VIII.

Upon hearing of Mr. Lyle's suggestions, Catriona Hartdegen had immediately reserved the task of breaking into the great museum of Cairo for herself.

"Allow me to come with you," Dr. Seward had commented. "After all, when this is over, it would be a comfort to be allowed to the leave the country again without being identified as a burglar, or worse. The guards have done nothing to deserve the sharp end of your blade, and I fear that if they catch you..."

"I resent the implication that I would be caught. But I'd still be grateful for a little distraction to soothe their minds, if that's what you're offering."

The ladies' mission proved successful, which left them in possession of an ankh and a jackal's head.

"Neither of them is highly prized by the museum, " Mr. Lyle explained, "as they were deemed Byzantine forgeries, due to the few Arabic letters used. Their removal will not cause the greatest manhunt of the country, but we would be wise to rid ourselves of them quickly."

"Not yet," Kaetenay said. He stared at the relics in a mixture of distaste and resolve. "I can use these to search for the others."

The sense and touch of them was like a scent in the spirit world, he explained. Mr. Lyle had already narrowed down the list of likely locations on a map. Kaetenay, using the relics, could narrow it down even further, to a tomb or a building, but he needed to have seen those places with his own eyes first to recognize their echoes in his mind.

"But you've never been in Egypt before," Ethan protested. "Or have you?"

Kaetenay shook his head. "No." Then he looked at Malcolm and Ferdinand Lyle. "But they have."

What he proposed sounded to Malcolm very much like a seance, all too similar to the event at Ferdinand Lyle's house when Vanessa had spoken to him first with a stranger's voice and then with Peter's and Mina's; when they both had first encountered Evelyn Poole. Instinctively, he recoiled.

"You do not wish to join this hunt?" Kaetenay asked, watching him intently.

Malcolm tried to push his memories away. "Wishing doesn't come into it. I will do what I must to help you, as you are helping me. Mr. Lyle?"

Lyle didn't look any more enthusiastic at the prospect of another seance than Malcolm felt, but he nodded in agreement. At the earliest opportunity, Malcolm drew Victor Frankenstein aside and asked him to acquire whatever materials they needed to dissolve both ankh and jackal's head into nothingness once Kaetenay didn't need them anymore.

"And take Mr. Chandler with you."

"I can handle the streets of Cairo on my own," Victor said, still evidently prickly at the thought of being regarded as less useful in dangerous situations than Ethan Chandler.

"That," Malcolm replied, wondering whether he had ever been so young, "is not the point. I don't wish Mr. Chandler to be present at this...this seance."

"I thought we were all supposed to trust one another now," Victor said sarcastically, but complied. Trust, Malcolm thought, didn't come into it. If Kaetenay suddenly started to speak with the voices of the dead, as Vanessa had done, there were all too many candidates who could say all too many things to break anyone's soul, if a soul was still there. This, of course, was not what he told Ethan.

"Maybe our Dr. Frankenstein will finally reveal to you what truly happened between him and Mr. Clare, if you two are alone," Malcolm suggested. "Mr. Clare is still a somewhat unknown quantity, and you know those can be dangerous in a fight."

"I know you are a wily old bastard fond of circumvention, just like Kaetenay," Ethan said bluntly. "But have it your way. I'll go with him."

The boys out of the way, Malcolm ended up in a Cairo cellar kneeling in front of a map with Ferdinand Lyle, while Kaetenay sat across of them on the other side, the relics in his hands. His eyes were closed, and he was chanting, almost inaudibly. The darkness, which, as Lyle reminisced, always helped the focus of a medium, was illuminated only one oil lamp.

"Not that I have encountered another medium since... well."

The slow murmur from Kaetenay did have a hypnotic quality. Malcolm tried to focus on the here and now, on Egypt, on all that he knew of the country from previous travels. Next to him, Lyle, frowning, probably was trying the same.

"What are you doing?"

It was Kaetenay's voice, and wasn't, the cadences all wrong. At least it wasn't Peter's voice this time, or Mina's. It was a voice he'd heard before, though.

"Pathetic little men, the lot of you. The old wolf who led his people into slaughter and now can't bear to see the rest of them die in exile, so he rather fawns around the cub he's made from one of their killers. Then there's the licensed jester so ashamed of what he wants that he allowed a witch to torture those he claimed as friends at her leisure. Oh, and you. The explorer. How is it that you still find people to destroy by following you when all you ever did was rut and kill? But you didn't even get that right, did you? The rutting and killing. Keeps missing his targets, does Sir Malcolm."

The voice changed into a sing song. "Couldn't kill his daughter's killer, only killed his daughter. Couldn't fuck his not-quite-daughter, only ever fought her!"

If Malcolm had assumed he was master of his rage by now, this taunting taught him better. Despite all awareness of how important it was to continue so that Kaetenay might have the chance to discover where the rest of the relics were hidden, the fury in him would have caused him to jump up and strike at someone. But he found Lyle was holding his hand in a surprisingly firm grip.

"Sticks and stones," the Egyptologist whispered, and if his voice trembled, his hand held tight.

"I have her with me now. I am eternal, and so is she. You'll never have her again, fools. You weren't worthy of her. If you dare to cross my path again, your bones will dry in the desert! But not before you haven't watched your so called sons die, the lot of you. Have developed a taste for that, have we? Never fear, it will be satisfied. Over and over again. You're bringing me so many new lives, but then, that's what old men do, isn't it? Send out their young ones to die in their place."

Ethan and Victor, Malcolm thought. Were they being attacked right now? Were Dr. Seward and Catriona, who had declared they wanted to see the pyramids at least once now that the first success was achieved, and had taken Mr. Clare with them?

They were no children, he told himself. Each was a skilled fighter. If they were attacked, they would defend themselves.

"Or maybe I won't kill you. Why should I be that merciful? I'll have you serve me, begging me for every maggot. And then you'll turn on each other for my entertainment."

Against his will, Malcolm thought of the pathetic Renfield, Dr. Seward's former assistant. He must have been a normal man once, or else a sensible woman like herself would not have hired him. Surely, he had not wished this fate upon himself, yet somehow Dracula had managed to enslave him like this.

Then he heard Kaetenay's voice again, and it was the Apache's voice, and no one else's.

"I think not," the old warrior said. The oil lamp went out. Malcolm could hear a thousand tiny movements in the dark, crawling, slithering noises. He freed his hand from Lyle's and drew out the lightening matches he was carrying. As they struck fire, he could see the glint of many eyes.

"Rats," Lyle said, shuddering. "Why does it have to be rats?"

"Because," Kaetenay said, "we have alerted the beast to our hunt. But know this: as it shared my mind, I shared his."

He had discovered all the hiding places, Malcolm thought, and locked up with hundreds of rodents about to attack, fierce gladness filled his heart.

"Then let us no longer waste our time here," he said, kicked over the oil lamp, threw his match, and set the cellar on fire.