Book of the Dead Page 5

  “I’m fine, Mom,” said Alex. “Really.”

  She just smiled at him and put her hand on his forehead absently. “You stay here and rest, okay?” she said. “I have to check on some things at work.”

  “But it’s Saturday,” Alex said, putting down the copy of Watership Down that Ren had given him. As weird as his mom was acting, he still didn’t want her to leave.

  “I won’t be too long,” she said. “Just need to take a look at a few things.”

  The tone of her voice — a little too breezy — told Alex she was holding something back. “Is there a problem with the new exhibition?” he guessed.

  “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” she said, forcing a quick smile. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

  “I could come with you …”

  “NO!” she all but shouted. She paused and started again. “Not today, honey. You have a nap. Doctor’s orders.”

  “Doctor of what?” he said.

  “Egyptology,” she answered. It was one of their standard jokes, and for just a moment a small, sad smile brightened her face.

  “Okay,” he said. He wasn’t tired at all, but he went into his room and climbed into bed. A minute later, he heard her talking on her phone. He caught snatches through the door: “Ja, natürlich” … “Jetz gerade?” It was German. He figured it was his grandmother — until the talking became shouting. “Das ist nicht richtig! … War er verletzt? … Nein, Doktor!”

  Doktor? thought Alex.

  The call ended.

  The door slammed.

  Back in the museum, a new guard named Jonas held up a large leather bag. “It’s okay,” he said. “Just bringing something to one of the guys.”

  Oscar had been leaning against the wall next to the thick steel door of the security room. He pushed himself free and took a few steps forward. He looked closely at his fellow guard. They were wearing the same uniform but were separated by decades of experience. “Listen, I know you’re new here,” he said. “What’s it been, a couple weeks? But this room is for authorized personnel only — and you ain’t it.”

  Jonas didn’t budge. Oscar cocked his head slightly, assessing the situation. He wasn’t used to having his orders ignored by newbies. The two guards sized each other up: both big men, one younger, the other more experienced.

  “Is there a problem?” said Oscar.

  “No problem,” said Jonas. “It’s just, I think he’ll want this.”

  He unzipped the bag and reached in with one hand. Then he let the bag fall to the floor.

  “What is that?” said Oscar, his disgust evident in both his tone and his expression. “A dog’s head or something?”

  Jonas smiled. He raised the leathery brown object up and began slipping the mask on.

  Oscar almost retched. It was a dog’s head — or something like one, anyway. But the fur was long gone, and the skin seemed as close to beef jerky as leather.

  “This isn’t Halloween,” he said, shaking off the initial shock. Oscar was a trained fighter and an ex-Marine. He even bore a certain resemblance to a middle-aged Muhammad Ali. To say he wasn’t easily scared was an understatement. And today, he was guarding the security room. Inside were the controls and monitors for all the cameras in the museum, along with the mainframe controlling the alarms and time locks.

  It was an important job. He stood his ground.

  “Not Halloween,” said Jonas, his face covered now and his voice distorted by the dry, hollow mask. “No holiday at all.”

  Oscar vaguely recognized the face as a hyena’s from some long-ago nature show. The skin was very old, dried, and stretched. The expression was a grotesque leering smile. Oscar’s eyes darted toward the alarm button on the wall.

  He lunged for it.

  The man in the mask raised his hand and Oscar felt his fingers crunch, jammed backward as if he’d thrust them into a concrete wall instead of empty air. Gasping from the pain, he tried to pull his hand back but couldn’t. He tried to turn, tried to shout, tried to do anything, but he couldn’t. He was frozen, pressed in place as if by the air itself. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the man in the mask slowly closing his outstretched hand. And as the fingers closed, Oscar felt the breath being squeezed from his lungs.

  Elsewhere in the museum — barely a strangled cry away — Alex’s mom had just shut down the new exhibition. The curtains were back up. The signs on the front, still warm from the printer, read: CLOSED FOR REPAIRS: WILL REOPEN SOON! She wasn’t sure either of those statements was true.

  “Okay, walk me through it again, Cris,” she said, turning to Ren’s dad. “Everything so far.”

  They were standing in a small room, just off to the side of the one housing the Lost Spells.

  Mr. Duran took a deep breath. “Well, the Book of the Dead basically looks like it was made last Tuesday. The cloth is way too supple and most of the discoloration is gone. Three of the four canopic jars have fallen over. That beetle encased in amber, in the jewelry display? Hector swears he saw its legs moving. And this …” He trailed off.

  They both looked down at the plain little time-battered coffin in front of them. It was open, displaying a small mummy that until recently had lain straight as a board. The mummy was now slightly curled, and on its side, like a sleeping child who had shifted in the night.

  Dr. Bauer clenched her hands and felt a jab of pain in the left, which was wrapped tightly in medical tape.

  They walked slowly back to the main room.

  “This is crazy stuff, Maggie. We need to understand what’s going on before we can fix it.”

  “If we can fix it,” she said. “It’s not just here. I’ve gotten calls from Cairo, London, the poor guy filling in for Todtman in Berlin …”

  “It’s on the news, too,” he said. “It’s all they’re talking about in the office. All the major collections are having problems.”

  “Probably some of the smaller ones, too,” she said. “Just easier for them to keep it quiet.”

  He looked at her seriously, but she looked away. She was barely holding it together, and she couldn’t risk him seeing the guilt and panic she was feeling.

  I had to save Alex’s life was the thought that kept running through her head. She’d known there’d be a price to pay.

  “You know what I was thinking, though?” Cris said. “We all use the same methods, all handle our artifacts the same way. We even use a lot of the same products. What if …”

  He’s still looking for a scientific explanation, she thought. But he must at least suspect.

  “Cris?” she said, and in that moment when she looked up and met his eyes, she considered telling him everything. She wanted to. She trusted him. But he was a mechanical engineer: 75 percent scientist, 25 percent master craftsman, and 100 percent the last person in the world who would believe in magic.

  “Listen, Maggie, I don’t want to sound harsh. I know you got a lot going on. I think it’s amazing, the news about Alex. We’re all so happy about that. But you need to focus, all right? You’ve been freaked out all day, and it’s starting to freak me out, too.”

  “I know; I’m sorry,” she said. But she knew that she wasn’t the thing freaking him out.

  What was freaking him out was not having all the answers, for once.

  What was freaking her out was having some of them.

  They heard footsteps approaching in the closed, quiet exhibition and looked over as the museum’s newest guard entered the room.

  “Mr. Duran?” said Jonas.

  “Yeah, that’s me,” he said.

  “They need you over in Greek sculpture. Sounds serious.”

  Cris gave Maggie a look: What now? “Be right back,” he said.

  Once he was gone, she looked over at the Book of the Dead. That’s when she realized the guard was still standing there. “Can I help you?” she asked.

  He reached behind him and began to close the glass door.

  “Leave that open, please,” she said. “W
e’re having ventilation issues.”

  “No, we’re not,” said Jonas as the door swung shut.

  He was holding something behind his back, and now he swung it around. It was a battered leather case, about the size of a bowling bag. It was against museum policy for guards to carry personal items around on duty, but the smirk on his face told her that he knew that already.

  “What is that?” she asked as he unzipped the bag and reached inside.

  “Allow me to show you,” he replied, pulling the ghastly lump of sagging skin free.

  Of course, she thought as he slipped the hyena mask over his head.

  Hyenas were scavengers — it made sense that he’d wait for her to track down the Lost Spells, then come out to tear them away from her. She’d only heard of this man before — seen the one blurry crime scene photo that existed — but she knew all about his underground organization. She knew who she was looking at, and it wasn’t a man named Jonas.

  There was no Jonas.

  “Al-Dab’u,” she said.

  “Dr. Bauer,” he said, giving the mask one final adjustment.

  She shot a look at the ceiling. The metal disk above the Lost Spells should have been ringed with the red lights of the lasers, but the lenses were dark. Had she forgotten to switch them back on after her “repairs”? She looked at the cameras, turned in now and facing the walls. Slowly, she reached up for her amulet with her bandaged hand. She shifted her grip slightly so that the wings wouldn’t find the wounds they’d made.

  “I’m glad we understand each other,” said Al-Dab’u.

  His right hand shot out, flexing a power much greater than mere muscle. Dr. Bauer’s feet left the ground and her slender frame flew backward and slammed against the wall. Display cases on either side of her rattled as the wind left her lungs.

  Al-Dab’u advanced toward her, but he hesitated as he saw her hand tighten around the scarab.

  An information plaque flew off the wall and informed Al-Dab’u’s head that it weighed 6.2 pounds and was made of steel.

  He staggered sideways, reaching up to straighten out his mask. He balled his hand into a fist, and the very air seemed to clamp down on Maggie’s throat.

  Two thoughts filled her mind. The Lost Spells. She could not allow this man to take them. And Alex. She needed to get back to him.

  She’d been gone too long already.

  When Alex went to bed that night, his mother wasn’t home.

  When he got up for a glass of water two hours later, she still hadn’t returned.

  He checked the living room table for a note. No note, but he found a gold-paint pen and a few scraps of what looked like old cloth. As he bundled up the scraps to toss out, he saw the faded cover of a book underneath, Legend of the Death Walkers.

  He wasn’t that tired — he’d hardly been tired at all since he’d returned from the hospital — and he was determined to wait up for his mom. He flipped open the book. He was expecting a novel and was surprised to discover that it was a very old history book. He flipped to chapter one: “Who Were the Death Walkers?”

  According to legend, the Death Walkers were a group of evil men with strong spirits. They knew they would fail the weighing of the heart, so after death, they used their powerful wills to cling to the edge of the afterlife. There they remain, the tales say, struggling to hang on and desperately waiting for an opportunity to escape.

  Evil men with powerful wills … it reminded Alex of something, and he flipped to the table of contents. And there it was, chapter four: “The Stung Man.”

  Cool, he thought, and settled down on the couch to read as he waited for his mom.

  He woke up to the sound of someone knocking on the door: DONK! DONK! DONK!

  Alex looked around the apartment in the dim morning light.

  “Mom,” he called. “Door!”

  No response. He looked around again. Nothing had been moved. The keys weren’t on the peg by the door.

  DONK! DONK! DONK!

  “Anyone home?” a man called from the other side. The sound mixed with the neighbor’s corgi barking its head off.

  Alex stumbled toward the door.

  “Uh, who is it?” he shouted.

  “Police!” came the voice.

  Police? he thought. What’s going on?

  Half asleep still, he wasn’t afraid, only confused.

  Alex looked through the peephole and saw another eye looking in. The eye pulled back and a man’s head came into view. He had Middle Eastern features that Alex thought might be Egyptian. He wasn’t wearing a uniform, but then he flashed a badge in front of the peephole.

  “MOM!” Alex called again.

  No answer.

  The confusion was turning to fear.

  No, Alex thought. Oh please no.

  “Open the door, please,” called the man. He sounded either tired or annoyed, possibly both.

  Alex undid the first lock: click! “Do you know where my mom is?”

  “That’s what we need to talk about.”

  His name was Detective Hussein, and as soon as he told Alex he regretted to inform him that his mother had disappeared from the museum, the investigation began. As he did a thorough sweep of the small apartment, he peppered Alex with questions.

  “So she just got up and left for work, and that was the last you saw of her?” the detective asked.

  “Yeah,” said Alex. “Pretty much.”

  “And you’re sure she didn’t call? Email? Text? Anything?”

  Alex shook his head. But just to be sure he checked his email. And his phone. And his voice mail. And his email again.

  Nothing. Not a word.

  He felt helpless and collapsed onto the couch.

  “Where is she?” Alex asked. His voice broke on the last word, but he didn’t care.

  “We don’t know,” said Hussein. “Something happened yesterday. We have your mom on video entering the museum.”

  Alex fired off the questions as fast as he thought of them: “What do you mean ‘something happened’? What happened? You saw her entering the museum, so when did she leave?”

  Hussein put his hand up in a stop sign, and for some reason that made Alex angry. Are you a traffic cop or a detective? he wanted to yell. Tell me where she is!

  “We don’t know. Cris Duran says he saw her in the Egypt wing yesterday afternoon. But it’s not on the cameras. We don’t have her leaving, either. We’ve been going over it for hours.”

  “Yesterday afternoon?” said Alex. He’d been waiting all that time. He could have been looking for her. They could have been looking for her! “Why’d you wait so long?”

  “It was Saturday. People just thought she went home to be with you. But that was before we knew something else was missing.”

  Alex got a bad feeling.

  “What?” he managed to say.

  “A scroll. Very old. Some kind of spells.”

  “The Lost Spells,” said Alex. His anger had turned to dread now, like hot water suddenly running cold.

  “Yeah, those.”

  “She didn’t take them,” said Alex. “She wouldn’t.”

  “We don’t think she did. She had plenty of opportunities before that.”

  “Wait, you mean …?”

  “I’m sorry, Alex.”

  The cold water turned to ice.

  If he hadn’t been sitting down, he would have fallen.

  “Did you hear me?” said Hussein.

  Alex looked at him closely. For a second, he didn’t even remember who this man was. “Hear what?”

  “What I just said.” The detective repeated himself, very slowly: “We think she’s been taken.”

  Alex rode to the museum like a tranquilized animal.

  He remembered getting in the detective’s car and getting out of it, but nothing in between except the smell of old coffee. He was operating in the same sort of steady low-grade panic that people report after tornadoes or earthquakes. He started to come out of it as they headed up the broad
front steps. “What are you going to do?” he asked Hussein.

  “We’re going to find your mom.”

  Alex looked up at the detective and nodded. “Okay,” he said. “Good.” They reached the front doors, manned not by museum employees but by a pair of beefy uniformed NYPD officers.

  “Detective,” said the closest one, nodding to Hussein.

  “Officer,” said Hussein, nodding back.

  They took a sharp right toward the Egyptian wing. Alex saw bright yellow police tape in front of the entrance. It took him another five or six steps to spot the man standing behind it, because he was wearing all black.

  “Detective,” Alex said, stopping in his tracks, a memory rushing back to him.

  “Yeah?” said Hussein, stopping half a step farther on.

  “My mom got a phone call before she left yesterday.”

  Alex couldn’t believe he hadn’t mentioned that yet. He gave his head a vicious shake — like a dog with a chew toy. He needed to get it together, for his mom.

  “She was speaking German,” he said with a look toward Todtman. “And she was really upset.”

  “Right,” said Hussein. “Interesting. You can tell me about it later.”

  Later? And just like that, it hit Alex. The detective didn’t consider him a partner in this case. He considered him baggage. Babysitting. Alex’s head dropped, his shoulders slumped.

  Hussein lifted up the yellow tape so Alex could get through. As he ducked under, Todtman walked toward him, lowering his phone from his ear.

  “I’m sorry, Alex,” Todtman said, addressing him as if he were a longtime friend instead of a near stranger. “I should have been here.”

  Alex stared at him, his suspicion growing. Of course he was claiming he wasn’t here.

  “Anything new, Detective?” said Todtman.

  Don’t tell him anything! thought Alex.

  “Nothing yet,” said Hussein.

  “Well, let me know if I can help in any way,” said Todtman.

  “I will, Doctor. And do me a favor?”

  “Yes, Detective?”

  “Don’t go anywhere.”