A taxi slammed on its brakes and cut to the curb. The driver leaned across the front seat and cranked down the window. “Need a lift?” The scent of spicy food and the sugary-sweet smell of Pepsi rolled from the cab.
“Yes.” Alex leaned over. “The hotel La Carmina near the National Museum, please,” she relayed in Spanish.
“Sure thing.” He exited the cab and popped the trunk, and, within minutes, they were on their way.
Alex leaned against the door, regretting not squeezing upfront, but the amount of food wrappers had made it an undesirable option. Her knees were squished against the door, and the seat buckle dug into her hip.
Discovering tourists who spoke Spanish was like winning the lottery; he talked nonstop from the airport and rambled about everything they passed. “Ahh. Isn’t she lovely?” He pointed to the statue overlooking the roundabout, and they all looked out the window. “The Angel.”
She wasn’t really an angel but the winged statue of Victoria, the Roman goddess of victory. Clutched in her hands, she offered laurel to the victors of the Mexican independence and a broken chain. Beneath her shining beauty, she housed and protected Mexico’s greatest generals and instigators, including Leona Vicario.
“If you’re staying long”—he laid on the horn as someone cut him off—“you should get a pass and tour her. She’s like Lady Liberty in … New York.” He snapped his fingers and jovial laughter bubbled from him.
Mira chatted happily with him, adding it to her bucket list of interesting places she’d run across.
The cab pulled to a stop in front of a two-story home. “Trust me. The B-and-B is a better choice than the flea and tick motel. Tell Señora Rosa that I, Diego, sent you.” He hurried to pop the trunk.
Alex climbed from the cab, smelling the air. With second sight, the dulling colors of the world captured every little moment in an instant. Black and greys with tinges of magical auras blanketed the neighborhood. The world looked like it should on the magical plane with no hazy browns and no screeching creatures.
She removed a twenty from her pocket and handed him the wrinkled bill, wondering why she hadn’t stopped at the currency exchange at the airport. “Thank you.”
He turned to climb into his taxi, and a little old woman dressed in a blue dress and white apron hollered from the home’s jutted porch. Her handkerchief waved bright against the home’s yellow facade, and she spoke rapidly to Diego in Spanish. “Diego. Come. Come. Let me fix you a bite before you go back.”
He tried to refuse as the mother/son pair chatted in Spanish, with her unaware her son’s fares could speak Spanish as well as the most common languages across the worlds as fluently as if they’d been raised there. The pair spoke animatedly, waving their hands, but Ms. Rosa wore down Diego, and he threw up his hands in defeat and returned to the car to retrieve the luggage and brought it inside.
“Señora Rosa. A pleasure to meet you. I’m Alex, and this is Mira.” She shook Rosa’s soft, wrinkled hand.
Her eyes widened, and her grin grew bigger. With a grandmotherly tone in Spanish, she ushered everyone inside. “Welcome. Are you hungry? Diego, take their bags to the upstairs rooms.” She smiled as she said it, but an air of authority lingered behind the words.
The house was charming, as brightly decorated inside as out. An altar graced the living room corner. Pictures lined the wall on either side, and a framed eight-by-ten sat next to a glass incense burner. Light smoke drifted from the twin sticks, filling the room with a wonderful smell.
“That sounds great.” Mira turned around, bumping into Diego and offering an apology.
“Splendid.” Rosa’s eyes accentuated against her laugh lines and crow’s feet that edged her features. “I’ll finish up dinner and set out some tamales.” She disappeared through the kitchen doorway.
Diego led them up the narrow staircase, his hands full with Mira’s bags. “The bedrooms share a single bathroom, but that shouldn’t be a problem. There’s one other guest. He only comes out at night.” He wrinkled his nose and blinked. “These two will be yours.” He pushed open the first of the doors before indicating the other one and sneezed.
“Salud,” the girls said in unison.
In Alex’s room, the curtains moved sedately in the draft of the ceiling fan that squeaked as it spun. Above the mirrorless dresser, a cross-stitched feathered serpent wrapped around a thunderbolt.
The longer Alex stared, the serpent appeared to slither around the white and silver bolt.
“I’m ready. Let’s go eat.” Mira popped into the room in a flare of colored skirt and a billowing shirt, looking refreshed from the autumn heatwave. “You okay?”
“Yeah.” Alex stared at the decoration again, finding nothing but an ordinary wall hanging. The moment lost, she nodded toward the door. “Let’s eat.”
Rosa had readied a feast fit for a dozen people or more. She smiled and pointed to the plates. “Eat.”
They thanked their hostess and loaded their plate with a variety of things.
“Oh. I forgot the fruit. Excuse me, por favor.” She wiped her hands on her dishtowel as she headed to the fridge and returned with bowls laden with sliced fruits.
Alex bypassed the chips and pickled peppers and, instead, loaded her plate with melons and pineapple chunks. Facing the table, she contemplated where to sit before settling on the chair between the two large windows with a clear view of the staircase and doors.
Mira plopped down beside Alex, unfolded her napkin and placed it in her lap. “It smells good, Señora. Rosa.”
“Call me Rosa, chica.” Rosa smoothed the back of her dress as she sat. “Eat.” She motioned for everyone to join in the feast.
Rosa was a spirited woman, asking questions as quick as Mira could answer. The conversation flowed as the good food disappeared, and eventually, the museum came up.
“What time does it open?” Alex asked, finishing her drink and noticing the afternoon had gave away to evening.
“It’s open all day to accommodate for all kinds.” Rosa spun the open Doritos bag to face Mira.
Overhead, a board creaked. Mira and Alex cocked their heads, listening for the next noise. The hanging light above the table swung a hair’s breadth. Footsteps accompanied the closing of a door on the second floor.
Alex tasted the air, discovering a warm crisp scent of open skies and seafaring gales. Soft chimes and the delicate taste of fae clashed with the overpowering smell of spicy chilies.
“Señor Montoya.” Rosa bowed her head toward the stair bottom.
The air shimmered, and the harder Alex tried to see what was there, the distortion disappeared and the urge to look away grew. Interesting. There were few glamours her magic couldn’t pierce, and whatever Mr. Montoya was fell into that category.
Facing Mira, Alex tracked the newcomer to the room, catching the faintest movement on the periphery.
Mira tensed, and her ocelot paced just underneath; the beast wary of what lurked just out of sight.
“Señor Montoya. I’m Alex. This is my friend Mira.” Her curiosity brimmed with intrigue.
The chair moved out, and the movement caused his glamour to fall. “I thought I tasted theriomorphs on the breeze.” His voice came from everywhere and nowhere, a soft surround sound that could have been anyone’s imagination.
“Just here to visit the museum.” Alex was amazed to find an air deity of such design in the heart of Mexico City.
He turned his feathered head toward her. His beak clicked as the two halves rubbed against the other. “Here about the museum mishaps then.”
Alex was taken by surprise but refused to show her hand. “What mishaps?” she asked, curious about his take on them.
“Child …” He spoke in Trader’s tongue—a language that came from Altaira on the other side of the veil— dismissing the notion they were just visitors. “Despite the news programs, these mishaps have happened for decades. A curse, if you will, on the collection that came from Chile during the Great Earthquake.�
� He took a bite of an orange, letting his words sink in.
Decades? That was a lot of missing pieces. “What makes you think the thefts are related?”
The Great Earthquake had destroyed most of Chile, causing irreplaceable artifacts and such to be shipped to Brazil, but, in the process, a hurricane had set its sights on the east coast, ravishing and flooding hundreds of miles inland.
“They’re all from the collection taken from the Chilean Museum of History and Culture that was transferred to the National Museum of Anthropology for protection.” Montoya leveled his beady black orbs on the kitsune.
The Citadel’s file on the subject spanned only this year with no mentions of previous thefts. She folded her hands in her lap and leaned back in the chair. “How do you know all this?”
“I’ve worked for museums across the world to help seal artifacts. Rumors hold more truth than oysters hold pearls.” His feathers looked blue in the light. “I’m going to the museum this evening to help with an Aztec mummy. You may join me.”
9
The Museum of Anthropology teemed with people. A mix of supes and humans filled the pathways, sharing the common ground of discovery, thanks to the twenty-four-hour availability that Mexico City and many other cities throughout the world provided to accommodate the supernatural community.
A harpy folded her winged arms and tried to move without disturbing others. Her talon-clawed feet clacked across the floor.
Some humans and supes took selfies, full of smiles and laughter.
Hidden behind his glamour, Mr. Montoya led them past monolithic dials carved from stone, open-air temples, and a pond of such incredible beauty. He went through an unmarked door hidden behind a fake six-foot plant that stood out like a sore thumb compared to the lush foliage of real plants that flowed throughout the buildings.
Mira hesitated at the threshold. She looked down the hallway and back to the exhibit floors. Even without second sight, the faint transpose of the ocelot pacing filled the small space they stood.
“You want to look around out here for me?” Alex held the door, signaling to Mr. Montoya she’d be just a minute.
A look of relief passed over Mira’s face. “You want me …” She motioned to the long exhibit wings and the melting pot of species wandering the halls in the early evening hours.
Alex nodded. Maybe we’ll luck out and you’ll find something, she thought, curious as to why Mira didn’t want to follow but sure the ocelot would reveal it in on her own terms.
Thanks, she mouthed and disappeared into the hustle of the curious and out of sight.
Mr. Montoya had dispelled of the glamour, and his solid black eyes bored into her.
I hate birds. It wasn’t hate as much as a distrust; their eyes never really changed shapes compared to other creatures, and their feathers hid all the minute facial expressions that nearly everything else in the world had.
Images of the werewolf in DC sprung to mind, his eyes hidden behind shades. She shook away the thoughts as she smoothed her black shirt, readjusting the tuck in the back, and followed Mr. Montoya.
He paused in front of a door marked Workroom 5; his raptor-like feet spread out like a set of winter skis. “I had the files pulled for you.”
The door opened, and a man stepped through, pulling an emptied wheeled cart. He was dressed like Mr. Montoya in tan slacks and a maroon polo shirt.
After a quick bout of introductions, Christopher jested, “The great council has sent someone to figure out what is targeting the collection. It took them long enough.”
Alex gave a tight-lipped nod, uncomfortable with the underhanded jab, but something about those few simple words made her think it wasn’t the first time the council had been less than gracious.
“You’ll find the boxes inside.” Christopher faced his colleague “Shall we?”
The two men headed down the hallway, and Alex stepped into the room and closed the door behind her. Metal racks lined a wall filled with boxes labelled with supplies. Boxes rested in the middle of the steel lab table that stretched across the center of the room. Goosebumps prickled her flesh as she noticed the chill in the room as it pierced her body. Did they have to keep it so cold?
She popped the lid of the first box and stared. Thin files, thick files, lopsided and ridged files—with the lid removed, the overcrowded box looked like an evening of busywork. Searching the tabs, she found four files labeled Texas and DC at the rear of the box. She turned over the lid, looking for writing. Finding nothing, she inspected the actual box. Some writing had faded, but in the brightest marker glared the dates of the latest thefts. Dates were grouped in two-week sections with a six-month lull between the sprees. The earliest date on the box was the day before the hurricane had struck South America.
Alex inspected the other boxes, finding a similar arrangement inside and on the outside. Two weeks, four thefts, six months reprieve. So, we’ve got two more thefts, but where? Or does the two items from DC count as two of the four?
One by one, she went through the folders. Pictures stared back; some were yellow and faded Polaroids, and others were nothing more than water-smeared printer copies. Chile. Brazil. Argentina. Brazil. Colombia. Nicaragua. Mexico. United States. The county locations looked odd to her as she read the side of the box. She tried to lay the points against a map in her head, but that many dots on a map made a throbbing pain spread across her brow. She checked her pockets, looking for a pen, and a quick glance around the room yielded neither pen nor pad.
Her fingertips drummed across the tabletop, creating a rippling echo in the room. Something’s here. There must be. She argued with herself, confident the key to anything was logical, but the pieces never made sense, until they did.
Disappointed it wasn’t anything obvious, like a giant arrow saying Here next, she rifled through the spectrographs, discovering more than a few were missing from the files.
“The Citadel has rules and guidelines for a reason,” she muttered. She rubbed the bridge of her nose, irritated things were missing, because one person probably thought, It won’t make that big of a difference.
Mira could read these quicker and more accurate than I could. Wish she was here.
Moving through the files, she compared all the items taken: vases, weapons, headdresses, jewelry, a silver necklace with malachite inlays. The faded red ochre lines on a vase turned and doubled back along the edge. There wasn’t a rhyme or reason to be seen. Aren’t thieves usually particular in what they took?
A dusty golden sun glinted in the flashbulb of the camera in a photo. Like the flash in the photo, an obvious solution to the map issue came to mind. She reached in her back pocket for her phone. She laid the files in order on the table and used her phone to map the locations.
A muffled exchange of words in the hallway was just loud enough for Alex to hear the cadence but not much else.
The door opened, and Mira entered, looking puzzled. “Everything okay?”
“Yes. Everything’s fine.” She shrugged, surprised at her appearance. “Anything on the floor?”
Mira shook her head, walking around the table and surveying the photos. “No. The museum is nice. Nicer than the rooftop of the one in DC.” She retrieved her iPad and scanned the various reports. She hmm-ed and scratched behind her ear, flipping reports and setting a few side by side. Satisfied with the images, she looked up from her table. “Let’s go eat, and you can fill me in.”
The spicy and rich aromas of street fare filled the small plaza. Food trucks lined the road, and people milled around, enjoying food and company.
“You gonna eat that?” Alex pointed her fork at Mira’s plate.
She raised an eyebrow and silently passed the kitsune the container.
Alex clumsily unrolled the tamale from its husk, stabbed it with the fork and scarfed it within a few bites, famished passed her normal bounds with no clue why.
Mira eyed the pile of empty to-go containers stacked precariously on the concrete bench where they sat.
She turned sideways and scrolled through the images on her iPad. “I noticed all the items taken had two commonalities: gold and being from Chile or within a few hundred miles of the mountains of northern Chile. The paths arch up through North America before plummeting to the tip of Brazil.”
Chile wasn’t a new puzzle piece. Mr. Montoya had supplied that, and she was pleased that his intel checked out. “Do the museum loans correspond with the thefts?” Alex eyeballed the food trucks they hadn’t shopped at, still craving something.
“No. Some of the pieces sat for months or years in the hosting cities.”
“You said the artifacts were all from Chile? Wasn’t one of the knives found at the Alamo? We’re talking centuries-old pieces then.” Alex turned the itemized list toward the streetlamp. “Do you have a list of all known pieces that came from Chile by way of Brazil during the quake?” She navigated on the iPad, opening folders and subfolders, on the hunt with a single idea; if they could locate all of them, maybe they could set a trap and see what it was.
“No. It wasn’t in the case files from Fredrick, and I didn’t see one when you were putting the files back at the museum.”
Alex nodded, trying to suppress a yawn that came on as quick as the hunger. “Let’s head back to Rosa’s, and I’ll get a hold of the museum in the morning to request a list.”
“You head back. I want to check out some of the shops.” Mira reached for her complementary jacket and slipped it over her shoulders. “I promise I’ll be back before too late.”
Alex waved her on, thankful she hadn’t been sucked into a spur-of-the-moment shopping trip, confident Mira wouldn’t return until much, much later.
10
Alex lay on the bed. Her foot dangled over the edge, keeping time with the annoying tick of the cheap wall clock, adding to her irritation. She’d been nearly asleep on the taxi ride to Señora Rosa’s home, but since she’d laid down, sleep seemed the furthest thing from her mind. Rolling onto her back, she snatched the racquetball from the side table.
Silver and Gold (Sanctuary Book 1) Page 5