The God Collector Page 20

  The O’Hare airport sprawled on the far edge of town. Seen from the air it was all sleek curves and colorful, skewed buildings surrounded by acres upon acres of dull-gray industrial lots and parkways—a blob of Monet in the center of a Mondrian. Hundreds of businesses lived and died on those lots, all serving the vast complex of the airport. It was busy, anonymous and rarely open to pedestrians.

  The economic downturn had left some of the buildings vacant, but at least one sector was still going strong: the self-storage lots. People going to or coming from elsewhere always needed to store things, and the competing outfits openly advertised Private Units, No Questions Asked.

  Seth led Theo to one of the many forgettable storage buildings. The units were divided into blocks of six, accessible either from the inside or outside, and the guard at the gate accepted Seth’s fake ID without batting an eye. He gave them both a perfunctory looking over, mumbled the schedule in a rote recitation and went back into his guard shack to doze. Seth threw Theo a small smile and fished out a little key on a blue-plastic key chain.

  “Part of the emergency kit?” Theo said quietly once they were out of the guard’s earshot.

  “Never leaves me.”

  He slipped his arm around her and pulled her into the building. Inside, it was all slick tiles, sputtering fluorescent lights and solid, locked doors—like a high school on a day off, Theo thought wryly. Their footsteps echoed as he led her down the hall and stopped at one of the many doors.

  “It’s more than just Kemet,” he whispered in her ear as he unlocked it. “I had to save what I could. I can’t show you everything, not now, but I want… You have to see what I meant.”

  He ushered Theo into a dark, stuffy room and closed the door behind them. It was warm, and Theo immediately began to sweat. “Paid for a heated unit, huh?” she said a little breathlessly as Seth locked the door behind them and fumbled for the light switch.

  “Of course. The things here could be damaged—” A rolling, consonantal curse, all hard k’s and slithery s’s, escaped as he banged into what sounded like a metal shelf. “I can never find… Theo, would you look for… Ah!”

  Light blazed into existence, the joyless yellow white of more harsh fluorescents. Theo flinched, automatically shading her eyes. Wonderful things, Carter had said when he first opened King Tut’s tomb. She half expected to be blinded by the dazzle of gold.

  The unit was small, only a few yards in each direction, but Seth had made good use of the space. Against one wall was a low couch, obviously custom-made, with a few cushions sporting an embroidered design of lotus flowers. There was a spindle-legged table and a matching chair that looked almost Greek. Carefully stacked on a low shelf were scrolls of yellow-white paper (onionskin? Not vellum or papyrus, these days) and a writing board shaped for propping up in a cross-legged man’s lap. Several of the scrolls showed wear and would have unrolled completely if not for the shoelaces around them. Surrounding them on the walls, though—

  “Jesus Christ,” Theo said involuntarily.

  Seth smiled. “Among others.”

  They were gods. Dozens of gods. Gods in all possible styles and from every imaginable religion, from gilded figures of Odin and Zeus, to ivory Inuit sea goddesses and grimacing Pacific spirit masks. A dozen handmade Egyptian gods sat on a special shelf reserved for them, with old and new copies of sacred symbols—the ankh, the knot-of-Isis tyet, the Eye of Horus—arranged in front of them. There was Jesus, all right, looking odd and small amidst the colorful assembly. The gods crowded the walls, and their eyes watched Seth and Theo and gave away nothing.

  Place of honor, and some of the precious floor space, was given to two-foot-tall twin statues. One was impossible not to recognize: Anubis, on one knee with his hands resting on his thighs. He had been carefully carved from a single piece of wood, smoothed and sanded and lacquered black, and his eyes glinted with gold and mother-of-pearl inlays. The other Theo couldn’t place, but she wore an elaborate shield-shaped crown and carried a bow and a quiver of gilded arrows. There was a covered metal bowl placed between them, and its edges were blackened from years of fires.

  “Neith,” Seth said reverently, nodding to the goddess. It took Theo a moment to realize that the nod was actually a truncated bow. “Mother of the sun and archers. I named the art trust in her honor. She was my patroness before it all began.”

  Theo’s gaze stayed on the other statuettes. Next to that motley crew, Neith and Anubis seemed positively benevolent, though perhaps it was part of the point. “What about them?” she asked quietly. The eyes were making her nervous; she couldn’t shake the feeling that they were judging her. “I didn’t know you worshiped… Is that one Aztec?”

  “Yes, that’s Tlaloc.” Seth inclined his head to the statuette, which had oversized staring eyes and prominent fangs. “And next to him, Itzpapalotl. I don’t worship them, but these are gods whose hospitality I’ve enjoyed over the years. They could have annihilated me any time I crossed their borders, but they didn’t.” His voice was rough. “They’re mostly forgotten these days. I keep lists, copying them over and over again, so I don’t forget. And I burn incense to them.”

  One by one, Theo picked them out. Sedna, with her children the sea creatures. The African Mami Wata. The hand symbol of the god of Israel and Jacob, and more she couldn’t begin to name. So many gods, so many lands visited and lives lived.

  A shiver ran through Theo. He remembered them and gave them honor in thanks for their mercy to him. It sounded ridiculous. Collecting gods like that, old gods, when everyone knew that they were just stories people made up to explain things…

  Really? a voice whispered as Theo felt the blood drain from her face. There stood a man who lived because of gods, or powers, unknown to her. Was he the only one? What other creatures were out there in the darkened corners of history, hiding the way Seth had? Every story she’d read about them, gods and monsters, crowded her mind and crept in behind her eyes. Why not? Why not?

  A strangled cry escaped from her throat as she turned on her heel and made for the door. She didn’t have the key. For a crazed second, panic seized her completely—the dozens of eyes were fixed on her, watching and judging, knowing that if she didn’t give her pound of flesh they’d have no reason to let her live. Gods were evil, petty things with powers that she’d never be able to face—

  She flattened her back against the door. Seth’s eyes were wide with alarm, one hand reaching toward her, but for a moment all she could see was that host of staring faces. Her gaze was locked on theirs. Her jacket collar clung to the skin of her neck, and she realized that tears were running freely down her face, mixing with the perspiration brought on by the hot, still air. Her heart pounded, her world shrank to just her and those staring, judging gods.

  Then darkness fell and the faces vanished. Theo let out a gasp, a half sob, as the eyes winked out of existence. They were still there, she knew, but in the dark she could only feel metal at her back and hear her own harsh breathing echoing in the enclosed space. The gods were gone. She was safe.

  Breath touched her ear, and a pair of arms enfolded her. “Theo,” Seth whispered hoarsely. His grasp was almost painfully tight, but she didn’t care. “Theo. Djed. Are you all right?”

  She couldn’t reply. If she thought about the eyes, the staring powers beyond her comprehension, she would go insane. She needed the here and now. Desperate, Theo flung her arms around Seth’s neck and pressed her lips to his in a wild and clumsy kiss.

  Sensations flooded her. There he was, warm to the touch, skin just a little rough under her fingertips, like good leather. His day-old stubble scraped at her cheek, sending millions of tiny shivering feelings—painpleasurepainpleasureholdme—flickering through her quick as thought. His lips a smooth curve, an enigmatic smile that was ruined when he came to life, responding to her need—

  She could feel his heart pounding wildly under her hand. Hot b
lood, a tremor in the hands as her legs automatically began to part, the little hiss he gave in the back of his throat and the shiver of pleasure as he moved that eager kiss down her neck, nipping at her collarbone… She moaned, clutching those sensations to her, clinging in the darkness to the things that made him human.

  “It’s not like that,” he whispered. “You owe them nothing. They can’t touch you.”

  As he said it, his breath hot against her skin, she felt the fear begin to drain away. Slowly, so slowly, she began to relax in his arms. She’d stood between him and Aki, between him and the human authorities; he was trying to stand between her and the gods. She breathed again, murmuring something even she didn’t understand as the tension unwound. Her heartbeat began to slow.

  “Can you face them?” Seth said quietly.

  Theo drew in a breath.

  “I think so. Wait!” She didn’t want him to reach for the light switch just yet. “Listen.” Her words felt awkward, and she struggled to grasp them. “I don’t…I don’t want to be watched. Or used. I’m not theirs.”

  “They don’t have that kind of power,” Seth said. “Not here, not now. But when I finally do stand in front of the judges, I want to begin my negative confession with ‘I have not refused aid to those who sheltered me’.”

  Theo smiled against his lips. “You’re a good man,” she said.

  When the light flicked back on, the eyes of the gods didn’t seem quite so judging.

  Fortunately, Seth didn’t give her an opportunity to dwell on it. He knelt down and began hauling several fireproof boxes from under the couch. Each one of them had been triple locked, with hieroglyphic symbols even Theo had never seen before painted onto the lids and sides. Seth worked the locks quickly, opening each without a single click or scrape.

  She stared. The boxes contained everything she could possibly imagine needing for a life on the run: multiple passports and driver’s licenses, more skin and hair dye, pieces of concealable weaponry that Theo couldn’t name, prosthetics enough to build three or four different faces, bank cards, social security cards and, holy hell, that was a lot of cash.

  “You put a lot of thought into this,” she said, sorting through the documents. “There’re at least three identities here.”

  “You never know when one won’t work,” Seth responded. “Some are better than others. I had to use different forgers for each type and name, and not all of them are up to the best standards. But I learned a few things from them.” He extracted a smaller box from the largest one and opened it. Inside were several plastic cards, all ID badges from federal agencies. None of them had photographs or the final stamps applied.

  “I can’t fake working identities on short notice, but a convincing-looking ID from the government is usually just as good for anyone unofficial. Give me a few hours, and I can make you something useful.”

  Swiss Army Seth? She didn’t doubt he could too. But as he sat down at the spindle-legged table, box of materials in hand, she recognized the familiar signs. He was going to get to work, and if it had been her, she’d want no distractions.

  Too bad she hadn’t brought that sketchbook. Looking for something to do, Theo let her curiosity get the better of her and she picked one of the scrolls off the shelf. Definitely modern paper, probably from a specialty art store, but the writing was in hieratic. The penmanship was casual and broad: lines wandered, characters ran into each other, and Greek or Cyrillic symbols cropped up here and there. It had clearly been written for the scribe’s eyes only, with no concern for whether anyone else could read it.

  “What are these?” she asked, not really expecting an answer. At least she knew most of the symbols. Not enough to understand, but enough to see some distinctive repetitions and patterns in the text. She squinted at the paper, picking out the hieratic version of the basket hieroglyph—the hard k. Then the mouth R, and the horned-viper F. She murmured it aloud, trying to find where the vowels would fit.

  “Cleopatra VII Philopator,” Seth supplied. He glanced at the scroll and pointed the tip of a penknife at the back of it. Turning it over, Theo saw something on the back—a series of numbers like a library card-catalog ID.

  “It’s my diary,” he added. “Well, parts of it. I keep trying to maintain one, but I don’t have the patience to write down everything and parts always get lost. I recopy them every chance I get.”

  “In hieratic?”

  He grinned wryly. “Well, my version of it. It’s the one language I never forget. I copy the diaries, seal them in a cache or save what I can. It’s the only way I can remember where I was or what I did.”

  Theo looked down at the scroll in her hands. It was beautiful in its own weird way, a modern re-creation of what one of the ancient papyri might have looked like when it was new. “But isn’t that impractical? I mean, these things don’t last forever. And people can find them.”

  The dark-haired man shrugged his shoulders at that. “Chances are that anyone who finds them won’t know what it is. And I don’t trust digital. It’s too impermanent.”

  “Anhurmose, this is your life,” she murmured.

  Seth’s eyes softened as she used his name, and for a moment, he set down the craft knife.

  “Cleopatra Philopator. That’s the Cleopatra. You knew her?”

  “Not exactly. But I was a mercenary at Actium,” Seth said. “I saw her for about three seconds on the royal galley. It wasn’t a pretty sight.”

  “She wasn’t beautiful?”

  “I couldn’t tell. And nobody’s beautiful when they’re losing.”

  Of course not. Theo had read about the Battle of Actium, when Cleopatra and Marc Antony were defeated and Egypt’s future as a Roman province was sealed. It hadn’t been a good time to be an Egyptian queen. “Who did you fight for?” she asked curiously.

  “Octavian,” Seth said. “Emperor Augustus, he was later.”

  “Smart man,” she murmured. “You picked the winning team.” As she spoke, she turned the parchment over. Actium was, what, 30 BC? And he had been there? How many times had he recopied this parchment, preserving memories of a sea battle two thousand years past? It made her head spin.

  Seth snorted, apparently unaware of the thoughts going through her head. “I picked the one that paid better and didn’t have Antonius.”

  “But he was fighting for Egypt,” Theo said. “I would’ve thought you would want him to win. So Egypt could remain independent, I mean.”

  For a moment, his gaze went blank, focusing on something she couldn’t see. “It was already dead,” he said. “The Macedonians claimed they were kings by divine right, but the line of descent had been broken so many times… Better no king than a bad one. At least the Romans tried to maintain order and take care of the land.”

  Seth was gesturing to the shelf of gods, pointing out the native Egyptian deities. “I spent time in Alexandria, but you’re not going to see Serapis here. He wasn’t one of them. The Ptolemies and their people made him to keep the population under control! If I’d cast my shabtis in Serapis’s name, I’d be as dead as Antonius.”

  Theo looked up at the gods and wondered. Someone must have invented them at some point, hadn’t they? And yet Seth, in their names, was still alive. How did you tell which gods were real? Or did they become real when they were worshiped? The staring eyes were beginning to bore into her again, and she quickly turned her back on them.

  Hours passed in near silence. When the scrolls and various boxes had exhausted all entertainment value, Theo tried to find a way to occupy herself, but Seth was bent over his work and she knew well what it was like to be deep in a project. He’d switched off again, she thought, irritated in spite of herself. To distract herself from getting too annoyed over what was doubtless important (but did he have to tune out so completely?), Theo took a blank roll of paper from one of the shelves and, using a stick of charcoal from the makeshift bra
zier, began to sketch. The close heat of the room made her lightheaded, and after a while, she stripped off her outermost shirt and fell asleep.

  She awoke to the sound of crinkling plastic. Opening one eye, she realized groggily that she was lying down on that strange pseudo-Egyptian couch, her cheek pressed to one of the cushions. She blinked away the remnants of sleep and raised her head. Her cheek ached, and glancing into a polished bronze mirror on the wall, she could see that the cushion’s embroidery had left the shape of a lotus printed on her cheek.

  The sound that had woken her was Seth. He was kneeling next to another box, unwrapping plastic from what looked like freeze-dried disaster rations. He glanced up as she stirred, and a guilty expression flitted across his face.

  “I didn’t mean to wake you…” he began.

  “I shouldn’t’ve been sleeping any…way,” Theo said, rubbing her eyes. The last word was split in half by a yawn.

  Seth rose, holding a couple of the packages under one arm. “You didn’t sleep well last night, though. I could hear you tossing and turning.”

  “Still, I shouldn’t be napping when we’ve got work to do,” she said, swinging her legs over the edge of the couch. “What time is it?”

  “About four in the afternoon.” Seth turned over the packages, grimacing. “I thought we should eat something, but the only food I can keep here is the kind that won’t go bad. The words shelf stable are never a sign you’re about to enjoy yourself. Which would you prefer, alleged chicken or alleged stew?”

  Theo stifled another yawn. “Death.”

  “Pick again. It’s not—ah—all it’s cracked up to be.” She hid a smile at the awkward slang and pointed to the package of faux fowl.