by Anton Strout
Mina Saria bolted upright from the crate she was leaning halfway into, fistfuls of crumpled packing paper in her hands. She brandished them at me like weapons. Then she squinted, realized it was me, and threw the two handfuls back into the crate, looking relieved.
“Jesus, Simon,” she whispered. “For a second there I was almost scared.”
I pulled my bat out from behind me. “I’m still holding a bat, you know.”
“As if you’re gonna brain me,” she said, then turned back to the crate and began rummaging around again. “Didn’t I just save you from the walking dead last night?”
My jaw ached with a phantom pistol-whipping just from seeing her again.
I closed the distance between the two of us, grabbed her by the arm, and pulled her back up to standing position. I pushed the end of the bat up under her chin.
“I owe you one,” I said, trying to sound as threatening as I could.
Mina looked me straight in the eye. I wasn’t comfortable with the idea of smacking her around, and she knew it.
“Give me a break, Simon. It’s not in your nature to beat down a lady.”
“Maybe in your case I’ll make an exception,” I said, then tried to flash her as intimidating a look as I could, but it was no use. I lowered the bat. “Fine, although there’s some argument to be made as to whether you qualify as a lady. My jaw thinks otherwise.”
Mina considered this. “You wound me,” she said, “but in all fairness, I did pull you out of there. I could have left you to those … those things. Now, if you’ll just stand guard, maybe I can find what I came here for.”
She dove back into the crate, almost falling into it as she leaned over to check deeper down inside it.
“Mina, what are you doing here?” I asked. “You were supposed to leave town.”
She ignored me.
I sighed and gave a nervous look around. Dark and dangerous nooks and crannies were everywhere. If the chupacabra was here, I’d have to get Mina out fast, if only to beat her senseless later myself.
“Mina, trust me, you don’t want to be messing with whatever’s going on here. There are things going on that you don’t understand, that I barely understand. Just get out.”
All I could imagine was an evil, red-eyed attack from one of the creatures I had seen sketches of, the same one Dr. Kolb’s spirit had described to us and that I’d seen for a brief moment when I was the DJ.
It suddenly came to me what didn’t fit in this scenario. In my mind, Mina and my casework had always been in two separate compartments that had nothing to do with each other. Why, then, in the middle of my work-related investigation, was she here?
“I just want my painting,” Mina said, and for once, I actually heard nervousness in her voice.
“Wait … what’s going on, Mina?” I asked, concerned. “I helped you steal The Scream. What happened to it after you stole it? What have you gotten yourself into?”
“Nothing,” she said with sharpness, but she kept on digging. A few seconds later she stopped. “Shit. It’s not here.”
Mina checked a series of numbers marked on the three boxes she had looked through.
“What have you gotten yourself into?” I repeated.
Mina looked more worried than ever and started pacing.
“Nothing,” she said, repeating herself again, more frenetic this time.
“Bullshit,” I said with anger in my voice, but then I softened. She was spooked, no doubt. “Those zombies were after you last night at the museum. If you tell me what you’ve gotten yourself into, maybe I can help.”
Mina looked hesitant.
“Trust me,” I said, almost blushing with pride over the fact that I was in my element. “I’m sort of an expert on these things. It’s my day job.”
“I know,” she said.
That took me aback.
“What? How? How do you know?”
Mina crossed her arms over her chest as she paced, looking lost in her own world of thought.
“Last night,” she said, “with the zombies … you were right. They weren’t after you. They were after me, but I couldn’t take the time to explain why. I couldn’t. So I knocked you out.”
“Why would zombies be coming after you, Mina?”
“That’s not important,” she said, and before I could beg to differ, she continued. “Look, I made some deals in exchange for my freedom. My employer asked me to do something that … I just couldn’t.”
“You were supposed to kill me,” I said, “weren’t you?”
Mina nodded. “Before the heist, I called him and told him that, tried to reason and bargain with him, but to no avail. I had to get out of town, but you know me … I still hoped that I could snag The Scream before that. I didn’t think he’d send fucking zombies after me.”
“Then why knock me out?” I asked. “I thought for sure I’d wake up craving brains once the zombies got to me.”
“Sorry,” Mina said. “I panicked. I didn’t have time to explain any of it and the zombies were coming, so I went with my usual answer to things—violence. When I saw you lying there it would have been so easy to just take the painting and run, but even then I couldn’t do it. Even after you had turned your back on everything our gang used to have. I hated you for that, but I couldn’t just leave you there to die. So it was either carry you or the painting. I put the damn thing down to get you out of there, but by the time I went back for it, the remaining zombies were there. I had to flee.”
It was strange seeing the softer side of Mina. Strange, and a little creepy.
“Mina,” I started, “I don’t know what to say …”
She put her hand up.
“Don’t say anything,” she said. “You’re just making this next part harder.”
“Making what harder?” I asked, but it was too late. I saw the crowbar she’d used to open the packing crate in her hands. She raised it and swung for the base of my neck before I could even raise my bat. Once again, I had let my guard down around her, and part of me almost felt like I deserved what was coming.
“A lady’s got to do what a lady’s got to do,” she said as the impact sent instant stars across my vision.
Fuck chivalry, I thought on my way to the ground. The next time I saw Mina it was going to strictly be on a “bat first, ask questions later” basis. That was, if there was a next time.
31
There’s nothing quite as disorienting as waking up to someone poking you repeatedly in the same sore spot on your neck, but that was what I had to contend with when I came to. I looked up from where I was on the floor to see Mina leaning over me.
“Honestly,” I said through a mouth that felt cottony, “you can stop that anytime you like.”
I went to move my arms to help myself sit up, but my hands were trussed up behind my back—with what, I had no idea.
“Up and at ’em, sunshine,” she said, back to her perky malicious self. “Places to go, people to see …”
Using both of her arms, she swung behind me and lifted until my legs were under me once again. I put the bulk of my weight on them and my knees buckled at first, but Mina held me up until I found the strength to stand on my own.
“Why the hell are you doing this, Mina? Have you finally flipped the last crazy switch in your brain?”
She scooped up my bat from where it lay on the floor and stepped behind me, giving me a shove with it. “Just walk, unless you want me to gag you as well.”
I limped forward at a slow but steady pace, my knee aching. I must have hit it when I fell, and it twinged with every step.
“No, seriously, Mina, why are you doing this?”
“This is just economics now,” Mina said, “pure and simple. I tracked the painting here, hoping to find it, but you saw … Those crates are empty. If I give him you, though, maybe he’ll give me what I want in exchange. Maybe he’ll give me The Scream back once he uses it for whatever messed-up psycho ritual or blood sacrifice he has planned.”
“Him who?�
�� I asked. “Wait … blood sacrifice? Are we talking cultists here?”
Mina nodded.
“Great,” I said, loving how much deeper I was sinking into trouble. “Why do you want that goddamn painting so badly?”
Mina grabbed me by the face, moving me to within an inch of hers. “Because I stole it. Possession. Don’t you remember what it was like when you used to take things that weren’t yours and made them yours? I never intended to hand it over to them.”
I had no idea how Mina had gotten mixed up with cultists in the first place, but before I could ask we reached an intersection in the maze, and Mina pulled out a Maglite to check the ground. A trail of little multicolored dots ran down one of the aisles and she dragged me off in that direction.
“Are those Skittles?” I asked.
Mina nodded. “Easier to follow than bread crumbs. Tastier, too.”
I didn’t want to admit it to her, but it was actually a good idea.
“So you’re handing me over to cultists just so you can get your stupid painting back?”
Mina lifted her hand and stuck her finger in my face.
“Don’t call it that,” she said. “The Scream is the most perfect thing in the world. The exquisite torture in that lone figure’s face, the loneliness, the madness. You’re a collector, for God’s sake. You understand.”
I liked the painting well enough, but leave it to Mina’s twisted mind to turn it into the pinnacle of her own private obsession.
Mina continued to guide us out of the crates, the lights growing brighter and brighter as we approached the entranceway to another room.
“So I take it you know everything about me, about the Department?” I asked, after several moments of silence.
Mina nodded.
“How? Who are you working for?”
Mina remained silent, dragging me along.
I let my legs go out from under me and landed hard on my ass. I sat Indian-style to make it harder for her to move my dead weight.
Mina stared down at me and sighed. “Get up, Simon.”
“No.”
Mina poked my chest with the end of my bat. “I don’t have the patience for this, Simon,” she said. “Get up.”
I shook my head. “You want me to walk, then you tell me what you know.”
“I could just cave your skull in,” she said matter-of-factly, shaking my bat in the air.
I didn’t put it past her, but I kept my face a blank slate, if only to deny her the pleasure of a reaction.
“I’m much harder to carry as dead weight, wherever you’re taking me,” I said, hoping my false bravado wasn’t as transparent as it felt. Even if I complied and kept going, there was no way in hell I’d be able to get up of my own accord now.
After a quick visual Mexican standoff, it was Mina who finally gave in. With a final nervous look down the aisle, she squatted down behind me and started picking me back up.
“Fine,” she said. “I know everything about you.”
“Even … ?”
Mina held up her hands and wiggled them at me. “Zap. Yes, even that. I always wondered how you were so astute about things when we were ripping people off. I didn’t just happen across your apartment by mistake. I was given a lot of information on you: your address, the Department you work for …”
“By who?”
Mina dropped her eyes from mine, unable to look at me. “Let’s just say you meet a lot of interesting people in jail …”
“How long were you in jail?”
“If you’re going to follow everything I say with a question, I’ll get straight to using the bat on you,” she said.
“Sorry.”
“Two years into my jail sentence, I was transferred to this hard-core coed facility, and you wouldn’t believe what I ended up hearing through the rumor mill. Seems one of the most badass inmates of them all had a real mad-on for one Simon Canderous. He was delighted to make my acquaintance when we met. You might recall him … a European gentleman recovering from a stab wound through his shoulder?”
“Faisal Bane,” I said, and my stomach dropped out from under me. Suddenly I wanted to throw up.
Even though I had run the leader of the tristate area’s largest cult through with one of the historical swords at the Metropolitan Museum of Art less than six months ago, I should have realized that no matter what type of jail time he might serve, he wasn’t done with me.
“You say his name with about as much contempt as he said yours,” she said, amused.
“I suspect that’s the only thing we have in common,” I said.
“Even in jail, you could tell people respected him, if only out of fear. A tiger, even when caged, is still a tiger. And besides, I like powerful men. They can do things for a girl …”
I thought I saw where this was going.
“Like get her out of jail earlier than she’s scheduled to be released?” I asked.
Mina smiled. “Something like that. I don’t know what you did to piss him off, Simon, but Faisal is someone you want to have in your corner, someone who can do things for you.”
“And my life is the price you paid for your freedom, right?”
Mina didn’t answer, but she had me standing once again and shoved me off in the direction of her colored candy trail.
“And you’re doing all this for what? So you can get your hands on The Scream again? This is a sick obsession. If Faisal and his people have it, they’re not going to just hand it over, you know. They have to want it for some special reason.”
“I’ll burn that bridge when I come to it,” Mina said, her face determined and with purpose now. “Besides, Faisal isn’t the worst of your concerns right now.”
“Oh, great.”
“Don’t sound so disappointed,” a familiar voice boomed out. The last time I had heard it was that night at the Met. A figure stepped out from behind one stack of crates, the minotaur of this particular crate-formed labyrinth—Cyrus Mandalay.
“Hello, Simon.”
There was no mistaking the imposing figure of Cyrus—a huge white man with dreads, sharklike teeth, and ritualistic tattoos weaving across his face. He had escaped the cops, and here he was now. He was even wearing the same pirate costume he’d worn to the gala at the museum. It hung in dirty tatters now and he looked like he had been living like the mad king of the hobos ever since his narrow escape. I thought normal Cyrus was scary, but this new, unhinged version terrified me even more.
“We really have to stop meeting in museums like this, Cy,” I said, trying to keep my cool. “People will start to talk.”
“Glad to see you’re in such good spirits,” he said, smiling with his row of razor-sharp teeth. They were yellow now. “I, unfortunately, am not. You cost me my business.”
“Tome, Sweet Tome? We’re having a field day just trying to wrangle some of the more aggressive books, but we’ll manage. Great acquisition for the Department.”
“That’s not what I’m talking about,” Cyrus said, his eyes blazing with hate. “That bookstore was just a cover for my real business. You know that.”
“Oh, Ghostsniffing?” I said. “Yeah, I’m really broken up inside over the fact that we put an end to your little soul-destroying narcotics operation.”
Cyrus started walking toward us, but Mina held up the bat, pointing it at him.
“That’s close enough for now, Cyrus,” she said. “I can let him go, or you can give me what I came for.”
Cyrus stopped where he was, peering at us. It was like he was noticing her for the first time.
“Mina, was it?” he asked. “You think your life means anything to me after you refused to kill your little boy toy Simon? Wasn’t that what you exchanged for your freedom? Now I’m afraid you may have to be put on permanent display at our little exhibit here …”
“I brought him to you,” she said in desperation.
“Actually, I found her—” I started.
Mina kicked at me, catching me in the shin and sendi
ng a shiver of pain up my leg.
“I’m willing to trade you Canderous for the painting,” she said. “I’m kind of attached to The Scream, and I honestly think the painting would be far happier in my hands than yours. Especially after you sent a group of hit zombies after me …”
“Hired help.” Cyrus sighed. “They were just supposed to take the painting from you. If I had my way about it, I would have sent more zombies after you with instructions to eat brains first, ask questions later, but someone in jail thought rather highly of you.”
“I’ll be sure to send Faisal a nice care package,” Mina said. “The painting, please.”
“Don’t be sure he’ll be all that forgiving this time. Besides, that painting is integral to what we’re going for down here.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, interrupting, “but are we going to bash my head in now or would you rather wait till later? Because if I get a vote, I can tell you which camp I’m siding with.”
Mina raised the bat over my head and held it there like a blunt guillotine waiting to drop. “Just give me the painting.”
Cyrus gave an arcane gesture, and the sound of shuffling rose from several points behind me. I craned my head back to take a look, but it was no use. I had a pretty good idea what was coming, though.
“Umm … Mina?”
“Quiet, Simon,” she said, pissed off. “I’m negotiating.”
“You might want to negotiate nicer, then,” I said. Mina looked at me. Since my hands were still bound behind me, I gestured over my shoulder with my eyes. Mina’s eyes widened. She swore under her breath, lowered my bat, and let go of me.
I could understand her frustration. I was just as surrounded by dozens of zombies as she was. Apparently, somebody had been studying up on his necromancy.
32
Having a tight ring of brain-hungry zombies surrounding Mina and me was unnerving, and it was only after they relieved Mina of my bat and forced us to follow Cyrus into the next room that I took a moment to really look around.
In this new section of the unused underground part of the museum, there were only a few crates, mostly open and unpacked. This room was nearly identical to the one previous to it, except that I could actually make out what was going on in here. The lighting was still running at low generator levels, but it looked like an assortment of art exhibits mid-setup.