, after all, taken hostages, nor had he seized one of the guards’ weapons. It was worse.
In front of the exhibit’s open sarcophagus, the mummy sat cross-legged on the floor. I couldn’t imagine how he’d managed to bend his dried-jerky muscles and petrified bones into such a configuration. He dangled a red can of gasoline in his clawlike hands, threatening to dump it on himself. One of the guards held a long canvas fire hose, ready to open the valve if Ho-Tep should succeed in igniting his bandages; I suspected the high-powered spray would damage the mummy as much as a fire.
One man in a clean dark business suit, a neat tie, and gold wire-rimmed glasses looked highly agitated. Ramen Ho-Tep seemed most upset with him. I recognized the human museum curator, Bram Steffords, who had been so proud to obtain the Necronomicon exhibit after reopening the Metropolitan Natural History Museum “in these exciting, though darker times.” I had shaken the curator’s hand during the ribbon-cutting ceremony, but I doubted he remembered me.
Steffords growled, “If you carry out your threat, Mr. Ho-Tep, I promise we will bring you up on full charges for destroying priceless antiquities. The museum will sue you for damages to yourself and to this exhibit, as well as lost revenue.”
“I don’t give a bloody damn about your revenue, or your antiquities! I am the antiquity! But I’m a person, not property!”
“We have the paperwork to prove otherwise, Mr. Ho-Tep. Now stop this nonsense and put down that gasoline!”
To solidify his threat, Ramen Ho-Tep unscrewed the fuel cap. Fumes wafted up, and the guards backed away.
“I’ve got this,” Robin said to me and pushed forward. “Excuse me, excuse me!”
The mummy turned toward her. Behind the bandages on his face, his chapped lips twitched in what might have been a surprised smile.
In that moment of hesitation, Steffords yelled to the guards, “Now! Jump him!”
But Robin threw herself between them and Ramen Ho-Tep. “You’ll do no such thing! This man is my client!”
Steffords looked at her. “And who the hell are you?”
“Robin Deyer, Esquire, of Chambeaux and Deyer.”
I reached into my jacket pocket, withdrew a business card, and handed it to the curator.
“I shan’t go back on display,” the mummy said. “I’d sooner burn myself and let my ashes join the river of time.”
“He’s been going on like that for an hour,” one of the guards said to me out of the side of his mouth.
“We can resolve this, Mr. Ho-Tep,” Robin said. “Think about the loss to history. Please give me a chance.”
“I’ve waited quite long enough, thank you. I shall no longer endure being a prisoner. I was Pharaoh of all Egypt, and I deserve to be treated with respect!”
“Ask him if he had a girlfriend or something,” the curator said. “Maybe we can dig her up and add her to our museum display if he wants companionship.”
“I wish to be a free man!”
“And I want to be the King of England,” Steffords quipped, imitating the mummy’s British accent. “But that isn’t likely to happen, is it?”
“Bloody hell, don’t you disrespect me, you insignificant grave robber!” Ramen Ho-Tep sloshed the gas can, and a few drops spilled onto his brown gauze bandages. Clutched in his left hand was a disposable butane lighter, but I saw, like everyone else did, that he was holding it upside down. The ancient mummy had no idea how to use a lighter.
Robin said in a plaintive voice, “Mr. Ho-Tep, you’re only hurting our case. We have to make our appeal according to the law. The law is the safety net that holds society together. This is not a solution. If you strike that lighter, no one wins: You lose everything, the world loses your priceless knowledge, and I lose a friend.”
The mummy’s hand wavered.
“I’m going to set up mediation so both parties can discuss this matter as adults.” Robin glared at the curator. “Mr. Steffords, I suggest that you and your legal counsel attend. After airing grievances, we’ll see if we can’t reach some kind of compromise. We all want this to work.”
“The bugger’s going to have to make some damned hefty concessions,” the mummy said.
“And I’m tired of this melodrama,” said Steffords. “Our artifacts are supposed to be on display, not on stage. This is a respectable museum, not vaudeville.”
I relieved the mummy of his gas can, capping it gingerly.
“How about ten A.M. Tuesday?” Robin suggested.
The curator fidgeted. “I’ll have my secretary check my schedule.”
“Clear your schedule,” I said. “Ten o’clock. Tuesday.”
Robin looked at Ramen Ho-Tep. “Are you busy at that time, Mr. Ho-Tep?”
“My calendar’s been open for thousands of years.”
“We look forward to seeing you, then.” She slipped her arm through mine, and we walked out of the south wing and made our way to the museum entrance.
And yes, Robin did insist that we pay admission before we left.
CHAPTER 25
As we drove away from the museum, pleased at having averted a tragedy, Robin suggested we make a surprise visit to Jekyll Lifestyle Products and Necroceuticals. “We might unsettle him.” She gave me an eager smile. “And it’ll give us something to report to Miranda next time she pops in.”
“I like the way you think,” I said. Maybe I would pick up a clue about why Jekyll had been sneaking around with Brondon Morris. “Besides, we’re out together anyway. It’s good for you to get away from the office.”
“Visiting a chemical factory that makes perfumes, deodorants, and toiletries isn’t much of an outing.”
I had been inside the factory before—illicitly—while investigating the g
arlic-laced shampoo lawsuit. I’d posed as a worker on the chemical mixing lines and then, after hiding out at the tail end of a shift, I crept into the main admin offices after hours and got my hands on proof that the shampoo contamination was a matter of record and that JLPN was culpable. The company complained to the court about the evidence submission and appealed the ruling, but they never managed to pin burglary charges on me, although the judge found it unrealistically convenient that an “anonymous source” would produce the precise documents Robin needed to win the case and secure a large judgment.
When we pulled into the JLPN guest parking lot, Robin’s car was definitely the oldest one there. A limousine sprawled across two spots, both of which were designated “For Harvard Stanford Jekyll.”
Inside the fence, the mammoth industrial building was capped by a tall smokestack spurting purple and green fumes. The sign in front of the entrance said JEKYLL LIFESTYLE PRODUCTS & NECROCEUTICALS—WE BRING FRESH BACK TO A STALE WORLD. Then, in smaller letters, AN EQUAL OPPORTUNITY EMPLOYER. In front, a tan-brick administrative office building sat apart from the factory.
“It smells like a thousand mall candle shops crammed into a trash compactor and left out in the sun,” Robin said as she got out of the rusty Maverick.
I saw a loading dock and many trucks parked in a line, ready to be loaded with the new line of necroceuticals for distribution in the Quarter. A flurry of workers used hand trucks and forklifts to haul crates out of the chemical factory; each box was stenciled with Try Our New Line! The workers rushed around like turbo-charged termites. A few golems would have been great for heavy labor like this, but as far as I could see, all of the JLPN employees were human.
A delivery truck backed up to the big doors, and men hurried forward with pallets of new shampoos, deodorants, liquid soaps, perfumes. As soon as a fully loaded truck drove off, the next empty one backed up to the dock.
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