Spirit And Dust Part 16

He patted me on the a.s.s, and I saw red. I mean, more red-beyond the haze of blood rus.h.i.+ng to my pounding head. I had a one-abduction-per-twenty-four-hours policy, and this yahoo was over the limit.

Finally, a benefit to being tall besides reaching the top shelf at the supermarket: leverage. I punched him in the kidney-or where I guessed something vulnerable and extremely painful like a kidney would be-and when he cursed and twisted, I let all my weight slide backward. He had to drop me or go down, too.

This was going to hurt.

I curled my arm over my head and tucked my shoulder so that I rolled when I hit the floor. And I kept rolling, all the way to my feet, because the guy was coming after me. I was numb where my hip and shoulder had smacked the marble tile, but at least everything moved.

I don't think the guy had a plan B. He charged at me, and I grabbed a priceless Greek vase and smashed him over the head with it. He crashed to the floor and went limp.

That's vases, two; kidnappers, zero.

I checked-quickly-to make sure he was still breathing. And then I checked-not so quickly-his face and my memory. This was not the thief, McSlackerson. This was someone else. I thought he might have been in the cemetery, but I couldn't be sure.

Cleo popped up beside me, and I jumped-which made every muscle in my body protest. The parts where I hit the floor weren't so numb anymore.

"That was thrilling!" she cried. "You fight like an Amazon."

"Thank you," I wheezed, holding my ribs.

I staggered back through the door to Pompeii like a freshman at her first keg party. After all that sound and fury, I'd expected total devastation, but from what I could tell through the hazy curtain of dust, the damage to the exhibit was cosmetic. There were no piles of ash, no fire, no incinerated bodies.

No Carson.

I remembered him calling my name, his hands tangling in my hair as he kept my head from hitting the floor when I'd gone limp in the volcano attack. After that, there was just the murky twilight of unconsciousness.

"Where's my friend?" I asked Cleo. Adrenaline hadn't dismissed my headache but sent it to sit in the corner. "How long was I out?"

"Moments only," she said, bouncing with excitement. "When you fainted, the magician laid you down so gently, and then he turned on the thief like a lion. The knave took one look and fled, and your magician pursued."

"He just left me here to get hauled off like yesterday's trash?"

"That ruffian"-she jerked a thumb toward the unconscious guy in Greece-"was not here then. It was like he stepped out of the air after the other two left. But you can catch them if you hurry."

With her urging me on, I did hurry, into the main hall where I tried to get my bearings. I couldn't believe no one was investigating why the police hadn't arrived downstairs, or wondering about the almighty racket.

"This way!" said the Egyptian girl. "Through the hall of the bearded old white men."

That narrowed it down to just about all of Western Civilization. I had to cross the big, open s.p.a.ce to get there, but a bang and clatter from the front doors sent me diving for cover behind a nude statue with a conveniently large ... pedestal. A squad of EMTs ran by, their bright yellow stretcher garish in the monochrome decorum of marble and bronze.

It gave me a chance to catch my breath. This ache was different than the usual rebound migraine. I felt stripped and raw, and drained like an old car battery. My thighs shook like I'd run a marathon.

Worse, I couldn't seem to bring my second Sight into focus. In the pale light of the hall, Cleo looked translucent, like a hologram. The vibrancy that had earlier colored the museum, the pieces of their souls that the artists put into their work, none of it sang to my extra senses.

Was this what normal felt like?

"Something is wrong," I said, trying, and failing, to keep a lid on rising panic. "I can barely See you. And I can't feel any echoes or remnants."

She gave me a pitying look. "Do you think power is inexhaustible? You are a very formidable priestess, but you are not a G.o.ddess."

I got a grip on my panic and sorted through events. Carson had turned my psychic defenses into a s.h.i.+eld against the magical attack-and as crazy as my life was by normal people's standards, that was even crazier. The whole thing must have lasted just seconds, but I was totally spent.

Why was McSlackerson still on his feet?

Other pieces started to come together, too: Mrs. Hardwicke's weird and sudden disappearance. The muting of every trace of death echo in the Pompeii exhibit. A translation of the Book of the Dead that spoke of-or instructed how to use-the power of the afterlife. My subconscious had figured it out already, because I'd warned Cleo away from my abductor. Somehow this Brotherhood was using remnants to do real magic. Big magic.

The idea violated my entire purpose in life and in other people's deaths. But I couldn't do anything about it with my current problem.

"Why can I still See you?" I asked the Egyptian girl.

She shrugged. "Your senses are dulled, not gone. And I will that you should See me."

Some remnants can and do appear to the average Joe, but the clarity of our current interaction was impressive for someone who looked like an Egyptian teen princess. "You can do that?"

"I am the daughter of Isis." Another shrug. "I can do whatever I wish."

She had the supremely casual tone of the truly arrogant, and I had a bad feeling I sounded like that sometimes. Maybe a lot of the time.

But not just then. Despair took my heart in its fist. "What if it doesn't come back?" I didn't know how to be normal. My Sight ... it wasn't just what I did, it was what I was.

"This I do not know," said Cleo, impatiently. "But what I do know is that when you fell, your magician looked like someone had put a sword through his heart, and you've been so long feeling sorry for yourself that he probably thinks you are dead and is killing the knave now in vengeance and you are missing it!"

She was right. Bloodthirsty, but right. I was feeling sorry for myself, and I had important things to do, like stop Carson from doing something rash.

Not that he ever seemed to be without a plan, even when taken by surprise. Especially when taken by surprise. I really hoped he had a plan for stopping the attempted murderer from getting away, and for us not getting caught by the cops ourselves.

I used the statue's pedestal to haul myself up. Cleo had popped up across the hall and was gesturing for me to hurry, which I did. The wing with the old masters had bigger rooms and higher ceilings, almost like ballrooms. In the first gallery hung life-sized portraits. A huge Gainsborough and two sober Dutch masters gazed in painted disapproval as I ran past.

My steps slowed as I neared the door to the next gallery, partly because I wasn't sure what waited inside-like police or more magic or just an armed and smirking sociopath-and partly because I heard voices in taunting tones that raised more questions than they answered.

"Have you figured it out yet, Maguire?"

The voice was McSlackerson's. He was breathing hard, like he'd paused in running, but it was the name that made me stop outside the door and press against the wall to listen.

"Don't call me that," Carson snapped, as discomposed as I'd ever heard him. There was something very personal about his anger that made it sound like they'd argued before. "I just work for him."

"Does he know you've gone rogue, you and little Miss Ghost Whisperer?"

Had we gone rogue? This was news to me. Or maybe not. There was Carson turning off his phone, using cash at the Walmart, refusing to call Maguire for a car. Another one of those things more clear in retrospect.

"If anything happens to Daisy," Carson said, so low I strained to hear, "if she's not all right when she wakes up, I am going to stake you like you did that guard."

I believed him. There was an unshakable vow in his voice. Hearing a guy threaten to kill someone-or at least maim him-for my sake shouldn't make me feel a rush of warmth around my heart. But it did, just a little.

"Hey," said the thief, in a tone that made me loathe him even more, "if she's not all right when she wakes up, it's your fault. And you know it, or you wouldn't be so-"

Wait. Did Carson care or did he just feel guilty? I leaned forward to hear, but a crack of fist hitting bone cut him off. I really was missing the exciting stuff.

I burst into the room in time to see McSlackerson reeling back, his hand clamped to his jaw, Carson going for the follow-through punch to the gut. His fist landed with an awful, dull thud, and it looked terribly effective and efficient.

Cleo had appeared beside me, delighted by Carson's show of force. "Oh, look. He's going to kill him with his hands. Very satisfactory."

I echoed with a bloodthirsty "Very."

20.

THEY BOTH TURNED at the sound of my voice, McSlackerson with shock and dismay, and Carson-his gaze lit with undiluted relief that brought a totally inappropriate flush to my face.

McSlackerson was easy to read. He must have realized the attempt to grab me had gone wrong and stalling Carson-why else would the thief still be there?-was no longer necessary. His hand tightened on his messenger bag and he raised it up high. "If you come any closer, I'll drop this, and the jackal will break."

Would it? Would he, after all this trouble to get it?

"What would the Brotherhood say?" I asked, drawing his attention.

His brows shot up. "Oh, you know about that?" He glanced from me to Carson. "You two do work fast."

"Shut up," growled Carson.

Cleo was studying the situation, walking freely around us, invisible to the guys. "I don't think the statue will break. He wrapped it most carefully."

"He wrapped the artifact up," I relayed, relis.h.i.+ng the flare of alarm in McSlackerson's eyes and the complete lack of smirk on his face. "It might take a b.u.mp or two."

Antic.i.p.ation made Carson almost smile. Yeah, that looked personal, all right. We would be quite a team if one of us stopped keeping secrets from the other.

He launched himself after McSlackerson, who had started running. Carson caught up with him in a few long strides and took him down in a flying tackle. The bag fell out of the thief's hand just a few inches off the floor.

The two guys, however, hit the ground with a bone-jarring crack and slid across the tile to crash against a pillar holding a Meissen vase. The pillar rocked, and I held my breath. This could be a bad day for vases.

"This is the most exciting thing that's happened since I woke up in this place," said Cleo.

McSlackerson heaved Carson off him, flipping him with an abruptness that smacked Carson's head against the floor. It stunned him and gave the thief time to struggle to his feet.

He was going for the messenger bag, and I moved to head him off. But Carson was on it. He grabbed the wires leading to the alarm on the pedestal where they'd crashed, then, with a huge stretch, he just barely got a finger on the thief. But it was enough. McSlackerson stiffened and dropped to the floor.

"What did you do?" I gasped, staring at the guy as he lay twitching like a dog chasing rabbits in its dreams. "Did you just magically Taser him?"

"Something like that," wheezed Carson, still on the ground. "You wanted to know if I could whammy someone."

"But he still lives," said Cleo, petulant with disappointment.

"Yeah," I murmured. "But he probably wishes he didn't right now."

"Is the magician going to cut out the knave's heart?" she asked hopefully.

"No!" I snapped, because I was a little unnerved by the way Carson had just dropped the guy in his tracks. "There will be no removing of hearts or any other body parts."

"Tempting," said Carson, standing up with a groan, "but there's no time for that. I don't know how quickly the zap will wear off. Grab his bag and let's get out of here."

"He stabbed a guy!" I protested. "We can't let him get away."

Carson looked at me, raising his brows. "You want to stick around and answer questions? More police will be here any minute. I don't think they're just going to shake our hands and let us go."

He was right. We'd been lucky, or the Brotherhood had been effective in delaying law enforcement, but either way, we were out of time. There was heavy-duty mojo at work here, something the police weren't going to be able to handle. And neither was I, if I ended up in jail.

"Drag him over here," I said, pointing to a bronze Degas ballerina. Carson set his jaw, like he might argue, but then he grabbed McSlackerson by the collar and hauled his limp carca.s.s across the room. Cleo moved primly out of the way, which was sort of funny considering she didn't have an actual body.

"Are you going to sacrifice him to your G.o.ddess?" she asked. "Normally I'd suggest a bull or a goat, but it seems a shame to waste the blood of your enemy if it might get your power back."

"What is it with you and the bloodshed?" I asked. "Are all Egyptian women this way?"

"I would not know," she said, with that casual arrogance of hers. "I am the daughter of-"

I rolled my eyes and unbuckled my belt. "The daughter of Isis. I remem-"

And then I did remember. It would have dawned on me sooner, except that I'd been in the middle of freaking out about losing my superpower.

"You mean you really are Cleopatra?"

"Of course." She looked down her aquiline nose-I'd never have a better chance to use that word-as if she weren't a foot shorter than me. "Who else would I be?"

In spite of everything, I gave a giddy laugh. I was talking to a remnant of Cleo-freaking-patra. No wonder she was such a vivid shade. Even this tiny piece of her, tied to some artifact, was fed by the epic legend of memory.

"Well, that explains a lot," I said, trying to keep my cool. "The arrogance, for one thing."

Carson, with McSlackerson still hanging from his grip on his collar, looked between me and the s.p.a.ce that Cleo occupied. "Do you think you can cut short the confab with your invisible friend so we can get on with this?"

Cleo's painted brows arched to the braided black bangs of her wig, then lowered into a scowl. "He is very impertinent, your magician."

"Yes, he is," I said, but I got busy binding the thief's arms around the base of the statue with my thin studded belt. I was momentarily grateful my remnant sense was wacked out, because I didn't want to know what Degas would think about knave drool on his little ballerina's slippers.

Carson sighed loudly and started going through McSlackerson's pockets. "I don't even want to know."

"Her Highness says you are impertinent." I cinched the belt around the thief's wrists tight enough to make him groan. It wouldn't have to hold long, and I didn't really care about cutting off blood circulation.

"Still," said Cleo, studying Carson from behind. "I can see why you keep him around. He is very manly, as well as adept. Power is very attractive."

"She also says you're a dish," I relayed. And I didn't bother to deny it.

"That's nice," said Carson. His rifling had turned up a wallet and cell phone, and he started flipping through the log of recent calls.

Something under McSlackerson's cuff caught my eye, and I pushed up his sleeve. On his forearm was a tattoo of a jackal, lean and pointy. I'd seen it in Egyptian art and hieroglyphs too often to mistake it for anything else. "Look at this."