Spirit and Dust

35


“NO, no, NO!”

Alexis grabbed up the hammer and brought it down toward the glowing glass vial on the altar. Before it could land, Carson had snatched up the tiny jar, holding it safe in his hand.

“Stop being a brat.”

Who was talking? The Jackal or Carson? It sounded like Carson, except for the cavalier way he dismissed the half sister he’d broken all kinds of laws to save.

“A brat?” Alexis echoed, but she sounded back in control of herself. “I gave this to you. I did all the groundwork. I formed the Brotherhood and you left it. You don’t deserve the Jackal.”

“But I’ve got it,” he said calmly. Turning to the slack-jawed brethren—they’d ditched their masks ages ago—he said to the ones holding Taylor and me, “Let them go. Now.”

Whether compelled or just confused, they did. Taylor ran to Maguire, who still hadn’t moved, and checked him for serious injuries. I followed, mostly to put distance between me and the henchmen. “He’ll be okay until we get an ambulance,” Taylor said. “We’d better not move him until the armed response team gets here.”

Alexis finally did something clever, seizing the closing window of opportunity to regain the Brotherhood. She swooped over and caught Johnson by the front edge of his robe. “You don’t want to wait here for the SWAT team to come in, do you?”

“Of course not,” he said, looking down at her with poorly disguised adoration.

“That’s what Carson would make you do,” she said, sweeping them all up in a wave of charisma a lot like her father’s. “All of you who don’t want to go to jail, come with me.”

No one wanted to go to jail, apparently. I didn’t know how to stop them, and Carson seemed to be fighting his own battle.

“Here,” he said, holding the vial out to me. I put out my hand, skin already shivering at the proximity of the imprisoned soul, and Carson dropped the tiny glass into my palm. He was leaning heavily on the altar. “Take care of that for me.”

Taylor had stood, and he looked from me, to Carson, to the glow in my hand. “What is it?” he breathed, almost reverent. Maybe a soul was profound enough for even a nonpsychic to feel.

“A soul in a bottle,” I said.

He was silent a moment. “You’re right. This is World Series weird.”

Carson laughed, but it was a shaky sound. “Get Daisy out of here before all hell breaks loose, okay?”

“Okay,” said Taylor, like they’d formed their own brotherhood. A brotherhood of jackasses.

“Are we really discussing this again?” I demanded. “Here is exactly where I need to be when hell breaks loose.”

“No,” said Carson, his tone inarguable, all the shakiness gone. “You need to get out. Now.”

Taylor grabbed my hand and breathed a warning. “Daisy …”

The fear in his voice stilled my attempts to shake him off, and I followed his gaze. What he could see from his angle, but I couldn’t, not until he pulled me closer to him, was the tattoo on Carson’s back.

The jackal silhouette now covered his entire shoulder blade. As I watched, it moved, flexing whippet-lean muscles, and its mouth curved in mocking laughter.

I reached out to touch it, to feel how deep the connection went, to make some wild stab of a guess at how I could pull the Jackal free from Carson without irreparably damaging him. But a charge like electric needles pushed me back, even before Taylor grabbed that hand, too.

“Go,” Carson said again, his voice gruff. He’d always sounded older than he was, but now he sounded ancient. “I’ll take care of the Brotherhood.”

He grabbed his shirt from the floor and shook it out as he followed Alexis and her band from the tomb. As soon as he crossed the threshold, there was a rumble, and a rain of dust that grew into a hail of rubble.

“Let’s go,” said Taylor. “This place is going to come down.”

“What about Maguire?” I didn’t think the room would collapse, just revert to how it had been. But a falling slab of hieroglyphs could crush the man all the same. Even if he deserved it.

We supported his neck and dragged him out of danger, into the corridor, which was unmarked by magic or debris. We barely made it before an almighty crash shook the walls and brought the rest of the stone in the tomb behind us smashing down.

“That came from above us,” I said, and ran for the stairs before Taylor could stop me.


At the top of the stairs out of the tomb, the hunting-cat screech of a lion made me stumble over my own feet. My feet and my total lack of a plan. Not that that was enough to stop me, but it slowed me down enough for Taylor to catch up.

“Daisy, stop.” He grabbed me when I would have charged out into the main hall, and pulled me into the shelter of the exhibit door. “Listen. That guy—”

“Carson,” I corrected. Insisted, because I couldn’t let myself believe he’d become the Jackal.

“Carson,” Taylor agreed. “He was barely holding on. And he’s right. We need to get out of here.”

“And do what?” I asked. “Let them fight to the death? Let Alexis kill Carson and take the Jackal? Or let the monster take over Carson completely?”

“How about let the armed response team come in and arrest them all?”

“Taylor!” I wrestled my voice down to a whisper. “There are three man-eating ghost lions out there! You think they can handle that?” There was another crash from the hall, making my point.

“What’s the alternative?” he asked.

That was a good question. “I have to unbind the Jackal from Carson before it can totally possess him.”

“You can do that?”

“Yes,” I said, hoping it was true. I didn’t have a plan B.

“Okay. I’ll call—” He stopped, with his hand on his fatigues pocket. “My cell phone is gone.”

“So’s your weapon,” I said, in case he hadn’t noticed that already. And in case that changed his mind, I slipped through the exhibit door into the first-floor gallery.

“Daisy!” he hissed, hurrying after me from shadow to shadow. Ahead was the main hall, lit by the moonlight streaming through the skylights and amplified by the white marble. I could clearly see the two elephants, and Sue the T. rex in her eternal run. There was mummy dust everywhere, and both totem poles had fallen, like mammoth trees blocking one set of doors.

Everything else I saw with double vision, psychic and physical. Man-eating lions weren’t the half of it. They prowled through ranks and ranks of hunters and soldiers from every culture represented in the museum and maybe a few that weren’t. On one side of the hall were Alexis and the Brotherhood. On the other, facing them and their spirit host of animals and ancient warriors, was Carson, standing alone.

Alone, but somehow equal to all that. Even from the shadows I could feel the hum of power from him.

“Last chance to give it up, Carson!” called Alexis.

“It’s not that easy, Lex,” he said, his voice carrying across the hall. “The Jackal chose me. You have to convince him.”

“I can do that.”

She said it with conviction, and it was clear she expected something amazing to happen. But her warriors just … stood there.

The Brotherhood must have felt something. Johnson stared at his tattoo with disbelief, but it was Alexis who screeched, “You bastard!” loud enough to rattle the rafters.

Carson raised his hand as if catching a baseball, and it took me a minute to realize what I was not seeing. The Black Jackal had sent the Brotherhood after Carson and me armed with a share of all his power. And Carson had just called it all back.

“The Jackal giveth,” he said, “and the Jackal taketh away.”

He stirred the air like a huge cauldron. The shades in the hall dissolved, became a fluid swirl of mist with snatches of tooth and claw and spear. It cast a sickly light on the marble hall as it circled, catching the Brotherhood up in a whirlpool prison.

“Holy crap,” whispered Taylor. “That’s all … ghosts?”

“Spirits. Yes.” It was really impressive, and utterly terrifying, the effortless way he controlled it.

Not it. Them. Remnant shades of ancient memory.

I glanced at Taylor. Something metal glinted in his hand. “No one took my backup revolver,” he explained, sounding relieved. “Those henchmen aren’t exactly the brain trust.”

Then he gave me a serious, this-is-real-and-shit-is-about-to-go-down look. I knew he hadn’t ever shot anyone, but I also knew he’d trained for it. “Are you aware of the biggest threat in the room? Look.”

I did. Worse, I heard. The imprisoning circle of spirit was tightening around the Brotherhood with hunting-cat snarls and the escalating beat of tribal drums. There was a cry of pain as one of the brethren got too close and drew back a slashed arm, blood dripping on the tile.

“Please don’t shoot Carson,” I said, more plaintively than I intended. “I’m not sure that will stop the Jackal.”

I was not sure what would stop the Jackal. But I had to find out.

Another scream, this one from Alexis. It was harder to see her and her minions through the circling glow.

“Let’s go,” said Taylor. “Get Carson to stop. I’ll cover the girl and make sure she doesn’t get away.”

“Okay.” I think he expected me to wait for a count of three, but I didn’t. I charged out of the shadows and stepped between Carson and the swirling remnants. “That’s enough!” I shouted. “You’re just torturing them!”

He didn’t look surprised to see me. He looked so normal—way more normal than he should look with that much power inside him.

“They’d do the same to you,” he said, very reasonably. “Alexis would have killed you and used your soul to fuel her magic. And you’re worried about a few cuts and scrapes?”

“Not the Brotherhood,” I said, though I meant them, too. “The remnants. You know what they are, and you’re toying with them.”

He waved a hand and the whirlwind ceased. The spirits dissolved again, this time into a fog lying low on the floor, spreading in abstract phosphorescent eddies. All except the Native Americans that Carson had first summoned an age ago. They stood guard around his half sister and the half-dozen brethren.

“Don’t move,” said Taylor, his gun drawn and aimed at Alexis. “None of you. Put any weapons you have on the ground.”

Only the brethren looked worried. Alexis fumed and the shades of the warriors didn’t react at all.

Carson strode through the spectral fog, bridging the distance between us. “Don’t you think that’s a little redundant, Agent Taylor?” he asked, nodding to the spear carriers, then the agent’s gun.

“I’m too conventional to leave this to ghost guards,” said Taylor. “And I don’t trust you.”

“You shouldn’t,” said Alexis, standing with her hands obediently in the air. “You should just stay out of this, junior G-man.”

Johnson spoke up. I guess he hadn’t completely lost his spine with Alexis around. “And how are you going to arrest all six of us by yourself?”

Carson made an annoyed sound. “I don’t mind helping him with that, a*shole.”

The shades of all the Native American tribesmen standing guard on the brethren simply vanished, gone without so much as a wisp of woodsmoke in the moonlight. In the same moment, Carson snapped his fingers and five guys dropped to the floor, whammied into unconsciousness from twenty feet away.

I was so stunned that it took me a second to realize Alexis was still standing there. Taylor swung around to include Carson in his sights, too, as best as he could. “Don’t move, Maguire. World Series weird or not, I’m not messing around.”

The siblings ignored him. “Did you really think I’d be dumb enough not to protect myself from that trick?” Alexis sneered.

“Are you dumb enough not to realize the Jackal would tell me everything you’ve been up to?” Carson fired back. “How could you kill Lauren? She was always nice to you.”

“She was way too insightful,” said Alexis, and I guessed that would be a problem when you were constantly playing everyone in your house. “But she taught me some really useful tricks of my own.”

She snapped her fingers in a mockery of Carson, and there was a magic-show flash, blinding in the near dark. By the time I could see again, Alexis was gone.

“Dammit!” said Taylor, searching the hall for any trace of her.

I could see her wake in the glowing fog around our ankles, and pointed toward the Hall of African Animals. “That way.”

“Don’t bother,” Carson growled. Two lean feline shapes rose from the mist, prowling toward us like visible shadows. “Find her,” he told them, and at my inarticulate sound of horror he added, “Bring her back alive.”

Then with a gesture, he sent them off like a pair of hunting dogs.

Taylor had reached his limit. “No more magic. Daisy, do something about this, or I will.”

Carson looked at him, bemused. “What is it you think you’re going to do, Agent Taylor? Alexis was right about one thing. You’re better off staying out of this.”

Then he dropped him like Sleeping Beauty.

It was just Carson and me.

No, that wasn’t right. The glow of the spirit fog at our feet cast a faint but distinct shadow on columns and ceiling, towering over us both. The shadow of a jackal-headed man.