Hong Kong by Mel Odom

Author:Mel Odom
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Catalyst Game Labs
Published: 2016-01-13T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 44

Dealing with Death

Although the thing that took shape looked human, like the other mummies we’d faced, it was better dressed, and didn’t quite look as dead. Unless you looked twice.

As my finger touched the trigger, ready to take up slack, it held up a hand.

“Stop,” it rasped in a hollow voice that echoed around the room.

I held up. The other mummies hadn’t spoken, and Gobbet touched my shoulder gently.

“Let it speak,” she suggested.

I waited.

“It seems you can move freely through this realm,” the thing said. “Coming and going. Taking what is not yours.”

“Who are you?” Gobbet asked.

“I was once a man, as human as you are now.” The dried lips pulled back in a grim rictus. “Now I am a dead man. My soul is bound to this place, and I cannot leave.”

“You believe we can get you out of here?” Gobbet asked.

“You can.” It nodded and reached into its robes. When it held its hand out, a porcelain ring sat on its withered palm. “Take this talisman and place it among the other artifacts you have taken. Once you have moved this beyond the binding threshold of this excavation, I will be free.”

“Let’s say we do this,” Gobbet said. “What is in it for us?”

The pruny lips twitched in another ghastly smile. “The sure knowledge that you have done what is right.”

Gobbet folded her arms and straightened her back. “You’re gonna have to do better than that.”

I focused on the thing’s head, in case it decided it didn’t have to do better than that.

It didn’t blink because it didn’t have any eyelids, or eyes, but it did hesitate. “When I am free, I will give you a thing. A token. Crumble it in your hands, and I will come to your aid…but only once. One time, and no more.”

It stared at Gobbet with those deep-set hollows, and I could have sworn small fires danced at the back of its skull. “I trust him,” she told me. “A couple of mages I know, people I’ve run with, have dealt with intelligent mummies.”

“You’re sure about this?” I asked.

She nodded. “I heard RC and Demergo made a deal like this once, and ended up with a ton of nuyen, too.”

“Will this be sufficient, human?” Its voice had turned cold, almost arctic. I shivered. “Will you accept my offer?”

The rat shaman wrapped her arms more tightly around herself. “Okay, we’ll do it.”

“Thank you.” The thing bowed its head. “I will be forever in your debt.”

“Not really,” Duncan muttered. “Just till we use the ring. If ever.”

The creature flipped the ring to Gobbet, who caught it in both hands. Then the dead thing faded from view, like it had never been there. Except Gobbet held the porcelain ring.

No one said anything else, and I took the lead up the steps.

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