Out of the Vaults

Out of

the

Vaults

S. A. Bolich

© 2015 by S. A. Bolich

All rights reserved.

This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination, or, if real, used fictitiously. All characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to real people is purely coincidental.

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by an electronic or mechanical means, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the express written permission of the publisher, except where permitted by law.

Cover art by Kevin Radthorne

Published by S. A. Bolich

Printed in the United States of America

0 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Contents

Welcome to the MA

Ancient Blood

Arachne's Web

Veni, Vidi, Vici–Sort Of

A Thousand Words

On Wings of Hope

Call to Reason

Hallowed Ground

Driving to the Sun

Remember When

In the Land of Nod

Songs from the Shadows

Mutiny in the Museum

About the Author

More Titles by S. A. Bolich

Welcome to the MA

The cretins on Capitol Hill, of whom there are many, have little use for the Museum of the Arcane. They call it a mockery of God, Allah, Buddha, and every other known deity; too dangerous, too expensive—the list goes on. Most try to pretend its artifacts are curiosities, sort of the second coming of Barnum. Every year someone tries to shut us down. But ever since the seaquake raised Atlantis, even the U.S. Congress has been forced to accept the fact that maybe myths aren’t really myths, and stories aren’t just stories, and a good fairy tale might star a real wicked witch. Her bones are probably down in Vault 34 with that honking great skeleton they dredged out of Loch Ness last year. Thus far Nessie’s bones have manifested nothing but sighs from the Scots who want her back, but the unidentified thing down the hall glows queerly in the dark and is rumored to be from the future.

I learned pretty quickly that neither the budget-cutters nor the artifacts are the biggest hazard in this place.

I never liked Sally Moorhouse from the first day we met, which, not coincidentally, was my first day as curator. She showed up like a shiny red penny in my doorway, dressed more for a trip to the Kennedy Center than for a routine interview with an obscure bureaucrat. But this is D.C., and you never know who you’ll bump into in the course of your daily grind. Dear Sally always looked good, just on the off chance. Long red hair, longer red fingernails, a passable figure, and legs worth a second look were a pleasant sight on that first day.

She leaned against my door frame, watching me shift my massive old desk closer to the window. For some reason my predecessor had parked it practically in front of the door, which left little room for visitors, not to mention it was singularly hard to get around the thing. I didn’t see her until she laughed, startling me into dropping the end of the desk, narrowly missing my foot. I spun around, aggrieved that Mrs. Cobham, my new secretary, would laugh at me on my first day.

The sight of a gorgeous female in the doorway deflated me like a punctured tire. Er—I’m sorry, I managed, surreptitiously straightening my tie. The tour’s downstairs.

I’m not a tourist. She flashed a camera bag. "Sally Moorhouse, National Beat. Are you Willoughby Thorne?"

I’m Dr. Thorne.

Good. My editor wants a piece on the museum’s new direction.

New direction?

She smiled, showing off a set of teeth so white I had to wonder if she ever sullied them with actual food. "Dr. Marbury spent forty-something years trying to make the place respectable and never managed it, Doctor. So what’s your game plan?"

The Museum of the Arcane is perfectly respectable. Egad, I sounded pompous even to myself. I suppose I was still smarting from being turned down by the Smithsonian.

She threw a lingering look around my office with its glass cases full of saints’ finger bones, bits of wood solemnly purporting to be pieces of the True Cross, and my personal favorite, the mummified monkey’s paw. I tried to control the heat rising in my face. I knew how it looked.

Er, Ms... Moorhouse, was it? I’m sorry, but I really don’t have time for you today. As you can see, I’m still settling in.

The desk will be there when we get back.

Back?

From the tour. Her eyes narrowed as though reading from a document only she could see. "Upon acceptance of the position, the curator is bound to personally inspect every artifact in the museum within twenty-four hours of his appointment. We can talk while we walk."

She smiled in catty triumph as I struggled to hide my reaction to her quoting verbatim from the contract I had signed only this morning.

Even if that were true, I’m afraid I couldn’t take a civilian along.

My, what a stuffed shirt you are for someone so young. If your hair were white and scraggly, I’d say you were Dr. Marbury back again. She smiled and snapped her fingers. But that’s right, isn’t it? He vanished mysteriously in Vault 84. Decent of the board to wait six whole days before hiring you.

Her brilliant blue gaze seemed to be trying to bore into my head and drag out the real reason the Museum of the Arcane never went rudderless for long. The board of governors had made it very clear when they offered me the job. They even gave me a whole hour to think about it. Maybe I should have availed myself of it, but really, where else do you get to see history come to life? Literally?

I’m sorry, but it’s out of the question.

Her voice hardened. This is a public institution funded with taxpayer money. I have a right to see it.

Then join the tour.

Been there. Done that. Twice. It was boring watching fat little brats trying to pull Excalibur out of the stone. I was rather hoping one of the mummies would get up and put a stop to it, but no such luck.

The mummies are bound by—

I shut up, too late. She pounced, all shining red hair and smiling red lips. Bound? What an interesting word.

Isn’t it? Good day, Ms. Moorhouse.

I turned back to tugging at my desk, hoping she would take the hint, but she just stood there in a silence too thick to be entirely accounted for by the stuffiness of the room. The desk scraped horribly over the scratched linoleum, making a lot of newer, rawer scars. Rather a lot like the fresh claw marks on the inside of Vault 84, actually. What had happened to Dr. Marbury?

I sighed and turned around, looking at this woman parked in my doorway like the proverbial immovable object. Where was Mrs. Cobham, whose job it was to keep out the riffraff? Sally’s stance told me it would take either the police or fisticuffs to move her, and neither option would please the board.

What would you like to see?

Triumph blazed across her face. All of it.

No. Non-staff are not allowed in restricted areas such as the research labs and the vaults.

I don’t want to see some weenie in a white coat trying to authenticate Joan of Arc’s ashes. I want to see the vaults.

There are seven hundred and seventy-two of them. I flicked a glance at the ancient clock over the door. The museum closes in two hours. Staff only after six.

Clearly she had tested that rule before. All right, then. One vault. My choice.

I didn’t have to think hard to guess which one. No.

Are people right about this place, Doctor? Should they be scared?

I debated that one a beat too long. She pounced on it. I thought so. What happened to Dr. Marbury?

I really don’t know. He was seventy-three. It’s possible he suffered a stroke or met with an accident. I’m told he was getting a little past it.

Not too senile to barricade his office, she said coolly, her gaze tracing the line of scratch marks toward the door. Listen, I’ll make a deal with you. One vault, one hour, and you’re rid of me. All right?

Foolishly, I believed her.

Vault 84 was emptier than Scrooge’s heart. I had to hail a passing technician even to get in; Arnold gave Sally the eye and made it clear that the security system’s acceptance of his retinal scan and pass code made him a superior entity. Sally, looking unimpressed, brushed past him impatiently, only to stop in the middle of the concrete floor to turn accusing eyes toward me.

Buried the evidence, huh? she said bitterly.

What evidence would that be? What do you think happened here?

She couldn’t answer that without sounding like a headline from her own rag, so she turned away, running that blue steel gaze over the bare white walls. No dripping stone dungeons here, just sensible reinforced concrete under a building that from the outside was the epitome of nineteenth-century faux grandeur. Only the door held any mystery. There had been no time to replace it.

What are these marks? She bent down with her nose almost touching the deep scratches in the hardwood. Lots of scratches, as if a big cat had sharpened its claws there. Or someone had tried to get out.

I shoved that thought away. Dr. Marbury might turn up yet.

Some of the exhibits are livelier than others, I’m told.

Arnold laughed. I refrained from a kneejerk lecture on not antagonizing the press and said only, Thank you, Arnold. I think I can handle things from here.

He scowled. Sure. Doctor.

I guessed he was one of the technogeeks the board had warned me about, bright as supernovas but better with computers than with people. He trailed slowly past Sally, clearly hoping she would ask him to stay, but she flicked him the barest glance before turning to me, unamused.

"What was in here that was so lively?"

I’ve no idea. I just got here, remember?

She hunted for a retort, could not find one, and flounced out of the vault. Feeling much more cheerful, I escorted her to the door, basking in the notion that I had lived up to my end of the bargain, and so now must she.

I wish.

I toured the museum that night with old Price, who oversaw the storage and security of the artifacts. He had been around since—well, rumor had it since the museum opened, but that was in 1831, so I took that with a grain of salt. Longer than anyone else in the place, anyway. Tall and reedy, with white hair, a luxuriant mustache, and deep-graven lines carved, perhaps, by terror, he looked the Compleat Englishman right down to the meerschaum pipe and tailored tweeds I wondered how he could afford on a custodian’s salary. But then the Green Man carved into the bowl of his pipe winked at me and I forgot about his suit in wondering if I was seeing things.

Trailing from floor to floor in his wake, I began to regret not taking that hour to consider when I saw the labels on every artifact—not just catalog numbers, but classifications derived from how they behaved in the lab: Dangerous, Questionable, Benevolent. From the lovely, shining diadem of Mary Stuart, found every year in a pool of blood on the anniversary of her death, to the faded golden bridle once used to capture a winged horse, to the three chipped stones brought from the ruins of Gomorrah, I walked down the hallways of history and over the threshold of legend. Price warned me away from the stones: even unlabeled and sitting quietly in a case, they had so affected unwary staff with sudden inclinations toward lechery and vice that they had been relegated to the vaults. I eyed them, torn between alarm and tickling excitement. Even the Smithsonian couldn’t top that.

Price was not just my tour guide. It was necessary, the board had said—several times—that the objects in the MA learn who was master right up front. Price was the man to teach them. He tottered around, looking like a good wind would snuff him like a candle, but when a bat hanging by its toes in a darkened corner of one of the vaults quivered and started to change, he thrust out a well-worn Bible and barked, Hold, child of Satan!

Cowed, the bat disappeared into the shadows. Price touched the book to my upraised palm, which already tingled madly from a hundred other such encounters. A strange, quivering energy inside me grew with every brush of the cracked leather, vibrating until I felt half drunk and somehow swollen, engorged with power. I understood now why the board had been so particularly rude in asking if I believed in a higher power. I asked Price what I was supposed to do with all that energy. He shrugged and said I would know when and if I ever needed it.

So I became curator of the Museum of the Arcane, master of Pan’s mischievous pipes; an ancient cat that had outlived eight owners and answered to Isis; the noisy death mask of Robespierre, which screamed whenever it was touched; and a moldy Hand of Glory, among many other things. Museum legend said old Marbury had actually used the hand during a power outage to light his way to the front door, its fingers burning like candles. After touring the vaults, I could think of worse things to be alone in the dark with. But the doors were stout and the security system state of the art, thanks to Arnold and his cohorts, so I threw myself into the greater work of trying to authenticate the flood of relics that found their way to us. They arrived daily, sent by crackpots and earnest scholars and foreign governments glad to be rid of them. Ten interns and twenty-three full-time technicians ranging from Arnold the Technogeek to Zoe the Dead Language Whiz occupied three subfloors filled with ultra-modern machines designed to unlock the mysteries inherent in dusty old parchments and bits of rotting cloth; elaborately carved wooden boxes and fragments of bone; queer, etiolated plants gathered alive from tombs that had not seen daylight in three thousand years; and ordinary-looking bits of junk made of ivory and bronze and gold.

Sometimes the smallest ones are the worst of all.

I discovered this unpleasant fact while trying to decide what to shuffle off to the vaults to make room for an exhibit built around our acquisition of Pontius Pilate’s wash basin. Anyone who touched it developed an obsessive need to wash his hands, a discovery that landed the thing precipitately in our laps a month after the Israelis dug it up. Naturally, it made the news. I was vaguely surprised not to hear from Sally until I saw her lurking one day at the tail end of a busload of tourists from Iowa.

She saw me and sidled behind a sarcophagus. I waited, silently counting seconds. The scarabs were back there, and sometimes they—

A muffled shriek hushed the droning voice of the museum guide. Heads turned but all they saw was a mummy’s gilded prison, and eventually the tourists shuffled on into the next room. Sally slunk out from behind the sarcophagus, shaking her right hand. Much better than a burglar alarm, the scarabs. They look so innocent sitting there atop the case containing Moses’ staff. If you’re really quick, you can get them off your fingers before they get a good hold.

Really, Ms. Moorhouse, the signs do say not to touch the exhibits.

She glared at me. What kind of a museum keeps dangerous artifacts out in the open?

The scarabs are only dangerous if you touch them.

She shifted tack with practiced ease. So what’s the truth about this basin thing?

We have the word of a sovereign government that it is what it says it is and does what has been reported. That is all we know.

Oh, puh-lease. There has to be more to it than that.

Another group of goggling tourists came in the main doors. Against my better judgment, I motioned her into the Judea Room. It contained nothing human save the weathered skull of John the Baptist peering empty-eyed toward the door from its tall pedestal. To me it seemed mad to keep out in the open a thing known both for its prophetic tendencies and its ability to scramble the brain of the unfortunate it chose as its mouthpiece. Price, however, had made clear that its presence in the Judea Room controlled other things far more dangerous.

Sally only glanced at it as she stalked to the center of the gallery and turned to face me, arms akimbo. All right, Doctor. What’s the story?

Didn’t you say you would leave us alone?

I never said it would be forever.

She tried to soften it with a smile; I just looked over my glasses at her, a trick I had found effective with overconfident interns. She flushed and retreated, fetching up against a small case sandwiched between two much larger ones. Its pedestal tottered.

I leaped to catch the case wobbling over the edge, but it was too far; it shattered into glittering bits on the floor. Amid the wreckage lay a zill, a plain, bronze belly dancer’s cymbal an inch and a half across. I started to reach for it, then, mistrusting the influence of the Baptist on this particular object, dug for my handkerchief instead.

Why don’t you just pick it up? Sally demanded, her voice sharp with sudden interest.

Read the sign.

I dropped the little square of pristine cloth over the unadorned metal. The zill clinked against the glass as I scooped it up, unleashing a slight chill up my back. When I stood up, Sally was reading the sign with a disbelieving frown between her perfectly arched eyebrows.

One of four cymbals worn by Salome when she danced for Herod Antipas and asked for the head of John the Baptist as a reward. Whoever wears them is given the power to cause one death. They were scattered when Napoleon defeated the Mamelukes in Egypt, being then in the possession of Murad Bey. Two found their way to the Louvre, from which they were stolen in 1829. In 1830 they were recovered from an Italian priest in the household of Pope Pius VIII, but again disappeared. They were found in the rooms of John Wilkes Booth and given to the Museum of the Arcane by the United States government in June 1865. Stolen again in 1901, they were recovered in India in 1948 and returned to the United States in 1963.

She turned around. So where’s the other one?

Do you think us foolish enough to keep them together?

That didn’t answer my question.

No, I don’t imagine it did. Pardon me, but I must find someone to clean up this glass.

Wait, wait! She read the sign again, frowning as she murmured the dates aloud. Pope Pius... didn’t somebody poison him? And Booth—that’s obvious. 1901... hey, McKinley was assassinated in 1901! Her voice turned triumphant. And Gandhi in ’48, and... geez. I suppose they were found on Oswald?

She didn’t wait for an answer. One death... I know who I’d like to kill. Who would you take a shot at if you had the chance?

I wouldn’t, and you will note that the cymbals don’t guarantee the user’s safety, only the death of the target.

I’d risk it. Salome lived through it, didn’t she?

The hair lifted on the back of my neck. Her voice held a flat, calm quality that told me she was serious. And whose head do you want?

Sally gave me an inscrutable look. "Not yours, Doctor. You’re not that annoying."

Glad to hear it.

She moved away suddenly, turning her back on the sign and me in total abandonment of whatever purpose had brought her here.

Will you be wanting a private viewing of Pilate’s basin like everyone else? I asked of her back.

I daresay I’ll see enough of it at the opening.

She set off toward the front door. I stared after her, and the hair on my neck just wouldn’t lie down.

Price tut-tutted over the zill and produced another case for it. Since it was small, it remained in the Judea Room, as far from its mate down in Vault 428 as we could manage. In the crush of preparing for the opening, I frankly forgot about both Sally and the zill until the first night, which was a special showing for the press and an exclusive group of VIPs. We were, in fact, honoring a request from the Vatican, which sent a special envoy to examine the basin. I had spent the afternoon thinking up new ways to politely say no to his smiling and persistent requests for the skull of the Baptist, so I was tired and a little out of sorts by the time the festivities got under way. Things went by in such a blur of faces and camera crews jostling each other that I was too busy putting out fires to notice who was who or what was where until after the unveiling. While the cameras clicked and whirred away, I left the whole lot of them to Price, whose British accent and sartorial splendor seemed to enchant them. Me, I slipped to the back of the entry hall for a breath of air. I thought I saw someone poking among the mummy cases and moved toward them, half minded to let the scarabs do their thing. Regretfully, with a room full of cameras waiting like crocodiles, common sense won out.

I caught a glimpse of gleaming red hair before a second figure obscured it: a man, tall and gangly, standing with his back to me. Know-it-all Arnold? Making some awkward move on Sally? I foresaw trouble in the shape of slapped faces and public scenes and started toward them, wondering what on earth he was doing here. The staff had already seen plenty of Pilate’s basin.

He and Sally broke apart. Arnold departed at high speed toward the front door, dodging caterers bearing trays of wine and hors d’oeuvres and reporters wandering hungrily on the lookout for people to pump for quotes. One of them waylaid me; by the time I could break free, the space between the mummies was empty and no fiery red hair gleamed anywhere in the room.

My hands began to tingle. Without warning, Price materialized at my elbow, looking keenly into my face. Dr. Thorne? What’s wrong?

I don’t know.

A shiver walked up my spine. I held out my hands and saw the air shimmering around them like heat waves off summer pavement.

Price jerked upright, his face sagging into lines of dismay. Something’s out of its case.

My stomach started doing somersaults. I looked around at the rows and shelves of cases peering from every open door, at the marble stairs winding up two more floors to more of the same, and did not know where to even begin. And then I remembered the zill.

I wheeled toward the Judea Room, plowing through the chattering crowd with scant regard for squashed toes or joggled elbows. Price followed as I made straight for the little pedestal in the corner. Empty.

Price sucked in his breath. But—

Arnold. Quick. Go check the vault.

Price wasted no time on questions. I knew what he would say long before he came back. The tingling in my hands had grown to a deep-rooted vibration in my bones; I could feel power building, trying to shove me out through the main doors in search of the thing bound to it. I fought to keep a pleasant smile on my face, struggling to keep this room full of sharks from scenting blood.

Price reappeared at the door leading to the staff offices and shook his head. I forced a smile and rubbed my ear with a clenched fist. He nodded and disappeared to find the police captain in charge of external security.

A flash of purple beside me announced the arrival of the papal nuncio. From the look on his face, I knew he was going to start with St. John again. Before either of us could speak, such a flare of power jolted through me that I gasped, audible even over the wordless racket of the crowd. The nuncio grabbed my elbow.

Dr. Thorne! Are you all right?

Yes... I tottered toward the nearest door, which happened to be the Judea Room, mercifully empty. Cardinal Montero followed, effortlessly keeping hovering reporters at bay with a few murmured requests for privacy. Since everyone inside the Beltway knew he was after the skull of the Baptist, I saw a few knowing looks exchanged as I turned to shut the doors behind us.

Dr. Thorne, you are as white as the proverbial sheet.

I hesitated less than a second. The Church certainly had far more experience than I in dealing with witchcraft or whatever controlled those zills. And... I wasn’t sure I wanted to know what to do with the power quivering in me like leashed lightning.

I told him, trusting to the confidentiality of the confessional ingrained in every priest. He smiled politely. "This legend is as old as the Church, Doctor, the story of Salome’s cymbals and how they can bewitch a man to madness. It is legend. Nothing more."

No, Your Eminence, it is not. I held out my hands. What do you see?

He stared. What is that? Why—

They shimmer because there is real power binding these artifacts to this place. Power summoned in the name of God and sworn to defend innocents from the energy in these things. The good and the evil.

I looked past him at the skull. He turned too, the lines in his face deepening to reverence. Quietly I said, You believe in the power of that bit of bone. Why that and not the cymbals?

He turned dark, troubled eyes toward me. Many people have claimed to possess the head of John the Baptist. But only this... one... skull ever caused anyone to begin speaking in Aramaic. Only this one weeps in the presence of the crucifix. It belongs in Rome.

It belongs here. That poor intern still preaches to anyone who will listen. I held up my hands. Look at these, Eminence, and tell me there is no danger.

He frowned. "This reporter—why would she wish to kill