Spirit and Dust

33


“WHAT’S GOING ON?” asked Taylor, obviously unsure if he should keep his gun aimed at her or not. “That looks like Alexis Maguire.”

“I think it is.” After all the shocks of the night, I felt numb, hollowed out, and spent. Maybe that was why the pieces fit together so easily. The dandelion-puff bits of illusion hung in the air, smelling of lakeside mud and blood spatter. “Did you kill your bodyguard for the power to make that disguise?”

She shrugged. “It had to be good enough to fool Carson. He can be reluctant about the messy stuff. And I figured you’d get along better if you sensed his sincere worry about me.”

I allowed myself to feel a moment of relief that Carson didn’t know everything, that he’d been played, too. “Was there ever a real Lauren?” I asked.

“Of course,” said Alexis, with a chilling lack of concern. “But she had to go, too. She was a little too insightful.”

Taylor put it together more quickly than I’d have thought. But then, I’d warned him it was world-class weird. “So … you faked your own kidnapping?”

“Obviously.” She caught the confusion that flashed over my face. “Questions, Miss Goodnight? I’ll let you ask a few.”

I voiced the one foremost in my mind. “How did someone as smart as you end up taking orders from someone like Michael Johnson? He’s the leader of the Brotherhood, right?”

Annoyance twisted her features. “I let him think he was. But once we’d identified all the pieces of Oosterhouse, I had my own plan. I knew that moron Johnson would make an unholy mess of things, which he has.” The cool slipped back into place. “Still, it’s not unsalvageable. And he has his uses. A priestess needs acolytes.”

Taylor spared me the barest glance, keeping an eagle eye on Alexis. “What’s she talking about?”

I fumbled for a quick explanation, but Alexis spoke first. “I’m sorry, Agent Taylor. There’s really not time to bring you up to speed. Why don’t you take a little nap?”

She merely nodded and Taylor collapsed, and my heart with him. I was just barely fast enough to keep his head from hitting the floor. His gun fell out of reach with a clatter.

“He’ll be all right,” Alexis assured me as I felt for his breath and pulse. “He’s a strong one. And cute. No wonder Carson sounded so jealous.”

I ignored her jabs and lowered Taylor gently, then stood, taking back the height advantage. It was the only one I had. While I was at it, I felt around for Aunt Ivy and got only the faintest resonance. I pushed back fear for her with hope that she had sense to retreat.

“How much does Carson know?” I asked. “Not, I assume, that you’re a cast-iron bitch and murderer.”

“I think he’s figured it out by this point. He was pretty shaken when he came downstairs and saw through my illusion, though he tried to hide it.” Alexis had sauntered sideways while she spoke. I didn’t realize where she was headed until she picked up Taylor’s pistol. “Carson said you would be gone by now, not to bother to come look for you. I think he underestimated your superhero complex.”

“People do tend to underestimate me.”

“Not me,” said Alexis, handling the gun as easily as a fashion accessory. “I’ve been on the lookout for someone like you ever since I found Oosterhouse’s Book of the Dead. You were just what I needed. The problem was how to convince Carson to go along with kidnapping you. He’d left the Brotherhood already. Ethics, he said. In his position, can you believe it? That boy is seriously messed up.”

That was a mistake I made, Carson had said, when I’d discovered the Jackal’s mark. I’m not like them, he’d told me on the train. I still believed that. I had to, or I’d have to start doubting everything I knew.

“Where is he now?” I asked.

“Downstairs, waiting on Dad. With all those conflicted principles, I wasn’t expecting him to come onboard with me so easily. But his finding out that Dad played him—and worse, forced him to put you in danger—has got him rethinking alliances, which is convenient for me.”

No wonder I had so much trouble putting the jigsaw puzzle together. This picture had more double crosses than string art.

“So your father,” I prompted, since she seemed to enjoy my questions, “he was the mastermind behind this whole thing?”

She grinned, her straight white teeth gleaming in the dim light. “That’s what he thinks. That’s the trick with managing Dad—nothing magical about it. You just have to make him think something is his idea. Carson, too, in the opposite way. I knew putting you on the run together would bring out all his protective instincts.” She paused for thought. “I did seriously underestimate his hate for Dad. It’s kind of oedipal, don’t you think?”

“Except for the part where his dad ordered his mom killed. That isn’t how the play goes.”

“Whatever.” She sighed heavily. “If I’d known, I would have just asked him to help me. Subterfuge is a lot of work.”

It sounded like she had a plan for Maguire—and maybe Carson, too. He must be playing along with her, but if he had a plan beyond that, I was pretty sure it didn’t account for the fact that his half sister was a sociopath.

“But what do you get out of it?” I asked. Taylor had once told me that sometimes the best interrogation technique was to shut up and let the suspect spill his guts. It was like a compulsion, whether they felt guilty or proud of what they’d done.

Alexis? Did not feel guilty.

“Power. And dynasty, of course.” She checked her phone, a very businesslike gesture. “I need Carson’s help, which means I still have a use for you. He almost wrecked it, giving you the chance to escape. But here you are.” She flashed another grin. “I love it when a plan comes together.”

I had a bolt of inspiration. Not the good, get-out-of-this-jam-with-everyone-you-care-about-alive kind. But the bad, this-shit-is-so-much-deeper-than-I-thought kind. I should have kept my mouth shut, but I had to know if I was right.

“Did you make Maguire think it was his idea to kill Carson’s mother?”

Her smile vanished, and something deadly sparked in her eyes. “Can you blame me? I had to discover by accident I had a brother. And when I found out he had the same weird talents I did? Of course I wanted him in the house. I’d always wanted a sibling, and Dad always wanted a son. Everyone wins.”

“Except Carson’s mom.”

Alexis gave an Oh well shrug. “It’s time to go downstairs. Dad found a way in, and everything is set. But since I just got Carson onboard and you’re a bit of a wild card, I think you should take a little nap, too.”

“Wait!” I said …

Just before everything went dark. Again.


I woke to the flickering of torchlight on hieroglyphs and the rhythmic chanting of men’s voices. My arms ached, and when I tried to move, I found I was sitting on the floor, my wrists tied behind me and around the base of the statue of Anubis, in the reconstructed tomb in the bottom of the museum, where this had all started that afternoon.

You have got to be kidding me.

Bound and gagged like a pig at a luau.

I couldn’t speak. My mouth felt like it had been stuffed with old sweat socks.

Nightmare shadows loomed on the ceiling and walls, cast by deformed heads and cloaked figures. The Brotherhood stood in a semicircle around me, wearing jackal masks and some sort of robes, and it was all too weird and too terrifying at the same time. Their chant had the ring of ritual, and it raised a sort of electricity in the air, a potential of power. As if they could call anything and it would answer.

The semicircle faced an altar, and that raised my hackles, too. Behind it stood Devlin Maguire. To his left, his daughter, Alexis. To his right, his son, Carson, eyes straight ahead. A dynasty in the making.

The big man raised his arms in invocation. The chanting dropped to a hum, and Maguire spoke over it. “The Brotherhood of the Jackal has formed. We call our mentor and master, the Black Jackal, and offer him a body so that he can live again and we can share his glory.”

Oh, you have so got to be kidding me.