The Empress's Tomb Read online

  “She’s right,” I admitted. “I apologize, Iris.”

  “I’m over it,” said Iris. “Let’s get back to work.”

  “Want to see Kiki’s dress?” Betty pushed a devil to one side and revealed an elegant dress of satin and lace. “I thought she’d want to stick with black, so I had to make it myself. All of the adult dresses are way too big for her and most of the kids’ dresses are sherbet colored.”

  “It’s great, but I’d kill to see Kiki in bubble gum pink.”

  “You might have to. Oh, and here’s yours.” She pulled out a long silk dress in a deep burgundy. “My mother designed this for a modern interpretation of Medea. Bloodstains won’t show on it.”

  “Good to know,” I said. “Do you really think I’ll look okay in that?”

  “Are you kidding? You’re going to be fabulous,” Betty insisted. “And see,” she said, sticking a hand into the folds of the skirt. “Hidden pockets for the bugs—just like I promised.”

  • • •

  With my new dress on, I sat at Betty’s vanity, my back to her collection of fake noses while she finished the last touches on my makeup. Iris stood to one side as Betty gave her instruction.

  “One of Ananka’s eyes is just a teensy bit bigger than the other, so we’re going to add a little extra liner to the small one …”

  “What time is it?” Oona butted in. Having finally grown bored of staring at her own reflection, she was rearranging Betty’s wigs, which rested on dozens of Styro-foam heads lined up against the wall. Luz was sprawled out across the bed, staring at the ceiling. She checked her watch.

  “Almost eight fifteen,” she said.

  “Where’s Strike?” Oona growled. “It’s going to take us thirty minutes to get uptown and we’ve got to be there by nine. If Kiki stands us up for this one, I swear I’ll kick her butt.”

  “Good luck,” snorted Luz. “I’ll give you fifty dollars to try.”

  Iris started to titter and then thought better of it.

  “Kiki will be here,” DeeDee said just as the buzzer rang. “See?” She jumped up to answer the door.

  When DeeDee returned, her face was grim. Kiki’s looked like a still from a horror film.

  “Sorry I’m late,” she said.

  “No problem. Are you feeling all right?” Kiki’s complexion was more cadaverous than usual and her eyes were bloodshot and swollen. She looked as if she hadn’t slept in days.

  “Verushka was sick again. I had to find a new doctor.”

  “I thought she was feeling better,” said DeeDee. “What’s the problem now?”

  “It’s her leg. There’s still something wrong with it.”

  “Do you think you should be here?” I asked. “Shouldn’t you be at home with her?”

  Oona cleared her throat in protest, but the rest of us ignored her.

  “She didn’t want me to miss this,” Kiki said. “The doctor’s with her now.”

  “Are you sure you’re feeling up to a dinner party?” asked Betty. “One of us can go in your place if you need to stay at home.”

  “Excuse me?” Oona whined. “I love Verushka as much as any of you, but this is serious, too.”

  “I’ll be fine,” Kiki assured us with a weak grin.

  “Then hop up, Ananka,” Betty told me. “You’re finished, and I’ve got fifteen minutes to do some serious damage repair.”

  “Nice dress, Oona,” Kiki said as she took my seat at the vanity. “A present, I assume?”

  “Yeah, her father’s really got her number, doesn’t he?” DeeDee said.

  “I hope you’re talking about my dress size, Morlock,” Oona barked.

  • • •

  As our taxi sped up Madison Avenue, Oona, Kiki, and I studied the floor plans of Lester Liu’s mansion. Two blocks south of our destination, we jumped out of the cab and walked toward the park. A group of tourists strolling down Fifth Avenue stopped to ogle us. In her pale gray dress, Oona resembled a marble goddess sprung to life, and Betty had worked wonders on Kiki. With her colorless hair, startlingly white skin, elegant black dress, and red lips, she could have been queen of the vampires. Even I looked presentable, though I struggled to walk gracefully in my heels.

  Kiki glided beside the wall that separates Fifth Avenue from Central Park. Slipping past the Children’s Gate at Seventy-sixth Street, she approached two men who were sitting on the ground, enjoying a feast of Vienna sausages and cold beans.

  “Kiki Strike,” she said, holding out her hand to the elder of the pair.

  “Howard Van Dyke.” The man reached up to shake her hand. He was short, portly, and unusually hairy—like a garden gnome gone to seed. “Care for a cocktail weenie?” he asked.

  “No, thank you,” Kiki declined politely. “I’m allergic.”

  “I’m Kaspar,” said the younger man, jumping up and shaking Kiki’s hand. “I’ve read about you in the papers. Oona, Ananka,” he said with a little bow in our direction. “You’re both looking splendid this evening.”

  “Thanks, squirrel boy. Ow!” Oona yelped when I elbowed her.

  “Hi, Kaspar,” I said.

  “Betty told me you’ve been very helpful,” said Kiki. “Thank you for watching the mansion.”

  “It’s been a pleasure,” said Kaspar. “Howard kept me company.”

  “Thanks to you, too, Howard,” said Kiki. “So what have you seen?”

  “There hasn’t been much activity,” Kaspar noted. “There’s a butler who comes and goes throughout the day. He’s an unusual character. Looks a little like Genghis Kahn with a bad toupee—you can’t miss him. There’s also a cook, but he left a few minutes ago. I think there may be only one servant in the house at the moment. There were a couple of visitors this morning. A tall man in a bespoke suit showed up around nine. Well groomed, but a little flashy. He stayed for only a few minutes. The second was a deliveryman who unloaded a container of snakes.”

  “Did you say snakes?” I asked.

  “That’s what it looked like,” Kaspar confirmed. “Are you sure you want to go inside?”

  “Snakes or no snakes, we don’t have a choice,” Oona said, giving me the evil eye. “We were invited to dinner.”

  “Then I’ll wait here to make sure you come back out again.”

  “That’s very gallant of you,” said Kiki. “But we can take care of ourselves.”

  “I’m sure you can. But you see, my social calendar is empty this evening. I don’t have anything else to entertain me,” said Kaspar, displaying a remarkable skill for diplomacy. “If you don’t mind stopping by after dinner, I’d be curious to hear about the snakes. As your friends may have told you, I am something of an animal lover.”

  “In that case, maybe we’ll bring you some leftovers,” said Kiki with a grin.

  “And perhaps a bottle of Châteauneuf du Pape?” asked Howard. “It’s the best wine for weenies.”

  “I’ll see what I can do.” Kiki laughed as we started for the exit.

  “I like Kaspar,” Kiki announced as we crossed Fifth Avenue. “I wonder why he ran away from home.”

  “How did you know?” I asked in astonishment.

  “His teeth looked a little too perfect,” said Kiki. “If he’d been living in the park for that long, they’d be growing moss by now.”

  • • •

  Lester Liu’s butler stood aside and waited silently as the three of us entered the mansion’s foyer. Tall, dark, and oddly coiffed, he studied the space above our heads, though I sensed he saw everything. I avoided the snow-white pelt of a Siberian tiger, which lay flat against the floor, its head lifted in a savage welcome. Beneath a crystal chandelier lit with dozens of flickering candles, Oona’s diamonds came to life, issuing little sparks as she glided across the marble. Kiki’s eyes circled the room, taking note of escape routes, and possibly searching for snakes. On the ground floor, there were two tall doors on either side of the foyer. The door to our right had been hastily boarded over. Each piece of wood was studded w
ith nails that were gnarled and bent.

  “We’re here to see my father.” Oona’s voice, always a little too loud, ricocheted off the marble walls. Without uttering a word, the butler turned his eyes to the grand staircase. A small man in a tuxedo was descending from the second floor, the tip of his cane tapping each step. In profile, his face looked cold, but as he navigated the last curve of the stairway, he broke into a charming smile.

  “My dear Oona.” Lester Liu spoke with the spit-polished accent of a newly titled English lord. With his free hand, he took his daughter by the shoulder and planted a kiss on both cheeks. “You are even more stunning than your mother. From now on, you must always dress like this.” I expected Oona to squirm or launch an insult in his direction. Instead, she gaped at her handsome father, unable to speak.

  “These must be your friends.” Lester turned first to Kiki. “Miss Strike, I presume,” he said, reaching for Kiki’s hand. “You are every bit as impressive as I imagined you would be.”

  “You flatter me, Mr. Liu.” Kiki’s arched eyebrow made it perfectly clear what she thought of his opinion. “Are you keeping someone out—or in?” she asked with a smile, pointing to the blocked doorway.

  Lester Liu matched Kiki’s smile and upped the ante. “That is a touch of Ms. Varney’s decorating. She was quite frugal in her later years. Rather than heat the entire mansion, she shut off the east wing to lower the gas bill.

  “But how can I focus on these trivialities with such a charming young creature standing in front of me?” he asked, extending a hand in my direction.

  “Annie Fisher,” I lied. If Lester Liu didn’t know my name, there was no point in giving it to him. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Liu.” His hand was as cool and as dry as a statue’s.

  “The pleasure is all mine,” he insisted. “Would you care for a tour of the house? I’m afraid I haven’t had many visitors and I’m eager to share my treasures.” He glanced at Oona as he said this, and a chill crawled down my spine.

  Lester Liu held his arm out to me, and I shocked myself by taking it. Beneath his jacket, I could tell he was thin but muscular. He steered me with surprising ease through a door and into a maze of cold, dark chambers, each cluttered with the treasures of Cecelia Varney.

  Apparently, once Cecelia Varney had discovered that money couldn’t buy happiness, she had set out to purchase everything else. We started our tour in an empty room lined with tall mirrors. Reflected in the glass, I saw Kiki’s eyes darting into every corner while Oona’s remained fixed on her father’s back. Lester pulled a remote control from his jacket pocket and the room filled with light. The mirrors turned translucent, revealing shelves crammed with thousands of delicate porcelain figurines. Imprisoned behind the glass were maidens dancing jigs, young girls teasing cute little kittens, and pretty lasses whispering to their sweethearts.

  “The Staffordshire Room,” Lester Liu announced with a hint of disgust in his voice. Even porcelain girls seemed to give him the willies. “Ms. Varney’s taste was good, but not always consistent. These will be sold at auction next week. I expect they will pay for some of the renovations I have planned. Though getting rid of these little monsters will be one of the finest improvements I could make.” The lights dimmed, and I felt Lester Liu’s arm pulling me through another dark doorway.

  “I believe you will find this room amusing, Miss Strike.” The lights flashed on so suddenly that a sharp pain shot through my head and I wobbled on my heels. When I stopped blinking, I found myself in a bedroom furnished with ostentatious antiques. Beside a canopy bed draped in richly embroidered cloth was a bureau inlaid with gold. A leather-bound book stamped with a golden crown lay open near the foot of a silk-covered chaise longue. In the center of the room, on a squat marble pedestal, sat a plain golden box. “This is Marie Antoinette’s bedroom,” said Lester Liu. “It is almost exactly as she left it the evening she fled from a crowd of torch-wielding peasants. The French government has been trying to recover these items for centuries. Of course they still have no idea where to find them.”

  “What’s in the box?” asked Kiki, moving in for a closer look. “It’s not quite as old as the rest, is it?” Her hand gripped the side of the pedestal, and I knew she had planted the first of her bugs.

  “You have an excellent eye,” said Lester Liu with a serene smile. “The box is a later addition to the room. It contains a head. In 1955, a rather unscrupulous antiques dealer convinced Ms. Varney that it had once belonged to the queen herself. The DNA tests I’ve commissioned have been unable to tell me whose head Ms. Varney purchased, but it was certainly not Marie Antoinette’s. Most likely it belonged to some lesser member of the French royal family. Given the unusual size of the nose, I would say—” He was interrupted by a loud crash that came from Staffordshire Room. The headless torso of a porcelain milkmaid flew through the doorway and landed at my feet.

  “What was that?” I gasped.

  “Do you have someone following us?” Kiki demanded. She rushed to the doorway and was swallowed by the darkness.

  “I assure you there is no one there, Miss Strike,” Lester Liu called out halfheartedly.

  “The room’s empty,” Kiki announced when she returned. Her icy eyes fastened on Lester Liu. “I should inform you that our friends know where we are. If we’re not home by midnight, the police will be called.”

  “I would hope so.” Lester Liu frowned and patted my hand, which was still trapped in the crook of his arm. “Come along, ladies. There’s much more to see.”

  • • •

  Oona’s father led us through more than a dozen dim chambers, each a bizarre museum devoted to one of Cecelia Varney’s unusual passions. Even the halls were cluttered with paintings hung from the floor to the ceiling. Lester Liu pointed out works of art long believed to be lost, including a van Gogh portrait of a sullen redheaded man, while I checked all the paintings for moving eyes, certain we were being watched. I grew increasingly jittery as the tour continued, expecting to be set upon at any moment by venomous snakes, Fu-Tsang thugs, or a lethal combination of the two. As I stood in front of a glass case in which an enormous yellow-green diamond labeled The Florentine was the only item on display, I thought I detected the sound of something panting behind me. When I turned to find myself alone in the room, I nearly sprained an ankle rushing to catch up with the others.

  I limped past Russian icons, astronaut PEZ dispensers, and a men’s urinal inscribed with the signature R. Mutt, 1917. It was as if we had wandered into the most expensive flea market on earth, and I could see that Oona was tempted to do a little shopping. When she lingered in front of a pair of platinum and emerald cuffs that had once belonged to the Duchess of Windsor, Lester Liu unlocked the cabinet and offered them to her. Kiki and I shared a worried look when Oona took a little too long to refuse.

  When we reached the final room on Lester Liu’s tour we found it empty but for a large glass coffin.

  “At last,” said Lester Liu. “Allow me to introduce you to my own Sleeping Beauty.”

  Inside the coffin lay a thin female form clothed head to toe in a shroud of jade squares bound together by thin gold wire. Kiki knelt to study the figure; then her milky eyes snapped up to Lester Liu’s face.

  “It’s a Chinese mummy,” she noted. “Who is it?”

  “Very astute, Miss Strike,” said Lester Liu. “This is the finest of Cecelia Varney’s possessions. The woman you see before you is known in China as the Traitor Empress. She’s almost two thousand years old. Grave robbers looted her tomb in the 1940s, and Ms. Varney secretly purchased its contents with the assistance of a corrupt government official. Only a handful of people know that the Empress ever left China.”

  “So there’s really a body in there?” I asked.

  “Certainly. When they found her, she was perfectly preserved. Perhaps the most beautiful mummy ever discovered. Her skin was still soft, and there was blood in her veins. They say the condition of her hair was remarkable. Like a river of black
silk. But once they removed her from her tomb, the Empress started to age. Ms. Varney spared no expense constructing this airtight coffin. Were it ever to be opened, the mummy would quickly crumble to dust.

  “I’ve been told that Ms. Varney spent a great deal of time in the Empress’s company. It seems she was quite taken with her story.”

  “Why do they call her the Traitor Empress?” I asked.

  Lester Liu gazed down at the woman in the coffin, his expression cold.

  “She betrayed her family, Miss Fisher, and for the Chinese, there is no greater crime. But then again, she was born a barbarian. Her treachery was to be expected.” Leaning on his cane, Lester Liu addressed the three of us.

  “The story is only a legend, but most legends begin with a grain of truth. It is said that many centuries ago, the Chinese Emperor sent his heir to make peace with the leaders of the tribes that lived to the west of his lands. There, the foolish boy fell in love with a barbarian princess. She was beautiful, but hopelessly wild. She possessed none of the feminine virtues that were prized in China, yet he was determined to take her as a wife. When the tribes’ leader noticed the young man’s feelings for his daughter, he was pleased. One day China would have an empress with barbarian blood.

  “The Emperor agreed to the union. A blood alliance with the barbarians was better than a never-ending war. But when he laid eyes on his son’s bride-to-be, he knew she could never be Empress. Her cheeks were chapped, and her hands were hard from holding the reins of a horse. Worse still, she was stubborn and insolent and refused to abide by the rules of the court. Yet the Emperor loved his son, and his son loved the girl. He tolerated her until the day she added treason to the list of her offenses. His guards intercepted secret correspondence between the girl and her relatives. The letters revealed a plot to murder the Emperor and his heir.

  “The Emperor had little choice but to have the girl executed. But he couldn’t bear to break his son’s heart. The girl was given a poison, which made her fall into a deep sleep, and the son was told she had died of fever. She was buried alive in the most magnificent tomb ever constructed for a female. But tales of her betrayal were whispered in court until finally the whole empire knew the terrible truth.