Grave Importance

by Vivian Shaw

  “Wow,” said Cranswell softly. “They’re beautiful.”

  He’d had a chance on the plane to read through the documentation on the two stelae; he knew enough, or hoped he knew enough, to casually pass as someone who’d actually spent time studying these particular artifacts. It helped that he had a good memory for detail.

  The Metternich Stela had vanished for two thousand years before being discovered during the construction of a Franciscan monastery in Alexandria; the Hermopolis Stela had turned up during an Egyptian University expedition in the 1930s at Tunah al-Jabal that uncovered a maze of underground streets and catacombs connected with the Thoth cult. It was so far unique, the only one of its kind to have been found, and now Cranswell was going to have to figure out a way to get it out of here. How much did it even weigh?

  “It’s remarkable, isn’t it,” said somebody quite near, and Cranswell jumped, turning to see a woman in sand-colored silk next to him, looking at the thing in the case. “The only one of its kind.”

  “That we know of,” said Cranswell, and was a little surprised to hear how confident he sounded despite the fact she’d said the very thing he’d just been thinking, right out loud. Grisaille’s thrall was doing the work of a dose of Xanax. Where was Grisaille, anyway—he’d been right there when they came in, and now he couldn’t see him anywhere. With an effort he forced his concentration back to the woman.

  She was in her mid-thirties, with a quietly expensive haircut and quietly expensive clothes, and Cranswell thought the makeup was probably pretty pricy as well. And she was smiling at him. In a slightly peculiar way.

  “Do you think there are more?” she asked, and boy, was he glad he’d just reread the background materials this morning over breakfast.

  “It’s an enticing idea,” he said with a smile of his own. “That there are other treasures like this out there to be found. It’s possible, of course, but between the German expedition in ’29 and the Egyptian University dig that started a year later, I think it’s unlikely that particular stone remains unturned.”

  She nodded. “In my opinion, if such a valuable object had existed, it would have been kept somewhere safe.”

  “Such as the catacombs they found in the necropolis on the west bank,” said Cranswell. “The Egyptian University archaeologists were there from ’30 to ’39; I believe they would have found a second stela, if there was one there to find.”

  “I’d agree with you,” she said, and held out a hand. The lapis scarab set in the ring on her third finger was too huge and dramatic to be anything but real. “Leonora Van Dorne.”

  “August Cranswell,” he said, and shook her hand. “I’m with the British Museum.”

  Ms. Van Dorne nodded. “I thought so. A pleasure to meet you, Mr. Cranswell. Is this your field?” She gestured at the cases, the vast blue stone of her ring brilliant under the spotlights, and he thought, Either she’s a jewel thief, or she’s unspeakably rich, or she’s married to some incredibly unethical archaeologist who gives his wife things that should be in museums. On the whole, he thought option two was the most likely.

  “Not specifically the magico-medical stelae,” he said. “Late period, Thirtieth Dynasty. You?”

  “Oh, I’m just an interested amateur,” said Ms. Van Dorne, and smiled that slightly peculiar smile again. “And something of a collector, as well.”

  Cranswell revised his assessment: incredibly rich jewel thief? “Something like this would be the gem of anyone’s collection,” he said casually, “but of course it belongs on display.”

  “Of course,” she agreed. “That’s why I occasionally lend out some pieces of my own for the museum to show the public. That statue, for example.” She nodded at a small, beautiful figure of a seated woman, carved from some dark smooth stone.

  “This is yours? It’s beautiful,” said Cranswell, and was extremely glad he’d caught a glimpse of the legend without seeming to. “Thirtieth, obviously?”

  “That’s right,” said Ms. Van Dorne. “I have several other Thirtieth Dynasty pieces, in fact; I intend to lend them my Horus-protecting-the-pharaoh statue when this little one comes off display; it’s much better than the one they already have in their collection.” She paused, head tilted. “If you’d like to see them, I’d be happy to show you.”

  I am being hit on by a woman wearing a ring that is probably worth nearly a hundred thousand dollars, Cranswell thought. How is this my life? Out loud he said, “I’d love that, actually. I’m only in town for a few days, but I’d hate to miss a chance to view a private collection like yours.”

  Ms. Van Dorne smiled, reaching into her handbag, and handed him a card. “Come by at four this afternoon,” she said. “We’ll have coffee.”

  “Thanks very much,” said Cranswell, looking down at the card: LEONORA IRENE VAN DORNE, and an address and number, nothing more. When he looked up again, she had gone.

  What was it with people vanishing today, he wondered, and even as the thought crossed his mind, a section of the wall beside the doorway stopped being the wall and started being Grisaille. It was rather as if he’d stepped forward out of the surface, all at once, and Cranswell realized he’d been there all along: he’d simply jacked up the don’t notice me effect all the way.

  “Well, that was fascinating,” he said over Cranswell’s startled yelp. “I suppose Serenskaya and Helsing were right: you are going to be useful, after all. Did you see that ring?”

  “How could I miss it?”

  “My poor little fingers were itching,” said Grisaille, coming over to the stelae in their cases. He wiggled the members in question, and grinned, an expression Cranswell was coming to realize meant that he was getting ready to happen to someone. “This job is getting more interesting by the hour.”

  In the Met’s Great Hall Balcony Café & Bar, a pair of angels were not having a good time.

  Zophiel and Amitiel were not tremendously good at thinking; thinking was not what they were for. Nevertheless, at the moment, it was necessary.

  “It’s one of the Commandments,” Amitiel was saying. “That’s—it’s the rules. We can’t break the rules. I mean. That’s why they’re the rules. Because you can’t break them.”

  Zophiel was tearing a croissant into smaller and smaller pieces. “I know,” he said, “but… the purpose of our mission would be attained sooner rather than later, we’d really damage the barrier, surely that’s a greater good? Can one do ill in order to do good?”

  “That’s theology,” said Amitiel, wide-eyed. “We’re not allowed to do theology.”

  “I know,” said Zophiel again. “I know. And—one of them’s a monster, we can’t possibly help monsters, it—goes against nature…” He trailed off wretchedly. On the one hand, if the monster and his friend did steal the artifact for Van Dorne to use Zophiel and Amitiel’s spell on, it would undoubtedly be enough to achieve the angels’ actual objective, the destruction or at least critical weakening of the barrier between this world and their own next door, so they should help; on the other hand, stealing was against the Commandments, and anyway, the monster was monstrous, and Zophiel was not happy. “When this is over, I am going to have to do so much penance,” he said. “Being in this dreadful world is making me have sinful thoughts.”

  Amitiel reached across the table, touched his hand; he stopped destroying the pastry and sighed. “I suppose we could… do nothing?”

  “We’re not supposed to interfere,” said Amitiel. “Just—let it happen as God wills. Anything else is dangerous.”

  Zophiel looked up with an unhappy smile. “You’re right. Of course you’re right. I was just so eager to bring about the end of our assignment that I let doubt into my mind.”

  “You’ve been working so hard,” said Amitiel. “Taking care of me. Talking to the model agencies and the photographers so I didn’t have to—I know I’m slow—”

  “You’re not slow,” said Zophiel. “You are as the Lord created you.”

  Amitiel smiled at him, and i
t was nothing more than bad luck for the art student on the other side of the hall who happened to be looking that way; on the other hand, the retinal afterimage of that blazing beauty would fade in an hour or two.

  CHAPTER 10

  Greta leaned back in her chair and stared at the ceiling. On the table the conference phone squatted like a small alien spaceship, its red telltale light steady. It was around midday in New York, but here the last of the sunset was fading in the west, the sky visible through the conference room’s blinds a deepening blue.

  “Well,” she said, “at least nobody could accuse the pair of you of wasting time. What do you hope to get out of visiting this woman?”

  “Information, maybe,” said Cranswell. “Or she might have something we could use?”

  “She’s either a thief or the next best thing to one,” Grisaille drawled. “A collector. I could see it going a couple of ways. Anyway, we don’t have a better plan yet.”

  “The thing is really well secured. It’s under constant surveillance and the case is as robust and difficult to crack as any I’ve seen,” said Cranswell. “Probably has vibration sensors or a built-in scale to alarm if the weight changes. The only way to get in there without just smashing-and-grabbing is probably to have the museum do it for us.”

  Greta sighed, looked across the table at Varney and Tefnakhte. “Great. Not that I’m surprised, exactly, but great.”

  “Which is another reason this Van Dorne person might be of use,” said Nadezhda from London. “If she’s friends with the museum—”

  “Way ahead of you,” said Grisaille. “We just have to convince her that she wants to convince them, and I’ve been practicing my thrall like a good little bloodsucker, haven’t I, Cranswell?”

  “What I don’t really get is how the hell we’re supposed to physically move it,” said Cranswell, ignoring this sally. “I don’t know how much it weighs but it’s big, it’s like nearly three feet tall and pretty solid, with a heavy base. What exactly is the—uh—”

  “Extraction plan?” said Grisaille. “That, I think, is going to have to be up to the fine folks representing Hell to the New York constituency.”

  “I gave them Glasya and Morax’s contact information,” Nadezhda said. “It might be worth giving the pair of them a ring just to advise what you’re up to and request help, Grisaille.”

  “I think I’ll do that,” he said. “In the meantime we’d best be toddling if we are to rendezvous with the Van Dorne at her palatial abode on time. Will keep you apprised.”

  “Good luck,” said Greta, and there was a click as he went off the line. “Anyone else got anything new to report?”

  “So far having Sir Francis assist me in the chanting seems to have a beneficial effect,” said Tefnakhte. “And there have been no new episodes among our patients.”

  “Good,” said Greta. “Dez, you’re not seeing it too, are you?”

  “I haven’t had any mummy patients yet,” said Nadezhda. “Which isn’t to say that it is not happening among London’s Class B revenant population: just that it hasn’t been reported to us.”

  “Keep an ear out,” said Greta. “It’d be useful to know if this is limited just to Oasis Natrun, but I think it may not be.”

  “Got it. Anything else?”

  “I think that’s it. How’s the clinic in general?”

  “Oh, ticking right along,” said Nadezhda. “Hippolyta’s making all sorts of friends with the patients as they hang out in the waiting room, and between me and Anna, we haven’t had any difficulty keeping up. They miss you, of course.”

  Greta had to smile a little. “Tell them I miss them, too. If Krona comes in, say hello for me and tell him he is to listen to you about his arthritis, he’s the most stubborn old wight I’ve ever encountered but his daughter’s quite sensible and will pay attention to what you tell her.”

  “All right,” said Nadezhda. “We had Ms. Montrose in yesterday, bringing her baby in for a checkup; she asked us to pass along her regards.” Sheelagh Montrose was one of the city’s more urbane banshees, whose tailored coats almost completely hid the hump of her folded wings; she had quite a nice speaking voice except when she got profoundly irritated with someone. “I’ll let you go, but call us if you need anything, all right, Greta? We’ll get through this.”

  “I know,” she said, trying to sound as if she believed it. “Thanks, Dez. Good-bye for now.”

  “Take care.” Another click, and the red eye on the phone base went out.

  “We will get through it,” said Varney, reaching across the table to take her hand. “Right now it’s time to stop for dinner. You haven’t had anything but coffee for most of the day.”

  “Neither have you,” she pointed out. “For at least two days. You ought to go down to the city and find someone to eat, Varney. I need you to take care of yourself as well as the rest of us.”

  He went faintly pink. Unlike Ruthven, Varney was a vampyre, and had specific dietary requirements vis-à-vis victims’ virginal state that couldn’t be met at Oasis Natrun other than by snacking on the nuns, and that was somewhat impolite. “I’m quite all right,” he said, “but… well. If you’re sure you don’t need me for a little while, I might slip out for a bite.”

  She smiled at him. “Go. I’ll see you later tonight, if you can come with me and Tefnakhte while I do my night rounds. Can I see you do the bat thing?”

  Ruthven never let her see him turn into a bat; she held out little hope that Varney might, and wasn’t particularly surprised when he demurred; she walked him out, though, and spent a few minutes looking up at the vast deep-blue bowl of the sky. The stars were brilliant here, without the faintest wisp of cloud to blur them; they were high enough up over the city that the light pollution didn’t have much of an effect, and the air was crystal-clear. In London it was apparently still raining on and off, although the unrelenting deluge seemed to have passed off; there were fewer halfhearted ark jokes being made on the morning news. Everything except this mysterious illness—and Ruthven’s mysterious curse—seemed to be steadily improving.

  She turned Varney’s ring on her finger, still vividly remembering how it had felt when the metal shrank itself to fit her, warming to her blood-heat. Remembering how it had felt to understand that he had gone to Hell for her, and come back again with this in his pocket. Just for a moment, despite the fatigue and worry, despite her gnawing awareness that she didn’t know what was happening or how to fix it, just for a moment Greta Helsing was something close to simply and powerfully happy.

  Ms. Van Dorne’s address on East Sixty-eighth turned out to be about a ten-minute walk from their hotel. Grisaille was in no mood for window-shopping, despite the riches on offer up and down Madison Avenue—the thought of it brought back Rome, vividly and awfully, how much fun they’d been having before Ruthven fell ill—but he let Cranswell stare at the shop-fronts as they made their way south; and since they in fact had over an hour to kill before turning up on her front step, he agreed to stop at a little French café just down the street to fill Cranswell up with food again. Grisaille kept forgetting how often humans needed to eat, although he was fairly sure Cranswell could have got along quite well without spending so much time doing it.

  Cranswell had called their new acquaintance and asked if he could bring along his colleague and traveling companion who, while not an academic, was a fellow collector and would very much appreciate the opportunity to see Ms. Van Dorne’s treasures; she had acquiesced immediately, sounding as if she’d been expecting something of the sort, with a smile in her voice. That hadn’t gone very far toward reassuring Grisaille about—anything, really—but they were committed now, and he wanted to know what her deal was; there was something very unusual about this particular human which he couldn’t quite put his finger on.

  He sipped his espresso, deliberately not watching Cranswell engulf a ham-and-cheese panini, and wondered what Ruthven was doing right now, and if he was all right, and whether he was bored to death yet—an
d had to stop thinking about that. “So go over it again,” he said to Cranswell to distract himself. “What are we going to tell her?”

  “Rash of antiquities theft,” said Cranswell through a mouthful, and swallowed. “Strongly suggest she advises the museum to move the Hermopolis Stela off display for safety’s sake. And also see if she owns anything like it herself that might mean we don’t need to get hold of that piece in particular.”

  It was a lot easier to nick things that weren’t already in museum-quality locked cases, Grisaille had reflected, and he was fairly sure he could thrall the Van Dorne into letting them waltz out with something of metaphysical significance, if the opportunity presented itself. If not, well. They might be able to get her to do the hard part for them, since she had an in with the museum.

  He’d called up the demons, as suggested. Neither of them had sounded particularly thrilled to hear from him, but both had agreed to help if necessary. The woman was a gallery owner somewhere in Soho and the man was a theatrical producer, and both of them were so very New York that it hurt. Grisaille had been put faintly in mind of the useless Irazek, from that spring in Paris: a demon who had gone entirely native, rather than doing his actual job. Hopefully these two were better M&E operatives than Irazek, but mostly what he needed them for was going to be exfiltration—even if they did manage to get their hands on the stela, and even if he, Grisaille, could lift the thing, he was not going to be able to stroll onto a plane with it tucked under his arm as carry-on luggage: getting it out of the country was going to be a trick and a half unless they called in paranormal assistance. He didn’t know if demons could flip people and objects all the way from New York to Marseille, but he imagined he was going to find out.

  “Come on,” he said to Cranswell. “Finish your coffee and let’s get going before we’re unfashionably late.”