Victoria Nelson - Blood Lines Part 10

"I don't know what you're talking about." The protest was purely instinctive; Henry didn't expect to be believed. Even as he spoke, he realized from their bearing that they did know what he was and what he did and that the only option left was to find out what they intended to do about it.

"Please,afreet ..." The leader spread his hands, his meaning plain.

Henry nodded, once, and allowed the persona of slightly vapid Englishman to drift away. "What do you want?" he asked, the weight of centuries giving his voice an edge.

The leader stroked his beard with fingers that trembled slightly and all six carefully kept from meeting Henry's gaze. "We want only to warn you. Leave. Now." "And if I don't?" The edge became more p.r.o.nounced.

"Then we will find where you hide from the day, and we will kill you."

He meant it. In spite of his fear, and the greater fear of the men behind him, Henry had no doubt they would do exactly as they said. "Why warn me?"

"You have proven yourself to be a neutralafreet ," one of the other men spoke up. "We do not wish to make you angry, so we try a neutral path to be rid of you."

"Besides," the leader added dryly, "our young men insisted."

Henry frowned. "I gave them dreams..."

"Our people had a civilization when these people were savages." A wave of his hand indicated the tourists, Lady Wallington among them, still haggling over souvenirs. "We have forgotten more than they have yet learned. Dreams will not hide your nature,afreet . Will you take our warning and go?"

Henry studied their faces for a moment and saw, under the dirt and malnutrition, a remnant of the race that had built the pyramids and ruled an empire that had included most of northern Africa. To that remnant he bowed, the bow of a Prince receiving an amba.s.sador from a distant, powerful land, and said, "I will go."

We have forgotten more than they have yet learned.

Henry drummed his fingers on the edge of his desk. Somehow he doubted that much more had been learned in the ninety odd years since. If Celluci was right and a mummy did walk the streets of Toronto, a mummy who brought with it the power of ancient Egypt, then they were all in a great deal of danger.

"Slumming, Detective?"

"Just seeing how the other half lives." Celluci leaned on the counter at 52 Division and scowled at the woman on the other side. "Trembley and her partner in yet? I need to talk to them."

"Good G.o.d, don't tell me one of you boys from homicide is actually working at six fifty in the a.m.? Just let me circle the date..."

"Bruton..." It wasn't quite a warning. "Trembley?"

"Jee-zus, take a man out of uniform and he loses his sense of humor. Not," she reflected, "that you ever had much of one. And you always were a son of a b.i.t.c.h in the morning. Come to think of it, you were a son of a b.i.t.c.h in the evening, too." Staff-Sergeant Heather Bruton had shared a car with Celluci for a memorable six months back when they'd both been constables, but the department had wisely separated them before any permanent damage had been done. "Trembley's not in yet. You want to wait or you want me to have her give you a shout?"

"I'll wait."

"Be still my beating heart." She blew him a sarcastic kiss and returned to her paperwork. Celluci sighed and wondered if Vicki had known who'd be on duty when she suggested he talk to Trembley. Just the sort of thing she'd think was funny...

"... so then she says, 'Aren't you going to arrest him, Mommy?'"

Trembley's partner laughed. "How old is Kate now?"

"Just about three. Her birthday's November." She turned from Harbord Street onto Queen's Park Circle. "And can you believe it, for Halloween she wants... oh, f.u.c.k!"

"What?"

"The accelerator, it's stuck!"

The patrol car sped over the bridge and into the curve, picking up speed. Trembley swerved around a tiny import, fighting to keep control. She pumped the brakes once, twice, and then the pressure was gone.

"s.h.i.t!"

She stamped the emergency brake into the floor. Abused metal shrieked under the car.

Trembley's partner, the fingers of one hand dug deep into the dash, grabbed for the radio. "This is 5239!

The car... Jesus, Trembley!"

"I see it! I see it!"

She yanked the wheel hard to the left. Tires squealed against asphalt. They pa.s.sed behind the College streetcar with only a prayer between them.

"Throw it into reverse!"

"That'll fuse the engine!"

"So?"

The world slowed as PC Trembley suddenly realized that the car was not going where she steered it.

The wheels had turned, but the car, drawing dark lines of rubber behind it, continued to head for the concrete memorial at the corner of the Toronto General Hospital.

The world resumed its normal speed just before they hit. Trembley's last feelings were relief. She didn't think she could stand dying in slow motion.

Upwind from the clouds of greasy black smoke, Celluci stared at the wreck of the patrol car, the heat from the fire lapping at his face. If by any miracle either officer had survived the impact, the explosion when the engine ignited would have finished them off. The blaze was so intense that the fire department could only let the flames burn out, concentrating on keeping them contained.

In spite of the early hour, a small crowd had gathered and the flower seller, who had been just about to set up on that corner, was having strong hysterics under the care of two paramedics. "Funny thing," rasped a voice by Celluci's shoulder.

He turned and glared down at the filthy man swaying beside him. Even over the smell of the accident, he stank.

"I seen it," the man continued. "Told the cops. They don't believe me."

"Told them what?" Celluci growled.

"I amnot drunk!" He staggered and clutched at Celluci's jacket. "But if you could spare some change..."

"Told them what?" Celluci repeated in a tone honed over the years to cut through alcoholic haze.

"What I seen." Still holding the jacket, he turned and pointed a filthy finger at the car. "Wheels was goin'

one way. Car was goin' nuther way."

"It's barely light now, how could you have seen that then?"

"Was layin' in the park. Had a wheels-eye view."

It wasn't much of a park, more a garden planted on the median strip, but the trail of black rubber scorched onto the road pa.s.sed right by it. Celluci followed the line to the wreck and then followed the smoke until it became a part of the overcast sky, spreading over the entire city.

The wheels were going one way.

The car was going another.

With a cold hand closing around his heart, Celluci ran for his car. It had suddenly become very important he see Trembley's occurrence reports for Monday morning.

"Jesus Christ, Celluci," Staff-Sergeant Bruton snapped, phone receiver cradled under her chin and three people clambering for her attention, "this isnot the time to bother me with a missing f.u.c.king occurrence report, you... What?" She turned her attention back to the phone. "No. I don't want to call back. I want you to find him! Donot put me on ho... d.a.m.nit!" She scrawled her signature on a preferred form, glared through the chaos and shouted, "Takahashi! Get that other line! Now then," she jabbed a finger in Celluci's direction, "if you need that report for a case, you call later. You hear me? Later."

"Sarge?" PC Takahashi held out the phone, his hand tightly over the mouthpiece. "It's Trembley's husband."

The hieroglyphs that had been etched into the paint of the toy police car had been completely obliterated and the small piece of paper folded three times toward the heart and then slipped into the front seat was no more than ash. He slid a magazine under the smoldering remains and lifted it out of the tub with a trembling hand. It had been a very long time since he'd worked that spell and, as burning down the hotel had not been part of his intention, he'd carefully set it up so that any random power would be contained.

Because he'd forgotten that the fuel these cars relied upon was highly flammable, his foresight proved fortunate. As it was, the shower curtain appeared a little singed. He would have to have it replaced.

Dumping the nearly unidentifiable bit of metal into a crystal ashtray in the living room of the suite, he collapsed, exhausted, into a chair. Although there existed easier and less draining ways to accomplish thesame purpose, the morning's work had, while removing the last two memories of his mummified form, proven that all his old skills were still intact. A quick trip to the station and a short chat with the young man on the desk had taken care of the written records last night.

In the old days, he wouldn't have dared to take his power as low as he had this morning. But in the old days with the G.o.ds gathering up souls almost at birth, he wouldn't have been able to feed with the ease he now could. Later, perhaps around lunch, he'd take a walk. According to Dr. Rax's ka, there was a school of sorts for very young children not so far away.

"You're late."

"I was down at 52 when the accident call came in." Celluci shrugged out of his jacket and dropped into his chair. The accident had happened at College and University, three short blocks from Headquarters; everyone in the building knew about it; half of the arriving day shift had been there.

"Was it as bad as they say?"

"Worse."

"Jesus. What do you think happened?"

Celluci glared across the desk at his partner. "The team who died in that crash were the uniforms on the scene Monday morning at the museum."

"Christ, Mike!" Dave leaned forward and lowered his voice. "We are not in some bad monster movie here! There never was a mummy, but if there had been it wouldn't be getting up and killing people and it sure as s.h.i.t wouldn't be causing car accidents. I don't know where you're coming from with this, but could you just drop the bulls.h.i.t so we can get on with our work?"

"Look, you don't know..."

"Know what? That there's a lot of strange things going on in this city? Sure I know, I've arrested some of them. But there's plenty of perfectly normal, human slime out there so don't go borrowing trouble." He studied Celluci's expression and shook his head. "Like money through a wh.o.r.e's hands... You haven't listened to a thing I said."

"I heard you," Celluci growled. He realized that nothing he said in turn could convince the other man that another world existed outside-or more frighteningly, inside-the boundaries he'd lived with all his life.

"Hey, you two; Cantree wants to see you in his office."

"Why?" Celluci scowled at the messenger even as Dave was getting to his feet.

She shrugged. "How the h.e.l.l should I know? He's the Inspector, I'm just a detective." She skipped back out of the way as Celluci stood. "Maybe he just got a look at your last expense report. I told you that you should've kept receipts."

Inspector Cantree glanced up as the two detectives came in and indicated with a jerk of his head that they were to close the door. "It's about those deaths at the museum," he said without preamble. "I've looked at the reports. I've had a talk with the Chief. Leave it." "Leave it?" Celluci took a step forward.

"You heard me. A heart attack isn't a homicide. Leave it to the B & E team. I want you helping Lackey and Dixon on the Griffin case."

Celluci felt his hands curl into fists, but because it was Cantree, probably the one cop in the city he respected without reservation-andthat carried a lot more weight than the man's rank or position as his immediate superior-he kept a tight hold on his temper. "I have a hunch about this..." he began, but the Inspector interrupted.

"I don't care. It isn't a homicide, therefore it isn't any business of yours. Or your hunches."

"But I think itis a homicide."

Cantree sighed. "All right. Why? Give me some facts."

Celluci's lips narrowed. "No facts," he muttered, while Dave stared at the ceiling, his expression carefully neutral. "Just a feeling."

"All right." Cantree pulled a pile of folders across his desk. "I'll give you some facts. We've had seventy-seven homicides in this city so far this year. A teenage girl found dismembered in the lake. A man knifed behind a bar. A doctor killed in the stairwell of her apartment building. Two women bludgeoned to death in a parking garage in middle of the f.u.c.king afternoon!" His voice rose and he surged up out of his seat, slamming his palm down on the folders. "I don't need you making murders where there aren't any.

As far as you are concerned, the case is closed. Do I make myself clear?"

"Perfectly," Celluci told him through clenched teeth.

"As a bell," Dave added, pulling his partner toward the door and keeping a tight grip on his elbow until they were back in the outer office. "Well, I guess that's that," he said, caught sight of Celluci's face, and rolled his eyes. "Or maybe not..."

"Nelson. Investigations."

"Cantree pulled me off the case."

Vicki dropped her bag and, balancing the receiver under her chin, shrugged out of her jacket. She'd barely gotten in the door when the phone rang. "Did he say why?"

"He said, and I quote, 'I've looked at the reports. I've had a talk with the Chief. A heart attack isn't a homicide. '"

"And you said?"

"What the h.e.l.l could I say? If I told him I thought there was a mummy involved, he'd think I was crazy.

My partneralready thinks I'm crazy."

In her mind's eye she could see him shoving the curl of hair back off his forehead and forcing his fingers up through his hair. "You still think there's a mummy involved?"

"Trembley's occurrence report for Monday morning is missing." "And Trembley?"

"Is dead."

Vicki sat down. "How?"

"Car accident on the way back to the station this morning."

"I pa.s.sed the site coming home, but I had no idea Trembley was... involved." Emergency teams had just managed to get close to the slag. The bodies had been burned beyond even retrieval. "I talked to a couple of the uniforms. They said the car went out of control."

"I have a witness who saw the wheels pointing one way while the car continued to go another." Celluci took a deep breath and she could hear the tension in it humming over the wires. "I want to hire you."

"You what?"

"Cantree tied my hands. You don't work for him anymore. Find that mummy."

She recognized the obsession in his voice. She'd heard it there before and as often in her own.