by J. C. Nelson
When Brynner walked back in the door, he must have read the worry on my face. “It’s done. Here’s the confirmation code.”
I took the receipt from him, clenching it in my fingers. Safe for another month.
He sat down in the chair. “You look better now. How’s the throat?”
Awful. Like I swallowed a box of razor blades. “Much better. I can’t thank you enough. I mean it.”
He looked away, obviously uncomfortable with the idea of basic gratitude. “There was a problem with your routing number.”
My stomach did a 360, flopping like an angry alligator.
“Don’t worry. I called the confirmation number and got the right one.” He patted my hand, his tone confirming my worst nightmare.
“Who did you talk to?” Please, don’t let it be Ravi.
He grimaced, giving me my answer before he spoke. “An asshole. Listen, Grace. About the money—”
I shook my head. “The motel is a business expense, and your aunt feeds me better than anything I could buy. You can live on ramen for months. I’ve done it.”
Brynner looked like he’d swallowed a chili pepper, but he let it drop.
“Hand me that bag, please.” I pointed to a shopping bag beside the bed, and he handed it to me. I drew out a leatherbound journal. “Your aunt brought these in for me while you were gone.”
The confusion on his face made me sorry for him. He sagged into a chair, shaking his head. “My aunt said those weren’t ever to leave the house. Ever.”
“She said I might get bored watching soap operas on TV.” I offered him the book. “Do you want them back? I’m sure they’re safer with you than me.”
He shook his head. “This hospital is a fortress. Aunt Emelia was going to practice here, so Dad took time off to make a few adjustments to the construction plans. The only place safer than the hospital is my aunt’s house. Did you manage to read any of them?”
“I made it through the first three. Your dad switched to ideographs midway through book two and never looked back.” I’d have shown him, but even reading it myself was hard enough. “Five books later, he’s writing in a combination of scripts just like the Re-Animus. The man was a combination of genius and crazy.”
“I hear that a lot. You seem to be doing just fine here.”
I pointed to the floor. “No scorpions. Go home. Sleep. Shave. I can take care of myself for one night.”
His gaze dropped to the floor; his lips turned down. I couldn’t get a read on him. Angry? Disappointed? “All right. You have my number. You know those meat-skins that nearly killed us out at the farm? They were in Louisiana the day before, in a funeral home.”
He was hiding something. Something he thought would upset me. He wouldn’t make eye contact. “How’d they get all the way to New Mexico?”
Brynner picked up my laptop and logged on. “Here. I got these from Director Bismuth. It’s a spell a team found on a cargo barge in New Orleans the same day our meat-skins went missing.”
My first inclination was to argue over the term “spell,” but he’d definitely talked to the director. Had he called her because of me? “You think this just magically transported them across two states? I think we’re up against something intelligent, sure, and alien, but not magic.”
For one moment, I thought he might yell at me. “You don’t know what you are talking about. And I need some sleep. Can you translate that for me?”
I read the outer ring of glyphs, standard late-kingdom symbols. “Yeah, it’s just like all the others, only still in a circle.”
“Others?” Brynner stared at me.
I nodded. “Yeah. Normally I don’t see them still written like this, but it’s a variant of the other eight I’ve translated. Related to the one you found on your boat.”
Brynner leaned over the hospital bed, staring into my eyes with an intensity that both frightened and thrilled me. “You’ve read these before. For sure?”
I tore my gaze away, looking at the screen. “Hold on. There’s a standing bonus for alternate translations on all of these. I have a lot of time. Every BSI translator takes at least one shot at them. Don’t you think if there were some secret to them, at least one of us would have succeeded?”
He put both hands on my cheeks, making me look at him. “Tell me you didn’t read them out loud, Grace. Please.”
The warmth of his hands and the rough calluses on his palms made me dizzy. “I have. Hundreds of times. I’ve tried every phonic combination you can imagine, and I’m one translator, in one small office.” I took his hands off, holding them in mine, and looked him in the eye. “I know you think there’s something special about them.”
Brynner snapped open his phone, turning away. “Dale, I need you to confirm something. Grace says the spell engravings have been shared with all the BSI translators.” A computerized burst of profanity erupted from the phone, followed by a noise like a fax machine. Brynner nodded. “Find out if it’s true. Those are supposed to be classified.”
He jabbed the phone like he wanted to stab it, and turned back to me. “I’m sorry, Grace. I just don’t want to see anyone get hurt.”
If he knew how many weekends I’d spent arranging glyphs into various combinations, playing a several-thousand-year-old game of Scrabble. Nothing had ever happened. Ever. “Tell me something. What would it take to convince you these are just artifacts? Like cave drawings, or engravings? What would I have to do?”
His knuckles turned white on the laptop edge, his voice came out almost a whisper. “You could give me my mother back.”
I had no answer for that, only questions. “What happened to her? Your uncle said to ask you. Your aunt told me some of it, but I don’t understand. I just want to understand. Help me with that.”
“You want to understand magic.” The dubious look he gave me matched how I felt.
I wanted to understand Brynner. “Yes.”
He shook his head. “Why did you lie to me? You told me you’re in a relationship, but I tried to contact your kin. There’s no one listed.”
I’d known before I lied to him it would come out. Lies had a way of doing that. “It was the only thing I could think of to say.”
“I asked you a simple question. Do you like me? Yes or no, you could have said either.”
I choked down my pride. “I’m used to keeping people at arm’s length. It’s safer that way.” I looked up, waiting until his eyes met mine. “Yes. The answer was—is—yes.”
Brynner looked like I’d sucker-punched him, his eyes completely blank. Then he slowly grinned wide enough to make a crocodile nervous. “I promised Rory I’d help him with a tractor as soon as you were better, but I’ll be back tomorrow.” Brynner looked like he’d swallowed a helium balloon, as he bounced out of his chair. “I’ll see you later, Grace.” Still smiling, he left me there.
The hours stretched out after five o’clock, becoming one long gel of nameless voices on the intercom mixed with the constant shuffle of feet outside. I lost myself in Heinrich Carson’s journals. The man saw demons everywhere, monsters, and magic. In an earlier age, he would have been a great shaman. A mighty king.
I finished the last of the early journals and hit a block of symbols whose pattern was familiar, but whose meaning I couldn’t decipher. Based on the time, it had to have been from the year of the accident that killed Lara Carson.
I’d looked it up, trying to fill in details, but the BSI records I found contained nothing about the accident. She didn’t even have a corpse number or cremation record on file, which, given her status in the BSI, wouldn’t have been tolerated. We didn’t allow our own to come back. Now that I’d seen the intelligence of the Re-Animus, I knew why.
The corpse of every BSI operative and analyst held secrets about what we knew, and what we didn’t. So when I died, they’d burn me to ashes and scatter those. There were worse ways to go. Which made me curious. Heinrich Carson had a corpse number recorded, but no record of cremation. Why?
&nbs
p; What I needed was to understand what Heinrich wrote about. What he felt, and thought. Stymied by the foreign concepts, I switched to the writing Brynner gave me. The longer he was gone, the guiltier I felt about sending him home. I’d begged him to do something for me, kicked him out of the room after he stayed with me, and didn’t even say thanks properly.
Problem was, there’s no appropriate level of thanks for “saving my life, waiting with me, and acting as my errand boy.” I wouldn’t find a greeting card in any store for that situation.
The outer ring of symbols on the picture I recognized as standard text from The Book of the Dead, just like the one I’d been summoned to Seattle for. “Open the way, show the way, the secret way,” and so on. The inner ring, on the other hand, defied easy translation. “The eastern Nile delta,” read one section. “The west desert edge,” read another.
Down from? Up to? The paths of Osiris. If I reversed the order from the outside ring, it made a legal sentence. “From the eastern Nile Delta, down the paths of Osiris, up the west desert edge.” That didn’t make sense, either. In Seattle, I’d had so little time to study the spell all I could come up with was a best guess. Now I had hours to do what I loved.
The problem was, the center symbols didn’t form any concept at all, just a name. Ra-Ame.
If Brynner were here, he’d read the phrases as symbolic and run with it. The paths of the dead would be mystic portals, and the other two . . . New Orleans. An “eastern nile,” Benton could certainly be a western desert edge.
I’d been at this too long, but couldn’t sleep.
An e-mail notification popped up, and I tabbed over to it, but it wasn’t for me.
Brynner had left me logged in to the BSI network, with his account, his access.
Nineteen
GRACE
Using Brynner’s BSI access code violated at least a dozen BSI statutes and every rule of decency, but I wanted more than anything to understand. What happened to him that day his mother died? What exactly did she do?
It had to haunt him, and I knew better than most about painful memories. My brother hadn’t exactly wanted to hug and console me after our parents died. I think he saw too much of my dad in himself and wondered if their accident was really an accident, or if Dad had followed through on his many threats.
If I understood Brynner, maybe I could reach him. He’d done so much for me, I had to. With a few taps, I switched into his e-mail, which was exactly the disaster I expected.
Dozens from his field commander. Most of them complaining about missed briefing, broken rules, or destroyed equipment. Scores of thank-you letters, pictures of people I assume Brynner rescued, dozens, maybe hundreds of those.
Way too many from women asking why he wouldn’t return their calls.
I brought up the archive access and entered “Lara Carson.” This time, hundreds of records came back, confirming what I suspected: The BSI never forgot. They might have hidden, but would never delete, records.
Field reports. Lab tests. Operation evaluations. Based on what lay before me, Lara Carson might well have been one of the original field operative directors. The field reports in her name changed to lab reports at a time I assume coincided with Brynner’s birth.
She’d written some of the original tests on co-org physiology modifications. Forget the old man, Brynner’s mother was responsible for the more interesting aspects of BSI investigation. I didn’t understand her methods. She tested variants of pine and freshness rather than studying the sap or chemical components.
Each tap brought up another document. There was a payment to Heinrich Carson from hazard insurance for Lara Carson, presumed dead. The amount on-screen left me shocked, though no amount of money would make up for losing a mother.
Next, came a work order, the complete disassembly of a BSI laboratory. Radiometry, materials analysis reports on the drywall and steel.
The accident report left me with more questions than answers. She’d been working in the lab and reported missing. A three-day search of four city blocks in Seattle and the entire BSI headquarters turned up nothing. Body unrecovered. Missing, reported dead.
“Final Disposition, Laura Carson,” read the next report heading. I pulled it up. The blank screen held nothing. I reloaded the file several times to check, but it refused to open.
The final entry read “Interview H. Carson, and minor, session six.” The video, grainy black and white, showed one of our debriefing rooms. A middle-aged woman sat with her back to the camera, shuffling through papers. She turned and looked at the camera. “Bring them in.” Maggie Bismuth. Now director of the BSI.
A door opened off-camera, the hinges whining, and a deep voice with a heavy German accent spoke. Moments later, a hulking man sat down at the table. If it weren’t for the date on the video, I’d have sworn I was looking at Brynner. Beside him sat a young boy, maybe ten, with wild black locks and his father’s chin. It had to be less than a week after the accident, based on the date.
“Let’s begin again, shall we?” Maggie pushed a can of soda across the table toward young Brynner. “Tell me what you noticed first.”
Brynner didn’t look up. Didn’t touch the offered soda, until his father prompted him in German.
Then Brynner raised watering eyes to the camera. “The wall was gone.”
The director leaned back in her chair, her eyes narrowed. “Gone, as in destroyed? Like your accident in the armory last year?”
He looked up at his dad, his eyes wild. “No. It was just gone, all of it.”
She nodded. “And your mother?”
He whispered so softly they’d put subtitles on the video. “She went into the cave.”
“Vault Zero?” Heinrich Carson’s voice sounded like a bear growling.
Brynner shook his head. “The cave where the wall used to be. With the statues in it.” He looked back to his father. “Can we go?”
Heinrich put a hand on his son’s shoulder, as if he could will Brynner to continue.
Director Bismuth bent over and brought out a box. “And where did she get these?”
She opened the lid, revealing a set of daggers. I’d seen them before, in Brynner’s hands.
“You said they disintegrated,” said Heinrich Carson, swiping the blades in a motion that made it clear he’d spent years honing his skill with knives. “You lied to me.”
Maggie sat back in the chair. “Those are BSI artifacts recovered from an incident site. Neither your property nor your business. Brynner, where did your mother get them?”
“From the body on the table.” Tears ran down Brynner’s cheeks, and he shrank toward his father.
Maggie leaned forward. “You’ve done so well. I just need you to stay with me a little longer. When your mother went back into the cave, where did she go?”
Brynner shook his head, his eyes wide with fear, his lips pursed together.
“I wouldn’t ask if it didn’t matter. Where exactly did she get this?” She picked up a black velvet bag and undid the drawstring. Inside rested a silver jar the size of a bowling pin, a symbol of Horus carved on the lid.
Heinrich Carson shot to his feet. “You said it was safe in the vault. Not to be removed. Do you have any idea what danger this represents? What the Re-Animus will do to get it back?” He seized it, the iron set of his jaw daring her to take it back.
She waved her hand. “Security, restrain Mr. Carson.”
The door burst open, but Heinrich Carson was waiting, expecting the guards. The first one flew past the camera, crashing into the wall beside the director. Another screamed and fell, never entering my field of view. The last slammed into the window so hard the camera flashed with static.
“Stay here, son. I’ll be back once this is secured.” Heinrich Carson strode out of the room, the jar under his arm.
After a moment, Maggie Bismuth stood and set her chair back up. She scooted toward Brynner, reaching out to cup his chin so he’d look at her. “Young man, what happened to your mother?�
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He whispered, the subtitle reading “She didn’t see them coming for her.” He dissolved into tears. His hands over his ears.
Maggie Bismuth stood and looked toward the camera. “We’re done. Find Carson and recover the jar if you can without being killed. Someone get in here and clean up this mess.”
I paused the video, my gaze locked on the boy. There weren’t words for the pain I felt for him. I wanted, more than anything, to call him, hug him. Wished that someone had done that for him. I’d never look at the director the same way again.
I wiped tears from my eyes, then reversed the video frame by frame, reading the glyphs off the jar. One by one, I pieced them together until it made a name I recognized and a phrase that brought more questions than answers: Ra-Ame, daughter of the pharaoh. Her heart, for eternal death.
The hospital phone rang, startling me so badly I threw the laptop off my bed. It landed in a crash of sparks, the screen broken. I picked up the phone, my hands shaking. “Hello?”
“Grace.” Brynner’s voice slurred like he’d just woken from a deep slumber. “I’m sorry to wake you, but I screwed up. Do you have your laptop?”
A bolt of fear lit me up from head to toe. It lay just out of reach beside my bed. “I—I had it on my bed. It was right here.”
He cursed. “Someone probably stole it while you were sleeping. It’s my fault for leaving myself logged in.”
“Let’s not jump to conclusions. What makes you think it’s stolen?” I struggled to keep my tone normal as I asked.
“BSI network security reported an intrusion a half hour ago. Someone tripped a file marker on a high-clearance server.”
“I don’t understand.”
“All the secure files have a few in them that trip alarms when opened. Anyone with access knows better than to load them. I left your laptop connected as me. I’m so sorry. They’re going to do a remote shutdown and just catalogue everything that got pulled. We’ll get you a new one, but any pictures or documents you had on it are toast.”
My hands shook now even harder. My voice caught in my throat. “I didn’t have anything personal there.”