Dark Siren (25 page)

“For luck,” Alice had said, and then she walked on through to meet Nate on the other side.

She found Nate fidgeting with his hands, not quite sure whether to slip them into his pockets or let them dangle at his side, as rich types in suits pressed around him. She had been expecting to see Isaac standing around, waiting for her to arrive. What she got instead was an eyeful of the Greek woman Isaac had been
fucking
when Alice stepped into his office last night. She was tall and beautiful, with striking, sharp features and eyes so clear you could almost see through them. She didn’t say anything to Alice, didn’t greet her, and didn’t apologize for having had sex with her “husband” the night before. Instead she gave a cold, hard stare, then turned her chin, and disappeared into the crowd.

Geez,
Alice thought,
you’d think I had slept with her fake husband.

Then she saw Isaac standing in the crowd, and her heart leapt.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

The Grand Unveiling

When her eyes fell upon Isaac, she found herself thinking she had never in her life seen a man more well put together. He was wearing a charcoal jacket over a black shirt and a pair of fine slacks. From one of the jacket pockets hung a silver chain attached to an ornate little pocket watch which he was looking at. He slipped the pocket watch back into the jacket, ran a nervous hand through his slicked back hair, and scanned the room.

To his left, a tall woman wearing a beautiful red dress and holding a glass of Rosé was speaking to an older gentleman with thin, gray hair and a bald patch on the crown of his head. Around them, men and women, who were dressed like they each owned yachts and private islands, mingled and sipped fine bubbly from long glasses. When Isaac spotted Alice from all the way across the room, she thought she saw the corner of his lips tug into a smile.

Warm blood rushed to her cheeks, and she looked away for an instant. When she turned to look for him again, he was only a foot away from her.

“Alice,” he said, his face now pulled into a charming smile full of pearly white teeth. He gave her a kiss on either cheek, as was the European way. He smelled expensive, and delicious. “You look absolutely stunning.”

She wondered whether he recognized the dress clinging to her body like soft fire and decided to see if he would make the connection on his own. “Thank you,” she said, in her humblest voice. Alice wasn’t used to formal parties, but she knew how to behave at them. “You scrub up pretty well, too.”

“That’s nice of you to say. You must be Nate.”

“I am,” Nate said, shaking Isaac’s hand.

Isaac, still smiling, said, “Just relax, have a drink, and we’ll get through this.”

Like clockwork, a man wearing a white shirt and a black bowtie came up to the three of them with three glasses of champagne on a silver tray. Isaac took a glass but declined to drink. Alice took a glass, sipped it, and immediately remembered why she didn’t drink champagne. It tasted like sparkling piss. How anyone could drink the stuff was beyond her. But the glass helped her fit in, and considering she was wearing a thirty-year-old camera with a paint-job clearly administered by a five-year-old as a fashion accessory, she would take all the help she could get.

Nate took a glass of champagne and made the alcohol disappear with two swallows. “No promises,” he said, “But I’ll do my best.”

“That’ll draw the eye,” Isaac said, nodding at the camera.

“You have your magic,” she said in a hushed tone, “I have mine. I couldn’t leave it at home.”

“I understand. Play the part of a photographer and you’ll be fine.”

“I technically wouldn’t be lying.”

Isaac smiled again. “No,” he said, “You wouldn’t be. Anyway, if you’d follow me in, the director is going to give a general tour of the museum before heading into the Greek wing. Once the tour group is on the other side of the building, you can sneak off to get a moment in the exhibit. Dustin will let you in.”

She didn’t like the idea of someone else being involved in their plan, in their affairs. It was bad enough she had brought Nate down and endangered his life in doing so. Bad enough the museum was full of people—not innocent people, just people. Alice hesitated to use the word
innocent
when referring to Ashwood’s citizens in broad strokes because, well, after the guy in the cab, wasn’t it obvious?

The level of ambient noise in the room rose to a roar before it ceased at the sound of a clinking glass. Alice turned her attention to the source and saw the woman Isaac had been speaking to. She had her hands up now in a gesture which could have indicated surrender or quiet please, and she was smiling.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” she said, in a firm, authoritative, almost forceful tone of voice. “As the director of this Museum, I would like to first extend our warmest welcome. This institution is made brighter by your presence, and we thank you for it.”

Her words were met with applause. Alice didn’t clap, but Nate did—nervously.

The woman continued. “Tonight is a big night for us. For a full year—in fact, slightly longer than a year—we have labored tirelessly to bring to life a brand new Greek exhibit unlike any other in this country. Many hours of dedication and care have gone into building the wing, collecting the items, and restoring them. Many dollars have been poured into this project to ensure it meets our expectations. And I can tell you now as a lover of history myself, it’s all been worth it.”

More applause.

“And now, before we proceed into the museum,” she continued, “I would like to present to you the man who spearheaded this initiative. The man whose diligent efforts, vast knowledge, and hawk like attention to detail made this all possible. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Doctor Isaac Moreau; one of our most esteemed curators and the brain—and brawn—behind this entire project.”

The room erupted in a rumble of applause. Isaac smiled at the crowd, waved, and bid them to simmer down with a gesture of his hand. “Thank you,” he said, “It is my honor to be able to present to you such a magnificent collection of artifacts. Director Perkins is right, this has been a labor of love, and it is with great pleasure that we are able to host this event tonight. Now, if you’ll kindly follow the Director, we will be taking you on a short tour of the entire building which will culminate in our Greek exhibit, at which point we will unveil our prized display.”

Alice felt a wave of cold rush through her now, cold which resonated with Isaac’s words.
Prized display.
This was it. No turning back now. If Alice went and destroyed it, there would be a room full of pissed off patrons to contend with. No, that was a lie.
She
wouldn’t have to contend with them—Isaac would. He would have to explain why the mirror was smashed, who had smashed it, and what happens now.

Then there were the security guards, and cameras, to consider. Isaac had enlisted Dustin as an accomplice in his plan, but he probably didn’t think Alice had any intention of destroying the mirror. He would probably try to stop her. Even if he couldn’t, any investigation that later took place would reveal her as the culprit.

Jesus, why am I still thinking about destroying it?

The urge to destroy the mirror had been a stupid notion, a knee-jerk reaction. She had wanted to destroy it because she knew what it was, knew what kind of power it had and what Nyx could do with it. Destroying it was the best, the only, way to ensure Nyx would never re-enter the world of the living. However, destroying it also meant dooming Emily to a life spent in the Reflection under the care of Nyx and her Pain Children.

Before she knew it, the crowd had gone through the main door into the museum proper. Alice had gone with them, and she was now standing somewhere inside Imperial China. She was surrounded by the color red and gold, flanked on all sides by displays and pictures depicting different aspects of Chinese history—people, trinkets, weapons, and landscapes. Segments of the Great Wall of China were laid out beneath a huge mural showing a breathtaking, illustrated section of the wall itself, but the wonder wasn’t a focus of the exhibit. The theme here was
Empire
, and each individual display reflected this.

In one glass cabinet was a porcelain horse, barded and studded. The tag beneath the case read “A Chinese Tang dynasty tricolored glaze porcelain horse (c. AD 700).” On one wall, a little further down, was a piece of artwork depicting several oxen running along a field. This one was done sometime in the 12
th
century, and had been created by a Chinese General during a military campaign. She was inspecting a glass cabinet housing the remnants of several bows and arrowheads, with Nate standing like a silent partner at her side, when Isaac approached.

“It really is an impressive museum,” Alice said, without looking at him. “I miss coming here. I bet the new exhibit is going to blow me away.”

“The collection is quite extensive, but that’s not why I’m here.”

Alice fell silent.

“It’s time,” he said with a graveness in his voice that made Alice’s stomach drop.

“Time? Already? How much do I have?”

“I can give you fifteen minutes. More if I can delay us from entering the room. If anyone catches you, say—”

“That I’m a photographer,” she said, “I know. I’ll meet you both up there.”

Isaac nodded and Alice began to turn, as if to leave, but Nate said, “Wait, aren’t you taking me with you?”

Alice turned to look at him, and then she looked at Isaac. For a moment, she was unable to answer the question. It was as if he had asked her to tell him her age. The question seemed out of place, and more than a little ridiculous.
Aren’t you taking me with you?
Of course she wasn’t. She had no intention of taking him with her right now, not until she had checked the room out and made sure it was safe. At the same time, if she did bring him with her now they may have a shot to get Emily out before anyone was done with their canapés.

But what were the odds of that?

No. Nyx wouldn’t make this easy for Alice, and this was why she needed to go alone. Right now. She needed to quit wasting time on a pointless decision, get Nate to heel, and get the hell up to that room before anyone else could.

“No,” she said, and before Nate could protest, she added, “You promised you would do as I asked, remember?”

“I do, but you can’t do this on your own.”

“I can’t, and I won’t. But I need you here, and I need you to have your phone on you. All I’m going to do is go up to that room, make sure that the coast is clear, and try and figure out what we’re dealing with so that we can plan our next move. When I’m ready, I’ll send for you.”

Nate’s lips pressed into a thin white line, but he nodded.

“Fourteen minutes,” Isaac said, “And that’s pushing it. Whatever you’re going to do, do it fast. Just… don’t wreck my exhibit.”

“No promises,” Alice said, as she spun on her high heels and moved through the crowd, out of the Chinese exhibit, and across the lobby to the other side of the building.

Dustin was waiting for her by a staff only door. He let her through with a nod, and Alice walked into the corridor that fed into the hall she had walked through last night. Isaac’s office was here, she remembered, and in it there was something she thought she might need, depending on how things went.

Alice slowed as she approached the door to Isaac’s office. She gently took hold of the knob, prayed, and turned it. The door opened with a click and a whine, and Alice stepped through. Besides a set of clothes—the clothes Isaac had been wearing earlier—the office looked no different than it had looked last night, so when Alice moved through it, she knew exactly where to go.

The display cabinet.

But it wasn’t there. The Greek Xiphos sword with the black hilt and red jewel was gone.

“Fuck,” she said, “Where is it?”

Then she remembered. It was bound for the exhibit, which meant it was probably up there already. Why she was thinking of grabbing a sword she didn’t know. Perhaps she thought it would be useful if she had to fight her way out of a bind, but then, if she had to fight her way out of anything tonight, then everything had gone terribly wrong.

She turned around, left the room, and padded her way up the stairs to the Greek exhibit with her heart racing and her mind speeding right along with it. Up until now, the
shadow woman
had been an abstract thing; unknown, unknowable, and as a result, not nearly as dangerous. But she wasn’t the
shadow woman
anymore; she was Nyx. Nyx, who had imprisoned her in the Reflection. Nyx, who had set her Pain Children on Alice time after time, making her cry out in the dark, empty halls of whatever cave she had taken residence in. Nyx, who had been at the root of the cursed life Alice now led. Nyx, the person—thing—Alice had escaped from only at great personal cost.

Alice had been a solid addition to the police force. She was smart, quick on her toes, and tough, with ambitions of one day becoming a detective—homicide, maybe, or vice. She had the qualifications for either, all she had to do was decide which way she wanted to go, and the future she wanted to build for herself was hers.