Clan Novel Setite: Book 4 of The Clan Novel Saga Read online

  CLAN NOVEL

  SETITE

  By Kathleen Ryan

  Digital Edition published by Crossroad Press

  Clan Novel Setite is a product of White Wolf Publishing.

  White Wolf is a subsidiary of Paradox Interactive.

  Copyright © 1999 by White Wolf Publishing.

  First Printing June 1999

  Crossroad Press Edition published in Agreement with Paradox Interactive

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  To my Mom, for her birthday

  Table of Contents

  part one: new york

  part two: maryland

  part three:calcutta

  part one:

  new york

  Saturday, 31 July 1999, 12:33 AM

  A studio apartment in Red Hook, Brooklyn

  New York City, New York

  She sat in the exact center of her own apartment, and waited.

  The collar of her crisp, white cotton shirt lay open, just as he had left it. The blood on her neck had dried, and the tender skin there itched under the sticky crust. The handcuffs, finally, lay still. Tested, the chains and shackles had held, and she was weary of fighting them.

  With the irons, he had bound her to and through an old, heavy office chair—solid walnut, too sturdy for her to destroy, even if she wanted to. And, she thought, he would have known that she wouldn’t. Though the ruddy scratches on her wrists pained her, the knowledge that her struggles had scraped the foul and dirt-encrusted bonds over the polished antique—uselessly, by God—hurt almost as badly. Wrist to wood to steel to wood to wrist, the hated things left broad, brick-red stains on her skin, on the shining walnut, and on the center pillar of her home, and there was nothing she could do now but watch, and wait, and remember.

  He hadn’t left a light burning in the apartment, but through the windows—the enormous, beautiful, north-facing, morning windows she’d rented the loft to have—the city gave her enough light to see by.

  The neon, the cars, the street signs silhouetted the studio, her workshop, and gave the apartment its own skyline. There, the easel and its half-cleaned painting, standing tall above the borough. Beside it, a modem skyscraper, all angles and difficult curves: her quilt stand, stretched with a cavalry flag and draped in mending linens. The workbench, a little apart from the better neighborhood, was a warehouse and factory, the roof busy with neat rows of bottles, cleansers, jars, brushes, boxes of gloves and cotton swabs. The desk, large, straight-lined, imposing, was the—

  The desk, dull and dark by streetlight, was real, true cherry. It would glow like copper when the real, true light struck it—when the sun rose, and shone like a god through the beautiful, huge, north windows—

  That was the desk, she thought, and remembered.

  Monday, 21 June 1999, 11:46 PM

  Rutherford House, Upper East Side, Manhattan

  New York City, New York

  The desk was a wreck. Dusty, dirty, scarred, paint-smeared, neglected, its dovetails were falling to pieces, and the patent mechanisms that had made it “state of the art” before the term was invented had been broken for years. The center lock had, at some long-forgotten date, been sawn through and removed completely. The three side drawers had their locks, but so filthy were the mechanisms that even their right keys could never shut them again. Not that she had the right keys; she wasn’t sure, in fact, that the wood around the locks would have survived the experiment. The cabinet side squeaked and rasped when opened, and the swinging table inside sang like a dying elephant if she dared make it emerge.

  She wrung a cut-up cotton T-shirt nearly dry of the warm water and wood soap, and began to lift the grime from the desktop. There was too much grit on the surface to risk wiping the rag across it, even along the grain, so she pressed the wet rag flat, and picked the dust up through sheer water tension and the knit of the cloth.

  With infinite care, she removed the drawers. The center drawer and one of the side three shimmied in her hands; they would have to be trued-up and pinned solid again. The one cut for storing stationery had been repaired before, horrendously. She shook her head at the huge blobs of wood glue that lined the joints. The fourth drawer, unexpectedly, was sturdy, and all the slats and dividers missing from the others were sliding around inside it. Three were original to the desk, and she smiled over the thin sheets of wood like a child over a Cracker Jack prize.

  She opened the cabinet side, pulled the table up and out—with a noise, this time, less like an elephant and more like a broken merry-go-round—and crawled half beneath it. She put the bucket and duster aside for the moment, and dug in her hip pocket for a flashlight.

  A voice erupted gently behind her, clearing its throat. “Is this,” said the voice, “for sale here?”

  Startled, the woman dropped the flashlight to the dusty boards. She pulled her head and shoulders out of the cabinet’s maw, and looked up with dark-amber eyes. The store was dark, the workroom lamps were facing the wrong way, and the man was standing still further shadowed, in the calm, low light of the stairway leading to the owners’ offices.

  “No.” She slid the grimy bandanna from her long, straight, chestnut hair, embarrassed. “Maybe.” With the cleaner side of the kerchief, she wiped the dust from her face and squinted into the landing. “It could be, I guess,” she went on, leaning against the comforting bulk of the thing. “It’s mine. I’m afraid it’s hardly Rutherford House quality…”

  “I’m not really looking to buy. I was just curious…” The man’s tone left the conversation open.

  “I went to a sale with Amy Rutherford and saw it in the odd lot. When she bargained for the pieces she wanted, we brought it in as part of a package deal.”

  “Why?” And, somehow, the voice was genuinely interested, and she found herself talking on.

  “Urn…because it wasn’t worth anything, really. Because we were really interested in some early Marathi—sorry, some early Indian brassworks. And of course, if the dealer knew that they were what Amy was after, he might have double-checked his appraisal. As it was, we paid a few dollars too many for the desk, and picked up his ‘souvenirs’ for pennies. There’s one in the niche behind you,” she said, gesturing to a display on his right.

&
nbsp; “But why all this?” One elegant hand pointed toward the bucket, the cleaners, and the drop cloths.

  She smiled, and gestured vaguely with the bandanna. “Because I like it.”

  The man walked out of the stairwell and into the workroom. He was tall and straight, wearing a charcoal-gray suit that could make a tuxedo look casual—or denim overdressed. He was bald or shaved, but the bones of his skull were beautifully shaped. He wasn’t handsome; he didn’t have to be; he was complete, and perfectly sculpted, and his dark skin gleamed like candlelit mahogany. He walked into the workroom with the polite diffidence of a guest, picked up the nearest of the glaring lamps, and turned it to shine on the old desk.

  “It’s good. It’s not a bad piece. Why do you say it isn’t worth anything?”

  “The pull-out,” she replied, tapping on the swinging table. “It’s built to conveniently store and conceal your typewriter, circa 1920. Patent pending. The estate thought they might be able to sell it to an office-supply place. But hardly anyone wants desks without file drawers, and no one, but no one, uses manual typewriters anymore. Some fool would have taken out the poor creature’s guts and drilled holes through him to convert him to the computer age.” She stroked the beaded edge of the desktop, murmuring, “And I couldn’t let that happen to him.”

  “To him?”

  The woman half-blushed, and put on a more businesslike face. “Sorry. I’m just a little animist. Is there anything I can do for you?”

  “You might give me the honor of an introduction.

  “Oh.” She wiped off her right hand, and gave it to him. Her grip was firm, warm, and confident; his was strong, cool, and dry. “Elizabeth Dimitros. I’m on staff here.”

  “I’m Hesha Ruhadze. It’s a pleasure to meet you.

  “The same.” She paused, trying to place him. Late visitors weren’t uncommon, but she’d never seen this customer before. “Were you here to see Amy?”

  “Agnes,” he said, naming the senior partner. “She was saving an alabaster figure for me.”

  “The Old Kingdom ushebti?”

  “Yes. You saw it?”

  Elizabeth nodded. “I helped authenticate it. It was the best piece the Rutherfords had, this side of the Atlantic.” She looked at him, curiously. “Are you interested in Egyptian art?” She stepped out of her sneakers and left them on the drop cloth. With her stocking foot, she touched a power strip, and the blazing workroom lamps flickered out. With her clean hand, she turned up the dimmers that controlled the display system.

  The main floor of Rutherford House glowed softly in the lights. The walls of the gallery were the color and texture of eggshell, curved and molded to provide shelves and niches for the treasures they held. The artifacts—few of them were young enough to be merely antique—were masterfully displayed. There was harmony, and tradition, and a feel for Anglican upper-class aesthetics. But there was also a contrast in the groupings that spoke of a more modern hand, one that understood the shock of Zen and the unmindfully disciplined dash of Chinese calligraphy. Ruhadze followed her across the thick, soft carpet to a shelf draped in velvet a shade darker than the walls. A slender collar of lapis and gold beads lay in the hollow.

  “This is terribly common of course,” she said, “compared to your latest acquisition, but the ibis inlaid in the clasp is the finest carving of the—”

  Hesha swayed, suddenly disoriented. There was a bright flash inside his own eyes, and the echo of a waking mind, just beyond his own—with shock he thought he recognized the sensation. The Eye? Active? He strained to catch hold of the traces, throwing all his energy into the effort. His body, neglected, began to buckle.

  “Sir? Sir!”

  He found himself falling against the wall, and the woman sprang to keep his head from cracking open on the shelf. He ignored her completely, and concentrated on following the emanations.

  “Are you all right?” Her arms wrestled with the weight of him. She braced her knee behind his back, and turned his unresisting body over. His eyes were closed. “Lie down.” He felt her raise his legs and prop them up on something hard, and then a soft, yielding cushion was placed beneath his head. Her hands fluttered at his cheeks and forehead, and he could feel her leave. He was glad; even the slightest distraction made focusing more difficult.

  For an instant, the vague and slippery phenomenon held steady in his mental grasp: It was the Eye, he had no doubt now. Somewhere in the world it had been…freed. He had the statue with him in New York; that last-minute decision to bring it with him had been irrational, but thank Set for the omens that brought him to do so. He must go to it as quickly as possible.

  A quilted blanket, smelling slightly of attics and moving vans, was spread across him, and his would-be nurse reached for his wrist to take a pulse.

  Hesha motioned her away. “I’m all right.” He sat up, accepting help he didn’t need. Outwardly, he was grateful, and with half a thought spun an effortlessly plausible lie to explain his fall. His inner self was well-masked and racing with questions, analyzing the brief flash of clarity he’d achieved. Elizabeth kept a doubtful watch on him, but his steps were steady and his manner as polished as before the ‘faint.’ He drew his appreciation to a slow close and checked his watch.

  “I really must be getting back to my hotel now,” he said. “Thank you again, Mrs. Dimitros.”

  “Miss,” she said, casually. “But call me Liz; everyone does.”

  He looked into her face thoughtfully. For a moment the mask was set aside and the problem of the Eye left alone. There was a question still unanswered here; the tiny puzzle charmed and tempted him.

  “Would you mind,” he began, “being Elizabeth to me? I’d hate to blend in with the common herd.”

  Elizabeth laughed, and her business face dropped away entirely. “Please.”

  “Would you mind,” he asked, “putting that necklace aside for me to look at the next time I come?”

  “Of course.”

  “And would you mind,” he said again, “having dinner with me Thursday night?”

  “I wouldn’t mind at all,” she said, laughing in surprise. And after he had gone, and the front door was locked behind him, it was some time before she remembered that the bucket, the rag, and the desk were still waiting.

  A black sedan pulled up to Hesha at the curb. The rear right door opened for him automatically, and he slid into the sleek passenger compartment without hesitation.

  The car was custom made for him. Its rear windows and the privacy panel were tinted; with the panel raised and the tint made black, the back seat was proof against the noonday sun. It held a laptop and a compact office; it had phone, fax, a modem, and scramblers for security of all kinds. It was bulletproof, by the driver’s insistence—Hesha’s own plans were laid to avoid firefights, rather than to protect against them, but he respected the fears of his retainer.

  “To Greenwich, Thompson, as fast as you can.”

  Hesha picked up his phone and dialed the number of his ally, Vegel. The younger Setite was in the position of junior partner in Hesha’s quest for the Eye. He would be eager to hear that the Eye was on the move, and as mystified as Hesha that someone else had gotten to the artifact before them…the phone rang for the sixth time, and Hesha began to worry…Vegel would be needed in Baltimore immediately. Hesha was glad he’d sent a full team to Atlanta for this Toreador lunacy; having a Cessna waiting would…the phone rang for the eight time…the ninth…

  The phone company informed him that the cellular number he had reached was not responding; the subscriber might be away from his phone or outside the range of their calling area.

  Hesha flicked open the laptop and brought up a list of numbers. He punched one into the phone.

  Tuesday, 22 June 1999, 12:08 AM

  Parking garage, the High Museum of Art

  Atlanta, Georgia

  “McDonough,” said Hesha.

  “Sir!” The faintest hint of awe undercut the sharp, professional manner. Vegel’s driver
had heard the chief’s voice before, but not often.

  “Vegel’s number is down. Find him. Have him call me back.”

  McDonough sat for a moment, thinking. He tried Vegel’s line himself, and when the saccharine voice of the telephone company started its speech, cut the connection and left the vehicle. He double-checked the car’s alarms, and walked slowly through the underground garage to the elevator. The eyes of other men and women were locked on him the entire way: guards, drivers, enforcers, playthings, and monsters waiting for their masters to return from the party above. He gave the tight knot of smokers by the exit booths a wide berth and approached the elevator. The doors opened on a heavily built, unsympathetic-looking gentleman in a tuxedo. McDonough kept his hands in sight and steady. His voice was level. “Mr. Vegel has an important call. I need to communicate with him.”

  “Step in.”

  The two men rose to the basement level of the High Museum, and McDonough was received by a further eight guards, all in tuxedos. They reminded him of a matched set of knives; sleek, beautiful, deadly.

  “Wait here,” said the elevator man. Ten minutes later, he returned, holding the door open for a woman—a woman more beautiful and more deadly than any ‘knife’ in the room. Her dark curls floated around her head as she walked toward him; her plain white, sleeveless gown rippled and flared with each step. She smiled at him, and the rest of the room ceased to exist; she spoke, and he had trouble remembering his own name. “I’m sorry. Vegel seems to have left my party, Mr….”

  “Mc…McDonough.”

  “You had a message for him?”

  “Mr. Ruhadze called. Vegel’s phone isn’t working. I thought…”