It was a short walk from the lab to the artifacts restoration bay, but to Theo it felt like miles. She kept glancing up at the security cameras, wondering why the guard desk hadn’t noticed anything yet. How could they not have sounded the alarm? Seth Adler was robbing the museum, and nobody was doing anything!
Seth Adler is the Collector.
More shabtis stood where they’d been on the night of the party, lined up in neat rows. Their crumbled faces stared blankly at Theo, withholding comment or judgment. For a moment, as the shadows moved over them, their tilted smiles and blank eyes mirrored Adler’s. A powerful urge to smash the smirking statuettes overwhelmed her, edging her vision with red. She sucked in another breath and tried to focus.
Adler knew what he was there for. He bypassed racks of shining jewelry—perfectly restored, less fragile and easier to carry—and made straight for the shabtis. Burdened by the mummy, Theo couldn’t run, and she watched in helpless fury as he wrapped each shabti in a twist of cloth and dropped them into his duffel bag.
Then the phone rang.
Both of them jumped, nearly dropping everything. The yellow light blinking on the lab phone meant that it was an all-lines call, and Theo’s heart leaped. Finally!
“What’s that?” Adler whispered.
Theo swallowed.
“Security check-in,” she lied. “If no one answers, they’ll know something’s wrong.”
Adler let out a short, frustrated breath, and Theo knew he was weighing his options. Let me answer it, she silently pressed. The call would have gone out to all secured internal lines, but once the receiver was picked up, the system would pinpoint every line that answered. It was supposed to help locate lost after-hours guests or guards whose walkie-talkies weren’t working. Come on, come on.
“Answer it,” he said. “Keep it short.” Theo nodded and picked up the receiver.
“This is Theo Speer,” she said conversationally, sandwiching the receiver between her ear and shoulder so she could maintain a grip on the mummy. Her arms were beginning to ache, and she tried not to think about what would happen if she dropped or damaged the thing. “It looks like no one answered the all-call. Is everything okay?”
“No!” the voice of Mark Zimmer, security consultant par anal, came back. “Speer, what the hell’s going on? Why are you in Restoration? The system’s been on the fritz—we only got it back online a minute ago—and the alarms on that floor are screaming!”
The alarms were screaming? Maybe whatever Adler had done to the system was wearing off. Either way, it was good news for Theo. “All quiet here,” she said, trying to figure out how to warn Zimmer without the crazy thief realizing what she was up to. Pig Latin probably wouldn’t do the trick.
Said thief was uncomfortably close now. He’d pressed his head close to hers, straining to listen in on what Zimmer was saying, and Theo had no time to put the mummy between them as some kind of dehydrated chaperone. She felt the rasp of coarse skin and stubble, and the warmth of his breath on her cheek. He smelled like old leather and male sweat—salty and coppery and brassy, the smell of how new blood tastes. Theo’s cheeks flamed, and she could feel her heart skip a beat. Oh goddammit.
“Stay where you are,” Zimmer was saying. “Somebody’s definitely loose in here. I’m sending a security team up for you now, got it? Stay put.”
Adler cursed as Zimmer hung up. “This wasn’t supposed to happen,” he muttered. “I swear, Theo, this wasn’t the plan. It was supposed to be simple.”
She didn’t know what to say to that. He sounded sincere, but he was still doing—what?
“Look,” Theo said softly, trying to ignore the persistent ache in her arms. “Things could be worse. You can wait for the team with me, and we’ll tell them you snapped because of stress. You must be able to afford a really good lawyer. Or you can leave and I’ll tell them that I didn’t see your face. I wouldn’t tell—thieves aren’t allowed to patronize the museum or give grants to the art department, and we really need that Trust—”
That was evidently the wrong thing to say because Adler turned his dark gaze on her. Her heart gave another flip-flop as he let out a short, hot breath. “The art department.”
And then he said, “The air shaft,” making Theo want to groan. Never before had her eager talkativeness gone so badly wrong. The unguarded, secret air shaft, left over from its dumbwaiter days.
The mummy was yanked out of her arms and the bag of shabtis thrust into them. Adler tucked the mummy under his arm and grabbed Theo with his free hand. “Just a little farther,” he whispered. “We’re going up.”
They went up. Feet slapping on the concrete stairs, breathing harshly in the close corridors, they climbed toward the sky. As they turned on the third landing, Theo realized that he was following the same route she’d taken from the loft to prep. Was that why he had attended the donors’ party, then? To scope the place out? She felt sick and stumbled for a moment.
Adler braced her easily with one arm, balancing the mummy with the other. The muscles stood out hard under the rumpled cloth. Not a banker’s arm. How could she have missed these details when she’d met him?
She kept her ears open as they hurried along. She kept hoping to hear the clatter of the guards’ feet on the concrete, but Adler moved like the devil was at his heels, and Theo was dragged along in his wake.
The aerie was as she’d left it. Her chair was pushed out, and her disorganized office supplies cast strange, spiky shadows onto her desktop, thanks to a lamp she’d forgotten to turn off. The loft looked the same as it always did at the end of a long day, when it was her alone with her thoughts. So much for peace of mind.
Adler found the dumbwaiter shaft easily—a plain, white-metal panel, standing out sharply against the esoteric mess of posters and project blueprints that the art department layered onto its walls.
“I see it’s been painted over,” he said, twisting the latch. “Did you get special dispensation from the board to do that?”
It was such a familiar thing to say that Theo started. For a moment, he was back to his former self—the small quirk of the fluid lips and the inquisitive tilt to the head—as if he were planning to dodge work and wanted to know if she was up for it.
He watched her for a moment, the latch in hand, seemingly waiting for a response. She clutched the shabtis and said nothing.
“All right.” The humor disappeared as Theo failed to respond. He yanked hard, pulling the panel out from the wall. As he peered down the shaft, though, he recoiled. Apparently, he had forgotten the sheer, fifteen-story drop.
Theo saw his eyes dart to the old spool system, the bungee cords dangling down into the shadows of the shaft, and her stomach lurched as she realized what he was contemplating. Before now, the whole experience had had a horribly dreamlike quality. Now she knew, without asking or making a conscious decision, that someone would die.
“Don’t be crazy,” she said softly. “Please. It’s not worth it.”
He turned to her, and something in that dark stare made her shiver. Dammit dammit dammit dammit! Panic had a lot to answer for.
“It isn’t,” he said. “Not forever, anyway.”
He pulled the bag of shabtis out of her hands. Theo stumbled, instinctively grabbing for them, but Adler knew what he was doing and had them in his hands before she could tighten her grasp. He opened the bag and seized a shabti, seemingly at random, his fingers trembling as they gripped the ancient clay.
As Theo watched, he raised it to eye level. His lips parted, and she heard the softest of sighs as he breathed on the little thing.
“Don’t be crazy,” she repeated, almost without realizing it.
Seth didn’t answer.
He’d locked the door and had her key. She had to stop him. She reached for the shabti, but he dodged her hand, snake-fast. As she fought to reach something, anything, he strung the first artifact from the bungee cord and sent it sailing down the shaft.
“Give…them…back!” Theo panted
as Seth blocked her grab again. “That cable’s as old as the museum! It’ll break! You’ll die, and they’ll be destroyed!”
He grabbed her arm and Theo stamped hard on his foot. He lurched and his grip loosened. She stamped again, and he grabbed her other arm and pulled her away from the wall.
The layout crew had their own alcove with an industrial printer and a cutting table, away from the dumbwaiter panel, and Adler made use of it. He pushed Theo, and she stumbled enough for him to force her down onto her knees. Before she knew what was happening, her wrists were zip-tied around the leg of the heavy cutting table and Adler had stepped away. His face was pale and drawn, his expression unreadable.
“Theo…” He looked down at her, lips parted, seemingly trying to find words. “I didn’t mean… This wasn’t the plan. I swear.”
Theo grunted as she tried to shift the table. It wasn’t bolted down—if she could lift it, she could slide the zip tie off the table leg—
But the museum never threw out anything if it could save money by keeping it, and the cutting table was a massive metal beast with a scratchproof stone top. She got her shoulder under one end and heaved, breathing hard through clenched teeth. Pain shot through her arm and back as the edge of the table dug hard into the skin there, wrenching her downward even as her trembling legs forced her upward.
Her knees gave out and she slumped back onto the ground, sweat streaking her forehead. Adler turned his back to her and was busy at the dumbwaiter door, attaching the bag to the cable.
Something rattled on the edge of Theo’s hearing, and her heart leaped. It was a familiar sound, almost too familiar for her to recognize if the shaft opening hadn’t amplified it. It was…oh please…the rattle of the freight elevator coming up.
It was slowing. Stopping. One floor below. They had to find her before he could get away. Taking another, deeper breath, she pitched her voice as loud as she could: “Zimmer! Help! We’re up here!”
Adler swore. His hand slipped on the cords, and a dull boom echoed up the shaft as the bag banged against the side of it.
“I’ll drop it!” he said, rounding on her.
Theo met his gaze and held it.
“Not right now, you won’t,” she rasped. “You want them too much. Zimmer! Help!”
He hissed in wordless frustration as he hauled on the cords. More clangs and clatters echoed up the shaft. Theo froze, tensing at the sound, her heart breaking for the dead man and the little figures in the bag.
Adler took the pause to finish feeding the last of the rope through the spool. It unwound and spiraled down out of sight.
Theo tried to yell again, but Adler moved first. He crouched down in front of her and clamped his hand over her mouth, pressing the back of her head into the side of the table. She snarled and tried to bite him again, but he’d learned his lesson and kept his fingers out of range of her teeth.
“Please,” he said softly. “Try to believe me. I have a good reason.”
He smelled like leather and dusty old cloth. This close, she could see the subtler details in his face—the small folds in the corners of his eyes and mouth, the deep color of his irises, the smattering of graying stubble across his jaw. The skin lay close over the tendons and muscles of his neck, and Theo’s brain automatically threw out a note from her anatomy studies: Dehydration sharpens features. His lips were dry and cracked.
For a moment, she searched his face, looking for signs of the Seth Adler she’d met before. He looked like a man with a terminal illness, his expression drawn and horribly sad. No, not sad: resigned. Theo cataloged the face as she always did, checking off the shape of his features and the set of his mouth, and part of her brain stirred and said, He’s serious.
“Then let me go,” she said against his hand, her voice hoarse. “Please. Give it back and things can go back to the way they used to be.”
“I can’t. I’m sorry.” His hand went to the back of Theo’s head, winding into the tousled blonde hair. His gaze was fixed on hers, his expression begging her to understand. “Theo, I was going to…I wanted to talk to you. It was going to be different.” His thumb traced the shell of her ear, skating lightly over the skin. “I was going to be someone different.” He cradled her, breath warm against her face. “I swear.”
“You didn’t have to be someone different,” she said. “I liked the one I already knew.”
His lips parted. Those eyes—God, she felt like she was watching something being destroyed. A sculpture smashed. He was so close to her.
Then the elevator rattled, and Theo came to her senses. She recoiled from him. His face twisted, and he fell back and climbed to his feet.
“I told you,” he said. “No choice now.” There was color in his face, and his breath was coming hard and fast.
Theo’s world spun, and she felt like she was about to fall off the edge into space. What the hell happened?
Before she could summon up any words, Seth stumbled to his feet and shucked his jacket. He bundled it up and dropped it down the shaft, his hands trembling. Then he moved to Aki’s cubicle.
Her friend’s desk was littered with painting supplies, and Seth flicked through the jars and tubes with a grim sureness. He hesitated a split second before seizing a large square bottle full of clear liquid.
“Don’t,” Theo managed to say. “Please.”
He didn’t look at her. His face was pale, but he uncapped the bottle and drank it down.
Part of being an artist was knowing how to use the tools correctly. What to do, what not to do, what could mix, what was dangerous. Theo had been called unimaginative and stupid, but she was nothing if not methodical in her work. The man who’d robbed her had just drunk the most toxic paint thinner they had.
He gasped out a short breath that cut off abruptly. Blood appeared on his mouth, staining his teeth an incongruous pink. He tried to keep standing, instinctively fighting, but the stuff was made to do its work well and Theo knew that it was already too late.
A ragged scream tore out of her as Seth Adler fell to his hands and knees. The blood was coming faster now. Theo could hear the voice of her freshman biology teacher: Soft tissues aid in the absorption of chemical solutions, ensuring the substance’s complete distribution throughout the body. She yanked on the zip tie, knowing she had to get free, had to do something! Tears streamed down her face as she watched him kill himself.
Dust drifted from the hand clutched at his throat. He was incredibly dusty now, his clothes coated with fine, gray-brown particles like the samples the field researchers brought back from the Theban tombs. Blood trickled from between his lips, moving slowly as it soaked up the powder.
The dust poured from Seth now. It coated his body, turning his black clothes ash-gray and his skin the color of granite. He shuddered as his muscles clenched, and the grayness fell from his twitching fingers and left trails in the air.
And then there was nothing but the dust, and Theo couldn’t restrain another scream as Seth Adler’s dying body collapsed in on itself.
Hair, skin, and bones vanished into the cloud that filled the air. It spread and stained everything it touched, leaving streaks on the floor. In seconds, there was nothing left but a pile of clothes on the floor.
Theo tried to breathe, and her lungs rebelled. Her throat seized as the dust coated her. She coughed and spat, coughed and spat, tears becoming mud as they trickled down and mixed with the clay powder on her cheeks. She crouched there in the center of the loft, unable to wipe the dirty tears away, unable to breathe, unable to yell or curse or do anything but reach desperately for air that wouldn’t come.
“Theo!” someone called. Theo tried to respond, but the dust seemed to be everywhere. She wept and choked and fought to speak.
“Theo!” Yuri Vladashvili was kneeling next to her. Theo blinked through the burning tears, trying to place him. Yes, Yuri. Jem’s cousin, the one who mocked him mercilessly for his stilted English, while Jem repaid the favor by teasing the American-raised Yuri about his a
wful Russian. Yuri, who liked CSI: Miami and had a habit of eating Circus Peanuts on shift.
Yuri, who waved at her when she was clocking out for the night. Yuri, who was normal.
“Yu—” The name was cut off by a violent spasm of coughing.
Other security guards streamed past him, Maglites and batons at the ready. She thought she recognized Mark Zimmer—did that man ever sleep?—but she was gasping for air, and the thought was driven out of her head.
Yuri cut the zip tie around her wrists and caught her as she pitched forward. The rough plastic had rubbed her forearms raw, and blood beaded on the surface of her skin.
More guards were filling the loft, choking as they inhaled the strange dust. One of them, his hand over his mouth, had found the dumbwaiter. His shout sent the others scurrying over, shining flashlights down the shaft. “Nothing,” one of them said, grim-faced.
“What about the mummy?” Theo demanded. She tried to stand up, but her knees were cramped and weak, and she almost collapsed onto Yuri. His breath smelled like Circus Peanuts.
“Haven’t found it,” he said, patting her back helplessly as she had another coughing fit. Another of the men shook his head and moved away from the shaft.
She swallowed another cough. Her voice was gravelly and hoarse, but at least she could breathe. “But it should be down there. At the bottom. I saw him drop it!”
“Who?” a voice said sharply. Mark Zimmer came up on her other side, taking her weight off Yuri’s arm and helping her sit down on the workbench. His motions were solicitous, but there was an urgency to his tone. “Who, Theo?”
“Seth. Seth Adler—the Neith Trust guy.” Theo breathed in deeply again and tried to ignore the expression of disbelief on Zimmer’s face. “He grabbed me and took my pass card. Made me help him carry the mummy and the shabtis. He dropped them down the shaft, and…” Turned into dust? “I don’t…I don’t know. He must have drugged me.”
“You look drugged. Hell, you look half-dead.” Zimmer was pale, and there was a hard twist to his mouth. The dust matted his red hair, turning it almost tan. “Is he still in the building? Did he say where he was going?”
Painter of the Dead (Shades of Immortality Book 1) Page 8
