"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.
"What? What did I do? And why are they following us?" I asked as he hustled us down a short passage to an emergency exit. Looking over my shoulder, I could see the mummies lumbering, staggering, and crab-walking their way after us.
"You raised them," Adrian answered grimly.
"I did not!"
"You did. Normally you would not possess the means to lift more than one curse at a time, but with the power of the ring, you effectively lifted the curse of everything in the museum, including the mummies."
"The mummies were cursed?" The cool evening air blasted around us as Adrian kicked the emergency door open, a flashing blue light going off along with a siren. I glanced back. The mummies were still coming toward us; behind them trailed a cadre of museum employees and security guards, keeping well back but with guns drawn and radios held to their mouths as they gave orders.
"Some are. Not all. Those three you raised obviously were. Move quickly - the guards will have the police surrounding the building in less than a minute."
"Why can't I see one of the mummies?" Damian complained as we ran out the door. It was full dark now, and the streets around the museum were busy with commuter traffic, both on foot and in cars. We emerged into a small parking lot containing a number of official museum vehicles, mostly small cars.
"I understand what you're saying about me charming the mummies' curses, but why are they following us?" I asked as Adrian ran to the nearest car, yanking at the door and swearing profoundly when it proved to be locked.
"They follow the sound of your voice," he growled as he stepped back, lifting his boot to slam it into the car window. The window cracked but didn't break. "It's part of the ritual you used to unmake the curse."
I remembered the words contained in the charm book. The last thing I had said was spoken directly to the purpose of the curse: Thy power is dispersed. Thy desire is undone. Thy darkness is revealed. All who were bound to you, heed only my voice.
"Oh, great," I sighed as Adrian kicked the window again, wincing as the glass shattered all over the interior of the car. "I'm the only girl in the whole of England who ever voice-activated mummies."
"Get in the back," Adrian told Damian as he unlocked a side door. I hurried around to the passenger seat, waiting as Adrian ducked into the car to sweep bits of broken glass off the seat.
"I want to ride in the front," Damian whined.
I smirked. "Hey, is Damian affected the same way the mummies are? Does he have to follow my voice too? Does he have to do whatever I order him to do?"
"Not likely!" Damian snorted.
"No, he's not affected. He's a sentient being. The mummies aren't sentient any longer." Adrian swore colorfully in German as the emergency exit to the museum creaked open and three battered mummies staggered out into the night air. "Get in the car!"
Their blind eyes were turned toward me, the soft little noises they made halfway between a moan and a plea. I hesitated at the opened car door, torn between the desire to get away and the need to protect the helpless mummies.
"Nell!"
I waved my hand at the mummies. "Look at them, Adrian! They're helpless, and it's all my fault. What do you think the museum people are going to do with them? They'll torture them trying to figure out what's going on! I've got to put them back to their inanimate state."
"There's no time. Get in the car."
I looked around the parking lot. The first security guard had reached the emergency exit, poking first his gun, then his head around the doorway to peer out at us. Beyond the high stone perimeter fence that lined the museum lot, police sirens wailed. A guard stood outside a manned guard gate at the entrance of the parking area, his mouth hanging open as he beheld the mummies creeping toward him.
I spied a big white paneled van near the gate. It was empty. I spun around, slamming the car door as I sprinted toward the van, calling back to Adrian, "We'll take them with us! I can't leave them to be tortured, not when it's my fault they're walking around."
The mummies turned in my direction, the pitch of their nonstop mewling growing higher and more desperate as I raced away from them. I reached the side of the van, praying for a miracle.
It was locked.
"Damn," I swore, jerking the charm book out of my pocket.
Adrian and Damian reached me just as I found the unlocking charm and opened the door.
"Nell, what the hell are you doing?" Adrian demanded, shoving me to the side as a bullet whined past. "Why are you attempting to get us killed for a few mummies?"
"You can't be killed, remember? And the mummies are my responsibility, so I can't leave them." I lifted my voice so it could be heard above the sound of sirens, now multiplying in alarming numbers, joined by shouts from the museum guards and occasional bullets that zinged off nearby cars. "Mummies! Heed My Voice!"
They moved a lot faster now, and by the time I jerked the rear door open, they rounded the back of the van. "In!" I commanded, jumping in and hoping they'd follow me.
Adrian, smart man that he is, knew when he'd been outmaneuvered, and with only a quick fulminating glare at me, he tossed Damian into the van, scrambling over the kid to get into the driver's seat. Luck favored him better than me, because a set of keys was hidden under the seat and he quickly found them.
The mummies may not have been sentient, but they were smart enough to figure out that if I was in the van, they needed to be in the van, too.
Unfortunately, they all tried to cram into the same seat with me.
"Ack!" I yelled as Ginger lunged onto my lap. Another mummy, one bound totally in gauze, fell onto my shoulder, his face pushed into mine, the horrible mewling noise coming from lips that were dried and lifeless, and he smelled strongly of resin and age. I pulled away from his unintentional embrace, trying not to notice the black holes that were his empty eye sockets.
Adrian gunned the motor, looking over his shoulder as the last mummy, a bit more regal with its cartouches of a long-dead pharaoh painted on his wrappings, lunged toward the back seat, struggling to lift his withered legs high enough to get into the van. Adrian jumped out, grabbed a handful of gauze wrappings, and threw the mummy into the van, slamming the door behind him.
"Argh! What is this, pig-pile-on-Nell day? Get off!" I was covered with mummies. They moved feebly against me as I tried to push them off, but the force of the turn Adrian took as he swung the van into motion threw us all against the side of the van, me beneath the mummies.
Buried as I was, I didn't see the escape Adrian enacted to get us out of the museum parking lot, but if the amount of swearing under his breath and sounds of gunfire were any indicator, it was more than a little hair-raising.
"Police, Papa!" Damian said helpfully as I removed a withered elbow from my mouth, gently shoving a mummy aside enough so I could peer out through tangled bodies.
The police had indeed arrived, their cars pulling up outside the parking area.
"Get down!" Adrian ordered as his foot slammed down on the gas pedal. Damian crouched as we swung around, fishtailing madly, the rear of the heavy van slamming into a small police car blocking the street outside the parking lot. The mummies and I went flying to the floor in a heap, their cries taking on a happy, cooing sound as three pairs of ancient hands stroked the nearest of my body parts.
"I'm glad you guys are happy to find me, really I am, but this is too weird for words," I told them as I struggled out of the pile of mummies, pulling myself to my knees behind Damian's seat. Adrian had used the impact of the van to clear away one of the obstacles, the force of the van reversing at a high speed doing the rest of the job. He slammed on the brakes, yanked hard on the steering wheel, and jammed his foot down on the gas, effectively spinning the van around clear of the blockade. We burst out into traffic with a squeal of tires on asphalt, the mummies flying backward with the acceleration. I clung to the back of Damian's seat, damn near jumping out of my skin when a black shadow at the edge of the road threw itself onto the passenger-side front window.
Adrian's face was plastered up against the window, his eyes almost white with fury.
"Onkel Saer!" Damian gasped, lapsing into German as he flung himself back in his seat, one hand thrown up protectively as if to ward off a blow.
Adrian snarled a curse, yanking the steering wheel to the side in an attempt to dislodge Saer. We spun through a red light, barely missing a big lorry, the sounds of crumpling metal and breaking glass that trailed us through the intersection giving testament that others weren't so lucky. I sent up a little prayer that no one was hurt as I scrambled under the van seat until my hand closed around a familiar-shaped object. I opened the leather-bound volume, squinting in the dim light provided by the street-lamps to find the charm meant to stop an ejection curse. I found the pertinent words, grabbing Adrian's shoulder to tap into the blackness inside him.
"Adulterinus succenturio!" I yelled, throwing every ounce of purpose I had into the demand that Saer be displaced. I had forgotten that I still wore the ring. Adrian was right about its powers - not only had it protected me earlier so I felt not even the slightest sense of strain when charming Damian's curse, now it took a simple ejection curse and added the equivalent of a nuclear-powered wallop to it. One moment Saer was slamming his fist through the windshield, grabbing for a screaming Damian, the next he was flung to the side, splatting against a wall of the museum.
Adrian looked back at where I knelt on my pile of mummies, the charm book clutched in my hands. "Remind me never to make you angry while you're wearing that ring," he said.
I started to smile at him, but saw through the cracked windshield another familiar figure as it stepped into the street before us. "Adrian!" I shrieked, pointing.
His eyes narrowed as he beheld the figure of Christian, standing in the middle of the street holding up a hand in a command for us to stop. The van jumped forward as Adrian stomped on the accelerator, clearly intending to run down the other vampire.
"No, you can't!" I yelled, jerking on his shoulder. "Don't kill him!"
"Why not?" Adrian growled, his fingers tense on the steering wheel as the van hurtled directly toward Christian. The stupid man just stood there, inviting Adrian to run him over, but I couldn't stand that. Not that I cherished any warm feelings for him - he'd done his worst to try to kill Adrian - but when we were so close to regaining Adrian's soul, I wasn't about to let him blow it on a hasty act of revenge.
"Because you don't have your soul yet!"
"I told you - that was because Asmodeus's curse continues to bind me. If that was removed, I could reclaim my soul."
"Not if you go around..." I glanced over to where Damian was crouched against the back of his seat. His eyes were wide with horror as he watched Christian loom up before us. "Not if you kill someone without just cause. You can't run him down, Adrian. Please, don't do this. Don't risk everything for a fleeting moment of pleasure."
"Papa?" Damian asked, his face a mask of worry as the van approached Christian.
The vampire just stood there, as if he were giving Adrian the choice to kill him or not.
"Verdammt noch mal!" Adrian spat in German, jerking on the steering wheel at the very last second. The van's tires, not used to such driving, screamed on the asphalt as we spun around in almost a 180-degree turn. Inside the van, both Damian and I screamed, the mummies' high-pitched shrieks cut off as the van sideswiped three parked cars with a great crashing and squealing of metal upon metal. The engine coughed, sputtered, then died in a glorious silence.
A silence that was quickly filled by the sound of sirens racing toward us.
"Quickly, you must come with me!"
I pushed off the mummified body that lay across my head and looked in utter disbelief at the man who yanked open Damian's door and pulled the boy out of the wreckage.
"What - " I started to ask as Adrian lunged across the seat - the driver's side of the van was crumpled in, effectively locking the door - and threw himself on Christian with a snarl of rage so intense it raised the hairs on the back of my head. "Adrian, don't you dare kill Christian! I forbid it! Dammit, Ginger, stop hugging my legs. I need them. Let go of me, all of you!"
The mummies protested with distressed little noises my climbing over them to the passenger-side front door. I ignored them, half falling from the van to stagger over to where Adrian held Christian by the neck.
"Let go of him, Adrian," I said, watching as the blue lights down the road grew brighter. "We can't fight everyone."
"Nor do you have to," Christian said, his voice just a smidge hoarse. I had to give the vamp credit - I doubt that anyone else could have been throttled by Adrian and still be able to talk. "I am not your enemy. I am here to help you."
"I don't believe you," Adrian hissed. "You lie."
I shook my head at him, tugging on his arm. Damian stood behind the protection of his father, watching us all with bright, interested eyes. He didn't look afraid of Christian as he had Saer. "It doesn't matter if he's lying or not," I said. "We have to run. That traffic jam you left at the last intersection isn't going to stop the police for long."
Christian held up his hand. "I know now that it is Saer who is responsible for your son being held by Asmodeus, and that is the reason you sought the ring. I offer you my protection against your brother."
The mummies made it out of the van in one piece, hurrying toward us with happy little cries. An approaching car caught the weird trio in its headlights. The terrified driver slammed on the brakes, immediately shifted into reverse, and backed down the road until it crashed into an oncoming truck.
"Why would you offer to help us now when you have tried to kill me so many times in the past?" Adrian asked, his face hard with anger.
"It is your Beloved who made me realize the truth."
"She's your Beloved? Oh, no, now we're never going to get rid of her," Damian moaned.
I jerked Adrian's arm, ignoring the warning growl that resulted, shoving myself between the two men until I had Adrian's attention. "Look, it doesn't matter why he's had a change of heart, he has. So let's take advantage of it, because those guys" - I pointed down the street to where a phalanx of police cars was trying to circumnavigate the multi-car pile-up that blocked the intersection - "aren't going to take long before they go around the block! We've got to get out of here or we'll spend the rest of our unnatural lives in jail for antiquities theft."
"There is a threat much greater than the police," Christian added. His black eyes met Adrian's. "Your brother has raised an army, and is joined by Sebastian. Together they seek to destroy you, your Beloved, and your son."
Adrian hesitated. I put my hand on his chin and turned his face so he was looking at me. I was pinned between the two men, Adrian still holding Christian in a death grip. "We have no choice, love. We've run out of options. We have to trust him."
"You ask me to trust the man who just a few days ago planned to execute me? The man who would see you dead without a single regret? Why do you ask this of me?"
"I give you my word that I will not harm any of you," Christian said quietly.
I ignored him as I leaned forward to brush a kiss against Adrian's lips. Damian made gagging noises. "Why do I trust him? Simple, lambykins. He's the only man who's shown the good sense to believe what I tell him."