Wrath and Bones (50 page)

 I laid my shovel down at the next junction pointed down the hall we’d just left, and at the next junction, I tucked the bucket against the corner to show me to turn left on the way back. I started humming “One Way or Another,” and then singing it, because Debbie Harry was one of the few singers I could nail with my voice every time. Declan took the lead, aiming his headlamp down this corridor and that. My voice bounced down empty hallways and came rushing back at us, cutting me off. We went still and listened for a minute. It felt like we were not alone, but I hoped it was just the echo keeping us company. I really didn't want to run into anything else saying it was gonna getcha getcha getcha.

We eased forward once more, ducking into a chamber. Our headlamps hit the glass of several dig lamps set up in a half circle. Between them was a short dais and a sarcophagus that didn’t look quite right. We stood beside it in silence for a long moment before I pushed at the lid a little. It flipped right off and toppled to the dusty floor. Carved, painted Styrofoam, like a movie prop, but convincingly made. Probably, it would look persuasive in pictures. I resisted the urge to click off a few selfies. There was a blue plastic bin inside that was long enough for a body; that lid was puffed up, as if whatever was inside was producing gas.  

I shot a finger at it. “Your turn. I did the first lid.”

“Oh, sure, leave the bloated one for me,” Declan said under his breath, shaking his head as he braced himself. “I see how it is.” He braced himself for what might be inside, but when he teased up a corner of the lid, his brow creased, and he whisked it away to reveal a layer of gold goo.

We dipped our headlamps straight over it, casting shadows across the fake sarcophagus. “There’s someone under there,” he said, and added, “How come every time I see you, we end up in face masks over corpses, Dr. B?”

The nape of my neck prickled, and I had the sensation we were being watched again. I examined the room. The walls were ornately carved, but that was also a trick: a clever paint job. Why was Pia pretending this was a real tomb? She knew that anyone coming to check its veracity wouldn't be fooled for a second, so what was she after?

“This isn’t even a proper mummy,” I objected.

He studied it. “Whoever this was, Dr. B, they warranted the use of unusual…” He drifted off at the look on my face.

I felt my lips thin and my eyes narrow. “This is a fresh, eviscerated corpse. It’s been sloppily stitched up and covered in…” I smelled the tomb reluctantly, sniffing deeply only briefly and then returning the hot, shallow breathing provided through my mask. “Honey.” (
The honey pot
, BugBelly had said.
The Golden Sap of Huxtahotep
.) “Declan, what the fuck is this?”

“I think it’s…” His lips buckled inward around his teeth as though he could protect them from the words that had to come out. “Mellified man. Someone is making mellified man.”

“Do I want to know what that is?”

“Massively illegal, for one,” he said seriously, dropping his voice. “You brought your gun, right?”

I nodded. “What is mellified man used for?”

“It’s sold on the black market to certain practitioners as ancient healing medicine. It’s worth thousands, maybe millions. It’s worth more than any street drug I know of.”

Like the golden seed pods of Lilith’s Heart.

“The canopic jars seem genuine.” Declan touched one with a jackal’s head on it. If my memory served, and the arrangements had been traditional, this jar was guarded by the god Duamutef, and would contain the dead guy’s stomach.

“I’m not looking in there,” I said flatly.

He did. “You really should.” He replaced one lid and peeked in another, this one with a hawk head on it. “It’s quite fascinating.”

“If you’re Jeffrey Dahmer and low on
hors d' oeuvres
, maybe,” I said. I went so far as to use one gloved hand to tilt the closest canopic jar. It did
not
look authentic, as it had three heads: a ram, a boar, and a very familiar sneering human.
Asmodeus
. Care to explain this inscription on the bottom of the jar, Doctor Edgar?”

“I don’t read hieroglyphics.”

“Neither do I, but this one reads — in English — 'Made in Taiwan.' I think this is the misfit.” I tipped the cap to peek with dread inside, but it was empty. That wasn’t better. In fact, I had a sneaking suspicion that was worse. (
The honey pot. The Golden Sap.
) “Crap. We need some of this honey.” Worry flared in my belly yet again.
What if you bring the honey and you really needed a bit of Huxtahotep? Are you actually considering taking a piece of this corpse to the Arctic in a fake clay jar? How the hell would you get that through airport security?
“Or something,” I finished.

The wan color of Declan’s cheeks said he knew what I meant. “She couldn’t possibly imagine she’d get away with this.”

Pia
. He was right. With her experience, she’d never have mistaken this for an actual find. Who was paying her for this, and what had been her price? She’d never take money from revenant pockets for a contest or scavenger hunt. Then again, I thought, looking around at the sad theater in front of me, I never would have imagined she’d set up this mockery, complete with real dead body. Could it have been someone else? Anyone else? No, Pia had told me lies about Huxtahotep (“
Definitely Early Dynastic Period, no indication yet what his status was. We were able to gather his name from the stela at the entrance of the tomb. We’ve removed the grave goods to the museum for further study.
”) that would have been ridiculous to the point of being laughable, had she told me the lies in this room.

“Huxtahotep, my ass,” I whispered in sad disbelief.

“Careful,” Declan whispered back. “Given this death may be recent, it isn’t wise to speak the name of the dead in this place.”

“You know that’s not his name. I don’t have time to wonder about the legal ramifications of this. Let’s just be grateful the Dark Lady was smiling on us when she put a wild hair up Batten’s ass about going on to Nepal without us. Didn’t realize that was going to be such a blessing.”

“Let’s get this jar and get the hell out of here, it’s giving me the creeps. Though I guess his age means we can forget worrying about a mummy’s curse?”

“I think so. I hope so,” I said, leaning a hip against the open sarcophagus.

“You think he was murdered and desiccated for this purpose?”

“Does it make it better if his corpse was stolen from a mortuary?”

Declan grimaced. “No.”

“Does it make it better if this is a recently-deceased relative of Pia?”

“Not a whole lot, no.” His eyes were as wide as I’d ever seen them. “Suggestions?”

I ran through what little I knew about ancient Egypt to see if I could find anything useful. I’d read the Book of the Dead ages ago, but only skimmed it out of interest at the time. In no way had I studied it in detail.

Declan asked, “Are those legitimate warnings there on the wall?”

I pointed specifically to the squatting baboon figure with the big erection. “That boner seems to be a big warning to me. To be fair, no one needs to warn me about stealing meat off a corpse or scamming stuff from a tomb. If I had a choice…”

“That’s Babi, the Bull of the Baboons,” Declan said, examining the painting. “I don’t know a lot about Egyptian gods, but I think he’s kind of a ferryman, and a virility god. Maybe he guides the spirits after death? What if we disturb the body and…”

“And what?”

“So many things occur, which to suggest?” he lamented with a high, tittering laugh.

“Could it get worse, Declan?” I said, hearing the horror in my own hushed voice. “Three words: Human. Mummy. Confection. Yes, I'll have two eggs over-easy, a side of bacon, and for dessert? Well, gosh-golly-heck, as I do every damn day, I'll just have my usual: honey-drenched man jerky and a nice cup of tea. Hold the sugar, thanks. Huxtahotep is more than enough sweets for the day.”

“Are you done?”

I blinked with surprise; I was hearing Batten’s voice out of Declan’s mouth, and I had never appreciated that
so-done-with-your-shit
tone more. “I think so. Wait.” I considered. “Yeah, that’s all I’ve got for now.”

“Get me the shovel, Dr. B.”

“Nope!” I said, shaking my head to reinforce this.

Declan gave me a look that made me consider that he was taking serious notes from Batten. His jaw legit did the clench-unclench dance. “I’ll do the digging, you make sure it gets in the jar.”

As I went to get the shovel, I repeated, “Nope, nope, nope,” mostly just to comfort myself, to convince myself that this wasn’t happening, though it was clearly not open for discussion. “Not doing this. Ain’t happenin’.”

Declan had brought the fake canopic jar to the side of the phony sarcophagus. He took the lid off and we traded jar for shovel. He considered the slab-like corpse under all that cloudy honey; the body had very few features left. The honey had done weird things to the face, if the face had been unmarked before it had been placed in its sweet, sticky bath. Declan’s lip curled and he tried to use the shovel to nudge the chin and turn the face away from him, but the honey was way too thick to allow for maneuvering. He prodded a bit, fished around by the closest arm, shot me a look.  

“It’s going to be okay,” I said, more to myself than to Declan. “It's just a sham. A shammy sham. The shammiest sham that ever shammed.”

“Are we absolutely sure this is what the Overlord meant by the Golden Sap of Huxtahotep?” he said, and I could tell by the tension in his shoulders that he was just waiting for my nod to jab a hunk off the corpse.

I couldn’t say
for sure
. I couldn’t promise. But I also couldn’t imagine what else the Golden Sap could be, if not this. The rest of the tomb was empty but for that feeling of being watched.

“Okay, just get some and let’s go. If we overthink this, we’re going to fail, and Sarokhanian will rule, and trolls will cull the human herd, and it’ll be my fault because I couldn’t handle honey-dipped human jerky,” I said. “Just do it.”

“Sure you don’t want to do it?” Declan said ridiculously.

“You’re my assistant,” I reminded him. “Assist me.”

“This isn’t the first time you’ve handed me a shovel and said that,” he said.

“Won’t be the last, either,” I promised. “You have a limited skillset, so I have to take that into account. Now spork the dork, Irish.”

Declan squeezed his eyes shut and pressed the shovel down, sliding through the honey and pinning the body against the bottom of the blue plastic bin. It slipped a little but he managed to wedge it against the edge and get a better grip, then twisted into the meaty part of Huxtahotep’s — or whoever this was' — shoulder. I heard Declan gag, but he pressed further, cupping the shovel against the side of the container and sliding it up, honey and meat together. As it got closer, the meat looked greyish and dry.

Declan went
erp
but held it together as I tilted the jar as close to the shovel as I could get. “You okay, Dr. B?” he asked, taking a deep breath as the meat slid slowly into the confines of the clay jar. “You look a little green.”

The groan that came from behind us wasn’t human, and raised all the little hairs on my body in instant unison. It was the sound of a large animal awakening. It was followed by an eerie, echoing bark-snort that sounded like
wah-hunh
! 

“That's the best part about this sham,” I told Declan on a dismayed whisper. “It just keeps getting shammier."

“I knew we weren’t alone,” Declan said. “I felt it. Did you feel it?”

“Of course,” I hissed.

There was no doubt after the second, nasal
wah-hunh!
There was a thud. A warning. The thing that had been monitoring us was displeased.  I sensed it was time to go, and Declan put the shovel down carefully while I fumbled with the canopic jar's lid. Somewhere in the tomb there was a loud
roop roop
and a thud.

“I’m not meeting anything that goes
roop roop
too,” I hissed. “I wasn’t pleased with
wah-hunh
, but
roop roop
is straight up not happening. We’re leaving now.”

“This isn’t a real tomb, how can it have a guardian?” Declan wondered aloud as he took the canopic jar from me and wedged it snugly in my go-bag. Neither of us had the answer to that, but it may have had something to do with the jars, the intentions, the focus, and the nature of this honey elixir. Only Pia would have our answers. “We need to be careful.”

 I tried to Feel what he was sensing, sending the Blue Sense out to test the dry, close air in the tomb.
Anticipation
, it reported.
Pursuit
.
Preparation
. This was clearly different than the displeased and unsettled silence of the guardian. It was followed by a subtle waft of burnt sugar and the final emotion:
smugness
. I cut my eyes at Declan. He nodded that he’d follow me.

That’s when Folkenflik bounded around the corner and plowed into two of the real canopic jars, spilling their meaty contents with a wet
splurch
and kicking something that looked like a kidney into a dark corner. He yipped at us.

“No, Folkenflik! Bigger problems!” I flapped a hand, trying to get my whistle out of my shirt. “Big weird tomb-thing problems!”

He gnashed his teeth and lunged forward, aimed at my midsection. I shoved out my right arm to block my belly and felt Folkenflik’s canines go through my shirt and into my flesh. My mouth popped open and I shouted with surprise more than pain.

“Ow!” I told him. “Folkenflik, you flapsnapper!”

Folkenflik came away from my arm with a bloody muzzle and snarled, preparing to spring again.

Declan and I whooped in alarmed agreement and did a bumping scramble down the other hall, ducking into a dark chamber with the werefox hot on our heels. There were thuds, though, big thuds that shook the ground, and the werefox was forced off into another chamber by something enormous that I definitely did not want to run into.