"I want it to be as it once was when I created kings. As I have created one now. Awakened one, rather." It was said with gloating satisfaction. Dynasty after dynasty, Robin had said. Thousands and thousands of years, even a king maker and scholar could get bored—could want to get back in the game. Have a little fun. But it didn't matter what he wanted, because he wasn't going to get it.
The gleam of metal in my hand wasn't the only one. I saw another as the withered hand flashed upward. I'd forgotten the brittle basement-dwelling sage loved all things high-tech. And guns were definitely advanced technology, like the 9mm I had so moronically given him. I threw myself against the wall, dropping the flashlight and firing as I went. The plaster exploded beside me, but several feet down. Loving technology didn't necessarily translate into being good at using it. Target practice had been limited in the museum.
Although he wasn't a crack shot, he was quick for a bag of bones and scraps of flesh. He disappeared in the dark. "What is Sawney giving you, you bastard?" I snapped. He'd woken him up just as he had the rat. Wahanket had somehow triggered Sawney's reintegration. Given him whatever boost he needed to explode back to life. That traveling exhibition had shown up in the museum and the mummy had seen his chance to be what he'd once been, a king maker. But Sawney wasn't his puppet. Sawney wasn't ruled by anything except his own madness.
"Sawney Beane offers me nothing in the way of material goods. He offers me nothing at all. But he creates a newly interesting world," drifted the voice of the Sphinx. "I tire of this monotonous existence. Day after day, year after year. I tire of the bloodless quest for knowledge." There was a sly satisfaction. "Even if that quest gave the Redcap this place. His true home. I tire of it all. I am ready for change and this one brings it in splendid, bold strokes."
The gun fired again. The bullet came closer. I'd tossed the flashlight when I'd first fired the Eagle, not that Wahanket seemed to need the help. Could mummies see in the dark? Probably. Could they repel bullets?
We'd see about that.
I methodically sprayed the entire clip back and forth across the tunnel, side to side and top to bottom. Reading about gun battles on the Internet was different than being in one, although he was probably hell on wheels when it came to a bow and arrow or sword. A gun, though…overconfidence…overconfidence was—damn, if only I could remember Niko's quote.
The smell of smoke filled my face, and my ears rang from the concussive blasts. I stayed close to the wall, felt around on the floor for the flashlight and switched it on, and held it at arm's length from my body to decrease my chances of being hit. I flicked it back and forth. Nothing. Okay, technically not true. There was something, just not the whole package. I moved forward and bent down to pick up Wahanket's gun, along with his hand still wrapped around it. As I made my way farther, I saw other bits and pieces of him. Not much, the occasional scrap of brown linen or blackened piece of dried flesh, but nothing substantial. It was a trail of bread crumbs, and they led back to the room, back to the pool.
The king maker had left the building.
Wahanket had changed his mind about being a participant after all. The role of researcher could be boring and monotonous, but the museum basement was safer than the real world. Wahanket had lost his edge a long time ago in those desert sands.
I looked down at the black water. "Once more into the breach,” I murmured to myself. Or as Goodfellow would've said, once more into the breeches. I grimaced. It was as bad hearing it in my head as hearing it in person. Exhaling, I holstered the Eagle, pried Wahanket's gun out of his severed hand, and shoved it in my waistband before diving into the water. I was lucky; Hank had left the hatch open for me in his hurry to escape. It made the body parts bumping against me as I swam not so bad. Yeah, right. It was goddamn horrible, and when I reached the other side, I scrambled out as fast as I possibly could.
Wet footprints led away across the tile. Wahanket was running back to his basement. He'd think twice about leaving it again.
"Where the hell have you been?"
I looked up from the footprints to see Niko in the doorway. He was still wet from his attempt to pull me out of the water. "Correction," he said with narrowed gaze, "what took you so damn long to get back?"
"You worry too much, Grandma." I grinned in relief at the sight of beetled brows and irritable gray eyes. Niko's worry was always clearly expressed—as annoyance. "Did you see Wahanket?"
He ignored the question as he looked me up and down, but Robin, behind him, answered. "We saw a few wet footprints and a piece of linen. Wahanket, eh? Crafty corpse. But I suppose that explains how Sawney found a place so perfectly suited for him."
"And for that, perhaps we will deal with him later." Niko indicated where the material of my jeans was ripped over my thigh. "Revenant?"
As much as I hated to admit it, I had to. "Yeah."
"One?"
"Two," I said defensively, "and I was trying not to drown at the time. It's not my fault."
"It's amazing. The person who shows up at our sparring session looks so very much like you too." He said it as if he hadn't felt my hand slide through his in the water as I disappeared to God knows where. As if he hadn't run from one hall to another only to be blocked by concrete walls. We all had ways of dealing. When the situation had been reversed, I dealt the same, with sharp-edged sarcasm— once I'd killed everything that had gotten in my way.
"I'd say bite me, but I've been bitten already. Besides, Goodfellow might jump over you and take advantage of it," I grumbled, but curved my lips again. "And there was nothing over there but revenants and Wahanket. No Sawney."
"Then let's go find him," Nik said, waiting until I preceded him. Watching my back.
"By the way, you have absolutely nothing I want to bite," Robin snorted as he moved through the door. "Egomaniac."
Promise swallowed that one in silence, but it would make a reappearance later. I had faith. We exited the dead end of the room and started back down the tunnel. We walked a hundred feet before we saw it. At first, I saw only a glimpse. Pale, it flashed, disappeared, reappeared, and then vanished again.
"Travelers." There was the low hiss of several voices in unison. "Trespassers."
Great, a new refrain.
"They've learned a new word," I drawled. "How goddamn clever is that?"
"Several rungs below a brainless parrot," Nik responded with arctic bite, "and an utter waste of our time." More damn revenants and no Sawney. We were all disappointed. I knew I was tired of hacking at their stubborn, disgusting flesh. There was no honor in battle, no honor in killing. There was only necessity. Niko had taught me that. But if there had been honor, revenants wouldn't have entered that picture anywhere.
"Trespassers." What had been glimpses became a long look and then a close-up of one of the most freakish things I'd ever seen. "Trespasserstrespasserstrespassers." They boiled into the light, arms flailing.
They were wearing straitjackets, every last one of them—left over from the good old madhouse days. No longer white, the grubby cloth was rotting and ripped. The overly long sleeves weren't fastened behind. Instead they flapped like the wings of maddened birds or wove through the air like a striking snake as the revenants ran. It was oddly hypnotic and not-so-oddly horrific. It wasn't enough that revenants looked like zombies; now they looked like zombies of the insane. Sawney wasn't happy just being mad himself or seeking it out; he had to dress up his goddamn pets that way as well. Talk about your hobbies we all could've done without.