by Tanya Huff
“Thank you.”
She started a little at the warmth in his voice, then visibly relaxed. Not for the first time, Dave marveled at Celluci’s ability to load “I know you’re hurting, but we’re counting on you. If you fall apart, they’ll all go.” onto two small words.
Raymond Thompson was a tall, thin, intense man who couldn’t seem to hold still; he kept a foot or a hand or his head constantly moving. He’d come in early to do catch up on a little of the work the sarcophagus had disrupted and found Dr. Rax sprawled on the floor of the workroom. “I didn’t touch him or anything else except the phone. I called 911, said I’d found a body, and went into the hall to wait. Christ, this is so . . . so . . . I mean, hell, did somebody kill him?”
“We don’t know yet, Mr. Thompson.” Dave Graham perched on the edge of the desk, one foot swinging lazily. “We’d appreciate it if you could remember how the workroom looked. Did it appear to be the way you’d last seen it?”
“I didn’t really look at it. I mean, jeez, my boss was lying dead on the floor!”
“But after you saw the body, you must have taken a quick look around. Just to make sure there was no one else there.”
“Well, yeah . . .”
“And the workroom . . . ?”
The younger man bit his lip, trying to remember, trying to see past the sprawled corpse of a man he’d both liked and respected. “There was glass on the floor,” he said slowly, “and the plastic had been pulled off the new coffin—looks like Eighteenth Dynasty in a Sixteenth Dynasty sarcophagus, really strange—but nothing seemed to be missing. I mean, we had a pretty valuable faience and gold pectoral out on the counter being restored and it was still there.”
Dave raised a brow. “Faience? Pectoral?”
“Faience is, well, a kind of ceramic and a pectoral is a . . .” long fingers sketched incomprehensible designs in the air. “Well, I guess you could think of it as a fat necklace.”
“More than historically valuable?”
Ray Thompson shrugged. “More than half of it is better than eighteen karat gold.”
Celluci turned from the window where he’d been watching traffic go by on Queen’s Park Road, content to let his partner ask the questions. Whatever the reasons were behind the death of Dr. Rax, he was willing to bet robbery hadn’t been a motive. “What about the mummy?”
“There never was one.”
“Oh?” He took a step forward. “I talked to one of the officers on the scene yesterday morning as they were carrying that janitor out of the building. She told me he’d seen a mummy and had a heart attack. Essentially, died of fright.”
“Thought he saw a mummy. Someone had popped an empty coffin back into a stone box and resealed it. We thought we were getting a new piece of history and all we got was air.” Ray’s laugh was short and bitter. “Maybe that’s what killed Dr. Rax; scientific disappointment.”
“So there wasn’t a mummy?”
“No.”
“You’re sure?”
“Trust me, Detective, I’d have noticed.”
Celluci caught a speaking glance from his partner and, scowling, closed his lips around what he’d been about to say. For the moment, he was willing to believe he’d misunderstood Trembley’s explanation.
The rest of the department had even less to offer. They’d all liked Dr. Rax. Sure, occasionally he disagreed with his colleagues, but get twelve Egyptologists in a room and they’d have a dozen different opinions. No, there never had been a mummy. Professional jealousy?
Dr. Shane sighed and pushed her hair back off her forehead. “He was the curator of an underfunded department in a provincial museum. A good job, even a prestigious job compared to many but not one worth killing over.”
“I suppose as his assistant curator you’re next in line for the position.” The words were an observation only, carefully nonweighted.
“I suppose I am. Damn him anyway, I’m the only person I can think of who hates paperwork more than he did.” She pressed her fists against her mouth and squeezed her eyes tightly shut. “Oh, God . . .” A moment later she looked up, lashes in damp clumps. “I’m sorry. I’m not usually a watering pot.”
“It’s been an unusual kind of a day,” Celluci said gently, handing her a tissue. “Dave, why don’t you tell the others that anyone who wants to go home, can. But point out that once the lab people are done, we’ll need a complete inventory of that workroom. Maybe some’ll stay. The sooner we know for sure if anything’s missing the better.”
Dr. Shane blew her nose as Dave left. “You’re pretty high-handed with my staff, Detective.”
“Sorry. If you’d rather tell them yourself . . . ?”
“No, that’s all right. You’re doing fine.” I bet when he was eighteen he looked like Michelangelo’s David. She closed her eyes again. God, I don’t believe this. Elias is dead and I’m sitting here thinking about how good-looking this cop is.
“Dr. Shane? Are you all right?”
“I’m fine.” She opened her eyes again and managed a watery smile. “Really.”
Celluci nodded. He couldn’t help but notice that Dr. Rachel Shane had a very attractive smile, even twisted as it was with grief. He wondered how it would look when she actually had something to smile about.
“So.” She tossed the soggy tissue in the wastebasket. “You’ve taken care of my staff, what do you have planned for me?”
For no good reason, Celluci could feel his ears turning red. He cleared his throat and gave thanks he hadn’t gone in for that haircut. “If you could check Dr. Rax’s office? You’d be in the best position to know if anything’s been disturbed.”
The curator’s office was on the other side of the large common room. When PC Harper motioned him over to the hall door, Celluci waved Dr. Shane on alone.
“What?”
“It’s the press.”
“Yeah. So?”
“Shouldn’t somebody make a statement; just to keep them from breaking the doors down?”
Celluci snorted. “I’ll give them a statement.”
As he watched the detective stride off down the corridor, shoulders up and fingers curled into fists, PC Harper wondered if maybe he should’ve waited for Sergeant Graham to finish with those staff members he’d taken off to the workroom. He had a feeling the press were about to get a statement they wouldn’t be able to print.
A number of the reporters milling about in the security lobby recognized the detective as a museum guard let him through the door.
“Oh, great,” muttered one. “It’s homicide’s Mr. Congeniality.”
Questions flew thick and fast. Celluci waited, glaring the pack into silence. When the noise subsided enough so that he could be heard, he cleared his throat and began, his tone making his opinion of his audience plain. “In the early hours of this morning, a male Caucasian was found dead of causes unknown in the Department of Egyptology’s workroom. Obviously we suspect foul play; I wouldn’t be here if we didn’t. You want anything else, you’ll have to wait for it.”
“What about the mummy?” A reporter near the front of the crowd shoved a microphone forward. “We heard there was talk of a mummy being involved.”
Yes, what about the mummy? Although still uneasy about its accuracy, Celluci repeated the party line. “There never was a mummy, only an empty coffin being studied by the Department of Egyptology.”
“Is there any possibility that the coffin could have caused both the recent deaths in the museum?”
“And how would it do that?” Celluci asked dryly. “Fall on them?”
“What about some kind of an ancient curse?”
Ancient Curse Kills Two. He could see the headlines now. “Don’t be an asshole.”
The reporter snatched the microphone to safety just in time and, smiling pleasantly, asked, “Can I quote you on that, Detective?”
Celluci’s smile was just as sincere. “You can tattoo it on your chest.”
Back upstairs, he found Dr. Shane and h
is partner standing just outside Dr. Rax’s office.
Dave turned as he came in. “The doctor’s got something for us, Mike.”
Dr. Shane pushed her hair back off her face and rubbed at her forehead. “It might not be anything . . .” She looked over at Celluci, who nodded reassuringly, and went on. “It’s just that Elias always kept a suit in his office, for board meetings and official business. He won’t wear . . .” She paused, closed her eyes briefly, then continued. “Wouldn’t wear one any longer than he had to. Anyway, when I left yesterday evening, his gray suit, a white shirt, and a burgundy silk tie were all hanging on the door. They’re gone.”
The two detectives exchanged identical looks. Celluci spoke first. “What about extra shoes?”
“No, he used to say that anywhere you couldn’t get to in a pair of loafers wasn’t worth going to in the first place.” Her lower lip began to tremble but with a visible effort she maintained control. “Damn, but I’m really going to miss him.”
“If you want to go home now, Dr. Shane . . . ?”
“Thanks, but I think I’d rather be doing something useful. If you don’t need me any longer, I’ll go help with the inventory.” Head high, she walked across the room, paused at the door, and said, “When you catch the son of a bitch who did this, I hope you rip out his living heart and feed it to the crocodiles.”
“We don’t, uh, do that anymore, Doctor.”
“Pity.”
When they were alone, Dave sighed deeply and perched on a corner of the closest desk. “The lab’ll have to go over that office. This case is getting weirder all the time.” He tugged at his beard. “It’s beginning to look like Dr. Rax interrupted a naked intruder. What kind of a nut case wanders around a museum starkers?”
Deep in thought, Celluci ignored him. He was remembering a pentagram and the human-seeming creature it had contained; remembering a man who stripped and changed and went for his throat with a wolf’s fangs in a wolf’s body; remembering Henry Fitzroy who wasn’t human now even if he had been once. Remembering that things weren’t always as they seemed.
Wondering what kind of a creature would emerge after centuries spent in darkness, locked immobile inside a box.
Except, there never had been a mummy.
He had twisted the mind of the guard so that she’d opened the outer door for him and wished him a good morning without ever wondering why an elderly man in an ill-fitting suit was leaving the museum hours before it opened. Once outside, he had turned, smiled, and brushed away her memory of the entire incident. Then he had crossed the street and lowered himself onto a bench, resting and rejoicing in the amount of space around him and his ability to move; waiting until the memories he absorbed told him it was time.
The first ka he had devoured had served to reanimate him and cover his tracks. The second had provided vital knowledge but little life force as the years remaining to Dr. Rax would have been barely a third of those he had already lived. To restore his youth and replenish his power, he needed a young ka with an almost unrealized potential.
Moving carefully, for this new country was bitterly cold and he had used a great deal of power just remaining warm while he waited, he descended underground into what both sets of stolen memories referred to as morning rush hour. He paid the fare, more for novelty than necessity, and moved out onto the subway platform. Which was when the walls started closing in. His heart slammed up against his chest and he thrust up a hand to stop the ceiling from falling. He would have run if he’d been able, but his bones had turned to water and he could only endure. Three trains passed before he calmed, realizing the space was not so small as he had first assumed, that if such monstrous metal beasts could move about freely, there would be room for him to move about as well.
One more train passed while he watched it in amazement—the memories of men used to such things had not done credit to the size or the speed or noise or the sheer presence of the machine—and a second followed before he found what he wanted. He almost balked at the door to the car when he saw how little space remained, but the need for more power was stronger than his fear and, at the last moment, he squeezed himself in.
The schoolboys wearing identical uniforms under fall coats were jammed so tightly up against each other by the crowds that the jerk and sway of the train couldn’t move them. They were laughing and talking, even those able to reach a support not bothering to hang on, secure in the knowledge that it was impossible to fall.
He got as close as he could and began to search frantically for the youngest. He didn’t know how much longer he could take being so confined.
To his surprise, one of the boys carried a protection that slapped his ka back and caused him to gasp in pain. Murmuring a spell under his breath, he stared in annoyance at the nimbus of golden light. The gods of this new age might be weak but one of them had touched this child—even if the child himself was not yet aware of the vocation—and he would not be permitted to feed.
No matter. There were plenty of others who lived with no protection at all.
It took a very long moment for him to meet the gray/blue eyes of the boy he finally chose; his gaze kept jumping around, looking for a way out. The boy. seeing only a harmless old man who looked distressed, smiled, a little confused but willing enough to be friendly. The smile remained until the end and was the last bit of life lost.
The surrounding mass of people would keep the body upright until he was long away.
At the next stop, he allowed himself to be caught up in the surging crowd and swept from the train, the power from this new ka burning away his fear with his age as he strode across the platform. Those who saw the outward changes—back straightening, hair darkening—refused to believe and he marveled at how everything outside a narrow perception of “possible” simply slid from the surface of their minds. From these people, these malleable bits of breathing clay, he would build an empire that would overshadow all empires of the past.
As he had for the last two nights, Henry awoke with the image of a great golden sun seared into his mind. But for the first time, it didn’t bring the fear of madness; the blood scent lay so heavily in his sanctuary that madness became an inconsequential thing beside the Hunger.
‘Well, thank God, you’re awake at last.”
It took a moment for coherent thought to break through. “Vicki?” Her voice had a tight, strained edge to it that made it difficult to recognize. He sat up, saw her for a moment, back pressed up against the door, then had to shield his eyes from the sudden glare as she switched on the light.
When he could see again, the door was open and she was gone. He followed the blood trail to the living room and found her leaning on the back of the couch, fingers dug deep into the upholstery. All the lights that she’d passed had been switched on. The Hunger thrummed in time to her heartbeat.
She looked up as he started toward her. “Henry, don’t.”
Had he been younger, he might not have been able to stop, but four hundred and fifty years had taught him control if nothing else. “What’s wrong?”
“I spent the day locked in that room with you, that’s what’s wrong!”
“You what?”
“How could I leave? I couldn’t open the door without letting at least a little sunlight in and as I was supposed to be preventing you from incinerating yourself, it would definitely defeat the purpose if I fried you instead. So I was stuck.” Her laugh sounded ragged. “At least you’ve got a master bathroom.”
“Vicki, I’m sorry . . .” He stepped forward, but she raised both hands and he stopped again although the blood moving under the delicate skin of her wrists beckoned him closer.
“Look, it’s not your fault. It’s something we both should’ve considered.” She took a deep breath and settled her glasses more firmly on the bridge of her nose. “I can’t stay with you tonight. I’ve got to get out of here.”
He needed to feed and he knew he could convince her to stay; convince her in such a way that she’d t
hink it was her idea. Although he didn’t really understand, he took hold of the Hunger and nodded. “Go, then.”
Vicki snatched up her jacket and purse and almost ran for the door, then she paused one hand on the knob and turned back to face him, managing a shaky smile. “I’ll give you two things as a bed partner, Fitzroy; you don’t snore and you don’t steal the covers.” Then she was gone.
As the day had claimed him and all he could feel was the press of her lips and the life behind them, Henry had envisioned how this new intimacy would change things between them.
Reality hadn’t even come close.
Vicki sagged against the stainless steel wall of the elevator and closed her eyes. She felt like such a git. Running away’s a big help to Henry, isn’t it? But she just couldn’t stay.
Exhaustion had kept her asleep until mid-afternoon, but the hours between waking and sunset had been some of the longest she’d lived through. Henry had been more alien to her, lying there, completely empty, than he’d ever been while drinking her blood. A hundred times she’d made her way to the door, and a hundred times she’d decided against opening it. It’s a bedroom on Bloor Street, she’d kept telling herself. But a trembling streak of imagination she hadn’t known existed kept answering, It’s a crypt.
When the elevator reached the ground floor, she straightened and strode across the lobby as though overstretched nerves didn’t twang with every movement. She nodded at the security guard as she passed his station and for the first time in over a year went gladly into a night she couldn’t see.
“Yo, Victory!”
Some things she didn’t need to see. “Hi, Tony. Good night, Tony.” She felt him touch her arm and she stopped. Squinting, she could just make out the pale oval of his face under the streetlight.
He clicked his tongue. “Whoa, you look like shit. What happened?”
“Long day.” She sighed. “What are you doing around here?”