A snarling face came at her from one side, and she leaped backwards in sheer fright. Tumbling into a set of shelves, Penelope heard the tinkle of glass as something crashed into something else. There was a stinging chemical smell that suddenly permeated the air, and something splashed across her back.
Penelope shot to her feet, using the upset shelves as leverage and started to dash back toward the relative safety of the entrance, when she realized that the snarling face was frozen into position. Her feet came to an unsteady stop. The only noise that was to be heard was the rush of her breathing and a steady dripping of some kind of liquid that she had knocked over in her flight.
Within a few moments her eyes adjusted, and she saw that the snarling face was only a stuffed animal. The teeth that seemed a mile long and the twisted expression belonged to a bear of some kind. Not much larger than she was, it stood off to the side of the row she was in, perpetually looking at those who passed it by. Beyond the bear were other stuffed creatures. A horse with a long black mane and a coating of dust stood ready to trot away. Another bear, a white one this time, trod across the tundra that was only Penelope’s mental image, ready for a meal of seals or whatever fish it could scoop up with its massive paws and equally massive, treacherous claws. An immense crocodile scurried across a plain concrete floor that might just as easily have been a mud flat. There were smaller animals as well. Beavers, owls, wolves, and a lynx all were stationed along the side of the room. They scowled and growled and trod in eternal positions, their glass eyes glittering with the faint little bit of light cast their way.
Penelope simply couldn’t look away. Nothing moved. Nothing had jumped out at her. It had been she who had moved closer to the bear, and its position had been deliberate by some canny museum employee. She most likely wasn’t the first individual who had been startled by the violent face of a large animal with its paws ready to strike but unable to move.
Her breathing slowed, and she again became aware of the drip-drip-drip of the unknown liquid that she had inadvertently spilled. The shelves on the one side were tilted, and some of the specimen jars there had cracked. She took a step closer and saw that they were filled with various insects. One cracked jar was leaking fluid rapidly, and she sighed.
The room stretched far and away. Faint lights from the alarm system showed far above. Shelves and shapes packed the room as far as her eyes could perceive. These were displays that had been used and then discarded. Or they were being saved for future presentations. This was their storehouse. It was possibly one of many. There were permanent exhibits and exhibits on loan from other museums. But these had been donated by various individuals or organizations and used or discarded. However, here they were, in the room with Penelope, inviting her inward.
Penelope slipped into the darkness. Once it had been her friend. Now it was her deadly enemy. Although she knew that the light was full and bright outside, the room had no windows and no way to show that the exterior was at the height of afternoon or at the most midnight hour.
She was alone. And at that moment that was precisely what Penelope wanted.
Threading her way into the deepest regions of the rooms, she curiously examined the artifacts she passed. This was the “natural” part of the history that the museum featured. There were bones of all types, cataloged and shelved according to some criteria that she knew she didn’t understand. There were samples of flora, dried in bunches hanging from a specialized rack. There were rocks of all kinds including geodes the size of bowling balls that reflected a thousand colors even in the murkiness of the room.
Penelope found a corner and a set of boxes. One box was solid and about the right level, so she sat down on it. Her pulse had slowed to a moderate rate, and the frightening quality of the darkness was beginning to wear off. She needed to concentrate on what she was going to do. She needed to think about what Anthony had said to her.
So the helpful doctor has a brother and a wife. He also has a good story to tell. A spine-tingling story that included brave warriors, evil spirits, things not of this world, ghosts, and protective souls who had sacrificed themselves in the protection of their existence. Penelope smiled bitterly to herself. I have lost my mind. I should just drive away.
The thought of utter evasion was appealing. There’s nowhere you can run that would be far enough away, said that persistent inner voice.
“Shut up,” she muttered. So the question foremost on her mind was whether Will was in fact a good guy or a bad guy? Was he trying to help Penelope or trying to help himself? Her paranoiac nature divulged the answer to that. Most people were not altruistic in nature and hid damning secrets under masks of polite society. Look at the people I steal from. Drug dealers, peddlers of human flesh, blackmailers, and worse.
Then the inner voice spoke up nastily again. But then again, most of them aren’t trying to end the world. If, in fact, that’s what Anthony is really trying to do.
Penelope put her head in her hands resting her elbows on her thighs. Will had a wife or has a wife. She’s now a witch or something really dreadful, and I don’t have a clue as to what divorce courts say about divorcing really evil witches. Anyway, Will has a brother, who is still human but apparently is bad to the bone. Anthony has a plan. A plan to use the black diamond to do something or reign supreme in the next world. What did Will call it? The fourth world. This was the third world, and the fourth world would be full of shadow people and evil spirits that were ready to kick human butt and take names later.
“Well, that’s simple enough to understand,” she muttered to herself. “I don’t know why I didn’t just put it that way before.” And you have the key, came the iniquitous inner voice. The thing that everyone needs so desperately. And they’ll kill you to get it. As a matter of fact, they’ll probably kill you if they don’t get it. And God help you if they find out about your mother. Because you have a very good idea what that’s going to mean, and ain’t none of it good.
Penelope sat there, alone in the darkness, thinking about the last few days. She couldn’t undo her creep of the Durfrene Row house. She had a potential ally or at the very worst someone she might be able to use in order to get herself out of this mess. The only flaw in her plans was Jessica. Anthony knew Penelope’s name as did Will. They knew much more about her than she wanted them to know. Worse, if they decided to go digging through illegal means, they could find out something very interesting to them. And both of them seemed damnably intuitive. Anthony could very well be wondering what she was doing at Cedars on the Ridge.
Sighing, Penelope ran her hand through her hair. Still for the moment, she suddenly sat up straight. Although she couldn’t hear anything, she knew something was amiss. The room was still and soundless. The sound of liquid draining away from the specimen jar had stopped. The muted lights from the alarm system didn’t even buzz faintly with electricity. Silence.
But something was wrong.
Her eyes scanned the blackness. Each shadow was examined ruthlessly for movement. The exact distance to the exit was calculated in her mind in terms of how many running steps it would take to make it there.
The hair on the back of her neck rose up like the hackles on a terrified dog.
Penelope was no longer alone.
*
Will told the security guard to look for the young woman who had been with him in the moments before Anthony had been escorted out of the museum. But he had the feeling that Penelope Quick wouldn’t allow herself to be found that easily. A fire alarm hadn’t gone off indicating that she had exited through one of the many secondary doors around the large museum, but that didn’t necessarily mean that the thief wasn’t gone. He thought that she might very well have realized the predicament she was in by telling her a little of the hidden past of the Tears of the Spirit. She had been spooked.
His mouth quirked. It was exactly what he deserved for telling a ghost story to a woman who had already been scared nearly to death. She was Caucasian, probably a Christian. When she wa
s faced with those very things, up close and personal, her logical judgment told her that bogeymen exist in moralistic fables and were only meant to teach an ethical lesson to children.
Will went the way the guard indicated that he had seen Penelope going just before turning his complete attention on Anthony. If he didn’t act quickly she would vanish for real. Twenty minutes later, he was standing alone near a quilting exhibition.
That odd sensation that a coyote was waiting in the dusky shadows, looking at him, judging Will on his worth to his people, affected him. Somewhere a pack of the doglike creatures were howling at the north Texas skies, letting their brethren know of their displeasure.
The thief. Will frowned. No, her name is Penelope. Get used to it. It was no longer a matter of acquiring the stone. It was more than that. She was tied to him. Body and soul. Worse, she was a mysterious individual. A thief was a selfish person, someone who cared only about her own greed. But she had seen the evil pursuing her as if she had a spotlight shining down on her from above, pointing out the way. She had seen it, escaped from it, and then returned to Will to ask her questions. Deep inside he knew instinctively that there was more to Penelope Quick than met the eye, but could she be trusted?
There was the rub. Will didn’t trust her. But he needed her.
He surveyed the lonely wing. The other employees called it the boring wing. The special exhibits curator had plans to revamp it so that more interesting displays attracted visitors to this segment. Although dinosaurs reigned supreme, Texas had a rich cultural history that people would appreciate if brought to their attention. However, there was no one about.
But now, the emptiness suited Will. Penelope had been attracted to this place as well. Like the isolated animal she reminded him of, she was here. He could sense her presence. His eyes went to the “Employees Only” sign on the nondescript door. Comprehension pleased him.
A thief didn’t need a key.
*
Anthony sat outside the Dallas Museum of Natural and Cultural History. He waited to see if Penelope Quick might come after him, but he was fairly sure that she would be running in the opposite direction. After all, she was frightened. But Anthony also recognized that she was equally frightened of his brother.
Merri sat beside him and shaded her eyes from the sun. For all intents and purposes, she appeared to be a regular woman looking around Fair Park and finding it lacking. “I dislike all of this light. Afterwards, that will change. Shadows will dance in the darkness.”
Anthony smiled humorlessly.
“She’s inside,” Merri said. Then she added, “So is he.”
He didn’t bother to respond. The witch had been stating a fact, not asking a question.
“She didn’t succumb to your bribe then,” Merri surmised wryly with icy amusement.
“She’s a thief,” Anthony said. “Thieves tend to be self-centered. But not this one.”
The thing that had the beautiful face of Merri Littlesoldier chuckled with a frigid laugh. Anthony nearly shuddered. Then she said, “You know something that will help us.”
Anthony wasn’t thinking of Penelope Quick. He was thinking of one Mr. Jobe Cooper, a young man who had been pitifully easy to break. He had told them everything that Anthony wanted to know. Jobe would have sold out his own mother in the last few minutes of his life.
But Jobe hadn’t sold out his mother. No, he had sold out someone else’s.
Anthony grinned. “Will’s going to disappear with our little friend.”
“But we can get to them now,” Merri protested. She gestured with crimson-tipped fingernails toward the museum. “All these other humans don’t matter. And if you’re squeamish, then let us wait until dark. The shadow people will make short work of them in there.”
Anthony stared at the museum’s elegant façade. “Let Will do what he wants. We need the girl. We need the diamond. She has hidden it somewhere. Somewhere out of the light of day so that it cannot be tracked by magical means. She has to live long enough to lead us to it.”
The beautiful face of the thing sitting beside him contorted into an angry mask of disdain. “Give me a few minutes with her. She’ll tell us everything.”
“I have something better,” he said, smirking smugly. “She’ll come right to us. She’ll also take care of Will for us. She’ll do anything we want.”
Merri looked at Anthony curiously. “It sounds like the strongest of magicks.”
“Oh, it is,” he responded readily. “There’s nothing stronger than the bond between a child and her mother.”
*
Penelope looked around her, shivering. She had trapped herself into a corner. There wasn’t a bridge to jump off. There wasn’t a dumbwaiter to climb into. She wrapped her arms around her body and waited.
Whoever was in the room with her came silently. These constant up and downs, came her inner voice, suck big gorilla dick.
“I’ll agree with that,” she muttered.
“Agree with what?” came someone else’s voice. Penelope swallowed. It was Anthony who had come for her. His shape coalesced out of the darkness, as smoothly as the beast he was. His features were lost in the shadows, but he stopped several feet away.
Penelope raised her chin up. “All of this sucks. That’s what I was agreeing with.”
“Granted, it does suck,” he agreed easily. “But whom were you speaking with?”
“My inner voice,” she said. “It says things that I don’t like to me.”
The black shape said nothing. Penelope grasped her arms closer around her body.
“Can we just go ahead and get this over with?” she asked finally. “I’m a little tired, and I need some sleep.”
“Sleep,” he repeated thoughtfully.
“You don’t sound like you did before,” she said doubtfully. She leaned a little closer to peer at the other person. Was it not Anthony? Was it Will, instead?
“Did you make an agreement with them?” he said with a little hint of anger.
“An agreement with them,” she said, aware that she was repeating. She couldn’t believe the roaring feeling of relief that coursed through her body as she realized it was Will she was speaking with. “What agreement would I make? I thought you were Anthony.”
“So I gathered,” he said. He took a step forward, and she saw that it was indeed Will. Soundless and implacable, he had come into the storeroom without notice and would have been able to tap her on the shoulder without her knowing he was only inches away.
“I didn’t make an agreement with Anthony,” she said vehemently. “Or else he wouldn’t have been threatening me. Besides I don’t think your brother is one to deal with thieves.”
“My brother,” he said slowly, his face shrouded with shadows and unreadable, “would brook no bargains with anyone save those who could advance his cause.”
“Like evil spirits, shadow people, oh, and witches,” she said pertly. “Can’t forget the witch. Especially since you were married to her once.”
Again he was silent.
“Okay,” she said. “The thing I said about your wife was low, even for me. Listen. I am really tired. I haven’t been sleeping well for some reason. Can we make a deal? Do you brook bargains with thieves?”
Will laughed. “The sleep part I can help with.”
“Huh?” she said, just at the same moment he lifted his hand up to his face. The palm was facing skyward and he put his face close to it and blew strongly. A tiny cloud of dusty particles hit Penelope squarely in the face. She sneezed once and said, “Gesundheit.” Then she added, “What the hell was that?”
Then as her eyes became as heavy as concrete weights, she fell over onto the box. Nothing followed.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Wednesday, July 9th - Oregon
Mickey Finn (slang, origin probably 1920s American) - knockout drops
Strange dreams plagued Penelope as she slept. Dogs were roaming nearby and howling at the moon, reminding her of other things that
she had forgotten in the heaviness of slumber. Night was walking as if it were an actual creature and seeking something it too had forgotten. But these aren’t dogs, she realized with icy clarity. She was in a dark place, and the coyotes were baying at a waxing thumbnail of a moon.
In her entire life Penelope had never so much as briefly glimpsed a coyote before. She hadn’t ever been camping in the forests where the doglike animals rambled, and she hadn’t stayed at any rural location where she might have seen them. But she knew that what she was hearing in her dream state were the cries of a dozen coyotes. She was standing in a forest of tall pines, and the smell of sap was heady in her nostrils. The sensation of something large surrounding her inundated her senses, dimly indicating that towering peaks were casting her into their deepest shadows. A mountain-fed breeze brought a wave of coolness across her warm flesh and tickled her arm hair as if it were as aware as any sentient creature.
Most importantly, Penelope wasn’t afraid. The coyotes howled all the way around her, not visible in the darkness of the forest but ever so present as evidenced by their piercing wails. She knew that she had been here for awhile and that something was trying to convey itself to her. In the mistiness of her dream she closed her eyes and listened as keenly as she could. But words were fleeting and meanings escaped her.
The coyotes ceased their noise abruptly, and all that was left was the steady thump of Penelope’s heart. The wind stopped, and the trees seemed to close on her position. Calmness began to evaporate. Shadows began to slither around her feet, reaching and feeling for her. Something was coming. Something very terrible was coming for her. As it had in days past, it sought her out and reminded her that all was not right in her world.
Penelope was no longer reassured, and although in the very pits of her unconsciousness she was aware that she was walking in a dream, she determined that shades of reality were haunting her. Dream-closed eyes opened up, and she saw that a dozen dark shapes had sprung up before her. She tried to move but found her feet fastened to the ground as if they had been attached with needle and thread.
Shadow People Page 20
