A Perfect Blood (The Hollows #10)(41)
Author: Kim Harrison

Mr. Calaway nodded at me, then did a double take at Wayde, his hairy legs showing between his army boots and his boxers. "I hope we can take care of this quickly," he said, his eyes squinting in worry at the official cars and the young family with a stroller giving them a wide berth. "We haven’t had any trouble for a long time. It’s a museum. Nothing much changes here except the interns."

I forced a smile as I leaned forward and shook his hand. "We will be as unobtrusive as possible," I promised, but it was as if I didn’t exist for him, and it kind of rankled. I wasn’t dressed as nicely as the people around me – except for Wayde, and he had dropped back to run a hand over his face as he looked out over the river, his untucked thin shirt flapping in the wind.

Nina gestured toward the door, and we all began moving. "You okay?" I asked Glenn, and he gave me a sharp look.

"Why shouldn’t I be?" he asked, and I warmed, resolving to keep my mouth shut.

"Come on in," the curator was saying. "I can’t imagine anyone’s been here, but we don’t go down into the lower levels much. It’s damp down there. Low water table."

Mr. Calaway opened the door, and all the men hesitated, looking at me. I knew I had promised Jenks and Ivy that I’d go to only secure sites, but this was a museum lobby, not the bad guys’ lair. Besides, it was cold, so I hunched my shoulders and went in, appreciating the lack of wind as I took in the tall-ceilinged entryway with its placards explaining what the museum was about. There was an official-looking desk for buying tickets and arranging for self-guided audio tours, and the eyes of the woman manning it widened as the rest filed in behind me, Mr. Calaway’s mouth never stopping.

"There’s a tour going through right now. Is there any way you can avoid them?" he asked in worry. He still didn’t get it, but the I.S. officer probably hadn’t told him we were tracking down a militant human fringe group that was deforming witches with black magic.

Glenn brought his attention back from the artifact case. "We will be as circumspect as possible. We don’t need to do a room by room since we have a detection charm."

"Oh." The human looked at me doubtfully, and I smiled sarcastically.

"It’s a super-duper murderer finder," I said, holding up the glowing amulet as I remembered him dissing me on the front steps. "I made it in my kitchen last night. Don’t you worry, Mr. Calaway. We’ll find those serial killers and get them out for you."

"S-serial killers?" the curator stammered, his dark complexion lightening considerably.

"Rachel . . ." Glenn growled, but Wayde had turned his back on us, laughing, I guess.

"Didn’t they tell you?" I said, making my eyes wide and enjoying jerking the stiff man’s chain. "What did the I.S. officer say we were here for? Inspecting for fire-code violations?"

Nina frowned, and Glenn pinched my elbow. "You like causing trouble, don’t you?" Glenn insisted, and I stopped. Maybe being ignored on the front steps bothered me more than I’d realized, but that had felt good, and now I was pretty sure that Mr. Calaway wasn’t a suspect. I didn’t want to walk around a museum with a serial killer. I had promised to be careful, right?

Glenn stepped nearly in front of me, taking the upset man by the shoulder and all but leading him to the turnstiles. "We only need a few people until we know for sure if what we’re looking for is here, Mr. Calaway," he said, giving me a glare to keep my mouth shut. "There’s no need to be alarmed, and we’re grateful that you’re letting us look around without a warrant. Ms. Morgan is exaggerating the situation."

I sighed, but got what Glenn was saying and resolved to shut up. If Mr. Calaway refused to let us in, we could lose a day in the courts getting a warrant. The thing was, though, I wasn’t exaggerating, and Glenn knew it.

"Um, I’ll get the keys," the curator said, his focus distant as he reached over the counter and brought out a ring of them. "I’ve got a key for everything."

Right at the front desk, I thought, thinking security was pretty lax. But who was going to run off with any of this stuff?

Mr. Calaway started for the museum’s entrance, his pace fast and jerky. Glenn grabbed my elbow and propelled me forward, his grip a shade too tight and his shoulders tense. He wasn’t happy with me, but I didn’t care. Wayde was behind me, and Nina ahead, her eyes scanning, evaluating, searching, her motions both graceful and tense. I don’t think the vampire she was channeling had ever been in here before. It was like watching a cat, furtive and sleekly sexy at the same time.

"This is our main room," the man was saying as we took our turns going through the turnstile and entered the large four-story room. Tours fanned out from here, but it was the log cabin my eyes lingered on. As the curator started in on his memorized spiel as if we were tourists, I stared at the building, wondering why it drew my attention – other than its being a building inside another.

"That is creepy," I said to Wayde when I read the placard and found the log cabin had once been hidden inside someone’s barn and was a holding pen for slaves being moved and sold. "Something doesn’t look right," I added as I continued reading, finding that it had been painstakingly reassembled here for instructional reasons. Kids ran in and out of it as if it was a playhouse, while serious adults tried to take in the atrocity it represented, and yet . . . something felt off.

Nina rocked toward me. "It’s a fake," she said softly, her eyes on the roofline.

I looked at her, as did Wayde, leaving Glenn patiently listening to the curator and trying to wedge a word in and get this train moving.

Nina shrugged, her hands loose at her sides. "There’s no moulage on it," the vampire said, still not having looked away from the thick, dark timbers. "It’s a fake, a replica."

"But moulages fade with time and sun," I said. "This thing is ancient."

"Ancient? No." Nina reached out to touch the timbers, apparently blackened artificially, and not with the blood the sign said they were. "But something like this – something built to hold people against their will, to imprison lives, souls, and fears – tends to soak up emotion and hold it like a sponge." Scrunching up her face, Nina looked at the chimney. "It will hold its emotion for a long time, and this has none."

A banshee might have soaked it up, I thought, but dismissed it. "A fake?" I asked, thinking it was unfair that they would try to pass it off as an original.

Nina’s eyes flicked behind my shoulder, and I jumped when Glenn touched me, asking, "Rachel? Which way?"