For a dead woman, she looked pretty good. Morgan stood in front of Princess Femi, his eyes traveling the lines of her body for the umpteenth time. The linen hid her face and there was ripeness to her scent but even in her dried out state, there were hints that in life she had possessed the kind of figure that would have set the hearts and minds of men aflame.
"You look like my husband, the way you stare at her." Lorraine stood behind him in the doorway to the cluttered study. She had two glasses of wine in her hands and she slowly stepped forward to offer one to Morgan. He accepted it with a rakish smile. "What is it about her that holds men in thrall?"
"Can’t put my finger on it," Morgan answered. He sipped the wine and his grin widened. This was good stuff, much better than anything he could usually afford. "Thanks for this," he said, holding up the glass.
"You’re welcome, Mr. Watts."
"Call me Morgan."
"Only if you call me Lorraine."
Morgan noticed the look in her eyes and he recognized what might be happening here. She’d been trapped in a marriage of convenience and now that she was free, all those pent-up desires were being amped up by the danger she’d found herself in. It was a dangerous cocktail, especially where Morgan was concerned.
Clearing his throat, Morgan took a large gulp of the wine and set the glass aside. "I better start examining her."
Lorraine looked slightly perturbed but said nothing. She sat down on a small couch nearby and watched him approach Femi. She leaned back and her breasts strained against the fabric of her white dress. Morgan tried to ignore her. Not that long ago, he would have gladly accepted her unspoken invitation. But these days, he was a valued member of Assistance Unlimited and he had a job to do.
And there was also the matter of Samantha. Sure, she’d made it clear she wasn’t interested in romance but it still felt like cheating to consider going to Lorraine Mitchell’s bed.
Morgan ran his hands down the mummy’s slim hips and patted her down like he was a cop checking for weapons. He moved the body and examined the wall behind her as well. There was absolutely nothing unusual about her.
"I don’t see any signs that anyone’s playing any kind of joke on you, Mrs. Mitchell. This here is your ordinary kind of mummy."
"You have a good sense of humor. I like that in a man."
Morgan cleared his throat again, wondering when the others would be arriving. He was about to suggest that they step out into the garden and finish their wine in the sunlight when a prick on the back of his neck caught his attention. His hand flew up and slapped against the skin. He’d thought it was an insect biting him but his palm came against something small and sharp. He yanked it out and stared at in growing horror. It was a tiny blow dart with some kind of amber-colored fluid dripping from the tip.
He whirled about to look at the window, which was open slightly to let in a breeze. A swarthy man’s face was there, the blowgun raised to his lips for another attack. Around the man’s eyes was thick mascara, making his eyes seem like white orbs in a field of black. "Lorraine!" he hissed but it was too late. His head was swimming so much that he toppled over to the floor, even as the man shot a second dart at Lorraine. She gasped in alarm, the wine glass falling from slack fingers to stain the carpet.
Lazarus Gray stared at the corpse of David Mitchell. He wore a small gauze mask over his mouth and nose but it did virtually nothing to help with the smell. Decomposition was a natural thing but its effects on the human body were not pretty.
Hovering nearby was the city’s coroner, a grossly fat man named Sheedy. Sheedy was munching on a cruller doughnut, not disturbed in the least by the grisly scene before him. Death was part of his every day existence and in the crime-riddled streets of Sovereign, he frequently saw things that would churn the stomach of lesser men. "So what are you looking for?" he asked, bits of cake falling down onto the front of his bloodstained shirt. He looked more like a butcher than a man of medicine and law.
"Mr. Mitchell’s death is under my personal investigation. I merely wish to verify your earlier diagnosis as to the cause of death."
"Heart attack." Sheedy shoved the rest of the cruller into his mouth and proceeded to lick his fingers clean. "No signs of foul play. Tested him for poison in case that wife of his wanted to do him in. Nothing showed up."
Gray said nothing. He would have preferred to study the body alone but that would have required paying off Sheedy. Gray had plenty of money but he had no desire to line the man’s pockets any further.
Mitchell had been, to the naked eye, in fine health. Tests showed that he was in the early stages of at least two different sexually transmitted diseases, however, and Gray was fairly confident that he had not acquired them during relations with his wife. He tilted the head to the side and noticed something on the dead man’s neck. It looked like a hematoma of some kind, circular in shape with a number of red spots in the center. It had faded some as the blood had settled but the remnants were still there, indicating that it had been fresh at the time of death.
Sheedy leaned over the body, dropping crumbs onto the dead man’s suit. "Yeah, I saw that, too. Looks like he and the wife had gotten frisky a little bit. It’s a love bite."
Gray stared at it. The mark had other names, as well. In America, it was often referred to as a hickey. In India, it was dubbed a Kamasutra bite. Gray was certain that Lorraine would deny that she had left this mark on her husband. Despite what she’d said about trying for children, it was apparent to Gray that she and her husband were estranged. She had the air about her of a long-suffering woman who was far more upset about the mummy’s actions than she was over the recent death of her lover. So who had done this to him? Surely he hadn’t found the time to meet with a mistress right before his heart attack… but the only other woman in the house besides Lorraine was Femi.
Gray suddenly had a clear image of Mitchell unwrapping the lower portion of Femi’s face and running his hand over her dried skin. He’d leaned in, possibly even kissed her, and then placed his cheek against hers in a morbid parody of a lover’s embrace. Imagine his horror when the mummy screamed and then closed her lips around his throat, sucking so hard that she ruptured the cells beneath the skin. He’d panicked and died, falling to the floor where Lorraine would later find him.
It was all conjecture, of course, but Gray felt certain now that Lorraine was telling the truth. Femi was alive, in some blasphemous manner. He stepped back, whipped off his mask and gloves, tossing both to Sheedy. "Thank you, Doctor. This has been most enlightening."
He stepped outside and found Samantha waiting for him. She looked so worried that he immediately sensed something was wrong. "What is it?" he asked.
"I made the call and got a lot more information. I went straight to the Mitchell place to warn Morgan and I found that they were gone: all three of them. And I don’t think they left on their own."
Gray’s mismatched eyes sparked with anger. He knew who the ‘three’ were: Morgan, Lorraine Mitchell, and Princess Femi. "We’ll rendezvous with Eun at headquarters," he said.
"And then what are we going to do?"
Lazarus thought there was a surprising amount of concern in Samantha’s voice, more than usual in these kinds of situations. Was it because Morgan was among the missing? "Then we will rescue our friend and client… and destroy the abomination that is Femi!"
Chapter III