Relic

There was a brief, terrible, listening silence. “A body!” someone else screamed.

There was a brief movement of the crowd, followed by a sudden stillness. Then, another scream: “He’s been murdered!”

The crowd peeled back in two directions, and several people stumbled and fell. A large woman in a cocktail dress toppled backward onto D’Agosta, slamming him up against the case. The air was slowly forced out of his chest as the weight of more bodies pressed against him. Then he felt the case behind him start to give.

“Wait!” he gasped.

From the darkness above, something big slid off the top of the case and flopped onto the tight mass of people, knocking several more down. From his awkward angle, D’Agosta could only tell that it was bloody, and that it had been human. He didn’t think it had a head.

Utter pandemonium broke out. The close space filled with screaming and shouting, and people started to run, clawing at each other, stumbling. D’Agosta felt the case topple. Suddenly, the mummy fell to the floor, with D’Agosta on top. As he grabbed the side of the case he felt glass slice into his palm. He tried to stand, but was knocked back into the case by the surging crowd.

He heard the hiss from his radio, found it was still in his right hand, and raised it to his face.

“This is Coffey. What the hell is going on, D’Agosta?”

“We’ve got a panic on our hands, Coffey. You’re going to have to evacuate the Hall immediately, or—

“Shit!” he roared as the radio was knocked from his hand by the surging crowd.

= 45 =

Margo watched dispiritedly as Frock shouted into an internal phone set in the granite walls of the Great Rotunda. Wright’s amplified speech poured out of the Hall of the Heavens, preventing Margo from hearing a word Frock said. Finally, Frock reached up, slamming the phone onto its cradle. He wheeled himself around to face her. “This is absurd. Apparently, Pendergast is in the basement somewhere. Or at least, he was. He radioed in about an hour ago. They refuse to contact him without authorization.”

“In the basement? Where?” Margo asked.

“Section 29, they said. Why he’s down there, or was down there, they refuse to say. My guess is they don’t know. Section 29 covers a lot of ground.” He turned to Margo. “Shall we?”

“Shall we what?”

“Go down to the basement, of course,” Frock replied.

“I don’t know,” Margo said dubiously. “Perhaps we [314] should get the authorization they need to summon him up.

Frock moved impatiently in his wheelchair. “We don’t even know who could give such authorization.” He stared at her, becoming aware of her uncertainty. “I don’t think you need worry about the creature confronting us, my dear,” he said. “If I’m right, it will be drawn to the concentration of people here at the exhibition. It’s our obligation to do whatever we can to prevent a catastrophe; we took that on when we made these discoveries.”

Still Margo hesitated. It was one thing for Frock to speak in grandiose terms. He hadn’t been inside that exhibition. He hadn’t heard the stealthy padding of feet. He hadn’t run blindly in the screaming dark ...

She took a deep breath. “You’re right, of course,” she said. “Let’s go.”

Since Section 29 was inside the Cell Two security perimeter, Margo and Frock had to show their IDs twice on their way to the proper elevator. Apparently, the curfew being suspended for the evening, guards and police officers were more concerned about detaining suspicious or unauthorized characters than restricting the movement of Museum employees.

“Pendergast!” Frock shouted as Margo wheeled him out of the elevator into the dim basement corridor. “This is Doctor Frock. Can you hear me?”

His voice echoed and died.

Margo knew a little of the history behind Section 29. When the Museum’s powerplant had been located nearby, the area housed steam pipes, supply tunnels, and the subterranean cubbyholes used by troglodyte workers. After the Museum switched to a more modern power plant in the 1920s, the old works had been removed, leaving a series of ghostly warrens now used for storage.

Margo wheeled Frock down the low-ceilinged hallways. Every so often, Frock would bang on a door or [315] call Pendergast’s name. Each time, his shouts were greeted by silence.

“We’re getting nowhere,” Frock said as Margo stopped for a breather. Frock’s white hair was in disarray, and his tuxedo jacket was rumpled.

Margo looked nervously around. She knew approximately where they were: somewhere, at the far end of the confusion of passages, lay the vast, silent space of the old powerhouse: a lightless, subterranean pantheon now used to hold the Museum’s collection of whale bones. Despite Frock’s predictions of the creature’s behavior, the shouting made her nervous.

“This could take hours,” Frock said. “He may not be here anymore. Perhaps he never was.” He sighed deeply. “Pendergast was our last hope.”

“Maybe the noise and confusion will frighten the creature, keep it in hiding, away from the party,” Margo said with a hope she didn’t feel.

Frock rested his head in his hands. “Not likely. The beast must be driven by smell. It may be intelligent, it may be cunning, but like a human serial killer, when its blood lust is up it cannot control itself.”