Wicked

by Shannon Drake

  “Yes, yes, of course.”

  “I have work, Camille. And so do you.”

  She nodded and returned to her little workroom. What usually fascinated her seemed dry today; her mind kept on spinning. For several lines, she translated more of the threat. Then she came to a stretch of symbols that excited her. She spoke aloud, slowly.

  “‘Know that the Great Cobra, with its eyes of flame and light, formed by Hethre’s will and power, and by the creation of her own hands, will bring down the retribution of the greatest nobility.’”

  She stared at the text, carefully looked over her every translation. Then she jumped up and ran back out to Sir John’s desk.

  He was gone.

  The newspaper clipping about the death of the Stirlings lay on top of his other papers. Something pinned it down. Camille walked around the table. A small pocketknife attached the paper to the wood, the point pierced through a face in the picture. That of Sir John.

  DESPITE THE OUTCRY that had arisen during the time of the so-called Jack the Ripper murders, the East End had changed very little.

  Dirty, scrawny, wide-eyed children, already acquiring the look of street rats, sat on doorsteps and played in the streets. None came near Brian. They looked his way and scattered. Though in his Jim Arboc attire, he was still a man, bulkier with the workman’s coat he wore, and still a man with eyes that seemed to warn of danger.

  The idea of becoming Jim Arboc had been born a good three months hence, when the position in the museum became available. He had been willing to sweep up the offices of the curators dealing with Asian works, certain he could bide his time and thus arrange a transfer without appearing suspicious. Had this occurred just a bit earlier, he might have known Camille Montgomery when he had seen her at the castle. But the closest he had come before meeting her at his estate had been those times he managed to slip into the storage rooms and begin a slow and methodical search. Blatant accusations would not work, especially when he wasn’t certain whom he should be accusing. Therefore, he had needed patience.

  And as Arboc, he had learned to be a patient man.

  Poor but honest seamstresses hurried down the roads, along with butchers, their aprons bloodied, and factory workers, hats pulled low over their eyes. Hawkers sold gin and meat pastries, most lacking meat but tempting hungry buyers with the smear of gravy. Legitimate businesses hired on immigrants for a few pence and long, tired faces were the norm. Prostitutes with rheumy eyes and broken teeth lolled by many a pub, and the stench in the area was enough to make one ill.

  Shuffling along at his awkward but steady “Arboc” pace, Brian hurried after the figures ahead of him, keeping a distance. The two he followed came to an establishment with a sign that read McNally’s Public House—All Are Welcome. He let the two enter and then followed behind.

  There was a large group at the bar, and gin was flowing freely. Aye, as well it must, for the working women plying their trade there were long past their days of glory or seduction. “Gin blossoms” rode many a cheek, and a few of the noses had most obviously been broken more than once. But there were dark alleys in abundance, places to close one’s eyes and seek only the gratification of the moment. That a few of the whores could entice the work-worn and world-weary fellows at the bar to pay for their gin made them attractive to the pub owner.

  A few hardwood tables, broken at strange and odd levels, lined the area opposite the bar. He elbowed his way through the crowd, bought a gin and retreated to one of the tables. And watched.

  Tristan Montgomery was obviously not a fool. He had changed his clothing before starting out on his trip, and now wore the jacket and cap of a dockworker. Ralph was likewise attired. And though he hadn’t Tristan’s jovial manner, he was a likely enough companion.

  Tristan ordered his gin, complaining of the price, and flirted with the one prostitute who seemed to have all her teeth. Compared to the rest, she might have been considered in her prime. She was small, somewhat lithe and apparently glad of the gin he bought her, and ready to remain close.

  “’Ave we business to discuss, gov’nur?” she asked him, playing with the collar of his jacket.

  Tristan looked at the woman, a little brunette with dark eyes and a winsome smile. She had ferreted out the fact that Tristan, despite his attire and manner, was a cut above the majority of the clientele in the smoky gloom.

  “Business, indeed!” Tristan said softly, producing a shining coin.

  Those around the pair seemed oblivious to the transaction. Such business was done constantly.

  “Shall we slip out? Or would you ’ave another gin, luv?”

  Tristan caught the woman by the arm, moving her from the bar area and closer to the table where Brian sat, his hat lowered over his eyes. “I’ve real business, money business,” Tristan told the woman. “And there’s more of these for the likes of you if you can give me a lead on it.”

  “Oh?” The prostitute eagerly cocked her head.

  “I’ve something to sell.”

  “Ah!” She frowned. “If it be jewels you’ve snuffed off a rich one—”

  “Better than that. But I need a special buyer. I’ve something from—” He paused, whispering into her ear.

  The whore backed away a bit, shaking her head with disgust. “Don’t be tellin’ me ye’ve got a mummy or the like! They’re fire-fodder and little more! A chap sold one a while back, and all the amulets and little pieces that shoulda been in the wrappings were stole out already!”

  Tristan motioned with a finger to his lip. “What I have is gold,” he said. “The best you’ll find on the market.”

  “And what do you know of the market?”

  Her accent, Brian noted, was slipping away. He had the feeling that this particular lady of the night came to the bar with more than one agenda.

  “So…others are selling such antiquities?”

  “Oh, aye. And they be the best.”

  “Who is selling them?”

  Tristan had a fierce grip on her wrist.

  She struggled, aware that she hadn’t taken on a drunken sot. “He ain’t here now!” the woman cried softly.

  “I’ll be back tomorrow,” Tristan said. He slid the coin into her hand, closed her fingers around it. “It’s a business I’m coming in on,” he said. “Now, you can give me a hand, get me the buyers, show me my competition and make good money. Or…”

  “Or?”

  “Well, it’s a hard life, isn’t it?” Tristan demanded.

  “This coin isn’t enough,” she said flatly.

  He grinned slowly. “Then we are understood.” Tristan produced another coin. He stared at the woman, then nodded to Ralph, and the two went out.

  The whore returned to the bar and whispered something to the burly man drying glasses behind it. The fellow whispered back. With a pout, the woman produced one of her coins. The fellow looked to the exit, where Tristan and Ralph had just departed. Then he walked to the far end of the bar and whispered to another man. He was lean, with a sharp, hawkish nose.

  The man rose and exited. Brian did the same.

  AS CAMILLE STOOD by Sir John’s desk, he returned. Camille looked up.

  “What are you doing?” Sir John demanded.

  “I…I came out to talk to you.”

  “What is that paper doing on my desk? With my knife!”

  She shook her head. “I just came out. The paper was here. And the knife.”

  Sir John frowned and walked to the desk. Angrily he ripped the knife from the desk, folded it and returned it to his pocket. He opened his middle drawer and swept the paper into it. Then he stared at Camille.

  “Who was here?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Now Sir John was looking suspicious. “How can you not know?” he demanded. He sounded angry; his voice was rough. But, she thought, there was more than anger in it. There was fear.

  “I was in my room working. I’m sorry, truly sorry. I just stepped out to talk to you, and this is what I found,” sh
e told him.

  He shook his head, not really addressing her but wondering aloud. “I had a lecture…in the reading room. I spoke about the wonders of the Nile and the last expedition. I wasn’t gone more than an hour.” He sagged suddenly, nearly falling into his chair, then pressed his hands to his temples. “I’ve a headache, a terrible headache. I’m going home for the afternoon.”

  He rose, suddenly stronger again. He barely glanced at her as he hurried out.

  She watched him go, worried. He hadn’t even asked her why she had come out to talk to him. Because he was afraid?

  She started to walk back to her room but her toe nudged something. Looking down, she saw that he had dropped his keys in his haste. Picking them up, she started after him. “Sir John!”

  But he was gone. In fact, their entire work area seemed eerily silent. She hadn’t seen Hunter that day—which wasn’t unusual. But neither had she seen Aubrey Size-more or Alex Mittleman. Not even the old fellow who cleaned was around anywhere.

  She stood in the deep quiet for a long moment. She would never catch Sir John. It seemed she was alone.

  She tightened her fingers around the keys. It was time to see the storeroom again.

  BRIAN QUICKLY REALIZED that the hawk-nosed man from the bar was keeping pace with Tristan and Ralph. They wove through alleys and busy streets, then back into a section of alleyways again, coming near the river and the old Roman wall. Brian could see the rise of the White Tower across the river. Then that view disappeared.

  They made a turn into a crowded street. That was when he saw the hawk-nosed fellow run up behind Tristan and shove him into a narrow, dark alley.

  Brian followed in haste. Hawk-nose had a gun. By the time Brian made it into the little square at the end of the alley, he had it out and aimed at Tristan and Ralph.

  “What have you got and where are you getting it from?” the fellow demanded.

  Brian moved up behind him. He saw Tristan’s eyes widen but he shook his head, and before the fellow could turn to see the danger behind him, Brian had lashed out. He struck the fellow’s right arm with a crushing blow. The gun went flying into the dirt of the overgrown, trash-strewn alley. The fellow made a move for the knife at his calf, but Brian hooked him with a right jab, sending him flying back.

  That was when the sound of gunfire ripped through the air.

  CLUTCHING THE KEYS, Camille hurried back down to the exhibit area. It wasn’t terribly busy, but still, she saw a few couples, students and scholars taking notes, art students with their workbooks out as they sat or stood before various statues and reliefs. The cobra, satisfied with its recent meal, was coiled and sleeping. Aubrey was nowhere to be seen.

  With a deep breath, she retraced the steps she had taken with Sir John just a few days earlier, heading down into the bowels of the museum to the storage rooms.

  The lighting was very dim, and it took her several seconds to adjust to it. But once her eyes were accustomed to the shadows, she was fine. She strode through aisles and stacks of cartons and treasures until she came to the Egyptian antiquities—specifically those boxes that had been brought back from the Stirlings’ last expedition.

  There were a number of mummies that were not in their sarcophagi, either having already been opened, or because they were from a mass burial in which they hadn’t been allotted separate coffins. She glanced over the forms, noting that the wrappings had been done carefully and were of the best quality. In the latter dynasties, many of the embalmers began to shirk their religious fervor for that of earthly gain, doing poor work upon their clients.

  She wasn’t really interested in mummies at the moment, though. She went from box to box, reading the contents, searching for a mention of a golden cobra. If the piece had been put into the tomb as a special talisman—handmade by a revered priestess or witch—it had to be an exquisite work of art. Solid gold? Possibly. And the eyes…rubies? Diamonds? Gem stones at the very least.

  But going crate by crate, she could find no mention of such a piece. And though she tried carefully to rummage through the open boxes, she couldn’t find anything that resembled the description, either.

  She returned to the boxes that held mummies, wondering if it had perhaps been something smaller, maybe buried with the mummy Hethre herself.

  But she didn’t think one of the casually opened mummies could be Hethre. No Egyptologist worth his salt would have opened the sarcophagus of such a renowned individual without all proper care and precaution. Just as the tombs might have sand traps, falling stones and other grave-robbing deterrents, so might such a coffin.

  Frustrated, she stood staring at one of the mummies, somewhat saddened to realize that none of man’s efforts could really stop the onslaught of death and decay.

  Then, what dim lights burned in the storeroom suddenly went out. And as she stood amidst the mummies, the world went black.

  “GET DOWN!” Brian roared, falling to the ground himself and rolling for the comparative shelter of a watering trough. He felt a burning sensation against his arm, and knew that he had been winged by one of the bullets.

  Then, abruptly, the firing ceased.

  He crept around the trough.

  “Hey! Hey, there, old chap!”

  It was Tristan’s voice. Brian breathed a sigh of relief. Carefully, he looked around the trough. Both Tristan and Ralph were coming from behind the wheels of a broken-down carriage.

  The man who had followed them was on the ground. Brian walked over and hunched down by him. A bullet had torn straight into the fellow’s forehead. There was no question that he was dead.

  Brian quickly rifled his pockets. He glanced up at Tristan and Ralph, who were standing by him, gaping like children who had wound up in a schoolyard fight gone bad.

  “Get out of here, quickly, both of you,” he said.

  “What?” Tristan said thickly.

  Brian realized that neither of them had the least idea of who he was. “Get out of here before the police come, before they want to know what you’re doing here, and what your relationship was with this fellow.”

  “Right…right…” Tristan murmured.

  “But who shot him?” Ralph demanded.

  “A relationship with this fellow…” Tristan murmured. “I don’t know the bloke!”

  “He was in the pub,” Ralph said, eyes widening. “Sitting at the far end of the bar, down from us.”

  “But if the police question us, we really don’t know a damn thing,” Tristan said.

  “No,” Ralph agreed.

  “So, do you want to be questioned?” Brian demanded.

  “No!” Ralph said.

  Brian continued to dig into the man’s pockets, but the fellow carried no identification of any kind. There was nothing on him but a few coins and a wad of tobacco.

  He looked up. The pair remained, just staring down at him. “Go!” he urged them. “Go, quickly.”

  He stood himself and surveyed the small square. It was surrounded by houses, the kind that had once housed Flemish weavers but which were now the typical, wretched housing for the poor, where single rooms were often home to over ten family members. Each house would have at least seven or eight rooms. Two of them were three-storied. Each had a back balcony or spit of flat roofing.

  The two still stood there, waiting.

  “Get!” Brian warned.

  They started for the alley, but Brian could hear police whistles. There was a path between the two houses straight back and to the right.

  “That way.”

  Brian rose and pushed the pair forward. He needed more time to linger, but he didn’t want to be questioned by the police, either.

  With him propelling Ralph and Tristan forward, they reached another small yard in what would be the front of the first house. He shoved them toward the crowd and hurried in the other direction.

  CAMILLE STOOD, gripping the crate that held the mummy she had so recently pitied, and listened. At first, there was nothing. Then she heard a rustling. The sou
nd was coming from within the box.

  It couldn’t be! Though her heart hammered, she refused to believe that a mummy had come to life. But if it hadn’t, then someone was there. Someone was in the darkness with her, standing on the other side of the crate, making the noise, searching as she had been searching, trying to scare her….

  An image of the knife thrust into the newspaper clipping, right through Sir John’s face, came to her mind’s eye. This person was interested in more than simply scaring her.

  She fought to remain silent, to back away from the crate. Then she heard the voice. The whisper. The rasping sound.

  “Camille…”

  She had nothing whatsoever that could be used as a weapon. She loathed being terrified, and she didn’t believe a word about curses, but…that voice. It seemed to rake right along her spine. To tear into her very flesh. There was something about it that was…evil.

  She had to run, but it was impossible in the clutter and the boxes, in the darkness. And if she was stopped, what then?

  “Camille…”

  It came again, like sandpaper against the air…taunting, amused. Warning. Deadly.

  She gritted her teeth and turned, totally blinded. She instantly walked into a box. She heard movement from behind her. Someone was coming around the side of the crate, seeking to find her, blinded in the darkness, as well.

  She groped at the box and reached inside, hoping desperately to find some kind of weapon. Her arms gripped something covered in dust, but long and hard. A scepter, perhaps. She curled her fingers around it, felt for the box and circled around.

  She remembered something of the pattern of the storage cartons and boxes and began weaving her way through. She heard footsteps, bold now, following in her wake. And again, the voice.

  “Camille…!”

  The door out! She could see it ahead, for it was surrounded by tiny slits of light. She raced for it.

  She heard the footsteps, felt someone reach out with bony fingers…catching her hair.

  She screamed, turned with her weapon and lashed out, then tore for the door and the light that lay beyond.