Ragman, page 22
If the ancient writings were true, the necklace of Ma’at, who represented truth and justice, would prevent Ammit from consuming the Ka of whoever wore it.
Stacy had no idea what that actually meant. She only hoped it would bring Dan’s life force back to his body.
Either that or send him into the Duat forever. He would be dead, but at least in paradise rather than Hell.
She crept across the wide room, moving from one display case to the next. A couple of times she paused, certain she’d heard the echo of footsteps somewhere in the building, but they never came closer. She hoped it was just one of the guards making their rounds.
The case was located near the far end of the hall, with several other displays dating from the Fourth and Fifth dynasties. A stylized painting of the goddess Ma’at behind the necklace showed a statuesque woman with a single multi-colored feather in her hair.
A plaque below the necklace read: Goddess of truth, justice, wisdom, the stars, law, morality, order, harmony, the seasons, and cosmic balance. The feather of Ma’at is used to weigh against the souls of those judged by Osiris in the afterlife.
The necklace itself was a simple gold chain with a pair of eagle’s wings in the center. Stacy tapped in the code on the electronic lock to disengage the alarm and opened the case. The necklace weighed next to nothing, and rather than risk losing it by putting it in her pocket, she slipped it over her neck. There was a moment of disappointment when she didn’t feel any different, and then she chided herself for being stupid.
What were you expecting, some kind of transformation like Wonder Woman?
She considered sneaking into her office for her books, but the thought of going through the halls and passing Merakhmet’s office was too much. Instead, she replaced the case and left, praying she’d make it back to the hospital before it was too late.
“There’s nothing else we can do except wait for the rest of the blood tests to come back. Transport will come as soon as a room is ready.”
The doctor nodded to Joanna and Tom and then left them alone with Dan. He lay on a bed in the emergency room, sectioned away from other patients by a cheap blue curtain. He’d been unconscious since they’d brought him there more than three hours earlier. The staff had run every test imaginable, from CT scans to ultrasounds, and taken more than six tubes of blood. Other than the nasty burn on his chest where the ushabti had seared the mark of Seba, everything had come back normal.
Yet he still ran a fever of a hundred and three, and alternated between periods of moaning and thrashing and an almost death-like stillness. The doctor said it wasn’t a coma, that he’d never seen anything like it before.
Joanna said nothing, but she feared she knew exactly what had happened to her husband.
His soul had traveled to some kind of supernatural afterlife, leaving his empty body behind. Stacy had gone home to see if there was anything in her books that would help. Now there was nothing to do but watch and wait as Dan endured whatever lay on the other side.
Please, God, bring him back.
Tom reached out and took her hand.
“He’s a fighter. He won’t give up. And neither should we.”
“I know.” Tom’s hand offered strength and hope, two things she needed. In that moment, she knew that whatever fire had burned between them was gone. Only the love of friendship remained.
“I wanted you for so long,” she whispered, staring at Dan but speaking to Tom. He seemed to understand, because his grip tightened. “I don’t know why. That night…it was like a part of me was left unfulfilled, always wondering what if…. And I think Dan knew it, too. Even though I denied it. Just once, that’s all I wanted.”
“Me, too,” Tom said. “I never stopped thinking about you. Even after all this time. And when this all happened, those feelings came back even stronger.”
“I don’t want you anymore, though.”
Tom laughed. “And I don’t want you no more, either. I’m in love with Stacy. Really in love. I just want the four of us to be good again. The kind of good that like, years from now, we all end up in the same old folks home together.”
“I want my husband back.” Joanna wiped tears from her cheeks.
The curtain rattled and Stacy stepped through.
“Good. Because I might have a way to do that.” She took off the necklace of Ma’at and held it out to Joanna. “Here.”
Joanna took it. “What do I do with it?”
“You have to put it on him. The necklace is supposed to—”
Dan’s back arched and he moaned. The alarms on the machines hooked up to him went off all at once. Green lines on the screens turned red. Dan’s eyes opened wide and his mouth gaped. All of his muscles tensed and his limbs went rigid. A nurse rushed in and shouted for help.
“Hurry! He’s seizing!”
Ahmes the Second cursed his foul luck as he hurried down the sidewalk. He’d returned to the museum just in time to see the Greer woman remove the necklace of Ma’at from its case. Damn her! She’d proven too intelligent for his liking. And as long as she had it, he couldn’t risk accosting her without drawing Ma’at’s wrath onto himself.
Still, things weren’t totally ruined. He was permanently protected against the ushabti now, no matter if that damn fool Gordon had sent it or someone else was controlling it. Only one more day until the gala at the museum, and then all that remained was to finish Gordon, arrange shipment of all the treasures back to Egypt, and return home. After that, once the items were safely restored to their rightful place, he would end the spell and journey back to the Duat, where he would reside forever as a hero, the one who’d righted the wrongs against Sokar and returned his god to a rightful place of honor in Osiris’s eyes.
For all of that to happen, though, he needed Gordon to remain safe for the next twenty-four hours. As long as someone else was able to control an ushabti, anyone could be a target, including Gordon himself. Which was why he had to meet with the man as soon as possible. He needed to find a cell phone and contact Gordon.
Before the police did.
“Vital signs are dropping,” a nurse said. Another placed an oxygen mask over Dan’s face, while a burly male orderly attempted to hold him down.
“Pushing two hundred cc’s of dantrolene!” shouted the ER doctor, as he shot the drug into Dan’s IV. Dan’s violent spasms subsided but his body still twitched randomly. His eyes opened and closed, and he gasped for air.
“We may need to intubate,” the doctor said. “And get the cart ready.”
One of the nurses wheeled over the crash cart. When Joanna saw the paddles, she hid her face in Tom’s chest.
“Wait!” Stacy pushed Joanna forward. “Put it on his neck. Hurry!”
“Get them out of here!” the doctor shouted. The orderly went to grab Joanna, but Tom blocked his way.
“Let her do it,” Tom said. “Then we’ll leave.”
The doctor stepped aside, muttering something about religious nuts. Joanna hurriedly clasped the necklace around Dan’s neck. It instantly glowed a bright golden-yellow.
Smoke rose from Dan’s chest. His back arched and he cried out.
“No!”
“No!” Dan shouted, as the crocodile-headed beast approached him, its jaws opening wider and wider, until it seemed she could swallow a car.
“Wait.” Anubis lowered his spear, blocking the monster’s approach. “Look.”
The three gods turned toward the scale, where the side with the feather had sunk to the ground while Dan’s side rose into the air. At the same time, a tingling sensation, not quite a burn but not unpleasant, came to life around Dan’s neck. He looked down to see a golden glow at the top of his chest.
“Ma’at has marked you as hers,” Osiris said. “Tell me, human, how is it you hold the favor of the Goddess of Truth and Justice?”
Dan shook his head. “I don’t know. I’m a police officer. I serve justice every day.”
“What brought you here?”
It took Dan several seconds to answer, as the idea of being interrogated by an actual god caused his tongue to momentarily freeze.
“My friends and I were attacked by an ushabti. It touched me. It’s killed many people. I was trying to stop it.”
Osiris stood up, towering over everyone else in the hall, even Anubis.
“I have sent none of my servants to the mortal realm. You know this as true?”
“I do.” Dan backed up as far as the gold tray of the scale allowed. “A priest named Ahmes Merakhmet has used magic to return to life and take revenge, using the ushabti. He said something about the temple of Sokar.”
Anubis went to Osiris and whispered in his ear. Osiris frowned. Anubis pointed his spear at the mark of Seba on Dan’s chest. Osiris’s frown deepened, and he sat and rested his chin on his fist, contemplating Dan, who felt the weight of the god’s gaze like the way the air grew heavier right before a terrible storm. It took all his strength to remain standing when all he wanted to do was fall to his knees and beg the god of death to spare him.
After a prolonged silence, Osiris waved his hand and the entire scale settled to the ground. Dan jumped off but stopped when two of Anubis’s guards came at him with their weapons at the ready.
“Hold,” Osiris said, and the guards stepped back. “Daniel Reese, it appears Ma’at has set you on a different path than the one Fate intended. In this, she has done me a favor, which I shall return. You have been judged, and I find that it is not yet your destiny to travel the Duat. Go back to the land of the living, and when the time comes, know that you owe your life to me.”
Before Dan could speak, Anubis touched him with his spear. A white light filled the chamber. The air grew hotter and a heavy wind whipped around in circles.
The last thing he saw was Osiris’s fiery gaze.
“Whoever controls the ushabti has become a danger to us. We must protect ourselves.”
Ahmes the Second stood on the sidewalk outside Henry Gordon’s apartment. He kept glancing nervously up and down the sidewalk as he spoke. Henry could almost feel the fear coming off him. He’d never seen the priest this way, and he didn’t like it. If a high priest of Sokar was frightened, that didn’t bode well for a mere human. More than ever, he was glad he’d said his altered spell, although he had no idea if one ushabti could defend someone from another. Would they cancel each other out? Fight? He hoped he never found out.
He also said nothing about the spell as Ahmes continued speaking.
“There is a way to guarantee safety from an ushabti attack. It is a special cartouche, a magical symbol of protection. Here.” He held out a gold chain with a copper medallion at the end, similar in size and shape to a military dog tag.
Henry took it. Several glyphs were carved into the metal. The Eye of Horus, a snake, and two wings.
“I wear the same cartouche.” Ahmes lifted his shirt, displaying a freshly inked tattoo comprising identical symbols, as well as several others. “No ushabti can harm us as long as we are protected.”
“Thank you.” Henry slipped the chain over his neck, unsure of whether he should be relieved or worried. He now had guaranteed safety from the ushabti – something he felt surer than ever he needed, if his theory was correct – but he’d lost his ability to send the ushabti after Ahmes if the priest decided to double-cross him. Now he’d have to figure something else out.
“Is everything arranged for tomorrow night?” Ahmes asked.
Henry nodded. “Yes. The money has been transferred, the remaining targets will all be there, and the artifacts will be packed and shipped to the warehouse during the gala.”
“Good. Let us pray for success.” Ahmes gave a small bow and headed down the sidewalk.
Pray all you want, Henry thought, as he made his way up the stairs. Tomorrow night you will meet your gods, although not in the way you expect.
Now he just had to figure out how to make it happen.
Dan came awake, his scream still on his lips. Alarms rang and beeped, something was pressed against his face, and bright light blinded him. He swung his arms to stop Anubis’s attack and several hands grabbed him, forcing him back onto….
A bed?
Voices reached him through his tears. People shouting.
Then he heard Joanna.
“Dan! Dan!”
“Joanna?” The word came out muffled. Someone yelled for everyone to back up. The pressure on his face disappeared and he tried to say Joanna’s name again. Sandpaper coated his throat and he coughed. A straw touched his lips and he sucked at it, drawing cool, wonderful water into his mouth. Nothing had ever tasted so good! But after only a few sips it disappeared. He blinked several times and the light grew bearable. Indistinct shapes became clear. Faces staring down at him. Strangers.
Then one of them moved and Joanna appeared, looking like she hadn’t slept in a week.
“Dan!” She leaned down and wrapped her arms around him. He returned the hug, savoring the warmth of her body, the softness of her flesh, against him.
“Am I really back?” he whispered. If this turned out to be a cruel trick by Osiris, he’d—
“Yes. You’re alive. We thought…we thought we’d lost you.”
“Where am I?”
“New York Presbyterian.” Another familiar voice. Tom Reardon peered over Joanna’s shoulder, a relieved smile on his face. “You gave us a scare, brother.”
“Mr. Reese,” a new voice interrupted. “Please lie back. You’re in no condition to move yet.” A man in a white coat eased Joanna away and placed a stethoscope against Dan’s chest.
“Actually, I feel fine.” To his surprise, Dan felt as refreshed as if he’d had the best night’s sleep of his life. He pushed himself up. Energy coursed through his body. He remembered everything, from the ushabti’s attack at the museum to his journey through the Duat. Something bumped against his chest. A chain, with a medallion. When it moved, he saw a fresh scar just below the base of his throat.
A feather. Three inches long, every detail burned into his skin. Below it, the charred, blistered flesh had healed, leaving only a pale, white circle.
Ma’at has marked you as hers.
“We need to talk,” he said, swinging his legs around. Several alarms beeped.
“You’re not going anywhere,” the doctor objected. “You were practically in a coma a minute ago, and having seizures.”
“Trust me, Doc, I’m fine. I’d explain, but you’d never believe me. Give me the paperwork to check out against doctor’s orders, I have to leave. A police emergency,” he added, before the doctor could say anything else.
“It’s a matter of life and death,” Tom said. The doctor looked at them, and then at the medallion on Dan’s neck. His eyes told them he knew something beyond ordinary had happened in his ER, and he wanted to know what. After a moment, he motioned for the nurses to disconnect Dan from the equipment.
“Fine. But don’t make me regret this.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
It was close to four in the morning when Tom, Stacy, and Joanna collapsed onto the couches and chairs in the Reeses’ apartment. Dan, on the other hand, couldn’t stop pacing from the living room to the kitchen and back again. During the ride from the hospital, he’d detailed his experiences in the Duat and Joanna told him about the necklace, and what had happened after she put it on him.
“There must be another way we can protect ourselves,” Stacy said, rubbing her eyes. “If only the ushabti hadn’t taken the Book of the Dead. As soon as it’s light, I’ll go back to the museum and get the rest of my books, and whatever’s in Merakhmet’s office. Maybe there’ll be something that can help us.”
“You mean we’ll go.” Tom gave her a mock glare. “Just in case that damned priest decides to show up.”
With only a couple of hours until dawn, they decided it wasn’t worth trying to sleep. So while Joanna made coffee and toast, Tom and Dan worked on their strategy for stopping Gordon.
“First, we need to know what his ultimate plan is. Getting revenge for his great-grandfather is one thing. But why the others? What connection does his son’s school have with the men who killed Simon Gordon?” Dan looked at the pattern on the map and cursed. They were still just as much in the dark about Gordon’s motives as ever.
“What if it’s about his son?” Joanna asked. “Maybe something happened to the kid, and Gordon was pissed about it?”
“One way to find out.” Tom grabbed his phone and punched in a number. “Sergeant Yang, please.” There was a wait, and then he spoke again. “Debbie? Hi. Tom Reardon. I know I said we were more than even, but can you do me one more small favor? I’ll never ask anything again.”
A pause, and Tom smiled.
“You’re the best. I just need a couple of phone dumps. The girl in the nightclub massacre, Tia Lopez. And Peter Gordon, age sixteen.” He looked up Henry Gordon’s address and gave it to her. After he thanked her and hung up, he shrugged. “We’ll see if there’s a connection. In the meantime, Stacy, can you draw us a map of the entire museum?”
“I can do better. When I started work, part of the welcome packet was a map of the building, including the parts off limits to the public. I probably still have it somewhere in my emails.” She got her phone from her purse and started searching.
“Now what?” Joanna asked.
Dan poured a second cup of coffee.
“We wait.”
