Spirit and Dust - By Rosemary Clement-Moore Page 0,49

an archivist in a very specialized museum. I don’t get to show off very often.”

As he took the book from me, something slipped from the pages. We both bent to grab it and nearly bumped heads. He got flustered, and I got the manila card that had fallen to the tile floor. At first I thought it was the catalog card, but when I turned it over I saw, drawn in what looked like Sharpie, an ear. Vaguely anatomical, definitely recognizable.

“That’s an odd sort of bookmark,” said Elbows.

Yes, it was. I had no sense for magic, but I had two brain cells to rub together and a bad feeling about this. If it was some kind of spell, what else would an ear mean but that someone was listening?

So much to think about, but the clock in my head was ticking. I ripped the card in half, hoping it would break the spell, then turned again to Elbows. “Can you look up who last checked out this book?”

“Well, you can’t check out books from the archives,” he said, sending that lead into a nosedive. Then he added, “But I can probably see who last pulled it up in the catalog.”

“That would be so great.” Maybe I laid it on a little thick, but my gratitude was very real. Spell or not, whoever last looked up Oosterhouse and his Jackal could be the best lead for finding Alexis.

It would be even more awesome if he could go look that up quickly so I could get downstairs in the next two minutes and fifty-seven seconds. When the silence stretched to awkward, I pointed toward the stairs. “I’ll be right back. I just need to, um …”

“Oh!” He blushed again, and I was happy to let him assume whatever kept him from asking for details. “I’ll just be in the …” He sidled back the other way.

“Awesome.”

The instant his back was turned, I hurried down the steps, with the pieces of the manila card still in my hand. I put the scraps in my pocket as I reached the ground floor, and not-quite-ran toward the Egyptian gallery. I reached it with a minute to spare …

… and no privacy. The gallery was full of people. I mean, not packed, but inconveniently occupied. It had to be some kind of tour or class, because a docent was giving a talk around a sarcophagus and showing no signs of moving on.

Whatever Carson was going to do was going to happen in twenty seconds. Short of yelling “Fire,” I didn’t know how to get the group out of there. The mummy inside the sarcophagus might be quietly sleeping, but the guide was going to have plenty to say if I stepped over the low velvet cordon to put my hands on King Tut.

I was still racking my brain when the lights went out, plunging the gallery into pitch-black, holy-crap-I’m-in-the-dark-with-a-mummy darkness.

“Everyone hold still,” the docent ordered. “We don’t want you crashing into anything in the dark.”

Forget that. The faint remnant traces on the artifacts in the cases mapped out the room for me as I ran for the majestic sentry at the other end of the room. But I’d forgotten about the ankle-high cordon. I tripped with an almighty clatter of the brass stanchions, fell flat on my face, and only dumb luck kept me from concussing myself on the basalt pedestal.

“I said don’t move!” shouted the docent.

“I’m okay,” I yelled back, worried someone would come check on me. But I was not okay. I had to make contact before the lights came back on.

The stone was cool under my hands, and the hieroglyphs carved into the base were rough under my fingers. I called into the past, not as far as the ancient artists with their chisels but a hundred years back, in the psychic equivalent of a shout from the rooftop. Ivy Goodnight, if there’s any trace of you here, please answer.

Silence.

Aunt Ivy, I need your help!

All I got were approaching footsteps and the bobbing glow of flashlights.

Hope collapsed under the crushing weight of failure, and I dropped my head onto the floor with the rest of me. What now? This was the one thing I could do—talk to the dead. If this didn’t work, what good was I to Alexis?

There was the lead I’d emailed to Taylor. Michael Johnson. And the fact that Alexis had been here with him. And the clue of the ear card. And the jackal statue that was in the