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"Mummy Wanted For Questioning"
"Mummy Wanted For Questioning"
9/2/- 9/3/2001
I.
Behind his desk, Jeremy Bane leaned back and kept a straight face. "Mr Schmidt. I don't think you realize the sort of thing I handle..."
Sitting in one of three plain wooden chairs facing the desk, a serious little man with wire-rimmed glasses on the end of his nose sniffed. "The Dire Wolf Agency has the highest recommendation. I took the liberty of phoning my wife's nephew, who is on the police force. He said you always get the job done."
"It's nice to be appreciated," Bane said. "But you know, some detective agencies specialize in domestic disputes ending in divorce, some handle insurance fraud. I have my own area where I work best."
"The fee will be handsome. Quite generous," Schmidt went on as if he hadn't heard. "As a representative of the Golden Pantry supermarket chain, I can assure that all your expenses will be covered."
"That's not the problem-"
"Now, we have good reason to believe that Walter McConnell has been buying chicken in bulk from normal sources and selling them to us with the misrepresentation that they are free-range hormone-free. As you can imagine, this-"
Bane stood up and put his palms on the desk, leaning forward on stiff arms. "Mr. Schmidt. I am NOT going to look into chicken fraud. I track down monsters and psychos and serial killers. I handle the supernatural. You are wasting your time and mine!"
As Schmidt blinked and seemed personally affronted, Bane went on in a gentler voice. "My abilities are in combat. You should be looking for an investigator with experience in your sort of case."
"Well. I suppose. If you're sure," Schmidt mumbled, getting up and picking his brief case off the chair next to him. "I, ah, I guess I will be leaving."
The Dire Wolf came around his desk to escort the man through the tiny waiting room and out into the hall. "No hard feelings, Mr Schmidt. There are lots of PIs in Manhattan who can do a better job on your case than I would."
After the man left, Bane leaned back against the door and shuddered, Fraudulent chicken sales!
He crossed the tiny waiting room, which held nothing but two chairs and a low coffee table with some magazines, going back into the office itself. As he entered, he was facing a wall which had a long leather couch, an end table with a lamp at each arm. Over the couch was a wide window looking out on Third Avenue. That was one reason he had taken this office on the ground floor. If necessary, he could slide through that window and get out on the street within seconds. Bane swung to the right and circled around behind his desk. It was almost bare. There was a reading lamp, a cordless phone in its charger and an IN/OUT stack of trays. He faced a bare wall and thought, I have to put something there. He sat back in the swivel chair and was lost in thought.
Jeremy Bane was in his mid-forties, six feet tall and lean to the point of looking gaunt. In a narrow face, two pale grey eyes looked out with startling intensity. He had just found a first grey strand in his black hair, and was frankly surprised there hadn't been a lot of them, considering the life he led. As always, he was wearing all black- slacks, turtleneck and sport jacket, almost his uniform in the Midnight War. Now the doorbell rang. The Dire Wolf jumped up and walked briskly to the door to the hall, glancing up at the closed-circuit monitor and recognizing who was outside. He opened the door and welcomed in a rather short, middle-aged man with curly greying hair and a decrepit white raincoat.
"Inspector! I thought you might come by." Bane escorted him to the office and motioned him to a plain wooden chair.
Francis Klein sat down carefully, with a slight grunt of discomfort. He was past the usual retirement age by a year. "We got a lot to talk about, Mr Dire Wolf. Nice little office. You haven't been here long, eh?"
"Two weeks. You know, I never closed my practice, even all those year with the KDF. Every two years, I renewed my license and claimed the reception room as my office. It's nice to have a trade to fall back on."
"I'm getting near the end myself," Klein said. "I should have a nice pension after all these years on the force and with Social Security, I'll be all right. I wanted to ask, what happened? What's going on with the Kenneth Dred Foundation?"
"They're still an ongoing team. Still in the building on East 38th Street. Sable is the leader. I'm renting them the building-- you know, Mr Dred left it to me in his will, with all its contents. But they're operating on their own."
Klein gazed thoughtfully at the man behind the desk, whom he had tried to bust several times a decade earlier, before he realized what kind of work the Dire Wolf was doing. "They're just kids, Bane."
"No younger than I was, or the other members of the original KDF when we first started. That was a long time ago. They're ready. Sable is a good leader, they have handled all their cases the past six months or so without my butting in." Bane nodded as if to himself. "I have to step away. If I stayed there, they would never really be self-reliant."
"It's a surprise to me," Klein said. "You got any ash trays here?"
"No," Bane answered. "I picked this office on 44th Street, close enough that I could be reached in a really extreme emergency. Or that I could contact them if I was at the end of my rope, for that matter. But I want to let them be their own team."
"So, the Dire Wolf Agency is open again. Brings back memories. When I met you, the first KDF team had been disbanded and you started your PI practice going in that building. To me, it's like old times. Where's Cindy?"
Bane hesitated just a second. "She has accepted a teaching position at Tel Shai. That's the mystic Order where we learned most of our skills. Her Teacher in telepathy died at an advanced age, and the other Teachers unanimously asked her to take the post. Cindy agreed."
"But you two are still a couple, I hope?"
"We won't be seeing as much of each other," Bane said. "Cindy won't be leaving Tel Shai. Once you become a Teacher, you stay there. But I will visit as often as I can."
"You been through a lot of changes in a short amount of time. You seem to be taking it okay."
Bane shrugged imperceptibly. He was not one to show what he felt. "Life goes on, things change. I'll still be doing business the way I always have." He gave Klein a quizzical look. "Which gets to the point. Is there some reason you dropped by, Inspector?"
"Other than chewing the fat?" Klein chuckled. "Yeah. Yeah, I've gotten used to this. When something weird and creepy and hard to explain happens in the five boroughs, everyone in the NYPD looks at me. And by now, they expect me to come drop it in your lap."
"All unofficial and off the record, of course."
"Of course." Klein fished a cigar from an inner pocket but didn't try to light it, he just toyed with it. "Yeah, I got something. The crime itself didn't happen in the city, it took place in Egypt. A month ago. You know, there's been rioting and such going on there. Crowds in the streets, throwing rocks and starting fires."
"Sure. It's been on the news."
"Well, one night, the police were bustin' heads and the populace was bustin' them right back. During the uproar, three men broke into an annex of the Cairo Museum. They shot a guard and a worker dead." Klein stuck the unlit cigar in his mouth. "They stole a mummy."
Bane sat up and his voice changed. "Go on, Inspector."
"I got a report that this was not an ordinary mummy. According to the experts, it used to be a Nubian slave in service to one of the more obscure Pharaohs. The funny thing was, this mummy was found walled up inside a tomb, slumped in the space between an inner wall and the outer one. He had been buried alive, three thousand eight hundred years ago."
"Cute. What else?"
Klein touched the side of his nose with a finger. "Confidential, got it?"
"Got it. Go on."
"The mummy's name seems to be Akhbet. I don't know if that was the poor sap's real name or if they just stuck it on him for convenience. Anyway, it seems someone was caught sneaking the mummy into this country. They came up through the border near New Mexico in a van, and the border patrol stopped them. Two more men dead, and the mummy got through. That makes it a federal case, of course." Klein paused. "The funny thing is the way the patrol were killed. They weren't shot. Their necks were broken."
Now the Dire Wolf had come fully to life. His grey eyes caught the light. "What else?"
"This is the part that made the boys upstairs give me a heads-up. Both patrol agents were armed. One fired three shots, the other fired once. No blood anywhere. They had trauma on their necks consistent with a strong hand seizing them and snapping the bones. And there was mold on their skin."
Bane got to his feet. He couldn't help it, the same enhanced reflexes that gave him his speed also made him hyper. Despite himself, he started to pace and Klein had to turn in his chair to watch. "Hmm. Interesting. There was something similar in the 1940s, in Massachusetts. Certainly there have been cursed mummies before." He wheeled abruptly, making Klein jump. "What does the NYPD have to do with this?"
"You're gonna love this, Bane. Two nights ago. A student in Queens was walking home from a neighborhood bar just after midnight. He saw a big guy stumbling along and thought he might need help, maybe he's a diabetic or something, so the student goes up and asks what the problem is. He gets slugged for his kindness. The mug knocks him down with a slap that almost kayos him. In the light from a streetlamp, the student gets a good look. He says the man is wrinkled and dry and yellow, with his lips showing all his teeth. Really not a pretty sight. The student runs home, understandably scared, and when he looks in the bathroom mirror, there's a big smear of mold where the guy hit him. He has to go to the emergency room, his jaw turned out to be dislocated."
"That's it. I'm in." Bane went back behind his desk but didn't force himself to sit down. "Any more details, Inspector?"
"Nope, that's all. You realize, Bane, that officially I never told you any of this. I wasn't even here today."
"Fine," the Dire Wolf answered. "Same as always. I need the name and address of the student who saw the mummy... or what might be the mummy," he corrected himself.
Klein got up. "You should see the memo I got. You'd laugh. Because of the assault on the student, it says, quote 'Mummy wanted for questioning.' "
Chaz Culver got up off the couch, rubbing his eyes and still half-asleep. He thought his grandfather had called him. "Yeah? Grandpa?"
"Come in here, Charles," came the deep bass voice.
He had given up asking his grandfather to call him Chaz. It was a lost cause. Culver walked through the living room, up the creaking stairs to the bedroom that had been turned into a chamber of horrors. His grandfather met him in the doorway. They did not resemble each other. Ezra Culver was over six feet tall, broad-shouldered with a big hard belly. He had blue-black skin, processed straight hair, and a sour brooding face. Chaz took after his mother; he was much lighter in tone, with skin a medium tan color. He wore his hair cut so short it was almost shaved and he had a wispy mustache. Chas was also little in comparison, no more than five foot eight and thin to the point of being scrawny.
Since the death of his parents, Chas had lived with his grandfather, which meant no chance of college. Instead, his life had been one spent in the desperate shadows of gralic sorcery and the Midnight War. He had no pals, no girlfriend. He could not trust outsiders with the way he lived.
Ezra Culver was wearing a ceremonial robe over his white dress shirt and slacks, a dark red garment with esoteric symbols sewn into its surface. He motioned Chas into the room where, on the double bed, a nightmare lay motionless in undeath. Akhbet almost covered the surface of the bed. He was built like a warrior, with a deep chest and wide shoulders. Even now, his body was still wrapped in dingy brown bandages that hung in tatters. His face was uncovered, a solid corrugated surface of deep wrinkles from which yellow eyes gazed up unseeing at the surface. The nose was gone. The lips had drawn back to show jagged teeth. Chaz stared down at the Mummy with a strange anticipation.
His grandfather watched him happily. "Charles, tonight we will begin gathering our army."
"That's your dream. You never ask me what I want."
The old man laughed sharply. "You've had plenty of chances to leave. You want revenge on the white man as much as I do."
"No, I don't. Not really. I'm tired of hiding out and sneaking around. I'm still young, Grandpa. I should be having fun, not... doing what we do."
Ezra Culver walked closer to loom over the boy. "You don't know what I've been through. I was beaten by cops, when I had done nothing wrong. I've been lied to, cheated, treated like dirt for no other reason than the color of my skin. When your Ma and Pa died, boy, I swore the same wouldn't happen to you." His voice grew lower. "That's why I joined the cults I did. That's why I worked for Menekartes. Why I made the deals I did for forbidden knowledge. So you could be strong."
"It's gettin' dark out, Grandpa," the young man said.
"Yes. You know, Akhbet here had been a slave in his day. The Egyptians took him from Nubia to be a bodyguard. He is our spiritual ancestor. Who knows? Maybe a physical ancestor, too."
Chas Culver sat down in a chair next to the bed, placed his hands on its arms and closed his eyes. From within his robe, the older man raised a short metal sceptre topped with a red gem. He waved it in complex patterns and began a chant that was older than Egypt, going back to the kingdom of Khebir in the Darthan Age. Despite twenty years of study, Ezra did not fully understand the primal forces he was tapping into. These spells went back before the history known to archaeologists, to the Corruption on the island Ulgor, when forbidden knowledge was given to mortals not meant to receive it. Among them had been Prince Yathrib, whose spirit survived in body after body, finally ending as the resurrected undead thing known as Menekartes, founder of the Mummy Dust cult. Menekartes had finally been destroyed, but some of his students still carried on his work and Ezra Culver was one of them.
As the spell swirled its gralic force around the room, the lights dimmed and the air chilled. Both Chas and Akhbet shuddered violently. As the young black man sagged and stopped breathing, the petrified mummy took a deep harsh breath. Its head turned. Through a dry throat, the word rasped out, "Grandpa?"
III.
Bane pulled into the IMPERIAL GARAGE at 40th Street, backed into his assigned parking spot and got out of the dark green Mustang. This was not one of the armored KDF cruisers filled with gadgets and weaponry. He had bought the Mustang at a dealer up in White Plains. He had paid cash. From the modest office and apartment, it was not obvious how wealthy Bane really was but he had been left a fortune upon Kenneth Dred's death and this had been increased by spoils from defeated enemies. Stepping down as Director of the KDF, he had split the funds with the organization, leaving himself a hundred million to get by on. The detective agency was not a source of income for him but almost a cover for his real work.
Walking out of the garage, he headed toward Times Square. The questioning of the student who had met the Mummy had not been productive. Now he needed to dig around a little. For the next three hours, he dropped in on his informers in the midtown area. Over the years, Bane had built up a network of people who owed him major favors but he rarely called them in. Now, in a used jewelry store on 9th Avenue and 53rd Street with a window that said WE BUY GOLD, Bane got some useful information. The owner was an old Jewish man whose daughter has been kidnapped by Saimhain twenty years earlier. Bane had brought her home safely, with Samhain last seen falling in front of a subway train. Steven Morris never forgot and now that his daughter had grown up to marry and present him with two grandsons, he started to get tears in his eyes as he talked to Bane.
Morris was honest, more or less, but with a business like his, he naturally heard rumours and gossip. He suggested that Bane go talk to Lou Sinagra. Bane thanked him and offered his congratulations before heading out again. The last he heard, Sinagra was usually found at Mama Salvucci's at 60th Street. Bane walked so quickly that most of the time he got around town quicker than a car would. He walked past the restaurant, trusting his instincts, and went around the block to come up a dead-end alley. At the rear of Mama Salvucci's, sitting on two plastic milk crates, was a barrel-chested man in a white T-shirt that exposed excessively hairy arms. Sinagra had no information, either, but he promised he would dig around a little and let Bane knew. He remembered what Bane had done for him; not long earlier, Lou's younger brother had been charged with murder and it looked like a life sentence was certain but Bane had turned up the real killer and forced the police to re-open the case. The Dire Wolf had done this on his own, without being hired, and Lou had been so impressed he had promised the help of the Sinagra family anytime anywhere. Bane said he would appreciate it and left.
Nothing to show for an afternoon of hiking and talking, the Dire Wolf thought sourly. He found himself going past the southern end of Central Park and that brought back memories but he shoved them in the attic of his mind and kept going. He wasn't tired at all, but he was starving. His accelerated metabolism burned up calories like a furnace. Spotting a Chinese restaurant he knew, Bane decided to take a break for fuel. Sitting near the back facing the door, he ordered ginger chicken and some dumplings. When it came, he devoured it and felt like he could easily have gone through a second serving. By now, it was getting near five o'clock. Bane paid, chatted briefly with the owner who knew him from the old Black Mantis days on Canal Street and headed south again.
Trying to think of an angle to investigate, he walked past his apartment, seeing no reason to stop, and went back to his office on 44th Street. The four-story yellow brick building housed Emergency One, which was open until eleven, so the lobby wasn't locked yet. Bane checked his mailbox set in the left hand wall as he entered, took out the handful of items, and went down the short hallway beside the staircase. His office door was at the end, facing the metal EXIT ONLY door. Bane got his keys, unlocked the door and stepped inside.
The next few hours passed slowly for him. He had the police scanner on and listened to it with a practiced ear to pick out anything unusual. The mail held nothing of interest. With that sorted and put away, he studied the pile of newspapers that he always accumulated, studying them for any hints between the lines of Midnight War activities. He was annoyed at not having any lead to follow. Just before eleven, he tidied up and left his office as the security guard was ready to lock the lobby door. Bane walked north a few blocks to the building where his apartment was, went through the small foyer and up worn steps to the second floor. There was a concealed keypad under a wooden panel near the door to his apartment, and he checked that both lights were blinking green before punching in his code. Once inside his apartment, Bane was still irritated at not having a clear agenda.
In the tiny kitchen area, really just a sink, stove and waist-high refrigerator, the Dire Wolf opened a canister and took out a handful of dried leaves. This was tagra, a plant long extinct in the real world and only found now at Tel Shai. Bane crumbled them and stirred the fragments into a mug of hot water, stirring it with a spoon and letting it dissolve.
Taking the mug to the couch, he sipped the tagra tea slowly. It had a crisp minty aroma and not much taste but he knew how valuable that mug was. It was tagra which gave knights of Tel Shai their healing factor and resistance to injury. Everything had its limits, of course, but decades of a tagra diet had left Bane able to quickly recover from wounds and trauma which would leave a normal person hospitalized. The Dire Wolf finished the mug, feeling much calmer, and rinsed it before hanging it up to dry. Tel Shai provided the tagra to its students on condition it be kept secret and Bane had to honor this agreement.
At eleven-forty, the phone by the couch rang and he lunged for it for like a rattler striking. "Yeah?"
"Bane, this is Klein. Listen. You might want to come up to Lamoureaux Memorial." With that, the connection clicked off. It was enough. The Dire Wolf snatched up his jacket and yanked it on as he headed for the door. He turned off the lights, closed the door and heard the alarms click before galloping down the stairs. Lamoureaux was way uptown, near 145th. Bane ran seven blocks to the garage where his car was kept, and although he didn't notice it himself, any observer with a stopwatch would calculate he broke Olympic records by a comfortable margin. In another few seconds, he was in the Mustang and pulling out onto Third Avenue. Now was no time for an accident or speeding ticket to tie him up, Bane drove quickly but not frantically and reached 145th Street in a few minutes, pulling into the parking lot where he saw two police cars side by side.
Lamoureaux Memorial was a small hospital more than a century old, and it had been on the verge of closing for years. Every now and then, the papers carried a story about its proposed merger with another facility but so far it was still open and running. As he parked his car and jumped out, Bane spotted something that registered as suspicious. Over by a sign that read VALET PARKING AVAILABLE stood a tall black man in a tan topcoat over a suit and tie; it was his location that triggered Bane's alarms. The man was positioned so he could see the emergency entrance and the short exit ramp to the street, but he was not smoking or talking on a cell phone, so why wasn't he waiting in the lobby? It was an automatic observation and Bane thought no more about it as he entered through the emergency door and saw the familiar white raincoat next to a uniformed officer. "Hey, Mr Dire Wolf! Over here."
The cop was studying Bane with some interest. Klein waved him over and started talking, "Never thought I'd say this but we got a Mummy in custody. At nine forty-five, a silent alarm went off at Uptown Electronics. Someone ripped the door off the store and let a dozen low-lifes in to run out with everything from Droids to digital cameras to camcorders. As they were scattering with armloads of loot, the owner of the store came outta the back room where he was doing paperwork and he got his neck twisted all the way around." Klein had started walking down the hall, past two elevators, to a door where a cop stood guard. "Now, as it happened, two patrol cars were in the area and so we had four officers turn up. The suspect did not resist as you might expect, funny enough. He just fell to the floor."
The uniformed man opened the door and let Klein and Bane into a small examination room. Taking up the entire table was AKhbet. The Mummy lay motionless under the bright fluorescent lights, not breathing, its yellow eyes staring up without blinking. It still was wrapped in the tattered bandages and a musty smell filled the room.
"Ever see anything like that before?" asked Klein.
"A couple of times," Bane replied as if it were a perfectly everyday question." This is the biggest cursed Mummy I've seen, though." He stepped closer. "He was buried alive. Look, the thoracic cavity isn't sunken... his internal organs weren't removed."
Klein shuddered visibly. "Give me creeps big time. Come on, Bane, how does this work? How could something like this get up and walk around?"
"There are a couple of ways. He might have been reanimated by a Darthan spell, but I don't think so. He could have some gremthom talismans under the bandages," Bane said distractedly as he studied the undead thing. "Can we got an X-ray?"
"Sure, why not?" said Klein.
Bane had lifted the Mummy's left arm and was bending its fingers experimentally. "Flexible as a living- " He broke off as the hand abruptly twisted and closed around his throat, cutting off his air. Those fingers felt like steel clamps. Bane tugged once, realized he could not budge that grasp and was thrown across the room. He hit with murderous impact against the far wall, dislodging equipment with a clatter. The Mummy had gotten up off the table and swatted Inspector Klein aside with a backhand. The officer who was standing by the door went for his sidearm and a huge open hand cracked like an ax at the side of his neck, breaking it and smashing the dead man to the floor.
In another instant, the Dire Wolf was up and on his feet, shaking off the impact. He got up just in time to have the examination table hit him head on and throw him back against the same wall. That stunned him for a moment. In another few seconds, he had scrambled out from under the table and was up again but by that time Akhbet had gotten out of the room. Bane lost another few seconds checking that Klein was okay; the middle-aged man was dazed but alert, trying to rise. By the time, the Wolf was out of the examining room, the Mummy had crossed the lobby and struck down the other officer on duty. That cop had managed to get his service revolver out before a dry wrinkled hand struck him so hard he spun completely around. As Bane crossed the lobby, he was just in time to see a big black SUV accelerate away from the front door. He could not catch the plate numbers.
Klein limped up behind him and when Bane told him about the SUV, the inspector put out an APB on it.
"Preminger is dead. Neck broken." Klein knelt painfully by the other officer and shook his head. "Russell, too. At least it was quick."
"I'm sorry, Inspector," Bane said in a low voice. "That took me by surprise. I didn't expect him to come to life like that."
Klein pointed a finger at the Dire Wolf's face. "It's next time that counts. I expect you to take him down. Don't let us down."
Those pale grey eyes narrowed. "Next time, he'll stay dead."
IV.
It was two-thirty in the morning when Bane got back to his apartment. The dragnet for the black SUV had not turned up anything. Two hours of questions and making a statement had followed before he had been allowed to get in his car and leave. He hated all this more than the fighting. By the time he unlocked his door and thumbed on the lights, he was actually tired. Bane did not go into the bedroom. He kicked off his boots and stretched out on the leather couch, pulling up an afghan over himself and was asleep as soon as he closed his eyes.
At six-thirty, Bane sat up. There was no yawning or stretching or scratching with him. Once his body got the sleep it needed, he snapped back to full awareness. He glanced at the clock over the sink, crossed the living room into his bedroom with its adjoining bathroom, throwing his clothes into a hamper. The leather sheaths hung on a hook as he showered and shaved and brushed his teeth. Stripped, Bane was a startling sight with zero body fat and a high amount of definition in his muscles. He looked like a marathon runner. For once, he did not get dressed immediately and he left the silver daggers on their hook. He put on a pale yellow bathrobe he rarely wore and made breakfast. Bacon and scrambled eggs, cranberry juice, whole wheat toast with strawberry jam. Now he felt back to normal. Getting smacked down by that Mummy had left him more upset than he had realized.
Bane found the remote after some searching and clicked on the TV he seldom watched, going from one news program to another. The coverage of the previous night's events was scanty and misleading... it sounded like a normal break-in and unfortunate death of the shop owner. There was nothing about what had happened at Lamoreaux.
Frowning, he got dressed in fresh slacks and turtleneck, noting he only had one more set of the uniform before laundry had to be done. Tugging up his sleeves, he strapped the leather sheaths on his forearms and adjusted the silver daggers so they slid out easily. These were the third set of molded rubber pads over the sheaths made for him by a German craftsman. They were designed to feel exactly like human muscles and so far had not been detected during searches. Tugging on the sport jacket, he paused to check his messages. The only one relevant to the problem at hand was from Klein, asking him to drop by during the day. The Dire Wolf put the Colt revolver in the safe in the closet and took out the air pistol instead. Bullets would not stop a Mummy, nor would the anesthetic darts but he might need it again Human servants of the Monster.
Leaving the apartment, he stepped out into a warm early September morning. Bane walked south three blocks to where his office was. He had made no friends in this building, had not introduced himself to anyone in the Emergency One clinic or the health spa or the photographer's studio. He had made a point of keeping to himself because he did not want to drag innocents into the Midnight War. As he walked into the lobby, a man stood up from the bench next to the staircase.
"Bleak?"
"Surprised to see me, eh?" said the rather small man with lank blonde hair hanging down over his forehead. He was almost seventy and looked mild and harmless but that was very misleading. For years he had been a priest before losing more than his faith and now he was feared in both the underworld and the Midnight War. Bane had never been close friends with Bleak, but he respected him. "This is the first time I've come to your new office," he grumbled.
The Dire Wolf stepped close to Bleak. Neither offered to shake hands. "Hello, Bleak. Want to come in?"
The little blonde man nodded and followed Bane through the waiting room into the office itself. They seated themselves, with Bleak settling onto the couch. After a moment's hesitation the Wolf brought a straight-back wooden chair over and sat down on it, near where Bleak was.
"I didn't want to sit facing your desk because I am not here as a client," Bleak said in his low voice.
"Fair enough. I haven't seen you since that night the Wurdalak Gang was destroyed." Bane leaned forward. "What brings you here now?"
"Word is out that the Mummy is assembling a gang. He wants strongarm boys, thugs, toughs guys. His appeal is that he can rob wherever he wants and he will split the loot. If rival gangs give them trouble, he will flatten them. After all, bullets don't hurt him."
Bane considered this. "If he can do whatever he wants, why does he need a gang?"
"I wonder, too. Maybe he just likes being in charge. Or maybe he has something else in mind... something bigger. And worse than mere crime." Bleak looked down at his clasped hands. "Applicants for the gang are invited to meet tonight. The old Zodiac nightclub on 114th Street."
"it's been closed for years," Bane said. After a second, he added, "Something personal is bothering you, Bleak."
The former priest wore a white dress shirt with the cuffs rolled up. He reached in its pocket and took out a bundle of $50 bills held with a rubber band. "I have a shady reputation, Jeremy. It's useful. It gets me information I wouldn't have otherwise. This is a thousand dollars. They gave me this to bring you to the meeting tonight. It's a trap."
Now Bane had a predatory grin. "I just love traps."
V.
At ten that night, Bane pulled into an empty spot on 115th and Seventh Avenue and circled the block. The streets were oddly deserted. A sign over the double door said ZODIAC! DANCING-LIVE MUSIC, but the windows were boarded up. A sliver of light showed beneath one board. The Dire Wolf walked around to the side of the building where two young men were smoking cigarettes next to a metal door. They obviously recognized him. One dropped his cigarette and wheeled around to grab the handle to the door but he never got to open it. With two long strides, Bane was on him, an elbow smacking right below the ear and stunning the man. Before that one had even hit the sidewalk, the other one was also dropping. Bane drew back his fist, pleased with how clean those blows had hit. He bent and propped the two unconscious men so they were sitting with their backs against the brick wall.
Opening the door a crack, Bane reached a hand into each of his jacket side pockets and slid through the opening. He stepped into a dimly lit space that had once been a dance floor but which now held only dust and a stray scrap of paper or an empty beer can. Twenty men stood there, facing a monstrous figure which sat on an elevated ornate chair the way an emperor sat on a throne. Even seated, Akhbet loomed up at eye level. The Mummy stared with dim yellow eyes at the men who encircled him. Within that dry, shriveled head, the mind of Chas Culver fought to keep its identity. More and more, he found himself thinking strange thoughts... images of whippings and beheadings flashed through his mind. English seemed harder to understand. Dimly, he was beginning to realize what was happening. His grandfather had not warned him of this.
As Bane calmly walked up to the crowd, a lookout screamed, "Hey! There he is!" and twenty men went for handguns or knives or blackjacks. in that second, the Dire Wolf tossed two round objects up in the air and every eye followed them except his. He lowered his head and pressed his palms over his face with his mouth open as the dazzlers went off. Everything flared a brilliant white, and thunder crashed as if lightning had struck within the room. The assembled thugs staggered and many fell down, several with ruptured eardrums. In an enclosed space like this, Bane knew the dazzlers would keep unprotected Humans disoriented for close to a minute. Even prepared and shielded, his own ears rang and he saw spots swimming but this was the opening for him to act. Bane drew the anesthetic dart gun and set to work, holding it out at full extension and firing rapidly. Every dart sank deep in exposed flesh. The clip only held ten darts, so he had brought the spare gun and now he shifted it to his left hand. Only three goons were left when he caught a glimpse of motion from the corner of his eye.
Bane dropped to one knee and the whoosh of a giant arm swinging ruffled his hair. He had hoped for another second or two before the Mummy reached him. Even though it was asking too much for the dazzlers to actually hurt the undead thing, he thought the unexpected noise and light would confuse Akhbet for a few seconds more. Even as he hit the floor, Bane rolled forward and heard the crash of a rock-hard fist breaking the floor boards. The Dire Wolf jumped back up on his feet, spinning to face the monster.
"Not going the way you expected?" he said.
The Mummy lunged for him, flinging a wide roundhouse blow that was quick as any normal human. Bane easily kept out of that reach, holstering his dart gun. As Akhbet raised a foot to step forward, the Dire Wolf blurred in and brought his own foot up under it, getting the monster off balance. The Mummy swayed and Bane body-slammed him hard, then jumped back as the undead thing crashed to the floor.
"Don't expect me to break my hands hitting you," Bane taunted. "Who are you working for?"
Now the Mummy spoke, not in a dry rasp as might be expected but in a voice that belonged to a young man. "I am... not working for anyone! Ishmak malaki! No! NO!"
Jeremy Bane listened with interest. "Tell me your name."
"My name.. My name is Charles Culver, call me Chaz, Ut Sut Wambi. Agamesh! No, stop. My name is Charles Culver." The Mummy had seemed to forget his enemy for a moment but now he raised his head and glared at Bane. "Memphet! Memphet agamesh."
"Same to you," Bane said evenly. He had glimpsed movement in one corner of the room and he hopped over a drugged gangster to grab hold of a big black man in a neat suit and tie. It was the same man he had seen outside the hospital the night before. The man struggled, but Bane flung him over one knee to slide across the floor. "You know this guy, Akhbet?"
At the sight of Ezra Culver, the Mummy shook with emotion. The huge chest rose and fell, and suddenly he stepped forward, raising a ponderous foot right over Culver's head. In another second, he would have stomped down hard but the Dire Wolf hopped in sideways and whipped a high side kick that thumped high on the Mummy's chest. The impact sounded like a hammer hitting rock. As Akhbet swayed and almost fell over backwards, Bane dropped low and swept the creature's legs out from under it. The undead thing crashed onto its back and dust flew from its musty bandages.
Seizing Ezra Culver by the back of his shirt, Bane flung the man behind him. "Look, it's time for some answers. Who are you?" The older man reached inside his jacket and started to come out with a revolver, but Bane slapped it out of his hand and sent him reeling with an open palm to the chest. He glanced over at the Mummy, which was clumsily getting to its feet.
"I'm starting to lose patience with you two," Bane said. The Mummy was reaching out again with the intention of choking his smaller opponent. There was a flash of silver, back and forth, and the creature stepped quickly back with two deep slashes across his chest. No blood came out, but the wounds were visibly bone deep. Bane was standing in a fencer's pose with a dagger in each hand, one pointing forward and one pointing up at an angle. Silver by itself had power over evil, but the Ensalir knives he wielded had been blessed by the immortal Eldarin and were very potent. In the dim light of the former dancehall, those blades gleamed as if lit from within. The Mummy reached to touch those gouges which ran diagonally across his torso and there was uncertainty in his eyes now.
"I said I want answers." Bane stepped forward, one dagger held vertically and the other horizontally in front of him. The monster retreated. It was then that Ezra Culver jumped Bane from behind and, in the heat of the combat, the Dire Wolf slammed one of the daggers to the hilt in the man's chest. Blood spat from Culver's mouth like vomit. Bane tugged the knife free without taking his eyes off the Mummy.
As Ezra Culver died, Akhbet seemed to deflate. The unholy light went out of his eyes and he sank to his knees, then toppled over on his side. Bane walked warily over and, after a few minutes, bent to rip a strip of the bandages from the Mummy's chest to wipe his daggers. He sheathed the weapons and looked over the scene. He still was not sure what the relationship between the dead man and the Mummy had been. Well, it was over now in any case.
Bane left the former dancehall and stepped out into the night. Everything had taken place in only a few minutes. The two men he had knocked out were still propped up against the side of the building, breathing noisily. Taking out his phone, the Dire Wolf called an extension he knew well. "Klein? It's over. Send a couple of cars to 114th and Seventh. There's about twenty sleeping beauties who need to be interviewed. One ready for a toe tag. And the Mummy seems to be dead, but then we thought that before. I'd bring heavy duty restraints, chains if you got them. Yeah. Yeah, I'll be here. I know, we're in for another long talk with the commissioner and the DA. Highlight of my day. I'll see you when you get here."
Spotting a black SUV at the corner, the Wolf walked over to it and looked in. There seemed to be a young black man sleeping in the passenger seat. Curious, Bane rapped on the window and got no response, then opened the door and examined the kid. He seemed to be in some sort of trance, body temperature low, barely breathing, pupils contracted. Bane didn't know it at the moment, but this was how Charles Culver would exist for the remaining five months of his life.
(3/29/20013)
9/2/- 9/3/2001
I.
Behind his desk, Jeremy Bane leaned back and kept a straight face. "Mr Schmidt. I don't think you realize the sort of thing I handle..."
Sitting in one of three plain wooden chairs facing the desk, a serious little man with wire-rimmed glasses on the end of his nose sniffed. "The Dire Wolf Agency has the highest recommendation. I took the liberty of phoning my wife's nephew, who is on the police force. He said you always get the job done."
"It's nice to be appreciated," Bane said. "But you know, some detective agencies specialize in domestic disputes ending in divorce, some handle insurance fraud. I have my own area where I work best."
"The fee will be handsome. Quite generous," Schmidt went on as if he hadn't heard. "As a representative of the Golden Pantry supermarket chain, I can assure that all your expenses will be covered."
"That's not the problem-"
"Now, we have good reason to believe that Walter McConnell has been buying chicken in bulk from normal sources and selling them to us with the misrepresentation that they are free-range hormone-free. As you can imagine, this-"
Bane stood up and put his palms on the desk, leaning forward on stiff arms. "Mr. Schmidt. I am NOT going to look into chicken fraud. I track down monsters and psychos and serial killers. I handle the supernatural. You are wasting your time and mine!"
As Schmidt blinked and seemed personally affronted, Bane went on in a gentler voice. "My abilities are in combat. You should be looking for an investigator with experience in your sort of case."
"Well. I suppose. If you're sure," Schmidt mumbled, getting up and picking his brief case off the chair next to him. "I, ah, I guess I will be leaving."
The Dire Wolf came around his desk to escort the man through the tiny waiting room and out into the hall. "No hard feelings, Mr Schmidt. There are lots of PIs in Manhattan who can do a better job on your case than I would."
After the man left, Bane leaned back against the door and shuddered, Fraudulent chicken sales!
He crossed the tiny waiting room, which held nothing but two chairs and a low coffee table with some magazines, going back into the office itself. As he entered, he was facing a wall which had a long leather couch, an end table with a lamp at each arm. Over the couch was a wide window looking out on Third Avenue. That was one reason he had taken this office on the ground floor. If necessary, he could slide through that window and get out on the street within seconds. Bane swung to the right and circled around behind his desk. It was almost bare. There was a reading lamp, a cordless phone in its charger and an IN/OUT stack of trays. He faced a bare wall and thought, I have to put something there. He sat back in the swivel chair and was lost in thought.
Jeremy Bane was in his mid-forties, six feet tall and lean to the point of looking gaunt. In a narrow face, two pale grey eyes looked out with startling intensity. He had just found a first grey strand in his black hair, and was frankly surprised there hadn't been a lot of them, considering the life he led. As always, he was wearing all black- slacks, turtleneck and sport jacket, almost his uniform in the Midnight War. Now the doorbell rang. The Dire Wolf jumped up and walked briskly to the door to the hall, glancing up at the closed-circuit monitor and recognizing who was outside. He opened the door and welcomed in a rather short, middle-aged man with curly greying hair and a decrepit white raincoat.
"Inspector! I thought you might come by." Bane escorted him to the office and motioned him to a plain wooden chair.
Francis Klein sat down carefully, with a slight grunt of discomfort. He was past the usual retirement age by a year. "We got a lot to talk about, Mr Dire Wolf. Nice little office. You haven't been here long, eh?"
"Two weeks. You know, I never closed my practice, even all those year with the KDF. Every two years, I renewed my license and claimed the reception room as my office. It's nice to have a trade to fall back on."
"I'm getting near the end myself," Klein said. "I should have a nice pension after all these years on the force and with Social Security, I'll be all right. I wanted to ask, what happened? What's going on with the Kenneth Dred Foundation?"
"They're still an ongoing team. Still in the building on East 38th Street. Sable is the leader. I'm renting them the building-- you know, Mr Dred left it to me in his will, with all its contents. But they're operating on their own."
Klein gazed thoughtfully at the man behind the desk, whom he had tried to bust several times a decade earlier, before he realized what kind of work the Dire Wolf was doing. "They're just kids, Bane."
"No younger than I was, or the other members of the original KDF when we first started. That was a long time ago. They're ready. Sable is a good leader, they have handled all their cases the past six months or so without my butting in." Bane nodded as if to himself. "I have to step away. If I stayed there, they would never really be self-reliant."
"It's a surprise to me," Klein said. "You got any ash trays here?"
"No," Bane answered. "I picked this office on 44th Street, close enough that I could be reached in a really extreme emergency. Or that I could contact them if I was at the end of my rope, for that matter. But I want to let them be their own team."
"So, the Dire Wolf Agency is open again. Brings back memories. When I met you, the first KDF team had been disbanded and you started your PI practice going in that building. To me, it's like old times. Where's Cindy?"
Bane hesitated just a second. "She has accepted a teaching position at Tel Shai. That's the mystic Order where we learned most of our skills. Her Teacher in telepathy died at an advanced age, and the other Teachers unanimously asked her to take the post. Cindy agreed."
"But you two are still a couple, I hope?"
"We won't be seeing as much of each other," Bane said. "Cindy won't be leaving Tel Shai. Once you become a Teacher, you stay there. But I will visit as often as I can."
"You been through a lot of changes in a short amount of time. You seem to be taking it okay."
Bane shrugged imperceptibly. He was not one to show what he felt. "Life goes on, things change. I'll still be doing business the way I always have." He gave Klein a quizzical look. "Which gets to the point. Is there some reason you dropped by, Inspector?"
"Other than chewing the fat?" Klein chuckled. "Yeah. Yeah, I've gotten used to this. When something weird and creepy and hard to explain happens in the five boroughs, everyone in the NYPD looks at me. And by now, they expect me to come drop it in your lap."
"All unofficial and off the record, of course."
"Of course." Klein fished a cigar from an inner pocket but didn't try to light it, he just toyed with it. "Yeah, I got something. The crime itself didn't happen in the city, it took place in Egypt. A month ago. You know, there's been rioting and such going on there. Crowds in the streets, throwing rocks and starting fires."
"Sure. It's been on the news."
"Well, one night, the police were bustin' heads and the populace was bustin' them right back. During the uproar, three men broke into an annex of the Cairo Museum. They shot a guard and a worker dead." Klein stuck the unlit cigar in his mouth. "They stole a mummy."
Bane sat up and his voice changed. "Go on, Inspector."
"I got a report that this was not an ordinary mummy. According to the experts, it used to be a Nubian slave in service to one of the more obscure Pharaohs. The funny thing was, this mummy was found walled up inside a tomb, slumped in the space between an inner wall and the outer one. He had been buried alive, three thousand eight hundred years ago."
"Cute. What else?"
Klein touched the side of his nose with a finger. "Confidential, got it?"
"Got it. Go on."
"The mummy's name seems to be Akhbet. I don't know if that was the poor sap's real name or if they just stuck it on him for convenience. Anyway, it seems someone was caught sneaking the mummy into this country. They came up through the border near New Mexico in a van, and the border patrol stopped them. Two more men dead, and the mummy got through. That makes it a federal case, of course." Klein paused. "The funny thing is the way the patrol were killed. They weren't shot. Their necks were broken."
Now the Dire Wolf had come fully to life. His grey eyes caught the light. "What else?"
"This is the part that made the boys upstairs give me a heads-up. Both patrol agents were armed. One fired three shots, the other fired once. No blood anywhere. They had trauma on their necks consistent with a strong hand seizing them and snapping the bones. And there was mold on their skin."
Bane got to his feet. He couldn't help it, the same enhanced reflexes that gave him his speed also made him hyper. Despite himself, he started to pace and Klein had to turn in his chair to watch. "Hmm. Interesting. There was something similar in the 1940s, in Massachusetts. Certainly there have been cursed mummies before." He wheeled abruptly, making Klein jump. "What does the NYPD have to do with this?"
"You're gonna love this, Bane. Two nights ago. A student in Queens was walking home from a neighborhood bar just after midnight. He saw a big guy stumbling along and thought he might need help, maybe he's a diabetic or something, so the student goes up and asks what the problem is. He gets slugged for his kindness. The mug knocks him down with a slap that almost kayos him. In the light from a streetlamp, the student gets a good look. He says the man is wrinkled and dry and yellow, with his lips showing all his teeth. Really not a pretty sight. The student runs home, understandably scared, and when he looks in the bathroom mirror, there's a big smear of mold where the guy hit him. He has to go to the emergency room, his jaw turned out to be dislocated."
"That's it. I'm in." Bane went back behind his desk but didn't force himself to sit down. "Any more details, Inspector?"
"Nope, that's all. You realize, Bane, that officially I never told you any of this. I wasn't even here today."
"Fine," the Dire Wolf answered. "Same as always. I need the name and address of the student who saw the mummy... or what might be the mummy," he corrected himself.
Klein got up. "You should see the memo I got. You'd laugh. Because of the assault on the student, it says, quote 'Mummy wanted for questioning.' "
Chaz Culver got up off the couch, rubbing his eyes and still half-asleep. He thought his grandfather had called him. "Yeah? Grandpa?"
"Come in here, Charles," came the deep bass voice.
He had given up asking his grandfather to call him Chaz. It was a lost cause. Culver walked through the living room, up the creaking stairs to the bedroom that had been turned into a chamber of horrors. His grandfather met him in the doorway. They did not resemble each other. Ezra Culver was over six feet tall, broad-shouldered with a big hard belly. He had blue-black skin, processed straight hair, and a sour brooding face. Chaz took after his mother; he was much lighter in tone, with skin a medium tan color. He wore his hair cut so short it was almost shaved and he had a wispy mustache. Chas was also little in comparison, no more than five foot eight and thin to the point of being scrawny.
Since the death of his parents, Chas had lived with his grandfather, which meant no chance of college. Instead, his life had been one spent in the desperate shadows of gralic sorcery and the Midnight War. He had no pals, no girlfriend. He could not trust outsiders with the way he lived.
Ezra Culver was wearing a ceremonial robe over his white dress shirt and slacks, a dark red garment with esoteric symbols sewn into its surface. He motioned Chas into the room where, on the double bed, a nightmare lay motionless in undeath. Akhbet almost covered the surface of the bed. He was built like a warrior, with a deep chest and wide shoulders. Even now, his body was still wrapped in dingy brown bandages that hung in tatters. His face was uncovered, a solid corrugated surface of deep wrinkles from which yellow eyes gazed up unseeing at the surface. The nose was gone. The lips had drawn back to show jagged teeth. Chaz stared down at the Mummy with a strange anticipation.
His grandfather watched him happily. "Charles, tonight we will begin gathering our army."
"That's your dream. You never ask me what I want."
The old man laughed sharply. "You've had plenty of chances to leave. You want revenge on the white man as much as I do."
"No, I don't. Not really. I'm tired of hiding out and sneaking around. I'm still young, Grandpa. I should be having fun, not... doing what we do."
Ezra Culver walked closer to loom over the boy. "You don't know what I've been through. I was beaten by cops, when I had done nothing wrong. I've been lied to, cheated, treated like dirt for no other reason than the color of my skin. When your Ma and Pa died, boy, I swore the same wouldn't happen to you." His voice grew lower. "That's why I joined the cults I did. That's why I worked for Menekartes. Why I made the deals I did for forbidden knowledge. So you could be strong."
"It's gettin' dark out, Grandpa," the young man said.
"Yes. You know, Akhbet here had been a slave in his day. The Egyptians took him from Nubia to be a bodyguard. He is our spiritual ancestor. Who knows? Maybe a physical ancestor, too."
Chas Culver sat down in a chair next to the bed, placed his hands on its arms and closed his eyes. From within his robe, the older man raised a short metal sceptre topped with a red gem. He waved it in complex patterns and began a chant that was older than Egypt, going back to the kingdom of Khebir in the Darthan Age. Despite twenty years of study, Ezra did not fully understand the primal forces he was tapping into. These spells went back before the history known to archaeologists, to the Corruption on the island Ulgor, when forbidden knowledge was given to mortals not meant to receive it. Among them had been Prince Yathrib, whose spirit survived in body after body, finally ending as the resurrected undead thing known as Menekartes, founder of the Mummy Dust cult. Menekartes had finally been destroyed, but some of his students still carried on his work and Ezra Culver was one of them.
As the spell swirled its gralic force around the room, the lights dimmed and the air chilled. Both Chas and Akhbet shuddered violently. As the young black man sagged and stopped breathing, the petrified mummy took a deep harsh breath. Its head turned. Through a dry throat, the word rasped out, "Grandpa?"
III.
Bane pulled into the IMPERIAL GARAGE at 40th Street, backed into his assigned parking spot and got out of the dark green Mustang. This was not one of the armored KDF cruisers filled with gadgets and weaponry. He had bought the Mustang at a dealer up in White Plains. He had paid cash. From the modest office and apartment, it was not obvious how wealthy Bane really was but he had been left a fortune upon Kenneth Dred's death and this had been increased by spoils from defeated enemies. Stepping down as Director of the KDF, he had split the funds with the organization, leaving himself a hundred million to get by on. The detective agency was not a source of income for him but almost a cover for his real work.
Walking out of the garage, he headed toward Times Square. The questioning of the student who had met the Mummy had not been productive. Now he needed to dig around a little. For the next three hours, he dropped in on his informers in the midtown area. Over the years, Bane had built up a network of people who owed him major favors but he rarely called them in. Now, in a used jewelry store on 9th Avenue and 53rd Street with a window that said WE BUY GOLD, Bane got some useful information. The owner was an old Jewish man whose daughter has been kidnapped by Saimhain twenty years earlier. Bane had brought her home safely, with Samhain last seen falling in front of a subway train. Steven Morris never forgot and now that his daughter had grown up to marry and present him with two grandsons, he started to get tears in his eyes as he talked to Bane.
Morris was honest, more or less, but with a business like his, he naturally heard rumours and gossip. He suggested that Bane go talk to Lou Sinagra. Bane thanked him and offered his congratulations before heading out again. The last he heard, Sinagra was usually found at Mama Salvucci's at 60th Street. Bane walked so quickly that most of the time he got around town quicker than a car would. He walked past the restaurant, trusting his instincts, and went around the block to come up a dead-end alley. At the rear of Mama Salvucci's, sitting on two plastic milk crates, was a barrel-chested man in a white T-shirt that exposed excessively hairy arms. Sinagra had no information, either, but he promised he would dig around a little and let Bane knew. He remembered what Bane had done for him; not long earlier, Lou's younger brother had been charged with murder and it looked like a life sentence was certain but Bane had turned up the real killer and forced the police to re-open the case. The Dire Wolf had done this on his own, without being hired, and Lou had been so impressed he had promised the help of the Sinagra family anytime anywhere. Bane said he would appreciate it and left.
Nothing to show for an afternoon of hiking and talking, the Dire Wolf thought sourly. He found himself going past the southern end of Central Park and that brought back memories but he shoved them in the attic of his mind and kept going. He wasn't tired at all, but he was starving. His accelerated metabolism burned up calories like a furnace. Spotting a Chinese restaurant he knew, Bane decided to take a break for fuel. Sitting near the back facing the door, he ordered ginger chicken and some dumplings. When it came, he devoured it and felt like he could easily have gone through a second serving. By now, it was getting near five o'clock. Bane paid, chatted briefly with the owner who knew him from the old Black Mantis days on Canal Street and headed south again.
Trying to think of an angle to investigate, he walked past his apartment, seeing no reason to stop, and went back to his office on 44th Street. The four-story yellow brick building housed Emergency One, which was open until eleven, so the lobby wasn't locked yet. Bane checked his mailbox set in the left hand wall as he entered, took out the handful of items, and went down the short hallway beside the staircase. His office door was at the end, facing the metal EXIT ONLY door. Bane got his keys, unlocked the door and stepped inside.
The next few hours passed slowly for him. He had the police scanner on and listened to it with a practiced ear to pick out anything unusual. The mail held nothing of interest. With that sorted and put away, he studied the pile of newspapers that he always accumulated, studying them for any hints between the lines of Midnight War activities. He was annoyed at not having any lead to follow. Just before eleven, he tidied up and left his office as the security guard was ready to lock the lobby door. Bane walked north a few blocks to the building where his apartment was, went through the small foyer and up worn steps to the second floor. There was a concealed keypad under a wooden panel near the door to his apartment, and he checked that both lights were blinking green before punching in his code. Once inside his apartment, Bane was still irritated at not having a clear agenda.
In the tiny kitchen area, really just a sink, stove and waist-high refrigerator, the Dire Wolf opened a canister and took out a handful of dried leaves. This was tagra, a plant long extinct in the real world and only found now at Tel Shai. Bane crumbled them and stirred the fragments into a mug of hot water, stirring it with a spoon and letting it dissolve.
Taking the mug to the couch, he sipped the tagra tea slowly. It had a crisp minty aroma and not much taste but he knew how valuable that mug was. It was tagra which gave knights of Tel Shai their healing factor and resistance to injury. Everything had its limits, of course, but decades of a tagra diet had left Bane able to quickly recover from wounds and trauma which would leave a normal person hospitalized. The Dire Wolf finished the mug, feeling much calmer, and rinsed it before hanging it up to dry. Tel Shai provided the tagra to its students on condition it be kept secret and Bane had to honor this agreement.
At eleven-forty, the phone by the couch rang and he lunged for it for like a rattler striking. "Yeah?"
"Bane, this is Klein. Listen. You might want to come up to Lamoureaux Memorial." With that, the connection clicked off. It was enough. The Dire Wolf snatched up his jacket and yanked it on as he headed for the door. He turned off the lights, closed the door and heard the alarms click before galloping down the stairs. Lamoureaux was way uptown, near 145th. Bane ran seven blocks to the garage where his car was kept, and although he didn't notice it himself, any observer with a stopwatch would calculate he broke Olympic records by a comfortable margin. In another few seconds, he was in the Mustang and pulling out onto Third Avenue. Now was no time for an accident or speeding ticket to tie him up, Bane drove quickly but not frantically and reached 145th Street in a few minutes, pulling into the parking lot where he saw two police cars side by side.
Lamoureaux Memorial was a small hospital more than a century old, and it had been on the verge of closing for years. Every now and then, the papers carried a story about its proposed merger with another facility but so far it was still open and running. As he parked his car and jumped out, Bane spotted something that registered as suspicious. Over by a sign that read VALET PARKING AVAILABLE stood a tall black man in a tan topcoat over a suit and tie; it was his location that triggered Bane's alarms. The man was positioned so he could see the emergency entrance and the short exit ramp to the street, but he was not smoking or talking on a cell phone, so why wasn't he waiting in the lobby? It was an automatic observation and Bane thought no more about it as he entered through the emergency door and saw the familiar white raincoat next to a uniformed officer. "Hey, Mr Dire Wolf! Over here."
The cop was studying Bane with some interest. Klein waved him over and started talking, "Never thought I'd say this but we got a Mummy in custody. At nine forty-five, a silent alarm went off at Uptown Electronics. Someone ripped the door off the store and let a dozen low-lifes in to run out with everything from Droids to digital cameras to camcorders. As they were scattering with armloads of loot, the owner of the store came outta the back room where he was doing paperwork and he got his neck twisted all the way around." Klein had started walking down the hall, past two elevators, to a door where a cop stood guard. "Now, as it happened, two patrol cars were in the area and so we had four officers turn up. The suspect did not resist as you might expect, funny enough. He just fell to the floor."
The uniformed man opened the door and let Klein and Bane into a small examination room. Taking up the entire table was AKhbet. The Mummy lay motionless under the bright fluorescent lights, not breathing, its yellow eyes staring up without blinking. It still was wrapped in the tattered bandages and a musty smell filled the room.
"Ever see anything like that before?" asked Klein.
"A couple of times," Bane replied as if it were a perfectly everyday question." This is the biggest cursed Mummy I've seen, though." He stepped closer. "He was buried alive. Look, the thoracic cavity isn't sunken... his internal organs weren't removed."
Klein shuddered visibly. "Give me creeps big time. Come on, Bane, how does this work? How could something like this get up and walk around?"
"There are a couple of ways. He might have been reanimated by a Darthan spell, but I don't think so. He could have some gremthom talismans under the bandages," Bane said distractedly as he studied the undead thing. "Can we got an X-ray?"
"Sure, why not?" said Klein.
Bane had lifted the Mummy's left arm and was bending its fingers experimentally. "Flexible as a living- " He broke off as the hand abruptly twisted and closed around his throat, cutting off his air. Those fingers felt like steel clamps. Bane tugged once, realized he could not budge that grasp and was thrown across the room. He hit with murderous impact against the far wall, dislodging equipment with a clatter. The Mummy had gotten up off the table and swatted Inspector Klein aside with a backhand. The officer who was standing by the door went for his sidearm and a huge open hand cracked like an ax at the side of his neck, breaking it and smashing the dead man to the floor.
In another instant, the Dire Wolf was up and on his feet, shaking off the impact. He got up just in time to have the examination table hit him head on and throw him back against the same wall. That stunned him for a moment. In another few seconds, he had scrambled out from under the table and was up again but by that time Akhbet had gotten out of the room. Bane lost another few seconds checking that Klein was okay; the middle-aged man was dazed but alert, trying to rise. By the time, the Wolf was out of the examining room, the Mummy had crossed the lobby and struck down the other officer on duty. That cop had managed to get his service revolver out before a dry wrinkled hand struck him so hard he spun completely around. As Bane crossed the lobby, he was just in time to see a big black SUV accelerate away from the front door. He could not catch the plate numbers.
Klein limped up behind him and when Bane told him about the SUV, the inspector put out an APB on it.
"Preminger is dead. Neck broken." Klein knelt painfully by the other officer and shook his head. "Russell, too. At least it was quick."
"I'm sorry, Inspector," Bane said in a low voice. "That took me by surprise. I didn't expect him to come to life like that."
Klein pointed a finger at the Dire Wolf's face. "It's next time that counts. I expect you to take him down. Don't let us down."
Those pale grey eyes narrowed. "Next time, he'll stay dead."
IV.
It was two-thirty in the morning when Bane got back to his apartment. The dragnet for the black SUV had not turned up anything. Two hours of questions and making a statement had followed before he had been allowed to get in his car and leave. He hated all this more than the fighting. By the time he unlocked his door and thumbed on the lights, he was actually tired. Bane did not go into the bedroom. He kicked off his boots and stretched out on the leather couch, pulling up an afghan over himself and was asleep as soon as he closed his eyes.
At six-thirty, Bane sat up. There was no yawning or stretching or scratching with him. Once his body got the sleep it needed, he snapped back to full awareness. He glanced at the clock over the sink, crossed the living room into his bedroom with its adjoining bathroom, throwing his clothes into a hamper. The leather sheaths hung on a hook as he showered and shaved and brushed his teeth. Stripped, Bane was a startling sight with zero body fat and a high amount of definition in his muscles. He looked like a marathon runner. For once, he did not get dressed immediately and he left the silver daggers on their hook. He put on a pale yellow bathrobe he rarely wore and made breakfast. Bacon and scrambled eggs, cranberry juice, whole wheat toast with strawberry jam. Now he felt back to normal. Getting smacked down by that Mummy had left him more upset than he had realized.
Bane found the remote after some searching and clicked on the TV he seldom watched, going from one news program to another. The coverage of the previous night's events was scanty and misleading... it sounded like a normal break-in and unfortunate death of the shop owner. There was nothing about what had happened at Lamoreaux.
Frowning, he got dressed in fresh slacks and turtleneck, noting he only had one more set of the uniform before laundry had to be done. Tugging up his sleeves, he strapped the leather sheaths on his forearms and adjusted the silver daggers so they slid out easily. These were the third set of molded rubber pads over the sheaths made for him by a German craftsman. They were designed to feel exactly like human muscles and so far had not been detected during searches. Tugging on the sport jacket, he paused to check his messages. The only one relevant to the problem at hand was from Klein, asking him to drop by during the day. The Dire Wolf put the Colt revolver in the safe in the closet and took out the air pistol instead. Bullets would not stop a Mummy, nor would the anesthetic darts but he might need it again Human servants of the Monster.
Leaving the apartment, he stepped out into a warm early September morning. Bane walked south three blocks to where his office was. He had made no friends in this building, had not introduced himself to anyone in the Emergency One clinic or the health spa or the photographer's studio. He had made a point of keeping to himself because he did not want to drag innocents into the Midnight War. As he walked into the lobby, a man stood up from the bench next to the staircase.
"Bleak?"
"Surprised to see me, eh?" said the rather small man with lank blonde hair hanging down over his forehead. He was almost seventy and looked mild and harmless but that was very misleading. For years he had been a priest before losing more than his faith and now he was feared in both the underworld and the Midnight War. Bane had never been close friends with Bleak, but he respected him. "This is the first time I've come to your new office," he grumbled.
The Dire Wolf stepped close to Bleak. Neither offered to shake hands. "Hello, Bleak. Want to come in?"
The little blonde man nodded and followed Bane through the waiting room into the office itself. They seated themselves, with Bleak settling onto the couch. After a moment's hesitation the Wolf brought a straight-back wooden chair over and sat down on it, near where Bleak was.
"I didn't want to sit facing your desk because I am not here as a client," Bleak said in his low voice.
"Fair enough. I haven't seen you since that night the Wurdalak Gang was destroyed." Bane leaned forward. "What brings you here now?"
"Word is out that the Mummy is assembling a gang. He wants strongarm boys, thugs, toughs guys. His appeal is that he can rob wherever he wants and he will split the loot. If rival gangs give them trouble, he will flatten them. After all, bullets don't hurt him."
Bane considered this. "If he can do whatever he wants, why does he need a gang?"
"I wonder, too. Maybe he just likes being in charge. Or maybe he has something else in mind... something bigger. And worse than mere crime." Bleak looked down at his clasped hands. "Applicants for the gang are invited to meet tonight. The old Zodiac nightclub on 114th Street."
"it's been closed for years," Bane said. After a second, he added, "Something personal is bothering you, Bleak."
The former priest wore a white dress shirt with the cuffs rolled up. He reached in its pocket and took out a bundle of $50 bills held with a rubber band. "I have a shady reputation, Jeremy. It's useful. It gets me information I wouldn't have otherwise. This is a thousand dollars. They gave me this to bring you to the meeting tonight. It's a trap."
Now Bane had a predatory grin. "I just love traps."
V.
At ten that night, Bane pulled into an empty spot on 115th and Seventh Avenue and circled the block. The streets were oddly deserted. A sign over the double door said ZODIAC! DANCING-LIVE MUSIC, but the windows were boarded up. A sliver of light showed beneath one board. The Dire Wolf walked around to the side of the building where two young men were smoking cigarettes next to a metal door. They obviously recognized him. One dropped his cigarette and wheeled around to grab the handle to the door but he never got to open it. With two long strides, Bane was on him, an elbow smacking right below the ear and stunning the man. Before that one had even hit the sidewalk, the other one was also dropping. Bane drew back his fist, pleased with how clean those blows had hit. He bent and propped the two unconscious men so they were sitting with their backs against the brick wall.
Opening the door a crack, Bane reached a hand into each of his jacket side pockets and slid through the opening. He stepped into a dimly lit space that had once been a dance floor but which now held only dust and a stray scrap of paper or an empty beer can. Twenty men stood there, facing a monstrous figure which sat on an elevated ornate chair the way an emperor sat on a throne. Even seated, Akhbet loomed up at eye level. The Mummy stared with dim yellow eyes at the men who encircled him. Within that dry, shriveled head, the mind of Chas Culver fought to keep its identity. More and more, he found himself thinking strange thoughts... images of whippings and beheadings flashed through his mind. English seemed harder to understand. Dimly, he was beginning to realize what was happening. His grandfather had not warned him of this.
As Bane calmly walked up to the crowd, a lookout screamed, "Hey! There he is!" and twenty men went for handguns or knives or blackjacks. in that second, the Dire Wolf tossed two round objects up in the air and every eye followed them except his. He lowered his head and pressed his palms over his face with his mouth open as the dazzlers went off. Everything flared a brilliant white, and thunder crashed as if lightning had struck within the room. The assembled thugs staggered and many fell down, several with ruptured eardrums. In an enclosed space like this, Bane knew the dazzlers would keep unprotected Humans disoriented for close to a minute. Even prepared and shielded, his own ears rang and he saw spots swimming but this was the opening for him to act. Bane drew the anesthetic dart gun and set to work, holding it out at full extension and firing rapidly. Every dart sank deep in exposed flesh. The clip only held ten darts, so he had brought the spare gun and now he shifted it to his left hand. Only three goons were left when he caught a glimpse of motion from the corner of his eye.
Bane dropped to one knee and the whoosh of a giant arm swinging ruffled his hair. He had hoped for another second or two before the Mummy reached him. Even though it was asking too much for the dazzlers to actually hurt the undead thing, he thought the unexpected noise and light would confuse Akhbet for a few seconds more. Even as he hit the floor, Bane rolled forward and heard the crash of a rock-hard fist breaking the floor boards. The Dire Wolf jumped back up on his feet, spinning to face the monster.
"Not going the way you expected?" he said.
The Mummy lunged for him, flinging a wide roundhouse blow that was quick as any normal human. Bane easily kept out of that reach, holstering his dart gun. As Akhbet raised a foot to step forward, the Dire Wolf blurred in and brought his own foot up under it, getting the monster off balance. The Mummy swayed and Bane body-slammed him hard, then jumped back as the undead thing crashed to the floor.
"Don't expect me to break my hands hitting you," Bane taunted. "Who are you working for?"
Now the Mummy spoke, not in a dry rasp as might be expected but in a voice that belonged to a young man. "I am... not working for anyone! Ishmak malaki! No! NO!"
Jeremy Bane listened with interest. "Tell me your name."
"My name.. My name is Charles Culver, call me Chaz, Ut Sut Wambi. Agamesh! No, stop. My name is Charles Culver." The Mummy had seemed to forget his enemy for a moment but now he raised his head and glared at Bane. "Memphet! Memphet agamesh."
"Same to you," Bane said evenly. He had glimpsed movement in one corner of the room and he hopped over a drugged gangster to grab hold of a big black man in a neat suit and tie. It was the same man he had seen outside the hospital the night before. The man struggled, but Bane flung him over one knee to slide across the floor. "You know this guy, Akhbet?"
At the sight of Ezra Culver, the Mummy shook with emotion. The huge chest rose and fell, and suddenly he stepped forward, raising a ponderous foot right over Culver's head. In another second, he would have stomped down hard but the Dire Wolf hopped in sideways and whipped a high side kick that thumped high on the Mummy's chest. The impact sounded like a hammer hitting rock. As Akhbet swayed and almost fell over backwards, Bane dropped low and swept the creature's legs out from under it. The undead thing crashed onto its back and dust flew from its musty bandages.
Seizing Ezra Culver by the back of his shirt, Bane flung the man behind him. "Look, it's time for some answers. Who are you?" The older man reached inside his jacket and started to come out with a revolver, but Bane slapped it out of his hand and sent him reeling with an open palm to the chest. He glanced over at the Mummy, which was clumsily getting to its feet.
"I'm starting to lose patience with you two," Bane said. The Mummy was reaching out again with the intention of choking his smaller opponent. There was a flash of silver, back and forth, and the creature stepped quickly back with two deep slashes across his chest. No blood came out, but the wounds were visibly bone deep. Bane was standing in a fencer's pose with a dagger in each hand, one pointing forward and one pointing up at an angle. Silver by itself had power over evil, but the Ensalir knives he wielded had been blessed by the immortal Eldarin and were very potent. In the dim light of the former dancehall, those blades gleamed as if lit from within. The Mummy reached to touch those gouges which ran diagonally across his torso and there was uncertainty in his eyes now.
"I said I want answers." Bane stepped forward, one dagger held vertically and the other horizontally in front of him. The monster retreated. It was then that Ezra Culver jumped Bane from behind and, in the heat of the combat, the Dire Wolf slammed one of the daggers to the hilt in the man's chest. Blood spat from Culver's mouth like vomit. Bane tugged the knife free without taking his eyes off the Mummy.
As Ezra Culver died, Akhbet seemed to deflate. The unholy light went out of his eyes and he sank to his knees, then toppled over on his side. Bane walked warily over and, after a few minutes, bent to rip a strip of the bandages from the Mummy's chest to wipe his daggers. He sheathed the weapons and looked over the scene. He still was not sure what the relationship between the dead man and the Mummy had been. Well, it was over now in any case.
Bane left the former dancehall and stepped out into the night. Everything had taken place in only a few minutes. The two men he had knocked out were still propped up against the side of the building, breathing noisily. Taking out his phone, the Dire Wolf called an extension he knew well. "Klein? It's over. Send a couple of cars to 114th and Seventh. There's about twenty sleeping beauties who need to be interviewed. One ready for a toe tag. And the Mummy seems to be dead, but then we thought that before. I'd bring heavy duty restraints, chains if you got them. Yeah. Yeah, I'll be here. I know, we're in for another long talk with the commissioner and the DA. Highlight of my day. I'll see you when you get here."
Spotting a black SUV at the corner, the Wolf walked over to it and looked in. There seemed to be a young black man sleeping in the passenger seat. Curious, Bane rapped on the window and got no response, then opened the door and examined the kid. He seemed to be in some sort of trance, body temperature low, barely breathing, pupils contracted. Bane didn't know it at the moment, but this was how Charles Culver would exist for the remaining five months of his life.
(3/29/20013)