I nearly jumped out from under the table to cry “Battle!” but Briley held me back.
“Wait! Not yet!”
He was right. But that didn’t help ease my anxiety or impatience. I wasn’t the only one getting itchy. Frank kept muttering under his breath and flexing his fist.
Finally came the man garbed in a purple robe as befitted royalty. He wore a full-headed mask that closely resembled the illustration of the god Ptah I’d seen in the book. Bald head and beard, but with the face of what I figured represented the Apis Bull - Ptah’s earthly spokesman. Ptah - fertility god, lover of artisans and craftsmakers, and rebirther.
All nice to use in a thesis on Egyptian gods, but didn’t exactly explain what Ptah Junior wanted with Denise and Nevin, nor what would happen in the ceremony. I’d seen enough Mummy movies to suspect that the dude who lurked behind that bull’s head wanted to be reborn as Ptah because he reasoned it would give him power. Izzy had brought up the avid interest in reincarnation among a lot of New Yorkers back when we’d been trying to figure out why Denise had been kidnapped. What really worried me was that Denise and her son would either be sacrificed - or become part of the new family of Ptah by means of un-consensual conjugal consummation.
Imagining either scenario was making me nauseous and the scent of lotus blossoms wasn’t helping. I needed air, but I couldn’t push back the burlap drape without revealing the presence of three rescuers waiting for an opportune moment to get out and busta move.
I hissed at Briley, “Yo! Rescue? Soon?”
He whispered, “Take a look at the goons. Notice what they’re carrying.”
I peeked out again then quickly sat down. Denise and Nevin were being escorted by a big thug wielding a bigger knife. He kept waving it around his head in a show of deadly expertise. A second escort only carried a small trunk, but a weapon resembling a scimitar and of equal size as big thug’s knife could be seen tucked into the cord wrapped around his robed waist.
Frank shifted and started to open a flap. Briley grabbed his hand. “Frank!”
Frank growled at him. “I can’t stand this. If that ape touches Denise Dupre I’ll personally wring his arm out of its socket and use that knife to cut off anything he uses to reproduce.”
“Hang on! Briley’s right. We can’t go charging out there while this parade is still rolling. We’ve gotta wait ‘til everybody turns their backs. Otherwise we’ll never get the jump on them.”
“But what we’re waiting for may not arrive until Denise and Nevin are actually placed on that altar. I’d prefer not to let these cretins get that far in whatever they’re planning.”
Briley clutched his brother’s arm. “Something’s happening. We need to let this play out for the moment.”
We peeked out toward the front of the tent. The robed guards were now facing the stone structure that had recently hosted the raccoons, not the back of the tent where we were hidden. The trunk had been deposited at the side of the altar. Denise and Nevin had been placed right on top. Neither mother nor son was moving much and I felt certain they’d been drugged. They’d been able to walk with a little help from the guys bearing knives so I knew they weren’t unconscious but whatever they’d been given was enough to keep them compliant, woozy, and silent. The 1919 equivalent of roofies?
Anna and the man I’d dubbed Ptah Junior stood behind the altar. Junior bent down in a reverent attitude, lifted up a large book with a black leather cover then held it up high. Anna bowed and waved a plume over the book, then loudly proclaimed, “We are here to bring our creator to life with the Opening of the Mouth ritual. Bring forth the cakes and ale as I read from the Book of the Dead on this, the festival of reanimation. Come ye, worshippers and behold the living, breathing embodiment of the Great One, Ptah. We bless this woman as his consort, Sekhmet and her son Nefertum. We ask for the bounty of all the gods to seal this union and aid in the rebirthing of Ptah, creator of all.”
The ceremony was about to begin.
Chapter 26
Ptah Junior opened the black leather bound book which I had to assume was Anna’s so-called Book of the Dead, or at least a nice copy. It looked too new to have been secreted in a sarcophagus for the last three thousand years.
However old, I didn’t like the sound of the words issuing forth from the mouth of Madam Anna. Apparently she was head narrator, spell-caster, priestess and ringmaster for this circus. Ptah Junior hadn’t spoken at all, which frightened me more than if he’d started chanting or moaning. Silence behind a mask held power as well as mystery.
He leaned down, then opened the trunk two of the white-robed men had carried in. He lifted out a different robe, made from a fabric that made my nausea so strong I bit my lip to keep from throwing up. Animal skins. Lion. They looked real.
They smelled real too, even from where Frank, Briley and I were hiding.
“Excuse me while I lose my lunch,” I whispered. Both men shushed me and I turned my attention back to the action by the altar.
Ptah Junior carefully placed Denise into a sitting position and then began to drape the garments around her. Francesca Cerrone had been found attired in lion skins; covered in lotus blossoms. This must be part of the same scheme. A scheme to bring a dead god to life in the guise of a man insane enough to believe he could acquire power this way. A man I’d apparently met in the Follies circle, but a man whose identity was still a mystery.
Masked and lion-headed Anna kept intoning a lot of b.s. that was straight out of the book Briley and I had found in the Flynn library. She went on and on about eating bread and drinking ale and girding loins and flying like a hawk. Somewhere in the mix she managed to shut up about the cakes and ale long enough to help herself to a few swigs. I wasn’t sure if that was included in the ceremony or if she just needed a drink.
The entire time Anna’d been reciting from the book, the creeps in the robes and loincloths were depositing their knives on the ground in front of them, then bringing the goodies on their trays to the altar and dumping them beside Denise. They proceeded to writhe around the altar in an awful parody of a slow square dance gone berserk. Every few seconds one of the men would scoop up a loose bouquet of lotus blossoms and toss them over Denise and Nevin like flower girls sashaying down an aisle at a wedding.
The whole procedure was so ridiculous it started to be comical. The silliness subsided quickly when I heard Anna utter the next line.
“He has taken the woman by force, destroying all who oppose him and pronounced her his wife and their child the child of Atem and Hathor as befitting their place on this earth.”
Force? Not nice. Even less nice was seeing Ptah Junior discard his own white robe and stand in front of the altar in a loincloth. I doubted that Jockey’s were underneath the gold fabric that reached to the middle of his thighs. I expected that cloth to soon end up in the hands of the ex-madam while this maniac climbed onto the altar to do what Anna’s clients do on a nightly basis. Until I’d wrecked their playground by lighting a match.
Briley and Frank’s faces had gone white. I knew they were envisioning the same horror.
“Enough!”
Frank shouted, threw off the burlap tablecloth, stood and toppled the table to the floor. Briley and I jumped up with him. All three of us charged to the front of the tent as the startled guards hurried to retrieve their knives. Curses and screams sounded from a furious Madam Anna.
Briley tackled a goon who was weaponless, but determined. The pair of them went sailing past the altar to land on the ground and start a serious wrestling match. Frank headed for one of the bearded, masked males whose knife had stayed neatly in the band around his waist. He didn’t waste time on pleasantries. Briley’s big brother just ran up and socked him right in the nose. Blood spattered on the ground, on Frank, and on the altar.
I had smaller, but meaner fish to fry. Anna. She’d threatened me with a crossbow. She’d dislodged an arrow from that weapon that missed my throat by inches. She’d slapped me - twice. She’d sent in the disgusting ape
George to rape me. She’d been nasty to Denise and Nevin and conspired with her brother to force Denise into a sick ceremony. Finally she – and possibly her brother as well - had watched while Briley and I exchanged very passionate kisses. She wanted to make Briley her own private gigilo. My dislike for the woman had been fueled into a hunka hunka burnin’ hate.
I grabbed Anna and socked her in the jaw, which at least shut her up for a moment. She tried to kick me in the shin but I saw it coming and whirled around in time to avoid any real harm. What happened next was nothing short of a good old-fashioned cat fight. The pair of us tumbled to the ground and wrestled with one another, pulling hair, scratching, and clawing.
Anna almost got the upper hand when she tried to bite my elbow, but I was bigger and stronger and faster and managed to not only keep my arms from her teeth but get in a good blow to her stomach. She lunged back with surprising strength and punched my chest, which enabled her to get to her feet and haul it toward the knife pile the guards had left less than a yard away from this impromptu boxing ring. Neither Briley nor Frank was in a position to help me. The sound of cracking bone and shattering teeth coming from their direction made me shudder. I prayed that neither McShan would be hurt.
Two of the disciples of Ptah Junior ran off. They were limping, so they weren’t speedy about the retreat, but as long as that retreat narrowed the numbers of the bad guy’s forces I was happy. Briley started after one of them, but was thrown to the ground by a larger masked man. Frank then delivered what must have been a whale of a painful hit to the white-robed man who’d been guarding Denise and Nevin. The man now lay unconscious. Frank made sure he’d stay that way by delivering a kick to the side of his head.
I quickly focused back on my own situation. Anna had retrieved the discarded knife. She faced me and we circled one another until her back was to the altar. I tripped over the robe Ptah Junior had thrown to the side of the altar and landed on the ground, hitting my head enough to make me dizzy. I’d just given Anna an instant upper hand. She grabbed my wrist then raised the knife. I could see no way to escape.
I prayed that Fiona Belle would suddenly appear with any music from any time and whisk me any place that wasn’t here.
I closed my eyes, expecting that blade to go slicing into my chest. Nothing happened. I opened my eyes and watched Anna slide to the ground. A grinning Nevin Dupre stood on the altar above her holding the large black book in his two small hands.
“Nasty lady.”
I sat up. “She is indeed. Hi, Nevin.”
“Allo, Mel-o-de I knew you’d come and get Maman et moi! I keep telling zem but zey not believe me.”
He jumped off the altar right into my arms. Briley and Frank quit pummeling the last thug then ran over to participate in the reunion.
As soon as the McShan boys left the so-called guards unattended, the cowardly goons ran away. Ptah Junior had long since made his getaway at the very beginning of this short-lived battle. Anna was under our control. The fact that the other miscreants were now loose to hunt any or all of us again didn’t occur to us then. A mistake.
None of us cared. We’d saved Denise and Nevin. That was all that mattered, at least for the moment. Denise opened her eyes and gazed at me holding her son in a tight hug. She was obviously still quite groggy but as her focus cleared, she turned and saw Briley, then Frank.
She shook her head. “I am dreaming, no?”
“Denise, it’s Melody. Remember? From the Follies?”
“Oui! Melody? Where am I? Nevin! Ou es tu! ”
Nevin squirmed out of my arms to climb up onto the altar and gently kiss his mother’s cheek. “Je suis bon, Maman. Mel-o-dee and Briley and other nice man sent those awful people away. ‘cept her.”
He pointed to the ground where Anna lay still. Breathing but still. Nevin proudly declared, “I conk her myself!”
Denise was staring at Frank, looking at him, then at Briley, then back. “I must be dreaming after all. This is not possible, n’est pas?”
Frank took her hand. “It’s very possible, Mrs. Dupre. I’m Frank. Frank McShan. You helped nurse me to health back in France. Remember?”
“But this is . . .” She looked around. “Where is this?”
I smiled and gently stated, “Memphis, Tennessee. My hometown, I’m kind of sorry to say, since the clowns that kidnapped y’all brought you here for, uh, evil doin's so to speak.”
She shook her head. “Je ne comprends pas. We drove down in auto and that ‘orrible Anna says what honor I ‘ave soon becoming the bride of some god. My English is not perfect yet but nothing make sense to me.”
Briley growled, “Just as well. Let’s simply say you were in danger of playing a large role in a stupid, evil ceremony and leave it at that for now, okay?”
Denise took the hand Frank extended then gracefully stepped down from what looked like would have been the conjugal altar.
She smiled tentatively. It was apparent she was choking back tears. “I sure zere ees more, but I wait to hear it. I want now to hear how Monsieur Frank McShan came to be part of thees brave band of rescuers!”
Briley was in the middle of tying up Madam Anna with strips of Ptah Junior’s purple robe and stuffing a rag into her mouth. He grinned. “Let’s let Frank tell you on the ride back.”
Frank nodded. He hadn’t taken his eyes off Denise.
Anna stirred and moaned. She opened her eyes and glared at the group surrounding her. If Briley hadn’t forced her into silence by means of the makeshift gag, Anna doubtless would have been giving us all an education in Egyptian obscenities.
I growled at her. “Not so elegant now, are you, you crazy slut. Playing Peeping Tom behind mirrors trying to get off on watching. Lusting after my - uh- lusting after men who aren't interested in you.”
Briley winked at me. Then he hoisted Anna to her feet as we prepared to leave the tent and head back to the car to drive to the police station. Cops might have been able to turn blind eyes to this lady’s house of prostitution, but with Denise ready to swear out a complaint of kidnapping, the Memphis police had to listen and act.
Frank took Denise’s hand in his. We all walked in silence to the back of the tent. Frank lifted the flap then stepped into the open air with Denise by his side. Briley pushed Anna forward. I brought up the rear, letting Nevin ride piggyback.
I inhaled the heat of the night, thankful to be sniffing scents of grass and dirt and even the fumes wafting from one of the lumber mills a few miles down the road. I never wanted to be around the sickening odor of lotus blossoms again. Though if we were smart and fast enough we could probably track down the disappearing guards and leader of this group by using our noses.
We got all the way to the Flynn truck before we noticed the man standing by its side, talking to the boy we’d left in charge. He turned and waved his arms. It was too dark to see much but the voice was instantly recognizable when he called out, “You found them! And I missed it! Damnation!”
Izzy.
Briley grunted. I couldn’t tell if this was a response to the appearance of the reporter or because Anna had used her unbound foot to kick him. He lifted her higher and carried her like a sack of dirt over to the truck, then let her fall into the passenger seat without bothering to ease the drop. Once she was safely in the truck, he turned and faced Izzy.
“How in blazes did you get out here? No wait, that’s not the question I want to ask. I really don’t care if you stole a car or took a trolley or rode in on a white stallion or the naked lion these creeps stripped. Let me rephrase. Why are you here?”
Izzy stated nonchalantly, “You are all so preditable and trusting. I filed my story last evening, secured a room at the Peabody, which is a lovely hotel, by the way, then waited outside Melody’s relatives’ house late this afternoon until I saw you emerge. And what a sight! Frank! Great to see you again! I’d love to get your story after I get the full scoop on whatever just occurred in that tent. Anyway, I’m afraid I couldn’t get transportation soo
n enough to allow me to take part in the battle. But I did get to see the bruised and battered bearded gentlemen come racing out and head over to a truck not nearly as nice as this one.”
He patted the 1915 Model T.
Briley sighed. “For a man who writes as much as you do, you certainly talk a lot without really imparting information. You didn’t happen to see where the man in the bull mask went, did you? He’s the leader of this cult or crazy society or religious sect.”
Izzy shook his head. “Sorry. I ducked down under the truck as soon as I saw trouble headed my way. I had no desire to tangle with any of the guys who came racing by. They were huge, angry, and scary.”
I glared at Izzy. “Way to go, Mr. Johnny-on-the-spot for every bad thing happening. We could have used a hand grabbing him.”
Izzy looked crushed. “Melody. I’m a writer. Not a fighter And it wasn’t a ‘him.’ It was many big ‘thems’.” He smiled. “I do kind of I have a knack for showing up in time to get great scoops but not personally getting involved in the action.”
I smirked at him. “Well, I hope this scoop at least gets you a better job.”
His face grew somber and I caught a glimpse of an Izzy I’d never seen before. One who cared. “It will. But I promise all of you this. I may dress like a refugee from a charity house and I may laugh off events such as cathouses burning to the ground. Casting that aside, I’m a damned good reporter and I will get to the bottom of whoever killed Francesca, kidnapped Denise and Nevin, and is behind this god-awful cult. Bastard. Pardon me, ladies.”
Briley nodded to Izzy and motioned back to the truck. “In that case, Isaac, hop in. You’ll get a great story on the way to the police station.”
Izzy brightened. “I accept the ride and the tale. Did I mention I have some good news?”
I glanced at him. “Which is?”
“Remember, there were two other chorines who vanished last spring? Well, lo and behold, in the midst of the charred ruins of Madam Anna’s house of pleasure, two young ladies appeared who were quite anxious to tell their story to the police. They’re on their way back to New York via the midnight train.”
Haunting Melody Page 18