I'm updating again, of course. It's been a while, but everything was kind of building up, and I got really busy. It was a snowball effect, really. If you've ever seen a supernova, it was something like that. You haven't? Well, neither have I, but in my head they both are very similar.
Disclaimer: I don't own jack-squat that belongs to someone else.
Chapter Six
Training Day
"It's no crime to steal from a thief." -Proverb
He moved through the building like a shadow, a flicker of the light, so quiet it was like he wasn't even there. For all anyone else knew, he wasn't.
Ducking into another room, a larger one, he felt his breath catch in his chest. There it was. The Arch. Slipping around the other displays, the darkness veiling his movements, he approached it cautiously. Those fools. If he were in charge, there would be protection around this object twenty-four hours a day.
But luckily for him, there wasn't. Through the dimness of the chamber he could make out the ancient lettering on the stone, and very lightly, he put one gloved hand to the runes. He shivered, his hair standing on end, and he could feel pure energy run through his body and into the cold night air.
He wasn't the only one who would feel the shock of such energy output, either.
-
Nathaniel shot up in his bed, his hair on end. A tingling sensation ran up and down his spine, causing an exhilarating shock to his nervous system. His fingers felt numb, cold, impure. A lone bead of sweat trickled down the side of his face, and his tongue shot outwards, licking it instinctively.
What had that been? It had felt as if someone had just poured a bucket of cold water down his neck and electrocuted him.
Rolling over and switching on a lamp, the silk sheets wrinkling slightly from the sudden disturbance, he brought his hand to his eyes to shield them from the sudden explosion of light. The bright shadows flickering across the opposite wall did nothing to quell his fears, but the feeling of warmth the light gave did a slight bit, and he immediately felt better. It was just a nightmare, maybe.
But that was odd… he didn't remember any dreams.
Endless thoughts and suspicions now clogged his mind, and he sighed. There was no way he'd get to sleep now. Might as well do something productive with his time.
Swinging his feet over the side of the bed, he threw the sheets off as he stood, stretching his arms and yawning slightly. Folding the bedding that he had just disturbed neatly back into position and walking do a large door, he flung it open, revealing a vast wardrobe. Finally, he chose a dark blue suit: stylish and trendy, without a ridiculous handkerchief, either.
After dressing rather quickly, he exited his bedroom, walking swiftly among the monstrous confines of his flat and into the kitchen. Like everything else in his home, it had a modernistic touch to it, and the smooth marble of the butcher block slid under his palm as he traced his hand over it. Pulling the refrigerator open wearily, he poked his head in the contraption. Nothing good to eat. He really needed to send that useless foliot to the grocer's.
With a sigh, he threw himself onto a futon to rest for a while. Glancing at the chessboard on the glass table, his eyebrows furrowed, and he sat up.
The game of chess had always fascinated him, being a game of pure strategy and cunning. Often, you'd think you had your opponent on the ropes, only to discover that he had been leading you on the entire time, and before you know it, checkmate, you lose. He supposed this form of entertainment somewhat resembled his cold war with the Resistance; both sides were desperately trying to one-up the other.
Leaning forward, he moved his pawn out. With a scratch of his chin, he moved a black pawn out, too. Those two moves resembled the murder of Ross. He tossed his bishop down onto a space where it attacked the queen directly, through the hole the black pawn had just taken. That was their finding out of Haliben. Reluctantly he captured the bishop with the queen. Damn Ffoukes, going off and murdering the murderer.
But that left the queen in a wide-open position. As powerful a piece as it was, one did not want his most versatile protector of the king so vulnerable to enemy attacks so early. So, even with his assistant's stupidity, it had overall been a stalemate of sorts: he had lost a bishop, they had lost position.
Suddenly, the ringing of a phone pierced his eardrums. He flopped his hand onto the contraption and put it to his ear.
"John Mandrake speaking."
"Mandrake, it's Atkins," came a gruff voice from the other line. Nathaniel groaned internally, although he tried to stifle it as best he could. "There's been a robbery from the British Museum. I want you there, pronto, and bring your trainee, too. More details will be disclosed when you arrive."
Nathaniel was about to reply when the man on the other end hung up abruptly. Yeah, definitely Atkins. Reluctantly, he dialed a much too familiar number into the phone.
"Hello, Morris Fischer's residence, Morris Fischer speaking. How may I help you?"
Nathaniel gritted his teeth. "Morris. It's Mandrake."
"Hey, J.M.!" Morris exclaimed brightly. The younger of the two raised an eyebrow.
"J.M.?" he spoke doubtfully into the phone. "Whatever, forget it. There was a robbery at the British Museum. Urgent business. You and me have to be there ASAP."
"Got it, Captain," Morris said obediently. Nathaniel could almost feel his salute from the other end. "See you then!"
Nathaniel was about to hang up when he paused. "Just wondering, Morris, why are you up at-" he glanced to the clock "-three o'clock in the morning?"
"Just figured it'd be a bit refreshing to go to bed at six and wake up at two." Nathaniel nearly fell flat on his face at this. "You know, try something new. Besides, they're showing all these reruns of old sitcoms all night and-"
"Forget I asked," he interrupted, slamming the phone down. He didn't even care if he was acting like Atkins. Morris was really starting to freak him out.
-
Police were gathered all around the museum, and as Nathaniel stepped out of the car, he blinked from the bright flashes of cameras. Well, it seemed that they were already documenting the crime scene.
"Hey, boss."
He looked up and sighed. "Hello, Morris."
"Atkins is inside with Ffoukes," said the technician, tilting his head to the building. "I've had to wait for you to go inside."
"Well, let's not keep them waiting," Nathaniel said irritably. Morris nodded and led the way in, ducking under the police tape as Nathaniel stepped over it. He navigated his way through the dark halls until finally, they reached a large room.
"The Egyptian Chamber," Nathaniel remarked, looking all around the cavernous room.
Atkins grunted from his position next to a sarcophagus. "What gave it away, genius? Was it the mummies or the pharaoh statue?" Nathaniel scowled at him.
"What was stolen?" Atkins tilted his head to a large, empty space.
"Something known only as the Arch of Anubis," the portly man replied, scratching his chin. "Not much is known about it. It's ancient, and referred to in several old texts, although its purpose is always alluded to. And before you ask, there was an amazing amount of magical residue here, but it's all scrambled. We believe that most of it came from this Arch."
"If we didn't know its purpose, than why do we have it?"
A gargoyle stepped forward. "Oh, you know, the British can't keep their hands off anything these days. They have to pinch something everywhere they go."
"Quiet, demon," stated Ffoukes firmly from behind Bartimaeus. Nathaniel stepped towards the spirit.
"You've been around for over five millennia. Surely you know of something of this Arch, which must have tremendous magical value."
Bartimaeus shrugged. "Not really. For some strange and unbelievable reason, the pharaohs never liked me that much."
"Wonder why," Atkins muttered from his position against the wall. Bartimaeus ignored him.
"But no doubt this is one of the more greedy ones' work," remarked the djinni, observing the space carefully. "They were very secretive, the Egyptians, and very vain and power hungry. Whatever it was, I'm guessing it wasn't activated, since someone would have heard about it if it was. The magic around here was probably just runoff from standard item catalyzation reflexes."
Morris raised an eyebrow doubtfully. "Uh, sure, whatever you say, Barty."
"Barty, huh?" The gargoyle grinned. "Hey, I kind of like it."
Morris frowned, jabbing his finger at Nathaniel. "Yeah, I tried calling him Johnny, and he went spastic."
"Morris, it's time to train," Nathaniel said in a matter-of-fact tone, cutting off the conversation before it swelled out of proportion. Grumbling, Morris walked over to the space, which Nathaniel was crouched by. "First, put on your gloves, as I already have."
Morris obliged in a bored fashion and sighed. "Well, what's next?"
"We have to document every last detail of the scene," Nathaniel said, holding a camera up to his eye and clicking a button a few times, the shutter closing with lightning speed. He crawled over a few feet and repeated the process. "You want to be sure to photograph from different angles."
"Got it."
Nathaniel put the camera down and looked at the space. "Well, now for the fun part. What do you observe about the scene?"
Morris looked long and hard at the empty spot, his chin wrinkling slightly, deep in thought. As he looked, Nathaniel noted a few details about the scene before shrugging and turning away in as dull a manner as he could. It was all pride showing: he wanted Morris to think he was an expert. Which he was. He just wanted to make sure that Morris was completely sure of this fact, or otherwise he'd be in for a shock. It was all for his best interests.
"Uh…" Nathaniel stared at the technician expectantly. "Well, there's a lack of dust here, of course."
"Exactly," said Nathaniel happily. "And what do you examine about that dust?"
Morris looked closer. "Eh, there's almost none of it in these two rectangles. That's probably where the pillars of the arch were. And around the clearer rectangles, there's less dust, which is odd, because you'd think the most dust would be there. Think about it. A lot of the stuff will either fall or be brushed off the thing and down right by the edge, which would be the hardest place to clean, also."
"And what do you think this means?" Nathaniel asked. Morris bit his lip.
"Well, it probably means this thing has been leaking out magic for a while, even if no one's activated it so far," he stated.
Nathaniel nodded. "Very good. So it might have some degree of power. But there's one more observation yet to be made. Look again at the imprints."
Morris did. For a few minutes, it was oddly silent, until his head finally shot up.
"This thing was definitely big," he commented, "but we should know that anyway from a statement by the museum. And we could find exactly how big from the security tapes, but from the size of the imprints, I'm guessing at least a ton. That tells us that this was definitely more than a one-person job. There were probably multiple people, and a few spirits, even though the magical output from the Arch is scrambling the reception. So we're looking at a group, a team who could've stolen this."
Nathaniel shrugged in as ignorant a fashion as he could. Morris was going to have to figure this one out all by himself. "Hm. Well that certainly doesn't help us that much. We still don't know who could have done it."
Morris looked up in recognition. "Oh."
"Oh, what?" Nathaniel inquired. Morris rolled his eyes.
"You know what I mean."
"No, actually I don't."
"Come on," Morris said, "we both know who we suspect."
Nathaniel shrugged. "Who do we suspect?"
The CSI-in-training looked around the room quickly before lowering his voice to a whisper.
"The Resistance, of course."
To Be Continued
Author's Notes: Decent chapter overall, and I got some more mystery in there. And I actually advanced the plot, too, which is a rare and fruitful occasion. And I got to write Morris, who is extremely fun to write. But anyway...
Next Chapter: In The Troubles of Bureaucracy,Nathaniel's search for the truth continues, but an incompetent manager certainly doesn't help matters. And one museum employee is acting rather oddly...