The God Collector Read online

  “Sure you have,” she said. “I notice we’re not speaking Kemetic.”

  He gave a wry smile at her teasing tone. “Learning a new language isn’t that hard when you don’t have any alternatives. And given that I’ve been speaking English for about three hundred years, I’d like to flatter myself that it’s pretty good.”

  “Really?” She drew back her hand and circled around to the next case. There was another piece of folded cloth there, a little less ragged than the Hospitaller tunic and dyed what must have once been a beautiful shade of red. She leaned over the case, propping herself against it and letting her back settle into a deeper curve. Her breasts, modest but peaked in the cool air of the room, rested against the chilly glass.

  Seth’s dark gaze followed her every move, but this time he didn’t move with her. He just stayed there, tracking her with his eyes—hungrily, she thought, with a hint of caution. He knew a game was being played, but he didn’t know where he stood.

  “Really,” he said. “It was a difficult change. But learning English isn’t much, next to building a house or manning a ballista. I’ve always managed well.” He reached across the space for her hand again, but Theo slipped around the case and turned to the rack of spears and polearms instead.

  She ran one forefinger over the dull edge of a halberd’s blade, hyperaware of Seth’s piercing stare at her back. “Well, you’d have to,” she said softly. “You’re not supposed to be here.”

  He was still by the last case, his hands resting on it. The dim light touched only the edges of his fingers and palm, leaving the rest as dark claws against the glass. “Am I not,” he said, his voice hoarse.

  “You aren’t.” She traced patterns in the dust with the tip of one finger, moving slowly, almost idly. Her words were light and calm. She had him, she knew, in the palm of her hand. “You should be dead. But here you are, Seth Adler, the financial superstar, in your nice suit, surrounded by relics of all those centuries in between. You shouldn’t be here, but you are. Somehow. And you can’t tell me that’s been easy.”

  “Maybe not.” Seth stretched out his hand and brushed his fingertip over the dusty halberd. He was closer to her now, his skin only inches from hers, his eyes glints in his shadowed face.

  Her mouth was suddenly dry, but she forced herself to focus. “And if it isn’t easy,” she said, “and I ask about it—please, Seth, tell me the truth.” She wiped away the pattern with a sweep of her thumb. “You don’t have to lie to me. I can’t use your words against you. I just need…I need to know, sometimes.”

  Seth’s gaze darted over her, his mouth twisted into a tight line. Then, with an almost inaudible sigh, the tension in his body began to drain away. His hand dropped from the blade and came to rest on her shoulder, gently stroking the ball of his thumb over the taut line of her collarbone. The warmth and closeness of him, against the coldness of the room, drew her like a nail to a magnet.

  The kiss was deeper, harsher than before. She drank it in and fought for more, her hands curling into the fabric of his shirt, her body pressed against his. There was a hitch in his breath as her legs parted slightly, and he pulled her closer, stroking one hand over the curve of her hip and thigh. “Di djed nebet,” he murmured into her ear, his voice somewhere between a laugh and a sob.

  Djed. She knew that word. She pressed her lips against the corner of his mouth, feathering kisses there, as his grip on her tightened. He whispered the words over and over again, like a prayer, and she wrapped herself into him and held him as he prayed.

  “Hey,” she said quietly. “Look at me, Anhurmose.”

  He shifted, but never got a chance to look at her. A shrill buzzer cut through the cold room, and a bright-blue light winked on at the end of the hall, making Seth jump and pull away.

  “Hell!” he muttered. “The elevator.”

  Theo’s back stiffened, and she instinctively yanked down on the hem of her shirt. It was like a shot of cold common sense straight to the back of the neck—someone else was possibly about to enter the equation, and there she was, pantsless in a man’s art gallery. Not a phrase or a position she’d ever anticipated, and not one she was prepared for.

  What are you thinking? she shouted silently at herself as she ran for the stairs. Seth was moving over to the elevator control panel on the wall and frowning, but she still didn’t have any pants on, and that was the thing that concerned her the most.

  She had reached the bedroom and was scrambling into her jeans when the intercom flicked on.

  “Police!” a voice buzzed. “We have a warrant to search these premises.”

  Theo froze. For a moment the world seemed to spin off its axis, making her stumble as she fought to rearrange it into some form of sense. She sat down hard on the bed, still tangled in her own jeans, as the voice repeated its demand.

  He must’ve had the whole place wired with the intercom speakers, she thought vaguely. Wanted to know who was coming to visit. Smart man.

  What were the police—? Why—? Oh no. Was this because of her? Had they finally decided to take her testimony seriously?

  The thought galvanized her. Sprawling across the bed, still half-dressed, Theo grabbed for her bag and fumbled through it. Receipts, ChapStick and allergy medicine went spilling across the carpet before she finally found the panic button. With a prayer, she mashed down on it.

  One moment. Two. Heart-stopping silence, nothing but the buzz of the intercom and some distant banging noises from the elevator shaft. It didn’t seem that Seth was letting them in, but that wouldn’t last long. There were fire stairs, but could they be locked? Could he control that too? No Loop skyscraper was built to withstand a police siege…

  She pressed the panic button again, and again, but nothing happened. Cursing, she dropped it and fumbled with her bag, trying to finish pulling her pants on and grab her cell phone at the same time. Outside, the shouting went on.

  “Come on come on come on…” she whispered as she dialed his number. It rang—her heart leaped—

  Voice mail. Her stomach dropped.

  The knocking came again, louder. A voice called out something she couldn’t quite hear. The bedroom door opened.

  Theo spun, phone still in her hand. Seth was standing in the bedroom doorway, pale and drawn. He was fully dressed already, and held a pair of gloves and a scarf in one hand.

  “We have to go,” he whispered. “Come on. I have a way out.”

  “Wait!” she said. “There has to be some kind of mistake. I thought they weren’t going to investigate what I said!”

  “Clearly there’s been some new evidence,” Seth said tightly. As distant bangs echoed through the elevator shaft, he led her back into the gallery and over to one of the racks of polearms. He seized one of the grips and twisted. There was a grinding click, and a section of the wall swung out. Lights flickered on, illuminating bare cinder-block walls and a steep concrete staircase.

  Seth’s expression was pained and grim as the secret door opened. “I can’t get caught, Theo. Not at this stage.”

  For a moment, she considered telling him to go. She’d stay, right? She hadn’t done anything wrong.

  Except being caught in the apartment of a man she’d previously accused, during the middle of a police raid, while the man himself apparently vanished into thin air. No matter which way you spun it, that didn’t look good. Her one lifeline wasn’t picking up his goddamned phone. And Seth, with his knowledge and warm hands and desperate murmurs in her ear, was poised at the edge of a precipice. His eyes begged her to make a choice.

  Grab the motion, Theo.

  The staircase smelled like stale air and paint. She grabbed his arm and pulled him through the secret doorway. As it clicked closed behind them, the pounding feet and yells were abruptly muffled. Only their breathing echoed in their ears, harsh in the small space.

  It was clearly meant as a secret escap
e route, nothing more than that. There was only one single fluorescent light on each landing. It felt closed in, like an old gallery; nobody had been here in there years. There wasn’t even any dust.

  After four flights, the stair ended abruptly at another small door. Theo flattened herself against the wall, heart pounding, as Seth fumbled with the lock. The door clicked open with well-oiled silence, and the two of them hurried through. Now they were in a white-painted hallway, only a little less bare than the one they’d left, with a janitor’s closet ahead of them. Theo knew a maintenance hall when she saw one.

  No time and no words. Seth had clearly been afraid something like this would happen, and he’d set up an escape route for himself, but he only owned the top floors. Their Batman exit ended there. Fire stairs now.

  Twenty floors, forty flights, forty turns. They moved in silence, their feet thudding on the painted cement steps. High above, the police might have already broken in. They would be ransacking the place, looking for him. Finding the artifacts, finding the painting, finding evidence that he had been there minutes before. Finding the receipts and pills that she’d dropped.

  Theo’s throat seemed to close, and she stumbled on the last step, almost crashing into the wall. Her heart was banging so hard it felt like it would crack her ribs, and black spots danced in front of her eyes.

  “Theo,” Seth whispered, his voice hoarse and harsh in the confined space. “Theo, djed—” His hand touched her back, one broad thumb stroking a line down the center of her spine.

  Djed. The word he’d said before, in the trophy room. It had tickled her brain, but with his hand on her now, neurons sparked and made the connection. Djed: one of the hieroglyphs in the tomb art, one of the many she’d memorized and reproduced again and again. Djed, backbone. Djed, strength.

  The moment of thought yanked her out of the worst of the crush. Breathing deeply, she rested her hands against the wall, forcing herself to focus. Get to the bottom of the stairs. Get out. Call Zimmer and find out what the hell was going on. Don’t panic. Djed.

  “Djed,” she repeated, pushing off from the wall. “I hope so. Let’s go.”

  She seemed to think it was a command, or maybe a spell. Was it? He wasn’t sure. Things were moving too fast for him.

  They hit the bottom of the stairs moments later, Theo catching her breath, him silent. High above them, the police would be turning his home of ninety-seven years upside down. If they thought to check everything, even the furniture, he could be dead sooner rather than later—but for now, they had to keep moving. A free Seth Adler could eventually find his shabtis and disappear. One in custody couldn’t.

  He pulled Theo into the building’s first-floor health spa. One of the lockers in the men’s room was always closed; no key had ever been cut, and he didn’t need one. A twist of his fingers popped the lock out.

  It was small, as his caches went. A duffel bag on the floor of the locker contained two thousand dollars in cash, a phony ID and a hooded parka for a quick change of appearance. After a moment’s deliberation, though, he tossed the jacket to Theo. As much as he hated the snow, he wasn’t the one who’d get frostbite.

  She accepted the jacket wordlessly. Something about her seemed to have shifted, but he wasn’t sure what. She was numb, maybe, but not lost. Had he made a good choice, offering her the chance to come along?

  Of course, he told himself. The police might learn things from her about me. Keeping her close keeps me safe.

  Djed, though. The word had sprung to his lips of its own accord. The phrase he’d spoken in the penthouse above had ritual meaning, not just as a sentence but as a form of invocation, and he didn’t even know why he’d said it. If the gods were watching, something like that was unlikely to be a coincidence. And the thought that the gods might be moving him to do anything—good or bad—at this moment was much more terrifying than the prospect of losing his new life.

  “Where now?” she whispered as they reached the security door. “What’s the plan?”

  He didn’t reply, just thrust the door open, and the two of them tumbled out into a fresh snowbank. It was a service alley, but the new snowfall had covered over the garbage and Dumpsters with a clean white powder that showed clear footprints. Seth stamped back and forth, muddling the tracks as best he could.

  When she realized what he was doing, Theo lifted the lid of the Dumpster. She hauled out two bags of garbage and tore them open, spreading the old newspapers and food scraps everywhere. In seconds, the clean white blanket of snow was obliterated and all tracks destroyed.

  Despite his adrenaline and creeping fear, Seth felt a prickle of admiration. It had been a long, long time since he had been running from anything in deep winter. He nodded to her, unsure of how exactly to phrase what was going through his mind, but Theo didn’t seem to need a response. Her shoulders hunched a little as she faced into the wind, and her face was blank.

  The service alley was clear, but several squad cars were parked at the front of the building. In seconds, Seth and Theo were just two more commuters in the endless whirl of the Loop.

  They were far enough from the Magnificent Mile that there wasn’t any real shopping traffic. Instead, the people all around them were tourists and workers, bundled up for the quick rush between buildings or from their job to the subway. Starbucks was doing brisk business, and commuters at bus shelters huddled over steaming cups of designer java. If anyone looked their way, they would assume that the two of them were taking a quick jaunt across the street for a drink or a meal. Seth wasn’t wearing a coat? So what? He was probably trying to be macho or had just left his coat in the office.

  Nobody who lived or worked in downtown Chicago would pay attention to them anyway. The eleventh commandment of city life: Thou shalt not make eye contact, or thou mayest be asked for money.

  Theo didn’t say anything until they were six blocks away from the building. Seth silently offered her his arm, giving him a chance to pull her a little closer and murmur in her ear.

  “The first twelve hours are the most important if I want to get out of the country. I have to reach my caches, and then the airport—”

  He paused as Theo stiffened a little. “I don’t know if I can take you with me, but I can try. If you want to.”

  “What? No. The airport’s a bad idea.” Seth stopped for a moment, surprised. “They’ll be expecting that,” she added, tugging him into motion again. “Unless cop shows have lied to me, your assets are going to get frozen once they declare you AWOL, and maybe mine too. You won’t be able to buy a ticket or charter a plane.”

  “I’ve done this before. Trust me.”

  “Since September 11th? Since you were a suspect in a major robbery, complete with police breaking down your door?” Theo rested her arm against his shoulder, making it look like she was just cuddling up to her boyfriend. “I hate to be cliché, Seth,” she continued in a near whisper, keeping her expression calm, “but this is bad. How often have you been raided?”

  “Not in at least one hundred years. The Adler family is law-abiding. Listen, I know what I’m doing. You can come with me if you need to—I’m sure they’re checking on you as well.”

  “It’s not that, Seth,” she said calmly, only a faint hint of strain in her voice. “This isn’t about me. All right? You can’t just rabbit.”

  “Why not?” he said.

  She tensed against him. Only minutes ago she had been soft and warm to the touch. Now she felt almost as cold as the city, and her muscles were tight under her skin.

  “Because someone set us up,” she whispered. “Leaving the country isn’t going to solve that! We need to figure out what’s going on, and why those people came to your house.”

  Seth tightened his scarf, more for something to do with his hands than anything else. Who cared why the police had come? People acted irrationally, and that was one of the few things that never changed over ce
nturies or continents. “Take it from someone who’s been around a long, long time, Theo,” he said. “It’s better to get out while you have the chance. The hysteria usually dies down in thirty years.”

  “That’s your tactic? Wait for everyone else to die or give up?” The idea seemed to horrify her, though she was keeping her tone level.

  “Is that a problem?” he said tightly.

  “In this century, it is,” she responded. A gust of wind raked over them, carrying the smell of smoke and dirty snow, and she shivered violently against his arm. “People have a lot tougher time vanishing off the grid now. How much harder do you think it’ll get in twenty or thirty years? If this doesn’t get fixed now, someone’s going to jail. And not all of us have a few decades to waste.”

  For a moment, anger flared. He had seen, done and endured more than she ever had or ever would, and now she was telling him what to do. Never mind art or magic—this was his business, and for centuries he had run and survived to run again. She couldn’t understand what was at stake here.

  But djed, he’d said. Djed meant more than just stability. It was backbone, order, ma’at against the unholy chaos of isfet. Strength. Perhaps Neith was trying to tell him something, if her power could even touch this frozen stone city.

  “In that case,” he said slowly, and with great reluctance, “what should we do? We can’t stay on the street.”

  She grabbed his arm. “Come on. You’ve missed a lot of things in your ivory tower, and one of ’em is the best way to be anonymous in the world. Can you trust me?”

  “I—”

  His hesitation was more than answer enough, unfortunately, and the way her face fell made his stomach curdle a little. But what was he supposed to say? Yes, he trusted her because he liked her. That didn’t mean he could be careless about his chances. Anyone with a brain would say the same thing.

  Djed. Di djed nebet. The lady gives me strength.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “But I trust that you mean well.”