Jean Grey went to close the doors behind the last of the work crew as they left the exhibit hall for the night. “Thanks, fellas,” she said. “I’ll see you in the morning.” She looked back, and shook her head sadly. She had participated in the design and research for this exhibit, and had even personally selected the phoenix for inclusion in the Egyptian display! Now it was all completely trashed, the handywork of a bunch of ‘superheroes.’ She had never expected the expanding world of metahumans to impact her, or at least not beyond the one date she’d had with Tony Stark two years ago. What a jerk! If she hadn’t needed a research fellowship from the Maria Stark Foundation, she never would have agreed to meet him in the first place. Ugh!
If not for the generous donation from the Foundation now, though, things would be dire. The trustees agreed to fund the salvage and rebuilding without question or delay. Extraordinary! As it was, the display would have to be closed for quite some time. And how to explain the disappearance of one of the largest pieces into thin air?
In the days after the cleanup began, when the director told her that someone from the military or the government or something was coming to speak with her, she groaned. ‘Major Talbot,’ she had called him. Good lord, she thought. All she’d want was a nice, big glass of wine to help her forget that any of this ever happened, and they sent in the Special Forces, or whatever. She was supposed to talk to him first thing in the morning. Ugh, again!
As she was about to close the main doors, a faint, creaking noise in the gallery caught her attention…
“Hello? Who’s there?”
* * * * *
The goddess sat brooding on the makeshift throne she had fashioned for herself when she had come back to this forsaken little world. Her lair was kept dimly lit, the way she liked it, although that was not difficult given that it was located hundreds of feet under the teeming City above. In the darkness she could dwell on her anger and sharpen it into another weapon.
She had underestimated Hephaestos’ little puppet. It was stronger than she had imagined. The others also had methods of attacking her that she was not prepared for. She had not lost in open battle to mortals in centuries of their time. But she had tested them all, and she knew how they fought, she knew their weaknesses. She would not be unprepared again. Vengeance would be hers, for was she not the patron of retribution?
As she sat brooding, she noted the skulking entrance of her servant as she tried to slink by.
“Did you find the Gadget in the rubble, Raven?”
The blue-skinned assassin froze in the shadows. She moved toward the seated goddess and knelt, her head bowed so she would not have to look Nemesis in the eye.
“No, mistress,” she said. “There are mortals cleaning the area, now. I do not know if one of them found it, or if something else happened. Perhaps you did not lose it there during the battle? The second battle, I mean…” She realized her mistake as soon as she had made it.
Nemesis rose suddenly, the fury evident on her face. Raven knew she had provoked the goddess, though she had not intended to do so. She had come with a message, and the urgency of it had left her distracted as she tried to make her report.
“Mistress, there is an emissary waiting for you outside,” she was waiting near the entrance in the subway tunnels above. I-“
“Silence!” she shouted, clenching a raised fist in fury. “Bring this visitor in. Then go to the museum and search for the Gadget there.”
Calming herself, she sat back down on her throne. “I will address your failures at a later time.”
The assassin bowed even lower, then rose and went to retrieve their visitor.
* * * * *
Tessa moved effortlessly through the lightless tunnel. Neither she, nor her blue-skinned guide, needed any illumination to guide their way.
They soon emerged into an old, tiled chamber. It must have been some sort of waiting hall for the abandoned subway system. The reliefs looked vaguely art deco, something she remembered from her days among the living. At the end of the chamber, a dark clad woman with an even darker countenance sat regarding her. She matched the description her mistress had given her. The visitor moved closer to the throne and held her hands out, palms up, in the manner she was instructed.
She would ask about the incident at the museum, although she already knew what had happened there. It would merely be a way to agitate the goddess, to keep her distracted and deflect attention away from her true purposes. She knew that she would have to examine the scene at the museum afterward herself.
“Greetings, mighty Adrastia Atlantia” she began. “I bring you tidings, and seek news in return.”
“You may dispense with the ancient traditions, strigoi,” she responded. “What is your report, and what would your mistress know from me?”
* * * * *
The figure stood before the ancient, unmoving statue of Khonshu.
Without a sound, a searching hand reached out to the smooth stone and pressed a spot in the folds of the moon god’s cloak.
A hidden compartment opened, and the figure reached inside, slowly drawing out several items in turn- a dozen different weapons and tools, and a slightly glowing talisman in the shape of an ankh. When the last piece was removed, the concealed compartment closed again.
The figure stowed each of the items in a satchel, and quickly exited first the hall, and then the museum, disappearing into the moonlit night.
All that remained of the strange visitor was a single lock of red hair that had fallen and come to rest before the silent, inscrutable gaze of the egyptian moon god.
(published July 5, 2015)
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