Grave Importance
Page 22
Now, as the sunset started to fade from the sky, she turned the nose of her rental car up into the hills above Marseille. It was about a forty-minute drive if she was in a hurry, and at this point she could take her time and enjoy the scenery, secure in the knowledge that she knew where she was going, even without knowing precisely what she’d find. She wasn’t worried about the gates; she’d figure those out as she got to them, or simply drive through. At this point she didn’t mind making a little bit of a mess; somewhere in the back of her mind Ms. Van Dorne was aware that she had left objectivity behind in New York City, and did not care. She had already come so far and done so much to get her hands on that stela; giving up now was not in her nature, even if it meant she had to break not only laws but objects.
It turned out she didn’t have to do anything at all. The first of the gates, at the turnoff from the public road onto the facility’s private drive, looked fairly solid, and she rolled the car up to it prepared to stop and get out—but the gate’s bar simply slid smoothly upward with oiled ease to let her pass.
As if it had recognized her. As if she carried some sort of—opening device, or talisman.
That sent a little finger of doubt down her spine, but it was rapidly subsumed under a sense of satisfaction, of rightness: of course it would let her in. She deserved to be here.
There were seven gates, as described in the Book of the Dead. Ms. Van Dorne was faintly amused by that, and also mildly glad they hadn’t gone with the twelve gates mentioned in a lot of tomb paintings. Every gate opened for her as if she was expected, soundless and smooth.
Wellness facility, she thought, changing down as the road grew steeper. What kind of wellness facility is used as a staging ground for international art theft? What other treasures might there be lying around up here in the middle of nowhere that I might decide I want?
She was almost upon the place before she saw it clearly: a series of mid-century modern pavilions set into the edge of the hillside, the tilted windows only just catching the last of the dying copper-rose light of sunset. There was a terrace with deck chairs on it, and as she came around the last curve of the road, she could see the polished ochre fuselage of the helicopter squatting on its pad.
Ms. Van Dorne parked the now-dusty rental Mercedes in front of the main entrance, without bothering to make any attempt to disguise her approach, and got out. She’d traveled in what was for her casual wear—narrow Prada slacks, a cashmere twin-set, a Hermès scarf tied over her hair, huge Dior sunglasses—and she could see herself reflected in the glass doors. Not bad, she thought. Not bad at all.
Now to reclaim my property.
Knowing what was causing the attacks of faintness, even if they couldn’t stop them, was in fact a weird kind of comfort. It meant that Greta could go ahead with surgeries she’d been putting off until they could find some kind of etiology, and—as she’d said herself—her job still needed to be done, whatever the condition of the universe.
Maanakhtef’s replacement metatarsals had been printed weeks ago and the final preparation and sanding was complete; all Greta had to do was install them. She was nearly finished with the attachment points for his new tendons and ligaments when raised voices in the hall outside her operating room filtered through her concentration.
“—Dr. Helsing?” someone asked. “I’m so sorry to disturb you—”
“Then don’t,” she said between her teeth. “Hand me that micro-driver.”
“It’s—there’s a trespasser—”
“Ask Varney to tie them in a knot, and hand me that micro-driver.”
The tool was set in her outstretched hand; she bent closer to Maanakhtef’s foot and fastened another three tiny titanium screws into place, securing his new transverse metatarsal ligament to the replacement fourth metatarsal. Only when she was sure it was solidly attached did she straighten up and take off her magnifying glasses.
Sister Melitta was standing just inside the door, actually wringing her hands, a thing which Greta had never seen anyone do outside of fiction. “Tell me what’s going on,” she said.
“There’s a woman here,” said the nurse, “who doesn’t have clearance, who’s not on any of the lists, but she just—drove up the road, bold as brass, and the gates opened for her—”
“What does she want?” Greta’s eyes narrowed.
“As far as we can tell, she wants the stela,” said Sister Melitta. “She seems to think it belongs to her.”
There is no way, Greta thought, that the Van Dorne woman could possibly have found her way here. No way at all.
She sighed. “Scrub in and put a temporary dressing on his foot. I’ll deal with her and then finish the job. Maanakhtef, I am so sorry about this.”
Mummies didn’t really need much anesthesia; Tefnakhte had chanted a spell to send him into a kind of twilight doze. He woke enough to mumble something that sounded like of course.
Sister Melitta looked almost comically relieved to have something to do—and to be excused from dealing with their unwelcome visitor. Greta stripped off her gloves, tossed them in the disposal, and left her to it.
In the entry foyer she found Sister Brigitte towering over a stranger, accompanied by several other nurses. Sister looked thoroughly relieved to see her. “Dr. Helsing,” she said. “This—person is not authorized to be here.”
Greta nodded, and she stepped aside. The stranger was about as tall as she was, dressed expensively, wearing what looked like a genuine lapis scarab in an enormous ring.
“I’m the medical director here,” she said. “What do you want?”
“‘Medical director,’” said the woman in an American accent of the type Greta thought of as transatlantic. “Cute. I’d never have come up with an Egypt-themed detox facility, but clearly you people are making it work—Ah,” she added, looking past Greta, who turned to see Cranswell in the doorway. “Mr. Cranswell. What a pleasure it is to see you again.”
Cranswell had gone a very horrible unhealthy color. “What are you doing here? How did you—did the demons bring you, too?”
“Demons?” said the stranger, and laughed. “Oh, dear. I’m so sorry, I didn’t realize; you really do manage to seem quite normal most of the time. Where’s my stela?”
“It’s not your stela,” said Cranswell. “It’s not ours, either, but we needed it.”
“So do I,” she said, “and I made it possible for you to get it out of the museum, so hand it over—”
“This is her?” Greta said ungrammatically. “This is Van Dorne?”
“Yeah,” said Cranswell. “God knows how she got here, we didn’t leave a postcard with the address or anything—”
“You didn’t have to, dear,” said Van Dorne, and then all the color slid out of her face at once, leaving the expertly applied rouge standing out like fever spots.
Greta and Cranswell turned to find Tefnakhte, with his clipboard, in conversation with Varney, just coming through the door. “What…” Van Dorne said, strengthless, sounding as if she’d just been hit quite hard.
Well, there went their cover. Still, Greta couldn’t help a nasty little flicker of satisfaction. “What seems to be the matter?” she inquired. “Are you quite well?”
“That’s—that’s—a—”
“A mummy?” said Greta, tilting her head. “Yes. Yes, he is.”
“That’s not real, they’re not—” She was still grey-white, and beginning to sway. Behind Greta, Tefnakhte handed Varney his clipboard and lurched toward them.
“Oh, I assure you they are,” said Greta. “This is Mr. Tefnakhte. He’s a records clerk here at Oasis Natrun. He’s also been dead for several thousand years. Tefnakhte, Ms. Van Dorne, of New York.”
“Pleased to meet you,” said the mummy in a whistling creak quite unlike his ordinary voice. Greta could tell he was enjoying himself.
Van Dorne stared at him in horror, taking off her enormous sunglasses; they could all see quite clearly when her eyes rolled up and she crumpled—
—into the arms of Tefnakhte, who looked extraordinarily smug.
“Can someone take a picture?” he asked. “I can lurch.”
“It’s… it’s done,” said Zophiel, his voice soft and strengthless, sitting up in bed. It was full dark: sometime in the very small hours of the morning, the traffic outside as quiet as it ever got, and both of them had been torn out of sleep by the echo-shock of something huge passing through the planes, followed by a shimmery unreal sensation of imbalance, something teetering on the edge of collapse. “That was enough to damage the last of the barrier—but we didn’t do it, it wasn’t the woman with the spell, something else used that stone’s power—”
“But it was done,” Amitiel said beside him. Zophiel wasn’t quite sure when they had started sharing a bed, but it seemed entirely correct somehow, looking at his fellow angel. His eyes were huge, luminous violet-blue in the dimness of the room. Both of them were giving off a faint pale light. “After so long,” Amitiel added. “I can feel it, Zophiel, that—there’s almost nothing left of the barrier between worlds—it’s done. Even if we didn’t do it in the end, our work is done. The Archangel can lead the host through to bring down devastation on the other Heaven—we can go home—”
“We can go home,” Zophiel repeated wonderingly, and all at once dropped his human seeming completely: the blue irises of his eyes flared bright gold and spread into pupilless cabochons, blank gold from lid to lid, and his vast white wings came into being, folded around both of them; a bright circle of light settled just above his white-gold curls. “Oh, Amitiel. It’s been so long, in the wrong world.”
“Take me there,” said Amitiel, and clung to him, his own wings and halo visible. “Take me home where we belong.”
“Yes,” Zophiel said very gently. “Yes.”
He closed his golden eyes and twisted one hand slightly in the air, and a small thunderclap knocked the alarm clock off the nightstand as the two angels disappeared, leaving only a faint gold shimmery dust where they had lain.
Somewhere rather different from Greenwich Street, Ruthven was watching another angel: this one on a large viewscreen, glaring at the Lord of Hell.
He had only been allowed into Samael’s enormous all-white boardroom because Fastitocalon had let him in—along with a gaggle of staffers and several of the archdemons who ran other departments in the infernal civil service. Ruthven was having that creepy discordant feeling again: this was too normal for the setting; why wasn’t anything on fire or reeking of brimstone?
“—hardly feel that this matter is of the significance you claim,” the angel was saying. It was inhumanly beautiful, which Ruthven was beginning to understand was par for the course, but it also wore an expression as if something in its vicinity were giving off an unpleasant smell. “It’s our understanding that your people sorted out whatever that was in Paris earlier this year.”
“The point is we shouldn’t have had to,” said Samael with awful patience. He was leaning against the table with one hip, arms folded, wearing a beautifully cut white silk suit with no shirt, the jacket unbuttoned. Ruthven thought probably nobody else in all the world other than the Devil could have pulled off that much look. “My people, as you say, sorted it out with what was in effect an emergency tack-welding job, which staved off the immediate danger; but the overall source of the disturbances is external. Which means you’re also in jeopardy, and that despite our vast and storied list of differences, we may need to collaborate on this one.”
“Heaven,” said the angel, “does not collaborate. If the danger exists, we are more than capable of handling it ourselves.”
“Let me ask you a question,” said Samael. “When was the last time you actually had direct contact with Himself? I don’t mean just the praying and so on, all the hosannas and that sort of phatic repetitive stuff, but actual interaction with the divine? Was it about eighty years ago, by any chance?”
The angel went a whiter shade of pale, and its golden eyes narrowed. “I would expect nothing more than gross discourtesy and insult from you, traitorous scum. This conversation is over.” It reached for something, and the screen went blank.
“That’s a yes,” said one of the archdemons. There were eight of them, apparently, who together with Samael made up the Council of Nine, the body in charge of the infernal civil service. Ruthven thought this one was Ahriman: exquisite Persian features, very long dark hair. The only visibly demonic attribute was the bright red eyes, which made Ruthven think of Grisaille, and hurriedly redirect his attention to the conversation going on. “There is nothing quite so defensive as an angel who doesn’t want to let on they have no idea what they’re doing,” Ahriman added. “And if God’s really adopted a hands-off management style they’re not about to admit it to the likes of us.”
“It doesn’t help that Gabriel’s in charge,” said Samael. “Some of the others are a bit more reasonable, but Gabriel is the prig of all prigs. Well, at least we’ve warned them to some extent.” He sighed, detaching himself from the table. “Back to work. Fass, I want to see your data myself.”
Fastitocalon nodded. “Of course. It looks—more bad news, of course—it looks like a good third of the current surface ops have gone native in the abandon one’s responsibilities manner, but I can’t replace them at the moment. If we get through this, I’m going to enjoy firing them one by one.”
“Quite right,” said Samael, walking, so that Fastitocalon and Ruthven had to catch up. “I’m beginning to think I didn’t really do Asmodeus justice with the slug. I might reopen the case and see if I could adjust his sentence to something more fitting, such as a hagfish. Lord Ruthven, are you sure you ought to be out of bed?”
Ruthven blinked. “I’m fine,” he said. “I’m quite all right now, and—I want to help?”
“He’s already been quite useful,” said Fastitocalon. “He noticed the pattern before anybody else did. Let him stay.”
“By all means,” said Samael, rubbing at his temples. Outside, distant thunder muttered. “One feels somewhat out of order asking one’s guest to lend a hand in an ongoing existential crisis; it’s bad manners.”
“The guest is volunteering,” said Ruthven, faintly amused—and the amusement vanished behind a sudden bright-hot spike of shocked gladness as they turned the corner and saw none other than Grisaille standing beside Fastitocalon’s office, looking awkward and exhausted at the same time.
Ruthven had been told not to do anything energetic, but there was nothing on this or any other plane that could have stopped him running across the remaining distance between them and wrapping Grisaille in an almost painfully tight embrace.
“—Hello,” he said. “I missed you. What’s happening on Earth?”
“You would not believe some of the things I’ve seen,” said Grisaille, muffled in his shoulder. “Do they have booze in Hell?”
“More of it than you can imagine,” said Fastitocalon mildly, joining them. “Was the trip down awful, Grisaille?”
“Not as bad as from New York,” he said, still attached to Ruthven. “But not a lot of fun. Thanks for sending someone to come get me.”
“Of course. There’s a nice little bar just at the foot of the towers if you want to go and catch up and get pleasantly inebriated—”
“Yes please,” said Grisaille. “Right now.”
Greta had let Tefnakhte lurch around briefly with the Van Dorne in his arms, partly because he did it so well and partly for the same reason she’d let Ruthven give her a makeover for the opera in Paris: he was so clearly having an absolute ball. After a few minutes, chronicled on Tefnakhte’s own phone, she told him to put her down on the couch in the reception area and had one of the nurses fetch a smelling-salt ampoule.
“So tell me what you want with the Hermopolis Stela,” she said when Van Dorne had gasped and shuddered her way back to consciousness. “You can’t possibly exhibit it in your house, and why bother stealing it if you’re only going to lock it up in a warehouse somewhere?”
“That was a mummy,” she said.
“I believe we covered that,” said Greta. “Yes. That was a mummy. In fact there are several on the premises. Not that anyone is going to believe you if you go back to the city and start telling people about it.”
“That was real. They—they move? And talk?”
“And pay quite a lot of money to come up here and have me, or an equivalent person, fix them when they are ill or damaged, which a lot of them seem to be just recently. I am, in fact, not finished with a surgical procedure I was performing when you showed up uninvited and unannounced, so you will understand my lack of patience,” said Greta. “What do you want with the goddamn stela, and how did you trace the thing here, anyway?”
“Greta,” said another voice behind her, and she turned to see Varney in the doorway, looking at his phone with narrow tin-colored eyes. “Something’s off here.”
“That’s a bit of an understatement,” she said, bone-dry.
“With her, I mean. I looked her up. According to this, if she’s really Leonora Irene Van Dorne, she was born in 1954.”
Greta had turned back in time to see a shocked blush flare and fade in the woman’s barely lined face. She would have put Van Dorne in her mid-thirties at most, so where the hell were the other thirty-something years? No plastic surgeon was that good.
“Huh,” she said slowly.
“You’re not a vampire,” said Varney, slipping his phone into his pocket and coming to loom over the couch. “I’d know. So what are you?”