Stolen Souls

by Sackett, Jeffrey

  "Makes sense, doesn't it? You said she was a priestess of Isis."

  "Yeah, that's the point. This isn't supposed to be a sentence. It's some sort of badge of identification. In fact, I'll bet that the other fellow over here has a figure of Set on his medallion."

  "He has one too?" Sawhill had not noticed.

  "You know, Tommy, for a doctor you're pretty unobservant. Sure he does. See?" She pointed down at the medallion around the neck of the other mummy. "And there it is, the symbol for Set."

  "So what does this mean?"

  "I'm not certain, but these three people may have been part of some retinue burial."

  "What's a retinue burial? I mean, I know what a retinue is—"

  "It was not uncommon for a dead king to be buried along with his wives, advisors, generals, and so forth. They are called the retinue corpses. They were supposed to thus be with him in the next life."

  "Jeeze, Harriet," Sawhill said, "how common could that have been? Unless there was some mass assassination, how often would all those people have died at once?"

  "Tommy," Harriet said, as if she were explaining something to a child, "they didn't necessarily have to be dead to be buried."

  "Are you serious? Buried alive? That's horrible!"

  "Yeah, but I don't think they were buried alive. Their facial expressions are too peaceful. Still . . ." She paused again, obviously bothered by something.

  Sawhill was pleased that she had immersed herself in her speculations once again. It had apparently calmed her down and taken her mind off the theft. He said nothing, not wishing to break into her thoughts, grateful for her apparent ease.

  "It's just strange," she said at last. "I can't think of any reason why three people who were priests of different gods would be together in identical caskets, wearing virtually identical medallions, unless they were part of a retinue burial. But I've seen retinue mummies. If they're well preserved enough for facial expressions to be evident, they look like people who died very unpleasantly. But these three look peaceful."

  "Maybe they weren't buried together," he suggested. "I mean, the ancient Egyptians didn't bury them in the Earl's attic."

  She laughed. "Can't argue with that. Wait a minute." She leaned into the casket and moved the flashlight beam slowly over the midsection of the mummy. "Yeah, look here. No scar on the skin."

  "Skin! What skin?"

  She looked at him, astounded at his lack of knowledge. "Tommy, this is a mummy, not a fossil. There's skin under these bandages. And the linen adheres to the skin so closely that even minor details can be made out."

  "No kidding!" He nodded his head, impressed. "So what about scars?"

  "There aren't any."

  "Should there be?"

  "Of course, if the body was eviscerated before mummification. There aren't any scars, meaning that the organs were not removed, meaning that these people were not mummified according to standard procedure."

  "Maybe they got the quick job, like you mentioned?"

  She shook her head. "No, not priests. They got the best embalming possible, better sometimes than the kings, because it was the priests who were in charge of the whole thing. They didn't do it themselves, of course, but they were in charge of it." She shook her head. "No scars."

  "If they were dead before evisceration, there couldn't be scars," Sawhill observed. "Scars result from healing. Corpses don't heal."

  "Don't be picky," she said irritably. "Okay, not scars. No cuts, then. No incisions. The point is, they weren't eviscerated. And that's damn strange."

  "Well," he said, "there must be an explanation."

  She nodded. "Wish I knew what the hell it was." She sighed and turned to Gus, who had been standing quietly. "Do me a favor, will you, Gus? Put the lids back on before you lock up the building? I have to go home and try to forget this night."

  "Sure thing, Miss Langly. And don't you worry. We'll find the thief and get the other mummy back."

  "Thanks, Gus. Good night, now."

  "Good night. See you, Doc."

  "Night, Gus." Harriet Langly and Thomas Sawhill walked out of the grounds building. Gus watched them leave and, yawning, he turned back to the sarcophagi. Lifting one of the lids, he dropped it gently into place atop the casket.

  Gus looked down at the face of the one Dr. Langly had referred to as the priestess Meret. The face of the corpse which had lain upon its funeral bier four millennia ago was frozen into an impassive expression which bespoke neither pain nor joy, neither hope nor fear, but merely dust, darkness, and death. I wonder if she was pretty? Gus mused. I wonder what girls were like back then. Kind of sad, when you think about it. I guess it's true what Miss Langly said this morning, that these bodies were alive and thinking and stuff like that, all those years ago. It really is kind of sad. Nothing left of this lady but this dried up prune of a mummy.

  Almost kindly, Gus reached down and stroked her cheek.

  II

  THE TEKENU

  Hail, Soul, thou mighty one of terror! Verily, I am here! I have come!

  —The Egyptian Book of the Dead, IX

  CHAPTER 7

  Dr. Thomas Sawhill yawned and shook his head briskly as he sat pensively behind his desk. Good Lord, what a day yesterday had been! Life seems to crawl along slowly in this little town, and then suddenly rushes like a river. So many events in one day! The arrival of the shipment, the confrontation with that Arab, a murder, a theft—Good Lord, he repeated to himself. What a day!

  He straightened and then tensed his back. If Harriet and I ever get around to tying the knot, we're going to have to do something about our mattress problem, he thought. Harriet Langly liked to sleep on a mattress so soft that the sides practically enveloped the sleeper, but such softness wreaked havoc with Sawhill's back. He needed to sleep on a mattress so stiff that a board might almost have done the job.

  But there are compensations, he thought, smiling. Sawhill looked at the framed photograph of Harriet which he kept on his desk in his medical office, and reflected upon his good fortune. When he had graduated from StanfordMedicalSchool it seemed almost his destiny to return to his hometown of Greenfield to begin his practice. Internship and residency at Greenfield's small but well-equipped Harrison Hospital, followed by the retirement of his old mentor, Dr. Wilburforce, and a ready-made medical practice just tossed into his lap.

  What other choice could he have made?

  And he was content. Affluent, well-respected, engaged to a fascinating and beautiful woman with a mind equal to his own, all of this combined to make Thomas Sawhill a very happy man.

  He knew that Harriet was not particularly happy this morning. The theft of the mummy had given her an attack of insomnia which, while of course understandable, was equally purposeless. As a medical man Sawhill knew that people who suffered from insomnia could not control it; indeed, that itself was the problem. As Harriet's lover he naturally sympathized with her. But as an individual who never had any trouble sleeping, no matter what the circumstances, he had to admit to himself that he really couldn't understand the problem.

  And so he had struggled to keep his eyes open and his mind alert that previous night as Harriet rambled on about God knows what into the wee hours of the morning. He must have fallen asleep despite his efforts to the contrary, and when he awoke this morning it was to find Harriet, wide awake and exhausted, sitting at the table in her kitchen, staring morosely out at the still-deserted streets of the small town. Poor Harriet, he thought. Such a buildup for so many weeks, and then one of her exhibits is stolen from right under her nose. Poor kid.

  Sawhill rose unsteadily from his desk (damn, his back hurt!) and walked over to the coffee pot which was sitting on top of a file cabinet. As he poured himself a cup of coffee, his secretary, Millie Rowland, knocked on the door and opened it simultaneously. She was still wearing her overcoat. "Good morning, Doctor."

  "Hello, Millie. Coffee?"

  "Oh, no thanks. Gee, you're here early today."

  "Yeah
, well, I woke up early. Any appointments?"

  "Yes," she nodded. "They should be coming in—" she glanced at the clock on his office wall, "in about fifteen minutes. Shall I pull the files?"

  "Yes, please. Let me see the appointment calendar."

  And so his day began, as it began every day. His life was orderly, measured, slow, pleasing. He went through his morning's task of attending to the usual assortment of runny noses, fevers, chipped bones, arthritic arms, and stomach pains.

  It was nearing twelve noon when Millie leaned her head into his office. "Only one left, Doctor," she said.

  "Good," he replied. He rubbed his eyes and yawned. Not enough sleep, he thought, and too much excitement. I think I'll go home and take a nap after seeing this patient. Who is it? Give me his file."

  "He doesn't have one, I'm afraid. I'll start one for him after he fills in the patient info card." She paused. "Unless you want to see him first?"

  He looked up. "Any reason? Is it an emergency?"

  She shrugged. "I don't know. But he looks terrible and he's very upset."

  "Okay, send him in. Who is he?"

  "It's Will Foster. He said you told him to drop by, but there's no appointment made for him."

  "Oh, yeah, Will. Yeah, I told him to come by today if his hand wasn't any better."

  "His hand?" She shook her head. "I don't think it's a problem with his hand."

  "Well, what else could it— Never mind, just send him in, Millie."

  As Millie looked behind her and ushered Will into the office, Sawhill rose to greet him. He put his best professional smile on his face, but it dropped to a look of surprise and concern as soon as he saw the condition of the young handyman.

  Will Foster did not walk so much as limp and shuffle into the room. His right hand, which had been cold and stiff the evening before, seemed today to be a frozen reptilian claw. The skin was stretched so tightly across the bone that it seemed to be cracking and blistering as he moved. Will was wearing a short-sleeved shirt, and Sawhill could see that whatever had afflicted his hand had spread up his arm. It was beginning to affect his face as well, for Sawhill immediately noted the stiff, taut right cheek and the eyelid which seemed as it were being pulled upward, away from the eyeball. He surmised from Will Foster's gait that whatever disease he had was spreading to his right leg as well.

  "Doc," he rasped. "What's wrong with me? What's happening to me?"

  "I don't know yet, Will," he said, motioning for Foster to seat himself on the examination table. "But we'll find out. Tell me what's been happening with your hand, what you've been feeling."

  "I ain't been feeling nothing, Doc. That's the scary thing. I went to bed last night, feeling weak and chilly, but it was only my hand that was all numb. I woke up this morning and I couldn't hardly get out of the bed. My right arm don't work. I can't even move it." He required Sawhill's assistance to hop up onto the examination table, and was also unable to remove his shirt unaided. "I don't mean I couldn't make it move. I mean it feels like it's made of cement or something. I try to move it with my left hand, and it feels like if I push hard enough it'll snap off. And my leg don't work right, it's all cold, and my face feels funny." He grabbed Sawhill's jacket sleeve with his left hand and looked at him with desperate, terrified eyes. "You gotta help me, Doc. I'm scared shitless!"

  "Relax, Will," Sawhill said as he placed a thermometer in his patient's mouth. "We'll soon get to the bottom of this." He proceeded with the standard preliminary examination, and was not pleased with his findings. Blood pressure was very low, pulse was erratic, temperature, 96°. Will's breathing was labored, but there was no fluid in his lungs. As Sawhill listened to his heart through the stethoscope, he heard what sounded disturbingly like creaking. No motor responses in the right arm whatsoever, minimal response in the right leg. Whatever disease Will had contracted, it was affecting his right side from temple to toe. Sawhill poked, squeezed, and probed Will's skin gently with his fingers. There was no elasticity. The skin felt rough and scaly, like the skin of a desert lizard which had somehow died of the cold.

  "Well?" Will Foster asked hopefully.

  "There are some tests we need to run, Will." He reached into his supply cabinet and took out a small plastic bottle. "Go into the bathroom and urinate into this. We'll need a urinalysis, and a blood test also, and a few other tests. I'm going to call the hospital and arrange to check you in. Okay?"

  Will gulped. "The hospital? Can't you treat me here?"

  "Maybe I can, Will, but I have to be sure what I'm treating you for first, and that requires hospitalization and a series of tests."

  "But can't you figure it out here and now? Don't you have any ideas?"

  It was apparent to Sawhill that Will was one of those quite common individuals who had an insurmountable dread of hospitals. Probably a childhood experience, death of a parent or something similar. Associates hospitals with death, not recovery. "I have suspicions, Will, that's all. I can't be sure of anything until we've done some tests."

  "Well, what do you suspect?" Will was shaking in fear. "I don't like to speculate until—"

  "Goddamn it, Doc, what the hell do you suspect?" Sawhill could see that Will was growing hysterical. Poor guy, he thought. He must be terrified. Nothing, nothing in the world, is more frightening than having something go wrong with your body. There's nowhere you can go to escape the problem, nothing you can do to take your mind off it. It is with you, within you, constantly. "Listen, Will, I'm not at all certain about anything here, and my suspicions may be one hundred percent wrong. I don't want to upset you unnecessarily. Do you understand?"

  "Are you nuts?" Will shouted. "Don't you think I'm upset now? For Christ's sake, Doc, what the hell is wrong with me? Tell me!"

  Sawhill disliked giving a diagnosis without certainty, but he feared that further refusal would reduce Will to unmanageable panic. "Okay, okay. I'm not sure about this, because I have no real experience with the disease, but it looks to me like it may be scleroderma."

  "Sclero—what the hell is that?"

  "It's a degenerative tissue disease, also called progressive systemic sclerosis. It involves a degeneration of the skin and the nerves."

  "How the hell did I get it?" Foster seemed a bit calmer, as if being able to give a name to his malady somehow made it easier to accept.

  "I don't know," Sawhill said kindly. "No one knows what causes it. We don't know if it's something in your metabolism, something hereditary, a virus, a bacterium—we just don't know And," he added pointedly, "I don't even know for sure if you have it."

  Will didn't listen to the encouraging reminder. "Scleroderma," he said quietly.

  "Maybe. Maybe not. That's why we have to go to the hospital."

  "If I have it, what can you do about it?"

  "Well, there's really no cure, just palliative treatment to minimize its effects. Are you allergic to penicillin?"

  "No."

  "Good, because standard treatment involves a good deal of it. We also employ chemotherapy and corticosteriods . . ."

  "What? What?"

  "Corticosteriods. Chemicals used by the adrenal cortex to regulate its own functioning." Will began to ask for a more enlightening explanation but Sawhill cut him short. "Listen, Will, there's no point in discussing this before we know the facts. You may not even have scleroderma. But we have to get you into a hospital to find out. Okay?" Foster nodded glumly. "Now go and fill that bottle, and then we'll draw some blood. I can have the fluids sent on ahead for analysis. It'll save time."

  Sawhill watched as Will shuffled out into the bathroom to fill the specimen bottle, and he then took the phone and dialed the hospital. "Hello? This is Dr. Sawhill. . . . Yes, fine, Janice, fine. How are you? . . . Good. And Billy? . . . Good. I want to send a patient in for a full battery of tests. . . . No, all preliminaries indicate progressive systemic sclerosis. . . . No, he doesn't need a private room. The ward will do fine. . . . Okay. Thank you." He hung up as Will shuffled back into his office.
"Six o'clock tonight, Will. I'll take you over there myself."

  "Okay," he muttered. "Doc, is this gonna kill me?"

  Sawhill always dreaded that question, especially when the answer was in all likelihood an affirmative one. "Will, let's wait until we know for sure what we're dealing with here. I told you that I couldn't make a firm diagnosis. Besides, scleroderma is more common among women than men, and it rarely attacks anyone under thirty. So don't assume the worst." His phone rang. "Excuse me for a moment." He picked up the receiver. "Dr. Sawhill," he said.

  "Hiya, Doc," said Jasper Rudd.

  "Oh, hello, Jasper. What's up? Anything on the robbery?"

  "No, not yet. I've been so goddamn busy with the Lewis murder that I haven't been able to do anything about the theft yet, 'cept get the state police to keep a look out for Hadji."

  "That's too bad. It never rains but it pours, right?"

  "Yeah, shit. You know there hasn't been a major crime in this town in its whole damn history? And then in one night, two big ones."

  "Well, you can handle it. That's why they pay you the big money." Sawhill laughed, and Jasper chuckled slightly. "Why'd you call, Jasper? Anything I can do?"

  "Well, I'm going over to the museum now to have a look around. I called Miss Langly and the Earl and her insurance agent friend, and they're meeting me there. I'd kind of like you there too. Save you a trip down to the station. I need a statement from you."

  "Sure, sure. I have my last patient here with me now I can be there in a few minutes."

  "No hurry. Just come over when you can."

  "Okay. See you soon." He hung up and turned to Will. "What was I saying? Oh yes, don't automatically assume the worst. We'll run some tests and then figure out what to do. Okay?"

  "Yeah, sure, Doc," Will muttered. He looked down at the urine bottle he was holding and handed it to Sawhill.

  "Fine, fine. Now let's take some blood, and we'll send both samples over to the hospital." He corked the bottle with a plastic cap and placed it in a plastic bag, upon which he wrote Will's name. After sealing the bag, he said, "Make a fist. We'll take the blood from your left arm."