Ed Sutter's 3-Book Box Set, page 41
Zack knelt down next to me. “Alec, are you all right? Are you hit?” There had been some stray rounds flying around.
I did a quick internal assessment. I didn’t feel any really sharp pains, and I didn’t see blood gushing out of my body. I tried to sit up and groaned again.
“I hit the floor kind of hard,” I said.
Zack looked me over. “Well, there’s no blood, and that’s a good thing.”
I agreed, sort of.
Zack gave me a hand up and said, “So you took that whole ‘hit the dirt’ thing pretty seriously, I gather.”
I rolled my head around to make sure everything was firmly attached. “I ‘hit the dirt’ from about twenty feet up.”
Zack focused instantly. “You were flying?”
“More like floating. I was a bit higher than the block.”
“I guessed it was you who shot that metal block at the guys with the guns then.”
I nodded. It hurt a little less. “That was me.”
I hadn’t noticed, but Megan and her friend Murdoch had come up to see how we were. Murdoch said, “You were floating? In the field?”
Being a man of few words, I said, “Yep.”
His face lit up like a kid at Christmas. “Really? The field lifted you off the ground?”
I nodded. “About twenty feet.” I rubbed an elbow that had smacked the floor particularly hard. “It was a long way down.”
A huge grin enveloped the scientist’s face. “Oh, that is so cool! We were months away from trying a human experiment! It works! It works!”
Megan smiled for a moment, but then sobered and said, “Uh, John.”
He looked over at her, still beatific. “Huh?”
“I think they shot your equipment, or at least some of it. And…it looks like they came to grab you. You know—kidnap you for what you know.”
He looked horrified, stared at her for a few moments, and then started rushing around, checking stuff.
I looked at Megan and Zack and said, “Ninjas?”
Zack shook his head and replied, “Not ninjas, no. Special warfare operators, and German.”
Megan nodded, “I caught the accent too.”
I looked at both of them. “Nazi Ninjas?”
Moves
Phoenix, Arizona, Present
The next day, we all gathered in Zack’s office at the Magic Shop for a council of war, or should I say wars?
“Let me see if I’ve got this straight,” I said. “We have psycho cowboys looking to steal Imhotep’s staff; we have Nazi Ninjas trying to kidnap Doctor Murdoch and steal his invention; and we have a beautiful, ruthless corporate CEO wanting to steal my amulet.” I looked around. “Did I miss anything?”
Marina said, “Beautiful?”
I blushed. “Well, okay, just really, really good-looking.”
Megan giggled and Zack chuckled. Marina gave me a hard look, and then giggled herself. Disaster averted.
Zack said, “You know, suspicious cuss that I am, I wonder if any of these folks have anything to do with each other.”
Megan nodded. “I wondered the same thing, but they all seem to be after different things. In particular, John Murdoch’s experiment doesn’t seem to have anything to do with the staff that came from Imhotep’s tomb.”
“Uh, maybe they are related,” I said.
Megan asked, “What do you mean, Alec?”
“Well, remember those pictures on the wall of Imhotep’s tomb? They kind of looked like that equipment Doctor Murdoch had set up in his lab.”
Megan started, “But…” Then she stopped and looked thoughtful.
Marina said, “But they couldn’t have anything to do with each other, could they? I mean, Imhotep lived almost five thousand years ago.”
Zack was rubbing his jaw. “It’s a long shot, I grant you, but we ought to ask Doctor Murdoch about it. After all, we’ve seen pretty significant evidence that high tech existed way back when, and if anybody would know about it, it would be the Ancient Egyptians, Imhotep in particular.” He turned to Megan Lee. “Megan, could you set up a little meeting with your friend? It’s probably nothing, but it wouldn’t hurt to ask.”
So in addition to all his other accomplishments, this Imhotep dude was a scientist? A sorcerer and a scientist, hmmm. It looked like scientific magic was rearing its ugly head again.
* * * *
In her suite in the Arizona Biltmore, Lindsay Lavell had sent her men away and was about to send out a query. Of course, it wouldn’t be a telegram, or a letter, or even a phone call. She was about to invoke the magical powers of the amulet of Olympias.
She’d had the guys clear all the furniture out of the middle of the living room. She was pretty sure that Kelley at least knew what she was up to and didn’t particularly approve. This mattered very little to Lavell. On tactical matters, she might defer to his expertise. After all, that was why she hired him. But when it came to magic, well, Lindsay had never met anyone with the power and knowledge she possessed, and she wasn’t shy about using it. She’d had very expensive and very accomplished magic teachers. They were the best money could buy. She knew distantly that there were those magical practitioners who disdained money, but she considered them just a bunch of idealistic losers. The magic she’d learned was as powerful as any of theirs could possibly be.
Using white chalk, she had drawn a circle on the carpet. Within the circle, she had drawn a five-pointed star, a pentagram. The pentagram was an ancient symbol and had been used since Sumerian times for various things. It was only in the last couple of centuries that it had become associated almost exclusively with witchcraft, most notably the nasty kind. Wiccans and Masons used pentagrams for benign, even noble symbols, but Hollywood and many Christians looked upon the five-pointed star as representing only evil magic and Satanism. Lindsay Lavell was perfectly okay with the popular definition. To her, power was power. And it gave her a certain thrill to use such power in forbidden ways. What were the rules of society but just to keep the sheep in line, and Lindsay Lavell was anything but a sheep. For her, black magic was like a drug, and she could never get enough. If you chose not to use power, any kind of power, for your own ends, then you were nothing but another sucker and undeserving of any pity from a natural ruler such as Lindsay saw herself. Several of those who had stood in her way, including her father, had found that out the hard way.
Soon, with the circle completed and with candles and incense burning at ritual places around the pentagram, Lavell drew in her power and called out, “Serque, goddess of scorpions and serpents, goddess of women, aid me in my quest!” She repeated that three times, and then, holding the amulet of Olympias in her hands before her, she cried, “Show me the location of Alexander’s amulet. Show me who keeps this amulet from me, its rightful owner!”
The smoke from the candles suddenly became thicker and darker. Quickly, the whole room was blotted out with smoke that was much too much for any candle to have produced. In the smoke, Lindsay saw a light. The light grew and grew, and in it she saw a figure. A person. It was Torres’ “assistant,” Alec something or other! The boy stood in a large room with what looked like hieroglyphics on the walls, and the amulet of Alexander lay naked upon his chest. The amulet was glowing brightly, and the kid’s eyes seemed to glow along with it.
Then, as quickly as it had come, the scene and the smoke were gone as though they’d never existed.
Lindsay stood from where she’d been kneeling, and a nasty smile spread across her face. “That kid and his boss are going to be so sorry they crossed me!” She strode to the door, opened it and called, “Kelley! I’ve got a job for you!”
* * * *
“Geoffrey, thank you,” said Lindsay, “You can go now. We’ll handle it from here.”
They all waited until the administrative assistant had left. There were some things he just couldn’t be privy to. Usually nasty things.
Turning to Kelley, she said, “Sean, our Geoffrey seems to be having trouble keeping track of the renowned Doctor Megan Lee. I think she may know things about some other esoteric artifacts as well as this amulet that we might like to know about. I’d like you to track her down and keep her under watch. Who knows, Geoffrey might be successful eventually, although I’m beginning to think she’s out of his league.”
He nodded. “Sure thing, Boss. I’m pretty sure I can handle tracking her.”
“Good. See that you do.” She turned to the hulking Vasenko, who’d come in as Geoffrey was passing the pictures around. “Ivan, I want you to track down this kid, Alec. He has Alexander’s amulet. Do whatever you need to do to get that amulet from him. Understood?”
The big man nodded. “Da, Miss Lavell. I’ll get it for you.”
“Good,” she said. “Now go, both of you!”
* * * *
Outside the door, Kelley said, “So you know where to look for this kid, Ivan?” Kelley was never certain just how much the Russian picked up. For one thing, English wasn’t his mother tongue. For another, he didn’t seem all that bright. The good news was that he’d demonstrated that he had a great deal of low animal cunning, and he was as strong as he looked and faster than you’d expect.
“Da, I got it. He’ll be around that Magic Shop in Chandler. I have map of city.”
* * * *
The next morning, Megan showed up at the Magic Shop with John Murdoch in tow. They went back to Zack’s office, but I stayed out in the shop. For one thing, somebody had to mind the store. For another, the place wasn’t all that big. I could hear fine.
“So John,” Megan started, “we have kind of an odd question. Have you ever heard of an Ancient Egyptian named Imhotep?”
Murdoch looked at her suspiciously. “Maybe. Why do you ask?”
Zack took up the story. “The evening before we came over to your place, we got involved in stopping a robbery of artifacts from the Phoenix Museum of Art. The artifacts were from the recently discovered tomb of Imhotep. We were just exploring the long shot that there might be some tie between the two attacks. Coincidences always make me nervous.”
Murdoch shook his head. “Well, I’ve never read anything about Ancient Egypt. Actually, some of my inspiration was from a guy who lived in the last century, but that’s not the same thing.”
Zack asked, “Who was that?”
“Nicola Tesla. My great-grandfather worked for him for a while as a young man. Tesla was his hero…” Murdoch paused for a long moment. “You know, though, the name Imhotep does ring kind of a bell. Tesla referred to an old friend of his, and I think that his name was indeed Imhotep. But I don’t see how it could be the same person.”
Megan was interested. She, too, thought that coincidences sucked. “Was this friend of his some sort of inspiration to him?”
Murdoch nodded. “So I gather. But other than that, he didn’t say a whole lot about him.”
Zack said, “Did Tesla have a sense of humor?”
“Oh yes. It was very dry, but very obvious in the papers of his that I’ve read.” Murdoch peered at Zack. “I see what you’re driving at, though. Referring to an Ancient Egyptian as a friend could have been his idea of a joke.”
Megan said, “Let me show you some pictures I took at the museum the other day. They show the walls of Imhotep’s tomb.”
“Well, okay.”
Megan had earlier downloaded the pictures she’d taken at the museum onto Zack’s desktop computer. Now she and my boss pulled them up and showed the physicist the pertinent photos.
His eyes widened. “That is incredible, but I don’t think it’s very conclusive.”
Zack called, “Alec, would you go downstairs and bring that staff up here?”
“Okay.”
I went downstairs and, unlocking the door using the keypad, let myself into Zack’s basement strongroom. It was kind of like a big safe, but it didn’t contain any money. There were old books, some wands and staffs, various types of amulets. On a shelf in the far corner was a golden box with what looked like two angels or goddesses reaching toward each other on the lid.
In one of the crates we’d brought in the other day was the staff. I grabbed it and went back upstairs, but not before locking the room behind me. There was some valuable and some dangerous stuff in there.
I walked into the office and thumped the staff on the floor. Since it was metal, it made a good thump. Murdoch, whose back was to the door, hadn’t heard me come up, and he jumped a little. I guess if bad guys were trying to kidnap me, I’d get kind of nervous too.
I handed it to Zack, who stood up to accept it. He turned to Murdoch and handed it to the physicist.
“Ever seen anything like this before?” asked Zack.
Murdoch accepted it almost reverently. “Wow! Is this thing gold?”
Megan nodded. “Sort of. It’s made of electrum, a naturally occurring alloy of gold, silver, copper, and some other elements.”
He ran his hand up and down the length of the staff. “And this came from the tomb of this guy, Imhotep?”
She responded, “Absolutely. That makes it about forty-six hundred years old.”
“Wow!” he said again. “And what’s this?” he asked, looking at the top piece of the staff.
“The top of the staff?” I asked.
“Alec,” said Zack. But he was smiling.
Megan explained. “We don’t really know what it’s supposed to symbolize. The archaeologist who discovered the tomb described it as a symbol of Ra, the Sun God.”
I said, “Wasn’t this the staff that Imhotep was holding in that picture from the tomb wall?” I’d sort of noticed that before, but now that I saw the picture and the staff together, it was more obvious.
“Oh yeah,” said Zack. “Good catch, Alec.”
The ’Hood
In downtown Chandler, Ivan Vasenko had parked his rental car and was casting about the area in his own version of reconnaissance. There was no way the hulking Russian could be unobtrusive, so he didn’t even try to hide. He just ambled along, looking into shop windows and playing the tourist. Since the Valley of the Sun had a huge tourist population, even in the summer, this pose wasn’t outside the realms of possibility. Now whether Ivan looked much like a tourist…Well, that was different problem.
He eventually made his way past the Magic Shop. The front door was clear glass, and Vasenko could see that both the boy, Alec, and his boss were in residence. Wanting to get the kid alone, Ivan checked the closing time for the shop and went to get something spicy to eat. Mexican food was one of the few things that the Russian really liked about this state.
* * * *
I left the Magic Shop at about six o’ clock, as usual. The weather was still beautiful, sunny and in the nineties. For the Phoenix area with its extremely low humidity, this is pretty nice weather. Of course, if the weather were like this all the time, everybody else would move here. Heck, half of the Midwest was here already! If I heard one more goof going on about how Chicago—or New York, or Detroit, or Cleveland—was so wonderful and Phoenix was too hot and uncultured, I’d explode. If those cities were such paradises on Earth, why were those guys down here? And why not move back at the first opportunity? Like now.
I was born and raised in Phoenix, and I love it here. I even like the summers. Sure, it gets pretty toasty, but you learn how to handle the heat. Hey, I know guys who go out and play golf when it’s a hundred and fifteen degrees! From what I hear, Chicago’s weather totally sucks, and it’s cloudy over two hundred days a year. Phoenix, on the other hand, is sunny over three hundred days a year. I’ll take the sun over storms any day. An occasional rainy day is nice, but all the time? I don’t think so. And I’m not even going to talk about humidity!
Partially because of the nice weather and partially because I’m totally cheap when it comes to high gas prices, I was walking home. It’s only a few miles from the area of downtown Chandler where the Magic Shop is anyway. I know guys who’ll drive half a block to Mickey D’s, but I figure I can use the exercise. It wasn’t too long ago that I was a fat nerd. I might still be a nerd, but I’d managed to take off the blubber, and I planned on keeping it off. Walking helped.
As I turned off Arizona Avenue and headed for my neighborhood, I noticed that I was being followed. Now, you may call me paranoid, but I would have known if King Kong had moved in as one of my neighbors, and that’s what this guy looked like. He was big and ugly, and looked like he’d been chipped out of some particularly solid granite.
I have an advanced case of situational awareness. This is a feel for one’s surroundings usually only present in fighter pilots and spec ops soldiers. It comes from people trying to clean my clock a lot the last few years. In dangerous times, you can decide to pay a lot more attention to your surroundings, or you can decide to get your head caved in. I have no desire to wake up dead some morning, so I pay attention. And my antennae were suddenly up and vibrating.
Assuming that this dude was indeed following little old me, there were a couple of things I did not want to do. First of all, I didn’t want to lead him right to my home. We’d had enough unwanted visitors the last few years: gangs of thugs, my druggie Dad, and aggressive Girl Scouts with cookies. Secondly, I didn’t want him to get me alone on his terms. In some things, size matters. Well, maybe in a lot of things, but I don’t go out of my way to try a smackdown with someone who has a hundred pounds of muscle on me.
For these reasons, when I turned the next corner, I broke into a sprint and flew down the street, still two short blocks from my house. I’ve turned into a pretty good runner the last couple of years since I took off all that excess weight, and I put that to use now. There was a house with a “For Sale” sign on the front lawn, and I rushed through the wooden gate and closed it behind me. Then, I waited, watching through the spaces between the slats.
Sure enough, Gargantua came lumbering after me. He had the size of an NFL fullback, but he apparently didn’t have the speed, at least when it came to chasing a running teenager who was highly motivated to keep away from him. I guessed his strategy was to find out where I lived, and then catch me in some enclosed space for whatever he had planned. I had other plans.
