“Seth Adler,” came the brisk voice. He sounded somewhat distracted.
“Mr. Adler?” she said. “This is, uh, this is Theo Speer.”
“Morning, Miss Speer. I got your email.” There was warmth in his voice. “I hope you didn’t have your heart set on anything too popular. At six o’clock in the Loop, you’d have better luck getting a ringside seat at the Colosseum.”
“Nah, I’m flexible. But—well, I’m sorry, Mr. Adler—”
“Just Seth, please.”
“Uh, Seth. I’m sorry, I can’t make it.” Theo cradled the phone awkwardly, tucking it between her jaw and shoulder as she picked up her stylus again. “Everything’s gotten crazy, and they need me here for at least the next week. I don’t know if we can meet up anytime soon.”
“What happened?” Adler sounded worried, and Theo heard a screech of tires from the other end of the line. Talking while driving; and from the sound of it, he’d pulled over abruptly. “Is this about the break-in at the Oriental Institute? Are you all right?”
“I’m fine, and the museum’s fine.” She couldn’t quite keep a small smile off her face. “There’ve been changes to the exhibition, that’s all. Our friend Number Three had to duck out early, and they need me to draft a new mural to cover the spot where his sarcophagus would have gone.”
“‘Duck out early’?” Adler repeated. He still sounded worried, but covered it with a veil of light humor. “Seems somebody’s been reading from the Book of the Dead. Do you need help catching a runaway mummy?”
“I don’t think anyone could stop it this time.” Theo selected the eraser tool and rubbed out a problematic area. “Number Three’s been called up by the Oxford Egyptological Society. They’re doing a big study on tuberculosis in pre–New Kingdom mummies, and one of the specimens they’d planned on using was withdrawn by its owner.” She rearranged her grip on the stylus and began to sketch again, outlining the familiar shape of a human body with quick, easy strokes. “The Columbian’s offered it to Oxford in exchange for a lot of Pompeii stuff everyone’s been panting over.”
“What a waste,” he said bluntly. “Whose decision was this?”
“That would be the board.” She filled him in on the latest developments and rumors. “But it’s not that bad, really. We still get the tomb goods—and if they decide the mummy’s not what they need, or finish the scan without needing to autopsy, we can have it back.” Six quick lines, curved and bunched, created the rough shape of a coffin. “It’s really tough to get mummies for studies like this these days, since so many of them are owned by governments that don’t allow invasive procedures. And we get the Pompeii stuff and Number Three back if we’re lucky.” She shifted the phone to her other shoulder as the man began to emerge from the digital lines. On a whim, she threw down the first shapes of his face: long, flat nose, generously curved mouth, weary eyes. “But that means I’m on overtime. Rain check?”
“Of course.” The tension had ebbed out of his voice, and she could hear the revving of the car’s motor as he pulled back onto the highway. “How’s next Monday?”
“Perfect.”
She ended the conversation feeling somewhat more relaxed. Monday was a few days off, but by the time it came around she would have a lot less on her plate. Then she could focus on this whatever-it-was with Mr. Adler. Seth.
For now, though, she needed to find her copy of Gardiner’s Egyptian Grammar. The new painting presented a different angle on the burial chamber, and the visible inscriptions would be different. Was it “n mwt.f dt” or “m nwt.f dt”?
The book turned up underneath a stack of printouts. Sighing, Theo unearthed it and flipped through the dog-eared pages. Her desire for accuracy was a double-edged sword: It sometimes left her squinting at rows of near-identical symbols and desperately trying to find a photograph of the burial chamber that wasn’t blurred or shadowed.
Okay. “M nwt.f dt” it was.
Theo didn’t speak ancient Egyptian. She knew the alphabet and a few phrases and vocabulary words from the exhibition texts; that was all. But the syllables were like music, and music was a step away from color. She pinned each syllable to a color and painted them in the back of her mind, memorizing the matches and clashes and what they meant to her.
Life was confusing. Men were distracting. But color? In the world of shade and tone and tint, Theo was in control. She let out a breath she didn’t realize she’d been holding and settled down to work.
Chapter Five
The galley started taking on water, and for a moment, I saw her. She looked like somebody’s mother, her eyes streaming or maybe just blacked. Nobody’s pretty when they’re losing, I suppose. So much for Greek gods.
– Excerpt from unknown work,
circa 30 BCE (fragment)
Theo yawned and put down the stylus. Aside from her, the loft was deserted, leaving her alone in her cubicle’s bubble of light. The flatscreen monitor displayed a multicolored tangle of sketched lines spread out over half a dozen layers, each color and layer keyed to a different arrangement.
After half a dozen attempts, she found an arrangement that felt natural. Time to start building: the straggling shapes of professional mourners, the slightly bent form of a priest in the mask of Anubis, the pair of slaves struggling to support the coffin. A private funeral with few attendants.
But that was only part of it. Theo let a tired smile cross her face as she sat back in her chair, imagining it. In her painting, mourners and priests toiled to see the anonymous man buried, but across the room the real shabtis would be lined up in their stiff little rows, with cracked faces aimed toward the mural. Visitors would be the same size as the painted people, letting them meet those priests and mourners eye to eye. And when they turned away from the mural, there would be the shabtis. Watching the watchers.
Standing, Theo flexed her spine and stretched. Something cracked, something else popped, and Theo let out a soft sigh. It was almost eleven o’clock at night, and after a long time hunched over the tablet, her back was partially cramped up. Pain couldn’t shake that sly sense of accomplishment, though.
She should pack it in for the night. But did she have to? With the finished image already complete in her mind, reference books open around her, and color charts fanned across the desk, it felt like the necessary tools were in place. What she needed to do was make the colors and shapes move.
Her brain fizzed with what felt like hundreds of ideas jostling to get her attention. This was the best part of any project—the moment when the first hurdle was complete and she felt like she could do anything, before the inevitable frustration and annoyance set in. She didn’t want to let the feeling of excitement go.
But if she worked much longer, she’d be useless in the morning. And worse, she might do something stupid while sleep-deprived, like delete her own files. Theo massaged her cramped right hand and saved her design one last time. She really did need sleep. Driving home was going to be interesting; that was for sure.
Maybe one more stop first.
Gathering up her sketchbooks and flash drive, she finished shutting down her workstation and stood. The nighttime loft was a maze of low walls and high ceilings in deep shadow. It was a perfect place for a zombie attack, if that was your idea of a good time. Theo’s imagination briefly filled the corners with crouching monsters, but it was a perfunctory nod to the darkness—it was hard to scare herself when she was so tired.
She settled her laptop bag on her hip and rattled down the loft staircase toward the elevator. There was a guard stationed next to it, and he nodded to her as she flashed her ID. She recognized him—Yuri Vladashvili, Jem’s American-raised cousin who’d sponsored his student visa. He looked tired, as the night shift usually did, but he gave her a wave anyway. She waved back. Yuri was a nice guy.
She followed the familiar path on autopilot. Left, left, down the stairs, right, and she was in Preservation.
The labs were different from the loft. Here, state-of-the-art equipment
was set against sterile, white-painted walls on tables swathed in protective plastic, making it look like a sci-fi movie set. There were two subdivisions: Preparation and Restoration. The handful of shabtis intended for the display had had their display mocked up a few days before, but they were still in Restoration and Theo could access them with a swipe of her card. She picked up the pace, eager to see if the figurines could add fuel to her spark of inspiration.
She rounded the corner and stopped short. She wasn’t alone.
For a moment, she didn’t recognize him. The man was tall and broad-shouldered, with straight black hair that came to just under his ear and a build like a career soldier. He wore heavy trousers with several pockets; a long-sleeved shirt in dull, dark gray; lightweight boots; and latex gloves. There was a duffel bag slung over his shoulder, half-filled with something bulky. And he was standing in the corridor in front of the prep lab, a lock pick in his hand.
Theo froze and the man turned. The fluorescents bleached any remaining warmth from his skin, leaving it a gray that was almost blue.
“What—”
Her hands flexed unconsciously, and her grip on her bag slipped as the lock pick fell from the man’s grasp.
“Mr. Adler?”
Before she could get out another word, Adler grabbed her. One arm looped around, pinning her to him, while the other hand came down hard over her mouth. Theo yelled and tried to bite, but he gave her a shake and Theo was cut off by her own yelp.
“Don’t say anything!” he whispered. His eyes glinted unnaturally in the low light of the corridor, and the hand over her mouth shook. “Don’t say a word, Theo!”
Wait. What? What? Theo squirmed, trying to twist free, hoping that she would get loose and make him explain himself. There had to be a reason why the controller of the Neith Trust, the dry-humored man with the sleek suit who joked about his family issues, was standing in the prep lab with lock picks. It didn’t compute. Seth Adler did not do this.
But he was. Theo looked into the dark eyes, wondering what she had been thinking. How had she not seen that he wasn’t on the level? Was she that stupid, or was he that good?
“What are you doing?” she whispered behind his hand. Adler’s shoulders hunched and he loosened his grip a little.
“I said don’t say anything,” he whispered. “There’s no time. I need your card.”
“My what?”
“Your card, your access card, the one that gets you into the labs! Where is it?”
Her ID was hanging loose on its lanyard, but the security card was different; she hid it in her wallet, tucked between her library card and a snapshot of her sister Edith’s firstborn. Its magnetic strip would get her into every secured zone in the museum, provided she was cleared in the central computer.
“It’s…” She hesitated. “I need a hand free.”
He let her right arm loose, and she reached for her wallet. Her fingers trembled as she touched the plastic card. The second that card was swiped, it would open the door—but it would also record its use in the security system. Seth Adler didn’t need to get into the lab for a good reason, and the system would know it was Theo who had let him in.
“Why?” she managed, half-afraid and half-incredulous. “Why are you doing this? What the hell do you want in there?”
“I need the mummy,” Adler said quietly. “The mummy and the shabtis. Give me the card, Theo.”
When Theo didn’t let go of the card, Adler snatched it from her fingers. Theo grabbed for it, but Adler muscled her out of the way and swiped it through the scanner.
He was distracted. Theo sucked in a deep breath and lashed out.
Her foot hit the back of his knee, and he stumbled hard, almost falling. It was enough for her—she ducked away and ran for it, her shoes clacking noisily on the waxed tile of the hallway. She heard a grunt of pain, and for a moment, her heart leaped. She had done it; she had gotten away. She could get to the security desk and call the cops on the donor who’d lost his goddamn mind—
Then a hand clamped down on her arm, and Theo lurched, biting down hard on her tongue as she was yanked back.
“Let me go!” she shouted, and Adler cursed in a language she’d never heard and covered her mouth again. Dammit dammit dammit, so close!
“Don’t even think of it,” he whispered harshly. “Theo, you have no idea how important this is. If you stop me, we’re both dead!”
She bit him hard this time and he recoiled, blood welling from the teeth marks as he pulled his hand away. She’d got him right through the gloves. Her mouth filled with the taste of latex and something sharp, almost like clay, and she spat the blood onto the floor.
“Stop it!” he hissed.
“What the hell is going on?” she said. “You’re hanging around in the museum and trying to steal a mummy! You’re a donor, for God’s sake! A trustee!” She knew she was gaping disbelievingly at him, but there was no other possible reaction. Part of the situation still wasn’t processing. “Aren’t you rich enough?”
His face contorted. “You think this is about money?”
“What else—”
“Life and death.” In one quick tug, he hauled her back toward the prep lab. The door was hanging open, and she knew that soon, the timed alarm would trip. If she could delay him for a few more seconds…
But he seemed to know that trick. He pushed her into the lab and closed the door sharply behind them, sending the dropped access card skittering across the clean white floor.
In the half-light of the dimmed lab, the world looked strange and out of balance. The dim blue glow of the lights on the machines deepened the illusion of ink as black pooled in the hollows of his face. Only his eyes picked up the highlight of cold indigo, glinting as if the ink hadn’t yet dried.
Theo could hear the soft whooshing of the cooling and dehumidifying system, pumping fresh air through the lab and filtering particles out of the atmosphere. It was like the room breathed—in, out, in, out—slow and regular, unlike the rushed, frantic creatures that intruded on it. The dim blueness barely touched the mummy in its clear plastic coffin; and as their shadows moved over it, some horrible part of Theo thought the mummy was the one breathing.
Seth broke the illusion. He snapped the light on and pulled Theo across the room, toward the mummy’s chamber. Theo clawed at the hand holding her, but her short, blunted nails caught on the latex glove.
He scooped up the access card and held it out to her. “Open it,” he ordered.
Theo balked. “Why me?”
“I need my other hand free. I know you can open it, Theo. Please.”
Theo blinked hard, trying to keep her eyes from watering, and took the card. Her fingers slipped on the plastic as she swiped it across the scanner.
Everyone knew the rules. THS203 had to be kept at a constant temperature with no moisture in the air that could possibly start the mummy’s shriveling or decaying. It was kept in a vacuum-sealed tube most of the time, but when the specialists were working on it, it would be laid out in the clear coffin. Theo had had to do a six-day course on artifact handling before being allowed in the lab to sketch. Nobody had thought someone would actually try to steal the mummy, so the code for the case was the same as the room itself.
“Oh God. Don’t touch—”
Too late. Adler unrolled a fleece blanket from his duffel bag and briskly wrapped the mummy up in it, dropping brittle flakes of ancient bandaging onto the floor as he handled it. Theo flinched and almost recoiled when Seth swung the mummy off the table.
“Here, hold this.” And with no further ado, he dumped the swaddled mummy into Theo’s arms. She staggered, almost dropping it. It was lighter than she had expected, eerily so, but the smell of old paper and ancient incense and leather…no, dried skin…assaulted her. Her stomach lurched.
Damn it to hell. He knew that she could never drop the mummy, not when all of them had been drilled over and over about how to handle the precious antiquities.
“You son o
f a bitch,” she spluttered, struggling to balance the stiff burden without breathing in its choking must. “You can’t do this!”
“I have to.” Adler yanked back the fleece covering the mummy’s head and looked it in the face, dark eyes to dark eye sockets. The mummy’s eternal lipless grin seemed almost sad now, smiling in the face of its newly uncertain fate. As Theo struggled with the stiff corpse, Adler covered its head again. Flakes of bandage and ancient hair drifted to the floor.
“Stop it!” Theo hissed, horrified. “You’re going to destroy it!”
“It’s dangerous,” Seth said. “And I’m doing what I have to do. Keep hold of it and follow me, Theo.”
“Like hell I will!” she snapped.
“Theo.” His gaze bored into her. “I need to get this done, tonight, or horrible things are going to happen. Please. I didn’t want you to be part of this, but you are now, and I have to make a decision. Bring the mummy.”
Theo blinked hard. Tears, whether of anger, frustration, or pain, might drip on the mummy. “You’re still not making sense.”
“Please bring the mummy, Theo.”
She made the mistake of taking a deep breath. The cooling system sent out a puff of fresh air, blowing the musty smell of the mummy back into her face, and she choked and almost dropped the thing. “Can’t we stop?” she managed to say, dampness beading in her eyes as she struggled to breathe. She jerked her head back to keep the tears from falling. “Stop and think for five seconds. Please. Why are you doing this?”
He didn’t answer, just rearranged his grip on his own bag, jaw set.
“You’ve spent so much time and money helping us. We talked about preserving the past—”
“And that’s what I’m doing.” He pulled on her shoulder, forcing her to move to avoid dropping poor, awful THS203. “Preserving something and preventing disaster. Not that I’ve done so well at that so far, it seems.”
Painter of the Dead (Shades of Immortality Book 1) Page 7
