Ghosts of Karnak

by George Mann

  “I can’t accept this,” she said, wide-eyed. “It’s an antique. It belongs in a museum.”

  Amaury grinned. “Do you like it?”

  “Very much.”

  “Then it belongs on the finger of someone who might treasure it,” he said. “It is a ring, and rings are made to be worn, not to sit in display cases in dusty museums in the far corners of the world.” He shrugged. “Besides, Landsworth has already filled his pockets until they overflow. His greed seems to know no bounds. It is obscene to watch. His exhibition will be the talk of the world. Let him show off all the trinkets he does not understand, while you take something of meaning from all our efforts.”

  “Where’s it from?”

  “The tomb of Sekhmet, where we ventured together into the dark. Let it be a memento of your trip.”

  “Well, if you’re certain?” said Ginny.

  He nodded.

  “Then I shall treasure it,” she said.

  She moved to slip it back into the leather purse, and he sat forward, holding out his hand for her to stop. “Oh no,” he said, “please, try it on. I should like to see you wear it.”

  “Very well,” said Ginny. She slid it carefully onto the little finger of her right hand. It was snug, and she held it up so he could admire it.

  “Perfect,” he said. “Just perfect.”

  “I shall have to treat it with great care,” she said. “Tell me, what does the symbol mean? I saw it at the site, too, in the large courtyard area. It doesn’t look terribly Egyptian.”

  The waiter had arrived with their drinks, and she lowered her hand, a little self-conscious. Amaury waited until he had deposited their drinks and left.

  “It is a symbol that is very dear to me,” he said, “a reference to the interconnectivity of all things. When Thoth calculated the heavens, he observed that the heavens resembled the domain of men. What occurred above, amongst the gods, was mirrored below. Thoth conspired for things to remain that way, for the benefit of mankind. If the lands of men might always resemble the realm of the gods, then mankind might always be happy, and the gods always in control.” Amaury took a swig of his drink.

  “Over the years, however, mankind disrupted those plans, as the great pharaohs believed themselves worthy of divinity. Mankind forgot its place, and the realms of gods and men drifted apart. Over thousands of years, mankind forgot about the gods, and the gods fell into a long and restful slumber. There they wait, dreaming of a time when they might be awoken in order to realign the heavens and the realm of men.”

  “So, when you spoke of waking the gods, it was this you were referring to?” said Ginny.

  Amaury waved a dismissive hand. “Oh, no, merely that in excavating the ancient monuments, we might once again show them to the world. It is a good story though, is it not?”

  “It’s marvelous,” said Ginny. “Thank you, Amaury.” She sipped at her gin, enjoying the cool, crisp taste of it on her palate. “I shall write to you from the Centurion, and again when I reach New York.”

  “The Centurion?” said Amaury, surprised.

  “Yes, I booked my ticket this morning. I leave from Cairo in a few days.”

  “Then you shall have a traveling companion, for that is the vessel Landsworth has arranged to transport the antiquities to New York.”

  Ginny tried not to look too dismayed. “Wonderful,” she said, painting on a smile.

  Amaury chuckled. “Come now, Miss Gray. There is no need to be coy. I see that Mr. Landsworth has not made the best impression. It is a particular skill of his to alienate people. Let me guess—he issued you with a ‘warning’ in the desert, telling you to keep away, and that you should never have agreed to come along to the dig?”

  Ginny frowned. “Well, something like that,” she said.

  “Ah,” said Amaury. “He told you I was not to be trusted.”

  Ginny swallowed. She was starting to feel a little uncomfortable. “I’d prefer to put it all behind me,” she said. “Let’s just say that I shall not be sharing a table with him during our crossing, and leave it at that.”

  “Very well,” said Amaury, amused. “But I fear for Mr. Landsworth’s safety if he inadvertently crosses your path.”

  Ginny couldn’t help but laugh. “Well, perhaps you should offer him a warning of his own.”

  “I might just do that,” he said, raising his glass. “Come now, let us toast your final night in Luxor. Here’s to you, and whatever the future might bring.”

  “To the future,” said Ginny, clinking her glass against his. She leaned back, looking out across the desert at the distant stars. Only this time, she couldn’t shake the feeling that they were looking back.

  SIXTEEN

  “You know, I’m starting to get the impression you can’t keep away, Inspector Donovan. And here’s me thinking you had a distaste for corpses.”

  “I do,” growled Donovan, chewing on the end of his unlit cigarette. He was back in Vettel’s laboratory, staring at the milky-white corpse of an overweight mobster. This one had been in the morgue for well over a week, chilling in one of the storage cabinets, and the flesh had taken on a pale, sickly hue. The man was going blue around the lips, and his eyelids were shut tight and rimed with frost. Donovan could see the little ice crystals, resting on the tips of his eyelashes. There was a six-inch gash in his throat, yawning open to expose the muscles and arteries inside.

  “I have to hand it to you,” she said. “You hide it well.”

  “Very droll,” said Donovan. He bit down too hard on the cigarette and it split, flooding his mouth with dry tobacco. He plucked it out and tossed it in the trash, trying to hide his distaste.

  “Whoever tipped you off was really on to something, Felix. Take a look at this.” She crossed to the corpse and lifted the man’s arm, presenting his wrist.

  Donovan frowned.

  “Come on, he won’t bite,” said Vettel. “But I might if you don’t get over here and let me show off a bit. I’ve been putting in the hours to help you out with this one.”

  “I know, I know,” said Donovan. “And I appreciate it. I really do.” He went to join her.

  “Here,” she said. She pointed to a small, puckered mark in the flesh.

  “What is it? Looks like he was wounded in the fight. It’s just a ragged tear.”

  “Look again,” said Vettel. “In light of Autumn Allen.”

  With a sigh, Donovan leaned closer, peering at the wound. She was right—the scabrous line traced the faint shape of an ibis. It was simple, and the perpetrator clearly hadn’t taken care in the same way they had with Autumn Allen, but there was no doubt—it was derived from a similar ancient design. “An ibis,” he said. “I see it.”

  “Indeed. And do you remember who this man was?”

  “Howard Fuseli, a mobster working for the Reaper,” said Donovan. “They were marking the corpse, making sure the Reaper knew who was responsible. Good God, I wonder how far back this goes.”

  “I can give you some idea,” said Vettel. “But first, the throat. Look at the gash.”

  “I’d rather not.”

  She ignored him, running her index finger back and forth, just above the wound. “He was slashed from left to right by someone employing a large, curved blade. It was sharp, but see how it’s basically ripped his larynx out? It’s a particularly brutal way to go. Judging by the lack of other wounds on the body, I’d say this was definitely an execution, rather than a brawl. Someone probably held his hands behind his back, maybe pulled his head back a little, while another slashed him once across the throat.”

  “At least it was over quickly,” said Donovan, “which is more than he deserved.”

  Vettel drew a cotton sheet over the corpse. “This was the only one I still had in storage, but I’ve got scans of the others.”

  “Others, as in plural?” said Donovan.

  “I wouldn’t have said it otherwise.” She walked over to her holograph terminal and flicked it on. The lamp emitted its familiar hum
as it warmed.

  “No Sergeant Mullins today?” said Vettel. “I thought you two were inseparable these days.”

  Donovan decided not to take the bait. “I told him to wait in the car.”

  “Saving him from the corpses?”

  “Saving him from you. I think he finds you a little intimidating.”

  “Me?” said Vettel. “But I’m a pussycat!”

  “You’re a damn good doctor and you don’t take any shit,” said Donovan. “That’s what he’s not used to. None of them are. When you’ve been in this job as long as I have, you’ve seen plenty of people come and go. We’ve had our fair share of surgeons, and you’re the first who’s ever really given a damn. That counts for a lot in my book, but it scares the hell out of the lads at the precinct. They don’t know how to act around you. They’re used to tossing the police surgeon a body and getting a perfunctory report. You, on the other hand, ask a lot of questions. Difficult questions. Some of them think you’re making their job harder, that you’re just breaking their balls because you can. They haven’t cottoned on yet that it’s actually because you’re good at your job.”

  Vettel smiled. “I knew I liked you for a reason,” she said. The holograph blinked on behind her, and she turned and inserted a series of glass plates from a stack she’d pre-prepared on the counter.

  “Right, here we go,” she said, as the image of a body shimmered to life in the mirrored cavity. “Joey Malone. Killed three weeks ago in what we all assumed was a mob battle.”

  With the Reaper going around assuming control of most of the smaller outfits, there’d been a lot of this over the course of the last few months. No one was talking, of course, and it was almost impossible to prosecute, even when the police knew who was responsible. Consequently, a lot of the deaths were written off, chalked up as statistics and forgotten about. It was wrong, of course, they all knew that, but small-time gangsters taking each other off the streets had never seemed like a priority.

  “But it wasn’t?” said Donovan.

  “I’m beginning to think not,” said Vettel. “At least, not in the way we thought. Look at the gash in his throat.”

  Donovan leaned closer. The hologram was startlingly realistic, and the kid’s face—he couldn’t have been more than eighteen years old—was set in a horrible, rictus snarl. There was no denying that the slash in his throat was a close match to the one that had put an end to Fuseli, however.

  “And a mark on the wrist?”

  “Not in this instance,” said Vettel. “The killer must have been in too much of a hurry, but here’s another.” She hurriedly switched out the slides, and a moment or two later, Donovan was looking at a third corpse. This was an older man, around forty years, who he recognized as Albert Harness, a well-known pickpocket and snitch. Once again, his throat had been cut in exactly the same way.

  Vettel switched the slides, offering Donovan a view from the reverse. She pointed to Harness’s wrist. “Here,” she said. “We missed it the first time, for the same reason we missed the one on Fuseli—it’s crude, and it’s been done in a hurry. The hallmarks are all there, though. It’s the same killer, or killers.”

  “Any more?” said Donovan. He could see where this was going.

  “Another five that all fit the same pattern, in one way or another. They all died within the last month. You want to see?”

  “No, that’s enough. But I do have another question. Have you had anyone in from a recent fire, probably on the Upper East Side? It’ll be within the same time period, possibly more recent. It might not have been a criminal investigation, but I’m looking at a number of victims.”

  She shook her head. “No, sorry, nothing.”

  “All right, thanks.” He’d have to get Mullins to check with the fire department.

  “What do you think we’re looking at?” said Vettel.

  “Gang war on a scale we haven’t seen for years,” said Donovan. “The cult who did this,” he jabbed at the flickering hologram, “they’re known as the Circle of Thoth, and they’re going up against the Reaper. I thought it all started with Autumn Allen, but I was wrong. What you’ve shown me today proves that it’s already out of hand. If we don’t put it down quickly, we’re going to see all of Manhattan caught in the crossfire.” He scratched at his beard. “And what’s more—I think the Circle of Thoth have just brought in a LOT of reinforcements.”

  “What can I do?” said Vettel.

  “You know what we’re looking for,” said Donovan, “so keep your eyes peeled. Anything comes in that looks like it’s connected, call me.”

  “Of course,” said Vettel.

  “Listen, I’ve got to run. I need to make a call. Thank you,” said Donovan. He didn’t wait for her response before running out of the door.

  * * *

  “I’m sorry, Inspector, but Mr. Cross is away in the city at the moment. I’m not sure precisely when he’ll be back, but I’m not expecting him any time soon. Would you like me to take a message?”

  “No, thank you. Maybe when you speak to him just let him know that I called.”

  “Certainly, sir. Goodbye.”

  Donovan hung up the receiver on Gabriel’s valet, and cursed. He’d already tried the apartment, first on the holotube, and then in person, but the man was nowhere to be seen. Donovan was half concerned that his injured body had finally given up on him someplace in town, and that he’d turn up in a hospital somewhere, too broken to be any help.

  That, though, was just his frustration talking. More likely he was out visiting an ally, trying to find out more about the cultists and what they were up to, or chasing down Landsworth in search of Ginny.

  Whatever the case, Donovan needed to talk to him, and soon. Things were about to spiral out of control. He could see it coming. If the Reaper sent his Enforcers up against whatever godforsaken voodoo the cult had just shipped in from Egypt, then all hell would break loose. There was no way the police department was equipped to handle the fallout.

  He needed the Ghost, and he needed him now.

  SEVENTEEN

  It was a balmy night, and the Ghost, drifting high above the rooftops of Fifth Avenue, wished he were at home, sipping a margarita and listening to a lazy jazz record on the Victrola. He needed to rest, to find a moment of respite. If Ginny were there she would have forced the issue, regardless of everything else going on—she’d have whisked him back to Long Island, and they’d have spent the night together, sitting on the veranda and looking up at the stars.

  Only Ginny wasn’t there, and that was why he couldn’t stop.

  He felt as if he were caught in an endless cycle of days and nights, Gabriel and the Ghost, unable to halt his progress as he careened into whatever was coming next. He risked losing perspective; he knew that. There was no time, though—he could sense something building, like a fever slowly taking hold of the city. Soon it was going to break, and he needed to be ready to act, whatever the risk to his own wellbeing.

  He circled over the rooftops, keeping low. His chest still burned with every breath, although the pain had subsided considerably since Astrid had worked her magic, particularly when he flexed his lower back. He had no intention of getting mixed up in any brawls that night; even if Astrid hadn’t warned him off, he knew he couldn’t withstand any more beatings. Not yet. His reactions were dulled, his body lethargic. Another fight like the two he’d already faced this week would probably see the end of him.

  Tonight, his sole ambition was to catch a glimpse of the mysterious floating apparition, to put Astrid’s theory to the test.

  He hovered in the shadow of a water tower for a moment, before cutting the power to his boosters and lowering himself to the roof of his own apartment building. His boots crunched on the gravel as he set down.

  The apparition had been seen around these parts, according to the news reports, and he hoped it was just a matter of time before it put in another appearance. He’d been circling for over an hour, covering around a square mile of the city
, but so far he’d seen no indication of anything untoward. In fact, the city seemed unusually quiet, as if it were holding its breath for tomorrow’s parade.

  He crossed to the corner, hopping up onto the low wall. Below, even at this hour, people were still flowing about the maze of streets like blood cells coursing through the veins and arteries of the city.

  Elsewhere, Manhattan was dreaming. At least, that’s how it seemed to him—all the brilliant neon and fizzing electric lights, the holographic statues glowing sharp and blue in the darkness, police blimps bobbing beneath the canopy of cotton wool clouds, picked out by the tails of their own search beams. It all seemed like a distant dream, conjured up by the collective imagination of the citizens, sleeping now in their beds.

  Maybe it was the painkillers talking. Or perhaps it was what Astrid had said, about the earth reflecting the heavens and the design of ancient gods. If those gods had been supplanted, what had replaced them? Mankind itself? Did that mean they had now assumed the power to manipulate the heavens, too?

  He heard a thud from somewhere behind him, and turned, half expecting to see the apparition there, watching him. There was nothing.

  He crossed to the other side of the rooftop, scanning the streets as he walked. There it was again, a distant thud, like the rumble of brewing thunder. It had come from ground level, though, a couple of streets away. He boosted across to the building on the other side of the cross street, and ran across the narrow roof, avoiding a large skylight.

  He peered down into the gloom, his night-vision goggles casting everything in a faint red glow.

  His heart sank.

  An Enforcer was down there, bearing down on an unarmed man. The sound had been its fist, pummeling the concrete as it attempted to crush him; he could see the tide of broken slabs it had left in its wake.