Rings of Anubis: A Folley & Mallory Adventure

by E. Catherine Tobler

  “I know you’re hungry when you don’t even make a face over my eel-jelly,” Auberon said as they stepped into the brass cage of an elevator that would carry them down to the archive.

  While Virgil chose the correct floor (the last one in apparent existence), Auberon spooned more eel-jelly into his mouth and, indeed, Virgil didn’t even make a face. He could only presume he looked as foolish with his own repast.

  The elevator was nearly silent as they rode downward, cable unspooling as gears turned and whirred above and around. Upon reaching the bottom floor, the elevator took a small stutter forward, to continue gliding upon hidden tracks, deeper and deeper into the building. It was not unlike going to the middle of the world itself, for the temperature dropped and the light in the elevator dimmed. When the elevator slowed and came to a stop, the doors opened on an unassuming sitting room, occupied by Miss Upstone. Her smile was generous and she allowed them entry without requesting to see badges or any other form of identification. Virgil noted the wrinkle of her nose as they went; while she had clearly been warned of their approach, she hadn’t been informed about the eel-jelly.

  The hallways were labyrinthine, curving and twisting in what Virgil still thought were secret patterns, some halls without doors, other halls with too many. All of them, however, were invitingly cool, to help preserve the artifacts; a tangle of pipes coiled over the surface of nearly every ceiling, emitting gas-cooled air.

  Virgil actually found himself shivering by the time they reached Cleo’s wing of rooms. They paused in the sitting room where Eleanor waited alone, save for the half-dozen mummies in glass display cases, overflow from the museum’s flood reorganization. Virgil drew himself up short in surprise and doubt both, whereas Auberon strode forward to greet Eleanor with a grin as she rose from the divan.

  She was dressed in trousers today, a new pair acquired here in Cairo, but still a fetching tweed. Her own brown boots had been recovered from the wreckage of the Nuit, as scuffed as Virgil remembered them. He liked the idea that she had shunned offers of polish. A pale blouse and a burgundy waistcoat completed her new ensemble, her hair having been pulled back to the nape of her neck. While she strove for some mastery over it, small tendrils still curled free, to brush her shoulders as she moved.

  Her eyes sought Virgil’s, and he found them welcoming—almost, he fancied, pleased. Her smile even deepened for him, as it moved from Auberon, revealing a faint crescent dimple in her cheek and crinkles at the corners of her eyes.

  “I was wondering when you two would join us,” Eleanor said, as though witnessing a man turn into a wolf was an everyday occurrence, one she brushed aside as she might a sunrise. She lifted her chin toward the two pies Virgil still carried. “I see you took an alternate route.”

  “Mm?” Virgil had to look down at what he carried, so distracted was he by the dimple. “Oh—these. After I—” He broke off. Focus, Mallory, focus. “Terribly hungry.” Although now, in Eleanor’s presence, his appetite for food had fled. “Would you care for one?” He extended one of the wrapped pies to her. “Date and fig.” His stomach chose that moment to make a loud growl. Auberon laughed.

  “I couldn’t possibly,” she said.

  “Is Miss Barclay waiting for us?” Auberon asked, and when Eleanor said she wasn’t sure, he set off in search of her.

  Eleanor lowered herself to the divan and Virgil sat beside her, again offering her a pie and allowing her to refuse once more before he tucked into the last of his meal.

  “After,” he said once he had finished the fish pie, “I’m ravenous. The change takes rather a lot out of me.” It was odd, speaking to her as though it were such a common thing, when it was anything but.

  “Have you—” She broke off and rested her forearms on her thighs as she looked at him.

  “You can ask what you wish.” Virgil drew a handkerchief out and wiped his hands and mouth before beginning to unwrap one of the sweeter pies. “I’ll answer as best I can. Some things I’m still learning myself.”

  “What happened to cause you to change? To become what you are? You . . . ” One of her hands drifted to her own chest, indicating on herself where Virgil was scarred. “I saw a scar.”

  Virgil paused in the unwrapping of the fig and date pie. He set the bag and its pies on the low table before them and wiped his hands again on his handkerchief. He hadn’t told the tale often, but each time, it stood as a challenge. Most didn’t believe him—they didn’t want to believe such a thing was possible.

  “I was five years old, or thereabouts,” he said. “My parents and I were visiting relatives in Paris—it was our first time in the big city. My older brother . . . ” Virgil trailed off at the thought of how different Adrian had been then. “The family spent the day in Le Bois de Vincennes. My father wanted us to see the animals at the zoo. Adrian, my brother, insisted we were fine on our own, and my father believed him. We went ahead, to see what animals were on hand. I remember the peacocks. They were calling so loudly, as if upset.”

  Virgil was aware Eleanor did not smell like her usual soap today, but of something sweeter, something orange. Perhaps what the guest accommodations had provided her, he thought, trying not to get lost in the scent, trying to stay on track with his story.

  “There was talk an animal in the zoo had broken loose. No one could explain what it was, and at the time, I could not remember. Adrian said only that it was huge and angry. Probably what had the peacocks in a twist.” Virgil’s mouth twitched upward, though he noted Eleanor’s expression didn’t change. She was intent on the story. “This beast, for lack of a better word, came out of some trees, and I remember finding myself on my back, staring at the blue sky. It went on forever; I felt almost inside the color, if that makes sense.”

  Eleanor’s head dipped in a nod, her eyes having gone a little wider.

  Virgil reminded himself to breathe. “I don’t remember the pain, which is fortunate, considering the scarring. My parents tell me they nearly lost me several times in the weeks that followed.” He touched his chest, his shoulder. Though he had tried through the years, he couldn’t remember the tearing, the teeth. “It was years later when I first changed. I was about nine and had no idea what had happened. There was—” He broke off, not liking to think of the years that followed. “There was no one to teach me and I didn’t feel I could tell my parents, not when I didn’t understand it myself.”

  At the touch of Eleanor’s hand against his own, Virgil continued. “Most people don’t know. Mistral knows, for they needed to; however, sometimes I think I’m more science experiment than agent.” He looked at Eleanor. He wanted to tell her that he never would have harmed her in his wolf form, but he couldn’t say that. It was quite possible that when the beast took his mind—no, when his own mind transformed—he might do something he would rather not. He knew this all too well.

  Eleanor’s silence went on too long. He was about to give her a gentle shake, to ask what she was thinking, when she stopped him by rolling back the cuff of her blouse. She pushed the entire right sleeve up to expose the long scars marring her arm. Virgil looked down at them, slowly stroking his fingers over the bared flesh, as if in absolution. Like his own attack, what had happened to her wasn’t her fault.

  “Do you think . . . ?” She whispered the words and couldn’t finish the question.

  Virgil met her worried eyes. “I don’t know,” he admitted, “but I think we should talk more about it. If you’re inclined. You said the mouth wasn’t human.”

  “It wasn’t,” she whispered, “but I’ve never changed. I think I would remember something like that.”

  “I think you would, though early on there were times I would change and wake up the next morning somewhere other than my own bedroom, and . . . quite as you saw in the temple.” He was still thankful they’d had her robe at hand. It often remained awkward, the change back into human form, when he wore nothing but his silver ring.

  Eleanor’s own cheeks seemed pinker, but her expression wa
s also off. He lifted a hand, to touch her chin and bring her attention back to him. “What is it?”

  “I never woke up anywhere that way,” she said, but Virgil heard all the words she didn’t speak. There were likely other things she couldn’t explain.

  Eleanor stood from the divan and rounded the low table, moving toward one of the cased mummies. Virgil stood, wanting to press her into sharing whatever it was she held back, but he suspected it would do little good.

  “Old friend?” he asked when she paused beside a specific case. The label stated the mummy had been a pharaoh. The mummy looked like any of the others Virgil had seen; still partially wrapped, dried to the color of the coffee he’d had only an hour before. But the hand was partially raised, as if inviting someone to dance.

  “I used to tell him my secrets,” she said. “My parents would be busy and I would go to the museum, sitting beside this case. I thought that hand was magical—if I could hold it, I would know everything I needed to know.” She stretched her hand out now, but it only hovered over the glass, as if afraid to touch it.

  “I like to imagine what they saw,” Virgil said, content with the change in subject for now. “What did those hands hold? Those feet are brittle now, but they carried this man wherever he needed to go. Some of the monuments he commissioned still stand today—can you imagine creating something that lasts so long?”

  “I used to wonder the same. It’s no surprise then that the pyramids are almost geometrically perfect. Imagine your descendants pointing and laughing at a mislaid stone and you’d make sure you got it right the first time.”

  Across the room, the elevator whirred back to life, gliding away on its tracks, and Eleanor startled. It took Virgil a second to realize that while she was curious about his ability to change into a wolf, it wasn’t what had her nervous. It was being here, in this place, mere steps away from the Lady and answers about her mother.

  “The Lady will wait for you,” he said. “There’s no need to rush this, you know.”

  Eleanor looked from the mummy to him, and while her expression was serene, she still seemed reluctant. “I don’t want her to wait. I should be running to her, but I’m—afraid.”

  Virgil suspected he knew how much that one word cost her. He thought to the night on the Nuit and their brief conversation before the attack. How much courage had that taken her as well? She sank back onto the divan, twining her fingers together in her lap.

  “I agree with a good deal of what’s in my file,” Eleanor said. Her voice was so low, Virgil sat beside her again to better hear her. “About my mother. I do think that she was drawn back in time with the Lady’s rings, but she didn’t have them all, so couldn’t come back. The last time I saw the Lady, my mother vanished. As a child, I had this dream that if I ever saw the Lady again, I would vanish, too.”

  Virgil placed his hand over Eleanor’s. She was cold, but not shaking. He squeezed her fingers, thinking back to his own childhood. The first time he saw a toad after the experience in the vineyard, he believed he would change all over again. It hadn’t happened, of course, and Eleanor wouldn’t vanish today—he was certain. But the worries of childhood were a difficult thing to fully banish.

  “You won’t vanish,” he said, but the words felt inadequate.

  “No,” she said, “but sometimes I wish I would.”

  Her words made Virgil cold too, even if the idea wasn’t new to him. He understood it, and that worried him all the more. To simply vanish out of this world and into another. Running down Cairo streets on four feet instead of two, giving himself up to the pleasure of simply being what he was.

  Virgil looked around the room with its cases and quiet mummies. How many ghosts lingered here for Eleanor? He caught sight of Auberon lingering in the hall, his hands raised in silent question. Virgil motioned him on. The man slipped back down the hallway.

  “I left this behind on a promise to my father,” Eleanor said, “and now I’ve left him again to search for something that will hurt him.” She looked at Virgil and uncertainty crossed her features. “What do you mean to do with the rings?” Eleanor’s hand turned under his, palm up so that her fingers clasped his own. “We’re reuniting them in order to accomplish what? You don’t mean to open the Glass, do you?”

  Part of Virgil wanted that, and from the tone of Eleanor’s voice, he suspected the same was true for her. Who wouldn’t want to see such a thing, to confirm what they believed and perhaps change the course of what the entire world knew of the Egyptians and their ways? To prove the existence of Anubis? Could one do such a thing? Was that like proving the existence of God?

  “Despite their inherent value as artifacts of ancient Egypt,” Virgil said in a low tone, “the rings will be destroyed. We aren’t going to open anything, Eleanor.”

  “You’ve been assured of that?”

  “I have.” Virgil didn’t like doubt, but he had lived with it every day since Caroline’s death. Even the most innocent memory was tainted after discovering the truth of her. Eleanor’s question was valid and it made doubt creep back in. What might Mistral do here, truly? What if they saw more benefit (profit, the cynical side of his mind whispered) in opening the Glass?

  “Should the Glass exist,” Virgil said, “we can’t allow it to be used.” No matter what he wanted, the idea of opening a portal was chilling. Portals went both ways, he reminded himself—whereas a door might be an entry on one side, so it was on the other, to anyone or anything that might be there. “Look at it this way.” He forced a lightness into his voice. “We could be entirely wrong.”

  Eleanor’s fingers squeezed his. “Touched in the head.”

  “Precisely. We could have no earthly idea what we’re talking about, and discover that the rings are simply that—rings. Won’t we feel the fools then, having moved some part of heaven and a little bit of earth to find them again?”

  Eleanor’s head tilted, her eyes meeting his own. “Our silver lining is that we’re completely mad.”

  “Our garrets are entirely unfurnished.”

  “Windmills in the head—”

  “Bollocks?” a female voice asked.

  This last word was offered from the hallway, where Auberon and Cleo lingered.

  “Not a game then?” Cleo asked, playing the innocent.

  Virgil’s hand clasped Eleanor’s, and he tugged her from the divan. No games here, he feared; the Glass did exist, and every moment drew them closer to a future they could not see. If the Egyptians had it right, his heart would be weighed against a feather some day. Were that day today, Virgil feared his heart would tip the scales.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Cleo’s office was cool, dim, and tidy, despite being packed with books, maps, and other reference materials. The top of Cleo’s mahogany desk was virtually hidden beneath stacks of paper, notebooks, and an array of glass and pottery inkwells in a variety of colors, but there was an order to everything. Eleanor felt instantly at home in the space, especially when she saw the bookshelves that filled the far wall, laden to the point of sagging.

  Her attention came back to the inkwells that marched in a straight line across the desk’s front edge. Most were crystal or glass in hues of green, amber, and cobalt, with silver-hinged lids. Several were older: rough pottery pots without cork stoppers. None showed a speck of dust, nor did the meticulously labeled jars of sand lining the shelves behind the desk. Treasured items. Eleanor liked Cleo all the more after seeing this side of her.

  “I feel a little selfish about this one,” Cleo said to Eleanor as she, Auberon, and Mallory entered the office.

  Gin was already there, perched on a plum couch, looking about to burst from excitement.

  “I feel a little selfish about it, too,” Eleanor admitted, eyeing the far door. Was the Lady through there? She suddenly didn’t want any of them there when she saw the Lady. She wanted to be alone, in case the anticipation became disappointment. She didn’t want anyone to see—though Mallory already had. Hadn’t he? She gave his h
and a firm squeeze, then released him when Cleo offered her a white mantle.

  “We’ll wear these inside,” Cleo explained, pulling one on over her own clothing. She gave Eleanor a pair of cotton gloves, but kept her own mechanical hands uncovered. “Gentlemen, it will be only me and Miss Folley this time.”

  For that, Eleanor was thankful, even when Gin squirmed on the sofa and his young face showed a desire to protest. Auberon placed a hand on the man’s arm before he could leap up and do just that.

  “When was she last viewed?” Eleanor asked. She tugged the gloves on, then wrapped herself in the mantle, not objecting when Mallory reached a hand out to untangle the back edge of it and smooth it flat. His hand lingered on her back.

  Cleo didn’t have to check the files on her desk to know the answer to Eleanor’s question. “Last year. A cursory exam, to determine how the body was holding up, and if she needed to be moved to a different environment. She was ship-shape, if a mummy can be said to be such,” Cleo said with a widening grin. “Follow me.”

  Cleo crossed to the door in the far wall, but Eleanor looked back at Mallory, thinking of unfurnished garrets and all they had said before stepping in here. It was a miracle he was alive, that he had survived such an attack in his childhood. But then, she had, too.

  Mallory’s fingers moved briefly against her back. “Don’t vanish in there.”

  Eleanor allowed herself a smile at that, and while she nodded, she found it difficult not to vanish once she stepped inside the examination room.

  It was a plain room, square with more shelf-lined walls, though these contained sealed boxes, all carefully labeled in a precise hand. The air was cooler than that in Cleo’s office, and electric lights gave the room a cold glow, throwing strange shadows wherever they hit the shelves and boxes. But it was the table in the middle of the room and its container that caught and held Eleanor’s attention.