Painter of the Dead (Shades of Immortality Book 1)

by Catherine Butzen

  “And they get it,” Theo said. “A lot of history isn’t much different from that. There really were battles, dangerous plans, and star-crossed lovers. And because there were, we owe it to them to be honest about what happened.” She swallowed a sudden lump in her throat. “If we don’t, then what’s the point?”

  “But that’s not all there was,” Adler interjected. “And when people see this stuff, they become convinced the past was a theme-park ride. Do you think you can show the lovers and the planners accurately, Miss Speer? Can you bring them back to life?”

  The fluorescents of the lab were harsh on his colors, bleaching the remaining warmth out of his skin and casting blue-gray shadows along the sharp lines of his jaw. It reminded her of a course she had once taken in sumi-e ink painting. For a moment she wanted to touch him, wondering if he would feel like skin or paper under her fingers.

  He clearly didn’t like the mummy in front of him, but the art department was relying on him and his money, and he’d delivered. And he wanted to know: Was it worth it? Were they doing good work? Or did they only perpetuate stories for entertainment? Oh, they were real stories, no doubt about that, but did they do much good?

  “I’m going to tell the truth,” Theo said. “There’s so much we still don’t know. But we can try to get it right.”

  “That’s a good answer,” Mr. Adler said. He threw another glance at THS203. “Are you listening?”

  “God, I hope not,” Theo said with a grin. Some of the tension began to bleed out of the room. “If it finds out what the lab boys call it, it’ll be out for blood.”

  “I don’t know about that. Mummies aren’t like what they are in the movies, you know.”

  “But you still don’t like them?”

  “Just because I’m not afraid of being killed by something doesn’t mean I’m obliged to like it.”

  Theo watched him, wondering about his choice of words. She’d never said he was afraid, but maybe he’d been thinking it anyway. Whatever he was thinking, though, it was clear that THS203 with his sad smile wasn’t going to be a happy topic of conversation. “Well then,” she said, “the good news is that we have plenty of other things to see. How do you feel about taxidermy? They should be prepping large snakes tonight.”

  “Hmm. Watching animals being skinned is more of a before-dinner activity, I think.”

  The way he delivered the words—completely deadpan, as if he were discussing a matter of national security—coupled with that strange quirk-of-the-lips smile, made Theo’s stomach do an odd flip. Stupid nerves! This was definitely more of an Aki gig.

  “In that case, how about we go”—she picked a direction at random and pointed—“back that way. Prep A and B are taking care of some shabtis from Number Three’s cache, and they’re absolutely beautiful.”

  He nodded to her. “I always have time for beautiful things. Lead the way, Miss Speer.”

  Chapter Three

  The friendship of a scribe is not to be discarded lightly, I think. For it is they who will write my prayers when I am gone, and I do not want to die forever for the sake of a careless slip of a pen.

  – Excerpt from the Wilkinson Texts,

  circa 1000 BCE (fragment)

  The whole hall was in motion. It had been divided by temporary walls, and teams of eight or twelve men called out to one another over the buzz of electric saws and cursed the electricians who skittered between them with orange extension cords. There was a busy energy in the air, and drifts of sawdust littered the floor in the unfinished areas, giving the space a delicious woodsy scent that made some of the artists sneeze.

  The first of the gallery rooms had been effectively finished. The walls were painted a warm sandy color, fading to tarnished gold at the base, and a dais for the full-sized Nile rowboat had been built. The carpet hadn’t yet been installed, but Theo knew that the intended shade was a deep blue-green, chosen to perfectly match the colors of the water that she had painted. Visitors would feel as if they were knee-deep in the river, sandy banks rising up on each side. It was perfect.

  The one thing lacking was the mural itself. One long wall was left primed but unpainted, and it was here that Theo, Aki, and the team went to work.

  The completed painting had been scanned and mapped with a grid. Using a projector, they overlaid painting and grid onto the wall, marking the squares and lines with faint pencil that would disappear entirely under the paint. The grid would be projected again when the base colors had been finished, giving them areas to concentrate on for detail work, but for now they painted in broad strokes.

  This was the best part. The artists worked quickly, laying down the most basic shapes of flat color: blue here, green here, yellow on the bank, and a blob of blue-black that would eventually become a fisherman’s hair. Backmost layers first, let it dry, and then the next above it. This was not the time for detail.

  Theo almost galloped up the stepladder, balancing a small can of blue-gray with her left hand as she drew broad swaths of color across the wall. Behind them, fans were aimed at the wall to help the paint dry. Wisps of Theo’s hair fluttered in the breeze, and she tucked them under her plastic shower cap, leaving a smear of blue near her hairline.

  Aki was talking again, naturally.

  “All I’m saying is it’s sad,” he insisted from his spot in the far corner of the mural. “Your parents jet off to Taos for Christmas and leave you watching their house? They couldn’t even take you with?”

  “Believe me, I’d rather do it this way,” Theo replied. She finished filling in the shape of a wave and reached for the palette loaded with deeper blue-green, stippling the fresh color onto the wave. “They’re going to be doing dinner parties and rubbing elbows. Mom’s got a Christmas present all picked out for some guy who runs a super PAC. It’ll be a lot better in Deerfield.”

  Aki shook his head. “Lame.”

  He said something else, too, but Theo didn’t register it. Patches of cinnamon brown, the base flesh tone for two of the men, could take the white of the kilt. Motion, maybe? She’d had good results in the original painting, but had never been entirely satisfied by the shape she’d achieved. Now she could try again.

  She was reaching for a small tube of white when an incoming commotion broke through her haze. Several heads turned toward the entrance to the gallery. Mark Zimmer, the chief of Security, hurried through the crowd toward the door, with a couple of his guards trailing behind. Somebody—somebody who shouldn’t be there, to judge by the commotion—had entered the gallery. Theo felt a poke of surprise when she recognized him.

  He was in gray this time, a shade almost identical to the sleek, iron-colored streaks in his hair. In the strong light of the gallery his skin held more warmth, this time with the touch of copper that should have been visible on the night of the party, though the blue undertones were still there. As she watched, he maneuvered easily around the minefield of sawhorses and scaffolding that littered the hall. Two more security guards trailed in his wake but weren’t stopping him, so the artists and builders let him through.

  Zimmer didn’t take kindly to people strolling into an area closed to the public. “Can I help you?” he said, crossing his arms.

  “Seth Adler,” Mr. Adler said calmly. He handed Zimmer a folded piece of paper. “I arranged with Dr. Schechter to view the construction of the new exhibition. I think a message should have been sent?”

  Zimmer opened it, glancing back and forth between Adler and paper. “Checks out,” he said. Theo smiled a little at that. Translation: “Okay, the administration says you’re authorized and I technically have to listen to them, but I wish they’d quit letting outsiders run around backstage, goddammit.” She liked that Zimmer understood that people worked late and so made accommodations to the security schedule, but if he could’ve kept the collections safe by locking people out of the museum altogether, he’d have done it in a heartbeat.

  “Don’t worry, Mark, he won’t make a mess,” she said, putting one hand on her hi
p and leaving behind paint fingerprints. Both Zimmer and Adler turned at her words. Zimmer didn’t seem thrilled at the interruption.

  Adler’s lips quirked in something not quite a smile, but close. Shining droplets flecked his hair and shoulders where snowflakes had melted.

  “Miss Speer,” he said, raising one hand in a half wave of greeting. “Hard at work, I see.” He took in Theo’s mussed hair and paint-spattered plastic coveralls, and to her surprise, the almost-smile grew. “You’re having fun.”

  Aki elbowed Theo, but she ignored him. “You know how I feel about my job, Mr. Adler,” she said. “I always have fun. Are you here for another look at the mummy?”

  “Never,” Adler said. “But I wanted to see things when the museum wasn’t on its best behavior. It took time for my schedule to clear enough to allow it.” He stopped at the edge of the tarpaulin, inclining his head.

  Theo shifted, unsure of what to do with herself.

  “And maybe take you out to lunch,” he added.

  Oh.

  Her first instinct was to break eye contact. Maybe find something else to talk about, or cover up her sudden confusion by dropping something. But dropping something in front of Mr. Adler wasn’t going to look good for her or the department—oh damn, she was turning red, wasn’t she?

  She played for time the best way she could think of and made a show of studying him mock-seriously. Though the overall picture was as sleek as it had been at the gala, this time there was a telltale rumple around the edges: a scuff mark on one shoe, the worn leather of his wristwatch band, the droplets of melted snow. He looked less like the million-dollar donor and more like the man she was itching to sketch.

  “Thanks for asking nicely,” she said, silently ordering herself to act normal. “That actually sounds great. I have a break in about forty minutes, okay? If the paint fumes haven’t killed us by then.”

  “I’ll meet you at the southern staff entrance,” he said. He nodded to her and moved past, still trailed by the security escort, and disappeared into the next section of the hall. The gazes of the artists turned back to Theo, who could feel her blush deepening.

  “You do realize that you don’t have to cooperate with the donors on everything, right?” Zimmer said dryly.

  “I know,” Theo replied. She fiddled with her paintbrush, trying to calm her nerves. “Relax. I’m not going to embarrass the department or give away the security codes, all right?”

  “I know,” Zimmer said. “I passed around the rules for worker-patron interaction three months ago, and you’re smart enough to remember them. What mystifies me is why you’re so calm about it.”

  Theo sighed and turned back to the wall, deliberately putting her back to the Security chief. “It’s lunch, not the invasion of Poland.”

  “Lunch with the controller of the Neith Trust,” Aki pointed out as he swung by for a fresh brush. “Who, by the way, has more money than either of us will ever see and spends it on sponsoring us. You can’t expect me not to make fun of that.”

  “Self-deprecation doesn’t fit you, Aki,” Theo said. “How about you and Zimmer both stay out of my lunch plans?”

  “Only if you promise to tell me everything. Stock tips, for example.”

  * * *

  Theo shucked her paint-spattered coveralls and checked her reflection in the dark mirror of the nearest sleeping computer monitor. There was still the smear of paint near her hairline, which she removed with an alcohol wipe. Aside from that, she was…acceptable. Sighing, Theo fluffed her limp blonde hair, then asked herself why she cared. Business lunch meant businesslike, not pretty.

  Seth Adler was waiting outside, right where he’d said he would be, flecked again with fresh snow. The lead-colored sky sifted down flurries, and drifts were already accumulating on the hoods of the parked cars. The flakes melted when they hit the sidewalk, though, leaving damp spots on the concrete.

  Theo huddled into her blue parka, but managed a smile as she stepped out into the cold. “Hope I’m on time,” she said. “I had to go up to the loft to get out of my suit.”

  “You’re punctual,” he assured her. The cold seemed to be affecting him more than it did her; his cheeks were bright red. “I was early. Shall we?”

  “Sure,” she said, tucking her hands deeper into the jacket’s pockets. “What were you thinking? I usually throw a Hot Pocket in the caf microwave, but I don’t know if that’s your kind of thing.”

  “I was thinking of the Chancellor, actually,” Adler said. For a moment, Theo thought he was going to take her arm, but if he’d considered it, he’d changed his mind. Instead, he led the way to the parking lot, Theo following a step or two behind.

  “The what?”

  “A restaurant in the Loop. It’s old enough that nobody minds the pub décor, and just expensive enough to keep people from feeling uncultured about eating food that tastes good.”

  “Mind if I ask what your definition of ‘tastes good’ is?” Theo tactfully avoided mentioning the issue of payment, although her enthusiasm had dimmed at expensive. She was more than willing to pay her share, but mentioning how pricy the meal might be was tacky.

  He won back points, though, by giving his reply careful consideration. “The problem is, there’s really no way to describe it without sounding like a double entendre.”

  “A lot of meat, huh?”

  “Something like that.”

  “Well, I appreciate you trying not to be sleazy, but I did go to art school.” She gave him a bit of a smile back. “An accidental double entendre is nothing compared to the stuff the second-year graphic design students got up to.”

  He surprised her by laughing, a hoarse chuckle. “So I hear. Mr. Lee talked quite a lot about it. Too much, in fact.”

  Her smile faded. “He does that,” she agreed.

  “I’m sorry,” Adler said quickly. “Are you two—?”

  “We’re—” she began, but stopped. Adler’s poker face was good, but he hadn’t mastered the art of friendly disinterest. “We’re friends,” she said.

  “I see.” He tucked his hands into his pockets. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have joked about another member of the cabal. Like the Marines? Offend one and you offend them all?”

  “Actually, that’s the Code of the Freaks,” Theo said. “But no, honestly, I don’t want you to get the wrong impression of the art department. We like to make fun of each other, but we’re not…flakes, I guess.”

  Adler drew to a stop, and Theo bumped into him. The blush came back in full force and she took an instinctive step backward, but Adler just looked over his shoulder. “Slippery this time of year,” he said. “Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine,” Theo said.

  * * *

  The Chancellor was a strange blend of restaurant, pub, man cave, and shrine to Chicago. Waiters and waitresses sported Al Capone T-shirts, and each wall featured a wide-screen TV showing a mix of sports and news broadcasts, but the dining room was all dark-wood paneling, dignified leather upholstery, and linen napkins. Black-and-white prints from the city’s history crowded alongside movie posters and headshots of famous gangsters. Theo recognized a few shots from the museum’s own archives.

  It actually looked like the kind of place she would like. Theo and Aki had spent more than their share of evenings doing shots in Loop bars, especially on holidays when traffic gridlocked the whole city and there was nothing to do but drink festively colored beer and watch the police round up their fellow drunks in funny hats. It had a settled-in feeling, and there didn’t seem to be a dress code.

  Adler nodded to the on-duty bartender, who waved them toward a table in the back. Evidently her escort was a regular.

  “What do you think?” he said, sounding…awkward? A little, though it took her a moment to recognize the emotion from him. “Do you like it? We can go somewhere else if you’re not comfortable.”

  Theo smiled, touched. “It’s great,” she said, picking up the drinks list from the table. “I can’t believe I
’ve never been here before. I spend so much time in the Loop, but it seems like I’m always running into things I’ve never seen before.”

  “Keeps life interesting,” he said. “That’s a good thing, isn’t it?”

  “Not always,” she pointed out. “I’m pretty fond of dullness, myself. Artists with interesting lives usually seem to die by the time they’re thirty.”

  “Cheerful thought,” Adler observed with a twist of his lips. “I hope you’re not planning on cutting off an ear.”

  Theo touched one earlobe. Today her earrings were silvery curlicues with a pale-green chip of crystal in the center of each spiral, and she ran her fingertip over the metal, tracing the elegant curves there. “Never happen,” she said. “I like jewelry too much.”

  Adler’s gaze followed her finger, and she saw his eyes widen. There was a moment of silence between them before Theo quickly lowered her hand and looked back at the drinks menu. Was she flirting? Oh no, she was flirting. Mentioning jewelry at the same time too. Classy, Theo. Meet a nice guy and make him think you’re after his money.

  He didn’t seem to think that, though. She wondered if she could make him laugh again.

  More small talk, this time about the art department itself. Their restoration and re-creation plans interested him more than she’d thought they would, and he kept coming back to the subject of the shabti collection. When would they be on display? How many of them? What did she think of them?

  “We’re lucky to have them,” she said, but his curiosity prompted her to add a little more. “Dr. Schechter or Dr. Van Allen could probably tell you more, though. I just paint them.”

  “Dr. Schechter is too slippery. Every time I speak to her, I feel as if whatever she says has footnotes I’m not being permitted to see. And Dr. Van Allen…isn’t very approachable.”