Undead - One Foot In The Grave Part 37

"Tanis leaves," Garou said.

"Yes."

"No," she corrected, "you said tanis leaves. In the movies they're called tanna leaves."

We all looked at her.

Ba.s.sarab cleared his throat. "Is there a point?"

Garou shrugged. "My mother always said that the Devil is in the details."

"Hollywood," Ba.s.sarab muttered.

I leaned back in my chair and stared up at water-stained ceiling tiles that might have been white back in the 1940s. Back when the old black-and-white Universal horror movies were being shot on Tinseltown's back lots. "She's right," I said. "Maybe this particular detail isn't significant. But we can't discount any potential piece of information at this point. And an inconsistency could be a red flag."

"Oh, well, if it's inconsistencies you want," Garou said, "there's a rather largish one at the beginning of The Mummy series."

Mooncloud gave her a look. "I had no idea you were such an old movie buff."

"When you're on call for the graveyard shift, cable doesn't exactly offer a smorgasbord of culture."

I cleared my throat. "I believe we were discussing inconsistencies."

"Oh, right. Boris Karloff played the first mummy. Then it was mostly Lon Chaney, Jr. though there were two or three others."

"Christopher Lee, as I recall," Mooncloud mused.

"Now there was an actor. . . ." Ba.s.sarab rested his chin on folded hands. "I did not mind so much when I was portrayed by the likes of him. And Langella, of course."

"And Lugosi?" I murmured.

"Bah! That dwarf?"

"Lee came later," Garou continued, "during the Hammer Films era. I'm talking about the old Universal cla.s.sics."

"Jack Palance?" I whispered.

Ba.s.sarab looked at me.

"Dan Curtis production back in the seventies. Two-part made-for-TV movie."

"Hmmmm." Ba.s.sarab looked thoughtful.

"In the original Mummy, Karloff utilized the Scroll of Thoth to raise the dead," Garou elaborated.

"The tanna leaves angle didn't show up until Chaney was gimping around in three-thousand-year-old duct tape after Princess Ananka's reincarnation."

"Two different mythologies," Mooncloud observed.

"But could both hold a portion of the truth?"

Ba.s.sarab roused from his reverie. "You are not serious."

"Yeah," I echoed. "Vampires, werewolves, three-thousand-year-old dead guys still walking around-get serious!"

He scowled at me. "There must be better sources of information."

"Find me one." Then I told them about what I had seen in my garage before escaping the fire."So, he's using both the tanna leaves and the Scroll of Thoth," Garou said when I was done.

"Tanis leaves," I corrected.

"No," said Ba.s.sarab simultaneously.

I turned to him. "You're starting to sound like a broken record."

"No," Ba.s.sarab insisted. "Bey would not use scrolls or anything else involving the G.o.d Thoth."

"He's right," Mooncloud said. "If Bey is a disciple of Set, he dabbles in black magic. Thoth, in many ways, was Set's nemesis."

"Thoth," I said, "Thoth. . . ." The name resonated in my mind like a half-remembered melody. "Tell me more about this Thoth."

Mooncloud looked thoughtful. "My Egyptian mythology is a little rusty. As I remember it, Set murdered his brother Osiris. Thoth gave power to the G.o.ddess Isis to resurrect her husband. Out of that process, the Egyptians say, the process of embalming was handed down to mortals."

"And the Scroll of Thoth," Garou said, "is what was used in the first Mummy movie to animate Boris Karloff. The tanna leaves came later, during the Lon Chaney, Jr. series."

"Your friends back in Kansas City," I said to Mooncloud, "they have a Scroll of Thoth."

She smiled. "An authentic copy."

"This is madness," Ba.s.sarab muttered.

"And tanis leaves," I concluded, pulling a cellular phone out of my backpack.

"Where did you get that?" Ba.s.sarab wanted to know.

"Kansas City during our recent shopping spree." I turned to Mooncloud. "The Satterfield's number?"

I asked.

"I forbid it," he said as Mooncloud gave me the information.

As I started punching in the area code I could feel the old vampire's mind force enveloping me like a musty shroud. "When I'm done I'll need Smirl's number so we can arrange some fast transportation."

"You will put the phone down," Ba.s.sarab ordered. His mental domination intensified. "I command you!"

The color drained from Mooncloud's face.

Garou's eyes were filled with pain.

I was getting seriously p.i.s.sed off.

"I command-"

"Hey, Vladamir," I said, "bite me." The phone began to ring at the other end of the connection.

The hat, sungla.s.ses, and sunblock were less effective now and, during the drive to the airport, I drifted through that no man's land between pain and discomfort.

I welcomed the burning lancets of sunlight p.r.i.c.king my skin, loose photons seeming to turn the air noxious as I breathed it in. I was tired and it slapped away my lethargy, I was thirsty and it offered preeminent diversion. I was moving out onto thin ice and I would need my wits about me for the next forty-eight hours.

Smirl was waiting at the Pittsburg field with a plane and a pilot. I got out of the car and waited for Mooncloud. She had removed the keys from the ignition and unbuckled her seat belt, but remained seated behind the steering wheel.

She looked up at me with a stricken expression. "I can't."

I stared back, puzzled. "You can't what?"

"Get out of the car. He won't let me.""What?"

"Ba.s.sarab."

It took me a moment. I had developed my own vampiric immunity to Ba.s.sarab's mental domination, but Mooncloud was still human and susceptible. "Posthypnotic suggestion," I asked, "or is he using some kind of telepathic remote control?"

She shook her head. "I don't know."

"Well, how about this?" I opened the driver's door. "I command you to get out of the car and follow me." She sat, unmoving, and I pushed a bit with my mind. She clutched at her head and moaned.

"Never mind," I said, relenting. "Stay here and help Lupe keep the trail warm. I'll be back tonight."

"The Doman isn't going to like this," she said.

"Tough. Under the circ.u.mstances, Stefan Pagelovitch is the least of my worries. And if the plan fails, I'll be beyond caring."

A fool's plan. . . . The words whispered at the back of my mind like a serpent sliding beneath dry leaves.

Lie still in your coffin, old man, and keep your thoughts to yourself. You've had five hundred years to deal with Kadeth Bey. Your continuing impotence in this matter should curb the tongue of your mind as well as the one in your mouth.

"Are you all right?" Mooncloud asked.

I looked at her.

"You look a little unsteady on your feet."

"A headache," I said. "Nothing more." And I plan to be rid of it permanently in just a short while.

Ba.s.sarab, if he was still listening, made no reply.

"I'd better get going."

She reached out and put her hand on my arm. "You're going to need something very soon. . . ."

I turned and walked through the gate and out onto the field.

The tiny Kansas airport wasn't much more than a main building with a two story tower and a couple of runways. A half dozen hangars and metal sheds, a couple of fuel depots, and a chainlink fence completed the layout. Although the sun was still up, it was after six p.m. and the nominal staff had left for the day. Local traffic tended to be light, mostly Cessna 100 series and Pipers with an occasional Beechcraft thrown in. Regional flights usually diverted over to Joplin, where they were better able to accommodate charters and median jets. Large commercial carriers gave both airports a wide berth.

"You it?" Smirl asked, as I walked briskly toward the plane.

"Yeah. Let's move." While I didn't necessarily think the old vampire would sabotage our takeoff, I was in a hurry to put a little more distance between us while he was still preoccupied with Dr.

Mooncloud. Five minutes later we were off the ground and headed north, toward Kansas City.

Smirl had provided us with a Beechcraft Baron, a plush, prestigious, and very expensive twin-prop that made me wonder about the Chicago demesne's resources. What was more important, however, was that the Baron had an average cruising speed of two hundred miles per hour. The clock was ticking and I didn't want to see the sun come up again before my errand was through.

"I got the stuff you asked for," Smirl said. He pulled a leather valise out from under his seat and unzipped it. Reaching in, he extracted a vest of meshed nylon covered with canvas pouches that were all interconnected with insulated wire. "Special Ops, ALICE-type vest with twenty-eight bricks of high propellant C-4 Plastique in canvas utility pouches with wireless system primers tied to a single circuit." He eyed me as he held out the vest. "You ever work with this stuff?"

"Years ago, in the service.""What were you? Special Forces?"

I stopped examining the wire leads and stared at him. "Do my military records say anything about Special Forces?"

"No . . . but your service records are unusually vague in some areas. And your shopping list-"

"Weekend warrior stuff, I a.s.sure you," I said. And then I rea.s.sured him some more with a little mental push.

As I refolded the vest he produced a small black box with a hinged cover. "Remote detonator.

Range of at least five hundred meters if you've got clear line-of-sight."

"Range isn't going to be a problem," I murmured as he flipped the lid open.

There were four toggle switches arranged in pairs. He pointed to the top two switches. "Two separate circuits if you want a backup charge. The top switch arms the circuit." He moved his finger.

"The switch beneath it detonates the charge. You want the vest wired to the left pair or the right?"

I reached out and took the small plastic case into my hand. I closed my eyes and ran my thumb across the switches, trying to imagine the easiest configuration under the most difficult of circ.u.mstances.

"The right pair, I guess," I said, opening my eyes. As I did, a sable-brown cat with two tails appeared from beneath a seat at the back of the plane. It ambled up the aisle and jumped into my lap.

"Where did you get the cat?"

"She insisted on coming along," he answered. As if that was any kind of an answer at all.

I was feeling more than a little disoriented from the combination of sun, Ba.s.sarab's interference, and the sudden change in alt.i.tude as I exchanged the vest and detonator for a flashlight with a black, insulated exterior and a ringed spring-clip at the b.u.t.t end. "Browning submersible Sabrelight," he said. "Looks pretty much like an ordinary flashlight, but it has a xenon high-intensity lamp with four hundred percent more candlepower. They're used by U.S. Army Special Forces counterinsurgency strike teams. I got you two, just in case, with three sets of spare batteries, each."

The cat formed a furry doughnut in my lap as Smirl took the flashlight back and placed a wooden box in my hands. I opened it and considered the oversized handgun nestled in the green felt interior.

"Dartmaster CO2 tranquilizer gun with twelve hypodarts and two spare gas cartridges," he catalogued. "Modifications: Tasco Propoint PDP4 electronic sight, ALS MiniAimer laser sight, Hogue grip."

"Perfect."