King of the Dead (Jeremiah Hunt Chronicle)

by Joseph Nassise

  “What?” she asked, starting to get a bit irritated. Did they think it was going to take them three weeks?

  But that wasn’t it at all.

  “They aren’t going to loan us the knives, Denise,” he said.

  She frowned. “Well then how do you expect … Oh. I see.”

  And she did.

  They expected her to steal the knives right out of the museum!

  “No way,” she said. “Not a chance!”

  This time it was Hunt who answered her. “There isn’t any other way, Denise. They certainly aren’t going to give us the knives.”

  She didn’t like it. Didn’t like it at all. She told the others as much.

  “I understand your reticence,” Simon said, “and if there was any other way to do this, I wouldn’t ask. But with the Council dead we don’t have the luxury of taking that route, and doing so would take too long anyway.”

  In the end, they managed to persuade her, but only by agreeing that the knives would be returned to their rightful place and an anonymous donation made to the museum to cover the cost of repairing any damage done.

  The last flight to Chicago had already left for the evening, so they reserved their tickets online, checked in through the automated system, and then caught a decent night’s sleep.

  First thing the next morning, they headed for the airport.

  Denise was a little apprehensive as they approached the security checkpoint, but things went without a hitch and before she knew it, she and Dmitri were sitting in the gate area, waiting for their flight.

  * * *

  The purchase of two tickets using a credit card issued to Denise Clearwater hadn’t gone unnoticed by the FBI watchdogs, who notified Robertson, who in turn sent Doherty out to the airport with orders to secure a seat on the same flight and follow them to their destination.

  Doherty did as he was told. When the two targets boarded flight 937, bound for Chicago, the special agent was seated three rows behind them on the opposite side of the aircraft.

  Wherever they were going after arriving in the Windy City, he intended to be there too.

  * * *

  Because they were planning on staying only one night, they had a single carry-on bag each and didn’t have to wait for luggage after deplaning. They caught a taxi in front of the terminal and had it drop them off at their hotel, which was only a few blocks from their true destination, the Field Museum.

  They checked in with the front desk and were given adjoining rooms. They ordered lunch from Denise’s room and while they ate they used a tourist map that had been kindly provided by the concierge to go over their plan step-by-step.

  The museum had been built back in 1893 to house the biological and anthropological collections from the World’s Columbian Exposition of the same year. It was renamed the Field Museum of Natural History about ten years later in honor of its first major benefactor, Marshall Field, and today occupied a stretch of parkland that also housed the Shedd Aquarium and the Adler Planetarium, making it one of the most visited locations in the city of Chicago.

  That meant there would be a lot of people roaming around inside the place, which made things a little bit riskier for them than Denise would have preferred. Still, she couldn’t come up with a better idea to accomplish what they needed to accomplish.

  Dmitri was a quick study and didn’t need more than a short review of what they’d discussed the night before, which reassured her that he’d done this kind of thing before. Rather than making her uncomfortable, the knowledge that an experienced hand was there only helped to steady her nerves. After all, she mused, she usually didn’t spend her days robbing a national museum.

  Getting in was going to be easy. They’d simply buy two tickets at the front door and waltz on in. But getting out again, with the soul knives in hand? That was going to be the hard part.

  Simon had told them that the knives were part of the exhibition of European treasures currently housed in the special exhibition gallery on the second floor. Unfortunately, the map they were looking at made it clear that there were actually four such galleries on that floor—one at either end of the main hall, as well as one each to the left and right of the two-story central gallery that split the building in half. It looked like they were going to have to figure out which was which and then finalize the details of their escape once inside. It was a detour, yes, but only a minor one and she didn’t think it would cause them too much trouble.

  At least, she hoped it wouldn’t.

  With lunch over, and the plan firmly in mind, the two of them set out to do what they had come to do.

  They bought tickets like the hundreds of other tourists visiting the museum that day and walked in through the front door. The gallery they wanted turned out to be the first one they entered on the second floor. The large rectangular space was filled with artifacts from several different early European cultures, from the Vikings to the Welsh. The knives were laid out on a bed of black velvet in a glass case about halfway through the exhibit and Denise had no trouble locating them thanks to the shimmer of arcane energy they gave off.

  They were wicked looking things: the blades as dark as midnight, their handles wrapped in bits of worn leather. They weren’t very long, the blades probably six or seven inches at most.

  Now all they had to do was get them out of the case and then out of the museum.

  In order to do that, they had to wait until the museum shut down for the day. And since they needed to still be inside the building when that happened, to avoid having to break in as well as break out, they set out to find a place to hide during the changeover.

  A utility closet at the far end of the gallery turned out to be just what they needed. Once they knew where it was, they wandered around the rest of the museum, basically wasting time until an announcement over the intercom let the guests know that the museum would be closing in fifteen minutes.

  Hearing it, they made their way back to the second floor, waited until they were certain no one was looking in their direction, and then slipped inside the closet. In order to keep the cleaning crew from walking in on them, Denise cast an obfuscation spell on the door, effectively masking it from the crew’s memory and sight. If the cleaning crew needed supplies, they’d wander down to the closet on the first floor instead, without giving the closet on the second floor even a passing thought. The spell would wear off in a few hours, but that was long enough for their purposes. The cleaning crew should be long gone by then. Denise and Dmitri settled in to wait.

  * * *

  Doherty had been reporting back to Robertson on an hourly basis. This time, when he got his superior on the phone, he thought he knew what was going on.

  “They’re going to rob the museum,” he said.

  Robertson, as expected, was incredulous. “You can’t be serious,” he replied.

  But Doherty was. He explained how Clearwater and Alexandrov had been casing the place for the last hour and how they’d just done what they could to secret themselves in a utility closet. What else could they be doing?

  “I don’t know,” Robertson said and Doherty could hear the concern in the other man’s voice. It was the unusual and the unexpected that got him every time.

  “Stay with them,” his boss told him. “If they commit a crime, stop them, but otherwise, just continue to tail them for now.”

  “Roger that,” Doherty replied and settled in to wait and see what Clearwater and Alexandrov would do.

  * * *

  The moment they left their hiding place behind, Denise used her Art to circumvent the alarm system, keeping the motion sensors from registering their presence as they moved across the gallery floor.

  When they reached the exhibit, Dmitri waited until Denise had sent a surge of electricity through the sensors protecting the glass, burning them from the inside out, and then lifted one of his heavily booted feet and sent it smashing through the front of the glass case.

  Denise scooped up the knives and turned to leave
.

  A man’s shout rang out across the gallery.

  “FBI! No one move!”

  Where in Gaia’s name did he come from? Denise wondered.

  The newcomer was in his midthirties with dark hair and a nervous expression on his face. He was dressed casually, in jeans and light jacket, but the badge on a lanyard around his neck and the pistol he was pointing at them made it hard to take him for anything but an officer of the law.

  “Hands up where I can see them!”

  Denise glanced at Dmitri, expecting him to make a move, but he simply shrugged and put his hands up.

  Knowing he must have a good reason, Denise did the same.

  The FBI agent crossed the gallery and stopped several feet away from them. The gun in his hand pointed first at Dmitri, then at her, and then back again at Dmitri, as if he couldn’t decide who was a bigger threat.

  “Put the knives down, slowly, and then kick them over here,” the agent told her.

  Any time now, Dmitri, she thought.

  Wanting to appear cooperative, she lowered herself into a squat and put the knives on the floor, one next to each foot. She stood back up again, slowly, just like she’d been told, and then used her right foot to slide the first one in his direction.

  The agent kept his eyes on her and didn’t even look at the knife.

  Come on, come on.

  She repeated the action, this time with her left foot.

  This time, his gaze slipped downward, focusing on the knife for just a second, maybe two.

  It was enough.

  Without warning, Dmitri changed.

  One moment he was human, and in the next he wasn’t. In his place was an eleven-hundred-pound polar bear with an attitude to match.

  Shocked into immobility, the FBI agent didn’t stand a chance. To give him credit, he tried, he really did. He was in the midst of turning toward Dmitri, his gun arm swinging away from Denise and in the direction of the threat, when Dmitri clubbed him to the floor with one massive paw.

  That was it.

  Lights out.

  Denise let out a breath she didn’t realize she was holding and bent to check on the officer. He was unconscious and probably would be for some time. Blood was flowing freely from several scratches across his scalp, but none of them was deep enough to be life-threatening and his pulse was strong.

  From behind her there was a grunt of pain as Dmitri shifted back. While he dragged the agent over to the same utility closet they had hidden in earlier and left him inside, out of sight, she picked up the soul knives and stashed them in the satchel she’d brought along for just that purpose.

  They left the building through the same door they had entered through earlier that afternoon and set off down the street at a steady, but unhurried pace.

  They were two blocks away when they heard the first of the sirens. Several squad cars roared past moments later, responding to the alarms they’d set off at the museum. They kept their heads down, just another couple out for a walk, and managed to hail a cab a few blocks later.

  Denise was concerned about getting the soul knives through airport security, but in the end, that too proved to be much easier than she had expected.

  Rather than trying to plant a suggestion in the minds of half a dozen different TSA agents, Denise decided it would be easier to alter the image on the X-ray machine while simultaneously jamming the flashing light that signaled an alarm. She waited until her bag was about to go through, then said a few words beneath her breath and directed her will at the monitor.

  That was all it took. Twenty minutes later they were boarding their flight back to New Orleans, the weapons they needed to banish the Angeu back to where it belonged stuffed unceremoniously in the small duffle bag Denise carried in one hand.

  41

  HUNT

  With Denise and Dmitri gone, and Gallagher coordinating the activity of the seven wardens and the handful of medical volunteers who’d joined us at the new safe house while at the same time trying to determine what the Angeu could be up to, I was left to fend for myself for the day. The scarcity of the ghosts at the Sidhe enclave still troubled me. Was it an isolated incident, perhaps due to the presence of the Sidhe themselves, or was it more widespread and we just hadn’t noticed?

  I intended to find out.

  I convinced Gomez to drive me around the city for a few hours and used that time to observe the city’s spectral population.

  Or rather the lack thereof.

  On the day we’d arrived in New Orleans the dead had been everywhere. I couldn’t turn my head without seeing half a dozen or more. And now they were nowhere to be seen.

  There were still a few haunts hanging around, those spectral presences that were so old as to be little more than whispers in the dark, and more than a handful of apparitions, which were nothing more than memories of a life caught in an endless loop. But the true ghosts, those spectral presences that still retained their human form as well as the ability to interact with the world around them as independent creatures, were few and far between.

  I caught sight of a few in the heart of the Quarter, but they slipped away before I could shanghai them with a tune from my harmonica. The usual summoning songs didn’t work either; while on Bourbon Street I had my driver pull over and wait for me by the side of the road, but after almost half an hour of playing, I was forced to give up without having called a single ghost to my side.

  I did, however, earn $9.50 from tourists slipping me their change.

  I was certain that the Angeu had something to do with the missing ghosts but couldn’t put two and two together to make four.

  Part of the problem was the fact that I didn’t really see the lack of ghosts as a negative. I never understood what role they played in the grand scheme of things, and being followed around by them on a regular basis could be downright irritating.

  I headed back to the safe house more confused than when I had set out earlier.

  The afternoon passed slowly and when I had a chance to discuss the issue with Gallagher, he was as much at a loss as I. Unfortunately, his optimism kept him from recognizing the true depth of my concern.

  “Don’t worry, Hunt,” he told me. “Once Denise returns with the soul knives, we’ll be able to set everything right again.”

  I seriously doubted that. He was putting all his eggs in one basket, and if there was anything I’d learned over the last few years it was that desperate plays often don’t turn out as well as you hope they will. But after my demoralizing day, I didn’t have the energy to argue the point with him. Instead, I wandered off to bed a good hour earlier than usual, figuring catching up on my sleep might not be a bad idea.

  Unfortunately, my body had other ideas.

  I lay there, wide awake, for quite a while before giving up and getting out of bed. The window in my room looked out over the front of the property, letting me see up and down the road in either direction, and I sat there awhile, just watching.

  Looking for some reassurance.

  Hoping that I’d see a ghost or two if I sat there long enough.

  Where were all the ghosts?

  The question was haunting me.

  At the time I had no idea that my inability to sleep was going to save my life.

  But that’s exactly what happened.

  The sound of an approaching engine caught my ear and it wasn’t long before a dark-colored Hummer appeared at the top of the street.

  Except it wasn’t.

  A Hummer, that is.

  Not unless Hummers now came draped in the spectral image of a rickety old cart pulled by a team of horses as a standard feature.

  The horses were an odd pair: one young and vibrant and full of vigor and the other old and decrepit and more than likely blind in at least one eye, given the way it stumbled forward. But the worst thing that my sight showed me was the hunched figure I could see in the driver’s seat, a figure dressed in a dark cloak and wide-brimmed hat.

  I didn’t need to see
that skeletal face to know just who it was that I was looking at.

  As I was trying to process the fact that the Angeu had reversed the cards on us and tracked us to our base of operations just as we’d done to him earlier, he raised his hand and used one long bony finger to point in my direction.

  As if on cue, a group of Sorrows swarmed over the sides of the cart and rushed toward the compound.

  I had just seconds to get the word out or we were going to be overrun by a dozen or more of the soul-sucking creatures.

  I did the only thing I could think of.

  I stepped into the hall and yelled my head off.

  Ridiculous or not, it saved lives. My own included.

  The wardens had been prepped for just such an emergency; with this many of the Gifted clustered in one location, we’d always been a prime target for the Sorrows and plans had been made to deal with an attack should one happen. By the time I hit the ground floor, Gallagher’s people were pouring into the hallway from the rooms on either side, armed with both handguns and melee weapons, and lights were going on all around the compound.

  As a result, I found myself in the midst of the conflict, blinded by the light, and unable to see much of anything.

  It wasn’t the safest place to be.

  Shouts rose, mingling with the howling cry of the Sorrows, and then everything was a chaotic mess, with men and women facing off against the Sorrows as the creatures tried to force their way inside the house. Thanks to their unearthly nature, the Sorrows glowed with a shimmering silver aura and so stood out slightly against the whiteout I currently was seeing, but my human allies did not. Unable to see them, I didn’t dare try and make my way out of the fighting, so there was nothing to do but back into the nearest corner and hope I could defend myself if the Sorrows broke through.

  When a momentary lull fell over the fighting, Gomez took pity on me, pulling me out of my corner and shoving me inside a nearby room, out of the main action.

  Seconds after he did, I heard him give a painful shout in the corridor outside the door and wondered if the distraction had proved to be his undoing. I fervently hoped not.