Ghosts of Karnak

by George Mann

  “Through here,” she said, holding the door open for them. She was young for a doctor, or so it seemed to Donovan, who might just have been getting old. She was wearing a pleated skirt and a tangerine blouse, mostly covered by a stained white apron. She had an ample, attractive figure, and wore a small pair of glasses that seemed to pinch the bridge of her nose. Her brown hair was tied up in a casual knot, as if she’d hurriedly pinned it there that morning and forgotten to let it down.

  Donovan and Mullins filed into the room. It might have been a large laboratory, if it weren’t for the extra workbenches, racks of specimen jars, and operating slabs that had been crammed inside. Over each of the two slabs was a star-shaped cluster of pneumatic spurs, each one bristling with surgical tools. To Donovan they looked like large mechanical spiders, draping from the ceiling, each limb terminating in a deathly blade.

  The slabs were both occupied, but thin cotton sheets covered the shapeless mounds. Donovan was grateful; he’d known surgeons in the past so desensitized to death that they could happily eat their lunch whilst finishing up an autopsy.

  “The woman, Autumn Allen,” said Vettel, allowing the door to swing shut behind them. “I’ve taken a full body scan. We can bring it up on the terminal over there.” She crossed to a fixture on the wall that resembled the mirrored cavity on a holotube terminal, only far larger. She took a series of glass plates from the workbench beside it and slid them into a row of thin horizontal slots, then flicked a switch. The machine hummed for a moment as the bulb warmed up, and then it blinked on, and an image slowly resolved. It was a full-scale replica of the dead woman’s body, rendered in sharp blue light.

  “That’s remarkable,” said Mullins, eyes wide with surprise.

  Vettel smiled. “Impressive, isn’t it? And particularly useful when some of the more squeamish members of the force come down from the precinct.”

  Donovan wasn’t sure whether the comment was aimed at him or Mullins. He went over to join her, seeing now that there were even more symbols carved into her body—one on her thigh, and another on her belly. “They must have hoisted her dress up to do these,” he said. “It wasn’t torn, or I’d have noticed them on the night.”

  “And the one on her back?” said Vettel. “Did you notice that?”

  Donovan shook his head. She slid two of the glass plates out of the machine and replaced them with others. The image shuddered, and when it resolved again, he was seeing the woman from behind. Just as Vettel had said, there was a symbol on her back, right between the shoulder blades. It was a lozenge with a flattened end, and inside were what appeared to be an ibis, a semicircle, two parallel lines and a seated figure with a bird’s head. The lines had been drawn with excruciating, exacting care. Donovan had no idea what they meant.

  “This one was done after she was dead,” said Vettel. “The others while she was alive. You can tell by the way the lines are all so precise.”

  “She wasn’t struggling,” said Donovan.

  “Precisely.”

  “And what’s your opinion, Dr. Vettel?” said Donovan. “On what happened to her.”

  “Opinion? I don’t offer opinions, Inspector. I present facts. It’s up to you how you turn them into theories, suppositions and outright works of fiction after that.”

  Donovan fixed her with an impatient glower.

  “All right, all right,” she said theatrically, throwing her hands up in the air. “The truth of the matter is this—Autumn Allen had been out for a pleasant evening in town. She’d dined well, drunk enough to make her tipsy, and then had vigorous sex.”

  “Consensual?” asked Mullins.

  “The evidence would seem to suggest so, yes.” Vettel had started pacing, but her eyes were seeing someplace else, watching the events unfolding in her mind. “Sometime later, within a few hours of leaving her lover’s bed, she was accosted in the street, beaten into submission, and then held down while those markings were cut into her flesh with the tip of an exceptionally sharp knife. She tried to struggle, but the men were too strong—and I do believe it was men who carried out this attack—pinning her down by the shoulders and ankles as one of their number carried out the deed.”

  Vettel stopped pacing suddenly, leaning against her filing cabinet, looking at Donovan. “When they’d finished, they throttled her to death, carved the final symbol, and then left her on the sidewalk. It was another few hours before her body was called in, and my ass was hauled out of bed by your sergeant, here.”

  “We all have our crosses to bear,” said Donovan. “It’ll teach you to be so bloody good at your job.” He reached inside his jacket for his cigarettes, but caught sight of the look on Vettel’s face, and stopped, leaving them where they were. He pointed to the wound on the back of the hologram. “Any idea what the markings mean?”

  “They’re Ancient Egyptian in origin,” said Vettel. “Or at least they purport to be, but I’ll remind you, again, that you’re the detective. I might be an expert in human anatomy, but I don’t know the first thing about dead languages from the other side of the world.” She smiled, clearly enjoying herself. “Nevertheless, I’ve cleaned up all the wounds and photographed them for you. I thought that might make it easier for you to get out there and do some actual ‘detecting’.”

  She picked up a brown paper folder containing a sheaf of photographs, and handed it to Donovan. He passed it straight to Mullins, who regarded it with a plaintive expression, and put it down on the workbench beside him.

  “Thank you,” said Donovan. “One further question. How many men do you think were responsible?”

  Vettel sighed. “Impossible to say for certain. At least five, I’d warrant, judging by the pattern of bruises around her ankles and upper arms. This was no impulsive attack, Inspector. Whoever did this had a plan, and they executed it to perfection.”

  “You almost sound as if you admire them,” said Mullins.

  “I admire the tenacity, the work that went into it. But if I ever got hold of the bastards responsible, I’d cut off their balls with my scalpel and serve them back to them as moonshine.” She pressed her glasses back up to the bridge of her nose. “Does that answer your question?”

  Mullins looked at the floor.

  “Tell us about this other body, then, the one fished out of the Hudson at lunchtime.”

  Vettel crossed to one of the slabs, pulling back the cotton sheet with a gesture like a stage magician whisking a tablecloth from under a tea service. Donovan winced at the sight of the pale, bloated flesh, and the man’s horrific expression, his lips peeled back from his teeth, his jaws clenched. His eyes were still open, but misted over now, milky and staring. He looked feral, like a rabid dog that had been forcibly put down. He realized that might not have been too far from the mark.

  “Interesting one, this,” said Vettel. “I’ve only had him for a couple of hours, so I’ve not yet been able to render up a scan. But look at these…” She lifted the man’s arm and pointed out a series of round puckered holes in the flesh, each around the size of a quarter.

  “Good God,” said Donovan. “He’s covered in them.” He could see now that similar holes had been punched into both legs, his chest, even the back of his neck. He suspected if he rolled the body over, he’d see them on his back, too. “What did this to him?”

  “The question you’re looking for is ‘who’,” said Vettel. “These holes go right down to the bone. In fact, they go into the bone. There’s evidence that metal rods had been screwed into the man’s skeleton. They would have protruded from the flesh, maybe forming a sort of metal cage, or exoskeleton.”

  “Were they introduced post-mortem?” said Donovan.

  “Oh, no,” replied Vettel. “This man’s been thoroughly brutalized. These were fitted while he was alive. He’s been walking around wearing the fittings for some time. Weeks, I’d say, if not longer. He’s undergone multiple surgeries. He’ll have been in constant pain, and when I get chance to run the blood report later this afternoon, I expect
I’ll find evidence of high-caliber painkillers in his system. He couldn’t have survived without them.”

  “And these rods had already been removed when he was found?” said Donovan. He was having a hard time conceiving how anyone could withstand having such equipment bolted into his or her body like this.

  Vettel shook her head. “Yes. After the victim had died. It seems someone came looking for their equipment and removed it, before tossing what was left of him in the river.”

  “Salvage?” said Donovan, rhetorically. “Or perhaps simply to prevent us from finding it.” Vettel shrugged. “I’ve heard talk that the mob have been assembling an army of mechanized men such as this. I’d wager a month’s salary on the fact we’ll turn up some sort of connection between this man and the Reaper.” Donovan looked at the dead man’s face again. He was going to be almost impossible to identify from facial records; the flesh was too bloated and damaged, and there was evidence that he’d taken a beating. He thought he knew who was responsible.

  “Nothing on him that would help us to identify him? A wallet?”

  “When he landed here he was as naked as the day he was born,” said Vettel. “On his back, there’s a bloodied patch of skin that suggests someone’s hurriedly removed a tattoo or other identifying mark. They’ve been very thorough. They don’t want us figuring out who he is.”

  “So what killed him?” said Donovan. “The surgeries? The stress of wearing the suit?”

  “No, although that would certainly have killed him after a time. There’s evidence he was dropped from a great height, however. Whatever exoskeleton he was wearing couldn’t fully absorb the shock. One of the spurs clearly snapped and punctured his chest, and his neck was broken from the fall. Additionally, there are signs he’d been brawling. There are slashes here, here, and here,” she said, pointing them out. “Look familiar?”

  Donovan nodded. The wounds were little sickle-shaped gashes in his chest—the hallmark left behind by the Ghost’s flechettes. That clinched it, then—this was the Enforcer that Gabriel had fought the other night, the one who’d given him a beating. There was no doubt he was associated with the Reaper. The problem was in proving it. He caught Mullins’s eye, and a flash of understanding passed between them.

  “Have you ever seen work like this before?” he asked Vettel. “Not the wounds, but the other stuff, the surgeries.”

  “I’ve seen similar. There was a man named Spectorius, a good doctor, but had a bit of a taste for the macabre. He got himself struck off when some of your boys discovered he’d been experimenting on immigrants and homeless people. He went underground after that, and I think for a time he got mixed up with the Roman.”

  “I remember,” said Donovan. “We never found him when we raided the Roman’s mansion. Cleared out his workshop, but there was no sign of Spectorius himself.”

  “It’s just a hunch,” said Vettel, “but he might be tied up in all this.”

  “I thought you didn’t offer opinions,” said Donovan, with a grin.

  Vettel put her hand on her hip. “Go on. Get out of my lab. I’ve had enough of you now, poking around, asking questions. I’ve got work to do.”

  Donovan laughed. “You know where to find me if you turn up anything else,” he said.

  “What more do you want?” said Vettel. “The culprits all parceled up ready for you, tied neatly with string?”

  “That’d be nice,” said Donovan.

  “Go!” said Vettel, pointing to the door and feigning indignation. Donovan, though, could see the hint of a smile playing across her lips.

  “Come on, Mullins,” he said, patting him on the shoulder, “before she gets a hold of one of those scalpels and comes after you. We don’t want any of that moonshine she mentioned.”

  Mullins, visibly paling at the thought, didn’t look back as he reached for the door, and Donovan, following after, heard Vettel chuckling to herself as he pulled it shut behind him.

  SEVEN

  The view from the roof of the police precinct was as breathtaking as ever, and for the first time in days, the Ghost felt truly alive.

  He was balanced on the low wall that formed a lip around the roof, standing right on the corner, high above an intersection. The updraft was buffeting him, causing his coat to billow out behind him, rippling at his back. He filled his lungs with the scent of the street below: the frying onions on a hotdog stand, the reek of spilled beer from a speakeasy frequented by every policeman he knew, the floral bouquet of a woman who’d indulged in too much perfume.

  He held his arms out by his sides, and looked out across the glittering landscape of sweeping canyons, each of them flanked by regimented cliffs of bricks, metal, and glass. From here he could see Atlas—the immense holographic sculpture in Union Square, bearing the weight of the world on his shoulders—and felt a certain kinship with him. All across the city, the fingers of police searchlights reached down from hovering blimps, teasing apart the shadows below.

  There was no sign of any glowing phantom, and for that he was thankful; he had enough on his mind, and Donovan—who he could hear crossing the rooftop behind him—was about to add to his burden with talk of a dead woman.

  “Come on down from there before you fall,” said Donovan. “I’d have to answer some very awkward questions, and there’d be a hell of a lot of paperwork.”

  The Ghost heard the familiar sound of a cigarette being drawn from its packet, followed by the flare of the ignition tab. He turned, dropping down from the wall to the graveled rooftop. “Evening, Felix.”

  “Hmmm,” mumbled Donovan, around the butt of his cigarette. “You’re still alive then.”

  “I was lucky,” said the Ghost. “Those Enforcers aren’t like anything we’ve faced before. The Reaper’s building an army, and if we don’t find a way to stop them soon, he’ll have the run of the place.”

  Donovan nodded. “Do you ever get the feeling we’re already too late? Sometimes, this job… it’s like fighting against the tide. There are days when I think I’d be happier if I just allowed it to wash over me. Or put on a mask, like you, and kicked the crap out of something.”

  “Now that’s the lack of sleep talking,” said the Ghost. “You’re tired, Felix. Take a vacation.”

  “A vacation? I wouldn’t make it off the island before they summoned me back. We’re undermanned and overworked, and half the men in the tertiary precincts are already turning a blind eye for a glimpse of the Reaper’s dollar.”

  “Then hire more women,” said the Ghost.

  Donovan laughed. “You know, that’s probably the best idea I’ve heard yet. I’ll put it to the Commissioner.” He took a long draw from his cigarette and let the smoke spill out slowly from the corner of his mouth. “We found your man, by the way. His body had been dumped in the Hudson. Washed up this afternoon. All the equipment had gone, but it was obviously the man you told me about. Someone had drilled holes in his arms, legs, and chest. Vettel said she could see where the metal rods had been removed from the bones.”

  “I had to throw him off a building,” said the Ghost, “and he almost survived that, too. Did you manage to identify him yet?”

  Donovan shook his head. “He certainly wasn’t local. We’re thinking maybe he was an immigrant, brought in by the Reaper. It seems he has a line in sneaking people over the border.”

  “Larceny, murder, bribery and people trafficking—and still we can’t touch him.”

  “He’s a wily bastard,” said Donovan. “Always does enough to keep his own hands clean. That’s why we need you, digging in ways we can’t.”

  “For what it’s worth,” said the Ghost. “Tell me about this dead woman.”

  “Her name was Autumn Allen. Her body was discovered on the sidewalk two nights ago. She’d been throttled to death, but not before her killers had held her down and carved a series of icons into her face, arms, and chest.” Donovan reached into his jacket and produced a roll of photographs, which he unfurled and held out to the Ghost. “They car
ved another one on her back after she was dead, too.”

  He took them, studying them for a moment, then rolled them up again, slipping them inside his own coat. “Egyptian,” he said. “Although I don’t recognize the one on her arm.” He frowned. “You think they have something to do with Ginny and the Centurion?”

  “The thought hadn’t even occurred to me,” said Donovan, “but now you come to mention it, isn’t there some big exhibition coming to the Met?”

  The Ghost nodded. “They were unloading the exhibits when I was down at the docks yesterday. But the ship didn’t come in until after the woman was found dead. The timing doesn’t add up.”

  “Still, I don’t like coincidences,” said Donovan. “It seems a little unlikely that we’d turn up a body scored with Ancient Egyptian symbols the night before a new exhibition arrives in the city, and they not be connected.”

  “Perhaps,” said the Ghost. “So that’s what you wanted to tell me?”

  “No,” said Donovan. “I wanted you to see if you could find out what the symbols mean. You have… connections. We’ve already sent copies to the museum, but I was thinking there might be some significance the historians are likely to miss, if you see what I mean?”

  The Ghost nodded. “I’ll do what I can do.”

  “There’s another thing,” said Donovan. “In her handbag she was carrying this.” He took a small black card from his pocket. “It’s a business card for a jazz club we believe to be connected to the Reaper, Café Deluxe.”

  “A mob girl?” said the Ghost. That would be a turn-up.

  Donovan shrugged. “We’re looking into it. But someone had spent a lot of money buying her diamonds. She was still wearing them when we found her.”

  “The killer didn’t take them?”

  “Interesting, isn’t it? That’s what made me think there was something more to the symbols, some religious or occult significance.”