Grave Importance

by Vivian Shaw

  It wasn’t the most imposing private residence Cranswell had ever been to—that would definitely be Ruthven’s Embankment mansion—but Leonora Van Dorne’s gorgeous Beaux-Arts home was a close second. The curved glass in the bow window, the carved stone cornucopias spilling their wealth of fruit and flowers, the iron lacework of the balconies, spoke very firmly if decorously of more money than God. When Grisaille rang the doorbell, he was surprised that Van Dorne herself came to let them in; he’d been expecting a servant, possibly one in uniform.

  Out of the museum she looked even more impressive, despite the fact that without her four-inch heels she’d have come up to Cranswell’s collarbone. She smiled that rather unsettling smile. “Mr. Cranswell,” she said. “So nice to see you again. And you would be Mr. Grisaille? A pleasure.”

  Grisaille shook her hand firmly. Cranswell had been briefly afraid he’d do something Gallic such as attempt to kiss it, but he had apparently decided to go for charming and urbane instead. “The pleasure is mine, Ms. Van Dorne. Thank you for your kind invitation.”

  “Of course,” she said, and stood aside to let them into an entry hall that reminded Cranswell vividly of certain stately homes he had visited: the walls were pale dressed stone, the tapestry hanging on one wall should probably itself have been in a museum, and the beamed ceiling was pure Jacobean.

  “Is that…” he said, and trailed off, staring at a carving on a plinth—or a fragment of a carving, in yellow jasper: a woman’s face, the enigmatic curving smile familiar. Very familiar; he’d seen something very much like it in the museum that morning.

  “Queen Tiye,” said Ms. Van Dorne. “The Met’s version, of course, is generally considered a fine example, but I prefer the original. This way, gentlemen.”

  While they were still trying to process that remarkable statement, she led them up the stairs and into a vast high-ceilinged room still full of light despite the lateness of the afternoon, and this time both Cranswell and Grisaille were lost for words. There were treasures everywhere. More statues and statuettes stood on the mantel, in cases, on tables; framed sections of papyri and facsimiles of tomb paintings hung on the walls; a glass-topped curio table displayed royal jewelry, rich gold and carnelian and lapis and turquoise vivid against the softness of black velvet.

  “Please, look around,” she said, still smiling. “May I offer you some refreshment? Coffee—or wine? I have quite a nice little Sancerre.”

  Cranswell had done just enough cramming on the way here to be dumbstruck at some of the things she had casually lying around. “Um,” he said. “I—that sounds lovely, actually—”

  “I’ll be just a moment,” said Ms. Van Dorne, and left them alone together—and Cranswell and Grisaille shared a wide-eyed look. Jewel thief, he thought, has to be a jewel thief, there’s nothing else she can be, right?

  “Well,” said Grisaille out loud, “this is quite the little collection, I must say. Do tell me if you recognize anything.”

  “I’m looking for stuff that’s sacred to Thoth,” Cranswell said, still staring around himself. “We might have come to exactly the right place.”

  Ms. Van Dorne closed the door behind herself and smiled, leaning against it with her arms folded. Just lately it seemed as if things she wanted kept simply falling into her lap.

  She stayed there, listening, for a few minutes before fetching a tray from her kitchen; returned soundlessly, her heels deliberately silent on the parquet floor. The taller of the two men, the one with the long dreadlocks, was draped elegantly in a chair, the westering sun catching the planes and angles of his face to good effect; the younger one jumped guiltily when she came in and pushed his glasses up his nose, trying to look as if he hadn’t just been considering running his fingers over a falcon statuette on the mantel.

  “That’s the Horus I mentioned this morning,” she said. “One of the finest examples yet discovered, I believe.”

  “Er, yes,” he said. She handed around glasses, sat down on the ottoman, ankles crossed decorously, and waited for him to make a mistake—aware of being observed quite closely by the other one, with the French name and the ostentatious colored contacts. Gay, she thought, obviously, but these two aren’t together; there’s something else going on here. And neither of them is an Egyptologist, or hasn’t been one for more than a few days.

  She didn’t have to wait very long. “So, um,” Cranswell said after a gulp of wine, “you must be concerned about security, what with a collection like this one?”

  “Oh, I have an excellent security system,” she said. “My cases are made by the same company the museum uses, in fact. It’s second to none.”

  She watched that one go home, and mentally wondered at the choices made by whoever had sent this kid to play this particular game—and was not at all surprised when the other one winced ever so slightly. He was the one she’d have to be careful with, Ms. Van Dorne had known right away, but she’d let the kid spin himself a little more rope first.

  “So the recent rash of antiquities theft doesn’t concern you?” he asked.

  She let her eyes widen. “Oh, no. I made absolutely sure the museum’s precautions met my standards before I agreed to lend them my little statue. One can’t be too careful these days.”

  “One can’t,” said the other man. Grey-something. Grisaille, her mind supplied. Ostentatious contact lenses, ostentatious name, British accent. She wondered if he was supposed to be somebody, and smiled: a deliberate smile.

  “It’s important to take one’s own advice,” she said, “wouldn’t you say? Since neither of you is telling the truth, I think I ought to insist.”

  The younger man—his name probably was Cranswell, nobody would make that up—went ashy-grey, staring at her. “What—what do you mean, the truth—?”

  “You are no more an Egyptologist than I am a long-distance runner,” said Ms. Van Dorne, although she thought that she could probably at least manage a half-marathon in her current rejuvenated state. “Oh, don’t panic. I know you’re a thief.”

  He went even greyer. “I don’t know what you’re talking about—”

  “Which is extremely convenient,” she continued, “because there happens to be something I’d like you to steal for me. And I think you already know what it is.”

  The last time Ruthven had been seriously ill had been while he was alive, and he didn’t have too many very clear memories of the experience; he’d died in the late sixteenth century. Nevertheless he thought that it was probably a good sign to have progressed from sleeping all the time to being really bored and irritable about everything, even if it did mean he was having to put some effort into not snapping at people.

  Faust agreed. The doctor came to see him midmorning, the day after Fastitocalon’s visit, and told him he was continuing to improve.

  “When can I have my clothes back?” Ruthven wanted to know. Faust chuckled.

  “At the pillow-hurling stage, are we? Want to get up and stop being treated like an invalid?”

  “Rather,” he said. “I mean—I do appreciate it, everything you’re doing for me—”

  “But you’ve had enough of lying down and doing what you’re told. Understandably. Well, my lord, I think that barring any return of pain or nausea, you are probably cleared to get up and walk around a bit, if we can find you a suitable escort. I’d detail Fastitocalon, but he’s busier than I am these days and he doesn’t need any more things to worry about—I’m not entirely happy with how he’s doing, either—so I’ll see if I can find someone with more free time.”

  “I don’t know any other demons,” said Ruthven. “Wait. Is Irazek down here, and is he a slug, too?”

  “Irazek,” said Faust, looking as if he was trying to recall the name.

  “Shortish, orange hair, little horns to match, freckled, incredibly bad at being a surface operative? He was involved in the Paris thing a few months back.”

  Faust snapped his fingers. “Oh, him. Yes, he’s down here, and currently bipedal, although n
o longer employed in M&E. I think he’s working in a bakery.”

  “He was definitely a better baker than a surface operative,” said Ruthven, bone-dry. “Fass had quite a few piquant observations to make on the subject.”

  “I don’t blame him,” said Faust. “I’d say a good two-thirds of Asmodeus’s hires are some level of incompetent—it’s to be expected when they’re working for someone both incompetent and corrupt—and poor bloody Fastitocalon’s the one who’s got to clean up the mess while trying to do eighty years’ worth of data analysis all at once. Don’t envy him the job, I can tell you that for free.”

  “Can I… I don’t know, help somehow? At all?”

  “I doubt it,” said Faust. “But I’ll ask. Are you any good at math?”

  “Not the way Fass is. I can do basic stuff. Pattern recognition’s more what I’m good at.”

  Faust looked at him. Ruthven could see where the woodcuts had got it right: the engagingly ugly bearded face, the intense brown gaze, the shapeless hat. He was wearing a dark medieval gown without the fur trim common to the illustrations, and on him it somehow looked as imposing and impressive as a standard doctor’s white coat would have been.

  “I’ll see what we can do,” he said. “And I will have your clothes cleaned and pressed and returned to you. But take care, my lord. You’re not quite back to a hundred percent yet, and you need to be a bit careful not to tire yourself out.”

  Ruthven sighed, running his hands through his hair. “Fine,” he said. “I’ll do my best. And—thank you.”

  He meant more than just for seeing if there’s a job around here I could do; he meant for fixing me, and knew the doctor understood.

  Grisaille closed the hotel room door behind the room-service waiter, and turned the bolt. Behind him Cranswell was facedown on the bed, with a pillow pulled over his head.

  “Unless you emerge,” Grisaille told him, running a thumbnail around the foil on the top of the bottle he’d just had delivered, “I am going to drink all of this myself. I’m just saying.”

  Cranswell said something too muffled to understand, but after a moment he did take the pillow off his head and sit up, hair rather hilariously disarranged. “Don’t you dare,” he said. “I need that for medicinal purposes. I thought I was going to fucking keel right over when she said you’re a thief.”

  “I know,” said Grisaille. “It was extremely evident. You went rather a remarkable color.” He uncorked the bottle and poured them each two fingers of cask-strength Connemara. “Anyway, as it turns out, we didn’t have to convince her to help us after all.”

  “Do you trust her?” said Cranswell, taking the glass in both hands.

  “Do I look like a complete idiot?” Grisaille inquired. “She’s a fucking snake, and I still can’t figure out what it is about her that’s pinging all my senses—it’s almost as if she’s not quite human, but she smells human, if you know what I mean.”

  “Not in the least,” said Cranswell. “She’s—unsettling, though. I mean. That smile. There’s something wrong with it.”

  “You didn’t recognize the smile? Look at any of those statues we saw today.” Grisaille knocked back his whiskey, refilled the glass. “Anyway, we’re on. In a minute I’ll call the home office and let them know.”

  “I hope she’s going to be able to convince them to move the stela,” said Cranswell. “I mean, yeah, she’s super influential and she said she knew the director and gives them a ton of money and lends them her artifacts, but—I don’t know if I would be willing to take a rich patron’s word for it that one of my prize pieces was in danger of being stolen and I should have it taken off display.”

  “It’s a neat little balancing trick,” said Grisaille, sitting down. “Warning them something’s going to be stolen so that it can, in fact, be stolen. Self-referential, with built-in credence; why would she tell them it was in danger if she was the one who intended to take it, after all? I think it’ll work. I have about—call it eighty percent confidence.”

  “That’s twenty percent of oh shit,” said Cranswell. “I’m not wild about the odds.”

  “You don’t have to be,” said Grisaille. “All you have to do is follow the plan and avoid fucking up.”

  “She’s not going to be happy when we don’t turn up at her place in an unmarked van bearing her newest prize.”

  “Words cannot express how much I don’t care,” said Grisaille, pouring himself a third drink. “Presumably the New York demons can handle getting it, and us, the hell out of here.”

  “I’m just picturing it,” said Cranswell. “I mean—it’s kind of a pleasant mental image. The hustler becomes the hustled.”

  “Come to think of it,” said Grisaille, transferring himself to the other bed, glass in hand, “the reason this has worked so far is that you are absolute shit at lying. She saw right through you probably from the moment you bumped into her at the museum.”

  Cranswell glowered at him and went to fetch the bottle. “Thanks,” he said sourly. “Really makes me feel good about myself, you know?”

  “Oh, shut up. If you were any good at deception, we’d still be trying to figure out how to get the stupid thing out of its stupid case. I’m, in my own peculiar idiom, attempting to give you a compliment.”

  “Were you? I couldn’t tell.” Cranswell sighed. “This better work.”

  “Relax. I said, I’m pretty confident it will.”

  “No, I mean—the thing itself. It better summon up Thoth or whatever it’s supposed to do and get the answer they’re looking for. I’m going to be so pissed if we went through this whole mess and it turns out to be the religious equivalent of ASK AGAIN LATER or ANSWER UNCLEAR.”

  Grisaille couldn’t help picturing a mummy shaking the stela like a Magic 8 Ball and peering at it. “You and me both,” he said. “What time is it in Marseille, anyway?”

  “Um,” said Cranswell, counting on his fingers. “Two in the morning.”

  “Maybe I’ll wait till tomorrow to call them.” Grisaille sighed. “And it is entirely off-brand for me to be sensible, but I should point out that you ought to have more for dinner than whiskey. Even very delicious whiskey. I need you functional in the morning.”

  “Can we order more room service? I don’t feel like dealing with humans right now.”

  “I never feel like dealing with humans,” said Grisaille, and tossed him the menu. “Knock yourself out, but keep the garlic thing in mind, okay?”

  “Garlic soup with garlic bread and extra garlic, check,” said Cranswell. “Fine, fine, okay, I’ll tell them I’m hideously allergic to it when I place the order. What about you?”

  “What about me?” Grisaille drained his glass, laced his fingers behind his head. “I might go out to eat, actually. Sample the local cuisine, or at least the locals.”

  “You might as well,” said Cranswell. “Since we’re here. Be a pity to waste the opportunity to try new things.”

  “Couldn’t have said it better myself,” he said, and sighed. “Next time it’s somebody else’s turn to save the world, I’m not cut out for it, even if I am extremely good at stealing things. All this metaphysical bullshit is not really my scene.” He couldn’t stop thinking about Hell, about Ruthven in Hell, and what his long-term prognosis was likely to be. Sure, the city had been weirdly beautiful, and maybe he could get used to it, but he didn’t want to have to try.

  “Mine, either,” said Cranswell. “I had enough of that last year with those mad monks and the giant evil lightbulb, which honestly I still have trouble believing is a thing that actually happened.”

  “Yeah, what did happen with that? Ruthven doesn’t talk about it much,” said Grisaille, glancing over. Cranswell finished his drink, set the glass down.

  “I hit it with a sword,” he said. “Some kind of—thing, entity, I don’t know what, that basically fed off hatred and fear and bad emotions, had come to hang out in this glass rectifier thing in the Underground and was making people do bad shit, beaming out its
mind-control rays or whatever you want to call it, and I guess it found this weird little secret society and decided to use them as henchmen to fuck with the city and hunt monsters as well as humans. So we went down there and it was—yelling at us, inside our heads, pulling out all the bad memories, and—I hit it with a sword and broke the rectifier, and really conveniently the Devil showed up and caught the thing before it could escape.”

  “The Devil,” Grisaille repeated.

  “Yup. In a white dress, with wings, the whole deal. Then he made the wings disappear and turned the robe thing into a suit, and brought Fastitocalon back to life, and—it was all kind of trippy, to be honest with you.”

  “It sounds trippy,” said Grisaille. “Fastitocalon was dead?”

  “Yeah, he got killed by one of the monks during the attack. Actually it was Greta who saved the day; she managed to turn the power off for a second so we could get close enough to the thing to smash it. But you can see how I’m not really so hot on the magic stuff.” He shrugged. “Like I said. Let’s hope this thing works, that’s all.”

  “Yeah,” said Grisaille, thinking about their friends, thinking about Paris, about things he’d done and not done, and the associated guilt—and then deliberately not thinking about it; he couldn’t afford to go down one of his infrequent but profound spirals right now. “Well. Order room service, and leave the window open for me, okay? I’ll probably be back late.”

  “Okay,” said Cranswell. “It’ll be over tomorrow night one way or another, won’t it?”

  “Oh, yes,” said Grisaille, about, well, eighty percent sure he wasn’t lying. “It’ll be over, all right.”

  CHAPTER 11

  It made such a difference, having his own clothes back. The Spa-issue pajamas and dressing gown had been perfectly acceptable, a vast improvement over the hospital gown, but Ruthven had knotted his tie this morning with a sigh of relief. He looked like himself again, even if he did still appear somewhat more cadaverous than sleek.