by Ari Marmell
“We don’t. But until we rule it out, I’m gonna go on figurin’ it ain’t pure chance that he woke up here’n now. If only because that way means there’s part of this we can puzzle out.”
“Swell. So what do we do?”
Yeah.
“Tsura, you sure you don’t wanna pack it in, head back home before this gets…? All right! All right, I just hadda ask!”
“Okay. You asked.”
“For the luva Shakespeare, where’d you even learn to make an expression like that?”
“I’m… Did you just say—?”
“So,” I interrupted, “our missing mummy has some notion how to get around a modern city. But I gotta guess he ain’t gonna be real comfortable with Chicago, and he knows that the more he interacts with people, the more he risks exposure.”
“That makes sense,” Tsura said, scowling, “but if he’s gone into hiding, how’re we gonna find him?”
“Way I figure it, he’s either not too far from the carnival, or he’s in the vicinity of the Field. Even if it wasn’t somethin’ in the museum that woke him, there could be all kindsa things there callin’ to him. At the very least, some of the stuff there’d feel more familiar to him, more like home.”
“You’re guessing,” she accused me.
“You’d be surprised how much of detective work is just guessing from among the most likely options until somethin’ pans out.”
“Fantastic.”
She was up and pacing, now, which was somehow still less aggravating than her foot-tapping had been.
“Even if you’re right, you’re still talking about a few dozen blocks of possible hiding places.”
“You ain’t wrong. We need a way to pinpoint the damn thing, or at least narrow down the area some.”
She smirked at me. “So do you know any Ancient Egyptian bloodhounds?”
I froze, ’cept for a long, slow grin.
“You know what, sister? I don’t, but I might just have an angle on the next best thing…”
* * *
You wanna hear about another of my excursions to Elphame? Well, tough. I ain’t gonna tell you.
Aw, don’t worry about it. You ain’t missin’ anything. I won’t tell you ’cause there’s nothin’ worth telling. No trouble. No surprise ambush. No politicking. No run-ins with the Unseelie, or anyone in the Seelie Court who particularly wants me whacked. Not even a starin’ match with Slachaun the pugnacious spriggan. I went—alone; I wasn’t gonna literally pull Tsura further into my world—I found who I needed to talk to, we came back. Easy as pie.
It was night by the time my new Fae pal and I got to the Field Museum—where I was startin’ to feel as though I maybe oughta be payin’ rent, often as I’d been in there lately. And somebody was sittin’ on the front steps, waitin’ for me.
“Um,” I said.
Tsura, who wasn’t supposed to be there, leaned forward, crossed her hands under her chin, and gave me a smile I can only describe as fluttery.
“I thought you might forget to call me like you said you would.”
“I was gonna.”
No, I really was. I’d just wanted to figure out what kinda danger we were walkin’ into, first.
And maybe go ahead and deal with it, so she wouldn’t be walkin’ into it at all.
“Well, now you don’t have to. Isn’t that convenient?”
“How’d you even know when and where I was gonna… Oh. That was about to be a dumb question, wasn’t it?”
“Don’t sell yourself short, Mick. It already was.”
I couldn’t help it. I chuckled.
“Your powers pick the most aggravating times to kick in.”
“Don’t I know it. Mick, I get you’re trying to protect me. It’s sweet. But don’t ditch me again.”
“All right, kid. You got it.”
She stood, and finally gestured to my new pal.
“Just so you know, it wasn’t a serious suggestion. And also, that’s not a bloodhound.”
Oh, this was gonna be a fun explanation. I wasn’t sure what was gonna set her noggin spinning more—me gettin’ in there and letting her see the “dog” for what he really was, or her learning what I had planned for the evening’s next activity.
* * *
A little while and an important (if illegal) errand later, we started our search. Went around the block, and slowly worked our way out. Two blocks out, then three, and so on. We didn’t really need to bother with goin’ farther east, since there wasn’t much left between us and Lake Michigan, but in every other direction… Well, this was gonna take a while, even with our “hired help.”
I wondered what he looked like to the late-night pedestrians. He got himself a few stares, but they were of the same kind that any dog as big and shaggy as him woulda gotten. He was not drawin’ the sorta attention he woulda been if the mortals could actually see he was a luminous, aquatic green.
“Anything yet, Gwal?” I’d waited until there was nobody within earshot of the three of us. Didn’t figure even the most open-minded Chicagoan would take the conversation too well.
Gwalchmai wroofed somethin’ deep in his chest. “Do you think I’m going to forget to mention it if I do smell something, Oberon? It’s not as though I’m out here for the fun of it!” He paused, snuffling at a passing alley. “Why do they think we’re out here?” he asked, aiming his nose at a couple across the street.
“Far as they know, we’re just out walkin’ our dog.”
“Walking?”
“Y’know, lookin’ for a tree for you to mark. Or a fire hydrant.”
“What? That’s humiliating! What kind of sideshow are you making of me?”
I shrugged. “Just what’s expected here, Gwal. Same as the leash.”
“This is why I never come here. I hate the mortal world. Your payment better be worth all this.”
Tsura made a noise like she was chokin’ on marbles. Her blinkers were a little wild.
“I think something’s wrong with your mate, Oberon.”
“She’s not my mate.”
“Why not?”
“Just… keep sniffin’.” I dropped back a step or two, payin’ out the leash. “You okay, kid?” I asked Tsura.
“Do all dogs from Elphame talk?” she asked, breathless.
“I am not a dog!” Gwal huffed from up ahead.
Yeah, that wasn’t an argument I wanted to let happen.
“I told you,” I reminded her. “He’s cu sidhe. Fae, like me. Just… built a little different.”
“I am no more a dog than Oberon is a human.”
“Let it be, Gwal. She gets it.”
“Hmph.”
“And he can just sniff the mummy out?”
Wow, she really was shaken. We’d been through this already. Though I shoulda realized it wasn’t all sinkin’ in. She’d been too busy tryin’ to wrap her noodle around the idea of Gwalchmai.
To be fair, the fact that we’d been breakin’ into the Field Museum at the time had also had her real on edge.
“Heka ain’t exactly common in Chicago,” I told her. (Again.) “And the cu sidhe can ‘smell’ magic—sense it a lot more precisely’n I can. Gwal here couldn’t just snuffle up any old mojo, but now he’s got a nose for Egyptian magics, and there ain’t many sources of that around here. If the mummy’s usin’ any of it at all, there’s at least a chance Gwal can pick up on it.”
“And that’s why you broke into the goddamn museum? So he could use the relics there as… as scent articles?”
“Among other reasons.” I’d also had to pick somethin’ up from the workrooms downstairs, somethin’ I’d remembered seein’ back when I was hunting for the Spear of Lugh. “That’s really eatin’ at you, ain’t it?”
“You broke into the Field Museum!”
“So you just said.”
“And that doesn’t bother you at all?”
All I could do was shrug. “Ain’t as though it’s my first time.”
Tsura bega
n muttering in Greek. I made an effort not to translate it in my head; I didn’t figure I’d be any happier knowing.
On the square, for all my nonchalance, it’d never been—and still wasn’t—a sure thing. I’d come this close to trippin’ the alarm; they’d added some new triggers since last year, and the luck I’d drawn on to bypass the ones I knew about hadn’t covered those. Then, despite listenin’ with more’n human ears, me’n Gwal had somehow both managed to mistime the security guard’s patrol, and I’d hadda make him take a nap. He’d finally dropped about half a second before he coulda fired off a slug from his piece, which woulda made hiding the fact that somebody’d been there all but impossible.
Bad luck. It kept on poppin’ up, rearin’ its head just enough to remind me it was hauntin’ me. I know the curse ain’t technically the mummy’s fault—it’s somethin’ the priests who entombed him did, not anythin’ he chose—but he was still startin’ to seriously get under my skin.
Whole thing made me nervous, too. Gwal’s sniffer was good, but it wasn’t infallible and it could only smell so far. We could cover the area around the museum—and then around the carnival, if that didn’t pan out—but if the mummy wasn’t where I’d guessed, or if he’d found a way to mute his magic, there was nothin’ even the cu sidhe could do to dig him up. I was relyin’ on luck—as little of it as I could arrange, but some—at a time where me’n luck weren’t exactly on speakin’ terms.
Then we hit 8th, near State, and Gwalchmai’s head jerked up. I could see his nose wigglin’ fast enough to shatter glass, and his tail started thumpin’ near hard enough to knock him over.
Cu sidhe ain’t dogs, but they do have a lot in common.
“You got somethin’?”
He looked at me like I was a special kinda bunny and broke into a slow trot. Well, slow for him. Me’n Tsura hadda jog some to keep up.
Where he took us was a narrow stone building up on LaSalle, with a couple flagpoles—empty, now, since it was dark out—and a pretty modern revolving door up front, with broad windows to either side. Place even had a doorman, though his uniform was maybe a tad worn, the glass behind him just a little in need of cleaning.
“This can’t be right,” Tsura protested.
“You wanna tell Gwal he followed the wrong trail, be my guest. He probably won’t bite you too bad.”
I mean, this place was no Drake or Morrison. You wouldn’t find the upper-crust tourists stayin’ here, or the town’s high’n mighty livin’ on the top floors. But it was a nice place, respectable, sure as hell not cheap. And way fancier than the kinda rundown flophouse we’d expected to find our fugitive dead guy, on the off chance he was stayin’ anywhere near other people at all. In a dive, people don’t look at you twice; it’d be a lot easier for him to stay unnoticed. Here? I wasn’t entirely sure how he’d even gotten through the door.
In other words, this was hinky. Big time. And when you’re lookin’ for a mummy who got up and walked away, possibly in order to avoid the succubus tryin’ to steal him? Well, then, it takes a lot to even get to “hinky.”
’Course, there was another difficulty, too.
“Pretty sure a place this hoity-toity ain’t gonna allow us to bring our ‘dog.’”
Gwal snorted. “Stupid humans. But hey, I found you the place.”
“Yes, you did. Um, would you be willing to share the scent?”
“Oh, fine.”
I crouched, me’n the cu sidhe locking eyes, sharing thoughts. Took some real willpower to let him in even that far; I ain’t ever been fond of people getting into my noodle, and recent experience with Ramona’n McCall had only strengthened that. Still, I bit back the instinct to resist long enough to get from him a pretty good feel for the magic he’d picked up. Might take wandering the halls for a while, but now I should be able to feel the heka when I got close enough, even if the mummy wasn’t usin’ it for much of anything.
“All right, Oberon. Pay up.”
Well, he’d more than earned it. I reached into a flogger pocket and pulled out the other reason we’d sneaked into the Field. I wasn’t entirely sure what kinda bone it actually was, though I guessed some sorta primate. What mattered was that, one, it was older’n dirt, and two, bore the last lingering trace of ancient magics. If I hadda take a stab at it, I’da guessed it was part of an old shamanistic fetish.
Gwal clamped his jaws around it, growling with excitement—a sound still not as loud as the thwapping of his tail.
“So,” I said, wipin’ cu sidhe drool from my fingers, “you gonna need me to get you back home?”
“Don’ fink fo,” he answered around the once-in-a-century treat. “Got fome people to vivit while I’m here. Vey can pobably fend me home.”
“All right. That doesn’t work out, come by my office in a couple days. I’ll open a passage for you.” I stuck out a hand. “Pleasure doing business with you.”
He rolled his eyes, bumped a wet nose into my palm, and trotted off, bone clenched tight in his teeth and tail threatening to hurl him off the sidewalk with each delighted wag.
Tsura squeezed the bridge of her nose between two fingers.
“Every time I start to think that things can’t possibly get any weirder around you…”
“Oh, I got an easy solution to that,” I told her.
“Let me guess. Stop ever thinking that things can’t get weirder?”
“Bingo. Works for me, anyway. Shall we?”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
I jerked a nod to the doorman, slid around the revolving door, and then decided there might be a quicker way to find our quarry than trooping aimlessly up and down the halls like an idiot. Instead I sauntered up to the counter, with its not-quite-hardwood veneer and not-quite-marble top, and poked at the brass service bell until somebody finally emerged from the back room. He was a middle-aged hombre in neat glad rags with a halfway decent toupee and a smile that looked about as genuine.
“How can I help you tonight, sir?” He put just enough weight on “tonight” to convey that he wasn’t real thrilled with the idea of checkin’ anyone new in so late. His words also tasted like he wasn’t real sure he approved of Tsura’n me just in general.
Fine by me. I wasn’t gonna lose any sleep over his opinion.
“I hope you can,” I said. “I’m lookin’ for a guest. Woulda checked in within the last few days.” This woulda been easier if I knew exactly how the stiff was blending in, but… “Probably somethin’ off about him. Maybe how he was dressed, or—”
“I’m sorry, sir,” he said, clearly not sorry at all. “It’s against hotel policy to discuss our clientele. Now, if that’s all…”
So I cursed once under my breath and did it the other way, juggling his thoughts and feelings until the ones I wanted—trust and compliance, mostly—landed at the top of the heap. I asked again and got what I wanted.
Yeah, some weird, sloppily dressed little fella’d come in a few nights ago, even later’n this. My new friend wouldn’t have checked him in, especially since he had a peculiar accent and smelled funny—obviously some filthy foreigner, he confided in me, makin’ me wanna sock his teeth out—but somebody higher up in management had overruled him. Guy hadn’t made so much as a peep since, ’cept on his second night, to politely request housekeeping stay outta his room.
Once I got him to spill which room that was—339, if for some reason you’re curious—I stepped back outta his head and made for the stairs.
Tsura and I ended up in a hallway with cream-colored walls and slightly scuffed red carpeting, standing next to a potted plant and staring at the mummy’s door.
“Do we knock?” she asked.
I actually wasn’t sure what the best way to handle this was. Bust in? Good way to attract attention, and probably ruled out a peaceful sit-down. On the other hand, if he was already in a hostile mood, did we wanna give him any advance warning we were here? I still didn’t know what he wanted, what kinda mojo he had available, or… much of anythin’ else really.
>
“I think…”
I dunno how I woulda ended that sentence, frankly, but it turned out not to matter.
“I know that you stand outside my door.” Voice was rough, hoarse, not real strong—like a wheezing old man, ’cept without the wheezing—but it still carried clear enough. It also spoke English with an accent I’d never heard in all my years. “You may as well step inside. We should not be so discourteous as to wake my neighbors while we decide whether or not we must do battle.”
“Well,” I said to Tsura after a minute, “I guess I can’t argue with that.”
“I could.” She didn’t, though.
I tried the door, found it unlocked, and went in, Tsura followin’ close behind.
First thing to hit was the scent, both physical and spiritual. The former, a bizarre combination of spices and incense, resin and sand, unwashed sweat—from the stolen clothes, I’d expect—and a hint of decay so faint I doubt Tsura could even smell it. The latter? Magic, deep, old, but not like anything I knew. Came from all around, yeah, but also, for no good reason, from below. And I don’t mean like “the floor” or “the carpet,” but way below. A supernatural below.
Underworld below.
The man, if that’s even the right word, sat cross-legged on the edge of the bed, watchin’ us. The shoes he’d swiped were too big, his pants rolled up at the cuff so they didn’t drag, and I could tell even with him sittin’ that his coat woulda swept the floor behind him. Not surprisin’, any of that; folks today were a bit taller than they’d been in his time. His fingers, barely protruding from his sleeves, were worn and leathery like smoked meat, and his mug looked much the same. Wrinkled, brown, rough, gaunt and bony—but like an old man who’d spent his life outside, not like somebody who’d been entombed before the Old Testament was a best-seller.
Only thing about him that really looked dead was the empty sockets; just fallen black holes where his peepers shoulda been. But in poor lighting or the shadow of a broad hat—or hell, if he just made a point of lookin’ down at his feet—it wouldn’ta been obvious.
“You don’t look like a pork rind after all,” I said.