Spirit and Dust - By Rosemary Clement-Moore Page 0,93

of the library computers. “Come look at this,” said Lab Coat. There was a breaking-news Web page with the headline HOSTAGE CRISIS AT NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM. HALLUCINOGENS USED TO CAUSE PANIC.

“Hallucinogens,” Carson said, reading over Lab Coat’s shoulder. “That’s the story they’re going with?”

“Just wait.” Lab Coat switched to a grainy video of the patrons running from blurry, dark figures, and one really good shot of my face as the mummies converged on me. “You’re a YouTube sensation!”

“Awesome,” I said, not feeling awesome about it at all. “Famous on the Internet.” Then a detail from the news site’s splash registered in my brain. “Go back to the main story for a sec.”

When he did, I scanned quickly, finding the line right away. FBI agents already on the scene. So it was more than possible I hadn’t imagined someone calling my name in the chaos. Since Taylor had Johnson’s name, he could have tracked him back to Chicago.

First things first. I turned to Carson and held out my hand. “Flash drive.” FBI or police, sooner or later, someone was going to send in a SWAT team to rescue the hostages, and that would be the end of my chance to put an end to the Black Jackal. I had to figure out how to do that before he worked loose of my binding or I got arrested.

Carson dropped the drive into my palm. It seemed to have faired well even after we’d gotten drenched. The plastic case was damp, but under that it was totally dry.

Marian had straightened from the YouTube watching and stepped over to watch us instead. “What do you need?” she asked.

“Answers,” I said.

“Well,” she said, with a hint of a smile. “This is a library. So we came to the right place.”

Finally a glimmer of hope.

Right before the lights went out.

30

THE GOOD NEWS? There was still emergency lighting. It cast the room in a garish red glow, and Smith explained that the security system was on a different power grid. Or something. All I knew was it wasn’t completely dark and the doors were still locked. The psychic defenses were still in place, too.

The bad news was we were cut off, trapped without phone, Internet, or Coca-Cola. Every once in a while we could hear a far-off bang, and Margo would fret over something else being broken. Stranger still, I could feel subtle, earthquakelike shifts in the psychic atmosphere, deep in the infrastructure of the building, as the Jackal tried to get free.

A rumble echoed from below, and Margo groaned in harmony. “Please don’t let it be Sue,” she whispered like a mantra. “Don’t let it be Sue.…”

“She is seriously worried about that dinosaur,” I whispered to Marian.

The librarian glanced at Margo with sympathy. “Sue may be one of the most valuable things in the museum. She’s truly one of a kind.”

“Let’s focus,” said Carson, drawing me back to the current task. I sat in front of the librarian’s laptop, where we’d plugged in the flash drive and were trying every password we could think of. Fortunately the computer had a full charge.

Not only were we trying words in English, but we tried them all in Spanish, French, Italian, Latin, Arabic, and Greek (ancient and modern), thanks to Marian and Soul Patch, whose name was Fred.

“How do you say ‘Black Jackal’ in Egyptian?” I asked, feeling like we were missing something obvious.

Fred considered the translation. “Try ‘Kemet Sab.’ ”

I did. Nothing.

Carson had been standing behind me, leaning over to see the screen. He straightened, rubbing his shoulder. I was sure it was one of many bruises. “This is crazy. For all we know, it could be some random string of numbers or letters. And time is running out.”

Lab Coat started whistling the theme to Jeopardy! Carson shut him up with a knife-edged glare. “That’s not helping.”

“Chill,” I said, trying to hide my own nerves. “I know you’re worried about Alexis. I’m worried about the city of Chicago. These people are worried about getting out of here. We’re all worried.”

He didn’t apologize, but he did compose himself. Not that I’d go so far as to say chill. “Okay. What languages haven’t we tried?”

Fred suggested, “German. A lot of Egyptology papers are written in German.”

So we started trying things in German, except now I had the theme from Jeopardy! stuck in my head. I’d never even asked how Alexis had done on the contest—

My fingers stilled on the keyboard as one half of my brain slapped the other half