by Tanya Huff
“He won’t be easy to convince.”
“Good. We prefer, my lord and I, to work with the strong; they last longer.”
“Cantree believes that independence yields greater results than conformity.”
“Does he now.”
“They say he’s incorruptible.”
“That in itself can be used.”
Used for what? Henry wondered. There was something in the tone that reminded Henry of his father. He didn’t find that at all comforting. His father had been a cruel and Machiavellian prince who could play tennis with a courtier in the morning and have him executed for treason before sunset. Still motionless, he frowned as he watched a large man in a pirate costume walk down the hall on the balls of his feet, carrying himself as though he were perpetually ready for a fight, his expression just to one side of suspicious. Bearing and attitude both said “Cop” so strongly that Henry doubted the man had ever been of any use undercover.
The newcomer paused in the doorway, one beefy hand dropping to the pommel of the plastic cutlass that hung at his hip. Instinct seemed to be warning him of a threat within the room and his tone was carefully, aggressively neutral. “Mr. Zottie? You wanted to speak with me?”
“Ah, Inspector Cantree. Please, come in.”
As Cantree stepped over the threshold, Henry raced forward, letting the heavy folds of the cape slip from his shoulders to the floor. Over short distances, he could move almost faster than mortal eyes could register but not while dragging meters of fabric behind him. Sliding between the burly Inspector and the door, he sped shadow silent into the room, along a book-covered wall, and behind a floor-to-ceiling barrier of heavy curtain.
Convenient, he thought, his back pressed against glass, his feet turned to either side so as not to protrude, his entire body motionless again. Over the sound of three heartbeats, he heard the door close, the hardwood floor contract beneath the Inspector’s weight, but no hue and cry. His entry had gone unnoticed.
He felt something. It brushed against his ka with all the innocent strength of a desert storm, almost dragging him from the light trance he’d been maintaining for most of the evening. Before he could begin to react, the barrier wards, set up more from old habit than perceived necessity, diverted the touch and only by lowering them could he hope to find it again.
For an instant, he weighed what he did tonight against such tantalizing potential and, regretfully, left the wards in place. His lord perceived this evening as the initial gathering of a core of acolytes—which it was, in addition to an initial gathering of a more secular power—and his lord would not look kindly upon personal indulgences during such a time.
The touch had been undirected, accidental, therefore it would have to wait.
But the glorious memory of it lingered in the back of his mind and he vowed it would not have to wait long.
“Inspector Frank Cantree, Mr. Anwar Tawfik.”
Henry slid the curtains apart a centimeter, movement masked by the quiet sound of flesh touching flesh.
“Please take a seat, Inspector. Mr. Tawfik has a proposal that I think you’ll find very interesting.”
He watched the Inspector lower himself onto an expensive leather sofa and saw Solicitor General Zottie move across the room to stand beside a wing chair, its high back barely a meter from his hiding place, completely hiding Anwar Tawfik from Henry’s line of sight.
This is beginning to feel like some cheap horror movie, Henry mused, where the creature rises out of the chair to face the camera at the end of the scene. I guess I wait for my cue. He’d make his move after Cantree left the room and before another high ranking official took the Inspector’s place. Zottie was merely mortal and could be quickly dealt with. As for the mummy—if Tawfik was the mummy—it had proven itself to be a taker of innocent lives. Henry didn’t particularly care what its reasons were. The time for it to die was millennia past.
From where he stood, he could see Cantree’s gaze flicking constantly over the room, observing, noting, remembering. It was apparently a habit all police officers acquired, for Henry had seen both Vicki and Celluci perform variations on the theme.
Then Tawfik began to talk, his voice low and intense. To Henry it sounded like law and order generalities, but obviously Cantree heard something more. The movement of his gaze began to slow until it locked on the man—on the creature—in the chair. Certain words began to be repeated and after each the Inspector nodded and his expression grew blank. A rivulet of sweat—the library was at least ten degrees warmer than the rest of the house—ran unnoticed down his face.
Unease danced icy fingers along Henry’s spine as Tawfik’s cadence grew more and more hypnotic and the key words occurred more and more frequently. It was magic, Henry could sense that, however much it looked like something less arcane, but magic completely outside his understanding. A working for good or evil he could have sensed, but this was neither. It just was.
When all three hearts beat to an identical rhythm, Tawfik paused, then said, “His ka is open.
“Frank Cantree. Can you hear me?”
“Yes.”
“From this moment on, your primary concern is to obey me. Do you understand?”
“Yes.”
“You will protect my interests above all else. Do you understand?”
“Yes.”
“You will protect me. Do you understand?”
“Yes.” But this time after the single syllable of assent, Cantree’s mouth continued to work.
“What is it?”
Although independent movement should have been impossible under the conditions of the spell, Cantree’s lips curled slightly as he answered. “There is someone standing behind the curtains behind your chair.”
For a heartbeat, the scene hung in limbo, then Henry threw the curtains aside, charged forward, came face-to-face with the creature rising from the chair, and froze.
He got a jumbled impression of gold leather sandals, a linen kilt, a wide belt, a necklace of heavy beads that half covered a naked chest, hair too thick and black to be real, and then the kohl-circled eyes under the wig caught his and all he saw was a great golden sun centered in an azure sky.
In blind panic, he wrenched his gaze away, turned, and dove through the window.
Although she knew it was impossible, that the night for her was as dark as it would ever get, Vicki suddenly felt that it had grown darker still; as if a cloud had covered the moon she couldn’t see and the shadows had thickened. Senses straining, she slowly got out of the car, allowing the door to close but not to latch. A quick tug would turn on the interior light and enable her to at least find her way back again.
They pay high enough taxes in this neighborhood, you’d think they could manage a few more streetlights.
The night seemed to be waiting, so Vicki waited with it. Then, from not so far away, came the sound of breaking glass, the violent snapping of small branches, and, approaching more quickly than possible, leather soles slapping out a panicked flight against concrete.
There was no time to think, to weigh her move. Vicki stepped away from the car directly into the path of the sound.
They both went down.
The impact drove the breath out of her lungs and her jaw slammed up with enough force so every tooth in her head shuddered with the impact. She took a moment to thank any gods who might be listening that her tongue had been tucked safely out of the way even as she grabbed onto what felt like expensive lapels. During the landing, her head bounced off the pavement, the glancing blow creating an impressive fireworks display on the inside of her lids. Somehow she managed to keep her grip. Not until cold hands grabbed her wrists and yanked them effortlessly away did she realize who she held. Or more accurately, had held.
“Henry? Damnit, it’s me, Vicki!”
Sanctuary. The sun was rising. He must reach sanctuary.
Vicki twisted and, barely in time, wrapped herself around Henry’s right leg. If she couldn’t stop him, maybe she could slo
w him down.
“Henry!”
A weight clung to his leg, impeding his flight. He bent to rip it free and a familiar scent washed over him, masking the stink of his own fear.
Vicki.
She said she would be there when the dawn reached out to take him. She would fight with him. For him. Would not let him burn.
Sanctuary.
The tension went out of his muscles and his fingers loosened where they crushed her shoulder. Tentatively, she let him go, ready to launch herself forward should he start to run again.
“The car’s just back here.” Actually, she’d kind of lost track of where the car was but hoped Henry would turn and see it. “Come on. Can you drive?”
“I—I think so.”
“Good.” Other questions could wait. Not only did the echoes of her skull hitting the sidewalk make it difficult to hear the answers, but from the sounds that had preceded his flight, Henry had just left a house full of police officers by way of a closed window. They’d be playing the chase scene any second and that would lead into a whole new lot of questions there were no answers for.
Ms. Nelson, can you tell us why your friend turned into a smoldering pile of ash in the holding cell at dawn?
One hand held tightly to his jacket as Henry surged toward the car, continuing to grasp it until her other hand touched familiar metal. She scrambled to get into her own seat the moment she figured out where it was, then watched him anxiously—or rather watched his shadow against the lights of the dash—as he started the engine and pulled carefully out of the parking space. She had no idea why people weren’t boiling out of the Solicitor General’s house like wasps out of a disturbed nest, but she certainly wasn’t going to complain about a clean getaway.
“Henry . . . ?”
“No.” Most of the raw terror had faded, but even Vicki’s presence wasn’t enough to completely banish the fear. I can feel the sun. It’s hours to dawn and I can feel the sun. “Let me get home first. Maybe then . . .”
“When you’re ready. I can wait.” Her voice was deliberately soothing even though she really wanted to grab him, and shake him, and demand to know what had happened in there. If this is Henry’s reaction to the mummy, we’re in a lot more trouble than we thought.
“Do I go after him, Master?”
“No. You are tied into the spell and the spell is not yet finished.” He spat the words out, the power of his anger crackling almost visibly around him.
“But the others . . . ”
“They can hear nothing that happens within this room. They did not hear the window break. They will not interrupt.” With an effort, he forced his attention back to the multilayered spell of coercion he had been in the middle of evoking. “When I have finished with the Inspector, then you may search the grounds. Not before.”
Inspector Cantree tossed his head and sweat began to soak through the armpits of his costume. His eyes rolled back and the muscles of his throat worked to produce a moan.
“It didn’t hurt the others, Master.”
“I know.”
The ka that had touched him earlier with its magnificent, unending potential for power, had been within his grasp and he had been forced by circumstance to let it get away.
That did not please him.
But now he knew of its existence, and, more importantly, it knew of him. He would be able to find it again.
That pleased him very much.
When Vicki finally saw Henry’s face in the harsh fluorescent glare of the elevator lights, it gave nothing away. Absolutely nothing. He might as well have been carved from alabaster for all the expression he wore. This isn’t good . . .
Three teenagers—in what might or might not have been costumes—got on in the lobby, took one look at Henry and stood quietly in their comer, not a word, not a giggle until they got off on five.
And every cloud has a silver lining, Vicki mused as they filed silently out.
The last, finding courage in leaving, paused in the doorway and stage-whispered back. “What’s he supposed to be?”
Why not?
“A vampire.”
Hennaed curls bounced on sequined shoulders. “Not even close,” was the disdainful judgment as the elevator door slid closed.
Vicki used her keys to let them into the condo, then followed close on Henry’s heels as he strode down the hall and into the bedroom. She flicked on the light as he flung himself on the bed.
“I can feel the sun,” he said softly.
“But it’s hours until dawn.”
“I know.”
“Colonel Mustard, in the library, with a mummy. . . . ”
Henry glared at her from under knotted brows. “What are you talking about?”
“Huh?” Vicki started and lowered her arm. She’d been doing a painful fingertip investigation of the goose egg on the back of her head. Fortunately, it appeared that her little meeting with the pavement outside the Solicitor General’s house had done no lasting damage. And a concussion would be just what I need right now. “Oh. Nothing. Just thinking out loud.” The party had put them ahead only in that they now knew what they’d only suspected before; the mummy was ensorcelling the people who controlled the police forces of Ontario, acquiring its own private army. No doubt it intended to set up its own state with its own state religion. It had, after all, brought its god along.
They had a name, Anwar Tawfik, the man she’d helped out of the elevator at the Solicitor General’s office. She couldn’t prevent a twinge of sympathy, after three thousand years in a coffin, she’d be violently claustrophobic, too. Still, I should’ve dropped the son of a bitch down the elevator shaft when I had the chance.
She banged her fist against her thigh. “I don’t think it can succeed at what it’s attempting, but a lot of people are going to die proving that. And no one’s going to believe us until it makes its move.”
“Or a good while after it makes its move.”
“What do you mean?”
“Who does the average citizen call when there’s trouble?” Henry pointed out.
“The police.”
“The police,” Henry agreed.
“And it controls the police. Shit, shit, shit, shit.”
“Very articulate.”
Vicki’s smile was closer to a snarl as she shifted position on the edge of the bed. “It looks like it’s up to us.”
Henry threw his forearm up over his eyes. “A lot of help I’ll be.”
“Look, you’ve been dreaming about the sun for weeks now and you’re still functioning fine.”
“Fine? Diving through that library window wasn’t what I’d call fine.”
“At least now you know you’re not going crazy.”
“No. I’m being cursed.”
Vicki pulled his arm off his face and leaned over. The spill of light from the lamp just barely reached his eyes but, in spite of the masking shadows, she thought they looked as mortal as she’d ever seen them. “Do you want to quit?”
“What?” His laugh had a hint of bitter hysteria. “Life?”
“No, you idiot.” She wrapped one hand around his jaw and rocked his head from side to side, hoping he couldn’t read through her touch how frightened she was for him. “Do you want to quit the case?”
“I don’t know.”
Eleven
The absence of shadows against the wall told him he had slept late, his body trying vainly to regain some of the energy spent on spell-casting the night before. His tongue felt thick, his skin tight, and his bones as though they had been rough cast in lead. Soon, a slave will wait at my bedside, a glass of chilled juice ready upon my awakening. But soon, unfortunately, did him no good at the moment. He looked over at the clock—eleven fifty-six, oh three, oh four, oh five—and then tore his glance away before it could trap him further in the progression of time. Only half the day remained for him to feed and find the ka that burned so brightly.
Moving stiffly, he swung out of bed and made his way to the
shower. The late Dr. Rax, who over the course of a varied career had been familiar with the sanitary facilities, or lack thereof, along the banks of the Nile, had considered North American plumbing to be the eighth wonder of the world. As gallons of hot water pounded the knots from his shoulders, he was inclined to agree.
By the time he finished a large breakfast and was lingering over a cup of coffee—an addiction every adult ka he had absorbed seemed to share—he no longer felt the weight of his age and was ready to face the day.
For a change, a cloudless blue sky arced up over the city, and, although the pale November sun appeared to shed little warmth, it was still a welcome sight. He took his cup to the wall of windows that prevented the other, more solid walls from closing in around him and looked down at the street. In spite of laws that forced most businesses to remain closed on the day known as Sunday, a number of people were taking advantage of the weather and spending time outside. A number of those people had small children in hand.
The series of individually tailored spells he had worked last night, each with its own complicated layering of controls, had drained him and the power he had remaining would barely be enough to keep him warm as he chose the child whose ka would replenish his. He was using power in a way he would never have dared when unsworn souls were few and even slaves had basic protections but, with nothing to stand in the way of his feeding, he saw no reason to hold back. Not one of the deaths could be traced to him—necessity had taught him millennia ago to take the mundane into account—and very shortly even that would cease to be a consideration. When the police and their political masters gave themselves to Akhekh, he, as High Priest, would be inviolate.
He had no idea how many sworn acolytes his lord needed in order to gain the strength to create another such as he. Forty-three had been the greatest number he had ever been able to gather in the past but, as that had been just before Thoth’s priests had been instructed to intervene, he suspected that forty-four or forty-five would be enough. That the thirty ka to be gathered up in this time had been coerced would make only a minimal difference. He had used the smallest pieces of their ka necessary to convince them—in two cases those had been very small pieces indeed—and enough truth had been spoken during the spellbinding that their pledges would hold. The thirty coerced would be equivalent to no less than twenty free; a respectable beginning.
