Garden of Darkness Read Online Free PDF Page A

anything.
    Lighting for the room had been a big issue. It was finally decided that low light would keep the exhibit from rotting and disintegrating, and also add to the atmosphere.
    Are you afraid?
    His dad and grandfather had asked him how he could take this job with all that had happened.
    He was drawn to fear. Wasn’t everybody? Was that attraction something left over from the time humans didn’t live in houses or towns? If something scared you, you had to examine it, make sure it was worthy of the fear so it could then be labeled as either harmless or a threat.
    Beyond the psychological, Graham just felt a need to get out of the house and make some money. Typical teenager. And maybe that’s all it was. Maybe he was blowing things at home out of proportion. He basically had two choices: museum guard or fast food guy. Wasn’t too hard to figure out why he’d chosen museum guard.
    He thought too much. Sometimes he wished his brain would just shut off.
    Amy bent down and fingered a velvet corner of the fabric covering a case that stood seven feet high. In the poor light, parts of her face seemed to be missing, and Graham had to try to fill in the blank spots with memory of the way she’d looked moments ago.
    He couldn’t do it.
    An air horn honked. Amy let out a shriek, dropped the corner of the cloth she’d been clutching, and straightened as if on springs. Bradley giggled. Then the building exploded as the ground-level doors opened.
    They looked above their heads—hundreds of footfalls thundered over them, creating one continuous roar as people rushed forward in hopes of getting a good spot.
    The room filled.
    The mayor and his bunch broke a path through the crowd. A TV station crew followed with a camera. After a short but boring speech about the museum and tourism and the revitalization of Tuonela, along with something about embracing history, Mayor McBride stepped forward and with a flourish whipped the velvet fabric away to reveal a glass box containing an upright mummy dressed in an antique black suit.
    The Pale Immortal.
    That brought about a gasp, followed by a long silence.
    Someone finally let out a murmur that broke the spell. Conversation gradually increased until the room hummed.
    Graham thought he’d been prepared. How bad could it be? He’d seen mummies before. On TV, and at other museums. Hell, he’d even sat beside this guy. But it had been dark, and at the time he’d thought he was alive.
    Just a piece of leather in a suit.
    But as he looked at the corpse, he wondered if people like his dad and Rachel Burton had been right: The Pale Immortal was nothing to take lightly or put on display.
    Patrons filed through.
    Some were nervous. Some giggled. A couple of little kids cried, and their mothers whisked them away. Who would bring a little kid to see a shriveled-up dead guy? That was evil.
    People kept coming.
    So far so good. Nobody was breaking any rules. Nobody was trying to step over the rope or sneak in food. Then he spotted a girl with bright red hair dressed in thrift shop clothes, pulling a camera from an army green messenger bag.
    “Miss?” Miss ?
    Should he call her miss ? She wasn’t old enough for ma’am . “You can’t take pictures in here.” They’d allowed one news crew inside. That was it.
    She removed the lens cap. “I don’t have a flash.”
    “That’s not the point.”
    She was holding a small video camera. The green light was on. Damn . Now what was he supposed to do? “No videotaping.”
    “Oh? I thought we just weren’t supposed to use a flash.”
    She was playing dumb while she let the camera run, cradling it unobtrusively at her side, the lens pointed in the direction of the display case.
    He stepped between the camera and the mummy. “No cameras.”
    He was only a few feet from her. He’d guess she was twenty-one or twenty-two. Not from Tuonela. Definitely not from Tuonela. She even smelled different. Sweet, like a mandarin orange.
    Her gaze shifted from his