The Cursed Scarab
Page 8
THE BEETLE on Taylor’s shoulder buzzed, and its wings fluttered, but it looked as helpless as Taylor felt. And maybe it was as terrified, too.
Would her blood really be drained and sacrificed to Nezzamort? Was that awful beast really going to capture her spirit for all eternity?
Could she allow the people of the earth to fall prey to the Vampya?
Shutting her eyes, she saw a vision of herself as Nefertiti in the desert, picking up the scarab. It was as though wisdom, knowledge, and experience gathered over centuries suddenly swept through her, and a new sense of queenly power filled Taylor.
She wasn’t going to let this evil come to the world.
“Khepri, son of Aten, rise once more.” Taylor spoke the words, but it hardly seemed that they were coming from her mouth. This voice was speaking through her. “Rise once more, Khepri! I summon you!”
The blue scarab flew from her shoulder and hovered in the air.
Simone stepped back, and her eyes lost their red glow.
Valdry grabbed at the scarab, but each time the blue beetle darted out of his reach.
The scarab rose in the sky, moving higher and higher and growing ever larger. Blue light began to whirl at its underbelly.
Valdry, Sethor, and Simone joined the other Vampya, who were running to escape.
A wide blue light from the gigantic scarab swept across the ground catching all the Vampya in its beam. One by one each of the Vampya exploded until the sky seemed alive with fireworks.
When the last Vampya had exploded, the beam disappeared.
Taylor had a moment of relief, but then noticed that Nezzamort was still on his perching spot, watching.
In a flash he was beside her and seemed three times as large as he had earlier. Ripping the cords that tied her to the stone pillar, Nezzamort lifted her by the arm once more and flew toward the enormous scarab.
The scarab hummed but didn’t attack. It was as if it was aware that Nezzamort held Taylor — as though it was considering its next move.
Red beams shot from Nezzamort’s eyes and a part of the scarab’s wing was blasted away. The beetle dipped but recovered its balance.
Nezzamort shot another beam, and the giant scarab was flung backward, falling just yards from the ground before returning.
Taylor knew the scarab was afraid to hurt her — but it needed to do something, or Nezzamort would kill it!
The scarab flew below the monster and Taylor twisted, watching it. Had the scarab given up? What could she do to help?
Taylor turned to Nezzamort’s claw, which was wrapped around her arm, and sunk her teeth deep into it. Roaring with anger, Nezzamort released her, and she tumbled toward the ground.
The scarab rose to catch her fall. Taylor hit the top of its hard shell and then almost rolled off before gripping the edge and pulling herself back on. Lying flat, she held tight while the beetle rose again, swerving to avoid another ray from Nezzamort, then turned to blast the beast.
The blue beam found its target with a spectacular and immense impact. Like the grand finale of a fireworks display, Nezzamort filled the sky with particles of colored light.
Shielding her eyes, Taylor finally looked away, unable to withstand the blinding light and heat from the explosion.
The scarab descended slowly from the sky with Taylor on its back. It grew smaller and smaller as it neared the ground, until it could no longer carry Taylor. Jumping to the sand below, she became aware of a high-pitched siren, and suddenly the ancient site was awash in red blinking light.
A police van drove into the center of the ruins. “What’s going on here?” a police officer shouted angrily as he got out of the car, waving his flashlight. “You people have no permit for fireworks. And you don’t have permission to have a costume party on this site, either. If you did, I’d have been notified.”
A costume party? Was he kidding?
Then Taylor saw what he meant. Not only was she dressed as Queen Nefertiti, but there were people around her dressed in costumes from many periods of time. Some were dressed as ancient Egyptians, but others wore hoop skirts or top hats, and long frock coats. One woman wore a miniskirt and tall beehive-style hairdo from the 1960s. Another had on a soldier’s uniform from the First World War. But where had they come from?
While the police officer shone his light on the costumed people, Taylor approached them, studying each face. There were just about as many of them as there had been the torn and tattered servants of the Vampya.
The people themselves seemed confused. “How did I get here?” a woman dressed as a flapper asked Taylor.
“I don’t know,” Taylor replied honestly.
“The last thing I remember is a man approaching me. And a red light was shooting from his eyes,” she added, rubbing her head.
That was it! These were the victims of the Vampya. They had been working secretly in the world for centuries, bringing the people they’d attacked back here to this center in Egypt to be their slaves. Now their victims were free.
That had to mean that the Vampya had truly been destroyed!
“Okay, everybody, the party’s over,” the officer shouted. “A police ferry will bring you back to Cairo tonight. All of you, clear out! You’re lucky I don’t arrest you.”
Taylor looked down at the blue beetle scuttling through the sand. She watched it burrow down and disappear. Was it just another beetle now that its work was done, or would it forever be Khepri, the mighty slayer of the Vampya?
DAWN’S LIGHT lent everything a bluish cast as Taylor put the key into her hotel room door. Stepping inside, she realized that her parents were still asleep. Good! They hadn’t been worried sick all night, or out searching for her.
Walking through the room to the balcony, she picked up her phone, which was still on the hotel desk. Outside, Taylor sat with Nefertiti’s long, cone-shaped crown in her lap, thinking about everything that had happened.
Her phone buzzed with a text from Jason. Taylor? U OK? Why was he awake? She said she was, and asked what he was doing up.
In a few minutes Jason knocked softly at the door. “Shh,” she said, “my parents are still asleep.”
“Are you all right? What happened?” Jason asked.
“It’s a strange story. I don’t know if you’ll believe it.”
Jason pressed his hand to his forehead and shook his head as if overcome with shock and confusion.
“I saw some thing fly away with you,” he said. “I was on my balcony late last night on my computer and I saw it. I tried to text you a million times but you didn’t answer, so I hoped I’d just fallen asleep and dreamed it.”
Taylor checked her phone and smiled at all the messages he’d left.
K?
KK?
Are you all right? Sleeping? Not flying in the sky are you?
They sat down on the balcony side by side. Taylor wasn’t sure how much to tell him, but decided that if anyone would believe her, it would be Jason. So she told him exactly what had happened.
“… so the police let us all go. Can you believe they thought it was a costume party and fireworks?”
“Wow!” Jason said, studying Taylor’s face as she finished her story. “I can’t believe I know Nefertiti. Are you going to tell the people at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo who you really are?”
“Dr. Bey already knows.”
“What about your parents? What will you tell them?”
“The truth. They’ll probably think I was dreaming, though.”
“Bummer,” Jason said.
“Not really. I’ll be so glad to get back to normal.”
Jason nodded and got up from his chair. “Well, I’m happy you’re okay. I couldn’t get to sleep until I was sure.”
“Thanks. We’d better get some rest before the trip to the pyramids,” Taylor said.
“See you later,” Jason said.
Walking silently to her room, Taylor stared at herself in the mirror. She put her crown back on, tucking her hair insi
de. The black kohl eyeliner the Vampya had rimmed her eyes with had barely smudged in all the commotion.
Taylor turned her head to one side and then to the other, checking her profile with sidelong glances. She did look a lot like Nefertiti.
But was she — really — Nefertiti?
The queen had dedicated her life to protecting her people from the Vampya. She’d even disguised herself as a man — Smenkhkare — so she could continue to fight after the king had died.
Could she go back to being regular old Taylor, now that she had accomplished the thing Nefertiti had dedicated herself to through so many lifetimes? Had she already achieved her life’s purpose, before she was even in high school?
No, she decided.
She was far from done.
She was Nefertiti and Taylor both at once. And now that she knew what she was truly capable of — she’d only just begun to do great things.
SUZANNE WEYN lives in a valley in New York State. She’s the author of The Haunted Museum series, The Bar Code series, and the novels Distant Waves, Dr. Frankenstein’s Daughters, and Faces of the Dead for older readers, and the Breyer Stablemates books Diamond and Snowflake for younger readers.
Don’t miss an adventure at the Haunted Museum!
Book One: The Titanic Locket
Book Two: The Phantom Music Box
Book Three: The Pearl Earring
Book Four: The Cursed Scarab
Copyright © 2015 by Suzanne Weyn
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First printing, May 2015
Cover art by Mike Heath | Magnus Creative
e-ISBN 978-0-545-58851-5
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