Chapter 11
“Fuck Sullivan,” Alistair said viciously as they pulled away from the mansion gates.
He’d climbed into the rumble seat in human form, so he could lean forward between Wanda and Sam to talk.
Unfortunately, that meant Wanda had to leave the roadster’s top down, so cold air whipped past the windscreen and left Sam shivering despite his coat.
Sam hadn’t understood all of the undercurrents swirling around the room, but he knew Sullivan had backed them into a corner. Still. “I’m sure things with the new bootlegger will work out,” he said with determined cheerfulness.
“Unless Sullivan’s the one taking out the independent operators,” Alistair shot back.
He hadn’t considered that. He knew he was working for a murderer, of course he did, but somehow it hadn’t seemed quite so real before.
He was complicit, whether he wanted to be or not.
Alistair’s hand settled on his shoulder. “I’m sorry, sweetheart. I shouldn’t have been so sharp with you. I’m just worried.”
“Sullivan has me working on some Ancient Egyptian hex from a three-thousand year-old tomb,” Sam said. “What if it does something awful? What if he uses it against you? Us?”
He’d failed so many times before. Jake’s death, Mom’s death…what if the hexes he worked on hurt Alistair and the others?
God, they were probably already being used to hurt other people, knowingly or not. He had blood on his hands.
“Sam.” Alistair’s fingers tightened. “You keep working on that hex, you hear me? Do whatever Sullivan wants. Do not cross him, understand?”
Damn it. Sam turned to stare at the passing scenery without taking it in. “You were right, Alistair. I should never have gone to work for Sullivan.”
Wanda snorted. “And why should you have listened to a guy who’s running a speakeasy? Consorting with rumrunners and corrupt policemen, paying out bribes to everyone from building inspectors to the alderman? If you want to hand out blame, ladle the rest of us a portion, too.”
“We were in the middle of this long before you came along,” Alistair agreed.
“Regret won’t change anything.” Wanda’s gloved fingers tightened on the wheel. “Right now, we have to look to the future. Between Fabiano and Sullivan, we’re getting dragged into things whether we want to or not.”
“So what do we do?” Sam asked.
She glanced at him. “We prepare to go to war.”
* * *
Things seemed to go wrong from the moment Sam set foot in the hexworks the next morning.
First one of the guards showed up drunk, and since Sam was the one in charge, he had to send the man home and call in a replacement from the list Bellinowski had given him.
Then he had to show a new hexwoman the scriptoriums and get her settled with a desk and the proper equipment.
Well, technically he could have delegated that to the scriptorium overseer, but everyone else had enough work to do and he felt bad about adding more.
When he finally arrived at the lab, Luke and Glenda were waiting on him, though only Luke seemed annoyed at the delay. “Are you ready to get the disc out?” he demanded as Sam came in.
Sam shook his head. “There’s a man—I don’t know his real name—an expert in Ancient Egypt. He’s going to come look at it this evening.”
“I can’t stay late,” Luke said. “I have things to do.”
“I think he’d rather not have an audience, to be honest.” Sam scratched the back of his neck. “He didn’t seem happy to be involved in, uh, this. And I don’t blame him—I guess this discovery would have been the sort of thing that would have put him in the history books in other circumstances.”
Glenda winced. “Poor guy. I wouldn’t be happy in his shoes.”
Things didn’t improve after that. Luke sniped constantly, some of the other workers had questions that apparently only Sam could answer, and he owed Sullivan a report—written in code for security—on how things were going in the hexworks.
Which in turn meant compiling reports from the overseers of the separate scriptoriums and adding his own thoughts.
Unfortunately, one of the reports was missing, so he had to visit the scriptorium and ask the overseer about it. The woman swore she’d given it to Paladino, who usually collected them. He tracked down Paladino, who in turn swore he’d left it with the others in the lab.
It wasn’t there now, so Sam asked the overseer to recompile it, which of course didn’t make her happy. Which made him feel guilty for having to ask.
Between one thing or another, the day ended without having a moment to himself.
He’d brought dinner from home, nothing more than a ham sandwich and a bottle of Bevo, which he quickly gulped down.
Almost as soon as he swallowed the last bite, Paladino knocked on the door with Doc standing behind him.
“Your visitor, boss,” Paladino said.
Sam hated being called boss, even if it was accurate in this case. It made him feel like he was playing a part he was in no way fit for. “Thank you, Mr. Paladino. I can take it from here.”
Paladino touched the brim of his hat. “Sure thing. Let me know if you need anything.”
Sam ushered Doc inside. “Wait here a minute,” he said outside the door to his office. He slipped inside, undid the various hexes on the safe, and removed the box and disc from within.
Doc stood where he’d left him, arms resolutely crossed over his chest and his eyes fixed on the floor, as if determined not to see more than he had to.
“Here it is,” Sam said, carefully placing it on a clear worktable.
Doc’s eyes lit up and he hurried over to it. “Ah—look at the artistic style. Definitely from the Amarna Period.”
“The disc is inside.”
“The container may be just as important.” Doc picked up one of the magnifying glasses used for delicate hexwork. “Let’s separate them for the moment, so I can get a better look at both.”
Sam gestured for him to do the honors. He opened the box and gently—no, reverently—removed the golden disc.
“This is most certainly meant to represent the disc of Aten. I’ve never seen either hieroglyphs or hexes written in a spiral before, though.
Perhaps another quirk of the Amarna Period, especially since Akhenaten changed the relationship to magic. ”
A clue, perhaps? “What do you mean?”
Doc carefully set the disc aside. “The Egyptian gods were both familiar and witch in one—the source and executor of magic combined. Familiars became priests of whatever god their animal form was most aligned to. A crocodile would serve Sobek, a bovine Hathor, a cat Bast, and so on.”
“Was there a cheetah god?” Sam asked, curious.
“Mafdet. She protected against the bite of snakes and scorpions.”
Not a bad goddess to be a priest of. He made a mental note to tell Alistair later.
“Some overlap developed between the gods as the millennia went on,” Doc continued, “but you get the gist. Hexworkers trained at the temples alongside other scribes, and most witches joined their familiar’s temple as priests after bonding.
Magic—or heka, as it was called—was believed to exist in all things, but only those chosen by the gods could truly wield it. ”
“And Akhenaten outlawed all the gods but Aten, then made himself and his family the only point of contact with Aten, right?” Sam asked, hoping he’d understood everything.
“Exactly,” Doc said, seeming pleased. “Now, we don’t actually know how that worked in terms of hexes.
People could no longer go to their local temple to get one.
Did only those closest to the pharaoh receive magic now?
Was Akhenaten a witch, a familiar, or neither?
What about Nefertiti? What happened to the familiars who used to be priests?
” He spread his hands apart. “There are too many gaps in the record to be sure. Or there were, depending on what we uncover amongst Neferneferuaten’s grave goods. ”
Discoveries he could never tell anyone about. “I see. Are you still looking at those?”
“As long as I’m allowed to.” Doc glanced at him. “Did you ask Sullivan about making a donation?”
He’d been so caught up in the situation between Sullivan, Fabiano, and The Pride, he’d forgotten all about Doc’s request. “Not yet—I’m sorry. I promise I will next time I see him.”
Doc didn’t look happy, but only turned back to the box. “Let’s just get to work.”