So while I knew the museum was big, I never thought about it—not until early the next morning when I was lost in the basement under the main building. I had gotten Sangrida's permission over the phone to be there, just checking for more sirrush, I'd said, and she'd made sure the same door to the basement was unlocked, but that was it. And it wasn't as if I could request a security guard to help me find the mummy. First, I didn't know which men were hers and not your average rent-a-cop, and, second, I didn't know if she was aware that Wahanket had made a burrow under her feet.
I didn't think pissing off the mummy would be a good idea. I'd seen the cold rage lurking behind the yellow glow that filled those eye sockets. He hadn't tried to kill us, but he still wasn't what I'd call an easygoing guy. And if he lost his home, I damn sure didn't want him sleeping on my couch.
Robin had led us confidently through a maze of stacked crates and dusty, forgotten exhibits. I'd paid attention, but apparently not enough. And now, lacking a trail of bread crumbs, I was thoroughly lost. The lights were back on this time, and I wandered through row after row of delicate gilt furniture covered with heavy plastic drapes, canvases of all shapes and sizes, marble statuary, dramatic black-and-white masks, and grime-covered case after case of weapons. Swords, daggers, even axes. It was amazing. You didn't even need to be a puck to get itchy fingers at the sight of it.
But that would be wrong, and, more importantly, difficult to smuggle out past the guards at the entrance. Now, that was a Robin thought and it brought me back to the reason I was there. Time to stop window-shopping and get to it.
Neither he nor Nik would be happy to know where I was or what I was doing. Robin because I was poking my nose where he'd made it very clear he'd as soon chop it off. Nik…Nik would not be enthusiastic—strongly not enthusiastic—about the fact I was roaming around the location of a sirrush attack. There could be a hundred of those damn things down here; there was room.
Finally stopping beside a Japanese screen, I gave in to the inevitable and called out, "Wahanket."
Nothing.
I tried again, louder this time. "Wahanket!"
This time there was a rustling and there was a sense of motion in the corner of my eye. I turned, gun in hand. Sangrida had left one of her guards' 9mms for me at the basement entrance I'd used, under the stairs. It wasn't the Viking broadsword I'd expected, which was fine by me. They were heavy as hell. During the museum's working hours, getting my own gun through security wasn't feasible, but this one would do.
The motion and flicker I'd seen materialized into a small figure. It was cat-sized, no doubt because it was a cat. It sat and stared at me with black-and-white eyes. Painted eyes. The rest of it was a deep tarnished bronze with the glimmer of gold around its neck. It stared for a few more seconds, then stood and disappeared smoothly into the shadows with the clink of metal paws against the floor. It was an invitation and I accepted it.
An animated metal cat. It was bizarre and then some. How could it move? Was it alive or some sort of ancient Egyptian sorcerer's mind trick? I didn't know, although I was leaning toward the latter. I believed in monsters—hell, yeah. But magic? If there wasn't some form of flesh or bone behind it, I had a hard time buying into it. I did know that I preferred the walking statue idea to the thought that it was some dried-up cat mummy.
Fake magic or real, it led me to Wahanket. With his preoccupation with technology, I should've pictured him surfing the Net or watching cable, but I couldn't. The mental image was too incongruous. It was much easier to imagine him plunging an ancient dagger into the chest of some poor schmuck writhing on an altar. Or maybe dragging his foot and moaning as he shambled toward his prey. Shamble, drag. Very shambolic. Was that even a word?
Probably not, but I was right about one thing: He wasn't surfing the Net. He was…dissecting something—a rat, I thought. A really big rat. Huge. I made a face and drawled, "Supper?"
"You, uneducated baboon, should not mock the ways of your betters." The curdled shadows instead of a sickly glow in his eye sockets must have meant he was feeling mellow. "Which would be everyone inhabiting this infested world, including my new pet." He indicated the rodent with the flourish of an antique scalpel.
Pet? And I realized he wasn't taking it apart; he was putting it back together. I wasn't sure if that was less disturbing or more so, and I decided to ignore it altogether. Shifting my gaze slightly away from the bloodstained crate doubling as an operating table, I said, "I'm here about Goodfellow."
"The puck." The scalpel was discarded for a needle threaded with a fine silver wire that gleamed between hard black fingers. "His tongue is impertinent, but his gifts are acceptable. What have you brought me?"