A man stood chanting, facing the wall beyond the altar. Bright plates of gold hung on the wall, inscribed with geometric designs and stylized figures. His hands were raised, arms spread out, as he intoned something in a harsh, guttural language Megan had never heard before.
He was dressed, she could see, in a long tunic that covered him almost to his feet. It was made of row upon row of thin golden plates, brilliant in the light of the torches. She could see the back of his towering headdress, the arch of feathers stretching up.
The man turned—she felt sure it was Julian—and she saw the elaborate front of the headdress, which was attached to a mask of gold. It was the stylized head of a jaguar, the sort she had seen on one or two of the stone statues upstairs. The eyes were huge emeralds. The mouth was open in a wide, square shape, and it was through this that the man inside looked out at the room.
The figure, glittering and hard, inhuman in aspect, was enough to send a ripple of primitive fear down her spine. This, she thought, must have been what Theo had seen struggling with her brother in the cave. It was no wonder that, feverish and drugged, he had been uncertain of exactly what he had seen.
The man raised his arms again in a benedictory manner and began to chant.
Megan eased back, letting the crack in the door close. She turned to Frank. “We need to find the men,” she whispered. “We will need to have their help with that many people in there.”
She could not, would not, think about the fact that Theo, Dennis and the others might be lying dead somewhere in the museum.
Frank nodded, and they scooted back and started down the hall, looking into every room they passed. Just around the corner, they found a large room with an open door. Lit by an oil lamp, the place was full of cabinets, shelves and tables, with various vases, bowls and other museum objects stacked upon them. It seemed to be a sort of storeroom. They also saw, in one corner of the room, several bound bodies. Megan sucked in her breath sharply.
It was Theo and her brother and the other men, tied hand and foot. Fear stabbed through her, fierce and paralyzing.
It took a moment for reason to reassert itself. Surely they could not be dead, or Coffey would not have bound them head and foot. They must have been knocked out, or perhaps drugged.
She ran to them, Frank right beside her, and dropped down on her knees beside Theo. Her finger went to his throat, and she let out a sigh of relief when she felt the steady beat of his pulse. “He’s alive.”
“Aye, they are,” Frank agreed, starting to work on the knots that bound Dennis’s hands.
All the men were, including Barchester, and as Megan began to work on Theo’s bonds, she said, “At least we know that Barchester did not betray them. They must have been discovered.”
“Aye. Big group like that, it’s no wonder.” Frank cursed as his fingers slipped on the hard knot. He let out a low cry of triumph when he managed to undo it a moment later. He slipped the rope off Dennis’s wrists and chafed at them, trying to restore life to his no doubt numbed hands.
“Theo!” Megan whispered as she worked. “Theo, wake up!” She paused in her work to pat his cheek. “Wake up. We need your help.”
She was just sliding the rope off when Theo moaned and turned his head. “Theo! Wake up.” She leaned closer to him.
At that moment there was the sound of footsteps slapping along the corridor. Megan glanced at her father in horror. What if they were coming in here to check on their captives?
Frank and Megan darted behind one of the large cabinets, and Frank pulled out the revolver Theo had left him, holding it ready in his hand. They waited.
A cloaked figure came into the room. The person was small, and from that fact and the sway of her hips as she walked, Meg assumed that it must be a woman.
Megan and her father held their breath, afraid the woman would turn and see that two of the captives had been untied. But she did not even cast a glance at the bodies as she walked over to a table. There was a tray on it, and beside it some bottles and small bowls. The woman set a bowl on the tray and poured a dark liquid from a bottle into it.
A scheme began to form in Megan’s mind. She glanced around her for a weapon, and her eyes fell on a small Aztec head carved out of onyx. It would do nicely, she thought.
Picking up the head in both hands, she hurled herself out from the cover of the cabinet and straight at the figure. The woman whirled at the last moment, and her eyes widened behind her mask. She opened her mouth, but before she could draw breath to scream, Megan swung, hitting her on the side of the head. She crumpled without a sound.
“Good girl,” Frank commended her and started back to the captives.
“No, wait, help me get this costume off her,” Megan told him. “I am going to put it on.”
She knelt beside the prone figure, and pulled the mask and headdress from the woman’s face. It was Lady Scarle.
No surprise there, Megan thought. They had, after all, seen her in Coffey’s embrace after she left the museum the previous night. She was probably his confidant and closest assistant.
“Are you going to go in there?” Frank asked, crouching down beside her, frowning.
“I have to. With these clothes on, maybe I can get close enough to free Dennis’s daughter.”
Frank hesitated for another moment, then nodded. “You’re right. It’s the best way. I will untie the men and wake them up if I can, and we’ll join you.”
“I just hope they haven’t been drugged.”
Together, they twisted and pulled, managing to get the cloak off the limp body of Lady Scarle. Over in the corner, the men were stirring, and one of them let out a groan. Megan glanced over and saw that Theo was blinking, his face dazed. The knot in her chest loosened some more, but she did not let herself go to him, however much she wanted to. She had to get back into that room as soon as possible, before the group of worshippers began to wonder what had happened to Lady Scarle.
Frank helped Megan pull on the heavy cloak and tie it in place, then settled the headdress on her. “You are a mite shorter, but that’s good. It will let this heathenish feather robe hide your shoes.”
“There. That’s good.” Megan slid her arms through the slits in the cloak and picked up the bowl of noxious-looking liquid.
Was this the brew that they would drink to induce hallucinations and the proper cooperative spirit? she wondered. Or was it a poison that Coffey intended to administer to her niece? Whatever the man intended, she was going to stop him first.
With a last nod to her father, she picked up the tray and left the room. Behind her, Frank hastened over to finish untying the captives.