Blood Lines

sort of long, thick lashes most women would kill for. With an effort she got her train of thought back on track. "I mean, why couldn't it have just been senseless vandalism?"
    'No, too specific and too neat. A vandal might have dumped acid on some of your artifacts, but they wouldn't have rinsed down the sink afterward. And," he sighed and brushed the curl of hair back off his forehead, "they wouldn't have started with that. They'd have knocked a few things over first. What about the blood,'paint mixture?"
    'Well, that's unusual." Dr. Shane frowned down at the linen. "Are you sure that the blood was actually mixed with the pigment and hadn't just been splashed on at some later date?"
    'I'm sure." He sat forward in his chair and leaned his forearms across his knees, then had to shift as his holster jabbed him in the small of the back. "Our lab is very good with blood. They get a lot of practice."
    '^Yes, I suppose they do." She sighed and pushed the sample toward him. "Well, then, the only historical explanation that comes to mind is that this is a piece of a spell." She settled back and steepled her fingers, her voice taking on a lecturing tone. "Most Egyptian priests were also wizards and their spells were not only chanted but written on strips of linen or papyrus when the matter was deemed serious enough to need physical representation. Occasionally, when very powerful spells were needed, the wizard would mix his blood with the paint in order to tie his life force to the magic."
    Celluci laid his hand down on the envelope. "So this is a part of a very powerful spell."
    'It seems that way, yes."
    Powerful enough to keep a mummy locked in its coffin ? he wondered. He decided not to ask. The last thing he wanted was Dr. Shane thinking he was some kind of a nut case who'd gotten his training from old Boris Karloff movies. That would definitely slow down the investigation. He slid the envelope back into his jacket pocket. "They mentioned carbon dating at the lab…?"
    Dr. Shane shook her head. "Too small a sample; they need at least two square inches. It's why the Church objected to dating the Shroud of Turin for so long." Her gaze focused somewhere in memory, then she shook her head and smiled.
    "It's one of the reasons anyway."
    'Dr. Shane?" The tapping on the door and the entry were pretty much simultaneous. "Sorry to disturb you, but you said you wanted that inventory the moment we finished." At the assistant curator's nod, Doris crossed the room and laid a stack of papers on the desk. "Nothing's missing, nothing even looks disturbed, but we did find a whole pile of useless film in the darkroom. Every single frame's been overexposed on about thirty rolls and we've got a stack of video tapes that show nothing but basic black."
    'Do you know what was on them?" Celluci asked getting to his feet.
    Doris looked chagrined. "Actually, I haven't the faintest. I've accounted for everything I've shot over the last little while."
    'If you could put them to one side, I'll have someone come and pick them up."
    'I'll leave them where they are, then." Doris paused on her way out the door and glanced back at the police officer. "If they're still usable though, I'd like them back. Video tape doesn't grow on trees."
    'I'll do my best," he assured her. When the door had closed behind her, he turned back to Dr. Shane. "Budget cuts?"
    She laughed humorlessly. "When isn't it? I just wish I had more for you. I went over Dr. Rax's office again after your people left and I couldn't find anything missing except that suit."
    Which at least gave them the relative size of the intruder-if there had even been an intruder. The ROM had excellent security and there'd been no evidence of anyone entering or leaving. It could have been an inside job; a friend of the dead janitor maybe, up poking around, who'd panicked when Dr. Rax had his heart attack. The name Dr. Von Thorne had come up a couple of times during yesterday's questioning as one of Dr. Rax's least favorite people. Maybe he'd been poking around and panicked-except that they'd already questioned Dr. Von Thorne and he had an airtight alibi, not to mention an extremely protective wife. Still, there were a number of possibilities that had nothing to do with an apparently nonexistent mummy.
    While various theories were chasing each other's tails in Celluci's head, pan of him watched appreciatively as Dr.
    Shane came around from behind her desk.
    'You mentioned on the phone that you wanted to