waterfront in Golgotham. He wanted to make an example to the others, so he sicced his familiar on some poor wretch. It was horrible.”
Hexe’s smile vanished like breath on a mirror. “Did he see you?”
“Yes,” I said quietly, shuddering as I replayed the moment over in my head.
“Did he say anything to you?”
“No, he just smirked and gave me this little wave,” I replied, unable to suppress a grimace of disgust. “I was so shook up, Canterbury sent me home for the day.”
“I thought I heard something interesting going on,” Scratch snarled, leaping from the kitchen floor to his usual perch atop the refrigerator. “I can’t believe that asshole has the balls to show his face again in Golgotham!”
“You mean Marz?” I asked.
“
Chapter 5
Whoever coined the term “absence makes the heart grow fonder” clearly had never met Boss Marz. Over the next few days the Maladanti quickly picked up from where they had left off, collecting “tribute” from the businesses along the waterfront and the brothels and cabarets of Duivel Street.
The return of the Maladanti was not felt just by the citizens of Golgotham; the twunts who had come to know the red-light district only during the crime cartel’s eclipse were swiftly and roughly schooled as to what was considered proper decorum in the gentlemen’s clubs under their “protection.”
I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop, but it never did. After that creepy little smile he gave me at the Fly Market, I was convinced Marz had something villainous planned for us. But no one left a decapitated goat’s head on our doorstep or attempted to curse me. I guess Boss Marz was simply too busy trying to reestablish his hold on Golgotham to waste time and energy on personal revenge.
Still, despite the Maladanti’s apparent disinterest in us, Scratch continued his nightly patrols, and I never took off the protective glad eye amulet Hexe created for me. Better safe than sorry. I’ll admit I was initially anxious, but after enduring jealous ex-girlfriends trying to curse me, being attacked by soulless homunculi, and having my arm broken by a demon, I had built up a pretty thick skin, and once several days had gone by and the crime lord had yet to make a move, I decided I had better things to do than worry about what Boss Marz’s evil plan might be.
So I put on my welder’s helmet and fired up my torch and threw myself headlong into my work. The Maladanti be damned, I had a project to finish and I wasn’t going to let a bunch of spellslinging goons in bad suits screw with my deadline. For the next month, Canterbury and I put in long, arduous hours every day of the week. I came home so exhausted I could barely take off my clothes before crawling into bed.
We finished the installation at the end of March, less than a week before the Jubilee. Even replicated in reduced scale, it still took three brawny Clydesdale-sized centaurs and six ipotane drovers to load and haul the crates containing the clockwork dragon to its new home. On the day of the delivery Canterbury led the convoy from the shop, hitched to a cart containing our welding equipment and other tools, while I rode shotgun with Fabio, the head drover.
The Museum of Supernatural History, located on the corner of Nassau Street and Maiden Lane, towers ominously over the surrounding buildings like some ancient temple dedicated to a long-forgotten god. It is set atop a thirteen-hundred-foot-square granite-clad concrete platform that covers an entire city block. A fifty-foot-wide, three-hundred-step staircase leads to a pair of huge bronze doors embossed with scenes depicting such ancient heroes as Chiron, Pan, and Arum. To the right of the stairs are six forty-foot-tall marble statues of Kymerans, male and female, in historical dress, while on the left are arrayed six rampant jade battle-dragons.
However, as majestic and awe-inspiring as its public face may be, we were essentially tradesmen making a delivery, and the museum’s loading dock, accessed via a subterranean deck, proved no different from that of any other skyscraper in New York.
“Stay put and keep an eye on the gear,” Canterbury instructed as he unhitched himself from the equipment cart. “I’ll go find the Curator.”
“No need, Master Canterbury,” said an elderly, but firm female voice. “I am already here.” A Kymeran woman with long cornflower blue hair woven into an elaborate double-drape French braid emerged from the shadows at the far end of the receiving platform. She wore a floor-length satin jacket the color of celadon pottery, with wide, stiff sleeves and a Mandarin collar, and about her neck was hung the badge of her office: a jade dragon with its tail in its mouth.
“I take it this is the installation?” the Curator asked, pointing to the crates the drovers were loading onto the dock.
“Yes, milady,” Canterbury replied, with a ritual bow of his head. “The larger box contains the body, while the others hold the wings, head and tail. It shouldn’t take more than six hours for it to be assembled.”
The Curator turned her pale gray gaze upon me. “I see your apprentice is human. That is most interesting. Please follow me to the exhibit hall.” Without further explanation, she turned her back to us and began to walk away, forcing us to hurry after her as she headed into a warren of rooms filled with warehoused exhibits. Everywhere I looked the past and present seemed to be colliding in a jumble of dust, rust, and flaking paint, as a small army of restorers cleaned and rehabbed artifacts that dated back before the pyramids of Giza.
Eventually we came to a large freight elevator. As we drew near, a sloe-eyed sphinx stepped forward, blocking our path. Like most of her kind, the human-headed lioness wore a golden vulture cap atop her jet-black head and a bejeweled pectoral about her neck. When she spoke, her voice was deceptively beautiful.
Inside of me are treasures sown.
Some say I’d be a seat on high
For those unable to decide.
I cannot be opened by lock or hinge,
And protect all things that lie within. What am I?”
“You’re a garden fence,” the Curator replied without pause.
The sphinx smiled, displaying a fearsome double row of very sharp teeth, and then bowed her head, moving aside. As we passed by, the Curator ran her hand down the length of the monster’s spine, and in response the sphinx made a purring noise and arched her back like a house cat.
“Please forgive the extra security measures,” the Curator said, “but we have recently suffered a theft.”
Canterbury raised an eyebrow. “Was anything of value taken?”
“
A few moments later we arrived on the second floor of the museum, which was currently closed to the public. As we walked toward the main exhibit halls, Canterbury’s hooves echoed loudly in the darkened hallway. The centaur grimaced and came to a halt.
“Give me a moment to muffle my shoes,” he said, digging into the satchel he wore slung about his shoulder. “I’m making a hell of a racket and I don’t want to scuff up your floors.”
As we waited for my master to reshoe himself, I peered into a gallery off the main hall that bore a sign that read, in both Kymeran and English: THE LOST KINGDOM. The far wall was covered by a mural depicting a city of towering glass spires, about which flew brightly colored dragons bearing riders dressed in ornate suits of armor like the one I had seen at Lady Syra’s penthouse, all of which was dwarfed by the terrifyingly huge tidal wave bearing down upon it. Scattered about the gallery were sealed display cases mounted on artfully lit plinths, inside of which were shards of pottery, bits of jewelry, and other tattered fragments that were all that remained of a
