Deader Still

31

There’s nothing quite as disorienting as waking up to someone poking you repeatedly in the same sore spot on your neck, but that was what I had to contend with when I came to. I looked up from where I was on the floor to see Mina leaning over me.

“Honestly,” I said through a mouth that felt cottony, “you can stop that anytime you like.”

I went to move my arms to help myself sit up, but my hands were trussed up behind my back—with what, I had no idea.

“Up and at ’em, sunshine,” she said, back to her perky malicious self. “Places to go, people to see . . .”

Using both of her arms, she swung behind me and lifted until my legs were under me once again. I put the bulk of my weight on them and my knees buckled at first, but Mina held me up until I found the strength to stand on my own.

“Why the hell are you doing this, Mina? Have you finally flipped the last crazy switch in your brain?”

She scooped up my bat from where it lay on the floor and stepped behind me, giving me a shove with it. “Just walk, unless you want me to gag you as well.”

I limped forward at a slow but steady pace, my knee aching. I must have hit it when I fell, and it twinged with every step.

“No, seriously, Mina, why are you doing this?”

“This is just economics now,” Mina said, “pure and simple. I tracked the painting here, hoping to find it, but you saw . . . Those crates are empty. If I give him you, though, maybe he’ll give me what I want in exchange. Maybe he’ll give me The Scream back once he uses it for whatever messed-up psycho ritual or blood sacrifice he has planned.”

“Him who?” I asked. “Wait . . . blood sacrifice? Are we talking cultists here?”

Mina nodded.

“Great,” I said, loving how much deeper I was sinking into trouble. “Why do you want that goddamn painting so badly?”

Mina grabbed me by the face, moving me to within an inch of hers. “Because I stole it. Possession. Don’t you remember what it was like when you used to take things that weren’t yours and made them yours? I never intended to hand it over to them.”

I had no idea how Mina had gotten mixed up with cultists in the first place, but before I could ask we reached an intersection in the maze, and Mina pulled out a Maglite to check the ground. A trail of little multicolored dots ran down one of the aisles and she dragged me off in that direction.

“Are those Skittles?” I asked.

Mina nodded. “Easier to follow than bread crumbs. Tastier, too.”

I didn’t want to admit it to her, but it was actually a good idea.

“So you’re handing me over to cultists just so you can get your stupid painting back?”

Mina lifted her hand and stuck her finger in my face.

“Don’t call it that,” she said. “The Scream is the most perfect thing in the world. The exquisite torture in that lone figure’s face, the loneliness, the madness. You’re a collector, for God’s sake. You understand.”

I liked the painting well enough, but leave it to Mina’s twisted mind to turn it into the pinnacle of her own private obsession.

Mina continued to guide us out of the crates, the lights growing brighter and brighter as we approached the entranceway to another room.

“So I take it you know everything about me, about the Department?” I asked, after several moments of silence.

Mina nodded.

“How? Who are you working for?”

Mina remained silent, dragging me along.

I let my legs go out from under me and landed hard on my ass. I sat Indian-style to make it harder for her to move my dead weight.

Mina stared down at me and sighed. “Get up, Simon.”

“No.”

Mina poked my chest with the end of my bat. “I don’t have the patience for this, Simon,” she said. “Get up.”

I shook my head. “You want me to walk, then you tell me what you know.”

“I could just cave your skull in,” she said matter-of-factly, shaking my bat in the air.

I didn’t put it past her, but I kept my face a blank slate, if only to deny her the pleasure of a reaction.

“I’m much harder to carry as dead weight, wherever you’re taking me,” I said, hoping my false bravado wasn’t as transparent as it felt. Even if I complied and kept going, there was no way in hell I’d be able to get up of my own accord now.

After a quick visual Mexican standoff, it was Mina who finally gave in. With a final nervous look down the aisle, she squatted down behind me and started picking me back up.

“Fine,” she said. “I know everything about you.”

“Even . . . ?”

Mina held up her hands and wiggled them at me. “Zap. Yes, even that. I always wondered how you were so astute about things when we were ripping people off. I didn’t just happen across your apartment by mistake. I was given a lot of information on you: your address, the Department you work for . . .”

“By who?”

Mina dropped her eyes from mine, unable to look at me. “Let’s just say you meet a lot of interesting people in jail . . .”

“How long were you in jail?”

“If you’re going to follow everything I say with a question, I’ll get straight to using the bat on you,” she said.

“Sorry.”

“Two years into my jail sentence, I was transferred to this hard-core coed facility, and you wouldn’t believe what I ended up hearing through the rumor mill. Seems one of the most badass inmates of them all had a real mad-on for one Simon Canderous. He was delighted to make my acquaintance when we met. You might recall him . . . a European gentleman recovering from a stab wound through his shoulder?”

“Faisal Bane,” I said, and my stomach dropped out from under me. Suddenly I wanted to throw up.

Even though I had run the leader of the tristate area’s largest cult through with one of the historical swords at the Metropolitan Museum of Art less than six months ago, I should have realized that no matter what type of jail time he might serve, he wasn’t done with me.

“You say his name with about as much contempt as he said yours,” she said, amused.

“I suspect that’s the only thing we have in common,” I said.

“Even in jail, you could tell people respected him, if only out of fear. A tiger, even when caged, is still a tiger. And besides, I like powerful men. They can do things for a girl . . .”

I thought I saw where this was going.

“Like get her out of jail earlier than she’s scheduled to be released?” I asked.

Mina smiled. “Something like that. I don’t know what you did to piss him off, Simon, but Faisal is someone you want to have in your corner, someone who can do things for you.”

“And my life is the price you paid for your freedom, right?”

Mina didn’t answer, but she had me standing once again and shoved me off in the direction of her colored candy trail.

“And you’re doing all this for what? So you can get your hands on The Scream again? This is a sick obsession. If Faisal and his people have it, they’re not going to just hand it over, you know. They have to want it for some special reason.”

“I’ll burn that bridge when I come to it,” Mina said, her face determined and with purpose now. “Besides, Faisal isn’t the worst of your concerns right now.”

“Oh, great.”

“Don’t sound so disappointed,” a familiar voice boomed out. The last time I had heard it was that night at the Met. A figure stepped out from behind one stack of crates, the minotaur of this particular crate-formed labyrinth—Cyrus Mandalay.

“Hello, Simon.”

There was no mistaking the imposing figure of Cyrus—a huge white man with dreads, sharklike teeth, and ritualistic tattoos weaving across his face. He had escaped the cops, and here he was now. He was even wearing the same pirate costume he’d worn to the gala at the museum. It hung in dirty tatters now and he looked like he had been living like the mad king of the hobos ever since his narrow escape. I thought normal Cyrus was scary, but this new, unhinged version terrified me even more.

“We really have to stop meeting in museums like this, Cy,” I said, trying to keep my cool. “People will start to talk.”

“Glad to see you’re in such good spirits,” he said, smiling with his row of razor-sharp teeth. They were yellow now. “I, unfortunately, am not. You cost me my business.”

“Tome, Sweet Tome? We’re having a field day just trying to wrangle some of the more aggressive books, but we’ll manage. Great acquisition for the Department.”

“That’s not what I’m talking about,” Cyrus said, his eyes blazing with hate. “That bookstore was just a cover for my real business. You know that.”

“Oh, Ghostsniffing?” I said. “Yeah, I’m really broken up inside over the fact that we put an end to your little soul-destroying narcotics operation.”

Cyrus started walking toward us, but Mina held up the bat, pointing it at him.

“That’s close enough for now, Cyrus,” she said. “I can let him go, or you can give me what I came for.”

Cyrus stopped where he was, peering at us. It was like he was noticing her for the first time.

“Mina, was it?” he asked. “You think your life means anything to me after you refused to kill your little boy toy Simon? Wasn’t that what you exchanged for your freedom? Now I’m afraid you may have to be put on permanent display at our little exhibit here . . .”

“I brought him to you,” she said in desperation.

“Actually, I found her—” I started.

Mina kicked at me, catching me in the shin and sending a shiver of pain up my leg.

“I’m willing to trade you Canderous for the painting,” she said. “I’m kind of attached to The Scream, and I honestly think the painting would be far happier in my hands than yours. Especially after you sent a group of hit zombies after me . . .”

“Hired help.” Cyrus sighed. “They were just supposed to take the painting from you. If I had my way about it, I would have sent more zombies after you with instructions to eat brains first, ask questions later, but someone in jail thought rather highly of you.”

“I’ll be sure to send Faisal a nice care package,” Mina said. “The painting, please.”

“Don’t be sure he’ll be all that forgiving this time. Besides, that painting is integral to what we’re going for down here.”

“I’m sorry,” I said, interrupting, “but are we going to bash my head in now or would you rather wait till later? Because if I get a vote, I can tell you which camp I’m siding with.”

Mina raised the bat over my head and held it there like a blunt guillotine waiting to drop. “Just give me the painting.”

Cyrus gave an arcane gesture, and the sound of shuffling rose from several points behind me. I craned my head back to take a look, but it was no use. I had a pretty good idea what was coming, though.

“Umm . . . Mina?”

“Quiet, Simon,” she said, pissed off. “I’m negotiating.”

“You might want to negotiate nicer, then,” I said. Mina looked at me. Since my hands were still bound behind me, I gestured over my shoulder with my eyes. Mina’s eyes widened. She swore under her breath, lowered my bat, and let go of me.

I could understand her frustration. I was just as surrounded by dozens of zombies as she was. Apparently, somebody had been studying up on his necromancy.