My eyes narrowed as my brain absorbed that. He did have a point. I was in the museum after having called in sick for the past few days (which was odd, but not completely strange), accompanied by a dark, mysterious man covered in black leather head to toe (very strange). The security guard should have at least stopped by to say hi or do a bit of random clubbing with a nightstick. So why hadn’t he?
There were a few possibilities, none of them pleasant. One: George the security guard could be dead. A long shot, but since I’d just spent the last two days with fallen angels, vampires, and succubi, I was willing to work murder into the realm of plausibility. Two: George knew we were here and was dialing 911 for backup. Or three: he and Julianna were having mad sex in the control room and were too busy to notice the odd couple in the security cameras. But since George was ninety if he was a day and Julianna had a permanent icicle up her ass, I doubted that very much.
So I shrugged, trying to look nonchalant. “I give up. Why don’t you just tell me?”
“You’re no fun.” Zane had another cigarette between his lips and lit it before I could protest. “Come on. I’ll show you.” He stalked ahead of me and turned down a hall.
I trotted after him, making sure that his long, sweeping coat didn’t knock over anything vital. “Where are you going? That’s the wrong way. We’re looking for the Egyptian wing, not the Mayan exhibit.”
He ignored my stressed squawking, heading straight for the men’s room.
I pulled up short as he stepped inside. Well, okay. This threw me for a loop. I didn’t think vampires had bodily functi-
Zane cracked the door back open again and gave me an odd look. “You won’t be able to see anything from out there.”
My jaw dropped. “What exactly do you think I’d want to see in there?”
He rolled his eyes and yanked me into the bathroom with him. “You’re the most paranoid sex fiend I’ve ever met, Princess.”
“I’m not a sex fiend,” I protested, as he turned me to face the mirror over the row of sinks. “I fail to see …” The words died in my throat. “I …” Failed again. “Oh.”
My reflection stared back in the mirror, looking as uncannily sexy as ever. I also saw the wall behind me. And a cigarette dangling in the air.
As in, by itself.
“Er, you’re not in the mirror.” I pointed at where his reflection should have been.
Zane smacked a hand to his forehead. “My word, you’re right.” He shook his head and took a long haul on his cigarette. “It’s a wonder you Suck girls aren’t prized for your brains. That’s some keen wit you’ve got there.”
I slapped the cigarette out of his mouth and ground it under my shoe. “Can we go now? I realize this is all fun and frat-boy games to you, but I’ve got to figure out where your queen’s been hiding her fashion accessories for the past four millennia before she kills my friend.”
I didn’t like being made fun of, and there was something about Zane that always put me on edge. His laughing sexuality? His devil-may-care attitude? Whatever it was, I didn’t trust him one bit. Even worse, I didn’t trust myself around him.
He really did have the most amazing lips.
“She won’t kill him, you know,” Zane called after me. “She’ll use him for a bit to see if she can breed a child off his seed and make a divine vampire. Failing that, she’ll just drain him of his powers.”
“Well, don’t I just feel so much better now,” I gushed. I stormed away, determined to get to the Egyptian wing without any more distractions from the fanged menace.
Zane didn’t say anything else for a good ten minutes, allowing me time to get my thoughts in order. Somewhat mollified, I shared my theory about Nitocris being an ancient queen of Egypt and he didn’t laugh at me, which was surprising.
The Treasures of the Nile was my favorite collection in the entire museum. It was our most popular wing, so I’d never been assigned to it, since I was the lowest docent on the totem pole. But I had the guided tour memorized in the hopes of one of the more prestigious docents calling in sick and me getting my chance to shine.
A full-blown sarcophagus encased in glass heralded the entrance of the Egyptian wing. The walls were painted with a scene of the banks of the Nile, and a few fluted columns topped with palm leaves added to the feel. The piped-in Eastern music that normally played here was silent, so the only noises were the swish of Zane’s clothing behind me, and the sound of him inhaling on his cigarette.
“So, what are we looking for here?”
“Egyptian stuff. Duh.”
He looked like he wanted to choke me for a moment, and I felt exceedingly proud of managing to get under his skin.
He leaned over a glass case and stared at a line of ushabti figurines. “No, Princess. I meant, what did you hope to find at this particular museum?”
It was a long shot, but I had remembered something that I thought might be worth a try. I brushed past him and gave him a breezy smile, heading toward the far end of the crowded exhibit. “Carrie Brown worked here last summer.”
“Who?”
“She was a graduate student at Oxford in their archaeology program. She interned here last summer and worked in the Egyptian wing.” Lucky bitch.
I headed to the far end of the room, behind the movie screen that played A Day in the Life of Egypt on an endless twenty-minute loop during business hours. “She wrote her thesis on female Egyptian pharaohs. Carrie left a copy for the museum’s records, so I’m going to rummage through her papers to see if she had anything good.”
I fumbled behind the screen, feeling around, and turned my finger in a small indention. The storage door slid open a few inches. The room was so crammed full of boxes of old documentation and gift shop receipts that it was impossible to open the door fully. I wedged one lean thigh in the door and forced it open, squeezing my body through the crack. There was a slight problem with the boobs, but I managed to shove my way through without damaging myself.
I flipped on the light switch and stared up at the daunting stack of boxes. I’d had to box up the crap the giggly interns had left on their desks last summer when they’d returned to college, just in case they wanted it back. Carrie Brown’s documents should still be in her storage box, including her well-detailed thesis.
“Are you going to be in there long?” From outside of the claustrophobic storage closet, Zane’s voice echoed in the quiet hall. “Or shall I wander off?”
Hell, no! Thinking fast, I stuck my head out to look at him. “Do you know what Nitocris’s cartouche looks like?”
The vampire gave me a blank look. “I beg your pardon?”
“The cartouche?”
An offended look crossed his face. “How dare you ask me about such a thing? She is my queen, not some common slut-”
I blinked hard and resisted the urge to giggle at the pissy look on his normally blasé face. “Whoa there, stud. I meant her name. Spelled out in Egyptian hieroglyphs.”
“No, I wouldn’t know.”
“Then do me a favor and start reading these.” I pointed at one of the informative plaques next to the glass cases. They gave a small blurb of history about the object inside or sometimes a quote from a historical document. “Look for anything that mentions a hidden room or a chick pharaoh. Got that?”