by Linda Mooney
“Well? Which one is it?”
“We don’t know. That’s why my man grabbed anything he thought might remotely fit the description.”
Elso continued to eye each piece. He finally pulled out a pair of latex gloves from a desk drawer and put them on before handling the artifacts. After another couple of minutes, he extracted a huge magnifying glass to get a better look at the details. “Tell me what happened,” he demanded as he studied the items.
“What do you mean?”
The evasive tone in Finestra’s voice was evident, and it set Elso’s irritability factor a notch higher. He glared at the man. “There isn’t anything I don’t know about when it comes to this city,” he snapped. “Especially when it comes to anything I have a remote or invested interest in. The alarm went off in the museum not once but twice, and I want to know why. And I want to know if your man had anything to do with it”
Finestra’s face paled, but he stood his ground. “My man claims it wasn’t him who set off the alarms. I believe him.”
“I don’t give a fuck whether you believe him or not.” Elso kept his voice and his countenance as icy as possible. “Tell me what happened.”
Finestra dug his hands into his pockets. “He managed to get into the building without any problems. In fact, he said it was almost too easy. Someone set off the alarms before he got there, and while the guards and cops were distracted, he was able to gain entry via one of the rear service entrances. He went down to the offices and found Miss Van de Camp working. She was alone, so he decided to have her tell him which one was the seal, but she seemed genuinely confused.”
“Why did he even approach her in the first place? Why not take what he could find and leave?”
“I asked him that same question. He said there was no way he could tell which boxes held the recent shipment. Plus, she would have spotted him, given how those rooms are arranged.”
Elso muttered more to himself than to Finestra. “If he hadn’t confronted her outright, she would have had time to summon the guards once she realized there was an intruder.” He glanced up at the man. “Continue.”
“He had her show him which containers were part of the shipment from Dr. Kelling. But while he was going through them, she managed to escape. He followed her to the warehousing area—”
“Why? Why didn’t he leave as soon as she fled?”
Finestra shrugged. “I’m assuming he didn’t want her to notify the guards. But by the time he got upstairs, he couldn’t find her. That’s when he said the guy in the Halloween costume came out of the stairwell.”
Elso didn’t try to hide his surprise. Finestra continued before he could comment or question that last part.
“At first he said he thought the man was wearing some kind of protective gear, with a big clownish type of mask over his face. But when the thing raised a big ass pair of wings, he fired on it.” He ran a hand over his face. “He swears he saw dust fly off the guy when he put four slugs in the man’s chest. The bullets just ricocheted off. One of them must have struck near where the girl was hiding because she screamed in surprise. He started to go after her, but the thing continued to advance on him. At the same time the alarms went off for a second time. That’s when he decided to get the hell out of there. So he shot out the lock on the back door and escaped out into Roosevelt Park.”
“Tell me again about the man who attacked him. He was wearing a Halloween costume?”
“He claims the guy was wearing some kind of gargoyle costume. Whatever it was made of out, it was dense enough to be bulletproof.”
Elso got to his feet and went over to a bookcase to extract a slender volume. He opened it, found the page he wanted, and held it out for Finestra to take. Curious, the associate looked at the entry.
“What does that look like to you?” Elso questioned him.
“A gargoyle.”
“With an ugly-ass face mask and wings, right? Just like your man’s description, wouldn’t you agree?”
“Yes. I guess. What are you showing me?”
“That’s a drawing of an esmesh. It’s a demon servant of the Egyptian god, Petbe.”
“I’m sorry. I’m not that familiar with Egyptian lore.”
“Petbe is the god of revenge. The esmesh was his way of protecting his domain, his temples, and his disciples. It’s also said that his brother is the god of war, Montu.”
Elso returned to his desk, ran a hand over the items there, chose one in particular, and held it up. “What does this look like to you?”
Finestra stared at it. “It has that same kind of gargoyle-ish face, but the body is all wrong.”
“That’s because this represents the mother of Petbe and Montu. We don’t know her name yet, but I’m betting this…this…” He shook the item slightly for emphasis.
“Is that the seal?” Finestra finished.
Elso sighed and set the figurine back onto the desk. “I don’t know. What else did your man tell you about the guy who went after him in the museum?”
“That’s everything.”
“Your man has no idea where the guy came from or why he was wearing the costume, if it was a costume?”
Finestra gasped. “Surely you’re not suggesting that the guy in the costume was the real thing!”
“I’m not suggesting anything until we get more information,” Elso barked. He dropped heavily into his chair and drummed his fingers on the armrest. “I think the key may be this woman who was working there. What was her name again?”
“Brielle Van de Camp. Coincidentally or not, she’s Dr. Kelling’s niece.”
“Umm. Then she has direct connections to the dig. But your man claims she seemed honestly perplexed about knowing anything about a seal?”
“That’s what he said. Of course, it could have all been a ruse on her part.”
“Could be. Maybe.”
“Do you want me to put a tail on her?”
“Yeah. Find out all you can about her. It’s possible she may also know something about our gargoyle guy.”
Giving a nod, Finestra left the office. After he left, Elso picked up the figurine again to examine it. “I’m willing to bet my entire fortune that you’re the kalorshai. What I haven’t figured out yet is how you work, how you fit into this puzzle, and how that gargoyle-costumed man are interconnected. But I will piece it together eventually. I can promise you that.”
Gathering up the items, he placed them back into the black bag, then took the lot over to a concealed safe no one else but he knew existed. After making sure they were securely locked up, Elso left his office for the night with a tight but happy smile on his face.
Chapter 15
Interrogation
She was wiped out by the time the cops were finished interrogating her. She’d managed to have Garenth drop her off on the museum roof, then made her way back down to the lower floors where she could notify the guards. Her story to the officers was pretty much the truth, starting when she had been working on a piece inside Dr. Kelling’s office, and ending with the intruder following her into the warehouse. She told them she’d managed to escape her kidnapper and was in hiding in the storage area when someone entered the warehouse via the stairwell. She gave them her account of the kidnapper firing at who she assumed was one of the museum guards, then running for the back exit where he first shot out the lock before escaping.
“What was the intruder looking for?” a Detective Knowles inquired. “Did he say why he was there?”
“He said he was looking for a seal,” she truthfully acknowledged. “He seemed to be knowledgeable of the fact that my uncle had recently shipped several new artifacts to the museum, and believed the seal he was looking for was in that shipment.”
“Did he tell you what the seal looked like?”
“No, and I don’t think he knew for sure either. He ended up going through the crates, including the ones we hadn’t unpacked yet, and made off with several valuable items.” She explained further. “One in particu
lar had a gold ring embedded in it. Egyptian burial artifacts sometimes are encrusted or covered in gold, which makes them almost priceless. Or he could have been trying to acquire them for a private collector. There’s a huge black market for authentic ancient artifacts.”
“Then you believe this guy may have been a pro?”
“Oh, yeah. Most definitely. He wasn’t some dude off the street looking for something he could hock for a few bucks.”
“How did you come to that conclusion?”
“He was wearing all black, including a mask. Kind of like a ninja. He even had a little black drawstring bag tied to his belt. He put the items in that bag.”
“Did any of the other items that he took also have gold in them?”
She shrugged. “I honestly don’t know. We hadn’t inventoried those yet. You’ll have to ask Dr. Kelling. He’ll be able to give you a full description of everything.”
“And you’re sure there was just the one intruder?” another detective whose name she didn’t recall queried.
“As far as I know, yes.”
“So why did he follow you to the warehouse?” Knowles continued.
“I guess he wanted to see if there were any more crates that had been shipped. Apparently, he didn’t believe me when I told him everything that had arrived was up in the offices.”
“You said you managed to get away from him,” Detective Number Two verified. “How?”
“When we were in the offices, and he was digging inside the other crates, I shoved the table up against him, blocking him in. It gave me enough time to make a run for the elevator.”
“Why didn’t you try to notify the guards?”
“I planned to, but I couldn’t find any.”
“One of the guards claimed you fled out the back door with an unknown suspect.”
“Yeah, I ran, but I was alone,” she insisted. “I found a fire escape ladder and climbed it up to the roof, and I stayed there until I felt it was safe to come down.”
By the look on the cops’ faces, it was clear they were having a hard time believing that part of her story. “Miss Van de Camp, why didn’t you come down when the police arrived? Surely you heard or saw the police respond to the alarms.”
She nodded. “I did, but I was on the phone to my uncle, telling him what had happened. He’d gotten a call from the museum curator, telling him about the breakin. My uncle phoned me to see if I knew anything about it, and I told him what had happened. I came down afterwards.”
The timeline was a bit wonky regarding when her uncle was notified and when he phoned her, but hopefully the police wouldn’t look too carefully into that detail.
They continued to question her for another hour or so before releasing her. After promising them they could reach her if they had any further questions, she was escorted back to the museum by an officer so she could gather her purse before heading home.
Did they believe she had anything to do with the breakin? Perhaps notifying the person responsible of the new shipment? Brielle hoped not. If they tried to go down that path, she knew they’d come up empty-handed, but she couldn’t tell them that. They wouldn’t believe her if she tried. No, they would have to discover the truth on their own time and on their own terms.
In the meantime, she had one very unique specimen sitting on the roof of the Natural History Museum, waiting for her to return.
During her interrogation, both her uncle and Irmine texted her. Kelling was wanting to know what was happening and how she was holding up. Irmine sent her one simple request.
Download an Arabic/English Translation App. It won’t be a perfect solution, but it’ll be better than nothing.
By the time she arrived at the museum with the app installed, she was ready to confront Garenth.
The police had Dr. Kelling’s office and the workroom taped off as a crime scene, but one of the museum guards allowed her to retrieve her purse. Thanking him, she took the elevator up to the top floor, then the stairs to the roof.
She’d half-expected the gargoyle man to be gone, but he was there, perched on the ledge of the roof and looking every bit as if he was part of the architecture. He heard her approach and turned around. She was surprised that he hadn’t been more apprehensive. Holding up her phone, she spoke into it. “You knew it was me coming up behind you?”
The app’s interpretive voice was mechanic and stilted, but Garenth managed to understand her question and replied, “You have confident tread. Enemy hide, not approach.” He gave the phone the eye, then spoke again. “Go now.”
Was he telling her he had to leave? Or for both of them to leave?
“Can you take me home? It’s late and I’m tired.”
In answer, he got to his feet and held out his arms. Without hesitation, she allowed him to pick her up. And this time she had no qualms about gliding over the city’s rooftops.
She directed him to her apartment building where he landed them near the water tower. Before taking the stairs down to her floor, she placed a hand on his chest and gazed up into his deep brown eyes. “I’m going to bed to rest. Will you be all right until morning?”
“Stay here for sun god to come. You come.”
The last had to be a question although the app spoke everything in a monotone. She smiled. “Yes. I will return for you.” Giving his chest another pat, she left the roof to go down to her eighth floor apartment.
A hot shower managed to relax and soothe her frazzled nerves to the point where she could get some decent sleep. She was never aware of the large, hulking figure which parked itself outside her window and watched over her until it grew daylight.
Chapter 16
Breakfast
Brielle was reaching inside her fridge for the milk when an immense, dark shadow blocked the sunlight streaming through the kitchen window. Alarmed, she ducked behind the bar. Slowly making her way to the corner, she peered around it. She’d left her phone on the dinette table, but with a little luck, she might be able to reach it and call 9-1-1 before whoever was outside on her fire escape could…
“Wait a minute,” she whispered. “The fire escape is outside the bedroom. There’s no ladder outside the kitchen. In fact, there’s nothing outside that window but…nothing.”
The figure crossed the window again. Plunking the quart of milk on the bar, she ran over to the window and stared outside. Garenth was winging between the kitchen and the bedroom, going back and forth like a trapeze act. Without the trapeze.
Rushing to the bedroom, she quickly unlocked the window leading to the fire escape and threw up the sash, sticking her head outside as the winged man flew toward her. Waving at him frantically, she called to him even though she knew he wouldn’t understand what she was saying.
“Get in here! What do you think you’re doing? What if somebody sees you?”
She kept gesturing for him to follow her and withdrew inside. Garenth apparently understood and climbed into the bedroom. After closing the window behind him, she returned to the kitchen. As she hoped, he followed her. Grabbing her phone, she opened the translation app and spoke into it. “What were you doing out there?”
After hearing the question, he stared at her as he responded. “Protect you.”
“Protecting me? How long have you been out there?”
“The night.” He settled himself on the floor, half-crouching, half-sitting in that way he’d done on the roof.
She grabbed the milk and took it over to the table where she’d set her bowl and box of cereal as he watched her. After she fixed her breakfast, she returned the milk to the fridge, snatching up the phone on the way.
Using the app was cumbersome. She had to physically change its setting to interpret her English to Arabic, then reverse its setting so that his Arabic could be translated. On top of that, much of what he said couldn’t be deciphered. But Irmine was right. It was better than nothing. She dreaded to think how lost they’d both be if they’d been forced to communicate via hand signals and drawing pictures.
Garenth eyed the room and spoke. “This is where you live.”
“Yes. It’s my home.”
“It is…different.” He gazed at her. “This place is different.”
The sound of wonder in his voice made her smile. “I bet it’s very different from when you were alive.” Recalling what Irmine initially told her, she paused in her eating. “Garenth, why aren’t you going after the mother idol?”
“You touch her. You have her on you.”
She glanced at her hands and remembered when the head popped off the figurine. Getting up from her chair, she hurried into the bathroom and dug her jeans out of the laundry basket to take them back into the kitchen. Garenth’s eyes widened as she approached, and she’d swear she saw his nostrils flare. Handing him the jeans, she picked up the phone to explain.
“The mother idol you’re looking for is a vial, isn’t it? It held some kind of substance or liquid, didn’t it?”
“The mother idol is crucial to my existence.”
She watched as he turned the jeans over in his hands until he found the front of them. She wasn’t surprised when he lifted the fabric to his nose and sniffed between the thighs. Adjusting the pants, he sniffed again, this time over one leg.
“The top of the mother idol came off and landed on my leg,” she explained. “That’s what you’re sniffing. It fell into my lap.”
He smelled her jeans again. “Your nearness confusing me.”
“How? Because it’s keeping you from detecting the idol itself?”
“Yes.”
She perched on the edge of her chair. “What can I do to help?”
“I go back to the temple and find scent again.”
The temple. He probably meant the museum.
“You can do that? I mean, that idol could be miles away from here by now.”
“I find it,” Garenth told her with confidence.
“But what if you can’t? What if it’s so far away, you can’t find it?” she persisted.
*
