Twilight Heart Page 7

  As she got in, she checked the rearview mirror and saw the black van again. Its windows were tinted so she couldn’t see if there was anyone inside.

  Telling herself to ignore the uneasiness she felt because it had no sound basis, she started the Focus and pulled away from the curb.

  The heavy rain had slowed the traffic. Felicity punched the address she’d been given into the car’s SatNav system and concentrated on getting across town. She suspected that her destination—a place called Mysterium Ink—was a regular tattoo studio that the Society ran as a front. It probably served ordinary members of the public and P.I.s alike. The non-Society clientele would have no idea that some of the customers being inked there were members of a secret organization being marked with tattoos that had a practical purpose.

  She wondered how Alec and the others were getting on with the search for Tia’s mummy. She’d considered ringing Alec last night but had ultimately decided against it. She wanted to get settled into her new life first so she could share it with him. Maybe after she’d worked the Jessica Baker case she’d have something to share.

  If there was even a case there at all. She couldn’t count the number of people who had sought Alec’s help when they didn’t need a P.I. at all. Some of them needed a private investigator rather than a paranormal investigator. Others were victims of an overactive imagination rather than a preternatural threat. Hopefully, Jessica Baker had a genuine problem which Felicity could solve.

  She arrived at Mysterium Ink forty-five minutes later and parked in the customer car park at the rear. After hurrying from the car to the shop door, she pushed through into the warmth. Unlike the office Felicity had just left, Mysterium Ink was spotless. Gleaming white tiles covered the walls, which were adorned with framed pictures of tattoo designs. The air smelled faintly of antiseptic and there was a constant buzzing sound of tattoo guns.

  Two clients sat in reclining leather chairs; a young man having a skull tattooed on his shoulder and an older woman who was having a red rose colored in on her ankle.

  The girl at the front desk looked up at Felicity and said, “Hi, can I help you?”

  “I have an appointment,” Felicity said. “Felicity Lake.”

  The girl consulted a hardbound notebook in front of her and nodded. “Ah, yes. Your appointment is with Deb. I’ll tell her you’re here if you’d like to take a seat.” She gestured to a row of plastic chairs by the window.

  No sooner was Felicity seated than a short-haired woman in a black T-shirt and blue jeans came over. “Hey, Felicity. I’m Deb. Come with me and we’ll get you sorted.”

  Felicity stood and smiled. Before following Deb, she took a last look at the rain swept street beyond the window.

  What she saw made her heart skip a beat.

  Parked across the street, its tinted windows staring at her like spider eyes, was the black van.

  11

  “What do you mean it’s under the Sphinx?” I asked Carlton.

  “Let me get the book and I’ll show you.” He went outside and ran back to his car.

  “Do you think he’s actually found something useful?” Leon asked, looking up from the book he’d been studying.

  I shrugged. “I don’t know. He seems pretty confident.”

  Carlton came back with a book tucked under his arm. He placed it on the coffee table and opened it to a page he’d marked with a scrap of paper. “Look at that,” he said, pointing to an illustration on the page.

  I looked at the illustration in the book and compared it to the drawing Tia had made on my wall. They were identical.

  Leon studied the two drawings and let out a low whistle. “You found it, Carlton, old boy. Now, what were you saying about the Sphinx?”

  “It says it right here,” Carlton said, pointing to a line of Coptic characters on the page. “The Pillars of Khonsu reside beneath the human-lion guardian. A prayer that cannot be spoken in the day or night will open the gate.”

  “What the hell does that mean?” Leon asked, frowning. “A prayer that cannot be spoken in the day or night?”

  “We can find that out later,” Carlton said. “The point is, I found the pillars. They’re under the Sphinx.”

  “They’re not under the Sphinx,” I told him.

  He looked taken aback. His face flushed and his eyes narrowed. “What do you mean they aren’t there? Look, it says it right here. The human-lion guardian. If that isn’t the Sphinx then what does it mean, eh?”

  “I agree it sounds like the Sphinx but it can’t be. In 1998, an excavation was carried out beneath the Sphinx. There are some natural caverns and man-made tunnels and rooms down there but there are no pillars. Nothing like the ones on the drawing. The human-lion guardian must mean something else.”

  Carlton looked crestfallen.

  “Hey, don’t sweat it,” I told him. “You found a reference to the pillars and the cryptic line about opening a gate. That’s going to be useful. The pillars aren’t under the Sphinx but we’ll find out where they are. Good job.”

  A flicker of a smile crossed his lips. “Thanks.” He looked at my shoulder as if noticing it for the first time. “What happened to you?”

  “I got scratched by a ghoul.”

  Understanding flashed in his eyes. “So that’s why you were asking about ghouls on the phone?”

  I nodded.

  “But there’s no cure for ghoul poison. Oh my god are you going to..?” His words trailed off, leaving the question unasked.

  “I’m fine,” I said. “It turns out there is a cure for ghoul poison after all.”

  He examined the poultice briefly before pulling his head away from it. “Is that where the bad smell is coming from?”

  “Yeah, you don’t want to get too close.”

  “I guess I should get home anyway,” he said. “My wife will be waiting for me. I’ll see you guys tomorrow.” He gave Leon a wave and walked to the front door with a sad look on his face.

  “Hey, Carlton, don’t feel bad,” I said, following him to the door. “You gave us some great information. We can work with that.”

  He shrugged and said, “I guess you guys will be working tonight, huh?”

  “Yeah, that’s the plan.”

  “Cool,” he said flatly. “I guess I’ll go home then.” He stepped out into the rain and walked toward his house with his head down and shoulders hunched.

  Did he feel bad because I hadn’t asked him to join us? Maybe he was feeling left out.

  “Hey,” I called after him. “We’re gonna order pizza, have a few beers, and go through the books. Do you want to join us?”

  He turned to face me, a grin on his face. “Yeah, I’d like that. Can I bring my wife?”

  “Err…yeah, I guess.”

  “Great! I’ll go and get her.” He sprinted through the rain to his house. When he got to the door, he turned to face me again. “Muriel likes pineapple on her pizza.”

  Before I could reply, he disappeared into the house.

  I went back to the living room where Leon was leafing through one of the texts. “Carlton and his wife are going to be joining us.”

  He pointed at my bare chest, grinning. “Maybe you should put a shirt on. You want to make a good first impression, don’t you?”

  He had a point. I went up to the bedroom and got a blue flannel shirt out of the closet. Before I put it on, I washed the poultice off my shoulder at the bathroom sink and applied a little cologne to my shoulder to make sure no remnant of the foul smell remained.

  When I got back downstairs, Carlton was standing in the living room with a tall mousy-haired woman dressed in dark slacks and a white sweater.

  “Alec,” Carlton said cheerily. “This is my wife Muriel. Muriel, this is Alec Harbinger.”

  “Pleased to meet you,” she said with a smile. “Carlton has told me so much about you. He’s thrilled to be a part of your team.”

  “Nice to meet you too,” I said.

  “I also told her that if she smells anyth
ing bad, it’s just the poultice on your shoulder,” Carlton said with a wink.

  “You have such an exciting job,” Muriel said. “And so dangerous. I can’t even imagine how many times you must have escaped death. Unfortunately, some of the people Carlton has worked with in the past haven’t been so lucky.”

  “So we heard,” Leon said, looking up from his book.

  “Well it’s a dangerous business,” Muriel said, going over to Leon with her hand outstretched. “And you are?”

  “Leon Smith,” he said, getting up and shaking her hand. “I’m Alec’s friend.”

  “Well, I’m willing to help out any way I can,” she said. “Carlton said you’re doing some research into some pillars.” She pointed at the drawing on the wall. “I assume it’s these you’re looking for?”

  “That’s right,” I said. “We need to comb through the books and see if we can find any reference to the pillars. This is one of the less exciting aspects of the job.”

  “Nonsense,” she said. “Work like this is the backbone of what you do. You venture into monsters’ lairs and kill them but it’s the research that gets you there in the first place, eh?”

  “I guess so,” I said. I gestured to the books. “If you guys want to start reading, I’ll order the pizzas.”

  “Could we get one with pineapple?” Muriel asked. “I just love pineapple on a pizza.”

  “Coming right up,” I said, speed-dialing the pizza place.

  After I placed the order, I went to the fridge and got four beers. Leon, Carlton, and Muriel had their heads buried in the books and the living room was as quiet as a library. Only the rain tapping on the window broke the silence.

  I found a book I hadn’t looked at yet—A Magical History of Giza—and sat on the floor while I scanned through its pages. Half an hour and a beer later, I still hadn’t found anything useful and, judging by the silence in the room, neither had anyone else.

  A light rap sounded at the door. “Pizza guy,” I said, getting up and stretching.

  I went to the door and paid for the two pizzas—a Pepperoni and a Hawaiian—before bringing them back to the living room and placing them side by side on the table.

  “I take it no one has found anything useful yet,” I said.

  No one had.

  “I still think the human-lion guardian refers to the Sphinx,” Carlton said. “It has to. Nothing else makes sense.”

  “There’s nothing like those pillars under the Sphinx,” I said. “There are tunnels running all over the Giza Plateau and maybe the pillars are in one that hasn’t been discovered yet but they definitely aren’t beneath the Sphinx.”

  Muriel reached for one of the pizza boxes and opened it. When she saw the Pepperoni pie inside instead of the Hawaiian, she closed the box again and pushed it away. “Wrong one,” she said.

  I looked at the two identical pizza boxes on the table and a memory came to me; something I’d read during an Egyptology lesson when I was training to become a P.I.

  “Carlton, I think you’re right,” I said, my eyes fixed on the two boxes. “The Pillars of Khonsu are in a subterranean room beneath the Sphinx.”

  He looked confused. “But you just said—”

  “I know what I said and I was right. No exploration beneath the Sphinx has revealed pillars like the ones we’re looking for. They’re not there.”

  Leon raised a quizzical eyebrow. “Okay, now I’m confused.”

  “The human-lion guardian has to mean the Sphinx.” I said. “Anything else wouldn’t make sense.” I pulled up an image of the Sphinx on my phone and held it up so everyone could see it. “A lion’s body and a human head,” I said. “There’s nothing else like it.”

  “So the pillars are under there,” Carlton said. “I knew it.”

  “No, they’re not.”

  He sat back and let out a sigh. “What am I missing?”

  “There’s nothing else like the Sphinx in modern times,” I said. “It’s unique. But there’s a widely held belief that there were once two Sphinxes. One of them either collapsed or the stones were repurposed and used to build other structures on the Plateau. Carlton is right; the Pillars of Khonsu are beneath the Sphinx.” I gestured at the picture on my phone. “But they’re not underneath this Sphinx; they’re under the one that’s no longer there.”

  “Where the hell is that?” Leon asked.

  “There’s an area where excavations have revealed a foundation beneath the sand. Some people believe it’s the foundation of a second Sphinx.”

  “So the room with the pillars is under there,” Carlton said. “That makes sense.”

  I went over to the crude drawing on the wall. “The pillars are obviously a gate of some kind. Since Tia thinks we need to find the pillars to get to her mummy, I assume they’re a gateway to the realm in which Rekhmire resides.”

  “Great,” Carlton said. “I’ll book a flight to Egypt for you.”

  “It isn’t that simple. From the description Carlton found, it seems that some sort of words are needed to open the gate. We don’t know what those words are.”

  “A prayer that cannot be spoken in the day or night,” Leon said.

  “Exactly.”

  “So what do we do now?” Muriel asked.

  “We hit the books again,” I said. “We know where the pillars are. Now we need to find out how to open the gate.”

  12

  It was going to take more than one night to crack the riddle of the pillars. It was almost midnight when I put my book down and I still hadn’t found anything that could help us get to Tia’s mummy.

  We’d eaten the pizzas, drunk a couple of beers each, and pored over the texts but the prayer that could not be spoken in the day or night refused to be found.

  “I’m beat,” Leon said, closing the text he’d been reading. “I’m going to go home and pick this up tomorrow.”

  “I guess we should head home too, eh?” Carlton said to Muriel.

  She nodded and put her book aside. With a sigh of resignation, she said, “Yes, we should. I have to get up early tomorrow. I have to meet my new students.”

  “You’re a teacher?” I asked.

  “A music teacher,” she said. “And I start my new job tomorrow so we really should be going.”

  “Sure,” I said, getting up from the floor and stretching my aching joints. “Thanks for your help.”

  “It’s just a shame we didn’t find anything useful,” she said as she and Carlton walked to the front door. The rain had finally stopped but the night air was cold and it rushed into the house when Muriel opened the door.

  “Goodnight,” Carlton said as they stepped outside. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “See you tomorrow.” My attention was drawn to a dark green Ford Taurus parked across the road. I could see two men inside—one with dark hair, the other blond—and they seemed to be trying to sit stock still so as not to attract any attention to themselves.

  Too late.

  I didn’t let them know I’d spotted them by lingering at the door for too long. I closed it and went back to the living room.

  Leon was on his feet, stretching and yawning. “I’m going to get some sleep,” he said. “The writing style in those books is very dry. I’ll be dreaming about Egyptian architecture tonight.”

  “We may have a problem,” I said.

  The tiredness was gone from his face instantly. “What is it?”

  “Two guys parked across the street in a green Taurus.”

  He surreptitiously glanced out of the window. “I see them. What are they doing there?”

  “Watching the house.”

  “Why?”

  I shrugged. “No idea. But the wards I set up on the street haven’t been tripped, which means one of two things. Either they don’t mean any harm or they’re skilled enough to get past my wards without setting them off. If it’s the latter, they’re pretty good.”

  “So what are you gonna do? Go over there and see who t
hey are?”

  “I don’t feel comfortable confronting them on the street. If they’re good enough to slip past my wards, they probably have a lot of power. If a confrontation escalated into a fight, there could be collateral damage. I won’t let that happen. Maybe I’ll take a drive out of town, see if they follow.”

  “Want some company?”

  “I thought you were tired.”

  “Who needs sleep when there are bad guys’ asses to kick?”

  I grinned. “Sure, let’s go for a ride.”

  We left the house and got into the Land Rover. As I backed onto the street, I made sure to keep my attention away from the Taurus. No need to let them know I was onto them, even though they were pretty conspicuous. They might have enough knowledge to get past the wards but they needed a lesson in looking inconspicuous.

  “Where are we going?’ Leon asked as we got to the end of the street. I checked the rearview mirror. The Taurus hadn’t moved.

  “Far enough away that we can deal with them without having to worry about property damage.” My presence in Dearmont had brought enough danger to the town when John DuMont, a traitor within the Society, had tried to raise a zombie army here. If these guys were intent on causing trouble, I’d make sure they caused it far away from innocent people.

  I turned onto the next street and checked behind me again. No headlights. Maybe I’d been wrong about them after all and their presence on the street was totally innocent.

  Then I saw them turn out of my street and follow us, keeping their distance.

  “They don’t know we’re onto them,” I said to Leon. “They’re keeping back, trying to be inconspicuous.”

  “It’s a little late for that,” he said. “So what’s the plan? We lead them out of town and then run them off the road? Beat them up some before we tell them to stay the hell away?”

  “I thought we might find out who they are first. We’ll get out of town and pull over somewhere where it’s quiet. They’ll probably drive right past us so they don’t blow their cover. We’ll stop their car and question them.”