TO WAKE THE DEAD Read online

  Robert felt the vehicle jolt as it struck her.

  Suddenly wide awake and panting with fear, he realized the siren was the burglar alarm amplifier by his bed. Someone had penetrated the collection room.

  Emil entered the room, Metar at his side. Walking close to the wall, he shined his light on the statuettes of gold and ivory, on gold necklaces heavy with precious jewels, on scarabs and broaches and glistening rings.

  To see so many antiquities in a man’s private collection disgusted him. If he had time, he would clean out the entire collection of this grave robber.

  But Emil had come only for Amara.

  The thin beam of his light found a stone vase, its lid decorated with the jackal head of the god Anubis. Beside it stood a similar container, this with the head of a hawk. His light fell swiftly across two more vases. These were the Canopic jars holding the embalmed organs of Amara—heart, lungs, kidneys. Her womb. He must take the jars tonight.

  Swinging his flashlight, he found the coffin.

  It was the wooden, inner coffin of Amara. The outer coffins and massive stone sarcophagus had never left Egypt. The thieves had taken this only, and the Canopic jars. And Amara herself.

  Stepping close to the coffin, Emil shined his light onto a golden disk on the edge of its lid. He was thankful to find the sacred seal in place.

  Though vermin, Callahan was not a fool.

  Leaning across the lid, he inspected the second seal. It too appeared to be intact.

  Reassured, he allowed himself to look down at the carved face of Amara. It was a face of rare beauty, a face that might have shamed Nefertiti herself, had the ladies’ paths ever crossed. But their paths were separated by centuries. Amara belonged to the long-dead era of the eleventh dynasty, when Mentuhotep I ruled and gods were young in the memory of the people.

  Emil glanced at Metar, who stared as if hypnotized by the beautiful image. With a tap on the arm he caught his partner’s attention. He pointed to the foot of the coffin.

  Together, each at one end, they lifted it. They carried the deadweight of it across the room, through the doorway, down the dark hall. Emil’s powerful arms strained with the weight. Metar whimpered as wounds from the dog’s bite stretched, reopened, bled. At the end of the hall, the carpet ended. Emil felt the marble of the foyer under his feet.

  A few more steps, then they could set down the coffin while Metar opened the door.

  It was good to accomplish the hardest part first. The Canopic jars would be easy after this.

  He nodded for Metar to stop.

  A quick blast shattered the silence. In the muzzle flash, he saw Metar slammed backward, dropping the end of the coffin. Mist jetted from between the casket and lid. Dust of the ages. Corpse dust. Even as he looked toward the stairway, a second flash and explosion filled the darkness. He had no time to duck.

  Steve Bailey, in the U-Haul van just outside the door, heard the shots.

  Holy shit.

  They hadn’t come from a .22.

  They’d come from a high-powered sucker, like maybe a .12-gauge.

  Emil and Metar only carried peashooters.

  So who had the cannon?

  Bailey didn’t wait to find out. He dropped the emergency break lever, rammed the shift to first, floored the gas pedal, and popped the clutch.

  Callahan lowered the shotgun. His shoulder was numb from the kicking stock. His ears rang as if they’d been slapped.

  Stepping down the stairs, he heard an engine just outside the door. It roared, then faded with distance.

  Callahan stepped across the dark foyer, careful not to trip over the bodies or the coffin. Near the door, he found the light switch. Flicked it on.

  Both the bastards looked dead. One had caught it in the chest. The other had lost most his forehead.

  He turned his eyes to the coffin. It had landed on its side. Bending down, he saw a crack across one of the golden seals.

  “Robert!”

  He glanced up the stairway. His small, swarthy friend looked confused and frightened.

  “Give me a hand with this, Imad.”

  “Robert, what happened?”

  “These bastards tried to make off with Amara. Same two guys who were here last week wanting to do landscape work.”

  As Imad reached the bottom of the stairs, his mouth dropped open. “The Seal of Osiris,” he muttered.

  “I’m not blind. Give me a hand, we’ll see how the other one looks.”

  Together, they crouched and rolled the coffin off its side. On the marble underneath lay two chunks of gold from the second seal.

  Gasping, Imad stepped back.

  “Forget it,” Callahan said. “We’ll take care of it later.”

  Imad shook his head, his eyes large with fear.

  “Let’s just get these guys out of here first. We’ll plant them in the garden.”

  Still shaking his head, Imad stepped backwards toward the door. He spun around. His trembling hands fumbled with the locks, then he flung the door open and ran into the night.

  Callahan watched him dash across the lawn, white robe fluttering.

  “Imad!” The man kept running. “Better off,” Callahan muttered, and pushed the door shut.

  He slept soundly after the hard work of burying the men and cleaning up the mess they’d left in the foyer. Bloodstains were the worst. His snoring was loud in the darkness.

  The figure entering the doorway didn’t disturb him. He continued to snore peacefully as it crossed the room. He moaned once as it raised the covers on the empty side of the bed.

  It climbed in beside him. He knew, vaguely, that he was no longer alone. Sarah must have come back from the bathroom. He was glad to have her back. The bed felt so empty without her.

  Rolling toward her, he put a hand out. It would be so good to touch her skin. Sarah had always felt so soft, so smooth. Hungry for her warm, supple body, he reached out, searching for her. His fingers found the figure. Touched. Caressed.

  If felt wrong, all wrong. He touched skin that was hard, wrinkled. Cold.

  With a nauseating jolt, he remembered Sarah was dead.

  The shock woke him. At that instant he found himself gazing into eyeless sockets and a leathery, shrunken face.

  Something under the sheet touched his bare leg.

  Slowly, the mouth opened.

  Callahan started to scream.

  The head jerked forward, jaws snapping shut, teeth barely missing his throat.

  Callahan rolled off the bed. His knees hit the floor. He scurried, naked, trying to get on his feet. As he started to rise, the mummy pounced upon his back. “Get off!” he shrieked.

  Its dry fingers clutched him by the shoulders.

  He heard the clatter of its snapping teeth.

  “Get off! No!”

  Callahan got to his feet, but the thing kept its grip and stayed on his back as he ran across the room.

  Its teeth tore the side of his neck. Its head jerked savagely, ripping.

  Callahan dropped to his knees. He reached behind him, hoping to free himself from the creature. He gripped its hair. He jerked. Tresses pulled loose in his hand.

  The mouth kept biting and tearing long after he was dead.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Susan Connors, assistant curator of the Charles Ward Museum, was dead. Dead on her feet, that was. She’d been standing all day, directing the workmen who uncrated the collection, marking her checklist, pointing out where she wished the dozens of ancient artifacts placed for display.

  She hadn’t been on her feet this long since the day she worked a double shift at the Wagon Train restaurant, busing barbecue ribs and cheeseburgers for conventioneers. Some treat that was. Man, oh, man… That was—what?—six years ago? She’d been an undergraduate then. A senior.

  That seemed like a long time ago.

  Aeons.

  Almost as long as eight o’clock this morning.

  One of the workmen, the one called Top, lifted a Canopic jar out of its packin
g case. It was made from alabaster, a stone that looked like fresh, white milk which had been transformed into something hard. Brittle. A sculptured head of a jackal formed the lid. Susan marked her checklist.

  “That goes with the others.” She pointed to the stand beside the mummiform coffin where three other stone jars had already been placed. Top carried it across the room. Its weight didn’t seem to bother him, though he looked frail and old enough to be the father of the other man. As he set down the jar, he said, “That about does it, miss. The whole kit’n kaboodle. Wanta sign here?”

  She scribbled her initials on the invoice. Top tore off a copy, gave it to her.

  “All set,” he said.

  When he and the younger man were gone, Susan sat on a folding chair—the only piece of furniture in the room that was less than two thousand years old, certainly the only piece that hadn’t come from the Callahan collection. Leaning back, she crossed her right foot over her knee and sighed with pleasure. The aches seemed to flow out of her. When that leg felt almost normal, she lowered it and raised the other. The relief!

  “Your meditation hour?” a voice asked.

  “Tag?” She looked around and saw Taggart Parker standing in the doorway. “What are…?” Then she remembered. Her car had treated her to a flat tire this morning. Tag had given her a lift to work. “Come on in,” she said, getting up.

  Tag unhooked one end of the plush cordon from its post and stepped forward through the doorway.

  Into Susan’s arms. She kissed him. The day’s growth of whiskers was scratchy against her face, but she didn’t mind. She pressed herself tightly to him, stroking the soft fabric of his corduroy jacket. She felt a hard shape against her belly.

  “Is that a gun?” she asked, trying to sound like Mae West. “Or are ya glad to see me?”

  “Both,” Tag said.

  Reaching down, Susan stroked the walnut grips of his Colt Python. “You’ve got a hell of a pistol, fella.”

  “And I’m good with it.”

  “Braggart.” She kissed him again. “Hey, we’d better knock it off before the boss walks in.” She stepped away, but kept hold of his hand. “How was your day?”

  “Improving.”

  “Mine too.” She swept an arm around the room. “Look what I did today. It’s the Callahan collection.”

  He scanned the room and his eyes settled on the single coffin. “What’s that, a mummy?”

  “Sure is.”

  “How about giving me a peek? I’ve never seen a real live mummy before.”

  “Are you sure you want to?”

  “I’d love to.”

  “She’s been dead a while.”

  “Is that right?”

  “The better part of four thousand years.”

  “That long?”

  “We don’t know much about this gal yet: just what we got from the list Callahan left. Her name is Amara.”

  “Amara? That’s a beautiful name.” He smiled, teasing.

  “And she was a wife of Pharaoh Mentuhotep the First. He ruled Egypt during the eleventh dynasty, about 2000 B.C.”

  “Well, let’s have a look.”

  “Promise not to touch?”

  “You don’t trust me with strange women?”

  “Especially not when you say they have a beautiful name.”

  “And so it is. Amara, Amara, Amara. A guy can fall in love with a name like that.”

  “Okay, promise not touch. It’s extremely fragile.”

  “Cross my heart.” He patted Susan’s rump. “Actually, I doubt if I’d want to.”

  Together they raised the lid. Susan, who had seen the mummy only for a moment that morning, gave it a closer inspection. The hair was a sweep of shining red, the only part of the once-young woman that had apparently defied time. It must have been elaborately coifed at the time of entombment. Those who unwrapped her had probably also removed the jewel hairpins. Her eye sockets were empty. No valuable stones inside as imitation eyes, as was the ancient funerary practice. No onions to mask the smell of corruption, like they found in Ramses IV. No bags of frankincense and myrrh in the body cavities either. Robbers had undoubtedly made off with those. Valuable spices were still valuable spices even if they had been drawn from their grisly container. Across the abdomen was a diagonal cut nearly a foot long that had been crudely stitched with twine. The breasts had shriveled into puckered bags. The pubic region had been shaved, probably by the ancient morticians after the young woman died.

  Susan realized that Tag was looking away.

  They closed the lid, covering that awful face.

  “Do mummies all look like that?” Tag asked. His new, pasty complexion worried Susan.

  “Are you all right?” she asked.

  “I’ve felt better, on occasion.”

  “Ready to leave?”

  “I wish we’d left five minutes ago.”

  In the subterranean parking area beneath the Marina Towers apartment complex, Tag drove slowly past Susan’s Jaguar.

  “It’s fixed!” she blurted.

  “I had a few minutes to kill after I got home from work, so I put on the spare for you.”

  “Oh, you’re a sweetheart.”

  “Somebody isn’t. Your tire didn’t go flat all by itself. It had help. Somebody with a knife, I’d say.”

  “You mean someone intentionally…?”

  Tag nodded. “It might’ve been random, but I doubt it. I think you’ve made yourself an enemy, Susan.”

  She shook her head.

  “What about Larry?”

  “He wouldn’t do that. I mean, that’s the last thing he would do. He paid for the car, he wouldn’t try to damage it.”

  “Unless he doesn’t appreciate the fact that it now belongs to you.” Tag swung into his own parking space. In spite of his low speed, the tires sighed on the slick concrete.

  “I don’t think it was Larry.”

  “Just a suggestion.”

  Their doors banged shut and echoed.

  “How about coming in for a drink?” Susan asked.

  “Sounds good.”

  They took an elevator to the third floor, and walked the narrow, carpeted hall. At her apartment, Susan opened the door to the warm, rich odors she recognized as enchilada sauce.

  “Evening, Maria,” she greeted the chubby, smiling woman in the kitchen.

  Maria nodded eagerly.

  “Everything go all right today?”

  “Sí. All right.” Her bright eyes turned to Tag. “Ah, Señor Taggart. Margarita, sí?”

  “Right.”

  Susan left them, and went into the small bedroom that she used for a nursery. Geoffrey, who was busy inspecting his toes, looked up as she entered. He grinned and gurgled.

  “Hi there, little guy,” she said. “Have yourself a good day?” She picked up the baby, kissed his cheek, and pulled out the front of his diapers. They were definitely damp to the touch. She stripped him, dried him, powdered him, and put on a new diaper. After a brief struggle, she managed to maneuver him into a pair of tiny brown corduroy pants. Then a yellow T-shirt that read Slippery When Wet. “There you go, my little man.” Hefting him, she carried him into the living room.

  Tag came in. He handed Susan a bottle of ProSobee and a glass of Perrier. “Cocktails for everyone,” he said. Sitting across from her, he sipped his margarita.

  Maria entered and placed a bowl of taco chips in front of him. “Gracias,” he said.

  “De nada.”

  He watched her walk away. “I sure wish I had one of those,” he said.

  “I wish I didn’t.”

  “What would you want to do, stay home all day?”

  “Wouldn’t mind. After Geoffrey was born I did it for three months and loved it.”

  “What about the museum?”

  “It’d still be there when I’m ready for it again. But like they say, the bills won’t pay themselves. So I guess I stay with the museum and Maria stays with Geoffrey.”

  “With what
Larry makes—”

  “I don’t want anything more from him. It’s bad enough I have to take the child support.” Looking down at the baby, she said, “I’m sure glad Geoffrey doesn’t know what a creep his father is.” She smiled at the boy, who stopped sucking long enough to grin. White formula trickled from the corner of his mouth. She dabbed it away with a soft tissue, then looked up at Tag. “How about staying for dinner?”

  “I’d sure like to. I have to get out of here, though. Class tonight. Crowd Management Techniques.”

  “You still have to eat.”

  “I’ll grab something in my apartment.”

  When he finished his margarita, he went to Susan and kissed her. “How about later?” he asked.

  “How much later?”

  “Ten-thirty, eleven.”

  “That’s my bedtime,” Susan said.

  Tad grinned. “I know.”

  “I didn’t get much sleep last night.”

  “Me neither.”

  “That’s for sure.”

  “How about it?” Tag asked, smiling.

  “How can I refuse?”

  He kissed her again. “See you later, alligator.” He rubbed Geoffrey’s head.

  Geoffrey belched.

  “Excuse yourself, kid.”

  As Tag took the elevator to the fifth floor, he considered skipping class and taking up Susan on her dinner invitation. He needed the class, though; with the sergeant’s exam scheduled for next month, he needed all the help he could get.

  The doors slid open and he stepped into the hallway. He turned left. The corridor stretched out silent and narrow. Though he’d never been in a submarine, he often thought of them when he walked these halls.

  A guy could get claustrophobia. A guy could get short of air. So short he finds himself rubbing his throat, his breath coming in short, painful tugs.

  As he stepped around the corner, he saw something heaped on the floor. Something the size of a body, covered by faded, grimy cloth.

  In front of his door.

  He moved toward it, hand darting to the firearm at his waist.

  CHAPTER TWO

  The heap in front of Tag’s apartment door moved. A head appeared, hair slicked down with filth, face bloated, blotchy, and pale.