Ghosts of Karnak by George Mann Page B

into the adjoining cargo hold. Here, too, there was evidence that a large number of crates had been recently removed; only there was one major difference—a single wooden packing crate still stood in one corner.
    It was large, about the size of a small room, presumably containing some significant relic from the dig. A statue, maybe? The head of a colossus? Judging by the size of the crate, it would have to be a centerpiece to the whole exhibition.
    It seemed odd that it had been left here unattended while everything else had already been unloaded, but he supposed the dockworkers might have found themselves in need of a bigger crane to take the weight, or an alternative means of transporting it uptown.
    He crossed the hangar, circling the crate. The sides were unmarked panels, nailed onto a wooden frame. Around the front, he was surprised to see two freestanding statues, just abandoned in the shadow of the crate. One resembled a human female with the head of a lioness. She was seated on a plinth, which had clearly been damaged at some point in the long forgotten past, so that the hieroglyphics carved upon it were scratched and undecipherable. She had her arms folded across her naked chest, one hand holding an ankh, the other a rod or scepter. She’d been hewn in smooth black stone, and her eyes watched him impassively as he circled around, studying her.
    The other statue bore a similar aspect, also seated upon a plinth. This one resembled a bare-chested male with the head of an ibis. Its curved beak was partially absent, and one of its arms was missing, lending it a strangely maudlin appearance. This one also carried an ankh, its surviving arm lowered by its side. It had a sun disc headdress, similar to the one he’d seen carved into Autumn’s forehead, and the base of its plinth was covered in neat white columns of pictograms. In the near darkness of the ship’s hold, they seemed eerie; things that didn’t belong in the here and now, relics from an ancient past that should have remained forgotten. The Ghost couldn’t help but feel there was good reason why the old religions had been extinguished; his experience with the Roman had left a deep, unsettling scar.
    These, though, were simple statues; artifacts recovered from the hot sands of the past and brought here to be gazed upon by thousands of admiring New Yorkers. Despite their unsettling aspect, they posed no threat.
    Nevertheless, it seemed odd that they should have been unpacked from their transportation crates here, in the hold of the ship. Surely the museum would have expected to receive them by now, along with all the others? Perhaps, he decided, they were rejects, too damaged to put on display alongside the more pristine examples that had already been chosen for the exhibition.
    Frowning, he approached the crate, looking for a means to see inside. There was a door round the front, cut into the wooden panel and hinged to allow access. It was padlocked shut. He leaned closer, trying to peer through the thin crack between the door and the frame to ascertain what was inside. It was too dark, even with his night-vision goggles. He was going to have to break the lock.
    Behind him, something groaned. It was a long, drawn-out sound, like rending metal, and at first he thought it was the hull of the ship, settling with the change in temperature. When it started again a second later, he realized it resembled more closely the sound of grating stone. He turned, his mouth suddenly dry.
    The lion-headed statue was getting down from its plinth.
    The Ghost edged back, flicking his wrist so that the barrel of his flechette gun ratcheted up and around, clicking into place along the length of his forearm.
    The statue lurched forward, its movements jerky and deliberate. He glanced at the other to see that it, too, was now pulling itself free of its perch, raising its remaining arm to hold its ankh aloft, as if calling for divine intervention.
    This, the Ghost realized, was why the