by Ari Marmell
But nope, he behaved himself, as did everyone else, despite some nasty glares. Eventually, the overhead lights dimmed, the ones over the makeshift stage flipped on with a loud snap, and we all figured that was our cue to plunk our keisters down. Me’n Tsura sat at the back, since what I needed now was mostly to stay unnoticed and kill some time before the shit started flyin’.
The curtain rustled and waggled. A couple’a muffled curses sounded from behind it, followed by a dull thump. Then they rustled again and slid open.
Behind ’em, Nessumontu faced us, leaning back on a shallowly angled slab. His arms lay across his chest in typical “old dead guy” fashion; the light and leathery crags of his mug made it impossible to tell if his blinkers—well, his empty sockets—were open or shut.
He was incased in a box of thick glass, each pane deeply etched with binding circles, glyphs, Hebrew letters, and similar scribblings. As I’ve said, I ain’t too familiar with Kabbalah, but I recognized the power inherent in the work. To say nothin’ of the fact that the glass was so fat it could probably take a couple high-caliber slugs before it even started to crack.
And standin’ next to it, dressed in a sharp tux, was…
Not Fleischer. Huh.
“All right, you… ladies and gentlemen,” Nolan Shea, capo of the Uptown Boys, said, steppin’ forward. “Let’s quiet down and get to—”
“Where’s your boss?” someone in the audience demanded.
I actually heard Shea’s teeth grind.
“Mr. Fleischer’s got more important business to attend to. I’ll be runnin’ this show.”
A few folks grumbled, probably puffed up and offended that the big guy wasn’t catering to ’em personally, but nobody got up’n left.
Me, I didn’t entirely buy it. No matter how precisely he’d designed Nessumontu’s cage, there was always the chance of somethin’ queering the deal. Unless any of the Uptown Boys were also Kabbalists, which I didn’t suppose was too likely, he’d wanna be nearby to shore things up if necessary.
On the other hand, claimin’ he wasn’t here and hangin’ back outta sight, so he could either step in or take the run-out, depending on which seemed the better idea… Yeah, that I could see.
Given what was comin’, my guess was that he’d make tracks faster’n a hummingbird with its tail feathers on fire.
Shea dove into his spiel and I leaned back in my seat, just waitin’. He basically went through everything I already knew—the nature of the spells inscribed on Nessumontu’s wrappings, their potential to commune with, and just maybe even wake, the dead, alla that. How it’d take a lotta occult knowledge and study of Egyptian traditions to even begin to make sense of it all, but that the power’d be more’n worth the effort to anyone willing to make it.
He also admitted that the mummy was conscious, only held in mystical slumber by the case he was in, but that Fleischer knew how to rip the lingering spirit from the stiff if the buyer didn’t have the means of doing so himself—and would be happy to provide either that service, or the case itself, if the buyer wanted to keep the mummy alive, for an extra fee.
Can I tell you again just how much I frickin’ hate mobsters? They even ruin magic.
I’m paraphrasin’ here, of course. Shea’s speechifying went on a good while. It had to. Yeah, we were all here for a showing, to see the merchandise, but nobody was gonna be able to actually get in there, open up the bandages and read for themselves. This wasn’t an open auction; everyone got one chance to make a secret offer, once the showing was complete. A whole lotta Fleischer’s potential profit on this deal relied on Shea convincing everybody that the stiff was worth a whole heap of kale. So believe you me, the gink was doin’ the hard sell, hittin’ every possible use and advantage he could come up with.
Me, I was startin’ to get antsy. The special guest star shoulda arrived by now, and the notion that she might not show was only slightly more discomforting, at this point, than the notion that I might have to listen to the entire damn sales pitch before she did.
When Shea suddenly jerked to a halt at the sound of clicking footsteps comin’ our way through the darkness at the front door, I almost jumped outta my chair and screamed hallelujah.
More’n one set of footsteps, actually, which I’d expected. Demanded, even. But the fact it was more’n two threw me a sec.
“Hey! Assholes!” So much for Shea’s efforts to sound classy. “I thought I told you idiots not to let anyone else in once we got started! What’re you—?”
“Oh, you’ll have to forgive them,” McCall cooed. “I’m afraid they’ve really got their minds on other matters right now.”
She strutted into the light, swishing enough to make even Medusa’s ex-beau sit up and take notice. Pete followed half a pace behind, dazed and disheveled. He hadn’t shaved since I’d seen him last, and now he was close enough for me to tell with half a sniff that he hadn’t showered at all in that time, either. Looked a little wan, too, like he hadn’t been eating much.
I almost bit through my tongue, keepin’ my temper under control. I didn’t need to call that kinda heat, not yet. But right in that moment? I coulda razed the whole building and everyone in it—’cept Pete and Tsura—if I could be sure of getting the damn succubus with ’em.
Trailin’ behind them, like a buncha dazed ducklings, were the guards who were supposed to have kept ’em out. Yeah.
“And you’ll have to forgive me my little interruption,” she continued, smiling broadly. “I just have a quick appointment to keep, and then you all can get right back to bidding on your dead—”
“You bitch!”
McCall’s jaw dropped as Ramona shot from her seat.
“You… But… You’re supposed to be…!”
All hell broke loose.
I’d gone for the L&G as soon as McCall started speakin’, slowly rising from my chair. I was fully aware I’d only have an instant before she realized that I musta broken our deal if Ramona wasn’t unconscious, bound, or otherwise trussed up and ready for shipping. No way I was gonna let Pete suffer for that.
So even as she was gawpin’ at Ramona, I fired a burst of magic at Pete, carefully aimed and tightly controlled, draining luck from around his feet’n ankles and filtering it up into the rest of his aura.
My buddy toppled like somebody’d yanked the rug out from under him, just in time to avoid the furious swipe McCall suddenly directed his way. She had just enough time to glare at me with all the hatred of the Pit, and then she had more immediate concerns.
You gotta understand somethin’, ’cause you’ve only ever heard about Ramona and McCall bein’ charming or manipulative. It’s what they do. They’re good at it. But sometimes, a plan breaks down, instinct and frustration sweep aside all planning, all façades, all thought—and it’s only then you see ’em for what they are.
Raging. Bestial. Nothin’ feminine, nothin’ human, not even anythin’ Fae.
Maybe it’s true, maybe it ain’t, but when it comes to wrath, hatred, there’s a reason we call ’em demons.
With the shrieking of the damned, Ramona took to the air of the cavernous warehouse, all semblance of humanity fallin’ away, and McCall leapt to meet her. Those pitted, metallic black talons—not iron, but near as painful; I knew that from old experience—extended until they were longer’n the fingers that held ’em. Hair and flesh split, pushed aside by sprouting horns, and the rest of their skin turned red; not blushing, not even like a sunburn, but as if the blood underneath it boiled. Pupils expanded until their eyes were nothin’ but bloodshot black, and fabric shredded to make way for broad, thunderous wings of membranous leather and bone. Beneath and around the raging demons, the air grew thick with choking sulfur.
They slammed together overhead, thrashing and clawing and even chewing, held aloft by somethin’ more than those wings. Skin split, rotted at the unholy touch of those talons, healed almost as quickly only to split again. Blood rained across the center of the room, burning holes in fabric and fles
h so that other screams rose to join theirs.
People scattered, scrambled, upturning chairs and knockin’ each other over in their mad dash to get away from the brawling demons. It was a cauldron of bubbling chaos that only got worse when Shea shouted “Oberon!” and several of his goons appeared behind him from backstage, roscoes raised.
Guess it was too much to hope that he’da missed me in all the hubbub.
“You’re behind this, ain’tcha, you bastard!” he accused.
“What? No!” Well, I mean, yeah, sorta. But… “I ain’t the threat here, Shea! Don’t be a—”
“Fill him fulla daylight!”
Wouldja believe I really wanted to yell back, “It’s nighttime!” as I dived for cover behind the last row of chairs? Yeah; yeah, you probably would. I didn’t, though, and he wouldn’ta heard me over the roar of the Tommies even if I had. I rolled, wand clenched tight, slugs and wooden splinters whippin’ up a storm overhead.
Other guns shot back, a few of the jumpier sorts in the audience instinctively returning fire. I tried to get a slant on all of it, figure out where might be safe for a spell, who was shootin’ at who, where Tsura’d gotten to in the chaos…
Then, from the bloody brawl overhead, McCall managed to shout out a clear, if inhuman-sounding, “Kill Staten!” And I had no more time for pondering.
One blast with the wand, sweepin’ the stage, random and haphazard, slammin’ Shea and his boys with as much misfortune as I could manage. Then I scrambled upright and ran, sprintin’ hard as I could across the warehouse, winding the luck I’d just stolen around me. I ducked, weaved, everything I could manage to stay a hard target. Between that and the extra luck, I managed not to catch any lead, though a few of the shots came pretty near and I was gonna have to consign yet another coat to the trash.
The second group of guards, the ones McCall’d mickeyed on her way in, saw me comin’.
Good; I’d meant ’em to.
What the succubi do, it’s emotional, not mind control. Their victims can still think for ’emselves, they just want to make the demon dames happy. Which meant that these guys were only too willin’ to whack Pete, but they weren’t gonna ignore oncomin’ danger to do it.
So instead they turned their guns on me. Hooray?
Fortunately, they hadn’t been too far away, and they couldn’t have expected me to close as quick as I did; I’m faster’n you mugs when I put my mind to it. Soon as I knew I had their attention (and their aim), I dove, hit the ground at a roll that probably woulda shattered a collarbone if I’d been human; couldn’t afford to do it any slower, since I still had the ginks across the room squirtin’ lead at me, too. I popped right back up and fired the L&G again. Put everything I could into it, as much of my magic as the thing could handle. Two of the guns stopped workin’ outright, bullets jamming, springs breaking. One got off a single shot before his own gat gummed up, and the fourth guy dropped to the floor, writhin’ and clutching his chest. Guess he had a bum ticker, or somethin’ else that made a sudden loss of luck dangerous.
Hadn’t planned for that to happen. I mean, he probably deserved it, bein’ a trouble boy and all, but… Of course, given what was comin’ next, he mighta got off easy.
I threw myself into their midst—not punchin’ or tacklin’ or anything, just pushing through ’em. That was all it took.
I’d done all this at a sprint, see? Shea’n his boys on stage firin’ at me the whole way. Fast as it all happened, with all the luck I’d sucked from both groups of trouble boys? Only one way it coulda ended.
The three goons I’d just run through danced and spasmed and screamed as their own buddies’ fusillade of slugs ripped through ’em, and then dropped into a bloody heap in my wake.
Again, I didn’t feel too bad for ’em; live by the gat, die by the gat. But I mighta been a little less casual if Pete hadn’t been the one at stake.
For three or four breaths, everything fell silent—the guns, the shoutin’, all of it. Well, all of it but the screaming succubi tearing flesh from bone, but they were way up near the ceiling and for a minute somehow felt even farther away than that.
“You…” The bulging veins in Shea’s head and neck seemed to be blockin’ his throat. “You…!”
“Why’d you hafta go and open up on me, Shea? This was only ever about the mummy. It didn’t need to get personal. None of your people hadda get hurt.”
Yeah, okay, it was never gonna go down that easy. But I really had hoped to avoid anythin’ this bloody. Didn’t matter now, though. Made no difference that they’d shot first, or that it’d technically been their own choppers that’d cut down their pals. Uptown Boys were dead, and so far as Shea and the others were concerned, it was my fault.
I wondered briefly if Fleischer was watchin’ from some hidden vantage or if he’d dusted out the moment the fireworks started. But then, even if for some whacky reason he’d wanted to call Shea off at this point, I doubt he coulda done it.
More of the Uptown Boys had converged from where they’d been standing guard at the warehouse’s other entrances. Every one of ’em was packin’ somethin’ heavy, and every one of ’em was angry enough to kill. It was gonna be tough as hell tryin’ to get to Pete and drag him to cover before they opened fire, or maybe I should just dive for it on my own, trust that their fury would keep ’em focused on me and they wouldn’t notice the other guy McCall had walked in with…
And then I saw Tsura, approaching the stage just behind the last of Shea’s goons. It was the strangest thing (and this is me talkin’), too. At random times, she’d just stop, breakin’ stride for a second or three before moving again. Or she’d suddenly stagger left, even though it took her off track. It was only after a good few seconds of this that I realized she was changin’ direction any time one of the trouble boys looked back or otherwise came near to spottin’ her. Except, she was doin’ it before they looked! Every move, every pause, kept her from comin’ outta the shadows or otherwise appearing where Shea’s guys would have seen her.
When her gift did decide to kick in, it didn’t mess around.
So even as Shea’s throat started working again and he was halfway through ordering his men to put so many holes in me I coulda been a fishing net, Tsura crept up on the gink farthest in back and whacked him over the noggin with what looked like a Colt semi-auto that I guessed someone’d dropped in the last minute or two. Even from here, my aes sidhe ears heard the crunch of bone, and I saw her flinch, her cheeks pale, but she didn’t let it slow her. Tough broad, that one. She dropped the pistol, reachin’ down to replace it with somethin’ bigger.
I dove for the flimsy cover of the chairs again, now completely abandoned, skiddin’ across the floor so fast my pants tore down the outside of one leg. The Uptown Boys started pluggin’ away at me, again filling the room with enough lead to sink a battleship. And Tsura opened up, too.
Not at the gangsters, but at the glyph-inscribed glass.
I was right. The glass was thick enough, sturdy enough, to take a few high-caliber slugs.
Then again, the drum of a Tommy holds a helluva lot more’n “a few.” And even though the recoil set her staggering, she held on long enough.
Nobody heard her, not at first. Hers was just another gun in the firing squad, a single instrument in the pounding, cacophonic symphony. It was only a piercing crack, shrill enough to be painful even over the roscoes, near high enough for the sound itself to have shattered small, that a few of the thugs took their fingers off the trigger long enough to look around.
When they did, it was just in time to see the case detonate in a blizzard of thick wedges of glass. They sounded like an avalanche as they fell to the platform, some of ’em sharp and heavy enough to gouge furrows in the concrete.
Everybody turned to stare, peepers gone wide, and again the guns went silent—but this time it didn’t matter. ’Cause the sound that followed? There ain’t a heater in the world, or any dozen heaters, that it wouldn’t have drowned out and blown away
.
It was the bellow of an earthquake given voice. A tornado tearing down an empty, endless alley. The roar of the dead, echoing through the caverns of the world’s foundations.
The mummy awoke, and whatever rage wore that millennia-leathered flesh sure as hell wasn’t the Nessumontu we’d met earlier.
Lifeless hands lashed out, heavy and unyielding as stones, to shatter skulls. Ancient fingers clenched with immortal strength, crushing throats and various bones. His voice—booming, endless, never pausing for breath—shifted from wordless scream to chants that I didn’t have the chance to translate in my head. I recognized the names of Egyptian gods of several dynasties, though. Anhur. Osiris. Montu. Set.
With that last, his voice grew louder still, and with it came a great wind, blasting two of Shea’s boys from their feet. One tumbled off the platform, landing on one shoulder with a pained cry; the other cracked hard against the far wall and made no other sound at all.
I tore my gaze offa the mummy, dashed back toward where Pete was crawling across the floor, tryin’ to find cover while still keeping his peepers trained on the other scuffle, the one happenin’ up near the ceiling…
Tommy guns clattered and I glanced back, saw Nessumontu stagger as slugs tore chunks outta dead flesh. They couldn’t kill him easy—there wasn’t exactly anythin’ to kill—but it might be they could take him apart to where the pieces of his soul couldn’t stick around, or at least didn’t have a functional body to work with.
But Nessumontu raised his chant again. I recognized the name of Sekhmet, among others, and that dead skin began to bulge. Scorpions skittered outta the mummy’s open wounds, tuggin’ the injuries shut with their claws before piercing ’em with stingers and then going stiff, dying and hardening into horrible stitches.
I jumped one of the bloody Uptown Boy bodies—I could just hear enough of a faint gurgling in his chest to know he wasn’t quite dead yet, but it wasn’t gonna be long—and skidded to a halt next to Pete. He sure seemed out of it, dazed by everything that’d happened, but I still reached out with one hand to pin him tight to the floor by his shoulder. No tellin’ what orders McCall mighta given him before they got here, or just how complete her hold on him might be.