We found the bulk of the crowd gathered near the Temple of Dendur in the Egyptian part of the Sackler Wing. The members of Shadower did what they did best and immediately disappeared into the sea of people. Mood was everything to the Surrealists, it seemed. The room was lit with a haunting blue haze that hung over the temple like a faux Egyptian night sky would have. I thought for sure the event would have been set up where the work of the actual Surrealists was kept, in the Modern Art section of the museum, but the Egyptian wing trumped it in oddness and seemed as surreal a venue for tonight’s soirйe as any.
“Well, we certainly ain’t in Casablanca, kid,” Connor said, loving every moment of playing dress up as Humphrey Bogart. The clothes were pretty close to what Connor normally wore, and his impression, as usual, was painful to listen to.
The rest of our team had also come with the entertainment motif in mind. The Inspectre had taken the daring route and come as Isadora Duncan, the deceased dancer who had passed away tragically when one of her trademark scarves got caught in the wheels of her car, snapping her neck. He was dressed in a long white gown with fake blood caked down the front, a womanly wig (made even more ridiculous given his bushy mustache), and a long tattered scarf with a hubcap hanging from the end of it. Even I was impressed at the lengths he had gone to.
We split up and each of us set off in our own direction. For a “Dead Celeb” party, there was a suspicious lack of Elvis Presleys in the crowd, a fact that I blurted out to the nearest passerby. She was a woman in her twenties, possibly pretty but it was hard to tell because she was done up as a traditional Napoleon, complete with his famous hat and her hand tucked firmly into her vest.
“Excuse me, but where’s the King?” I asked.
“Wheech keeeng?” she asked with an outrageous French accent. She waved her free hand around the room. “Zere arrr two Hen-ree zee Eighths over zhere, a couple of Tuts up by zee temple…”
“No, no,” I corrected her. “TheKing. Presley!”
Napoleon laughed and slapped me on the shoulder.
“Silly!” she said. “Zhees is adead celebrity party!”
Before I could further argue the point, she walked off to join a group who had come as the paintingA Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte.
A Marilyn Monroe holding a carnival mask on a stick sidled up to me, laughing.
I turned and there was Jane dressed as a most impressive and stunningly attractive Marilyn Monroe, right down to the billowy white dress that had danced over an air grate to the delight of millions of men (and a few women, too, I suspected). Between the wig and the mask, I had hardly recognized her.
“What are you doing here?” I whispered, pulling her close so no one could hear.
“Good to see you, too,” she said with just a touch of bitterness. She lowered the mask a tiny bit. “Jesus. You think because your precious Department didn’t invite me, I couldn’t get in here? I’m not wrapped up in this whole evil thing anymore. I came here looking for answers and to prove myself to you, Connor, and the Inspectre…hell, the whole damn Department.”
I was going to argue, but I stopped myself. The truth was I was glad she was there. Jane had been getting screwed over by the Sectarians this whole time and she had every right to be here.
She nodded toward the female Napoleon who had just walked away.
“Flirting, are we?”
“Yes,” I said, brandishing false pride. “And Ido think the Emperor of France was quite taken by me.”
“Oh really?” she said with a playful squeeze of my arm. “And what makes you think that?”
“Well, I haven’t been thrown into exile yet, have I?”
She groaned. “I’m going to check the crowd for any of the hardcore S.D.L. folk. I mean, everyone here is working for Darkness pretty much, but I want to make sure all the key players are present and accounted for. Try not to get exiled or married while I’m gone, okay?”
She raised her mask back to her face. I watched the sway of her dress as she moved off into the crowd, and I pushed any thoughts of desire from my mind as I scoped out the room. There was a curious lack of museum staff present in the wing, but I guessed that the funds from the Sectarian Defense League and the Surrealist Underground combined had bought them a significant blind eye to tonight’s proceedings. I felt sick to my stomach. The D.E.A. could have never been able to swing an event like this financially. Hell, we probably couldn’t afford anything in the gift shop.
After a quick circuit of the room, I spied Faisal by the temple entrance. He was talking to a group of men and women, every one of them dressed as Dalн. Faisal himself was dressed as Don Corleone (minus the added bulk) with his hair slicked back and colored gray.
I made my way toward them, hoping to catch a part of their conversation if I could. Were this the movies, I would have arrived just in time to hear,“And now, gentlemen, allow me to reveal my secret plan, my evil scheme that will unleash my wrath upon the world.” Instead, when I got closer, I spent several minutes not understanding a damned thing Faisal was saying. He was doing a dead-on Godfather impression, mumbling his way through the conversation unintelligibly. His cronies nodded and laughed as if they understood every word, but I was pretty sure it was just a lot of ass kissing. I was frustrated, but I had to admit he was really quite good at Brando. Connor would be jealous.
Eventually he excused himself and broke from the pack. As he stepped to the podium before the temple entrance and adjusted the microphone, the room quickly settled down. The costumed crowd made a strange montage awash in azure light and I wished someone would capture it in paint and add it to the museum’s collection. I could imagine it selling next to copies of dogs playing poker and velvet Elvises.
As the head of the Sectarians gazed out over the sea of people, he looked pleased.
“Mmmdies nn’ gnnndlmn,” he started, then stopped. He reached in his mouth, produced two wads of cotton, and dropped them behind the podium. “Ahh, much better!”
A light chuckle rose from the crowd. I looked around for the rest of my team but none of them were in sight. Faisal adjusted the mike once more and continued.
“Ladies, and gentlemen,” he repeated, cotton free this time. “I’d like to thank you all for coming out tonight. I realize a lot of you would prefer to be sitting comfortably at home watching ritual sacrifices on HBO9, but I promise you…this will all be worth it. Tonight,la famiglia, I’m gonna make you an offer you can’t refuse.”
Another round of laughter for Faisal and another round of not seeing my people in the crowd for me. Maybe costuming ourselves had been a bad idea. Shadower Division had disappeared entirely, which wasn’t a surprise given their specialty. It was just them doing their job well.Too well.
I worked my way across the room, careful not to move too fast and thus attract attention. I stole a glance toward the temple. Faisal was clutching the sides of the podium and his face looked solemn as the last of the crowd’s laughter died.
“Seriously, my brothers and sisters,” he said, “this has been a good year for Evil. We’ve achieved legitimacy through legislation, the Sectarian Defense League! A voice for the weary, downtrodden cultist to be heard in our government, and all it took was some hard work, the generous funding of our beloved hosts, the Salvador Breton Foundation, and a little spilt blood.”
The applause was deafening.
“Well, maybe more than alittle spilt blood,” he continued. “But hey, you can’t make an omelet without slitting a few throats. Am I right?”
The crowd erupted in laughter and once again I felt sick to my stomach. These were people who, despite the charm and charisma of their leader, relished the idea of sacrificing life in the name of their cause. Were I not terribly outnumbered, I would have done something stupid like rushing the podium.