Hounds of the Underworld (The Path of Ra Book 1)

by Dan Rabarts

  “I can’t believe I slept through my alarm,” Penny grouses as she opens her tablet and begins checking her inbox, while Matiu brings up the GPS screen and pulls out of the parking garage. “You shouldn’t’ve had so many vodkas last night,” he reprimands her, his face straight.

  She glares at him over the top of her tablet, but doesn’t justify him with a response.

  He watches the road. “Anything from your boyfriend in there?”

  “I’m going to presume from your thoroughly witty tone of voice that you mean Beaker, and the answer is yes, but nothing declaring his undying love.”

  “Not yet? No topless selfies? That’s a shame. Just boring old reports, eh?”

  “They’re not that boring. Now shut up and drive so I can read.”

  Matiu holds a hand up to protect his face. “Yes, ma’am. Don’t whip me, ma’am. I be a good driver, I promise.” Cerberus lifts his head and whines.

  “Shut up.”

  “Don’t start giving the dog a hard time too.”

  “I was talking to you. Just shut up and drive.”

  “Yes, Ma’am.”

  Matiu glances at the GPS as he weaves through the Auckland streets in the morning sun. For a while, he’s almost peaceful. He still can’t believe he slept for ten hours!

  He turns the car into another parking lot and rolls to a stop. “Here we are.”

  Penny glances up from her tablet. “What are we…? We’re meant to be going to the farm. Or did you miss that memo?” She’s just this side of sputtering rage.

  Matiu swings the GPS screen around. “This is where that phone was used most often. I thought that was pretty interesting, given where we are.”

  Penny is staring at him. She checks her watch, “You want me to go bankrupt, don’t you? You want me to lose this job so I have to marry Craig Tong, just so you can laugh at me at the wedding and get drunk on the free booze.” She puts her tablet down and cradles her head in her hands. “Why do you hate me so much?”

  “Don’t you want to know where we are?”

  Penny doesn’t look up from her moment of self-imposed misery. “Where?”

  “It’s an underground storage facility, out the back of the Museum of Auckland.”

  “And?”

  “And? Well, apart from museums being all about spooky old stuff, I think if you look up you’ll see what else is of interest to us.”

  Goaded at last, Penny gazes out the windscreen at the building and the adjacent staff car park. “Oh,” she says.

  “Yip,” Matiu agrees. “That’s more than coincidence, right?”

  Penny nods slowly. “Yes. Yes it is.”

  The silver Falcon sits across the lot from them.

  “Shall we see if the door’s open?”

  - Pandora -

  Penny tries the door, pushing it gently with her palm. It opens. That’s weird. But then she sees the corner of the door mat has curled back and stuck in the gap, preventing the door from closing properly after the last person passed through.

  Still, she hesitates, her hand on the latch, the door open just a crack.

  Cerberus nudges at her knees, his nose in the gap, impatient to get inside.

  “Matiu, this feels wrong—sneaking into Tamaki Paenga Hira. Why not go just through the front door and ask for her?”

  “Excellent idea,” Matiu says, ignoring her. His own hand above her head, he grasps the edge of the door and pulls it open. “Let’s do that, shall we, Pen? Let’s just march under the colonnades, jump the queue of tourists, bowl up to the front desk, and demand to speak to Kerr.”

  “Well, what’s wrong with that? The museum can’t deny she works here: Scour found her name in the HR files, and her car is there,” she waves a hand backwards, “in the car park. I put my palm on it. The hood was still warm.”

  Matiu sighs. “Penny, let’s not look a gift horse in the mouth. Clark’s waiting for you at the farm, remember? We haven’t got time for niceties. The door’s open. Kerr’s up to her neck in all this.”

  Penny drops her head. “I know. It just seems wrong. New Zealand’s first museum—we should pay.”

  “For Christ’s sake,” Matiu says. “For one thing, Cerberus won’t be allowed in.” He steps forward, revealing the shotgun. “And I can hardly go through the front doors with this, can I? Tell you what, I promise to pay twice next time, OK?”

  Penny raises her palm. “No way. Forget it. I won’t allow you to take that—”

  But a couple and their children are coming along the path. Using his body to hide the weapon, Matiu hustles Penny and Cerberus though the door.

  Immediately, the temperature drop gives Penny goose bumps. They’re in a stairwell, on a small landing, one staircase leading up to the museum’s main galleries and reception rooms, and the other leading down to the storage levels on the lower floors. The hum of chatter and a flood of light filters from the upper decks, punctuated by a staccato burst of laughter. The lower floors, on the other hand, are quiet and dark.

  Penny glances at Matiu. “Which way?

  Frowning, Matiu squares his shoulders and tilts his head, indicating the basement. The muscle under his eye jumps.

  Why’s he so twitchy all of a sudden? He’s the one who insisted they come here in the first place. Could it be Makere’s doing? No, not Makere. As far as Penny can tell, Matiu quit his mumbling the day before yesterday. Which is odd, because other times when Makere’s shown up, he’s tended to linger, fucking about with Matiu’s head, teasing him, twisting him in knots until Matiu, unable to take any more, has curled up inside himself.

  Either that, or he lashes out.

  They start down the stairs, Penny hoping that her brother’s childhood friend makes himself scarce because, imaginary or not, under his influence, Matiu can be dangerous.

  Pulling Cerberus to her, Penny winds his lead about the fingers of one hand and, sliding the other along the cool steel railing, keeps her eyes on her feet. It’s like descending into the blimmin’ underworld, it’s so dark on these stairs. Has to be less than 40 lux. Someone should write it up on a hazard sheet, bring it to the attention of the museum safety committee.

  The next landing down, Matiu pushes open the fire doors and finds the lights, revealing a floor which must surely cover the entire footprint of the museum. Her mouth open, Penny stares. Books. There are thousands of them, stored in rows and rows of stackable mobile shelving. Penny has never seen so many volumes in one place, although of course they’d be stored here, on the first underground level. Occasionally, museum librarians would need to get to them, when a researcher obtains the Chief Archivist’s permission, for example, and is allowed, under strict supervision, to view an original source.

  “Oh my God, Matiu,” Penny breathes, tingling with a desire to dash down an aisle and run her fingers along the books’ spines. “So this is where they keep them—the museum’s first editions and original sources. Look at them all. The colours! And that wonderful smell. It’s true what they say about old books.” Penny breathes in deeply. “Glorious.”

  Matiu’s fingers tighten on the rifle. “I can smell almonds,” he says, his voice tight.

  Almonds? Is that what the smell is?

  Penny can’t concentrate, not so near to all these beautiful books. She closes her eyes and does her best to focus her olfactory receptors. Matiu’s right. It does kind of smell like almonds, in spite of the filtered air conditioning.

  She opens her eyes and gives him a nod.

  “Right then, we should check the aisles,” he declares. “And remember, Kerr’s here somewhere, so be careful.”

  “Matiu, she’s a grief counsellor.”

  “She’s involved.”

  “Yes, but a murderer? I find it hard to believe.”

  “Just be careful,
OK? Take Cerberus and start at that end, and I’ll go this way.”

  He’s about to head off when Penny pulls him back. Like a warrior, Matiu goes into an instant crouch, the firearm raised. “What? Did you see something?” he whispers.

  Man, he’s jittery.

  “As much as I’d like to spend a few hours here, I think we’d be wasting our time,” says Penny.

  Matiu stands up. “But you just said you could smell almonds.”

  “Yes, but a lot of plants give off an almond odour: peaches, apples, cassava, even certain varieties of butter beans. It’s an evolutionary adaptation to discourage herbivores from guzzling them.”

  Matiu throws up his hands. “You see any plants, sis?”

  Penny runs her index finger along the edge of the nearest shelf, taking care not to touch the books: older tomes could be damaged by the oils in her fingers. Already the leather covers on some of these titles are showing signs of red rot.

  “It’s the books, Matiu. All this paper. Even stored under the best conditions, the cellulose and lignin in paper breaks down over time, and in the process they give off benzaldehyde, which has an almond odour. There are other breakdown products: vanillin, toluene, and 2-ethyl hexanol—which smells kind of flowery, too—and of course with books, there are the added breakdown compounds from the ink and the adhesives used in the printing and binding…” Penny breaks off. Matiu is glaring at her. “What? There are heaps of studies into that old book smell. Breakdown compounds can be helpful markers in determining the age of a document.”

  Switching off the lights, Matiu leaves her standing in the dark with Cerberus.

  Sighing, Penny yanks open the door. “Touchy this morning, isn’t he?” she mutters to the dog.

  She catches up with him at the next landing, just as he’s opening the fire doors. He flicks the lights on and sniffs at the air. “I can’t smell it on this floor.”

  “Well, we’re not bloodhounds,” says Penny, using her bottom to hold the door open for Cerberus. “We’re never going to find Kerr this way. We’re being too random. We need some sort of process. What’s on this floor, anyway?”

  Matiu moves past her into the landing and checks the placard to the right of the door.

  “B-2: Military history, land wars, armaments…” he reads.

  Penny pulls a face. “I can’t imagine why she’d be in here. She was consulting for Buchanan’s patients as a sort of spiritual expert: a guidance counsellor for the terminally ill.”

  Matiu has vanished.

  Hurrying out onto the landing, Penny leans over the rail. “Where are you going?”

  Stopping at a turn, Matiu pokes his head into the central stairwell and looks up. “Look for early civilisations, Penny. Somewhere in the Pacific, maybe. Possibly the early Americas. Anywhere that little bowl at the warehouse might have come from…” Then, suddenly, he’s off again, Penny only catching sight of his hand on the balustrade.

  “Matiu,” she hisses into the hollow.

  His voice, raspy from running, carries back to her. “Don’t bother. I know exactly where the bowl came from.”

  “Where?” Penny’s voice echoes in the stairwell.

  “Buchanan—he gave us the clue.”

  Penny screws up her face. Buchanan told them? But how can he have—

  The file name. Osiris.

  When she checks the placard for its location, Penny’s heart skips a beat. B-6. Egyptology is in the basement.

  CHAPTER 25

  - Pandora -

  Whining softly, Cerberus brushes against Penny’s thighs, the warmth of his body a comfort in the cool of the museum’s basement.

  “Shh,” Penny soothes, stooping to give him a quick pat. She can understand the dog’s anxiety. It’s mega-creepy down here in the bowels of the building. Row upon row of wooden shelves stacked to the ceiling and crammed with crates and artefacts—mostly the remains of dead people. It’s hardly surprising everything here feels lost and forgotten. Not like the lively galleries of the upper levels, where kids will be mushing their faces into the glass cabinets for a better look at the stuffed moa or clamouring to be next in line at the interactive exhibits. Even the three heritage libraries set aside for quiet study will be more vibrant.

  Under her hands, Cerberus’ muscles tense. He growls in the back of his throat. Perhaps she should nip him back to the car?

  Yes, that’s right, Penny, just leave your brother to do your job while you climb six flights of stairs to see to the dog.

  Cerberus will just have to manage his anxiety. Penny hasn’t seen or heard Matiu since the fire door shut behind him a couple of minutes ago, but he’ll be down here somewhere looking for Kerr.

  And he’s carrying a gun.

  Tugging at the lead, Penny makes her way along the basement’s central aisle, wishing she didn’t feel quite so like the hapless first victim in a murder mystery. At least the lights were on when she got down here, but slow-moving dust motes circulating in the aircon make the basement feel eerie.

  Cerberus’ nails clicking on the concrete, they pass a couple of sarcophagi—one empty and open in its wooden crate at the side of the aisle, a fresh packing label on the side. They must be getting ready to transfer them to some other museum, or perhaps to storage elsewhere. Odd that the sarcophagi should be out here in the open though. Ordinarily, artefacts like these are kept in nitrogen-filled display cases to prevent deterioration. Penny glances into the crate with the closed casket. Already, the sarcophagus shows signs of flaking. She leans in for a closer look. A young woman in her twenties or thirties, her face modelled in mud and plaster on the front of the casket, stares out as she has done for close to three millennia.

  Creepy.

  Shifting her gaze from that soulless stare, Penny leans even farther into the crate to examine the dark base of the sarcophagus. The paintwork is worn and damaged, the design having been almost obliterated over the centuries, yet Penny can still make out the sleek snout of Anubis the Jackal, the Greek name for the Egyptian god Osiris.

  Osiris.

  God of the afterlife, the underworld, the dead.

  She shudders. Even Cerberus is spooked. Cringing, he tows Penny back the way they came, his nails slipping on the concrete floor.

  “Come on, boy,” Penny mumbles, urging him to heel. She holds his doggy face in her hands and gives him a stern talking-to. “I know it’s spooky down here, Cerberus-honey, but we can’t go until we’ve interviewed Kerr. And we need to find Matiu, since he’s our driver. So, chin up, fellow.”

  Cerberus isn’t convinced. He whines softly, pulling hard on the lead, dragging Penny away from the sarcophagi and back towards the stairwell. Perhaps it would be wiser to leave him here? He hadn’t reacted well when they saw Kerr outside the warehouse.

  Penny loops Cerberus’ lead over a shelf upright and gives him a reassuring scratch in that hard-to-reach place on the top of his head. “Back soon.”

  She creeps forward, less confident without Cerberus. The shelves peter out a bit farther on. An open space with tables for cataloguing perhaps? Still no sign of Matiu. Has he found Kerr? Penny can hear music or talking coming from there. Matiu must be down that way.

  The lights flicker, and the sound ahead gets louder. Is that chanting? A chill seeps into her spine. Something is definitely going on back there. She hurries to the end of the stacking shelves and into the cleared area. Her jaw drops.

  Fuck.

  Quick as she can, she ducks behind the shelves, out of sight, peeking between the artefacts to try and make sense of the drama being enacted on the other side.

  It’s Kerr, wearing some sort of white overalls.

  What’s she up to? Kneeling with her back to Penny, one hand holding the collar of a Boxer dog, Kerr raises the other to the ceiling while she chants. Is this what happene
d at the warehouse? Some sort of weird ritual? No, it can’t have, not like this, because the room in the warehouse had been locked and sealed.

  Over the sound of Kerr’s chanting, Penny catches a strangled mewling. The dog, trying to scrabble away, choking on its collar in Kerr’s grasp? Except, it isn’t the dog making the noise: it’s a woman. Penny hadn’t seen her before. Fairly close to the stacks and propped up against a wooden crate, she looks familiar. Penny scans the woman’s face and searches her brain.

  Annie Hillsden.

  The woman in Buchanan’s file. Although when the holo in the file had been taken Annie had been animated and plump. Now, her skin is yellowed and slack. It hangs off her bones as if she’s been addicted to methamphetamines for the past year. Her eyes hooded, Annie’s head lolls back. Shit. It might not be only her cancer making Annie look ill. Penny’s pulse races. Has she already been poisoned? The woman can hardly hold her head up, so it would seem so. But how long ago? And why? So Kerr can kill her? Penny’s all for a person’s right to choose the moment and manner of their death, but not under these circumstances; not at this woman’s hand.

  She has to do something! Even if she can’t be sure what Kerr’s up to, she can’t just hide here behind this stack of shelves while a woman dies. Shifting her body to the right, Penny risks poking her head around the end of the shelving for a better look.

  Kerr is still chanting, her head thrown back to the ceiling, her blonde hair swaying as her body undulates. Confident that she’s incapacitated Annie, Kerr’s not paying the woman any attention. That’s when Penny sees the bowl sitting on the floor at Kerr’s feet. It’s an artefact, covered in primitive drawings that resemble the ones on the bowl at the warehouse. Only that had been a cheap knock-off. This one looks real. Still, no time to dwell on it. She needs to move Annie while Kerr is distracted.