Tracking Magic

by Maria E. Schneider

  He stared at me for several moments before sighing. "Maybe it’s better if I cut my losses and just forget the whole thing. How much do I owe you?"

  I tilted my head at the curse. "There’s the little matter of the curse? What are you going to do with the package?"

  "Can’t we just rebury it? Give it a new tomb?"

  The light on my shoulder didn’t heat up. I’m not sure what that meant except I now had two research projects.

  # # #

  I called the shipping company, of course. After I identified the ship, date and supposed shoe contents, she switched me to a recording. There was a long bit about "even the best technology sometimes fails" followed by a friendly voice from an environmental group that announced their intent to ensure that every fish "had a perfect home."

  I pressed zero to get back to the human. "Wasn’t the ship powered by wind and solar?" I asked.

  "Absolutely."

  "Then why did you have to hire an environmental group?" Surely it was a sign they knew something hazardous was on board.

  "Oh, we didn’t hire them. There was no requirement since it was just shoes." Efficiently she read, "The ship will make a nice home for corals and small marine life. We are happy to contribute to an environmental study."

  "If you didn’t hire them, exactly what is it you are contributing?"

  There was a long pause and then she read again, "The ship will make a nice home for corals and small marine life." After a longer pause she said, "We’re supplying the ship."

  "Ah," I said.

  # # #

  A hover plane would have been infinitely faster, but technically Toppo hadn’t agreed to pay me to get rid of the curse. The subterranean gnome trail, a pneumatic tube built from a combination of gnome tunnels and old oil pipelines, got me to the Smithsonian in just over two hours. My good friend Charles worked there amongst the many ancient artifacts. I probably couldn’t find out who had stolen the mummy, but hopefully Charles had some experience that could cure the curse.

  The moment I walked into the venerable Smithsonian building I felt safer, which made me wonder if there was some kind of mellowing spell on the Natural History building. There was too much magic in the Smiths for me to discern individual spells unless I picked up individual objects, and that, obviously, wasn’t allowed. I ignored the feeling and asked the information desk to find out if Charles was available.

  A giant mammoth display kept me company while I waited. Much to my dismay, the special exhibit in a nearby room appeared to be that of small children feeding tarantulas. Unbelievable! What if the kids allowed the spiders to escape?

  I kept such a close eye on the feedings that when Charles clapped me across my back I jumped a foot in the air and almost hit the mammoth display.

  "Max! What happened to your hair? And why didn’t you call--" As I turned around, the slight glow from the curse caught his eye. His mouth opened and closed like a baby owl begging for food. Although he was much larger and rounder than a baby owl, he did have thick hair sticking out in gray and brown tufts. Giant eyes blinked at me rapidly. "What--where did you get that?" he squeaked.

  The curse wasn’t all that visible in the light of day. I wondered if like me, he hid an ability to sense magic, but it hardly mattered at the moment. I launched into a short version of my troubles. As I told the story, his pensive lips changed into a gigantic grin. Obviously he was missing the point. "It may be impossible to find out where the mummy came from! How am I going to get rid of it?"

  He clapped the shoulder not inhabited by the curse. "Come with me!" Taking my arm, he half ran until we reached the part of the museum that housed, of all things, rows of sarcophagi. "We’ve an entire mummy vault that I’ll show you later, but first, look at these magnificent displays!"

  There were life-sized scans of tissues and bones from each coffin. Fairies perched above the cases, taking on the essence of the dead. In full costumes made from real gold, they re-enacted scenes from the life of various Egyptian pharaohs. Several fairies wore full battle armor, and I realized the displays weren’t just pretty; they were part of security. Knowing what fairies charged to create a single fairy-globe, my mind boggled at the expense.

  Charles expounded excitedly on each display. "Here we have Antone, an animated skeleton. He answers questions about his life. What do you think?" He stared at me anxiously before moving to the next display, which was that of a dead cat sitting on a throne. The sound of purring quite unnerved me, but my guide continued. "Look at this one--the story is in hieroglyphics and fourteen other languages. And, a fabulous verbal runs on the trolly!" He waved towards children who stood on a moving belt that circled the displays. At the end of the path, a reproduction machine spit out a cast model of each child’s skull, an unforgettable souvenir.

  Belatedly I realized that Charles was not talking to me. No, his gushing attention was for the curse. "Uh, Charles--" I reeled from the magic and the smell of ancient dead that permeated the room. I could barely think for the nausea.

  "Do you see something you like?" Charles addressed my shoulder. "Your guy will get the latest protective curse, I can promise you that! You won’t be deactivated either. Your charge will not only be comfortable but safe." Large, egg-eyes blinked, waiting for an answer.

  "It, uh, doesn’t speak," I puffed out, trying to hold my breath and talk at the same time. "I mean, it indicates what it wants, but it doesn’t talk."

  He flapped his hand in front of my nose. "I know that. It will want to meet other curses before it decides if this tomb will satisfactorily replace the other one." He leaned in close to my ear. "We’ll have to do some convincing, but they usually come around."

  "You don’t dismantle the curses?" I glanced at the children. "What if someone set one off by accident? It’s one thing to let an alarm go ringing, but this…this is firepower!"

  Charles shrugged, his hands patting his belly as he paced away. "Well, it is dangerous, but how else are we going to get our share of history? We’ve found they are quite reasonable. Surely this is better than being buried under eons worth of sand where their precious cargoes are all but forgotten!"

  I was not here to debate the finer points of archaeological discovery. "You’re telling me that you want to adopt the curse?"

  "We prefer to think of it as giving the archaeological find a wonderful new home!"

  I relaxed my jaw, breathing shallowly through my mouth. My front teeth were already crooked; I didn’t need to crack a molar. "I came here to…" I stopped as I realized he had offered me a solution even if it didn’t solve the mystery of who had stolen the mummy in the first place. There was still one rather large problem, however. "I don’t have the mummy. Toppo has it."

  Charles gave his stomach a last decisive thump. "Well then, let’s get on the com and tell him we’ll take the curse off his hands."

  Had I been able to breathe better I would have dug my feet in, but getting out of the room was more important than explaining that Toppo was hoping to make a profit.

  Unfortunately, leaving the room wasn’t a great improvement. The dusty back hall that led to Charles’ office must have had death or magic on either side, because I still felt woozy from all the signals.

  By the time we reached his cluttered office, my hands and face were drenched in sweat. I took a chair rather than fall down in a heap. Breathing slowly, I tried to ignore the stench of death and said, "Toppo isn’t going to want to give up his mummy without compensation. That’s why he brought it to his estate in the first place."

  "Do you have his number?"

  I nodded, but didn’t give Charles the information. "Since he found it on the beach, does he own it technically? Or does the freight company?"

  Charles tilted his head. "For a cut, the company will have hired someone to recover whatever possible. That might create a split claim."

  "According to them there was nothing worth recovering. It sounded like they turned it all over to an environmental company to pretend due diligence, but
basically they figured the shoes for fish food."

  "An environmental company? Who is paying them?"

  I shrugged. "No one. The freight company claims they didn’t hire them, but turning it over to them kept them from having to worry about clean-up or anything else."

  Charles shook his head. "Someone has to pay the environmental company. They operate a lot like a museum. Without a sponsor they wouldn’t have the money to do anything."

  "Maybe it was worked out because the ship was donated?"

  "No, there has to be some cash. Let me make some calls."

  In the five minutes he plugged into some friends, I used his computer to check the freight company site, but there was nothing that I didn’t already know except the link to the environmental company.

  On Better Green’s site I found interactive photo panels with crystal clear shots of fish. The project was labeled "New Fish Homes."

  I found the pertinent information at the same time as Charles. "Eureka," he shouted as I read the words, "Anonymous support."

  He yelled, "Darlene Snelling! Of course!"

  "Who is Darlene Snelling?" Since he was busy thanking his friend and babbling, I went at the keys again.

  Ms. Snelling lived in Texas, very near Toppo’s neighborhood. I couldn’t find any other generous donations in her name, but that could easily be because she was only in her mid-twenties. She probably didn’t spend a lot of time on social causes.

  When Charles finally concluded his call, I asked, "You think she stole the mummy? Why in the world, at her age, would she be interested in ancient dead bodies?"

  He patted his tummy. "Because she’s a Snelling, dear boy. You’ve heard of her mother of course. She has the eye."

  "The eye?"

  He leaned forward. "Some say it must be magic, and she should be required to pay higher taxes on her purchases because of it, but of course, there’s no proving it."

  "What eye?"

  "The eye for true art genius. Not only did she make her reputation by buying dusty old antiques that turned out to be crafted by the world’s most renown artists, she spotted a fake Vincent van Gogh in Australia! You wouldn’t believe the havoc, but when the painting was examined, the woman was proven right!"

  Before he could continue, I said, "Then it’s quite possible she has an interest in a mummy."

  He sat back. "I didn’t know she had any particular interest in Egyptian artifacts, but at this point, she isn’t likely to tell us because it would prove she stole it. It still looks like the only person we can negotiate with is your client. If the environmental company had found it while doing cleanup, no doubt Snelling would have a claim since she funded the project, but in this case, it’s just abandoned shipping property. It’s first find, first keep."

  "Any chance your museum would be able to pay him for it?"

  Charles shook his head. "Getting funding approved would make everything public. We’d have claimants coming out of the sand, demanding its return to some dusty desert so they could turn around and sell it. No, the best thing is to convince the curse that our museum would make a wonderful new home." He looked expectantly at my shoulder, but the curse didn’t bat a color; it remained a pale cool yellow.

  I took a deep breath before I remembered where I was. When I got done coughing I said, "Let’s go see if we can convince Toppo and the other half of this curse that a move to the museum is a good idea."

  Charles didn’t even go home to pack. He grabbed his com, a briefcase and hurried me out a back corridor.

  We had barely stepped out of the building when the ball of fire turned a bright red and burned a hole through my shirt.

  # # #

  One day I would get a case where I had time to dally with a nurse, one who would sooth my injuries. Today, I got smoke fumes, Charles slapping at my agonized shoulder to put the flames out and a rushed trip to the gnome station.

  Apparently curses can travel significantly faster than modern transportation because when Toppo called me fifteen minutes into the trip, the half of the curse that had been on my shoulder was now bobbing behind him as he tried to talk.

  Toppo sobbed so hard, all I could understand was the word, "hostage."

  "It’s holding you hostage?"

  The com did a wild scan. Flaming balls of light flashed. Then I saw the famous picture of the fairy sliced in half. The bottom part lay smoking on the floor. At first I thought Toppo had zoomed in on the fairy’s face, but then I realized it was a man’s pale face with long, weather-bleached hair. His eyes had a funny sparking glow, not unlike that of the fairy. In his case, the light was coming from a solid beam of violent orange that rested against his neck.

  I had no idea what was going on. "I’m on my way," I told Toppo.

  "The curse," he shrieked. "It has my son!"

  I couldn’t imagine how Toppo’s son had come to be hostage at the guest house, but I thought the freight company might be able to help me out.

  I was wrong, of course. They were happy to repeat that they hadn’t hired anyone. It was on Better Green’s site that I got the first hint of a clue. This time, since I had nothing but time to kill, I watched the entire interactive panel of pictures. At the end, there was a single credit: "Data Provided by Mermaid Bubble."

  "Mermaid Bubble?" I didn’t know the name of Toppo’s submersible, but I did know what it looked like.

  A quick lookup confirmed it. Mermaid Bubble was Toppo’s business, the business now run by his son, Craig Toppo. So who had really found the crate? And who decided to try and sell it for a profit?

  Charles interrupted my line of thought by shouting, "I found a place that will pickup in Texas and deliver to the museum!"

  I grunted. At least Charles had paid for private seating. Based on his greedy, triumphant shouting, seat mates might mug us thinking he had won the lottery.

  We were involved in a gamble all right, but I didn’t think we were winning.

  # # #

  At the Hill Country station, we retrieved my personal transporter and drove straight to Toppo’s guest house. A commercial truck transporter was already there.

  Charles hissed, "That’s not the company I talked to! I hope no one has tried to take the mummy."

  I snorted. The curse hadn’t left my shoulder to spend the day at the beach. Of course someone had tried to take the package. The only question was how much damage had been done and to whom.

  We hurried up the cobblestones. There was no need to knock; the door had been blown inward. Cautiously I peered through the opening.

  Toppo was sitting on the only kitchen chair not in shreds. Half of the curse hovered in front of him. On the floor below the remains of the fairy picture, a young man was pinned by various pieces of curse. A brunette in pink shorts stood near the sink. She was also surrounded by thin pieces of curse. Apparently, the curse had split itself into multiple parts.

  Toppo saw us and started talking. "I’ve told this damned curse my son isn’t responsible! Darlene’s mother must have financed this project!" He waved at the girl.

  "You’re Darlene Snelling?" I asked.

  "She’s innocent," yelled the man from the floor. "I’m telling you dad, leave her out of this!"

  "Take her, and leave us be," Toppo retorted.

  The girl had wide brown eyes that had already spilled a few tears. "Oh sure, kill me and save yourself, you old goat!"

  Toppo’s eyes flicked to me. Between tight lips he demanded, "Can you remove this curse? We can use our previous contract for payment details."

  I scratched my head, wincing when I touched the back. "Well, I had a plan, but it looks like someone tried to move the package, and apparently that has upset the curse. Let’s start at the beginning: Who really found the crate, Mr. Toppo? You or your son?"

  "I did, just like I told you!"

  "You shouldn’t have been looking for it in the first place," his son squawked. "If you hadn’t, none of this would have happened!"

  The curse was restless. The biggest ba
ll, probably the part that had followed me around, moved to Darlene. "It does appear you hired the environmental people--" I started.

  "I don’t know anything about this!"

  "Leave her alone," Craig cried from the floor. He wiggled frantically, but all he managed to do was singe his skin. "She didn’t know anything until we got here!"

  "And how," I asked, "did you come to be here?"

  Suddenly, he had no more to say. He stopped moving except to breathe. When it appeared that no answer was forthcoming, much to my surprise, the curse surrounding his neck began to glow.

  "Ow! Aaah!" Craig yelled. "Okay! I only came here because dad asked me whether anyone had approached me looking for a package off the record." His eyes closed. "I know he goes out looking. I wondered what he found, that’s all."

  "None of this is his fault," Toppo sputtered. "I found the crate. All I had to do was figure out who wanted that crate, and I could make my money. If someone wanted the crate on the sly, I was willing to sell it without a public record."

  The part of the curse that had been near Darlene zipped back over to Toppo. He jerked away, but the curse dipped low just long enough to set his pants on fire.

  It took a few minutes of shouting and rolling to get the flames out.

  I tapped my foot thoughtfully. The curse was obviously willing to help me out. The people in this room were obviously willing to protect one another--well, in one direction anyway. "Charles," I said, "your friend named the donor, someone willing to fund Better Green to clean up the site--and likely look for the crate. Was it Darlene or her mother?"

  "Darlene," Charles said.

  "That’s it then. The only real reason to hire the environmentalists and the submersible was to find that crate. It had to be Darlene Snelling that stole the sarcophagus from the tomb." I pointed my finger dramatically at the poor girl.

  "No!" Both Craig and Darlene shouted.

  The various pieces of curse started popping back together. As they merged, they moved to Darlene. Uh-oh. I had miscalculated. I needed more time.

  Craig was suddenly free. Before I could think of a delay, he rolled to his feet and hurtled himself in front of Darlene. "You can’t have her! I did it for her! I stole it, I stole the stupid mummy!"