Ghosts of Karnak

by George Mann

  “No!”

  He opened his eyes as the pressure suddenly lifted, and he gulped at the air, dragging it down into his lungs. Spots were dancing before his eyes. He fell back, spluttering.

  Ginny had drifted up out of the chair, hovering a few feet above the ground. She looked pained, doubling over with the turmoil of her inner battle. “No!” she screamed in defiance, raging against the deity who was attempting to subsume her. “No!”

  She dropped suddenly, crumpling back into the chair. Slowly, the pale aura began to fade, and her eyes regained their previous luster. Within moments she was Ginny again, hugging her knees to her chest. She looked at Gabriel imploringly. He tried to force a smile.

  “You did it, Ginny,” said Astrid. “You stopped her. Now you know what you have to do to control it.”

  “It hurts,” said Ginny, her voice cracking. “It hurts so much.”

  “We’ve got to put an end to this,” said Donovan. “Who did this to you, Ginny? Tell me so I can put a bullet between the bastard’s eyes.”

  “It was Amaury,” she said. Her voice was barely a whisper. “Jacques Amaury.”

  “But Amaury’s still in Egypt. Landsworth said as much.”

  Ginny shook her head. “He was on the ship. He kept me in this little room, done out like the inside of a tomb. It’s all Amaury. He’s going to resurrect Thoth and destroy Manhattan.”

  Gabriel glanced at Donovan, and their eyes met.

  “How, Ginny?” said Gabriel. “How’s he planning to do it?”

  “He’s built a temple beneath the streets,” she said. “Somewhere on the Upper East Side. He’s going to channel Thoth’s power.”

  “Mirroring another temple,” said Astrid. “Right here, beneath our noses.”

  “But where?” said Gabriel.

  Ginny shrugged. “I’m sorry, I don’t know.”

  “The waste ground,” said Donovan. “That’s what this is all about.”

  “The waste ground?”

  “The reason it all started between the cult and the Reaper. He tried to convince them to sell a patch of waste ground, but they weren’t interested. He wasn’t prepared to give up. He pushed a little too hard, and woke the beast. That’s why they went for his girlfriend, the Allen woman.”

  “And you’re only telling us this now?”

  “It’s a patch of wasteland, Gabriel. How were we to know? Mullins checked it out, but didn’t find anything. Of course, he wasn’t looking below ground.”

  “Then that’s where it’ll be,” said Gabriel, getting to his feet.

  “We have to stop them before they manifest Thoth,” said Ginny. “If you think Sekhmet is dangerous…”

  “All right. We make our move tonight,” said Gabriel. “But first, we need to pay a visit to the museum.”

  “The museum?” said Donovan.

  Gabriel nodded. “Astrid thinks a little wanton destruction is in order,” he said, with a grin.

  TWENTY-SIX

  The museum had been closed since the shooting at the parade, and now, following the firefight the previous evening, the police had erected barriers, boarded up the main entrance and cordoned off the street outside.

  In the light of day, Gabriel was shocked by the devastation caused by the grenades—whole chunks of the sidewalk had been overturned, the road was completely impassible to cars, and the museum steps were going to need completely rebuilding. It resembled the middle of a war zone rather than the beating heart of Manhattan art and culture.

  The bodies had all gone, of course, cleared away during the night by an army of ambulance workers. The remnants of the statues had gone, too, and Gabriel wondered how Mullins had explained them away—he couldn’t imagine the Commissioner, or the media, buying into a tale of living idols and resurrected gods. He’d probably found some way to pin the blame on the dead cultists, claiming they’d been trying to steal them.

  Arthur was waiting for them on his favorite park bench. He looked thoroughly dejected, sitting in the dappled shadow of an oak tree, his pullover ruffled and his hair mussed. He’d clearly been dragged out of bed in a hurry that morning, and hadn’t bothered to straighten himself out since.

  He looked up as Gabriel and Donovan approached, Astrid and Ginny trailing behind them. “Next time, just make sure whatever you get yourselves involved in has something to do with dinosaurs, all right?” He looked from Gabriel to Donovan. “Or mammoths, mastodons, saber-toothed tigers… anything like that. The Museum of Natural History never has these sorts of problems, and it’s only fair.” He peered myopically at Ginny. “I’m delighted to see you’re back with us, Miss Gray.”

  Donovan had argued to leave the two women behind at the church, but they needed Astrid with them to oversee any changes they made to the exhibits, and besides, now that Gabriel had Ginny back, he wasn’t about to let her out of his sight again. Not for a while, anyway.

  “So, what is it you need?” said Arthur, with a heavy sigh. “I’ve been up since the small hours, cleaning up last night’s mess.” It was his usual brand of mock-weariness, rather than any real sense of bitterness at the devastation they’d caused, and Gabriel admired him more than ever for his restraint.

  “We need access to the exhibition,” said Gabriel. “Astrid thinks a few tweaks to the layout might make a difference to Ginny. She’s… umm…” He considered for a moment the best way to put it. “Well, let’s say she’s under a malign influence.”

  Arthur waved a dismissive hand, letting him off the hook with any further explanation. “I won’t pretend to understand,” he said, “and you can knock the whole bloody thing down as far as I’m concerned. It’s a disaster. Landsworth’s disappeared, the Mayor’s decided the exhibition will remain closed indefinitely, and the repairs to the museum are going to take weeks.” He rubbed his eyes and yawned. “So be my guest.”

  “You’re a good man, Arthur,” said Gabriel.

  “Well, just you remember that when you’re footing the bar bill later,” said Arthur. “Then you really will be sorry. Remember I’m an Englishman.”

  “How could I forget?”

  Arthur stood, stretching his weary limbs. “Come on, then. We’ll use the side entrance. The front door is out of commission.”

  They crossed the road, skirting the police barricade, and circled around to the side of the massive building, to a door familiar to Gabriel from many clandestine meetings with Arthur in the past.

  Arthur pulled a hoop of keys from his belt, selected one, and let them in. “Hold on a moment and I’ll fetch some torches,” he said. “It’ll be dark inside, and I’d rather not draw any attention by putting the lights on.” He propped the door open with a small stone Buddha while he shuffled around inside a cupboard, producing three electric torches. He handed one to Astrid, and another to Donovan, and then slid the Buddha out of the way. The door slammed shut, throwing them into darkness.

  Seconds later the torches blinked on, blades of light stabbing into the eerie gloom. “This way,” said Arthur, taking the lead.

  Gabriel took Ginny’s hand in the darkness. Her fingers interlaced with his as they walked, footsteps echoing through the empty halls.

  Gabriel had always found the museum intimidating, particularly in the dark; looming, unfamiliar shapes, leaping out at him from across the eons; the blank, staring faces of the long dead, peering out of portraits and busts—a sense of the weight of history crowding in around him, oppressing him. In his world, history was a dangerous thing—his experiences during the war were an indelible stain, but more than that, everything that had happened with the Roman, and then all of this, with Ginny. Now he had her back, all he wanted to do was look to the future, and not dwell on the past.

  “It’s just down here,” said Arthur, leading them along another silent passageway. “On the left.”

  He lifted the curtain to let them through. He’d left it hanging for the grand unveiling, and had never even had the chance to pull it down. Gabriel wished this whole business had bee
n easier on Arthur. He deserved a break, a little bit of success. He’d joked with them earlier, but in truth, Gabriel knew he was deeply wounded by the failure of the exhibition. It would have put the museum—and him—on the map. Now it had been reduced to one long tale of disaster.

  Gabriel ducked under the curtain.

  The exhibition looked even more stunning now that it was complete, and in the gloom, he felt almost lost, as if he’d stepped through a portal and out into the desert night. He stood for a moment in the shadow of the monolithic structures, feeling dwarfed.

  He felt Ginny stiffen beside him, her grip tightening on his hand. “It’s almost a mirror image,” she said, “of what I saw in the desert.”

  He couldn’t imagine how hard this was for her, coming here after what had happened back in Egypt. It must have been like returning to the scene of a violent crime, and he kept her close, as much for his sake as hers.

  “That’s the tomb,” said Astrid, running the beam of her torch over a wall on the other side of the exhibition hall. To the left of them was the grand colonnade, the recesses now devoid of statues.

  They followed Astrid over to the temple.

  “Hang on,” she said as she walked, playing her torch back and forth. “There’s something in the doorway.”

  As they got closer, the beam seemed to catch on something white and round. Astrid hurried closer, the focus of her beam widening. When she saw what it was, she screamed, and the shrill sound seemed to rend the air, causing Gabriel’s hackles to rise.

  Landsworth was hanging in the doorway, his head lolling awkwardly to one side, his neck broken. He’d drooled blood down the front of his pale suit, and his arms hung limp and lifeless by his side. Most disturbingly, there was no rope. He was simply hanging there in the void, suspended as if by supernatural means.

  “Oh God,” said Ginny, from beside him. “It’s started.”

  A man laughed in the darkness, and Donovan turned, spearing him with his torch.

  “Amaury,” said Ginny, as the light found his bearded face.

  “Hello, Ginny. I knew you’d return, that you wouldn’t be able to keep away, no matter what these people put you through.” He spoke with a smooth French lilt. “You’ve brought them back here, haven’t you, to your place of power, your place of rebirth?”

  “No!” said Ginny. “It’s not like that. You’re twisting it.”

  Amaury grinned. “Now, now. You know I don’t like liars.” He glanced toward the tomb. “Landsworth was a liar, and look where it got him.”

  Landsworth’s body suddenly slumped to the ground, released from whatever occult grip had been suspending it. “The poor fool just couldn’t keep his mouth shut. He did in the end, though, when I fed him his own tongue.” He smiled. “Although I think the irony was a little lost on him.”

  “I saw you,” said Gabriel, stepping forward. “In the Café Deluxe. You’ve been here all along, ever since the Centurion arrived. You’ve played us all for fools.”

  “Ah,” said Amaury. “The man in the bar, searching for his lost love. There were a lot of ghosts there that night, weren’t there?”

  Out of the corner of his eye, Gabriel noticed that Donovan had been slowly sliding his gun from its holster, and was now pointing it at Amaury. If he could keep him talking for just a moment longer, Donovan would have a clear shot. “You know who I am, then?”

  “I know who you might have been. Anubis, Horus, Atum. Ginny didn’t want that, though. She didn’t want to share it with you. I can’t say I blame her. The power is quite beguiling.”

  Donovan’s gun barked as he squeezed the trigger. Gabriel felt Ginny jump at the report.

  The bullet struck Amaury in the chest, just above the heart. He staggered back, face contorting, clutching at the entry wound. Then he started to laugh again, and straightened up, lifting his hand away with a magician’s flourish. There wasn’t even a blemish on the front of his shirt.

  Frowning, Donovan emptied the clip, snapping out shot after shot, but every time a bullet struck Amaury, it just… disappeared. The only sign of their passing was a minute shift in the quality of light, a vague amber glow at the site of impact.

  Amaury threw his arms wide, and Gabriel felt a rush of hot air, felt sand stirring around the room, peppering his face. Immense wings of amber light unfurled behind Amaury, filling the chamber with a glare like the midday sun.

  He lifted into the air, his eyes shining, his body shimmering as if lost behind a heat haze. In his left hand he carried a long, curved blade, forged from the starlight itself, and in his left a blackened shield, emblazoned with the head of an ibis. He was beautiful and terrifying in equal measure.

  “Thoth,” said Astrid. “We’re too late. He’s already done it. He’s already been resurrected.”

  “I see it now,” said Ginny. “I’ve been such a fool. He’s always been Thoth. Ever since I first met him. It must have happened out there, in the desert, when they first found the temple in the sands.”

  “Then the complex he’s building here,” said Astrid, “it’s not to resurrect him.”

  “It’s to give him power,” said Ginny.

  Thoth’s voice boomed in a guttural tongue that Gabriel could not decipher. The sound of it seemed to make the very ground beneath them rumble. Behind him, Ginny screamed, her hands going to her head as she buckled, falling to her knees.

  “No!” she said, her voice a mere whimper. “No.” Her hands had begun to glow with the pale light of elsewhere, and she rose into the air, ribbons of light forming around her trailing arms and legs as she completed her transition into Sekhmet. She hovered in the sky above them, a terrible goddess of death.

  Gabriel knew they only had moments to live. Trying to fight was a fool’s errand. They’d be incinerated with a single look. There was only one chance…

  “Over here,” he said, running for the colonnade. The light of Thoth guided his way as he hurtled to one of the columns. “Quickly, help me.”

  “Help you what?” cried Donovan, behind him.

  “Help me push it over. Now!”

  The three of them joined him as he shoved at the column, trying desperately to topple it. He felt it shift, rocking unsteadily on its plinth.

  The temperature in the room was rising as Thoth began to boil the air. He was going to cook them alive. Gabriel could already feel it searing the inside of his lungs.

  “There! One more push…” He roared as he threw his weight behind it, straining until he felt the muscles in his arms begin to pop. Beside him, Arthur cried out in pain.

  The column shook, wobbling unsteadily, and then went over, listing to the left as it fell.

  It crashed into the side of the tomb, shattering the wall and sending the crumbling roof into a cataclysmic slide to the ground. Hunks of masonry tumbled to the floor, burying Landsworth’s remains and spilling out onto the marble concourse.

  Gabriel dropped to his knees, almost swooning with the rising heat. He saw Sekhmet, her arms raised, two ghostly lions forming in the air around her. As he watched, she turned toward Thoth, and set them free.

  The lions roared, surging forward and slamming into the other god’s chest. They burst into pyres of ethereal blue flame, swamping him utterly, as if she’d doused him in petrol and struck a match.

  Thoth roared, tumbling from the sky, his ghostly wings beating ineffectually at the air as he fell.

  Gabriel didn’t wait to see what he would do next. He was already on his feet. “Go, now!” he bellowed.

  Behind him, the others scrambled to their feet and ran for the door.

  “Ginny! Come on!” He backed away, hoping beyond hope that she would follow him; that there was enough of the woman he loved still left in the apparition to assume control.

  She turned, and their eyes met. “Go!” she said. “I’m coming.”

  That was good enough. He turned and ran.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  “I left her there,” said Gabriel, as he arrived, panting, at th
e door of Astrid’s church a short while later. “I didn’t see her get out.”

  Donovan was standing on the doorstep, smoking a cigarette, and he held up his hand, appealing for calm. “She’s already inside,” he said. “We’ve been waiting for you.”

  Gabriel heaved a sigh of relief, leaning forward, his hands on his knees. “I haven’t run like that in years,” he said.

  “We took a cab,” said Donovan.

  “What? You took a cab, after something like that? You actually stopped on a street corner and flagged down a cab?”

  Donovan shrugged. He took another draw from his cigarette, and then tossed the butt amidst the gravestones. “We were lucky,” he said. “And we might not be so lucky next time. We’re dabbling in things we don’t understand.”

  “We’re protecting our city,” said Gabriel. “The only way we know how. We can’t stop now. That thing won’t let us, even if we wanted to.”

  “That’s what I’m afraid of,” said Donovan. He looked troubled. “Come on. She’ll want to know you’re here. They all will.”

  Inside, they’d gathered in the old church hall, righting some of the moldy pews to use as seats. Arthur sat by Astrid, while Ginny was pacing, her fingers drumming excitedly against her chin.

  “Ginny?”

  “Gabriel!” She seemed brighter than she’d been since they’d found her. He wondered if perhaps the tranquilizers were finally wearing off, but he suspected there was more to it than that. “Did you see? Did you see what I did?”

  He nodded, slowly. “I saw. But Felix is right. We can’t get carried away. We caught him off guard. You caught him off guard. That doesn’t mean it’s going to be so easy next time. Remember, we still need to get that thing out of you, somehow.”

  “That’s just it,” said Ginny. “Astrid doesn’t think we can get it out of me. She says I’ve got to learn to control it. What you did back there, destroying that tomb—I feel more like me than I have in months.”

  Gabriel glanced at Astrid, who shrugged. “She’s right. This isn’t the sort of thing you just wheel out an exorcist for. She has a shard of a goddess inside of her. Nothing short of a binding ritual would shake it loose, and there wouldn’t be anything left of her after I’d finished.”