The Mummies of Blogspace9 (21 page)

“Something of a tumi, the sword of the Indians, was also mentioned in your communications. Give it to me.”

I shook my head, but a more thorough and considerably more painful search led to the discovery of the tumi in my sock, and its pulverization beneath a police boot. All the trouble that Leon had gone to in finding it was now for nothing. I looked down in horror. There was nothing but dust left. My heart fell, realizing that it was all hopeless now. I would fail.

Quiroga laughed; it was little more than a giggle. He held up the book. “Then all you have are words.” He shook his head. “Don’t misunderstand, I know how powerful words can be. Precautions must be taken in case you have memorized the text.” He nodded, and the nearest policeman began winding a roll of tape around my head, shutting my mouth.

At that, Quiroga held up my precious and hard-won Malleus Momias book and tossed it into the fireplace. It caught the flame immediately and began to burn brightly. “Now then,” he continued, “as to revealing the location of my gold, or removing your heads, which shall we do first?”

“A moment, good sir,” Cuellar interrupted. He turned to me and brought forth an unexpected nugget of wisdom. “A memory from my days in seminary. Our teacher, the good Father, reminded us that the rosaries, like the crucifixes we wore, were nothing but props. Faith lies in our hearts, our prayers, our words, not in beads nor sticks of wood.” He gestured to the pile of sawdust that had been the tumi. “Perhaps the same can be said of this.”

What happened next happened so quickly that I still have trouble piecing it together. As one policeman hauled me up to my knees and produced a serrated knife, Duran turned to our host and pulled the trigger of that ancient gun he’d been hauling around. “This one is for you, Sopay,” he growled, but it produced nothing but a tiny wisp of smoke.

Quiroga frowned. Then Negromonte shot one of the policemen as my precious Naya crushed the skull of the other.

Finding himself outnumbered, Quiroga lowered his gaze and began petting Cuellar’s hair. “There, there,” he said turning to watch the book burn in the fireplace, “forgiveness can be at hand, my son. Let us understand that nothing left in this world can hurt me. Now… as to my gold.”

Negromonte shot him but he didn’t even flinch. I’m not certain he noticed. I was focused on getting the tape off my mouth but it wasn’t happening too easily.

I didn’t see Duran step around me, but he must have. Sword drawn, he came at the old man and drove the blade deep into his abdomen, pinning him to the desk. “Vasco,” Duran called out, “Vasco, I’m a swordsman after all.”

There was no more grinning at this point. I heard something guttural emanate from the old man, something not quite human. He struggled as his skin began to crack.

“Santo demonios,” Cuellar moaned, “Santo Sopay.”

Duran stood his ground as Quiroga, the demon inside him enraged, strode purposefully towards him. Still pinned to the antique desk by the sword, the hilt pressed against his stomach like a giant belt buckle, he pulled the desk along with him as if it were no inconvenience.

Negromonte emptied his gun to no effect. Naya stood frozen at my side, a policeman’s head in one hand. Duran grinned. “I’ve been waiting a long time for this, Sopay.”

I, for my part, did the only thing I could do. Maybe the tumi was nothing but an accessory after all. I opened my laptop and clicked the mouse, hoping Cuellar had been right.

What rang out through my speakers were just words, of course. But throughout human history, words have had the power to move mountains, to forge alliances, to alter destinies, and to vanquish evil. The transcription of the Malleus Momias I uploaded to the internet made those words available to anyone on the planet. It was a fitful yet melodic tongue, and I had recorded the words as best I could.

Those words might provide some comfort to a Peruvian cane farmer who might still shut his windows against the cool night rather than stare any longer at the pyramids of old. Those words might provide some solace to a dynasty of gypsies long overdue their reward. Those words might ease the sorrows of men and women transformed against their will to something not of their choosing. Those words were the salvation of a historian and his undead friends who vanquished an evil long in need of vanquishing.

As soon as that Sopay understood what was happening, he extricated that sword from his abdomen and hurled it at my head. I’d not be telling this tale had not Duran sacrificed his left hand in catching it. “That’s just one more thing,” he conceded as he retrieved his hand from the floor.

And he might have made it, that Sopay. He might have made it out of the room, out of the range of my puny laptop speakers had Cuellar not clung tightly to his leg. Not so easy to dislodge as a Toledo sword, Cuellar was a creature of his making – an undead priest, strong in body and conviction.

“Forgive me, Father,” Vasco Cuellar howled, holding tightly as the demon screamed and writhed himself out of existence. “I have been sinning for a very long time.”

July 25, 2011
Seville, Spain
Leon Samples

The
tenth best thing
about this whole experience is staying in the penthouse suites at the Gran Melia Colon, one of Seville’s finest hotels. We have the whole floor. All things considered, we need the privacy. A discreet surgeon looked after our modest bumps and scrapes, the wounds of our battle while I drank Tequila and cherry soda. I thought about having a Mojito, but in the end, I decided against it.

The
ninth best thing
was Bruce having the foresight to make sure Naya, Duran, and Cuellar were wearing earplugs during our siege of the Alcazar. Otherwise, it would have been curtains for them too when that Malleus Momias recording came on. It’s not like we want a world free of walking mummies; we just want to get rid of the bad ones.

The
eighth best thing
was realizing that Bruce had uploaded that whole book to the internet. Malleus Momias was already being translated into other languages. Honestly, I have no idea what kind of problems the good folks in China, Portugal, the Philippines, and Turkmenistan are having with mummy uprisings. But they’ll be prepared.

The
seventh best thing
was watching Rafael Duran and Vasco Cuellar walk arm in arm past the Giralda Tower as we left the Alcazar. It was early morning by then, and we were all exhausted, but these two conquistadors carried a lot of the battle, and judging by the spring in their steps, I think they understand that.

The
sixth best thing
was shooting a scimitar-wielding eunuch guard who tried to kill me. I’ve never shot anyone before, nor come up against a eunuch of any kind bearing any sort of weapon. So I’m pleased that I didn’t choke under pressure.

The
fifth best thing
was filling my pockets with gold doubloons — real ones. Sopay/Quiroga’s desk drawer was full of them, so I helped myself. We did a little ransacking once the bad guys were down. Negromonte stationed a few of his men in the Alcazar apartments to keep things under wraps until we get back to sort out our new business affairs.

The
fourth best thing
was watching all those eunuch guards fall to the ground. Like all at once. The moment Bruce and company put that Sopay down, all of his minions fell apart. It’s not like they disintegrated or anything — they just more or less died, as did all the wives. And I know that’s not a thing to really be happy about, but there was something peaceful about it.

The
third best thing
about this whole experience was that Bruce’s new girl Naya agreed to take us to Sebastiano. And he’s really the only piece of this left. Only he knows where the gold is. Naya promised Bruce she’d take him to the gold, and she promised Bolivar the same thing almost two hundred years ago, so it’s time she did so. We’re heading out in the morning.

The
second best thing
was that I finally got to sleep with Kim Castillo. She isn’t quite herself, what with the dying and the cannibalism. But with Quiroga gone, it’s like some haze has been lifted. In any case, she is experiencing some rudimentary sense of gratitude, which she conveyed in a way that was meaningful to me. I asked her out afterwards, but she told me not to press my luck.

The
best thing
about this whole experience was not being castrated. Seriously, if you get through the day without having your balls cut off, then you’re a lot better off than you could have been.

July 27, 2011
Seville, Spain
Bruce Wheeler

It took us two days to find Sebastiano. It was mid-afternoon when Naya led us to the old priest holding court at the San Fernando cemetery. Some distance from the monumental graves of poets and politicians, smaller plots marked the final resting places of orphans and the dispossessed.

A line of beggars, runaways, and gypsy women with children in tow led to the nondescript gravestone from which Sebastiano gave out his blessings and his alms. Behind him, an ageless hunchback tamped the earth over a grave which had been recently disturbed.

Not wanting to interrupt his ministry, we waited in the shade of a poplar, watching as the old priest doled out rings, wire, bits of filigree, even thin plates, all gold of course. As I suspected, the seventeen coffins that Sebastiano brought from Peru two centuries ago did not contain the bodies of priests, but rather the Inca gold that Duran and Cuellar hid in the pyramid, to cheat the Spanish King of his share.

As the line thinned and the grateful stragglers headed off to the jewelers of Seville to convert their treasures to cash, Naya made her way forward. The old priest fell to his knees when he saw her. He folded his arms around her legs and wept.

He made no sound as Naya explained the events of recent days, but some distress was evident when she told of the destruction of his greatest accomplishment, the Malleus Momias. Naya’s explanation of the internet, and the place the book now had in that realm, was slow to load. When he spoke, Sebastiano did little more than murmer, his tongue having been removed by Quiroga centuries ago, but Naya seemed to understand.

This was the last of the gold, only a few pieces remained. It had all been doled out, all that Inca treasure, over the last two hundred years to the needy, to the orphans of Seville.

Negromonte sighed as he rubbed the last few pieces between his fingers. “So much effort, for so little,” he said. “So in the end, we fail.”

But that wasn’t the case, of course. We didn’t fail. Sebastiano did the work of a priest, long after his dying day. And that is an accomplishment of a sort. And of course, we did find the gold. Duran let those few pieces slip through his remaining hand. He’d already taken his share, he reminded us. Vasco Cuellar bit a gold ring to be certain it was real, then swallowed it to be certain he would keep it.

We wouldn’t hurt for money. The last thing a demonically-possessed long-dead Inquisitor thinks about, apparently, is making a contingency plan. So we took his money. Quiroga’s company, Grupo Yapos Iberia, now drained of nearly six billion euros, would soon see the departure of its executives and the foreclosure of all its properties.

We would share the money. There was a lot of it. We had but one final duty here before we left the cemetery. Naya had insisted on it and ultimately, we reluctantly agreed. “It’s something he has been craving for centuries,” she told us.

So we waited as she explained to the old priest what had become of his words, so painstakingly recorded nearly five hundred years ago. And we waited still as she told him what that meant for him. When he finally understood, he wept openly, tears falling to the ground. He nodded once, then again and again as if he could not stop.

“He wants to say something first,” Naya told us, “but he doesn’t know how.” So I opened my laptop. Sebastiano was our number nine. We still had a place open on this, our last day of service from
Blogspace9
, and nobody deserved it more than he did. Naya would help guide his fingers on the keys, to make his last statement. Then when he was ready, she would guide his fingers to the mouse, and let the Malleus Momias guide him out of this world. Although we had just met, we said our goodbyes.