The God Collector Read online

  “That would be the board.” She quickly filled him in on the latest developments and rumors. “But it’s not that bad, really. We still get all the tomb goods—and if they decide it’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 the coffin the man helped to carry. “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 any 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, fluid lips, weary eyes. “But that means I’m clocking 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 somewhat more relaxed. Monday was only 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 she’d left some of her notes tucked inside the book. Was the inscription “n mwt.f dt” or “m nwt.f dt”?

  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 little 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 had finally found an arrangement that felt natural. Now it was 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 cheap 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. Aki accused her of being manipulative, and maybe she was, just a little. 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 towards 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.

  A little eerie? Maybe that too. But it was a good effect, and both the curator and the head of Publicity were likely to approve it. And now that she had a working plan, she could relax for just a couple of minutes.

  Standing, she flexed her spine and stretched. Something cracked, something else popped, and Theo let out a soft sigh as some of the tension eased. It was almost eleven o’clock at night, and after a long time hunched over the tablet, her back was still partially cramped up. Pain couldn’t shake that sly little sense of accomplishment, though—she had a working design.

  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 Pantone charts fanned across the desk, it felt like all the necessary tools were in place. All she needed to do was make the colors and shapes move. Her brain fizzed and popped 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 it go.

  But if she worked any longer, she’d be useless in the morning. And worse, she might do something stupid while sleep deprived, like delete her own files. Sighing, 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 just one more stop first.

  Gathering up her sketchbooks and flash drive, she finished shutting down her workstation and stood. Now almost abandoned, the 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 towards 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 smile anyway. She smiled 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 all 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 a little, eager to see if the little figurines could add any fuel to the spark of inspiration in her brain.

  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 just 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 just a little. “Don’t say a word, Theo!”

  Wait. What? What? Theo squirmed, trying to twist free, hoping that she would get loose and just 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 front of the prep lab with lock picks. It didn’t compute. Seth Adler just did not do this.

  But he did. Theo looked into the dark eyes, wondering just 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 o
n 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 Elaine’s firstborn. Its little magnetic strip would get her into any 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 any good reason, and the system would know it was Theo who 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 some 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 mineral, 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 must look like a dead fish, gaping disbelievingly at him, but there was no other possible reaction. Part of it 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 towards the prep lab. The door was still hanging open, and she knew that any moment, the timed alarm would trip. If she could just 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 just 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 towards the mummy’s chamber. Theo clawed at the hand holding her, but her short, blunted nails only 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 even 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 expected, eerily so, but the smell of old paper and ancient incense and leather…no, dried skin…assaulted her. Her stomach lurched.

  Fuck. 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 of 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 any sense.”

  “Please bring the mummy, Theo.”

  She made the mistake of taking a deep breath. The cooling system had just 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 just 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.”

  It was only a few corridors 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 was the Collector.

  More shabtis stood just where they’d been on the night of the party, lined up in their 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 seemed to mirror Adler’s. A powerful urge to smash the smirking little statuettes overwhelmed her, turning her vision red at the edges. 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 could only watch 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 their burdens. 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 quickly, trying to look nervous instead of overjoyed. “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 just got it back online, and now the alarms on that floor are all screaming!”