“No way.”
When they reached the garage level, Giselle gave him a quick kiss and got back in the elevator. “I’ll see you at home later. Let’s go out to dinner to celebrate. Something fancy.”
“Sounds good,” said Coop. “But you’re paying—I’m a little tapped for the next few weeks.”
“I’ll trade you dinner for a cat,” she said, smiling.
“We’ll eat at home.”
“Killjoy.”
As he walked through the garage to the car, when he saw things moving in the shadows, he could tell himself it was just a trick of the light. Still, he didn’t hang around any longer than he had to. With Harkhuf out of the picture, he only had one thing to worry about. Was his future going to be jail or the blank spot on Woolrich’s wall? Even if there weren’t things in the shadows anymore, something was going to go wrong.
Just because overhead lights are inanimate objects that can’t feel fear or confusion, it doesn’t mean that they can’t appear to be having a nervous breakdown. And, in truth, who really knows what lights feel? There are no studies in which anyone has interviewed incandescent or fluorescent bulbs—or even an LED—to get their take on the state of their being. Maybe when lights flick on and off, they’re trying to tell us something like, Look at me. I have feelings, too. Or Please stop playing with the light switch, you’re giving me a headache. But while the subject of “Do Lightbulbs Have Feelings?” can be debated—most often by liberal-arts freshmen trying Ecstasy for the first time—what can’t be debated is the effect that endlessly flickering lights have on humans. They can be terrifying. They can be confusing. And they can make it hard to read the want ads in a newspaper when you’re afraid to look at them on your office computer.
Vargas and Zulawski were experiencing all three of these effects in the bowels of the ECIU. The mice had gnawed through the walls and were eating the power cables. Zulawski’s computer lay in a heap on the floor, the cords and most of the circuit boards having been devoured in one night of vigorous mouse snacking.
Zulawski was perched in his office chair with his back to the wall staring at his wrecked work space. He was disguised as a Parisian mime, right down to the white face. “Your idea of putting the parcel in Mad Prince Nestor’s box hasn’t resolved the situation. If anything, it’s made it worse.”
Vargas was busy banging on his dead computer keyboard, refusing to accept that his machine was next on the menu at Chez Souris. His disguise was the helmet and leather jerkin of a Mongol warrior. “Are you blaming me for the situation?” he said.
“Situation? Let’s call it what it is: a calamity,” said Zulawski.
Vargas picked up his phone. It was dead, too. “Why hasn’t anyone come down?”
“No one is coming down” said Zulawski. “Get that through your head.”
Vargas looked around. Bloated, red-eyed rodents with ears on their backs were at home on almost every horizontal surface. “But the mice. Surely someone has noticed the mice.”
“No one has noticed the mice because they’re all in here. They want to be close to the parcel.”
Vargas slammed his hand down on his desk, startling a couple of mice long enough to stop eating his modem for a moment. Then they got back to work.
“Stop calling it the parcel,” he said. “It’s time to call it by its real name.”
Zulawski held up a hand. “Don’t you dare say it. It’s bad luck.”
“How much worse can our luck get?” said Vargas. He plucked at his costume. “It’s not like we have our dignity left.”
“At least the mice aren’t eating us yet.”
“Exactly. Yet.”
“If you say it, I’m leaving,” said Zulawski.
“Fine. Go.”
“I’m afraid to go by myself.”
“Of course you are. That’s why we have to confront the evil head-on.”
“All right,” said Zulawski. He put his hands over his ears. “Do it.”
“It’s time we said your real name, you monster. Mysteriis Ex Mortuis.”
Zulawski opened his eyes. “We’re still here.”
“See? It wasn’t as bad as all that. Now don’t you feel a little better?”
“Yes. I do a little,” said Zulawski. “Mysteriis Ex Mortuis,” he intoned in a deep basso voice.
“All right. Let’s not get carried away,” said Vargas, waving a hand at him. “And speaking of getting carried away, have you found your squid?”
Zulawski glanced back into the dim recesses of the storeroom. “I caught a glimpse of it between Orpheus’s lyre and the demon Girl Scout cookies.”
“The ones that taste like Hitler’s mustache?”
“The same.”
“Who thinks of something so awful?” said Vargas
“Demons, obviously.”
“Of course.”
“Anyway, the squid is now larger than I’m comfortable wrestling with. It was eating a garden gnome.”
“One of the little ones that wake up and dance at night?”
“Yes.”
“Poor thing.”
“Better it than us,” said Zulawski. He handed Vargas a ragged piece of translucent plastic. “I found this, too.”
“What is it?”
“The remains of your Tupperware dish.”
“Thank you,” said Vargas. He opened a drawer and tossed in the plastic wad. A mouse popped its head out, caught the dish, and began snacking on it. Vargas quietly closed the drawer. “I also couldn’t help noticing that the squid demolished your desk while escaping.”
“Do you think management will blame me for that?” said Zulawski.
“I think if you show them the squid, they’ll understand who the real culprit is.”
A particularly large mouse stopped directly in front of Zulawski. Zulawski reached down carefully and found an as-yet-intact jar of aspirin that used to be in his top drawer. He tossed it over the mouse’s head and it scampered after it down one of the aisles. He and Vargas could hear it ripping the jar apart with its teeth.
“To sum up,” Zulawski said. “The mice have taken over the office. The squid has moved on from canned chili and is now hunting live meat. At least one of the dingoes has escaped the mirror. Oh, and the mole people seem to have acquired a large cache of axes and clubs. Do you know anything about that?”
Vargas nodded as two mice worked in tandem to drag his keyboard off the desk.
“I think we can lay that at the feet of the taxidermy fairies.”
“But they’re dead. And they’re stuffed.”
“Yes, that is the definition of taxidermy,” said Vargas. “But it’s never stopped them from making mischief before.”
From the dark came a crack and the sound of twisting metal. Something huge collapsed at the far end of the storeroom.
“I’m going to propose something radical,” said Zulawski.
“Please do,” said Vargas.
“We leave. We lock the doors and walk away.”
Vargas stared at him. “Desert our post? What will our superiors say?”
“What superiors?” said Zulawski. “No one knows we’re down here. We’re on our own. Robinson Crusoe without a Friday. Jane without a Tarzan. We’re the lost crew of the Flying Dutchman.”
Vargas whispered, “But what about the parcel?”
“The what?” said Zulawski.
Vargas made a face at him. “The Mysteriis Ex Mortuis. What do we do with it?”
“We abandon it the way everyone has abandoned us.”
“I don’t know. We took an oath.”
From a high shelf, something—many things, in fact—growled at them.
“The other dingoes have escaped!” cried Zulawski.
Something that made a sloshing, dragging sound emerged from the dark.
“The squid!” yelled Vargas.
Zulawski looked at him. “Desertion, then?”
“Desertion indeed.”
All the lights went out in the ECIU.
>
“Run!” shouted Zulawski.
They barely made it out. Things growled and pounded on the door as they locked it. They both backed away, trying to make as little noise as possible.
“Do you think the door will hold?” whispered Zulawski.
“For a while,” said Vargas.
“Long enough for us to get to the elevator?”
“I’m sure.”
“Still. We should run.”
“I agree.”
So they ran. The mime and the Mongol made it to the elevator intact and rode it to safety. They shook hands in the garage, pledging to meet again in a week to talk things over. Neither of them had any intention of going to the meeting.
However, six months later, Vargas used the money from an insurance settlement with the DOPS to open a supernatural book and curio shop in L.A.’s Fairfax district. When he advertised for an experienced assistant to help run the place, there was only one applicant: Zulawski, who was as shocked to see Vargas as Vargas was to see him. They ran the shop together for another thirty years with the understanding that, one, they would never speak of the DOPS and, two, everything in the shop that wasn’t them would be completely, one hundred percent, entirely, and irrevocably dead.
Dr. Buehlman and Dr. Carter examined their newest acquisition in a lead-lined chamber riveted together with cold steel bolts. The lead had been blessed by the pope and the bolts had been made by a sect of virgin blacksmith nuns in an almost unreachable chapel high in the Ural Mountains. The transparent panels in the walls that let outsiders observe their work was a thermoplastic composite not designed by earthly scientists. It could withstand a direct hit from a small tactical nuclear bomb. The door lock was one solid piece of molydarium alloy, harder than diamond and more heat resistant that the shielding on NASA rockets. In short, this was not a room to be fucked with.
“This has been a long time coming,” said Dr. Buehlman.
“Indeed it has,” said Dr. Carter. “I was just hoping to see Harkhuf on exhibit. I didn’t dare dream that we’d actually get to examine him.”
“I wonder if now that we have him, the curse will be lifted off Mr. Cooper.”
Dr. Carter picked up a scalpel and frowned. “In retrospect, I’m not sure I buy the man’s story at all. I’ve asked around about him. He sounds like an unsavory character.”
“Is he? He seemed quite nice when I spoke to him,” said Dr. Buehlman.
Dr. Carter chuckled. “That was from a bit of a distance, as I recall. Even a volcano is pretty if you’re far enough away, but I wouldn’t want to shake hands with one.”
Dr. Buehlman gave him a smile. “I see your point. Shall we get to work?”
“Yes. Let’s,” said Dr. Carter. “I’m going to scrape some detritus from the linen on the chest area. Do you have a sample dish ready?”
“Ready. And when you’re done, I’ll do the arms.”
“Perfect. Here we go,” said Dr. Carter. “Harkhuf, welcome to the twenty-first century.” He placed his scalpel over the mummy’s heart. There was an electrical spark and a small explosion. Blue lightning shot from Harkhuf’s body, arcing to the iron bolts in the walls. Dr. Carter was knocked across the chamber. His flight took him directly into the path of Dr. Buehlman. They both crashed to the floor.
When their heads cleared, they looked up to see a strange sight. It almost looked as if the mummy was moving its arms, trying to push itself upright. The doctors climbed to their feet and watched in amazement as it dawned on them that Harkhuf’s movements weren’t the effect of a concussion or blurred vision. The dead man had pushed himself into a sitting position and was slowly stepping down onto the floor of the chamber. When he was fully upright, Harkhuf took in the room and was pleased with what he found.
“The witches’ spell was sound. They shall be rewarded.”
Drs. Buehlman and Carter looked at each other.
“Do you hear him?” said Dr. Buehlman.
“Yes. In my head,” said Dr. Carter.
“Me, too.”
Harkhuf looked them up and down as if just noticing them. He raised a hand and said, “Be my thrall.”
Dr. Buehlman blinked. Dr. Carter shook his head.
“Yes, Master,” said Dr. Buehlman.
Dr. Carter looked at her. “Dr. Buehlman. Are you all right?”
Harkhuf pushed Dr. Carter aside and spoke to Dr. Buehlman. “You care for the dead, thrall?”
She nodded. “Care for, examine, and catalog.”
Harkhuf held his head aloft. “I sense a presence. You have my beloved here, my Shemetet.”
“Yes. We have her,” said Dr. Buehlman.
“What are you doing?” said Dr. Carter. “Why are you listening to this monstrosity?”
“Bring her to me, cur,” said Harkhuf.
“Yes, Master.” Dr. Buehlman went to the impenetrable door and put the palm of her hand on the scanner.
“No. We can’t let him out!” shouted Dr. Carter. He rushed the mummy and stabbed his scalpel deep into Harkhuf’s desiccated heart.
“Ah. You are resistant,” said Harkhuf, pulling out the scalpel. “I have seen your kind before. There is but one cure for you.” He plunged the scalpel into Dr. Carter’s chest. He was dead before he hit the floor.
During the struggle, the scanner had finished verifying Dr. Buehlman’s handprint. The enormous lock thudded back and she held the door open for her new master.
A dozen members of thaumaturgic antiquities returned from a group lunch. What greeted them was a glassy-eyed Dr. Buehlman and a resurrected mummy with fresh blood splattered on his dirty linens. Not surprisingly, they found this alarming. Even as some of them began to scream and others to run away, Harkhuf raised his hand.
“Be my thralls,” he said. As one, the staff stood together quietly and said, “Yes, Master.”
Harkhuf looked at Dr. Buehlman. “You, remain by my side.” To the staff he said, “Find Shemetet. Bring her to me. I will give her new life and together we will make this world kneel.”
As the staff filed out to do their master’s bidding Harkhuf said to Dr. Buehlman, “Tell me, dog. I hear that this place holds dark magic and vicious creatures. What abominations are imprisoned nearby?”
Dr. Buehlman said, “There are remnants of the robot uprising of ’98. In the Unfathomable Evil Unit there are . . . well, unfathomable evils. Malignant spirits and various unstable monstrosities. It’s not imprisoned, but there’s also Ping-Pong next door.”
“What sort of a creature is a Ping-Pong?”
Dr. Buehlman held up her fingers about an inch apart. “It’s a little plastic ball—”
“Is it mad? Will it kill without mercy or warning?”
“I suppose you could hurt someone’s eye with it.”
“Then I will have this Ping-Pong for my army,” said Harkhuf. “Come now. Let us release the other beings you spoke of. We will create the little chaos before ushering in the great one that will sweep this world away.”
With Harkhuf’s ancient power—and Dr. Buehlman’s pass codes—they spent the next hour breaking into each chamber and releasing unspeakable horrors into the whole wing of the building. Alarms sounded. Lights strobed. All of the doors into and out of L Wing slammed shut.
Harkhuf looked at the monstrosities rampaging through the building and was satisfied. “This will keep the mortal fools at bay long enough so that I might complete my work.”
“Yes, Master. What excellent carnage you have wrought.”
“Thank you, slave.”
“What superb havoc.”
“That, too.”
“What glorious decimation.”
“That’s enough for now, dog.”
“Yes, Master. But really, good job.”
“All right,” said Harkhuf. “Now I have need of an arcane text. Without it, I cannot resurrect my beloved. Where would I find such a thing?”
“I’m not sure,” said Dr. Buehlman. “A rare and dangerous occult text? There’s a place where the
y keep things like that. It’s been so long since I thought about it I’ve forgotten. What is it called? Super-Secret Enigma Department?”
“Think, dog.”
“Double Mystic Mystery Division? It’s somewhere downstairs. I’m sure the name will come to me.”
“I have no time for your lollygagging. All who are not useful to me will suffer eternal torment.”
“And those who serve you well?”
“More like eternal discomfort.”
That sounded slightly better, so Buehlman said, “I can look in the DOPS directory. It’s just this way.”
Dr. Buehlman led Harkhuf into her office. She sat down at her desk and tapped the space bar to wake the computer.
Harkhuf pointed at the screen. “Stop, slave. This is not a television, is it?”
“No, Master. It’s a computer. I use it to research information.”
Harkhuf came around the desk and looked at the screen. “On this computer, there are no hamburger girls to distract you?”
“I don’t know what a hamburger girl is, O great one.”
Harkhuf went back around to the side of the desk. “Search, thrall. But be warned. If I see a single hamburger, your suffering will be . . .”
“Eternal, Master? You told me that already. I’m not criticizing, but you seem to be in a rush, so I’m trying to streamline the process.”
“Very good, thrall. Continue.”
After Dr. Buehlman had been typing for a few minutes, Harkhuf moved back around her. “When we are done with your search, you will then explain to me the allurements of a rolled-up newspaper. My other thrall simply will not stop talking about it.”
“I’m afraid I don’t know anything about that.”
“Curses,” said Harkhuf. “Continue your search, then.”
“Yes, Master.”
Nelson sat alone and glum in his office, boxes piled around him. He just couldn’t come up with the right item to finally nail Coop. He just might have to use Death’s photo after all, but he’d grown fond of having it around. It was a reminder of happier, more alive times. Ones he was determined to return to.
McCloud came in with a box in his metallic hands, knocked over a pile of boxes that Nelson had just finished sorting, twisted, and landed on the desk.