Quick synopsis: evil museum curator uses ancient Babylonian ceremony to sacrifice hundreds for eternal life. He raises spirits and creatures from artifacts gathered from around the world to do his bidding.
Want even more concise? Monsters on the loose in a museum.
Read another chapter after the JUMP.
6 – YEE NAALDLOOSHII
Karlow's secretary, Stacy Descheeny, slowly entered the
exhibit hall, clutching her small purse.
"Hello?"
"This way, Stacy," Abigail said from around the
corner.
She smiled and walked between the exhibits and found Dr.
Karlow standing before a large display, leaning forward onto his cane. "Good evening, Miss Descheeny. Have you had a good time thus far?"
She nodded.
"Very much, sir." Her
hair was sprayed into place and she wore a nice but plain red dress.
Mason scanned her from head to toe and then stared directly
into her eyes. "I've asked you to
come down here for a very important purpose."
"OK." She
walked forward and Abigail moved behind her to close the exhibit's steel
shutters.
"You've been with me for about eight years now,
yes?"
She nodded. "That's
right."
"Yes. I have
kept you with me for a couple of reasons."
Using his cane as a prop, he stepped over the exhibit's barriers and
walked onto the plaster display. It was
made up to look like a lake bed and a body, swathed in cloth and weighed down
with stones and logs sat in the center.
"First and foremost, you have been excellent in all that you do for
me."
"Thank you, Dr. Karlow."
He looked up from the body and said, "No. Thank you." Stacy smiled and lowered her head
meekly. He straddled the wrapped corpse
and produced a small utility knife from his waist. "There is another reason, however."
Descheeny moved forward and narrowed her eyes. She looked at the exhibit and watched as
Mason sliced through the ropes binding the centuries-old body. She didn't respond to him and, instead,
debated whether she should speak up against such a desecration.
"Do you know what this is?" Stacy didn't answer. Karlow lifted the knife and motioned at the
surrounding plaster display and said, "It's made up to resemble a lake
bed. You see, the Goshute tribe were one
of the few aboriginal American peoples who undertook aquatic burials." He leaned over and sliced open the
cloth. Descheeny craned her neck to see
and she spied a gray bit of bone within.
"Do you know who the Goshutes' primary enemy was?"
Stacy looked away from the body and into the piercing gaze
of her employer. She shook her head
slowly and said, softly, "No."
"The Navajo."
Descheeny blinked rapidly and took a step back. She found that Abigail was right behind her. Mason turned back toward the corpse and
reached within the wrappings. "They
were constantly attacked and their people enslaved by Navajos."
Stacy looked back at Frye and the taller, larger woman shook
her head slowly. Descheeny said, "I
don't understand."
Karlow stood and he held a bone. Its end was jagged and he slowly stepped over
the remains and away from the plaster display.
With a gesture toward the pseudo-aquatic burial site, he said,
"This person wasn't Goshute. She
was Navajo. You see …" He moved closer to Stacy and Abigail gripped
her shoulders tightly. "There are
still Goshute natives who hate the Navajo.
Who hate you." He lightly
touched her cheek and smiled. His eyes
softened and he looked upon her with something approaching sympathy. "If one were to pay them enough money,
they could find the specific burial site of one of their hated enemies. Even desecrate their own burial grounds to
conceal the body of an anti'ihni. One of
the 'Witchery Way.'"
Descheeny struggled and tried to pull away, but Frye's grip
tightened and she was forced to face Karlow again. He inhaled deeply and said, "It took
quite a bit of work to find your great-great-great-great
grandmother." He lifted the rib up
to eye level and said, "Especially since she was cursed." She opened her mouth to speak, but as soon as
she did, Mason's hand flew to her throat and clenched around it. Her trachea was pressed and her jaw struggled
to open against his power. His
expression hardened and then he drove the point of the rib into her carotid
artery. "I am sorry, Miss
Descheeny."
He stepped back and let the first spurt of blood arc onto
the ground. Then he produced a large
emesis basin and caught the rest of it.
Abigail didn't loosen her hold while the victim shuddered. After about thirty seconds of gasping and wet
eye rolling, she slumped and Frye let her fall to her knees. Karlow set one full basin aside and lifted
another. He pressed it against her
throat and caught more redness with it.
At last, Stacy fell forward and Abigail released her entirely.
Mason sighed and held the blood-filled container aloft. "Get the soil."
Frye opened her satchel and brought out a metal Thermos. She unscrewed the top, stepped over the
display barrier, and stood above the decayed body of the Navajo woman, dressed
in the burial trappings of a Goshute.
After a moment, Karlow joined her and he leaned over the bones with the
basin of blood.
He held his medallion up and pointed the red stone at the
skeleton's head. Speaking in Akkadian,
he said, "Father Nanna, dark Su'en.
I bear the symbol of your temple and hold it. I dwell within the temple and hold spirits to
your bidding. Grant me sway over this
being. You shine anew and I with
you. You live again and I
continue."
He paused, thought for a moment, and then began to speak in
the nearly extinct tongue of the Navajo, "In the house of the Moon, in the
story of the Moon, on the trail of the Moon, her body, mind, and spirit
restore." He poured the blood upon
the bones and Abigail shook the Thermos, pouring out soil which clung to the
thick redness. "With power before
me, held in my hand. With power above
me, held in my hand. With power below
me, held in my hand. With power behind
me, held in my hand. See my symbol. Hear my voice. It is finished."
Karlow dropped the medallion and stood. Frye backed away from the display and stared
at the muddy, bloody clumps that oozed along the sides of the skull and
bones. "When will we know?"
He looked at his watch.
7:22. Mason leaned onto his
silver-headed cane and shook his head.
"When she rises, I suppose."
Nidawi'baa stood and screamed. It surprised her that her voice was not
high-pitched or shrill like she remembered.
Instead, it was deep and it bellowed.
It bounced off the tall walls and echoed. She stepped forward and saw a small man
cower. She was surprised by his
reaction, but she felt something surge within.
It started as nausea and then spread as warmth throughout her torso and
into her limbs. Her limbs … she felt her
right arm pull back and then swipe across her front.
A giant claw supported by pink and red sinew moved through
her field of vision, knocking the man several yards away. Blood splattered onto the floor as he
flew. She roared again and looked at her
paw. Her paw … She had no skin. Muscles covered her body and sharp nails
formed deadly weapons on her hands and feet.
Nidawi'baa felt something hit her back.
Like a bee sting accompanied with a loud bang. She felt it again and turned. She roared.
Nausea gave way to anger and she smacked at a group of old people. They were cast about, leaving one person
kneeling low and pointing something metal at her. There was another bang, a flash of fire, and
another bee sting. She roared and
stomped forward, crushing the attacker beneath her large foot.
Nidawi'baa wanted to cry out and ask the gods why this was
happening, but her body began to itch.
She looked at her sinew and muscles and saw that pale, pink skin was
beginning to form. From it, thick, brown
hairs sprouted. She roared again as the
flesh growth changed from itching to fire.
She looked around and saw other people, small compared to her giant
frame, run and press against each other in corners and against furniture. She wanted to lash out and cry for help, but
the nausea returned. She stared at the
people nearby and walked toward them.
Her paws thudded on the stone floor and she dropped onto her front
limbs. With a guttural blast from the
depths of her being, she moved forward.
Two people fainted and with her substantial teeth, she rent another's
midsection from his torso, flinging it across the room. She stood again and swiped at the victims
twice more before she noticed that the nausea had again subsided.
Nidawi'baa stood. She
understood now. She tried to think back
… she remembered being with her tribe.
She remembered darkness. She
remembered the symbol. A golden circle
with two curves removed from either side and a red stone set in the
center. A high-pitched whine entered her
mind and the great she-bear winced. She
looked up toward the dark ceiling and saw a man standing above. There, glowing about his neck, was the
symbol. It burned her eyes as though she
had stared at the sun. She turned away
and grunted. The nausea returned.
People were running on a level above her. More were stumbling their way up a
staircase. She looked toward them but
then turned back to the center of the atrium.
The bear ran, and as she did, she cast off her flesh. The hairy brown pelt tore away. She roared in pain as it left her, and her
bellow became a screech. Her form shrank
and revealed sinew. Her skin toughened
and feathers sprouted forth.
The great eagle glided along the floor and then she flapped
her wings. Nidawi'baa neared the other
end of the atrium and turned back toward the center. She climbed higher and higher and then, after
another u-turn, she approached the man on the metal walkway in the dome.
She extended her black legs and opened her talons. The old man was facing the other way. Nausea ached at her again and she opened her
beak in anticipation. The thrumming of
large wing beats drew Karlow's attention and he turned to face the huge bird of
prey that approached. Nidawi'baa
screeched and the golden badge seemed to become a beam of light. It scorched her wings and chest, and the bird
spiraled away from the dome.
The old man leaned over the edge and yelled down in Navajo,
"Among the alien gods with weapons of magic am I! Rubbed with the summit of the sky! Approach no more, beast of old age!"
The eagle listed and wheeled toward the first level. She saw the people who had been running above
her moments ago. The nausea again
gripped her and she aimed for them. She
shrieked, her feathers fell, and her cry became deeper. Her skin split and her tendon-wrapped bones
stretched to meet the floor. Paws propelled
her forward and her beak became a long snout.
The large she-wolf leapt onto the stairs and gripped the
throat of a new victim in her jaw. She
shook the person side-to-side, spraying blood all around. She dropped him and snapped at the legs of a
woman who tried to crawl away.
Nidawi'baa tossed her to the floor below. Again her skin itched and she watched thick
gray fur grow.
The whole thing comes out on Wednesday!
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