The Empress's Tomb Read online

  Kiki barged back into the living room like a gunslinger entering a saloon. “I thought I made myself clear last night, Ananka. Whatever you’re thinking right now, you should keep it to yourself.”

  • • •

  Luz, DeeDee, and Betty arrived as we were rolling Verushka’s wheelchair out of the bedroom. They took to their work like professionals, moving efficiently and talking little. It wasn’t the previous night’s argument that was still on their minds. Behind their vacant expressions, I could see they were hurt. They were cleaning up the consequences of a secret that no one had shared with them. Luz and DeeDee silently dumped clothing and papers into plastic trash bags. Betty pulled two wigs from her oversized purse, along with a nurse’s smock, a pair of glasses, and a fake nose. In less than a minute, she transformed Kiki and Verushka into an elderly African woman and her private nurse. With Verushka mumbling incoherently, we couldn’t risk public transportation, so Kiki and I swaddled her in blankets and speed-walked the mile to Chinatown. Not far from Fat Frankie’s, I spotted two policemen eyeing us from across the street. If Dr. Pritchard had gone to the authorities, the NYPD would be on the lookout for an elderly woman with a blue tinge to her skin. Even with makeup on, Verushka’s appearance remained remarkably odd. As the cops crossed over to question her, I sprayed the three of us with a mist of Fille Fiable. Whether it was the disguises, the perfume, or the foul stench of body odor that saved us, I’ll never know, but the police let us by without any hassle.

  • • •

  When we reached Oona’s building, Kiki and I hauled Verushka’s limp body up the stairs to the second floor. Kiki had phoned in advance, and all four grandmothers stood ready for action. They had transformed the dining room into a makeshift hospital and helped us gently lay Verushka down on a cot. Then Mrs. Fei began barking orders, and the younger women scattered in three directions.

  “Is she your mother?” Mrs. Fei inquired as she checked Verushka’s pulse.

  “She might as well be.” Kiki didn’t seem surprised to hear Oona’s grandmother speaking English. “She’s taken care of me since I was a baby.”

  Mrs. Fei’s expression quickly hardened. “If you care so much you should have come earlier. Cyanide, right? The poison is eating her. Your friend could die,” she scolded.

  “I thought I’d found a good doctor,” Kiki explained.

  “American doctors.” Mrs. Fei grunted. “They know machines and chemicals. They don’t know the human body. I make you a deal. I save your friend, and you save Wang.” It wasn’t hard to see where Oona got her bluntness.

  “What makes you think Oona needs to be saved, Mrs. Fei?” Kiki asked.

  “Because I listen to her when she speaks to her father. She thinks he wants her back, but I know he is going to break her heart. I tried to go see him and beg him to leave her alone, but he won’t talk to me.” She pointed at a beautifully wrapped package sitting by the door. “See that? Every day something new comes. Wang thinks presents are the same thing as love. Every day she goes to his house. Sometimes she don’t come home till late at night.”

  Mrs. Fei’s warning meant more to Kiki than anything I could have said. “I promise—we’ll watch out for Oona,” she assured the old woman.

  “Please. Or one day Wang will never come home.”

  “You speak excellent English.” None of us had heard Oona arrive. Though she appeared oddly composed, the rash on her neck was livid. “How long have you been spying on me, Mrs. Fei?”

  “Not spying—listening. I want to help you.” Mrs. Fei’s voice was free of guilt, but I could barely stand to watch the exchange.

  Oona slowly shifted her eyes to Kiki and me. “So what have you guys been discussing with my grandmother?” She offered an artificial smile when we didn’t answer. “Never mind. It doesn’t matter. How’s Verushka?” Oona knelt by Verushka’s cot and took one of her blue hands.

  “Mrs. Fei thinks she can save her.”

  “You’ll have to stay here until she gets better,” Oona told Kiki. “You can take my room.”

  “Where will you sleep?” I asked.

  “At the mansion,” Oona replied coldly. “I’m moving there tonight.”

  Mrs. Fei gasped, and her entire body seemed to shrivel.

  “I don’t think that’s smart,” I warned Oona. With Luz’s bugs out of commission, the Irregulars had no way to ensure her safety.

  “We’re finalizing the plans for the Empress’s party tonight. My father wants me to be at the museum at six. Why would I come all the way back to Chinatown if he lives just down the street? At least I’ll have a little privacy there.”

  “I won’t listen!” Mrs. Fei pleaded. “Stay here. This is your home.”

  “It’s not where I belong,” Oona said, not unkindly. “I need to be where I can take care of my responsibilities.”

  Mrs. Fei wrung her gnarled hands, but said nothing in response.

  “What about the ghost?” I tried. “Aren’t you scared?” “The ghost will be happy if she gets what she wants. Besides, if it is my mother, why should I be frightened?”

  I saw Mrs. Fei catch Kiki’s eye.

  “I’m going with you to the museum tonight,” Kiki announced.

  “That’s funny. I don’t remember inviting you. There’s no way I’m letting you leave Verushka.”

  “Then I’ll go.” It sounds courageous in retrospect, but I had to force the words out.

  “I’m not helpless,” said Oona. “I don’t need a chaperone.”

  I spoke without thinking. “That’s not the point.”

  “Oh, I get it.” Oona’s nostrils flared like her father’s, and her rash turned scarlet. She scratched violently at the skin of her neck until a drop of blood stained her white collar. “You both think I’ve drunk the Kool-Aid, don’t you? You think I’m Daddy’s little girl now, right?”

  “No, you’re not right.” Kiki bristled. “I’ve just trusted you with the most important thing I have. Do you think for one second I’d have brought Verushka here if I thought you weren’t loyal? What other proof do you want?”

  “What about you, Ananka?” Oona watched my face closely as I struggled to come up with an answer. “Yeah, I thought so. Come to the museum if that’s what you want. I don’t have anything to hide. Now, if you don’t mind, I need to pack.”

  “Oona?” I couldn’t take my eyes off the blood on her shirt.

  “What? What are you staring at?”

  “I think it’s time to switch laundry detergent.”

  Oona slapped her hand to her neck and gazed at the blood that came away on her fingers. Then without a word, she left the room.

  • • •

  As a truant and a fugitive from parental justice, I couldn’t go home. Instead I spent most of the frigid November day with Yu and Siu Fah, hunting down herbalists as we gathered the items on a five-page shopping list that Mrs. Fei had prepared. On every street in Chinatown, hundreds of round bodies wrapped in down coats grazed, bumped, and bounced off one another as each of them waddled toward warmth. But somehow the cold, harsh winds didn’t bother me much. Though we shared only a few words in common, Yu and Siu Fah were surprisingly good company. I’d forgotten how contagious happiness could be, and for the first time in weeks, I felt optimistic. But when we returned to Oona’s apartment after sunset, I switched on Channel Three and got a strong dose of reality. The local news opened with a shot of Kiki’s house. The front door stood open, and cops streamed in and out of the building as the lights on their squad cars silently spun. Adam Gunderson, Channel Three’s top reporter, had made his name earlier that year by exposing Kiki Strike as a hoax. Now he was in front of her house, dressed in an Arctic-ready parka with a microphone in hand. Next to him stood a short, oddly feminine man of indeterminate age. I was certain it was Betty Bent in disguise.

  “Good evening, Janice. I’m here in Chelsea, where police have discovered the hidden lair of one of the world’s most notorious assassins. For fourteen years, Verushka Kozlova ha
s been wanted in connection with the murder of the Pokrovian royal family. An anonymous tip early this morning led authorities to this carriage house on Eighteenth Street. Inside the booby-trapped building, they discovered a veritable arsenal of martial arts weapons. Fingerprints taken from the scene confirm that Ms. Kozlova once lived here, although her whereabouts are currently unknown.

  “Virgil Krull, a neighborhood resident, says he’s often seen Ms. Kozlova’s companion entering and leaving the building. Mr. Krull, is it true that the girl bears a resemblance to the fictional Kiki Strike?”

  Virgil Krull squinted into the camera and spoke with a high-pitched Southern accent.

  “I don’t know much about this Kiki Strike everybody keeps talkin’ about, but the girl I saw was a plump little thing with one leg shorter than the other. I don’t know how much trouble she could cause, what with her infirmity and all.”

  “So you doubt that Ms. Kozlova’s companion could be a teenage vigilante?”

  “I reckon not. She seemed kinda slow, too. I figured she had a touch of the ’tard if you know what I mean.”

  Hiding his smile with his microphone, Adam Gunderson quickly moved on to the next question.

  “How does it feel to have lived across the street from a known assassin, Mr. Krull?”

  “I gotta say, it’s pretty exciting. You don’t come across those sorts back in Mississippi. Makes me glad I moved to New York.”

  “Well, that’s one way of looking at it, I suppose. Thank you, Mr. Krull.

  “Janice, the other neighbors I’ve spoken with don’t recall ever having seen the building’s residents, and security tapes from nearby houses mysteriously disappeared this morning. Sources inside the police department say the authorities are baffled. For now, Verushka Kozlova remains at large, and the residents of downtown Manhattan won’t sleep soundly until she’s captured. Reporting live from Chelsea, this is Adam Gunderson for News Channel Three.”

  “Good old Betty.” Kiki was standing behind me. “That should confuse everyone for a little while.”

  “Everyone but Sergei Molotov. Do you think you’ll be safe here?”

  “As safe as I would be anywhere.” The edge in Kiki’s voice told me not to linger on the subject.

  “I should get started for the museum,” I said, pretending to check my watch. “It’s almost six”

  “You may need this.” Kiki handed me a vial of Fille Fiable. A tiny amount of amber liquid sloshed around in the bottom of the bottle. “It’s all we have left. I’ll ask DeeDee to make some more. I have to call her and the others tonight anyway.”

  “To find out where they’ve stashed your stuff?”

  “To apologize,” said Kiki. “I should have told them about all of this earlier.”

  • • •

  My cab turned west on Eighty-first Street, and I saw the museum looming large at the end of the block like a temple built to appease a powerful god. Golden light streamed from its windows, and high above the museum’s main entrance, three bloodred banners flapped in the breeze. Beneath them stood Lester Liu, dressed in a furcollared coat and surveying Fifth Avenue like a king watching over his kingdom. His silver hair remained perfectly still as the wind moved around him. I waved to Oona, who was dashing up Fifth Avenue. She joined me in front of a lifeless fountain, her expression as cold as the rainwater that had collected and frozen inside it. Together we climbed the stairs to greet her father, and I prayed that the Fille Fiable I’d applied in the cab hadn’t worn off.

  “Good evening, Miss Fisher. How delightful to see you.” Lester Liu knew how to say one thing while making it perfectly clear that he meant another. He offered Oona an insincere smile. “I wasn’t expecting company this evening, my dear.”

  “She invited herself,” Oona replied bluntly. It was nice to feel wanted.

  “I’ve been dying to see the museum at night ever since I was a little girl.” I tried to sound chipper while Lester Liu’s cold eyes held me captive.

  “Well then, this should be quite a treat for you. Come along. Oona and I must see to the Empress.”

  • • •

  Without hundreds of tourists chattering in dozens of languages, the Great Hall of the Metropolitan Museum of Art was eerily quiet, and everything seemed larger in the after-hours gloom. The vaulted ceiling felt as high as the heavens. Junglelike flower arrangements sprouted from recesses in the walls, and an ancient sphinx crouched between two marble columns, guarding the treasures that lay inside.

  “Ah! Mr. Liu!” a dapper, white-haired gentleman in a perfectly tailored suit called out. Freakishly tall, with a spine as stiff as a steel rod, he appeared to cross the vast room in less than ten strides.

  “Mr. Hunt.” Lester Liu reached up to shake the man’s hand. “Allow me to introduce my daughter, Lillian, and my new assistant, Miss Fisher. Ladies, Mr. Hunt is the director of the Metropolitan Museum.”

  “Here to help with the arrangements for the gala, girls?” Mr. Hunt asked, though he didn’t pause for an answer. “I’m told almost everyone on our list has returned an RSVP,” he bragged to Lester Liu. “I can’t say that I’ve ever seen such an acceptance rate! The opening party for The Empress Awakens is bound to be the event of the season.” He then proceeded to bore us with a long list of famous names who would be in attendance, including two teenage movie stars I was certain had never seen the inside of a museum.

  “Why did he call you Lillian?” I whispered to Oona as Mr. Hunt yammered away.

  “He thinks Lillian Liu has a nice ring to it,” she said. “What do I care what he calls me? I made Oona Wong up.”

  “Girls?” Mr. Hunt interrupted. “Would you like to see the exhibit? I’ve just a few more telephone calls to make this evening before we get started, and I thought you might enjoy a sneak peek at the show.”

  “It would be a pleasure,” Mr. Liu answered for us.

  “James!” Mr. Hunt called to a sullen security guard who was loitering by the coat check. “Would you please make yourself useful and escort Mr. Liu and his companions to see the new exhibit? I’ll be with you shortly, Mr. Liu.”

  Oona and her father walked in step behind the security guard while I trailed behind. As we neared the broad staircase that led to the second floor, my eye fell on a figure lurking in the darkness of one of the side galleries. I paused, waiting for it to move.

  “It’s a statue, Miss Fisher,” I heard Lester Liu say. “No need to panic. The museum is full of them.” Oona snickered and I felt myself blush.

  • • •

  Upstairs, we strolled past dimly lit rooms and portraits of people long dead. The farther we plunged into the building, the stronger I felt the urge to flee. Only a horror film heroine would find herself alone in the Metropolitan Museum of Art with a smuggler and his slippery daughter. I tried to take note of the route that we took, but without a trail of bread crumbs or a ball of string to mark the path, I knew I’d be hopelessly lost in the museum’s maze. My eyes darted from side to side, and I couldn’t resist checking over my shoulder to see if anyone had crept up behind us. As we approached the southern end of the building, the sound of hammers grew deafening. A workman appeared as if out of nowhere and disappeared into a dark red room at the end of the hall. Our journey had come to an end.

  “Don’t leave the exhibition without a guide,” the security guard shouted over the banging. The guard’s eyes never left my face, and I realized the warning was for my benefit. He must have noticed me lingering behind and mistaken my agitation for mischievousness. “The alarms and motion detectors are activated in the galleries. If you want to look at the paintings, come back when the museum is open. If you want to leave, please contact us at security and we’ll take you to the exit.”

  “Thank you, James.” Lester Liu oozed charm. “If all the museum’s guards are as diligent as you are, I know I can feel perfectly confident that my treasures will be safe.”

  When the guard turned to leave us, I felt stripped of my last defense. But while my mind s
creamed for him to stay, I quietly followed Lester Liu into the exhibition space. The first gallery was in chaos, with wooden crates leaning against the walls. A birdlike man with a tangle of yellow hair shouted orders at a team of muscle-bound workers in white gloves. Four of the men were carefully lowering a large painting into an open crate while two of their coworkers were busily sealing another with nails.

  “Stop, stop, stop!” shouted the man when he saw us. The hammering halted, and the man rushed over. “Mr. Liu,” he said, whipping off his glove and holding out his hand. “We’re honored to have you here, sir.”

  “Dr. Jennings,” Lester Liu said. “How is the work progressing?”

  “The other galleries are in order, sir. This is the last room to be renovated. We’re just removing the final works from the previous exhibition. They should all be gone within the hour.”

  “Where are you taking them?” I asked, gesturing to the crates and feeling my courage slowly return. The little man seemed shocked I could speak.

  “My new assistant,” Lester Liu explained.

  The man’s eyes flickered back and forth between the two of us as if wondering how to respond to my question.

  “Some will be put into storage, and others will be sent back to the museums that loaned them. The two that belong to the Met will be returned to their original galleries. Does that answer your question?”

  “Why pack them so carefully if you’re just moving them to another part of the museum?”

  One question was bad enough, but two was unheard of. The little man looked stunned, and Oona rolled her eyes. I was in danger of pushing too far.

  “These are priceless works of art. Even the frames are worth millions. My colleagues are often less conscientious, but I would be this careful if I were merely moving them across the room. Now, Mr. Liu, may I show you the rest of the exhibit?”