Deader Still (29 page)

As I approached, the sounds I heard became more familiar. It was the sound of someone digging through packing materials, without a doubt. Given the state my living room was often in, with all its own half-packed antiques and art finds, I could hardly mistake it. I chanced a peek around the corner of one side of the arch.

The room before me was so dark and long that it disappeared into the shadows. Wooden packing crates marked with symbols both arcane and simply illegible cluttered the entire area, reminding me of the government warehouse at the end of
Raiders of the Lost Ark
. At first glance I didn’t notice anyone, so I quickly slipped around the edge of the arch and sank into the shadows of the piled crates. As I crept forward, my mind began to play tricks on me in the darkness.

Be vewy, vewy quiet, I thought. I’m hunting chupacabras.

Row after row of crates formed a labyrinth as I proceeded toward the sounds. Within several minutes my sense of direction was shot to hell. I had zero idea of which path actually led back to my escape route after the first few turns, but I supposed I’d improvise if a hasty retreat were called for. Knowing my luck, it would probably be hastier than not.

I peeked around one corner and spied movement up ahead, and for once the sound didn’t seem muffled anymore. Light, however, was not at its best here, and all I could make out was shadowy movement against the backdrop of three half-opened crates that looked like they had been searched through in haste. I pressed myself against the opposite row of crates as hard as I could and moved forward, keeping the bat hidden on the far side of my body to prevent it from catching any light on its metallic surface by accident.

As I got closer, a lone figure came into view, but before I finished closing in on it, I was able to identify it by the curvaceous shape of its dark silhouette.

“Mina,” I hissed.

Mina Saria bolted upright from the crate she was leaning halfway into, fistfuls of crumpled packing paper in her hands. She brandished them at me like weapons. Then she squinted, realized it was me, and threw the two handfuls back into the crate, looking relieved.

“Jesus, Simon,” she whispered. “For a second there I was almost scared.”

I pulled my bat out from behind me. “I’m still holding a bat, you know.”

“As if you’re gonna brain me,” she said, then turned back to the crate and began rummaging around again. “Didn’t I just save you from the walking dead last night?”

My jaw ached with a phantom pistol-whipping just from seeing her again.

I closed the distance between the two of us, grabbed her by the arm, and pulled her back up to standing position. I pushed the end of the bat up under her chin.

“I owe you one,” I said, trying to sound as threatening as I could.

Mina looked me straight in the eye. I wasn’t comfortable with the idea of smacking her around, and she knew it.

“Give me a break, Simon. It’s not in your nature to beat down a lady.”

“Maybe in your case I’ll make an exception,” I said, then tried to flash her as intimidating a look as I could, but it was no use. I lowered the bat. “Fine, although there’s some argument to be made as to whether you qualify as a lady. My jaw thinks otherwise.”

Mina considered this. “You wound me,” she said, “but in all fairness, I
did
pull you out of there. I could have left you to those … those things. Now, if you’ll just stand guard, maybe I can find what I came here for.”

She dove back into the crate, almost falling into it as she leaned over to check deeper down inside it.

“Mina, what are you doing here?” I asked. “You were supposed to leave town.”

She ignored me.

I sighed and gave a nervous look around. Dark and dangerous nooks and crannies were everywhere. If the chupacabra was here, I’d have to get Mina out fast, if only to beat her senseless later myself.

“Mina, trust me, you don’t want to be messing with whatever’s going on here. There are things going on that you don’t understand, that
I
barely understand. Just get out.”

All I could imagine was an evil, red-eyed attack from one of the creatures I had seen sketches of, the same one Dr. Kolb’s spirit had described to us and that I’d seen for a brief moment when I was the DJ.

It suddenly came to me what didn’t fit in this scenario. In my mind, Mina and my casework had always been in two separate compartments that had nothing to do with each other. Why, then, in the middle of my work-related investigation, was she here?

“I just want my painting,” Mina said, and for once, I actually heard nervousness in her voice.

“Wait … what’s going on, Mina?” I asked, concerned. “I helped you steal
The Scream
. What happened to it after you stole it? What have you gotten yourself into?”

“Nothing,” she said with sharpness, but she kept on digging. A few seconds later she stopped. “Shit. It’s not here.”

Mina checked a series of numbers marked on the three boxes she had looked through.

“What have you gotten yourself into?” I repeated.

Mina looked more worried than ever and started pacing.

“Nothing,”
she said, repeating herself again, more frenetic this time.

“Bullshit,” I said with anger in my voice, but then I softened. She was spooked, no doubt. “Those zombies were after
you
last night at the museum. If you tell me what you’ve gotten yourself into, maybe I can help.”

Mina looked hesitant.

“Trust me,” I said, almost blushing with pride over the fact that I was in my element. “I’m sort of an expert on these things. It’s my day job.”

“I know,” she said.

That
took me aback.

“What? How? How do you know?”

Mina crossed her arms over her chest as she paced, looking lost in her own world of thought.

“Last night,” she said, “with the zombies … you were right. They weren’t after you. They were after me, but I couldn’t take the time to explain why. I couldn’t. So I knocked you out.”

“Why would zombies be coming after
you
, Mina?”

“That’s not important,” she said, and before I could beg to differ, she continued. “Look, I made some deals in exchange for my freedom. My employer asked me to do something that … I just couldn’t.”

“You were supposed to kill me,” I said, “weren’t you?”

Mina nodded. “Before the heist, I called him and told him that, tried to reason and bargain with him, but to no avail. I had to get out of town, but you know me … I still hoped that I could snag
The Scream
before that. I didn’t think he’d send fucking zombies after me.”

“Then why knock me out?” I asked. “I thought for sure I’d wake up craving brains once the zombies got to me.”

“Sorry,” Mina said. “I panicked. I didn’t have time to explain any of it and the zombies were coming, so I went with my usual answer to things—violence. When I saw you lying there it would have been so easy to just take the painting and run, but even then I couldn’t do it. Even after you had turned your back on everything our gang used to have. I hated you for that, but I couldn’t just leave you there to die. So it was either carry you or the painting. I put the damn thing down to get you out of there, but by the time I went back for it, the remaining zombies were there. I had to flee.”

It was strange seeing the softer side of Mina. Strange, and a little creepy.

“Mina,” I started, “I don’t know what to say …”

She put her hand up.

“Don’t say anything,” she said. “You’re just making this next part harder.”

“Making what harder?” I asked, but it was too late. I saw the crowbar she’d used to open the packing crate in her hands. She raised it and swung for the base of my neck before I could even raise my bat. Once again, I had let my guard down around her, and part of me almost felt like I deserved what was coming.

“A lady’s got to do what a lady’s got to do,” she said as the impact sent instant stars across my vision.

Fuck chivalry, I thought on my way to the ground. The next time I saw Mina it was going to strictly be on a “bat first, ask questions later” basis. That was, if there was a next time.

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.