Chapter 9
The next morning, Bellinowski waited outside the house to pick Sam up for work.
As soon as Fabiano left, Alistair had whisked them both home, then spent half the night pacing around the living room. He’d insisted Sam call Bellinowski, tell him Fabiano had been bold enough to walk right into The Pride. Sam was going to need protection, at least going to and from the hexworks.
“What about you?” he’d asked Alistair. “She’s already tried to kill you once!”
“Doris is going to come by in the truck. Don’t worry about me.”
Of course that wasn’t going to happen—Doris was formidable, but Fabiano’s men had Tommy guns. Hopefully Fabiano wanted to avoid a shootout in the streets, but what if she didn’t?
It felt as though everything was both speeding up and falling apart at the same time. This hadn’t been the life he’d imagined when he agreed to work for Sullivan. The idea he was important enough to kill seemed like an absurd nightmare.
“Morning, Choirboy,” Bellinowski said as he emerged from the car. Apparently Turner’s nickname for him was going to stick. “Mr. Sullivan has someone he wants you to meet.”
What now? “Oh?”
“Another wise head. He’s going to help us out with your current project. I’m taking you to him instead of to the hexworks today.”
Bellinowski opened the car door, and Sam had no choice but to climb in the back seat. Mrs. McIntyre sat in front, in human form; she smiled when he got in. “Good morning, Mr. Cunningham! There’s a gun under your seat, though you shouldn’t need it.”
A flash of fear went through Sam’s limbs. “But I might?”
“It’s just a precaution, in case Fabiano has anyone snooping around,” Bellinowski said as he slid in behind the driver’s seat. “Don’t worry, though—Angie Wings is keeping an eye out from above.”
“She’s a falcon,” Mrs. McIntyre added as Bellinowski pulled out. “If Fabiano has any pigeon spies following us, she’ll knock ’em out of the sky. She got a chest full of medals from doing the same to the Jerries over in Europe, so no goon of Fabiano’s has a chance.”
It had never even occurred to him that any of the ubiquitous pigeons might be familiars sent to spy on them—or worse. If this went on for long, he’d be too paranoid to leave the house.
They drove south into the loop, then kept on until they reached streets Sam had yet to set foot on. Eventually, they parked in front of a butcher’s shop with a closed sign in the window.
Unconcerned with the sign, Bellinowski went to the door and knocked. A few minutes later, a person of indeterminate gender opened it and beckoned them inside.
The front of the shop looked like any ordinary butcher’s Sam had set foot in, though the carcasses and cuts of meat had been removed from the windows while it was closed.
Fresh sawdust coated the floor, and either a shop cat or one of Sullivan’s people in cat form sprawled on the counter by the register, eyes cracked to watch their comings and goings.
A small door let into a back room filled with steel tables, knives of every imaginable shape and size, and the other implements of the butcher’s trade. Hexed cold lockers lined two of the walls, their doors firmly shut.
A third room waited behind a door marked “Private,” filled with crates Sam recognized from the meatpacking warehouse.
Most of them stood open now, and packing straw littered the floor.
A man stood at a small table in the middle of the room, peering through a magnifying glass at the same disassembled chair Sam had seen in the warehouse.
“This is Doctor—” Bellinowski began, but the man held up his hand.
“Just call me Doc,” he said sternly.
He was a bit older than Sam, his light brown hair in disarray, as though he’d run his hands through it. He wore a pair of silver-rimmed glasses and an off-the-rack suit that could have used some tailoring for his slight form.
Bellinowski tried again. “Doc, this is the hexmaster, Sam Cun—”
“I don’t want to know your names, either,” Doc snapped. “As soon as I’m done with this job, I intend to forget any of you so much as exist.”
It sounded as though he didn’t normally involve himself with criminal activities. “I’m sorry,” Sam said, “but I’m not sure what’s going on or why I’m here.”
“Doc works for the Field Museum,” Bellinowski said, seeming to relish Doc’s obvious discomfort. “He knows a lot about this Egyptian stuff, so he’s kindly offered his services to help us figure out what we’ve got. That includes the hex.”
Oh no—this poor man, who clearly would have preferred to be anywhere else, was here because Sam told Sullivan they needed an Egyptologist. Ignoring the worm of guilt squirming in his belly, he said, “That’s…that’s great.”
“I’ll leave you two to chat,” Bellinowski said with a wave of his hand. Once he was gone and the door shut, Sam turned back to Doc.
“Um, so what have you found out?” he asked tentatively.
“Oh, only things that would reshape our entire understanding of the Amarna Period and ensure my place in the annals of Egyptology, if only I could tell anyone about them,” Doc said, clutching at his hair. “If I break down weeping, that’s why.”
Guilt transformed from a worm into a heavy stone. “Oh. I’m, um, I’m sorry to hear that.”
“This needs to be analyzed using proper channels, but instead, here I am in the back of a butcher’s shop, studying stolen artifacts. I’d lose my career if anyone found out.” He glared at Sam. “So I’d better not see you in the Field.”
Sam held up his hands. “I’ll steer clear.”
Doc studied him for a minute, then sighed. “All right. Sullivan seems to think you have a brain, unlike those muscle-bound fools out front.”
That seemed unfair, but now wasn’t the time to point it out.
“I work with hexes. There’s a sort of golden disc that came with the rest of these things, that’s covered in hex signs.
They might add up to something interesting, or it might just be some sort of primer.
Some of them we don’t use nowadays, so we could use your help. ”
“I see. Do you have it with you?”
“No.”
Doc muttered something to himself and turned back to the chair. “All right. What do you know about the Amarna Period?”
“Nothing,” Sam said.
“The Heretic King? Akhenaten?”
It sounded vaguely familiar. “Did he have something to do with King Tutankhamun? Because I read every article in the paper when the tomb was discovered.” He glanced uneasily at the crates. “Wasn’t there a curse?”
“Of course there’s no curse,” Doc scoffed. “Lord Carnarvon died from blood poisoning and Howard Carter is still perfectly alive. The ‘curse’ was invented by so-called journalists to sell newspapers, nothing more.”
At least that was reassuring. “So Akhenaten?”
“A fascinating figure.” Doc’s voice took on a lecturing tone. “The Ancient Egyptians worshipped many gods, before and after his reign. One of the popular gods, at least in the time we’re talking about, was the Aten—the sun. Aten means disc; the sun is the golden disc of the day.
“At any rate, Amenhotep IV was a pharaoh of the New Kingdom, a bit over three thousand years ago. For reasons unclear to us—cynics will say to consolidate power, optimists say for religious beliefs—he declared Aten to be the sole god and changed his name to Akhenaten.”
Sam’s ears had perked at the talk of discs. “I’m guessing the priests of the other gods didn’t like that.”
“They most certainly did not. Especially when he positioned himself and his royal family as the sole intermediaries with Aten. Aten gave them all of life’s bounty through his many rays, and they in turn passed it on to everyone else.”
“The more I hear, the more I think I agree with the cynics.”
To his surprise, Doc cracked a smile at that. “You and I are in agreement. I could go on all day about the subject, but for our purposes, what’s important is that Akhenaten moved his capital to a new, purpose-built city that we call Amarna. Hence the Amarna Period.”
“To get further from the reach of the old priests?”
“That likely didn’t hurt, though I couldn’t say for sure.
” Doc shrugged. “Anyway, Akhenaten ruled for a little less than two decades, then died—how, we don’t know.
His Great Royal Wife Nefertiti took the throne after him and changed her name to Neferneferuaten.
Almost nothing was known about her…until now. ”
Sam’s heartbeat quickened. “This—did this all belong to her?”
“Incontrovertibly.” Doc’s expression soured.
“Tutankhaten succeeded her, changed his name to Tutankhamun, abandoned Amarna and Atenism and restored the worship of the old gods. Note the switch from Aten to Amun in his name—Amun being the old king of the gods. Most of the monuments and inscriptions bearing Akhenaten and Neferneferuaten’s names were destroyed—someone made a real effort to erase them from history altogether. ”
His shoulders slumped. “Do you see why this is such a tragedy? Her tomb was discovered! But instead of being properly excavated, it was looted, and the grave goods smuggled here, into the hands of criminals. No provenance, no photographs of the tomb itself, nothing. Even so, there would be great discoveries to make…”
“Except you can’t tell anyone what you’ve seen here without losing your career.” And possibly his life, though Sam didn’t want to say that out loud.
“Exactly.” Doc sat down and put his head in his hands.
Damn. “I’m sorry. You’re absolutely right; this should be studied, not sold off on the black market.”
Doc lifted his head. “You’re one of Sullivan’s people—can you talk to him? Convince him to make a donation or something?”
“I can try?” Sam said doubtfully. “I’m supposed to have dinner with him tonight.”
Doc looked hopeful at that, which made Sam feel bad, since he didn’t think he really had a chance of swaying Sullivan.
What did the gangster have on Doc, to force him into this position?
A gambling debt, blackmail, something else?
It seemed rude to ask, so Sam only said, “What are we supposed to be doing here? Mr. Bellinowski didn’t say. ”
“Inventorying all of this.” Doc gestured to the stacks of crates. “I’m sure some of it is hexed, so you can look at those items and see if there’s anything interesting. And I believe I’m supposed to report to your hexworks tomorrow evening, after my work at the museum is done for the day.”
“All right.” Sam pushed up the sleeves of his sweater. “Let’s get to work.”