The List Of Seven (33 page)

"Did you say large Egyptian statue?"

"Yes. Possibly Anubis or Tuamutef—funereal deities, similar purpose, concerned with weighing a man's soul as he passes to the other side—"

Doyle's muscles were shaking violently with exertion. "Could we forgo the mythology lesson long enough to decide if you're heading up or down? I don't know that I can hold on much longer."

"Sorry. If you let me down slowly, Doyle, I think I can grab hold of the statue, let go the braces, and climb down the rest of the way."

"Fine."

Doyle lowered Sparks until he could reach down with one foot and steady himself against the statue's shoulder. He un-snapped his own braces, and both pairs flew into the air. Doyle reached out, caught them, and slumped back against the wall in relief, the knots in his arms relaxing into merely agonizing spasms.

"I believe it's definitely Tuamutef," said Sparks, sliding down the figure's body to the ground. "Quite rare outside of Egypt. Remarkable. I can't actually recall ever seeing one this size before."

"How interesting for you. What do you suggest I do now, Jack?"

"Tie off the braces and lower yourself down. You really shouldn't miss this, Doyle."

"I wouldn't dream of it."

Doyle collected himself, tied the braces as securely around the ladder as his knowledge of seafaring knots would allow, and let himself ever-so-gently down into the arms of dog-faced Tuamutef.

'Tuamutef assisted Anubis in the preparation of bodies for mummification and burial," said Sparks, walking around with the candle, inspecting the statue at its base as Doyle attempted a difficult, chafing passage down Tuamutef's bumpy torso. "His particular province was the stomach, specifically the removal and preservation of the viscera for the journey into the underworld."

"This, I can say with some assurance, is as far into the underworld as I ever hope to go," said Doyle, finally touching down beside him.

"The viscera were packed in airtight jars with a compound of herbs and spices that delayed decomposition, so you could take them out and stick the organs right back into place once you reached the other side," said Sparks, preoccupied to the point of obliviousness.

"Fascinating, truly, but Jack, if you don't mind my asking, if someone has in fact sealed us in down here with evil intent—one of many possibilities, I realize, but one we really ought to consider—don't you think it would be a good idea—a really first-rate idea, in fact—for us to quickly find our way out of here?"

"Right."

Sparks looked off in both directions. Doyle couldn't help but notice that their candle was growing perilously small. Behind the statue, he spotted what appeared to be a blackened torch set in a bracket on the wall and quickly retrieved it.

"This appears to be an old Roman conduit—can't seem to shake off those persistent old buggers, can we? London's lousy with them. This one has been rather extensively refurbished. Aside from the parties responsible for the construction of the shaft we just descended, a fairly recent addition, it's likely no one else is even aware this tunnel's down here. And if the used torch you've just handed me is any indication, it has been used by those parties sometime within the last few days."

Sparks ignited the torch from the candle, filling the chamber with twenty times the previous supply of light. A huge, pulsating shadow of Tuamutef was thrown menacingly onto the opposite wall.

"Which way should we go?"

"The tunnel runs north to south." He pointed south, where the walls curved gently away around a turn, just as a muffled scuffling issued faintly from the direction.

"What was that?" asked Doyle.

They listened. The scuffle repeated, slowly and rhythmically. It seemed to be moving toward them.

"Footsteps?" said Doyle.

"The person is injured. Dragging one foot behind." "Larry?"

"No, they're not wearing shoes." Sparks turned back to the north and examined the bricks on either side of the water. "If we follow the wax drippings in this direction, which Larry has thoughtfully provided for us, we will much more quickly discover his whereabouts."

Maintaining the same sluggish pace, the footsteps behind them drew closer to the nearest turn.

"Then who do you suppose that is?" asked Doyle, lowering his voice.

"I never ask questions I don't really wish to know the answer to. Let's move on."

They sloshed through the shallow water and made for the north.

"As to what Tuamutef is doing here a hundred feet below the offices of Rathborne and Sons ..." Sparks mused as they walked.

"You mentioned the removal of the viscera. Similar to what was done to the body of that streetwalker Leboux showed to me, isn't it?"

"The thought had occurred to me. It suggests the Dark Brotherhood is paying obeisance to an ancient Egyptian deity."

"You mean as a sacrificial offering of some kind?"

"These people are dedicated pagans—that opens their field of worship to the collective pantheon—and with his years in Egypt, Alexander is surely up to snuff on his Tuamutef/' said Sparks. "Something has just struck me about one of the seven names on our list."

"Which?"

"Maximilian Graves—what does that bring to your mind?"

Doyle ran it back and forth. "I'm sure I don't know."

"An alias, a play on words. Do you see it? Makes-a-million graves. Precisely the sort of diseased jest Alexander used to play with obsessively in his letters. Beware the inveterate punster, Doyle, it's a sure sign of brewing mental disturbance."

"You think Alexander's responsible for Tuamutef being there?"

"Yes. In which case he's responsible for that woman's murder."

"But if it was a ritual of some kind, why were her organs left at the scene? Surely they would have returned them here, to their shrine."

"Perhaps the ritual was interrupted before completion, that's not a worry—the thing is, I'm puzzled by what the statue itself is doing here."

"Convenience—pop down the ladder with a bowl of guts for the old boy whenever the mood strikes—"

"No, Doyle," said Sparks somewhat impatiently, "we're in complete agreement on the reason for the statue being here; I'm trying to work out how it physically arrived."

A light flickered around the curve of the tunnel ahead. Sparks stopped and gave out with another low whistle. A moment later, the whistle was returned.

"Larry," said Doyle.

"Step lively, Doyle. We're still being followed."

Trotting on a hundred yards around the bend to where the tunnel terminated abruptly, they found Larry working by the light of his candle on the padlock of an immense doorway set into the dead-end wall.

"Sorry for the inconvenience, guv," said Larry as they approached.

"Are you all right?" asked Doyle.

"Never better. The drop down was a bit more steep than I'd bargained for, I can tell you, knocked the Jenny Lind right out of me when I hit bottom. By the time I got my bellows and candle goin' again and caught an eyeful of that bloody dog-man, I thought silence might be the advisable course of action."

"The trap was closed after us," said Sparks, inspecting the doors.

"Figured this for a setup job," said Larry, lining his center bit up on the padlock. "Got in a mite too easy, didn't we?"

"Why didn't you say something?" said Doyle.

"Not my place, is it?"

Sparks knocked on the iron door and got back a booming, hollow echo.

"Listen to that. Hardly sounds like the end of the passageway, does it?"

"We gots a right rusty padlock to get through before we find out," said Larry, pounding on his center bit. "Bloody stubborn."

"I say, Larry," said Doyle, "you didn't happen to venture down that tunnel the other way before coming here, did you?"

"No, sir—come on, give!"

"I only ask, you see, because we heard what sounded like someone walking toward us from that direction."

"I wouldn't know about that—bloody bastard!" Larry hammered away again at the lock.

"Hold up for just a moment, Larry," requested Sparks.

Larry paused. The echo of his last blow faded, and issuing out of the quiet that descended they heard the same relentless step-drag approaching from the south. Only now there were multiple variations of that familiar rhythm: three, four, five footfalls, possibly more—whether there were actually others present or it was simply some acoustic peculiarity of the tunnel was impossible to determine.

"Proceed, Larry," said Sparks, moving back toward the curve.

"Anything I can help you with, Larry?" asked Doyle.

"One-man job, idn't it?" said Larry irritably.

Sparks used the light to scan the walls. Lifting a second torch from the clutch of another iron sconce, he set it aflame and handed it to Doyle.

"Do you think it's gray hoods?" said Doyle quietly.

"They're a good deal swifter afoot than whatever we're hearing at the moment, wouldn't you agree?"

"Yes."

"And if someone did close that door with the intention of trapping us here, it's not unreasonable to assume they must be confident something was going to stand rather forcefully in the way of our escaping."

The footsteps grew close enough to hear intermittent splashing and not promisingly, the pace of the steps seemed to be quickening.

"More than one now," said Doyle.

"More like ten."

Doyle and Sparks moved back away from the turn.

"Come along now, Larry," said Sparks. "Speed is of the essence."

"Got it!" said Larry, as he pierced the lock with a final blow and ripped it off the clasp. "Give a hand, gents."

All three men grabbed one side of the double doors and heaved. The neglected hinges protested mightily but began to resentfully yield. Doyle looked behind them as they labored; he saw the outline of a column of tall black shapes emerging from the darkness fifty feet behind them.

"Pull, damn it! Pull!" exhorted Sparks.

With Sparks's and Doyle's ability to apply useful leverage hampered by the torches in their hands, the gap grew to an inadequate six inches. They dropped the torches and put then-whole backs into the effort, but the door stubbornly gave up only fractions of an inch at a time. Larry squeezed through the crack and pushed back on the door toward them. Hinges wailed like a wounded ox; the breach widened another inch. Doyle chanced another hurried glance backward; the tall shapes formed a picket line of angular, indistinct, but decidedly human silhouettes, lumbering and weaving toward their position at the doors. There were considerably more than ten of them. The three men were apparently visible to their pursuers now, for a collective sound came out of the pack, a hideous, breathy, burbling snarl. Redoubling their assault on the door with the inspired strength of angels, they secured another precious two inches of space.

"Go, Doyle, go!" said Sparks.

Doyle turned sideways, shoved himself through to the other side, put his shoulder to the door, and pushed back with all his might, as Larry stuck out a hand and pulled Sparks through.

"The torches!" said Sparks.

Doyle reached back into the gap. As he took hold of the torch, a blackened, fingery mass of exposed sinew, tendon, and bone, dripping seared and tattered rags, clamped a vise-like grip on his wrist; Doyle bellowed in pain and surprise. In one swift move, Larry drew a knife from its holster and swiped the attacking arm. The blade sliced cleanly through its tissues as through wax paper; an appalling howl clawed the air as the severed limb fell away from the hand. Doyle shook the hand frantically off his wrist as Sparks took hold of his

collar and yanked Doyle back through the opening, the torch still clutched in his hand.

"Pull, pull it shut!" Sparks shouted. "Help us, Doyle!"

Doyle scrambled to his feet and joined them as they grabbed a handle fixed to the inside of the door and pulled for their lives, the memory of their ancestors and their progeny to come. The hinges moved more cooperatively back toward them, and the gap quickly closed, but not before they saw a squalid, feverish windmill of fetid arms and hands foul the air they'd just been breathing. Frantic, frustrated squeals worthy of a saint's last temptation tormented their ears, and a smell of a hundred desecrated sepulchers made a mockery of innocence before the void was sealed. They quickly lifted and slid a thick steel bar designed for such a purpose through the twin handles of the doors, securing their position, at least for the moment; the pounding and pummeling and scratching of nails on the other side of the iron doors that followed made speech, if not thought, impossible. At a signal from Sparks, pointing the torch in the direction he wanted them to go, the three men moved quickly and gratefully away from the doors.

They ran headlong, without a thought to direction or distance. As their senses returned from the brink, and the torchlight revealed their surroundings, they realized this was no continuation of the tunnel; they were greeted by dimly lit vistas of a vaulted, train-station-sized chamber, where boxes and crates of every imaginable size, shape, and function were stacked like building blocks, forming a jagged-toothed skyline* They stopped to catch their breath and still the awful beating of their hearts. The hammering on the doors behind them continued, but at enough remove to allow them the luxury of brief respite.

"Jesus Christ!" said Larry. "Spectacles, testicles, wallet, and watch, wot the bloody hell!"

"It was going to crush the bones of my wrist or pull the arm right off my shoulder," said Doyle, testing the area for trauma.

"The devil's own punchbowl is what that was," said Larry. "That was old Horns and Hoofs himself nearly put the pinch on us. Up your uncle, Nick!"

"Easy," cautioned Sparks.

Knife still in hand, Larry would not be stilled, angrily semaphoring an eloquent series of obscenities back in the direction of their attackers.

"Feather and flip you, daisy boots! Back to hell where yer mother waits patiently! I'll carve you like a Christmas pudding, you mingy pross! I'll sort you out large, Sinbad the Sailor your skidgy hide, 'n' have your guts for garters! You twig me, yobbos? A handful a' fives for you!' "