Soul Eater Read online

  Emma felt flatfooted. She could only turn and watch the warden descend to the street.

  “And what was your verdict?” she said to the back of the warden’s head.

  This stopped the warden in his tracks. He turned and looked back up at Emma.

  “It was a unanimous ‘Nay’ Ms. Spaulding. If it’s any comfort to you, I doubt very strongly whether your appearance would have made a difference,” he said.

  Emma felt her world come apart just a little more. She looked to the sky, trying to prevent the tears that welled up in her eyes from spilling down her cheeks. Below her, the warden seemed to hesitate. A second more and he slowly mounted the steps between them until he was again looking her in the face.

  “Ms. Spaulding. Emma. You were a very good investigator once. I think you can be again. Circumstances sometimes can be… overwhelming. I understand that and please believe me when I say I am sympathetic to your cause. I really am, but there comes a point at which you must try to put this behind you, to take care of yourself. Honestly, your appearance gives me cause for concern. You look haggard, Ms. Spaulding, not unlike some addicts and down-and-outers we see in the system,” he said, a softness to his voice she would not have thought him capable of.

  She almost let his words have their effect, but then her promise reasserted itself in her mind.

  “I can’t. I won’t stop until I get him back, Warden. Nothing else matters,” she said, wiping away an escaping tear.

  The warden hung his head and looked away.

  “Fixation can be a cruel taskmaster, Ms. Spaulding. You would do well to know that. It’s fine to have a goal, even one as noble as yours, but you simply must give yourself time to unplug, unwind or you will destroy yourself,” he said.

  Emma let the words roll off her. They were of no use to her and she didn’t have the patience or the time to hear them. The warden must have sensed that. He turned away without another word. Half way down to the street, Emma called out to him.

  “I lost him. I lost him again,” she said.

  For the second time the warden stopped, this time without turning around.

  “He… flew away. At least before, I could keep him on my shoulder, but… I don’t know. Maybe he forgot he ever was a man. He flew away and now even if I could get access to that super-nat…” she said, her words trailing off.

  The warden stood still, his back to her.

  “Ms. Spaulding, I’m not supposed to tell you this. There’s really no reason I should, but maybe it will help you to understand. There was an incident at Super Max. We don’t know how he did it. His cell is warded of course. The shifter was able to use his magic. I don’t know, maybe he thought it would help him escape. He was somehow able to shift from his natural form into that of Detective Barrett. We had to move him into another level, one that rarely gets used. The super max of super max if you will. It’s why your appeal will never be approved. He’s just too dangerous,” the warden said.

  The words hit Emma hard, like a slap to the face. It didn’t matter that she appealed the decision every six months like clockwork. They were never going to do anything but let her rant and then deny her request. The thought made her angry and she wanted to hurt someone. Her fists clenched and unclenched at her sides and her jaw began to ache from the grinding of her teeth. Then other words penetrated her mind and her muscles relaxed. She looked down at the warden taking the final step to the street below. She ran after him.

  “Wait! What did you say?!” she said, catching up to the warden and spinning him around.

  She gripped his arms in her hand, drawing concerned looks from passers-by. The warden cleared his throat and Emma released him.

  “You said, the shifter changed? Into Sully?” she said.

  The warden looked tired.

  “Yes, Ms. Spaulding and I would appreciate a little discretion with that bit of news. If word got out—”

  “It’s really him!” she said, cutting off his words.

  Warden Bulger stared at her.

  “Look, I know it sounds crazy, goes against everything I have been telling you for the past two years, but… A while back I dispelled a Djinn, she was giving everybody what they wanted and it wasn’t working out so well and I stopped her. I stopped her, but not before she granted my wish. I don’t know, maybe she felt… It doesn’t matter. It all makes sense now, you see?! The bird wasn’t my partner. The bird was the shifter. My partner is in Super Max. He’s not the shifter. The shifter is still out there. So, see? He’s not dangerous at all which means you can let him out,” she said, pleading with everything that was within her.

  The warden looked back at her. There was no impatience there, no anger, only abject sympathy.

  “Oh, Emma. I beg you. Get some help. This thing is pulling you apart and it will destroy you,” he said.

  Emma didn’t understand the words at first. They dawned on her only by degree. He wasn’t listening to her and didn’t understand. Her partner was in Super Max and they wouldn’t let him out. Her confusion turned to anger. The warden must have seen it in her because he took a step back, concern morphing to fear.

  “Take care of yourself, Detective Spaulding. Maybe get out. There’s a new exhibit at the museum. Egyptian I think. Maybe it’s something you would like,” he said, before turning away from her and hurrying down the street.

  Emma could only watch him go, not seeing the man, but her last chance disappearing.

  5

  “The dates are all booked, sir,” Rogers said.

  The two other men in the room didn’t look up from their respective tables. Rogers stepped into the room and gave them a minute, to see if they would notice him. Ever since the death of Doctor Tyson, things had moved rather quickly. He was an accountant and his specialty was of course numbers, but it still amazed him how minds could change when those numbers represented real dollars. Neither the government, nor the Consortium wanted to support Gilbert Tyson while he was alive. They saw only legal entanglements and negative integer entries in account books. Tyson cared nothing for any of that as far as Rogers could tell. He lived only for the discovery, the research. To be sure he had a mind for the money, but only in so far as it preserved his legacy, the museum. All resistance fell away like the rock sealing the chamber when it was discovered that something was indeed in that void, something unknown even to Doctor Tyson. Now everybody was on board, if not for the archaeological value of the find, then for the way it would change red numbers to black.

  Rogers stood there, waiting. A full minute passed and still Ahkbar and Slater remained hunched over their tables. Reginald Slater was an archaeologist, in the same field of expertise as Doctor Tyson. He was brought in after Tyson’s death to study and prepare the find for exhibition. There was no money to be made in the back rooms of dusty museums, Godfrey Plentyman, the head of the Consortium was fond of saying. It was the mandate given to Rogers by Plentyman and had drastically changed the nature of his duties with regard the find. He was now an accountant on the side, his chief duties seemed to have devolved into something akin to a road manager. It was his job to book various museums around the country. Doctor Tyson’s find was hitting the road for all to see, all who paid the admittance fee that was. It was why Rogers was intruding on Ahkbar and Slater.

  “Ahem,” Rogers said, more loudly than was natural.

  At the sound, both men looked up from their work like hunters crouched over their prey. For just a second Rogers felt like he had intruded. He folded his hands in front of him and took a step deeper into the room.

  “My apologies gentleman, but I am happy to report that I have booked a museum, the first of many,” he said, raising his eyes and looking at the men.

  Both men continued to stare at him, like he had spoken a foreign language.

  “For the exhibit,” Rogers said, by way of reminder.

  Both men looked back down at their tables and the objects of their study without saying a word. Rogers stood there a moment more, unsure of what t
o make of their reaction. He cleared his throat again, albeit this time more quietly and to open his throat which the awkwardness of his announcement seemed to want to close.

  “The Consortium is entirely sympathetic to the needs of men such as yourselves—”

  “Scientists! We are men of science, Rogers,” Slater said, his voice coming out like a bark.

  Rogers stared at a point on the floor in front of him. He was a numbers guy. He preferred an office in the back or maybe a cubicle. He was not a front man, not one to interact and make things happen. He much preferred to count the things after they happened. The whole trip to Egypt to see Doctor Tyson in the field had taxed him. Nonetheless, certain extracurricular tasks had been given him and he was determined to perform them. He pursed his lips and redoubled his efforts.

  “Yes, of course, Doctor Slater. But it is my duty to inform you that your science continues because of the generous sponsorship of the Consortium, an entity that desires to see a return on its investment. To that end, they have decided that the exhibit will have to start generating some of those returns. The first stop is a small town in… well, I can’t remember the state, just now, but that is unimportant. You have till the end of the week to finish… whatever it is you’re doing here. Any other study you want to make of the artifact will have to be done as the exhibit travels,” he said.

  Both men seemed to pause over their work at this, pause but not look up. Rogers waited for some kind of response from them, but it soon became clear they did not intend to respond, at least not to him. Without even a goodbye from the men, Rogers turned and left the room. One booking was not going to get the Consortium’s money back and so he had many more calls to make. The thought made him long for his tiny back office more than ever.

  No sooner had Rogers left the room than Slater let out a deep sigh.

  “Money is always the bane of the artist, is it not, Ahkbar?” Slater said, looking at a fold of cloth around the mummy through a lighted magnifying glass.

  Across the room, at a second table, Ahkbar stood and rubbed his back.

  “Don’t they realize how dangerous it is to even remove these specimens from their internment, to say nothing of traipsing them around the country?”

  “Ahh!” Doctor Slater said, waving his hand in the air. “They are simpletons, these money men. They serve only to provide the means for us to further our work,” he said.

  Feeling like he needed a break from his own study of the shattered wall, Ahkbar approached Doctor Slater’s table. After a moment or two, something strange and unexpected met his eyes.

  “Doctor Slater? This is going to seem silly, but it appears this mummy is in remarkable condition,” he said.

  Without looking away from his magnifying glass, Doctor Slater nodded his head.

  “Yes, indeed it is. It has been well preserved,” he said, sliding his roll-around stool further down the table and moving the magnifying glass, which was attached to an extendable arm, with him.

  Ahkbar walked down the length of the table across from Doctor Slater, surveying the rest of the mummy.

  “Yes, Doctor Slater, but it seems to me that the mummy is in better condition now than when we first removed it from the void,” Ahkbar said.

  At this, Doctor Slater did look up from his glass. A hearty chuckle erupted from his lips.

  “My dear boy, how in the world could that be possible?” he said, staring at Ahkbar with kind but disbelieving eyes.

  Ahkbar continued to stare at the mummy a moment longer, then met Doctor Slater’s gaze.

  “I don’t know, but I believe it must be so. I saw it myself when it was removed. It had been preserved, but was still decrepit. This seems almost unrecognizable to me, better than I have seen any mummy before, and those in a proper sarcophagus, not in a simple wooden case such as this was. If anything it should be in worse condition, not better,” he said.

  Doctor Slater pursed his lips and appeared deep in thought for a moment.

  “My dear, Ahkbar. What you are proposing is ridiculous, that a mummy should be changing before our eyes? Come now. Any number of things could contribute to your perception. The dim light of the chamber, the dust from thousands of years of neglect falling upon it, now cleared away. There could be no scientific basis for what you are saying and therefore no basis whatsoever,” he said, returning to his glass.

  Ahkbar knew the doctor was right. Knew it before he even said it, but gazing down at the shriveled figure wrapped in ancient cloth, his eyes told him a different story. This had not been his first dig. He had seen other artifacts come from the ground. The first impression of the state of them always held through examination. Time, elements, disruption by grave robbers notwithstanding, how they looked when they came from the ground was how they continued to look. Shaking his head and resigning himself to Doctor Slater’s assessment, Ahkbar went back to his own table.

  Spread out before him were the broken pieces of the wall that had formed the barrier of the void. The outward facing side of the wall had contained nothing, no hieroglyphs, pictographs, nothing. It was only when Doctor Tyson’s body had been removed and the rocks cleared away did he notice that there was something on the inward facing side of the wall. Here were the customary glyphs one would have expected to see. Deciphering the meaning of these had now fallen to him. Looking at the pieces strewn out on the table, his first job had been to assemble the pieces back together so that a proper reading could be done. He had only this morning begun that process and was now ready to start a translation.

  Ahkbar crossed his arms and furrowed his brow.

  “Another thing I find strange, Doctor Slater,” he said.

  “Yes, what is that?” Doctor Slater said, not looking up.

  Ahkbar uncrossed his arms and rested his hands on the table, staring at the pieces of rock.

  “Why put the glyphs on the interior portion of the wall? I mean, nobody could see them in there. Nobody even knew they existed at all, such as they were,” he said.

  Doctor Slater only grunted noncommittally.

  “That, dear boy, is for you to figure out. My job is our madam over here,” he said.

  This thought brought Doctor Slater’s head up.

  “I mean, I take your point, Ahkbar, and perhaps it is joined with my mystery. Why not inter this woman properly, in the way of the Egyptians, at least those of honor? I mean if she was interred in the Great Pyramid she must have been someone of note, yet no sarcophagi, no treasure or servants buried with her. Only this wrapping and your glyphs. In fact, I can’t seem to find any record of her or anyone like her in the whole history of Egypt, no ruler or official fits the nature of her burial. Very strange,” Slater said, raising his eyebrows and resuming his study of the mummy.

  The two men fell back into a comfortable silence, each involved in their own study, too immersed to notice the things around them. Ahkbar studied the glyphs. Something wasn’t right. He picked up a piece of the stone, exchanging it for another piece. This went on for several minutes. It wasn’t like a store bought puzzle after all. He had placed the pieces as best he could after unpacking them, but edges that seemed at first to go together didn’t fit like they should under the lights and intense scrutiny he was now able to give. Just as he was satisfied that he had all the pieces where they should go, a single name leapt out at him from the rock. A cold terror seized him and he felt the hairs on his arms rise. A tingle in his face ran all the way down his left side signaling his apprehension to his disbelieving mind.

  “No. No, it can’t be,” he said, the words a weak defense to what he saw in front of him.

  “What was that, Ahkbar?” Doctor Slater said, still not looking up.

  Standing before the table, the last piece of the wall in his hand, Ahkbar could only stare. The stone slipped from his hand and landed on the floor at his feet with a deep and hollow tone of finality. Some part of Ahkbar watched Doctor Slater stand and come over to the table. Ahkbar could feel the archeologist’s eyes upon him, but
he could not take his eyes from the rocks on the table.

  “Ahkbar? Are you quite alright? You look as if you’ve seen a ghost, dear boy,” Doctor Slater said, putting his hand on Ahkbar’s shoulder.

  The touch roused him and Ahkbar felt as if he was coming back to his body, however slightly. He looked at Doctor Slater as if for the first time. He saw Doctor Slater’s eyebrows raise as he seemed surprised by how he must look to him. If it was anything like he felt, he didn’t blame the aging scientist.

  “I think I know who she is, Doctor Slater,” he said, the words sounding slow to his ears, his tongue feeling thick in his mouth.

  Doctor Slater smiled.

  “That’s very good. That’s good. Tell me,” he said.

  Ahkbar heard the word ‘good’ and it felt like a slap in the face. He shook his head slowly at Doctor Slater.

  “No, Doctor. It is anything but good if it’s true, but it can’t be true,” he said, his mind still unwilling to accept the name he read from the stone.

  Doctor Slater frowned.

  “Dear boy, whatever are you talking about? Any discovery is good. Of course it is. Now tell me, quickly. What did you find?” he said.

  Ahkbar still felt cold, but he knew he had to tell someone. Something had to be done before it was too late.

  “I know why the words were turned inward, Doctor. I know why she wasn’t given an honorable burial,” he said, wanting to get the words out, but not daring to say her name.

  Doctor Slater began to lose his patience.

  “Ahkbar, now this is quite enough. Tell me what you have found. As head of this project, I demand it,” he said.

  Ahkbar nodded, clinging to the stern words of Doctor Slater like a life line. A single word escaped his lips.