The last little curl of the curse glowed black, then burst into a white flare that threw me backward with the force of its unmaking, slamming me into Adrian. light dazzled my already blinded eyes, filling my head, filling my soul, filling the entire room with one moment of absolute joy.
"What was that?" I heard my incredulous voice ask, my body still tingling with the residue of the wonderful feeling.
Adrian gently propped me up against the side of a metal shelving unit, quickly returning to the crate.
"It was the ring," he answered as he pulled the body of the boy out of the crate.
I rubbed my left hand over my eyes, surprised to note that, for once, it was the stronger of my two arms. My right arm hung cold and heavy at my side, apparently lifeless. "Did it work? Is he alive? Is the curse unmade?"
My vision cleared enough to see the boy standing on his feet, engulfed in a bear hug, Adrian's tender kisses being pressed onto his head.
I sniffed with happiness at the sight. It was worth a little pain and frostbite to see such a loving reunion. If only Saer could witness his son being greeted with such love.
The boy pulled back slightly, turning to look at me. He was dark-haired and blue-eyed like his father, and even had the family frown. "Papa, who's that?"
My jaw dropped at his words. "Papa?"
Chapter Seventeen
"She smells bad." Damian's nose wrinkled as he examined me with disdain evident in his reproduction Adrian eyes.
"Papa?" I asked again, figuring part of my brain must have been frozen in the curse-lifting. I hoped it would thaw out quickly, because I was definitely at a loss without it. "Papa as in father? Does he think you're Saer?"
"Damian is my son, not Saer's," Adrian said quickly, his hand on the boy's shoulder as he shoved him toward the door. He held his hand out for me. "Come, Hasi, we must leave. No doubt every immortal within a five-mile radius felt the force of you unmaking the curse. We must be gone from the area before Saer and Dante find us."
"Your son?" I parroted, feeling more than usually stupid. I ignored his hand to stare deep into his eyes. They held impatience and worry, and a warm look of gratitude that I badly wanted to explore, but I knew he was right.
That feeling of extreme joy the ring blasted out was something that I knew instinctively others would feel. "But he's Belinda's son, so that means…"
"We will discuss this later." He grabbed my wrist in a painless but nonetheless iron grip and pulled me from the room, shoving Damian ahead with his other hand.
"You called her Hasi," the boy said, looking back at us as Adrian hustled us down the corridor. "She's not your girlfriend, is she?"
The horror he imparted to the word made it sound like I was only slightly less detestable than the plague.
"We'll talk about that later, too," Adrian ground through his teeth. He totally ignored the couple of people who emerged from the stairwell, holding the door open so Damian and I could precede him.
"She stinks," the boy said with a sneer that would have done Beau Brummell proud.
"You'd think someone who was deader than a doornail a few minutes ago would have a little more gratitude toward the person who saved him," I snapped back, wondering what sort of nightmare my life had turned into. Damian was Adrian's son? I was going to be a stepmother to a rude, obnoxious little boy who thought I stank? I shook my head, hoping to clear the cold-induced confusion. It was the stress of being cursed and then freed that was making Damian so surly. I'm sure once he recovered from the trauma, he'd—
"She's not going home with us, is she, Papa?" Damian asked over his shoulder as we trotted up the stairs. "If she stays with us, I'm going to be sick."
—continue to be the little monster he obviously was. I bared my teeth at him as we burst out to the basement. "You wouldn't happen to have seen The Omen, would you?"
"Quickly, to the stairs," Adrian ordered, ignoring us both in order to shove us down the hallway. I bit back a retort, picking up his sense of unease and worry. I could feel something in the air, myself, something… not right.
We dashed up the stairs into the Great Court, the covered courtyard at the center of the British Museum.
Straight into pandemonium.
People ran screaming like madmen through the big hall, their shrieks echoing off the high glass ceiling, magnifying the noise until it seemed as if we were trapped in one long, endless scream.
"What the hell—" The words froze on my lips as I got a good look at what everyone was running from. "Good God, are those… those…"
"Mummies," Adrian said with a weary sigh. "I feared as much. I hoped that your power would not reach them, being so many floors below us, but evidently you are stronger than either of us allowed for."
"Mummies?" I said, my voice rising an octave.
Adrian shushed me, shoving Damian and me to the left. "There is an exit beyond that statue. Quickly, before the—"
"Mummies!" I yelled, it finally sinking into my thawing brain just what I was seeing. The people who were screaming and fleeing the Great Court were normal people—living people. The people-shaped things moving with apparently no particular goal trailed suitably theatrical bits of gauze, their bodies gaunt and brown as they milled blindly around the hall. "Those are mummies! Real mummies!"
"Nell! Do not speak!" Adrian said at the same time as Damian started toward them, saying, "Cool!"
The volume of noise in the room died down as most of the people made their escape. Only a few security guards and museum employees remained, the former taking up positions behind the statues in the hall, the latter huddled in a small clutch as they watched three mummies wander around like so many ducklings who'd lost their mother.
"Is one of them Imhotep? Is he going to suck the life out of everyone? Can I watch when he does?" Damian asked eagerly.
"You are a bloodthirsty little vampire," I said without thinking, still staring at the amazing sight before us. The second the words left my lips, I realized just how stupid a statement that was. Damian lifted a mocking lip at me. The mummy nearest us turned its head toward me, the movement resulting in horrible crackling noises that had me flinching in anticipation of his head breaking off.
"Nell, you must remain silent," Adrian said in my ear.
"What?" I asked, distracted by the sight of Damian boldly walking up to the creaking mummy. Its head weaved back and forth, as if it were trying to see but couldn't, a soft little distressed call issuing from its mummified mouth. Unlike in the movies, these mummies didn't seem to want to kill anyone. They looked more pathetic than frightening, to be honest. One of the mummies, one with bright ginger-colored hair clinging to the dark brown of his head, walked crablike across the floor, his body doubled up and evidently unable to straighten himself. "Damian, leave it alone! Mummies are very fragile. If you touch one, it could break—"
Adrian groaned as my shout echoed throughout the courtyard. The mummies, to a man (or woman—it was hard to tell gender in the shriveled, withered bodies), turned toward me, all three of them making mewing noises as they started toward us.
"By the saints, woman, when will you listen to me?" Adrian growled as he grabbed the back of Damian's shirt as well as my wrist, hauling us both to the side entrance.