Spirit and Dust - By Rosemary Clement-Moore Page 0,85
huge amount of energy to manifest, even to just me.
“You’ve done it,” he said, as jovial as Santa at Christmas, ruddy cheeks flushed above his white beard. His excitement seemed to draw an answering pulse from the jackal. “You’ve found the part of me that was missing,” said Oosterhouse. “I felt it waken, and it pulled me here.”
I felt the stirring spirit, then, a remnant of Oosterhouse in the basalt jackal, so faint that I’d only felt the potential of it. How could such a small or dormant trace have the power to bring the other shade to it?
“What’s going on?” murmured Carson, close at my shoulder. “You’ve got a funny look on your face, and I don’t like it.”
Him and me both.
The teacher rubbed the back of her neck, as if soothing a prickle of unease. She hurried her students along, leaving Carson and me alone with one specter and a collective of ancient shades.
“Oosterhouse is here,” I told him, turning to watch the professor move around the room, taking in the dioramas and displays of the mummification chamber with avid curiosity.
Carson looked startled. “I thought you said he couldn’t leave the artifact.”
“I didn’t think he could.”
The room kept getting colder and the shade kept getting stronger, as if the place was feeding him somehow. That was not good. I glanced at Carson and realized with my own shock that he was watching the spirit, too, without any help from me.
“Can you See him?” I asked.
“Yeah.” He didn’t sound happy about it. “I don’t know how.”
Oosterhouse finished his perusal on the far side of the stone jackal, standing with his back to us, hands linked behind him as his ghostly gaze roved over the murals and hieroglyphs decorating the replica tomb. “How fortuitous that we should end up here. This shall do nicely.”
“Do for what?” I asked, the bad feeling turning into more of a stab of dread.
He seemed buoyant, happy I’d asked. “A sense of ceremony, dear girl.”
“What does that mean?” asked Carson. Apparently he could hear as well as see him.
Oosterhouse turned with a condescending smile. “I’ll explain slowly, my boy. Try to keep up. You have found the piece of my spirit which lay with my bones. My ka. Now only the akh, the part waiting in the afterlife, remains.”
“You’re speaking in riddles,” snapped Carson. “Is this the Oosterhouse Jackal or not?”
“What you seek is here.” He laid his hand on the jackal’s head, fingers spread between the pointed ears. When he shifted his gaze to me, his eyes were dark with feverish intensity. “Keep your promise, Kebechet, and I will show you the secrets of the Black Jackal.”
“What did you call me?” My breath misted in the air and frost crept up the glass of the display cases, but it was nothing compared with the cold premonition uncurling in my chest.
“Daughter of Anubis,” said the professor, shadowed eyes holding mine. “Protector of the dead. Only you can help me. No one else can do what you do.”
“He’s playing you, Sunshine.” Carson’s voice was all gravel and warning. “Don’t let your ego make you do something foolish.”
Annoyance broke the specter’s hold on me, and I turned a scathing glance on Carson. “I’m not an idiot.”
Even if what the professor said about me happened to be true. I didn’t know anyone who could do what I do.
I gave Oosterhouse my attention once more, but I was back in control. “Tell us how the Jackal works,” I said. “Then I’ll open the Veil for you to move on.”
“You have the book, don’t you?” His earnestness rang false. But remnants couldn’t lie. “It will tell you all you need to know.”
“What book?” I asked, then realized I was an idiot. “The Book of the Dead?”
“I know you have it. I can sense it.” All sincerity vanished, leaving only the glitter of avarice in the specter’s gaze as he pointed to Carson. “He is carrying it now.”
I shot a look at Carson, who was coming to the same realization that I had. Alexis hadn’t hidden a clue to the book or the Jackal. We’d been carrying Oosterhouse’s translation of the Book of the Dead all this time.
Carson reached into his pocket, pulling out the mummy-shaped flash drive. “You mean this?” Oosterhouse’s gaze seized on it hungrily. “First, the secret of the Jackal.”
Something moved behind me in the dark. I whirled, and kept turning as three, then four, then five young men stepped into the replica tomb, blocking all the exits.