The God Collector

by Catherine Butzen

  “We can’t,” Theo murmured. “Nobody’s supposed to go there right now. Politics and all.”

  “To hell with politics. I have more of a right to see Kemet again than anyone else. If you want to go, I’ll take you.”

  Theo took in a slow breath. He means it, she thought.

  It was too soon for this kind of thing. They were fugitives, after all, caught in a mess that she couldn’t even begin to figure out. Common sense banged her over the head again, telling her she was being an idiot, she was leading him on, she was going to get herself killed. But she had grasped at something, some elusive quality of motion in life that had been lacking before in hers, and she couldn’t blot out this picture now.

  “We’ll figure something out,” she said.

  They stood like that for a long time, sharing their warmth and looking out on the lights of the frozen city, until a shout from Aki shattered their reverie.

  “Theo, you have to see this. There’s more about the robbery o—” He stopped at the balcony door, seeing the two of them together. His eyebrows shot up, but he didn’t comment, which Theo was grateful for. She was too wrung out to argue with him.

  “They’re running the story again,” Aki said, leaning against the now half-open glass door. “I thought you’d want to see it. It’s pretty crazy stuff.”

  That was an understatement. The museum robbery was a nice, dramatic story without any uncomfortable political or religious angles, and the TV news channels were eating it up. Theo’s “odd behavior” during the first theft was dragged out again, this time with a Mata Hari twist: What had she really seen? Was she in on it? Only Seth was officially wanted for the robbery, with Theo suspected of being an accessory to grand larceny, but both of them were being sought by the police.

  Theo groaned and sat down hard on the couch, letting her head flop back in exhaustion.

  Seth, on the other hand, was firing questions at Aki. Did any other broadcasts mention anyone finding the mummy? (No.) Did Aki know of anyone else who might believe Theo’s innocence? (Yes, a few.) Had there been any word about Seth’s accounts? (No, but they wouldn’t exactly reveal that on TV.)

  Finally, Aki snapped at him, which only made Seth frosty.

  Theo’s growing headache wasn’t thanking either of them.

  “But why would this happen?” she said for what felt like the millionth time. “By themselves, the shabtis aren’t very valuable. It’s easier and cheaper to make fakes!”

  “Maybe it’s the Collector?” Aki suggested, leaning forward. He had territorially claimed the spot on the couch next to Theo, leaving Seth to the love seat. Few men can sit regally in a cushiony armchair with a blatantly hostile ’70s pattern, but Seth somehow managed it. His mask was back in place, and to sprawl like a normal person would have been acknowledging weakness in front of a non-ally.

  “Maybe,” Theo acknowledged. “He does target Egyptian and Eastern collections in general. But why?”

  “I dunno. Let’s ask him.” This with a glare at Seth.

  “I,” Seth said slowly, “am not the Collector. If I wanted just any shabtis, I would have bought them.” The words were stiff, but there was a touch of weariness.

  “Which doesn’t explain why you stole ours weeks ago,” Aki said. “Theo, why are you hanging around with this asshole, anyway?”

  She let her head flop into her hands. “It’s complicated.”

  Seth looked at her now, his expression tense. Her heart thumped hard in her chest as she weighed her options, much as Aki had done less than an hour before. She could tell the truth to Aki, who deserved to know what he was getting in to. Or she could protect Seth’s secret, which had to be one of the biggest discoveries in the history of the human race.

  “He’s being blackmailed,” she said finally. The words felt like they were being dragged out of her. “He’s been receiving anonymous threats. People breaking into his home, forcing him to do it. He thinks the Collector is actually someone who works in the museum business and wants a scapegoat—”

  “Zimmer,” Seth cut in. That got both Aki’s and Theo’s attention. His face was grim and lined; the thought seemed to have aged him, bringing back a few of the years he’d been cheating. “Mark Zimmer sent her to talk to me yesterday. He gave her a panic button but it didn’t work, and when she tried to call him for an explanation, there was nothing. I’d bet good money Mark Zimmer is involved in this.”

  “Aren’t your accounts probably frozen?” Aki pointed out.

  Seth glared. “Do you have an actual objection to the idea?”

  “Yeah. It’s stupid.” Aki crossed his arms and matched Seth glare for glare. “Why would Zimmer steal anything? Theo already said the stuff’s pretty much worthless unless you’re really plugged into the black market. It’s not like there’s a big demand for dead guys and little clay dudes.”

  “Which ignores the obvious answer,” Seth said. His lips were pressed into a thin line. “What if Zimmer knows what the shabtis can do? He could be after their powers.”

  Aki gave him a “what the hell?” stare, and Theo stiffened a little in her seat. “Seth,” she said, “you don’t have to talk about that. I think we’re confusing Aki.”

  “No, I think we do.” His expression was tenser than ever, but he sounded resigned. “Theo, if we don’t lay all our cards on the table, your friend won’t be able to help us at all. And I think we…need help.” The words were awkward and mechanical.

  It was a short explanation. At the end of it, Aki turned his disbelieving stare from Seth to Theo, almost waiting for both of them to burst out laughing. “Am I being punked?” he said after a long moment. “Theo, this guy is so full of shit. Tell me it’s a joke.”

  Theo sighed again. “I’m sorry. It’s not,” she said. Her regret was genuine. At least she didn’t have to let her blackmail lie get too far, but that wasn’t much comfort. “I saw him disintegrate, Aki, I told you that. And there was that ‘organic dust’ on the floor of the loft, remember?”

  “Bullshit.” Her friend’s face was pale. “Show me some proof, or I…I don’t know. You have to go.”

  Theo and Seth exchanged glances. Then Seth took a craft knife from the piled-up art supplies on the table. As Aki gawked, he neatly and efficiently slit his own wrist.

  “What the fuck?” Aki yelped. “This guy thinks he’s fucking Terminator! Theo—”

  But the blood was already drying, the slashed veins closing. Beads of clay broke away from the wound and landed on the carpet.

  Aki took it a lot better than Theo had, she had to admit. He looked at her, then at Seth, then at her, then at Seth again. Color drained out of his face, and his pupils dilated. For a moment he just sat frozen, his eyes darting around the room, as if he were trying and failing to process what he’d seen. He nodded. Just once.

  Then he grabbed another knife off the table and drove it into Seth’s side.

  Theo leaped to her feet, heart in her mouth, but Seth just grunted a little. As Aki stared, Seth pulled off his jacket and rolled up the edge of his shirt. The handle of the knife stuck out between two ribs, bobbing ever so slightly with each breath he took. After a moment of deliberation, Seth extracted it.

  Two inches of the blade were covered in cadmium-red blood. He held it out to Aki, who shook his head, backing away a few steps. The knife made a dull little clunk as Seth dropped it onto the table, and more shards of clay scattered.

  “Good aim.” Seth tucked in his shirt, frowning a little at the large, browning stain on the hem. “I’ll need to borrow something to wear. And if you’re going to stab me again, give me a few seconds of fair warning so I can break your wrist.”

  “Jesus Christ,” Aki said, seemingly more out of a need to say something than anything else.

  “Are we finished?” Theo cut in. Her hands trembled a little, and she crossed her arms, hiding the telltale shaking. A frigh
tened Aki was almost stranger than what Seth had just done. “Aki, look, we’re not crazy. Okay? And believe me, Zimmer may be a good guy, but there’re a lot of people who’d pay if they thought they could learn to do that.”

  Aki shook his head, seemingly emerging from a trance. “All right,” he said. “This could be a bad trip, but, whatever, let’s say for argument’s sake that this is all happening. And, just for fun, that there’s some magic statues that can make guys not die. How the hell would anyone, especially Zimmer, know about it?”

  “Anyone who can read my priest’s script knows part of the story,” Seth said. Clay dust was smeared across his sleeve. “‘This is a vessel for him, and will become as him through his will’. But it would take a real leap of imagination to guess the whole of it. Even my tomb paintings don’t say everything.”

  “Would they even work for him?” Theo wondered, trying not to worry at the way Aki had winced over “my tomb”. “They all look like you—sort of,” she amended, remembering the slender and withered mummy. “And Zimmer’s sure as hell no son of Merenptah.”

  “If you are who you say you are, and that’s a big ‘if’,” Aki said, “then your father would have been born at least four thousand years ago. That’s a lot of time for the family to go forth and multiply. If Zimmer is a distant relative, sort of a Farnsworth to your Fry, couldn’t this Egyptian Rare Candy bug work for him?”

  Seth blinked. “What?”

  “Cultural references,” Theo translated. “He wants to know if it’s at all possible.”

  “It could be. But that hinges on not only knowing him to be a descendant of either me or my brother, but on him knowing he was and realizing he could use the shabtis. It’s a long shot.”

  Theo frowned. “I don’t know,” she said. “Zimmer…Zimmer’s a good guy. He’s pretty rule-bound, but that’s not a bad thing in the security business. It could’ve been someone else, as long as they worked for the museum.” Both men looked blank at that, and Theo shook her head. “The news said the thief took the stuff in Prep D, remember? Those are the last of the ones that were never LoJacked. There’s no way some random thief would know that particular group would be easiest to move.”

  “Still rules out most of the departments,” Aki put in. “Paleontology couldn’t tell a shabti from a hole in the ground, and they’d probably prefer the hole. Write off anyone from Interactives or CompTech. Astronomy, head in the clouds. Art History and Library, maybe, but I wouldn’t make book on it—”

  “You’ve made your point,” Seth said. “Now please, stop the puns.”

  “For a guy who says he lived through some of the craziest periods in history, you sure are uptight,” Aki pointed out. There was something strangely ironic in being catty to an ancient Egyptian, but Theo wasn’t in the mood to appreciate it.

  “Guys,” she said wearily, “don’t. Please. We need a plan.”

  Aki scowled, but Seth picked up a pencil and began making notes on a discarded sketch pad. “We have to assume my legal assets have been seized,” he said, “and I imagine yours are too. If we’re going to get anything done, we’ll have to reach one of my caches. I’ve been maintaining a storage locker under a fake identity, and it should still be secure. Once we have money, we can make plans.” He glanced up, and the deep-brown eyes fixed on Theo. “If you’re…amenable.”

  Theo was torn. There was something between them, something powerful, but she wasn’t sure what it actually was yet. Need for motion had taken her this far, but some part of her almost wished he would vanish and take the next choice out of her hands.

  Even if they did stay together, could she vanish with him? Should she? Life on the lam was no way to go, especially when the longer she stayed gone, the worse it would look when she was eventually caught. What a mess. What a fucking mess.

  “Nobody knows where I am, or if I’m guilty for sure,” she said slowly, out loud. “It’ll still be the authorities’ word against mine. And they don’t know the museum as well as I do. We might be able to find some more information about the real thief.”

  “And he loses his advantage,” Seth finished. His eyes brightened. “Perfect. We’ll visit my cache first thing in the morning, and then start looking for clues.”

  “Quit planning for her,” Aki growled. “Theo. Look. I’m not gonna turn you in, but this is crazy, even for you. You’re not a PI or something. And this magic stuff, it’s just…kooky,” he finished lamely.

  “It leaves options,” Theo said. “If I turn myself in now, that’s it. But if I help look into things now, I can still turn myself in later.”

  “And she may not be a PI,” Seth added, “but I know a few things about staying hidden. Get me to my cache, and Theo and I will be safe for at least a few days.”

  “You’re both nuts,” Aki muttered, but he didn’t raise any more objections. Theo could see the questions in his eyes, though. Seth has money, connections and supposed mystical powers, so why would he want to spend any of it helping Theo? Sex?

  There’s that, Theo’s level stare replied. But I’m also the one stopping him from running away this time.

  “Both nuts,” Aki repeated, shaking his head. “But at least you’ll have something to talk about. C’mon, Theo; I’ll put you in the guest room. There’s a foldout couch in there for the Mummy here too.” He raised an eyebrow. “Unless you two would prefer to share?”

  Theo’s face flushed. For a moment, a warm ochre tinge colored Seth’s face. “The couch is fine,” he said coolly.

  In the morning, Aki gave them a makeover.

  “Are you sure you’re not my gay BFF?” Theo said as he brushed dye into her long, blonde hair. Aki’s eye-roll was clearly visible in the bathroom mirror.

  “You’re not funny,” he said. “Stop trying.”

  It somehow didn’t surprise Theo that Seth turned out to be familiar with the art of disguise. She found herself giggling—an unexpected but welcome sensation—as the men discussed age lines and highlights. Immature? Very. Tension relieving? Absolutely.

  When the work was finished, Theo doubted her own mother would have recognized her. Her skin had an unhealthy yellow cast and her hair was now a dull, mousy brown, the kind of color that had to be natural because people rarely chose it on purpose. For extra security, it had been curled badly. You see someone with a horrible haircut, and that’s all you remember, as Aki had put it. Tinted eye shadow gave her mutable green eyes a touch of blue.

  After Seth made good on his threat of taking a new shirt, Aki saw it as a challenge. He dug through his closet and the building’s lost-and-found, finally turning up a ripped pair of jeans and a Detroit Tigers warm-up jacket that almost fit. Seth’s expression was priceless, but after an obvious struggle (and a quick rinse cycle) he put them on.

  Aki shook his head again as he looked them both over one final time. “You look like someone’s parents about to hit the bars,” he said frankly. “No one will notice you, at least until Imhotep gets you to his cache.” He shrugged, and his eyes grew distant. “Take care of yourself, Theo.”

  “I will, Aki.” She squeezed his arm. “Thanks for all your help. I’ll see you on the flip side.”

  Without another word, the pair slipped out.

  Chapter Twelve

  Gods are bastards.

  ~Graffiti at Thebes, date unknown

  It was eight o’clock in the morning, but the sun was still low and the city remained bathed in purple and orange shadows. The wind came in gusts, sending small eddies of fresh snow whirling around their ankles. Beside her, Seth’s head was down, his eyes fixed on the pavement. One does not tread lightly in city slush.

  “So this cache…” she said, breaking the silence of the frozen morning. “It was obvious you didn’t want to elaborate in front of Aki.”

  “He makes my fists itch,” Seth said bluntly. “And we’re better off trusting as few people as possible.
This cache isn’t big, but it’s the largest I have in the city, and it has some tools and materials that will be helpful.”

  Theo nodded, tugging on the collar of her parka. She’d layered two shirts underneath it for quick changes, but she was starting to think that had been a mistake. Sweat collected quickly in the cheap fabric. “In case you needed to disappear?”

  “When I needed to disappear,” Seth responded. “The original plan was that once I had the”—the street might be practically deserted, especially in a fancy, nonpedestrian neighborhood in the morning, but chances were chances—“supplies, I wanted to leave town. Go traveling. See more of the world.”

  Supplies. Seth really hadn’t spent a lot of time outside his ivory tower; he sounded like he was talking about drugs.

  Theo wondered what kinds of odds and ends he had seen fit to hide. Probably some of his shabtis, and maybe more of his past-life artifacts that couldn’t go on display in his home. Something, at any rate, that he wasn’t comfortable with anyone seeing. There was a lot of that for him.

  Contemplating this, she didn’t pry when Seth fell silent. The pair of them walked side by side down the street, companionably quiet, their breath clouding in the chilly air.

  Theo didn’t know how much she could help him, but she could see that just being on the move might be doing him good. Running had to be a habit formed to protect his secret, and facing a problem rather than avoiding it might speak to his core self. And every time she’d used his real name, his color rose.

  She didn’t know where she was going, or what would become of her life, and it scared her—but it also warmed her a little to see him stepping up. She wished she had her sketchbook.

  The city was grudgingly awakening, its cars slow and infrequent, as if the machines themselves didn’t want to get moving. The Sun-Times and Tribune had already been delivered, their weight leaving cracks in the ice they’d landed on. At bus stops, commuters tucked themselves into the corners of the plastic shelters, to get as far from the wind as possible. Seth and Theo joined the crowds under the heat lamps at the Red Line stop, shoulder to shoulder with strangers who gratefully shared the warmth, even as they refused to make eye contact or say anything. Everyone was lost in their own little world.