Painter of the Dead (Shades of Immortality Book 1)

by Catherine Butzen

  The outcome was never in doubt. Seconds later, the intercom buzzed and the door unlocked. She slipped through sideways and Seth followed her, looking reluctant. This, after all, wasn’t his turf.

  The trip up to Aki’s floor was silent, and neither of them looked at the other. Seth peeled off his gloves and made a show of reading the Maximum Occupancy sign and fire hazard warnings posted in the elevator. When they reached the right floor, they exited and Theo motioned him out of sight before knocking on Aki’s door.

  The door wrenched open to reveal a wild-eyed, disheveled Aki in sweatpants and a Rhode Island School of Design T-shirt with an unmentionable mascot. “What the fuck?” he whispered as loudly as he could. “Where have you been? What are you doing here? I had cops coming by an hour ago, asking me if you were on drugs! What’s going on?”

  “It’s a long story,” Theo managed to say. “Can I come in?”

  “Yeah, yeah, of course.” He stepped aside. “I’ll make coffee. You obviously need it.”

  “Not only me,” she said. “I brought a friend.”

  Seth stepped around the corner and met Aki’s stare. “Hello,” he said calmly. Aki flinched, his jaw clenching as he stared at Seth. Then, to Theo’s surprise, he moved back and motioned for them both to enter.

  The door had barely locked behind them before he pounced. Seth had half a second to raise his hands when Aki slammed into him like a deranged linebacker and knocked him to the floor. Skull met floorboard with a sickening thud.

  Aki landed on top and grabbed Seth in a choke hold. Seth broke it easily and tried to roll Aki off him, but the angle was awkward and Theo could see fresh blood, already browning into clay, spotting the floor where his head had struck. Aki jammed both thumbs into the hollow of Seth’s throat, cutting off his air.

  “Stop it!” Theo shouted. “Stop it, both of you!”

  “Are you kidding?” Aki grunted. Seth grabbed Aki’s arm in a bone-breaking grip, and the smaller man’s face went white. He dug his knee into Seth’s stomach, drawing a short, sharp gasp of pain from him but not enough to break the other man’s hold. “This guy—Ow! Motherfucker!”

  Theo had never seen a rolling ball of flailing cartoon limbs in real life before, but it was obvious that they were about to turn into one. Seth was stronger and had lifetimes of experience, but Aki was scrappy and incredibly angry, and the two of them were pummeling each other relentlessly. In seconds Aki’s mouth was bleeding and Seth’s hand sported a brand-new bite mark. Neither paid attention to a word Theo said.

  “Goddammit!” Theo yelled. Grabbing a half-empty pot of cold coffee off the table, she threw it over both of them. It brought them up short.

  “Fuck,” Aki said, shaking droplets out of his hair. “That’s disgusting.”

  “Will you listen to me now?” she demanded. “Or can you at least leave the dick-waving contest for later? Aki, I know, I should have mentioned I had him with me. But there were reasons. Something huge is going on here, Aki, and it’s made a giant mess. You have to trust me. Please.”

  There was a moment of hesitation on Aki’s face, but it was a fraction of what Seth’s had been. Theo and Aki had known each other a long time, and Theo had always been the calm, stable one, the Hobbit to Aki’s Dwarf. She didn’t cheat, steal, or break the law, and she definitely didn’t lie to her friends.

  “Son of a bitch,” Aki said, but he let Seth up. The two men were still glaring at each other, and both had fresh bruises forming.

  “We’re not going to be here long, Aki,” Theo said quickly, forcing their attention back to her and breaking the stare-down. “But we need to find out what’s going on, preferably without getting arrested. The cops came to Seth’s place this morning, and I don’t know why. Have you heard anything?”

  Aki turned, scowling. “Have I heard anything? I heard them saying you helped this asshole rip off a bunch of Egyptian artifacts from the museum last night! Jewelry, a couple of statuettes, that kind of thing. They found your prints at the scene.”

  Theo’s stomach gave a lurch at Aki’s words. For a moment, his face was distant and unreadable. “Aki, you don’t think I—?”

  “Hell no. Anybody who’s heard your riff knows the museum’s your life. You wouldn’t.” Aki didn’t look at Seth, but there was venom in his voice. “Him, on the other hand…?”

  “Jewelry and statuettes.” Seth snorted at the thought as he wiped cold coffee off his parka. “I’ve been supporting the art department and networking artifact purchases for years. If I wanted antiquities, I’d buy them, not break in.”

  “I’ve seen rich people do way crazier things than pull a heist.” Aki crossed his arms. “My mom put me through school making chicken-wire cages for millionaires who liked wearable sculpture instead of clothes. Anyway, it was Theo”—he turned his skeptical eye on Theo, who frowned back at him—“who fingered you when the mummy and the shabtis were ganked. The police were saying you might’ve been working with a couple of professional art thieves, or maybe pulling an insurance scam.”

  Seth’s face froze, his expression remote and statue-like. “That’s not—” he began, his voice brittle.

  “It’s a very long story,” Theo broke in. Aki was open-minded, but he likely wouldn’t be too happy with an explanation involving the truth. After all, even if he didn’t believe the mummy business, Theo would still be confirming for him that Seth had stolen from the Columbian. “Aki. Please. You know I wouldn’t be here if things weren’t desperate. Just, please, trust me and Seth for a little bit, and let us lie low here for a few hours. Okay?”

  There was another frozen moment of silence, and Theo’s heart dropped. Finally, though, Aki gave a short, curt nod, and the two men took a couple of steps away from each other. Theo let out a soft breath and slumped a little, settling onto the arm of the sofa.

  “All right,” Aki said sharply. He straightened his back and crossed his arms, the picture of alertness and immovable rigor. “But not for long. I’m technically hiding criminal suspects, and you know they’ll come talk to me again. Being your friend and all. What the hell’s going on?”

  “We were framed,” Seth said bluntly. “That’s the explanation. The stolen artifacts were from the Middle Kingdom exhibit, weren’t they?”

  “Yeah. Shabtis, mostly.”

  “So someone who wanted them earlier was taking advantage of Theo’s accusation. While she and I were out of the way, the remainder of the cache could be burgled. Her prints would be easy to find; she’s left them all over the museum. Our someone would know that.”

  Aki’s brow furrowed. “Someone like who?”

  “We don’t know,” Theo said, aiming the words at Seth. He stared back, immovable. On the train she’d spilled the story of Zimmer and the panic button, but she hadn’t been able to back it up by calling the man himself. She’d left her phone in Seth’s apartment, and on her advice, Seth wasn’t using his. He’d ditched it in a trash can in Chinatown.

  Aki wasn’t buying it either. A spasm passed over his features as he visibly weighed his options. He could believe his friend’s bizarre story and risk becoming an accessory to grand larceny, or kick her out and risk the possibility that she might be telling the truth.

  The spasm passed, and he nodded once. “Okay,” he said. “One night, okay? One night only. When I said I like to live life on the edge, I meant more like the extreme rock-climbing, flaming JELL-O shots kind of edge. It’s mostly fun when you’re not actually doing anything illegal.”

  “Well, at least we never did anything illegal,” Theo said. She leaned her head back and closed her eyes, trying to organize her racing thoughts.

  “Speak for yourself,” Seth murmured. Aki made a warning noise, something like an angry cat, and Seth turned on his heel and walked away. Theo heard the balcony door slam, and opened her eyes reluctantly.

  “Aki?”

  “Yeah?”

  “You’ve never gone rock-climbing.”

  Her friend laughed. “The elevator here b
reaks down three times a week. Same thing.”

  She wondered if Seth could really deal with someone like Aki. Easygoing, wry without being bitter, matter-of-fact about his own strengths and weaknesses. Unassuming. Someone who could be that way because he’d never really been in any kind of danger or feared for his life. In that, Theo and Aki were a lot closer than Theo and Seth.

  But she’d kissed Seth and watched him die. Now he was here because he was following her suggestions, trusting the advice of an amateur solely on the basis of their connection and her familiarity with the modern world. Seth trusted her enough to change his plans. That meant something.

  Her tired body was reluctant to move, and it took a real effort to get herself off Aki’s comfortable couch. “I’ll be back in a few minutes, okay?” she said as she stood. She felt Aki’s eyes on her back as she went out onto the balcony and tried not to wonder what her friend was thinking.

  The balcony door was glass, but Aki had draped a printed Indian blanket over a curtain rod to keep anyone from looking in or out. Brushing the blanket aside, Theo stepped into the night.

  The cheap parka didn’t fit Seth, but he was wearing it anyway. His scarf was a band of white that seemed to cut off his head from the dark-clothed body. He had his gloves back on, and the slick black leather was the one part of it that suited him. In the orange-purple light of the city he was a statue again, like the black-glazed Anubis that guarded so many tombs. Silent and watchful. He leaned on the balcony railing and watched the city lights, and Theo watched him.

  “I hate this,” he said after a long moment. “I hate winters here. Nothing ever gets warm.”

  Theo moved over to the railing. “I’ll bet,” she said. “This winter’s worse than usual, though.”

  “Can’t be more than zero out.”

  “Been that way for a while. It’s a bad time of year for this kind of thing.”

  That got a bit of a rueful smile from Seth. “Running?”

  “Yeah.” Theo huddled into her coat. “It’s probably harder on you, though. You kept the charade up for a century, and it’s been spoiled.”

  “I’m sorry.” The words came out awkwardly—not insincere, but unaccustomed to being used. Theo guessed that Seth didn’t have a lot of people who might warrant such a thing. “I’m sorry you were dragged into this. None of it was supposed to happen this way.” He swallowed. “I didn’t know you were working that late. You weren’t meant to be involved.”

  “I know.” Theo turned to him, meeting his eyes. “If I hadn’t gone down to say goodbye to the shabtis, I wouldn’t have seen you.”

  “Or if I hadn’t been seated at your table at the party, I wouldn’t have recognized you.” Seth shook his head.

  That brought her up short. “Recognized me?” she repeated. “That was the first time we met. Wasn’t it?”

  “Not exactly.” Seth shook his head. One gloved hand lightly touched a fading scar on the ball of her thumb. “You cut your hand in the prep lab months ago. Someone dropped a jar, and you were helping to clean it up. That was the first time I saw you.”

  “But there were only a couple of people in the lab that day. You couldn’t have been there. How did you—” She stopped. There had been eyes watching her, but not human ones. “The shabtis are conscious?”

  Seth shook his head. “No, not really. But magic—my kind…really, the priest’s kind—is bound up with names and images. You spent so much time there, talking to them as if they were real. It had to make an impression.”

  “Images and names,” she said softly. “The essence of a real thing.”

  “So Kemet believed.” His free hand was idly tracing lines in the snow on the railing. She thought she saw an ankh, but he wiped it away before she could be sure. “And, well, the shabtis are images made to become real things. So treating them like the thing they were made to represent and become… It gets a little tangled. I’m not explaining this very well, I know. I was never the priest. I could barely read or write. This was my brother’s job, or my scribe’s.”

  Theo’s face reddened. She definitely remembered talking to the shabtis reassuring them about the exhibition, joking with them, telling them they were handsome. The statuettes had been in storage for a long time, after all. The exhibition would’ve been the shabtis’ first chance to be presented to the public. Talking to the little guys had felt natural.

  Once, for the heck of it, she’d planted a kiss on the cabinet. Why not? She was always good at entertaining herself when she was alone, but she didn’t know if they had the same skill. It must not be fun to be stuck in a glass box. But they’d been stolen again.…

  Seth stiffened as Theo put an arm around him, and he looked down at her in surprise. With their differences in height, she couldn’t comfortably drape the arm across his shoulders, but the waist did almost as well.

  After a moment’s hesitation, he pulled her closer. Theo let out a quiet sigh and relaxed into his arms, doing her best to share her warmth. A shiver ran through Seth, and for a moment, she thought she heard his breath hitch in his throat. He lowered his head, resting his chin on her hair.

  “Too cold,” he said after a long moment. His voice was deep and hoarse. “Next winter, I’ll take you to Egypt. The weather’s sane there. None of this fucking snow. I can show you where Itj-Tawy was, and my burial site.”

  “We can’t,” Theo murmured. “Nobody’s supposed to go there right now. Politics and all.”

  “To hell with politics. I have more of a right to see Kemet again than anyone else. If you want to go, I’ll take you.”

  Theo took in a slow breath. He means it, she thought.

  It was too soon for this kind of thing. They were fugitives, caught in a mess that she couldn’t begin to figure out. Common sense banged her over the head again, telling her she was being an idiot, she was leading him on, she was going to get herself killed over someone she barely knew. But she had grasped at something, some elusive quality of motion in life that had been lacking before in hers, and she couldn’t blot out this picture now.

  “We’ll figure something out,” she said.

  They stood like that for a long time, sharing their warmth and looking out on the lights of the frozen city, until a shout from Aki shattered their reverie.

  “Theo, you have to see this! There’s more about the robbery o—” He stopped at the balcony door, seeing the two of them together. His eyebrows shot up, but he didn’t comment, which Theo was grateful for. She was too wrung out to argue with him.

  “They’re running the story again,” Aki said, leaning against the half-open glass door. “I thought you’d want to see it. It’s pretty crazy stuff.”

  That was an understatement. The museum robbery was a nice, dramatic story without uncomfortable political or religious angles, and the TV news channels were eating it up. Theo’s odd behavior during the first theft was dragged out, this time with a Mata Hari twist: What had she really seen? Was she in on it? Seth was officially wanted for the robbery, with Theo suspected of being an accessory to grand larceny, but both of them were being sought by the police.

  Theo groaned and sat down hard on the couch, letting her head flop back in exhaustion.

  Seth, on the other hand, was firing questions at Aki. Did other broadcasts mention anyone finding the mummy? (No.) Did Aki know of anyone else who might believe Theo’s innocence? (Yes, a few.) Had there been word about Seth’s accounts? (No, but they wouldn’t exactly reveal that on TV.) Finally, Aki snapped at him, which made Seth frosty.

  Theo’s growing headache wasn’t thanking either of them.

  “But why would this happen?” she said for what felt like the millionth time. “By themselves, the shabtis aren’t very valuable. It’s easier and cheaper to make fakes!”

  “Maybe it’s the Collector?” Aki suggested, leaning forward. He had territorially claimed the spot on the couch next to Theo, leaving Seth to the love seat. Few men can sit regally in a cushiony armchair with a blatantly hostile ’70s patter
n, but Seth somehow managed it. His mask was back in place, and to sprawl like a normal person would have been acknowledging weakness in front of a non-ally.

  “Maybe,” Theo acknowledged. “He does target Egyptian and Eastern collections in general. But why?”

  “I dunno. Let’s ask him.” This with a glare at Seth.

  “I,” Seth said slowly, “am not the Collector. If I merely wanted shabtis, I would have bought them.”

  “Which doesn’t explain why you stole ours weeks ago,” Aki said. “Theo, why are you hanging around with this asshole, anyway?”

  She let her head flop into her hands. “It’s complicated.”

  Seth looked at her now, his expression tense. Her heart thumped hard in her chest as she weighed her options, much as Aki had done less than an hour before. She could tell the truth to Aki, who deserved to know what he was getting into. Or she could protect Seth’s secret, which had to be one of the biggest discoveries in the history of the human race.

  “He’s being blackmailed,” she said finally. The words felt like they were being dragged out of her. “He’s been receiving anonymous threats. People breaking into his home, forcing him to help them rob the museum. He thinks the Collector is actually someone who works in the museum business and wants a scapegoat—”

  “Zimmer,” Seth cut in. That got both Aki’s and Theo’s attention. His face was grim and lined: the thought seemed to have aged him, bringing back a few of the years he’d been cheating. “Mark Zimmer sent her to talk to me yesterday. He gave her a panic button but it didn’t work, and when she tried to call him for an explanation, there was nothing. I’d bet good money Mark Zimmer is involved in this.”

  “Aren’t your accounts probably frozen?” Aki pointed out.

  Seth glared. “Do you have an actual objection to the idea?”

  “Yeah. It’s stupid.” Aki crossed his arms and matched Seth glare for glare. “Why would Zimmer steal anything? Theo already said the stuff’s pretty much worthless unless you’re really plugged into the black market. It’s not like there’s a big demand for dead guys and little clay dudes.”