Spirit and Dust

28


WHAT. THE. HELL.

No one moved. There was only the plink of glass shards falling and the sound of Carson pulling in air like he’d just swum up from the depths of the ocean. The brethren stood slack-jawed, staring at the jackal-headed apparition that loomed larger than life at the head of the preparation chamber.

Then Johnson dropped to one knee. The rest did the same, bowing before the figure of the canine-headed man who used to be Professor Oosterhouse.

This? Was not an improvement in our situation.

“Thank you, my brothers, for remaining true. Your loyalty will be rewarded.” The voice that rolled from the Jackal was the professor’s, but shaded with darkness and the resonance of eternity. “What I have, I share with you, and together we will start a new dynasty that will endure age upon endless age.”

“Thank you, my lord,” said Johnson, lifting his head. The other guys took their cue from him. Their shock had faded to wary awe, and what looked like anticipation and greed.

Carson hauled himself to his feet, staring at the Jackal in disbelief, then turning to me over the heads of the kneeling minions. “Daisy, what did you do?”

“Nothing!” I managed a horrified protest. Except I’d obviously done something.

“You opened the door to the afterlife and freed me,” said the towering figure. “I died a man, with a weak body and powerful knowledge. And I have come back a god.”

Wow. Forget the sacrilege. That was some supreme arrogance right there.

Was there really a jackal-headed god standing before us? That was what it looked like to my eyes. But to my Sight, it was Oosterhouse. Not the gray-bearded professor who had talked me into opening the Veil for him, but a younger man. Tanned, blond, and fit—he was bare-chested, wearing the draped linen skirt and heavy gold ornamental accessories of an ancient Egyptian priest or royal.

He pulsed with vitality, and I realized I wasn’t looking at a remnant of Carl Oosterhouse. He was too substantial, too present. I was looking at the real thing. His spirit. His soul come back from beyond.

That wasn’t supposed to happen.

But it had. This was real, and this was really bad.

Johnson rose to his feet and gestured to the others to get up as well. “What should we do with these two?” he asked, meaning Carson and me.

The Jackal Oosterhouse turned to me. “Will you join us, Daisy Goodnight? Think what wonders you could do with your power and ours. I’ve heard you speaking with young Maguire, and I know you have great ambition for remaking the world.”

But I didn’t. The world wasn’t perfect, but remaking it to my own design wasn’t the answer. I wanted to fight the problems, not be the problem.

“Bugger off, Professor,” I said. His try at temptation had pissed me off, because he’d been playing me all along. And there’s nothing this idealist hates more than abuse of her good nature. “If you were a god, you could have opened the door yourself.”

He rippled with fury; as solid as he looked, he still had no body. Over the roar of adrenaline in my ears, I heard people coming to investigate the crash. Oosterhouse did, too, and the wave of anger passed, becoming a gloating smile, which was much worse.

“You need proof, my girl?” he said. “I will give it to you, as thanks for your role in reuniting my spirit.”

He drew himself up, breathing in the dust of antiquity that swirled out of the broken cases. His figure swelled, his barrel chest expanding. I felt a pull across my psyche, all over, like silk dragged over my skin, and I realized he was drinking in not air but the remnant spirits of twenty-three human souls.

The dust circled him like a vortex, and he gulped it all down, growing larger, brighter. Then he breathed it out again, an impossibly long exhale, blowing life into the desiccated corpses around the room.

They stirred like sticks in a thunderstorm, rattling and trembling, then rising from their sterile museum tombs.

With jerking motions they came, fragile wrappings ripping, trailing like scarves. They peeled off their cocoons of rotting linen and they climbed out of their cases and they pushed open their sarcophagi. The Brotherhood minions scrambled, wide-eyed, out of the way of the animate dead as they shambled out of the chamber to the halls beyond. Children, guards, patrons—their terrified screams rang through the exhibit.

Three of the undead grabbed Carson. They were indomitable—held together not by brittle tendons or dried muscles but by magic. They bloodied his nose and twisted his limbs, and then I lost track, because they came at me.

I stumbled away, horror wrenching a sandpaper shriek from my throat. It wasn’t their grasping arms or leathery flesh that terrified me. I didn’t dread the touch of dust and ancient bodies but the touch of the spirits trapped inside these abominations that warped everything I believed in.

The undead circled me, and I could feel the shredded souls trapped in the magic that animated them. They’d been rent apart, chewed up, and spit out. Snatched from any hope of the eternity they’d awaited for thousands of years. Transformed by Oosterhouse into a consumable power source.

No—not Oosterhouse. The Black Jackal.

He had Oosterhouse’s face, but the eyes burning with power were alien and frightening. He wasn’t a god, but he wasn’t any remnant of human anymore, either.

“I will give you one more chance,” he said as the undead held me bound with bones as strong as oak. “Bow, Daisy Goodnight, and become one of my brethren. I would rather have you freely than enslave your spirit.”

Carson fought against the undead that held him immobile with a bony arm across his throat. “Don’t you dare, you son of a bitch. Let her go. I’ll do whatever—”

He broke off with a wheeze, and for a horrible moment I thought he was broken—his neck, his windpipe, or some other vital, fragile thing. But Johnson, stepping forward, had cut off Carson’s words with nothing but a gesture.

“Quiet,” he said. “You’ve done your part, Maguire. We don’t need anything else from you.”

Carson was turning purple from the relentless bony hold on his throat. He tore at the dried flesh and it crumbled under his clawing nails, but the ancient undead wouldn’t let go.

How do you fight something that just won’t stop?

Use us, Daisy.

I shuddered at the hum that ran through me—the perfectly tuned collective spirit of the place. A century of scientists, academics, archivists, their psychic traces permeating stone and steel and glass until the building itself sang its offer to me. The unified remnant was as fresh as a wellspring amid the muddy magic in the room. I reached for it and it infused me, not with a swelling rush but with a slow seep of support and bracing, ghostly cold that reminded me who I was.

I was Daisy Goodnight. And no lame-ass mummy-raising Boris Karloff knockoff was going to get the better of me.

My Sight found the lines of power that connected the Jackal to the undead that held me. With my new strength, I broke the ties like fragile thread and the mummies collapsed into piles of chunky ash. Magic cut off, the fragile remains could not stand the physical strain.

Johnson turned as if to stop me, but he was startled and I was quicker and shoved him into the wall with only a gesture. A push at the undead that held Carson and they flew apart like piles of leaves in a gust of frigid wind.

Carson sagged, gasping for breath—only for a nanosecond, though, before he charged Johnson, picked him up, and slammed him again into the exhibit wall in a hail of grunts and plaster.

“Where is Alexis?” he demanded, giving him a shake. Johnson fought back, but it was kind of an unfair match.

The Brotherhood goons seemed uncertain whether to rescue Johnson from Carson. As for the rest of the mummies, the only signs of them were the screams from beyond the exhibit.

The Black Jackal just laughed at our struggles. He glowed with power, stolen from the spirits, from the upheaval of terror. “Grab the girl,” he told the dithering minions. “And meet me in the place you’ve prepared.”

I couldn’t let him vanish. He was still just a spirit, an über-ghost created by the re-joining of remnants and soul. I was responsible for that, and worse, I’d untethered the piece from the stone jackal. I could not let him escape to wreak havoc on all of Chicago or beyond.

With all my strength I grabbed the fabric of Oosterhouse’s soul, clutched the shreds of the human being that had made the Black Jackal. I didn’t know how to fight a self-proclaimed god, but I knew how to handle pieces of a spirit. By binding the remnants of Oosterhouse to this place, I could leash the creature he’d become.

He seemed to realize what I was about to do. “Stop her,” he told his minions. They didn’t move, maybe because I didn’t look like I was doing anything, and the Jackal snapped, “Idiots! Grab her! Knock her out!”

They rushed me, but Carson shoved Johnson into their path, flattening two like bowling pins and linebackering another into an empty mummy case. There were five of them and one of him, and I don’t know how he did it, but he kept them off me.

“Whatever you’re going to do, Sunshine,” he said, slamming the lid of the case and trapping a minion inside, “do it now.”

I used every bit of my strength to tie Oosterhouse, and the Black Jackal with him, to the foundation of the gigantic museum itself. I went down to the sublevels, where nerdy scientists spent their days, nights, and happy afterlife. Their remnants were faint but mighty, and they grabbed on and knit the Jackal’s essence to the bedrock.

He flailed at the binding, the power of his fury sending his minions staggering. It bought Carson and me a few seconds to get our feet under us. I couldn’t remember falling, but as I staggered upright I had cuts on my hands and knees from the shrapnel of the museum display cases littering the floor.

“Come on,” said Carson. “Let’s get out of here.”

I pressed a bloody hand to my aching head. “We have to clear out the museum. I don’t know what the Jackal will do to try to get loose. I bound him, but he can still work his magic. And there is a freaking arsenal of remnant energy here.”

“I don’t think clearing the museum will be a problem,” said Carson as shrieks continued to echo through the building.

The Jackal realized we were escaping. He spread his arms and the Brotherhood got up, riding a wave of renewed energy. Johnson, whose nose was obviously broken, looked at Carson with murder in his blackening eyes.

“Brethren who bear my mark,” said the Jackal, like a priest at an altar, “I am the guardian of the well of souls. What I have is yours. Take it and use it well.”

Then he blew another infinite breath, like he had with the mummies, breathing power into the henchmen. Raw power, raw energy ten times more potent than any I had ever felt.

It just kept coming. There didn’t seem to be any end to it. Where was it coming from? Not anything in the room, from some bottomless well …

I am the guardian of the well of souls.

I shuddered at the idea. Surely that was another overdramatization.

“Get them,” said the Jackal, abruptly pragmatic. “And if you can’t bring them back alive, just bring back the book.”

The brethren turned toward us. The shared power that the Jackal had given them crackled like a static field that prickled my skin and raised my hair.

Johnson smirked through his split lip and wiped the blood from his mouth. “With pleasure,” he said.

Carson grabbed my arm and started pulling. “Now. We’re going now.”

I was already moving.


Carson and I ran through exhibit halls, following the trail of undead looters—shreds of ancient linen wrappings caught on toppled signs, a spatter of blood on a torn display. Ahead of us were the screams of terrified children and behind us was the sound of pursuit.

“Come on,” said Carson, like I needed to be told twice.

We burst out of the exhibit into a hallway, with Johnson on our heels. I glanced back in time to see him push out his hands, just like he’d pushed the ghost volcano at us before. I flashed on the drowning magic he’d used against Carson, just as a wall of water gushed from nowhere and washed my feet out from under me.

I crashed into Carson and we went tumbling over each other, swept down the hall until we smacked up against a glass case, arms and legs in a sodden tangle.

“We’ve got to stop meeting this way,” I wheezed, after I spit a mouthful of salt water over his shoulder.

“No promises,” he said, climbing off me as the wave receded. “Not if we make it out of here.”

There was an incentive, if I needed one other than staying alive.

Carson rolled to his feet and helped me up as Johnson stalked toward us, shoes squishing on the wet floor, murder in his eye. The one that wasn’t swollen shut.

“How do you like taking orders from a dead man?” I asked him.

“No problem when it’s something I want to do anyway.” He pushed the air again, and I caught my breath, ready for another flood. But nothing happened. The last deluge had used the remains of that ghost magic. Something else was coming.

I waited, braced, until a predatory growl behind me sent a primal jolt of fear through my veins. Carson tensed beside me, and Johnson said, with a sneer marred by his fat lip, “I’ll let you run. Just for grins.”

A feline roar, close enough to rattle my teeth, put the spurs to my heart and my feet. Carson’s, too. But I took enough time to read the sign on the case behind us: MAN-EATING LION OF MFUWE.

Something like a shade pulled free from the sad stuffed and mounted specimen. It shook itself as if waking from a nap, then leapt, passing through the glass and landing on the tile with prowling grace.

I didn’t realize I’d gone still until Carson grabbed my arm and pulled me out of shock and into motion. We ran, sliding on saltwater-slick floors, and made it to the stairs. The click of claws on marble pursued us, and I glanced back to see golden-green eyes glowing with stolen power. The outline was hazy, but teeth and talons gleamed. It was a construct of magic and the ghosts of its victims, and it was made for killing.

Taking the stairs two at a time, I kept pace with Carson. “Those claws,” he asked as we rounded the landing, “are they as real as they look?”

“I don’t want to find out the hard way,” I panted. “The volcanic ash was real enough. And the water—”

I broke off. We’d reached the main hall on the first floor, and chaos. I hadn’t had time to wonder if the mummies could climb stairs, but now I knew. With no definite instructions, the undead ran amok, chasing sightseers, terrorizing children. Just … grabbing people. And anyone they grabbed, they would Not. Let. Go.

Teachers held off mummies with umbrellas and satchels, trying to get their students to the doors. Security guards shouted over the noise, “Keep calm! Move in an orderly fashion to the exit!” But trying to maintain order was a losing battle.

The lion’s claws scrabbled on the stairs. Carson and I split, diving out of the way as the beast leapt into the hall with a roar that shook my bones. It sprang on the nearest thing that moved—a man grappling with one of the undead—and took them both down with one swipe, slashing the man’s leg and shredding the ancient corpse like confetti streamers.

The crowd screamed, making a deafening echo in the enormous hall. The panicked rush for the doors accelerated to ramming speed.

“Hey!” yelled Carson, getting the lion’s attention. It turned, snarling, away from the easy pickings of the herd in the hall and focused on him with specific intent. “Handle the mummies,” he told me, already backing away. “I’ll take care of the lion.”

He was gone, running full-out for one of the side galleries, before I could ask what he planned to do. I ran for the lion’s victim; his blood made a garish arc across the white marble floor, and I pulled off the scarf I wore and tied it around the man’s thigh, stanching the dribbles.

“That was a lion.” His voice was flat with shock. “And a … a …”

“Yeah,” I said. I couldn’t see the brethren, but I knew they must be around, keeping the power flowing to the mummies. How else were they still so strong this far from the Jackal?

“Police!” came a shout. “Everyone stay calm and—”

The officer broke off as he got a look at the carnage in the hall. “What the—”

The rest was drowned out by the skull-ringing clang of the security doors on the far side of the hall slamming shut. A moment later the heavy gate of the remaining exit started rumbling down.

A policeman on a radio yelled for someone on the other end to raise the gates. The rest were shouting, “Go, go, go!” and hurrying the wounded through the closing gap to freedom.

“This guy needs help!” I called. An officer and a tourist hoisted the man up and half carried him toward the door. One of the undead marauders lunged after them; the reins of power that tied them to the Jackal and the Brotherhood glowed to my Sight. I was so close I could grab them with my psychic hands and rip them free.

The mummy collapsed, kicked apart an instant later by fleeing feet.

There was a shudder in the web of magic that animated the remains. Slowly, they turned their empty-eyed faces toward me. I’d been spotted. One of the brethren must have given them new orders.

At least they abandoned the innocent bystanders. Some part of me registered guards and police helping the shocked patrons to the exit, but most of me only had eyes for the undead that were backing me toward the towering skeleton of the tyrannosaur.

There were so many of them. My psyche couldn’t reach all of them—

Unless I let them get really, really close.

“Daisy!”

I thought I heard my name, shouted from amid the melee of escapees near the doors, but between the screaming and the yelling and the grinding of the gears on the security doors, I couldn’t be sure, and I couldn’t take my attention from the advancing undead to look.

There’d been a shift in the magic around the walking dead, the ropes of power thinning to mere puppet strings. I wouldn’t have a better chance to shut them down. I hauled up the strength to slam closed a psychic door between the Jackal and the mummies, cutting them off from his control, freeing their abused bodies.

Without magic to knit them together, they crumbled and cracked. Dry, brittle bone and parched flesh turned to rubble and dust around me.

“Those were priceless! Priceless artifacts!” A hysterical woman in a business suit came out of hiding, fueled by outrage.

“They were more than that,” I said, too shaky from the effort to be angry. “They were people.”

The woman was accompanied by a guy in a lab coat and a woman in glasses. Nerd types, straight from central casting. “Forget that, Margo,” said Lab Coat. “Let’s get out of here.”

With an almighty clang, the security doors slammed closed. Margo screamed, then shrieked again when another handful of stragglers, led by a security guard, emerged from one of the exhibit wings.

“You didn’t make it out, either?” asked the guard.

I let the others answer him, and started worrying about Carson. He’d seemed like he knew what he was doing when he ran off, but he’d been gone so long—

A lion’s furious growl rolled out of the wing to my right. I spun toward it—and then whirled again as another roar answered the first. The sounds echoed through the huge hall, but it was unmistakably a second animal.

“That came from the African hall,” said a woman with glasses.

“How many man-eating lions are in this place?” I asked.

“Three,” she said as our band of stragglers clustered together. “One from Mfuwe and two from Tsavo.”

Margo screamed again as the first lion, looking bigger and toothier than ever, burst from the hall of Ancient Americas. Behind him came the glowing shades of a half-dozen ancient Americans, each carrying a spear capable of taking down a woolly mammoth.

Limping behind them, holding a spear of his own, was Carson. As the clan of the cave bear drove the snarling beast toward one end of the Great Hall, he backed toward us, keeping the tribesmen in his eye line.

“Good to see you,” I said—a massive understatement, but I didn’t want to break his concentration. “You found some friends.”

He nodded without taking his gaze from the anthropological apparitions. “So did you. What’s the situation?”

I glanced at the tight knot of stragglers. “Trapped like rats, I think.”

“No service?” Margo tapped her cell phone with rising hysteria. “How can there be no service?”

Lab Coat just looked at her. “How can there be mummies?”

“They know people are trapped inside,” said the security guard. He meant to be reassuring. But my “they” was different from his. The world outside knew we were here, but so did the Brotherhood.

A prowling growl from the shadows raised the hair on the back of my neck. No one screamed this time; they all froze with a collective held breath.

“I don’t think we can hold them all off like this,” said Carson, meaning him and me. “We need a place that we can fortify and make a plan.”

“But where?” I whispered. “This place is full of things that are full of spirits.”

“What about the library?” asked Glasses Lady. She wore a staff ID badge, but I couldn’t see her name. “There’s a landline, and the reading room locks. And if things get really bad, the rare book vault is hermetically sealed and impenetrable.”

“Sounds good,” said Carson. “Daisy, take the lead to feel out anything in the way. I’ll follow—I can at least keep the big lion at bay for a minute or two.”

“Who put the kids in charge?” demanded an old guy with “retired tourist” written all over him. He and the woman with him were the only ones of the seven not wearing museum badges.

“Do you have a better idea?” asked a quiet man with a Morgan Freeman soul patch. “I, for one, refuse to be done in by a scientific impossibility.”

“Then let’s go,” said the security guard, and we started for the stairs, the snarls of the lions snaking after us.

I prayed I wasn’t leading everyone from the frying pan to the fire. Remnants respected certain barriers … but these weren’t ordinary shades. These were weapons made of spirit, memory, and magic.

Please, God, don’t let me be the scientific impossibility that does us all in.