The God Collector

by Catherine Butzen

  “Me too.” Theo leaned against a gravestone, closing her eyes. One breath, then another, deep and cold, reminding herself that she was still functional, she was alive, Meren was gone, and she and Mark and Seth would be okay.

  Her heart stuttered. Seth.

  The mummy-man still lay where he’d been dropped. His bandages were torn to shreds, and his arms and legs were broken. His few remaining fingers twitched weakly in some aborted gesture she couldn’t understand.

  Theo crouched beside him. Her eyes burned, but there weren’t any more tears. Golems and evil priests and ancient spells, her mind could manage. But seeing Seth like that seemed to push it over the edge of reaction. She was numb with equal parts fear, horror and an aching sensation that might have been sadness. It was hard to tell.

  Through the mist, though, she knew one thing. As horrible as the little spastic twitches of the mummy might be, a good man was trapped inside it. Nobody should die like this.

  She had to get him out.

  “Seth,” she whispered as she bent down. The mummy writhed, twitching and shuddering as he tried to raise his head. One hand clenched, and Theo laid her own stiff hand on it. Half of her still expected something slimy and disgusting, but the hand only felt like a fragile bundle of dry sticks.

  “Seth. Seth, listen to me.” She gently placed her free hand on the mummy’s chest. Her mind was whirling, but in the midst of the chaos an awful, brilliant, terrifying plan was forming. She knew what she had to do, and it scared her to death, but there was no arguing—it needed to be done.

  “Seth,” she murmured. “I’m going to try and fix you. I think I know what to do. But…but I’m going to need you to trust me.”

  There was a twitch that might have been a nod. The hand tightened on hers for a moment.

  The plastic tub of materials was lying where Meren had left it. There wasn’t much clay left, barely a lump the size of a baseball, and Theo quickly dropped to her knees and fumbled for a fresh handful of earth.

  Her fingers were clumsy. The burned skin was nearly rigid and the fresh scrapes had begun to scab over, but as she stretched and strained to get the cold material to respond, they broke open again. A dribble of warm blood mixed with sweat, sinking into the clay and lending it a tiny bit of liquidity. Theo let out a hoarse breath and reached for the first words.

  “A vessel…” she began raggedly. The clay was cold and hard under her burned fingers, but she dug in as best she could. “A vessel for the son of…”

  No. Not that mistake again. Theo squeezed her eyes shut and clenched her fingers, willing the clay to yield. As it drank in the liquid and warmth from her hands, it began to soften ever so slightly, and Theo forced it to move. “A vessel for Anhurmose, the son of Merenptah…”

  It was beginning to move more easily now, and Theo squeezed hard, pulling at the shape of the unwilling lump. The awkward squarish blob elongated, pulled into more of a soft rectangular shape. “A vessel for Anhurmose, son of Merenptah. Khnum is his father and Neith is his mother. He is good. He is known to us here as he is known to those who have brought him into this world. O Anubis and Osiris, pass him by…”

  Theo’s watch face glowed: sunup in ten minutes. She pummeled the clay, biting back her tears and curses as she worked the stubborn stuff. God—gods?—only knew what would happen if she interrupted a ritual with a modern obscenity.

  The torso emerged, misshapen and indistinct, but definitely more than just a random lump. There was no time for clothes or delicate details of anatomy. What she had here was one step up from third-grade art class, but she clutched it as she worked and thought Anhurmose into it. She had to hope it was enough.

  When she reached into the cooler, though, her stomach clenched. There were no more hearts. Meren had used the last one.

  That left her only one option. The idea had barely formed before she recoiled from it, but the sun was about to rise, and Seth was dying slowly in an ancient husk. A heart was all she needed.

  Hearts were the center of this whole damn thing. He’d said it in the museum, hadn’t he? All of us are clay, at the bottom of it. But the heart is the center of it all, the thing that made us alive. And I think you can’t run blood through a heart that’s not your own.

  This could work. Or it could kill him. But he was already trapped in a dead shell, and Theo had to give him the chance. She knelt next to him again and told him what she had to do.

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered, her hands splayed on the ancient linen. “I’m so so sorry. I have to.”

  Silence. And then, just barely, the twitch of a nod again.

  There was no time to be careful or subtle about it. The few remaining bandages were beyond fragile now; it took only a second to tear them, the fabric crumbling into dry fragments in her hands. The chest, sunken and alien, was bared. And there was the incision the embalmers had made so long ago, once stitched closed, now shrunken until it gaped open.

  She plunged her hand into his chest.

  Movement. Something shuddered under her fingers—erratic, withered, crackling even as it moved. It felt like leather covered in parchment, twitching spasmodically as if something alive and frantic was trapped inside it. With her own in her throat, Theo lifted out the shivering, beating, dried heart of a dead man. The mummy’s back arched as he went into cardiac arrest. Hands trembling, she settled the horrible thing into the chest of the new shabti. As she smoothed over the clay, she added a prayer of her own. It wasn’t orthodox, but she had to try.

  Help him, Neith. He’s suffered enough.

  Light was gathering. It gathered in the shabti, and—oh no no no, not now—it gathered at the horizon as well. The mummy convulsed. Theo smelled soot and ash, chased for a bare second by the hot, dry scent of sand and salt. She dropped the shabti next to the mummy, and it glowed, writhing and pulsing unnaturally as it fought to live.

  She prayed.

  And with a strangled gasp, Anhurmose, son of Merenptah, rose from the grave.

  “Seth,” Theo breathed. He convulsed, his muscles straining beneath his skin, but he was there and the flesh was smooth and unmarked where the ancient heart had gone in. He lay next to his own dead body, naked in the snow and in horrible pain, but alive. The mummy was still and quiet.

  Tears ran down her face, exhaustion and relief mingling while fear began to bleed away, as Seth gasped for breath. His left hand flexed, then seized hers, almost crushing it in a desperate grip. His eyes opened. The word came out in a hoarse rattle.

  “Theo.”

  He tried to raise his right arm and failed. The hand and arm were a crushed mess, bruises already purpling under the dark skin. His right leg was twisted, clearly broken, and a milky film covered the iris of his right eye.

  The right side. To his left, the sun was rising over the edge of the horizon, casting pinkish-orange light over the desolate scene. She had barely finished in time. His right side was still in shadow, lying in the darkness of the night and the west, and the power of the western realm of death had left its mark.

  “Seth, Seth, listen. You’re alive. You’re…you’re not in good shape, but you’re alive,” Theo said softly, pressing a kiss to the one white-knuckled hand he had left. The muscles relaxed just a fraction, and he let himself sink down on the frozen ground.

  “Theo,” he rasped again, his voice barely a croak. Blood stained his teeth and lips—red blood, flowing and smooth, not a single grain of clay or speck of dust. His heart was his own.

  “I’m here,” she murmured.

  “Theo.” His eyes focused, vaguely. “Hurts.”

  “I know, Seth. I know.” She squeezed his good hand, hoping he could feel it. His fingers flexed, and he squeezed back, weakly. “They’ll be here soon. I promise. Someone has to have heard all that…”

  Mark stumbled over, his movements jerky and awkward. His hair had fallen into his eyes, and his entire
body was sweat streaked and coated with a fine layer of grave dirt. The gray-green jacket, cargo pants and boots that Meren had chosen didn’t fit the soul who now occupied the body; he was gawky and ungainly, like a marionette with one crucial string tangled, and the businesslike, special-ops clothes looked like a costume on him.

  He fell to his knees beside them, almost toppling over. His legs didn’t seem to want to bend.

  “Is he okay?” he said, eyes wide.

  “He’ll make it,” Theo said. She hoped. “M—you—I dropped some of my bags over by that grave. There’s a medical kit in there. Get bandages—”

  Mark tried to stand, but his knees still weren’t working, and he fell again. Groaning, he pulled himself to hands and knees and crawled, scuffling in the dirt. Theo murmured more prayers as she shucked out of her jacket and wrapped it awkwardly around Seth’s wrecked arm and ribs. The blood came out in a slow ooze.

  “You’ll be okay,” she whispered to him. “You’ll be okay, you hear me? We’re not in the Bronze Age anymore, Anhurmose. We can fix anything these days. I’ll get you to the hospital, and you don’t need to be afraid, because you’re bleeding blood.” The words flowed like a mantra, coming from some deep place that she couldn’t put a name to. “You’ll make it. You’ll make it, and I’ll come visit you in the hospital every day and embarrass you by bringing you something stupid from the hospital gift shop. Maybe a balloon with ‘Get Well, Grandma’ on it, because hospitals don’t have ‘Get Well, Maybe-One-Time-Hookup Statue Man’ stuff most of the time. So stay with me, okay? I want a chance to kiss you when we’re not running for our lives.”

  Something wailed in the distance. Sirens, rising and falling in a lonesome-sounding screech that filled Theo with hope. Sweat stood out on Seth’s face and chest, but he was breathing deeply and his eyes were open wide. Just a little longer, just a little longer.

  “You’ll be okay,” Theo repeated softly.

  “Don’t push it,” Seth gasped. There was a touch of humor, somehow, in his voice. His good hand tightened on Theo’s again, to the point where she thought she heard the bones creak. “Trying too hard.”

  “This is really not the time for sarcasm,” Theo murmured, wiping sweat out of his eyes with the pad of her thumb.

  The sirens were growing louder. Behind her, she could hear shuffling and heavy breathing as Mark came crawling back, a cloth bag thumping against the dirt as he dragged the makeshift medical kit in his wake. Behind him, distant but oh-so welcome, came the sound of footsteps and voices.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Blessed is he who rests here, for the hands of others have given him life. Blessed is he who rests here, for he only sleeps. Blessed is he, for a scribe shall wake him.

  ~Prayer found in the tomb of THS203, inscribed circa 1975 BCE

  They were arrested. Finally.

  At least when the officers encountered the tableau in the graveyard, they were less concerned with handcuffs than paramedics. Seth was bundled into an ambulance and Theo went down to the nearest police station in another, a paramedic on one side, dabbing ointment on her burns, while an officer on the other asked question after question that she couldn’t answer. She said nothing, only half pretending to be in shock, while she struggled to come up with an explanation that wouldn’t end with jail time.

  She was staring at the wall of the otherwise empty interrogation room, letting her mind drift and trying to ignore the aches and pains, when the door opened and a policewoman came in.

  “Did Mr. Zimmer think he was an Egyptian priest?” she said. Theo’s jaw dropped.

  “How did you know—” she began, before clamping her lips shut.

  At which point Dr. Van Allen, seated regally in a brand-new wheelchair, was let into the room.

  The next few hours passed in a daze. When the cops had followed Security into the museum the night before, finding a curator with a broken leg and a mess beyond description in the hallways, they’d assumed it was the work of the rogue employee. Van Allen had said that Theo was indeed there but that the guilty party was none other than Mark Zimmer, the Security head, who’d been under the delusion that he was some kind of magician. A check of Zimmer’s home not only found him absent but turned up several items that should have been in the custody of Midwestern museums.

  Then they’d received a tip about an apparent explosion in a cemetery in Little Vietnam. When emergency services arrived, they’d found Theo, Seth and Zimmer in the graveyard, surrounded by explosion markers. Theo was burned and marked with Egyptian symbols, Seth was maimed and naked, and Zimmer was babbling nonsense.

  The biggest surprise of all, though, was that Zimmer confessed. He swore he’d done it and begged them to lock him up. Theo was horrified, but Dr. Van Allen reported that the former Security chief seemed remarkably calm about the idea of prison. “He kept saying he was just happy to be himself again,” Van Allen said. “As soon as the paperwork is completed, you should be free to go. You’ll doubtless need to remain in the city for questioning, but I suspect that will be a welcome alternative to prison.”

  “I…” Theo was momentarily lost for words. “Sir,” she finally said. “Thanks. For standing up for us.”

  Dr. Van Allen merely peered over his glasses. “Don’t thank me yet,” he said. “I suspect you’re going to have an extremely interesting story to tell me. Aren’t you?”

  The gaze brooked no disagreement.

  A week later, she stood in front of Dr. Van Allen’s office door. Christmas had passed quietly, with her splitting time between the Deerfield house and Seth’s hospital room. As yet her parents had no idea anything had happened; Theo knew she would have to explain about the “kidnapping” eventually, but now that their car was back in the garage and any signs of blood and papier-mâché had been removed from the house, it was possible they wouldn’t question the official story. Still, she wasn’t looking forward to that conversation.

  Or this one, either. The plain dark door of Dr. Van Allen’s office made her think of the principal’s office.

  Something touched her shoulder, and Theo jumped a little before remembering. Seth looked down at her with one eyebrow raised, his expression wry.

  “Nervous?” he said.

  “Never mind me.” She put a hand on his good arm, steadying him. He moved slowly now; his right leg was in a heavy black brace, ruining the line of the dark-gray suit. The cane he leaned on seemed too old for him. “Are you okay with this?” she said softly.

  “I’m alive. That’s enough for me.”

  The door opened, and they went in.

  The curator was sitting behind his desk, his chair angled sideways so that his own broken leg could be propped up on a padded stool. This cast was a crisp, pristine white, but someone had slightly spoiled the effect by drawing a smiley face on the knee. The rest of him was as immaculate as usual, if you discounted the dark circles under his eyes.

  “Well,” he said, looking Seth and Theo up and down. His gaze particularly lingered on Seth. “Perhaps I should make some pithy comment about the prodigal son returning, but I find that Christianity is not the topic on my mind these days.”

  “Say anything you like,” Seth replied neutrally. “May we sit? It’s been a long couple of weeks.”

  “Yes, you may, and yes, it has.” Van Allen nodded to the chairs in front of his desk. Seth motioned Theo forward and then followed, limping. When he came down a little too hard on his right side, Theo grabbed his good arm and steered him to a chair despite his protests. Seth murmured thanks, but his expression was strained; torture he could process, but this new, weaker body was something he hadn’t dealt with in a long time.

  “Nevertheless,” Van Allen continued, blithely skating around any mention of Seth’s weakness, “you’re right. The sons aren’t always prodigal, but they tend to vanish anyway. A story springs to mind. The ‘Tale of Sinuhe’.”

  Theo
made a soft “oh” noise. Seth’s shoulders hunched a little as the muscles tightened almost imperceptibly, but he maintained eye contact and he seemed calm.

  “Supposedly, a man named Sinuhe was a trusted servant and adviser of Pharaoh Amenemhat,” Van Allen narrated coolly. “When his master was assassinated, the innocent Sinuhe nevertheless feared for his life and fled Egypt. Though he married a princess in a foreign land, he was never happy until he returned to his home. Amenemhat’s son reached out to him: ‘Be reminded of the day of burial…you shall not die upon the hill-land or be buried wrapped in a sheepskin. You have wandered for too long; think of your corpse, and return’.”

  Seth and Theo exchanged glances. The message was plain. It was a story about what a good death and a decent funeral meant in the ancient world, and what someone would give up to have that. Trust the doctor to question magic by citing historical precedent.

  Van Allen adjusted his glasses and nailed Seth to the chair with a stare like a crossbow bolt. “Miss Speer told me parts of a story, Mr. Adler. It sounded completely ridiculous, but, I have to admit, certain aspects of it ring true. The golems, for example, were fairly compelling.” Was that the merest touch of humor in his tone? “If you two are lying to me, you’ve put so much effort into it that I’m tempted to let you off anyway. But for now, lacking evidence to the contrary, let’s proceed as if it’s all the unvarnished truth.” He folded his hands and fixed Seth with a calm stare. “In which case, you sit before me as a citizen of Kemet who neglected to pass on to the afterlife of the Deshret. An ancient Egyptian who, unlike Sinuhe, put his mortal flesh before his immortal soul. And I have to admit, that’s the part that confuses me most of all.”

  “Sinuhe was an ideal,” Seth said flatly. “I remember when that story was making the rounds. I caused it.”

  Van Allen sat back in his chair, his face a polite mask. “Interesting. Were you also responsible for crucifying Jesus and killing Attila the Hun?”

  The curator’s words pricked at Theo, but she kept her temper under control. They were, after all, asking him to swallow a completely bizarre story. He could have written the entire thing off, the way she had blamed Seth’s disintegration on drugs and dust; instead, he was giving them a chance to explain. She laid a hand on Seth’s arm and, from the tension in his muscles, knew he was just as annoyed as she was. Still, he too maintained a mask.