“What is it?” Lazarus asked her.
“One of Lindholm’s creations.”
“I won’t leave you here with it.”
“It won’t harm me, but it will tear you three apart!”
“Even if we flee now, I’ll still come back for you, Eleanor. That’s my mission and by God, I’m going to fulfill it.”
“You mustn’t come back! Lindholm occasionally lets me come into Cairo to organize supplies and deliver paperwork. I can meet you if you like and we can discuss things further. Where are you staying?”
“Longman, we need to get moving!” warned Katarina, her revolver pointed at the darkness from which the sounds were coming.
“Shepheard’s Hotel. Look, I really don’t…”
“Now, Longman!”
“I think we’d better go,” agreed Petrie.
“Cairo, then,” said Lazarus to Eleanor by way of parting, and they headed out into the corridor.
Katarina’s gun spoke out twice, filling the hallways with a deafening sound and lighting them up with brief orange flares. In those short bursts of light, they finally saw the thing that was advancing on them.
It was tall—taller than a man, but clearly not a man. It had parts of a man, and from the yellowed bandages and brown, shriveled flesh, Lazarus knew exactly where Lindholm had got those parts. One leg was a bandaged spindly thing, but the other was a mass of gears and pistons that elicited the occasional jet of hot steam. Its arms were mechanical too, ending in viciously serrated pincers like those of a giant crab, and powered by pistons that looked like they could crush a man’s skull with ease. Two things in the bandaged abdomen of the creature stood out in the darkness. One was where the heart should be, but was a glass orb filled with a misty greenish vapor fitted into a brass grommet. The other was the furnace below its ribcage that heated the boiler it no doubt carried on its back. Lazarus knew this, for he had encountered similar creatures in America. And like those, this one’s furnace glowed with the purple light of burning mechanite.
They opened fire on the creature. Bullets pinged off metal surfaces, some thudding into the mummified flesh and when those did not halt the creature, Lazarus understood why Lindholm had become so fascinated with Egypt.
“We can’t kill it!” he shouted. “Just get out of here! Run!”
They stopped firing, turned, and pounded down the hallway, not knowing where it might lead them. The creature stomped after them, one metal leg thudding down into the sand and one mummified leg shuffling along to catch up.
They skidded around a corner and dived down a flight of carven steps, to find themselves in another tomb, or at least what had originally been a tomb. It had recently been converted into a workshop of sorts. Trestle tables had been set up and every surface was littered with tools, gadgets and partially completed tinkerings; arms, pincers and joints fashioned in brass which caught the light of the gas lamps, their oily surfaces glittering like gold.
It was then that they noticed the moving things. In every corner there lurked a creature—small, but beetling about like oversized cockroaches. They pointed their guns in all directions, each of them trying to assess where the greatest threat lay.
“They’re just animals,” said Katarina. “Not dangerous.”
Indeed they were animals, or had been once. There were two mummified cats with their hindquarters replaced by mechanics dozing on a workbench, while a jackal nosed around under a table, futilely sniffing the ground through its bandaged nostrils. A bird of some sort flapped its metal wings on its perch high up near the ceiling. Each of them had the miniature boiler and mechanite furnace, as well as the green orb enclosing the heart, no bigger than golf balls in the cat’s cases.
“Lindholm’s experiments?” said Lazarus.
“How on earth has he reanimated the dead?” Katarina asked.
“It’s like he is the Modern Prometheus from Shelly’s Frankenstein,” murmured Petrie.
“I’m not one for believing in magic,” said Lazarus, “even the ancient Egyptian kind, but I just don’t see how science, even the mad science of Dr. Lindholm could have achieved this.”
“Maybe it’s a combination of both,” said Petrie. “The ancient Egyptians believed that the soul resided in the heart, not the brain. That is why the heart was the only organ left in the body during mummification. All of these creatures seem to have some gadget fitted around the heart. I don’t pretend to understand it, but there it is.”
“But the brain,” said Lazarus, unconvinced, “the nervous system…”
“It’s found us!” said Katarina.
They could hear it coming, clanking down the steps that led into the workshop. They scurried for cover, diving behind tables. Lazarus shooed away the jackal which looked at him dejectedly, then loped off to find something else to sniff at.
The mechanical monster stomped into the room and halted. It looked around with blind eye sockets, its bandaged head craning forward as if sniffing them out. Lazarus rose up and leveled his pistol at the green orb in the creature’s chest. He squeezed the trigger and sent a bullet smashing through the glass. It exploded in a shower of splinters. He had expected, perhaps, a cloud of the green vapor to escape, but it was liquid that trickled forth; green and sluggish like blood of the wrong color.
The creature looked down at its ruptured chest, then touched the green substance that soaked its bandages and ran down its mechanical leg in rivulets. Its face seemed to look confused, or as near as was possible for a three thousand year old mummified face to express any emotion. It stumbled backwards, its mummified leg giving out. It toppled over and crashed to the stone floor to lay motionless, steam jetting out from its still functioning mechanics, like the soul escaping the corpse of the deceased.
“Thank God they can be killed,” said Katarina rising.
“As long as you aim for the heart, it seems,” said Lazarus.
They headed back up the steps and out into the passageway.
“More of them,” said Petrie, pointing down the hallway.
Two of the beasts were shambling through the shadows, on the scent of those who had killed one of their number. One of them was a twin for the first mechanical mummy—a human, perhaps a priest or even a pharaoh, revived after three thousand years and assimilated into a mechanical locomotive—but the other had the fore section of a human and the hindquarters of an enormous mechanical jackal. There seemed to be no reason for this other than wild experimentation. The powerful back legs sprung the creature forward in great bounds, such as those a tiger or panther might, carrying the groping, bandaged fore section towards them at an alarming rate.
“Where the hell is the exit?” panted Petrie, struggling to keep up with Lazarus and Katarina.
“We won’t make it up the rope without one of those blasted things tearing off our legs,” said Lazarus. “We’ll have to find the real door.”
“What makes you think it won’t still be guarded?” said Katarina.
“Nothing. But I fancy our chances against some sleepy fools with rifles better than against these things.”
“Well maybe one of you two Egyptologists can figure out in what direction the door lies,” said Katarina as they rounded a corner and continued down a passage that looked just like the previous one. “This place is just a maze to me.”
They entered a chamber that had a deep trench dug into the floor, barely narrow enough for them to cross.
“We must be close,” said Petrie. “Such trenches were dug near the entrances of tombs to deter grave robbers.”
Katarina made an impressive bound and landed on the other side of the trench in a billow of skirts. The creatures rounded the corner and advanced.
“Toss me your gun and make the jump!” Lazarus shouted to Petrie. “I’ll hold them off!”
The Egyptologist did as he was bid and leaped across the pit, grabbing Katarina’s outstretched arm for support. A gun in each hand, Lazarus fired round after round at the beasts, knowing he was unlikely to
hit their hearts at this range but giving it all he had regardless. The bullets did nothing to slow their pace and when the chambers clicked empty, Lazarus turned and bolted towards the trench. He leaped and landed on the opposite side, but was unbalanced and began to topple backwards. With a pistol in each hand, he was unable to grab either Katarina’s or Petrie’s hands and it was only by seizing his jacket lapels that his companions stopped him from tumbling down into the pit.
There was a whoosh of air behind his ears, followed by a loud ‘chomp!’ Lazarus was horribly aware that something had leaped up out of the pit to take a bite at him. He craned his head around and looked down. The floor beneath him seemed to be moving. Mechanical beasts of the mummified variety were squirming and rolling about, limbs thrashing and steam billowing up in clouds as they leaped and tried to scale the walls, slipping and sliding back down.
“Amazing!” cried Petrie. “Steam-powered crocodiles!”
“Will you shut up and pull me in, Petrie!” Lazarus yelled.
Katarina and Petrie hauled him towards them and he staggered forward, glad to have his balance back again. But the creatures behind them were edging towards the pit and they all knew that the one with the jackal legs would certainly be able to make the jump. They continued their flight and found themselves running up steps towards a small rectangle of blue light.
“Here,” said Lazarus, tossing Petrie his gun back. “Reload. We’re almost out of here.”
Sliding cartridges into place as they ran, they ascended the steps and felt the warm desert air in their nostrils. A figure’s head and torso blocked the light of the exit and the shape of his rifle was visible. Lazarus fired as he ran, knocking the man back with a cry.
They burst out of the entrance to the underground complex and immediately heard the crack of rifles. They ducked and slid behind cover in the form of crates and piles of earth. Bullets zinged and thudded all around them. Lazarus kept his eye on the doorway, knowing it was only a matter of time before those things would be out and upon them.
There came a cry as the guards heard the sounds of their approaching pursuers from within the doorway. With a bound, the jackal-man leaped out into the light of day and the guards wailed in terror, focusing their fire on the beast.
Seizing their chance, Lazarus and his companions were on their feet and running through the ruins, leaping over fallen columns, heading for the city’s outskirts at a breakneck pace. The rest of the Mohammedans in the camp were running to the aid of their comrades at the entrance to the catacombs and didn’t pay any attention to the three figures fleeing the city. They did not stop running until they felt the sand of the desert under their feet.
Chapter Ten
In which further arrangements are made back in Cairo
It was early morning. The sky in the east was turning a pale shade of lavender. They headed towards it, dog tired and with nerves frayed beyond bearing. Nevertheless, Katarina was in the mood for a fight.
“So, Longman, you didn’t think to tell me that you weren’t really after Dr. Lindholm at all, but his hussy?” she said with a sideways sneer.
“What difference does it make to you which one I was after?” Lazarus replied, too tired for this.
“Not a jot. I just think you could have said something. Why the secrecy? And what on earth do you want her for?”
“She’s the fiancé of Henry Thackeray, a very important fellow in London. When news came through that she appeared to have run off with an American, it became a priority to track her down and return her to Britain.”
“So all of this—infiltrating the black market, travelling up the Nile, nearly getting yourself killed in that ancient city back there—all this was for the sake of a woman?”
“You make it sound as if I’m pursuing her for my own pleasure. I have a job to do, Katarina, just as you do. If Whitehall decides that I’m to chase after some bloody politician’s lady-friend, then that is what I must do.”
“And this from a man who once went rogue in America,” she spat. “What happened to you, Longman? Why did you return to the service of a country you hate?”
“Let’s get one thing straight, Mikolavna, I don’t hate my country. There are plenty of things about it that I love.”
“And plenty of things you despise.”
“I thought she was rather pretty,” broke in Petrie. “Rousseau, that is. Very exotic looking. Dark for a French woman. I suppose that’s the Mediterranean blood. Dark and sensuous.”
“Yes, she was rather something,” Lazarus agreed.
Katarina sniffed. “I thought she was rather plain, myself.”
The stink of the city was a welcome fragrance to the three weary travelers returning from the desert. It had taken them days to reach the Nile and to find passage on a steamer returning to the capital. Lazarus was glad to hear the noise of the vendors and feel the jostle of civilization, after so nearly perishing in lonely tombs and dying of thirst in the burning desert.
They gorged themselves on meat, bread and dates in the marketplace before returning to their respective hotels, where they took long baths and slept the sleep of the dead for a whole day.
The following day they met for dinner in the restaurant Lazarus and Petrie had first dined in. Cairo had changed since they had been away. Reaction to Brugsch’s discovery of the Deir el-Bahari cache of royal mummies was a sensation in the city. The newspapers were full of the astonishing find. Over a hundred mummies in total had been stored in the tomb, including Seti I, and most exciting of all, the long sought after remains of Ramses the Great.
Petrie had been right. The mummies had been stored in the tomb of a minor priest to protect them from grave robbers. Tomb robbing being no new profession, they had probably been removed from their own tombs in the Valley of the Kings by priests, way back in antiquity.
There was a feeling of jubilation amongst the denizens of Cairo which surprised Lazarus, for a population mostly made up of Mohammedans who often poured scorn on the pagan past of their country. But the lost pharaohs had been found, and although Brugsch had tried to keep the arrival of the mummies in Cairo a secret until they could safely reach the Bulaq museum, the city had got wind of the exciting procession and had poured out onto the streets to welcome the returning pharaohs.
Petrie had devoured the newspaper articles with acute interest and not without a tinge of jealousy. After all, Brugsch had made the discovery of the century, while he had only narrowly escaped death with nothing to show for it.
“Apparently the women of Qurna came out of their homes when Brugsch was leading the mummies down to the riverbanks,” Lazarus said over dinner. “Wailing and lamenting the removal of the pharaohs from their resting place. Quite poignant, really.”
“Lamenting the removal of their source of income, most likely,” said Katarina.
“Must you be so cynical?” Lazarus asked her.
“My, my, you are quite the romantic, aren’t you, Longman,” she replied. “Who would have thought it of an Englishman?”
“I may as well have donned my mourning veil and joined them,” said Petrie, swilling his claret around in his glass melancholically.
“Come now, Flinders, I’ve already apologized for leading you away on that mad chase instead of leaving you to join in the discovery of the royal cache.”
“Oh, it isn’t your fault, Lazarus,” said Petrie. “I made the decision to come along and I can’t say that I regret it, for I saw with my own eyes a lost city that has such importance to our understanding of Akhenaten’s reign. It’s just tragic that I can never return there without some sort of army at my back.”
“Speaking of which,” said Katarina in a sour tone, “there isn’t a hope in hell of any of us getting back there, which means failure for our respective missions.”
“Didn’t Rousseau say she would come to Cairo and meet you, Lazarus?” Petrie asked. “What’s to stop you from just grabbing her and returning her to England?”
“I can’t very well nab th
e girl off the street,” said Lazarus. “For one thing the Egyptian police would have me in irons quicker than you can say ‘kidnapping’.”
“So this is the stuff British agents are made of,” said Katarina with a roll of her eyes. “What exactly was your plan—sweet talk her into coming back with you? Suppose she’s quite happy here in the company of Dr. Lindholm?”
“I don’t believe that,” said Lazarus firmly. “She is not in love with him. You heard her call him a monster. She’s terrified of him, so much so that she dares not run from him.”
“And all she needs is a knight in shining armor to rescue her,” said Katarina. “You’ve got it all figured out, haven’t you, Romeo?”
The next day, as if summoned by their words the night before, Eleanor Rousseau came to Shepheard’s Hotel looking for Lazarus. He found her in reception. She looked even more beautiful bathed in the daylight streaming in from the doors than she had down in the dusky, lamp lit tombs. She wore a skirt in the Parisian fashion, with a high-shouldered bodice in sky blue. Her hair was perfect. Not for the first time, Lazarus wondered what on earth she saw in Henry Thackeray.
“Hello, Mr. Longman,” she said as he approached.
“Call me Lazarus, please. Did you come alone?”
“Apart from the servants Dr. Lindholm always insists I take with me, yes.”
“Then we can make our arrangements to return you to England. To Henry.”
Her eyes looked down at the marble floor. “It’s not as simple as all that. Is there somewhere we might go and talk?”
“Why don’t we take the air in Azbekya Gardens?”
“Perfect.”
They left the hotel and crossed the street towards the iron gates leading in to the gardens. The morning breeze was refreshingly cool, and the leaves in the tamarisk trees danced gently.
“I wish I could spend more time in Cairo,” Eleanor said. “It is so very beautiful. I love my work, but sometimes one grows tired of spending more time with the dead than with the living. I begin to yearn for green things and the sounds of lively cities.”
Silver Tomb (The Lazarus Longman Chronicles Book 2) Page 9