Lin moved quickly in, just in time for Yang to sweep the pistol snout in her face.
Yang said, “So—you would prefer to die first?”
But it was Evy who responded, “After you . . .”
And she straight-legged her foot into his groin with an impact that created instant agony, distracting him while Lin kicked the gun from his fingers, the weapon going off harmlessly.
Evy, now able to slip from Yang’s grip, got to her feet to join Lin in simultaneous kicks to the general’s chest that sent him tumbling back against the grinding cogs.
His jacket caught in their gears, and then dragged him along for the ride into its giant, gnashing teeth.
Choi was rising from the floor to stare in horror as Yang futilely tried to pull himself free.
In Mandarin, the lovely scarred colonel cried out, “No, my love! No . . .”
And Evy and Lin became spectators, watching Choi race to Yang’s aid. Neither had guessed that the general and the colonel were an item, but indeed they were, as was evident by what followed.
Choi grabbed Yang’s arm and tried to wrench him free, coming dangerously close to the giant gears herself.
He protested: “Let go!”
But she responded with, “Never!”
And an instant later he was sucked deep into the mechanism, in a horrible symphony of crunch and splash. Still holding on to her lover’s hand, Choi gave the other two women a brief, serene smile before she herself was similarly sucked into those crushing cogs.
Evy and Lin stood in silence, the bizarre sacrifice somehow a moving one to both women.
“I would do the same for Rick,” Evy admitted.
“And I,” Lin said, “for your son.”
In the midst of the struggle, and the horror, the two women had reached a new understanding.
The Emperor stood at the foot of the altar, preparing to take up where he’d been interrupted. He did not expect to be interrupted again.
But he was.
Behind him came a voice: “Is that all you got?”
And Er Shi Huangdi wheeled to see a scorched, dripping-wet Rick O’Connell, the hilt of the broken dagger tight in his fist, coming up the last few steps to the altar platform.
On what he knew was a likely suicide mission, O’Connell charged the Emperor, who smiled as he stepped forward to meet this pitiful challenge.
The Emperor, his back to the altar now, could not see Alex O’Connell—hidden on the other side, and also dripping wet—come up and over with the blade grasped in both hands, launching himself, his body like a bow ready to release an arrow.
The whoosh of air bid the Emperor turn his head, but too late, Alex slamming the blade into the man’s back, while his father’s momentum drove the hilt against the black breastplate and the blade, like a magnet seeking metal, shot through the even blacker heart.
And when O’Connell pulled the hilt back, he was amazed to see the blade magically reattached.
Agape, stunned in pain and in full realization of his doom, Er Shi Huangdi fell to his knees, as if in prayer, at the feet of Rick O’Connell . . .
. . . who leaned in close to say through lips peeled back over a ghastly grin: “Give my regards to Imhotep.”
Then O’Connell had to step back, because the most amazing transformation of all was beginning. Evy and Lin were below now, having come in from the cog room just in time to share in the fantastic, horrific results of the father and son’s heroism.
Liquid was pouring from the Emperor’s chest wound; not blood, no, but red-hot magma, burning away the battle armor and the flesh beneath it, lava fountaining forth as if all of Er Shi Huangdi’s sins were bubbling out. His heart, withering under the onslaught, was pounding like a battle drum that all in the chamber could hear.
“When Er Shi Huangdi was cursed,” Lin somberly said to Evy, “he burned from the outside in. Now he burns from the inside out.”
And he was: his eyeballs were cooking white, right up to the moment when the magma exploded.
The O’Connell men were already halfway down the steps, but they looked back like Lot’s wife and saw their powerful foe reduced to writhing on the platform, being absorbed into a pool of molten clay.
By the time father and son were at the bottom of that stairway, Er Shi Huangdi was just a smoking indentation on the platform’s floor, vaguely suggesting a once human form.
And on the battlefield, the terra-cotta warriors, who had seemed on the verge of victory against their skeletal foes, began to crack like pots dropped onto tile floors—their weapons, their armor, their steeds, everything crazed with fissures before they toppled to the earth and became just so much more desert dust, if red-tinged . . . leaving the Foundation soldiers to stand in motionless amazement at their unexpected victory.
When the O’Connells and Lin dashed into the daylight, one more amazing sight awaited them in this day of amazing sights: the Foundation soldiers were cheering in elation as the traces of their foes were blown away on the wind.
Then, from their ravaged ranks stepped their general—the great Ming Guo.
Lin stared at the decayed, dignified figure and said, “Father?”
He seemed to smile across the battlefield at her, but father and daughter were not destined to share a moment, because the sky cracked open and a magnificent shaft of bright light shone down. Desiccated flesh and bone disintegrated, and the soldiers who’d fought so bravely this day, the slaves who’d suffered in Er Shi Huangdi’s hellish servitude so long, became motes of dust in the brightest of light.
A cloud passed over and the bright shaft of light was gone and, so, were the brave men that Rick O’Connell had rakishly dubbed “zombie good guys.”
“At last,” Lin said, “they have achieved their goal.”
Alex looked at her. “Their goal?”
She turned to him with moist eyes. “They are free.”
Then, but for a gentle wind, the battlefield fell silent.
12
The Next Adventure
Shanghai’s hottest nitery, Imhotep’s, was packed with high-class tourist trade in honor of its new owner, Seamus “Maddog” Maguire, who had also inherited Jonathan Carnahan’s blue brocade tuxedo. The Egyptian trappings remained the same, and the band was, as usual, first-rate, right now going through a medley of Tommy Dorsey tunes. As the proprietor passed along the edge of the dance floor, he noted two couples dancing slow and way off tempo, but all Maddog did was smile. He understood.
These two couples were Rick and Evy O’Connell, and Alex O’Connell and a young woman known only as Lin, a striking lass to Maguire’s eyes, though truth be told he wasn’t sure she was old enough to be served alcoholic beverages, even in a city as freewheeling as Shanghai.
But Maddog was in no mood to cause the O’Connell party trouble; they’d had their share of that lately. Let them celebrate, like he was.
Alex was gazing dreamily into Lin’s dark, lovely, mysterious eyes. “You dance swell for an older woman,” he said.
“You’re all right,” she said, melodically, “for a youngster. Anyway, somebody me told me something once.”
“What’s that?”
“Stop living on the sidelines. You might miss out. And something else . . .”
“Yes?”
“You can live a lifetime in just one look.”
“Hmm. Sounds like a very smart bloke.”
Her smile was as mysterious and lovely as her eyes. “Wise beyond his years . . .”
And they kissed, still way off tempo and yet in perfect time with each other.
Rick O’Connell was giving his wife one of those lifetime’s worth of loving looks. “So how about it? You ready to support me again?”
A wonderful smile blossomed on Evy’s beautiful face. “How’s that?”
“I think I’ve fixed you up with enough research so you can get back to the typewriter. Don’t you figure Dash and Scarlet have their next adventure ready to go?”
“Maybe I don’t
want write about such things anymore.”
“Oh?”
“Why write about it when you can live it . . . Anyway, can we agree that retirement is not our style?”
“Oh yes. Though I wouldn’t mind putting mummies behind us.”
Her smile turned surprisingly wistful. “But, darling, you must admit there’s something terribly romantic about vanquishing the undead.”
“True. And even more romantic doing it with you.”
Her smile was shape-shifting into a pucker. “Kiss me, why don’t you?”
“You don’t have to ask me twice, Mrs. O’Connell . . .”
They were kissing as Jonathan Carnahan, in rather nondescript traveling attire, suitcase in hand, was heading toward the stairs that led up to the street. Maguire crossed to him.
Jonathan nodded toward the dance floor. “Don’t tell them I’m leaving. I am simply rotten at good-byes.”
“I get you, mate. But they’re gonna miss you. Me, too, truth be told.”
The two men shook hands warmly.
Maguire put his hands on the hips of Jonathan’s former tuxedo. “Where are you off to, old son?”
“South America beckons. Tropical beaches and a sea of suntanned beauties. And . . .” He leaned in to whisper. “. . . boundless opportunities to seek one’s fortune. Fame, I’ve had my fill of. Tell you what, Mr. Maguire—I’ll drop you a telegram when I arrive.”
Within moments, Jonathan was stepping into a taxi, telling the driver, “Airport, please, and step on it. I’m off to a place where they’ve never heard of mummies.”
The Chinese driver stared at him blankly.
Jonathan sighed. “You have no idea what I’m saying, do you? I’d be better off talking to a yeti or perhaps a yak. Oh well.” And he struggled to get his point across in wretched Mandarin.
Finally the taxi pulled into busy traffic on the neon-lined street, Jonathan feeling a pang leaving the O’Connells behind, but honestly not seeing any reason why they might ever find an excuse to come visit him in Peru.
He was of course unaware that, before too very long, while digging a well, a Chinese farmer in the town of Xi’an would discover the tomb of the terra-cotta warriors, which would come to be considered one of the greatest wonders of the ancient world. How they returned to their terra-cotta state after the great battle near the colossus of Er Shi Huangdi would be a mystery that Rick and Evy O’Connell, and their son, Alex, would one day come to discuss.
The O’Connells would also discuss the strange coincidence that almost simultaneously, Incan mummies were found in the mountains of Peru.
But that is another story.
Author’s Note
Having written the tie-in novels based on the screenplays for both The Mummy (1999) and The Mummy Returns (2001), I was delighted to be asked back to chart the O’Connells’ third adventure. My thanks to Stephen Sommers, the creator of the characters and the concept, and to screenwriters Alfred Gough and Miles Millar, who have continued the saga so well.
I am particularly grateful to Cindy Chang of Universal Studios, who was extremely helpful, getting me various drafts of the screenplay as well as visual reference that made the process smooth and enjoyable. Readers of movie tie-ins are often unaware that these books have to be written from the screenplays only, with no access to the film itself (which is often being shot at the same time the novel is being written). With a story as visually driven as this one, reference materials are key to making the novel compatible with the film, and I thank Cindy for her stellar support.
I would also like to thank and acknowledge editors Tom Colgan and Kristen Weber; my friend and agent, Dominick Abel; and my wife (and live-in editor), Barbara Collins, the Evy to my Rick, as well as Nate Collins, our Alex, who helped me figure out a key action scene.
About the Author
Max Allan Collins was hailed in 2004 by Publishers Weekly as “a new breed of writer.” A frequent Mystery Writers of America Edgar® Award nominee, he has earned an unprecedented fourteen Private Eye Writers of America Shamus nominations for his historical thrillers, winning for True Detective and Stolen Away.
His graphic novel Road to Perdition is the basis of the Academy Award-winning film starring Tom Hanks and directed by Sam Mendes. His comics credits include the syndicated strip Dick Tracy, his own Ms. Tree; Batman; and CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, for which he has also written video games and a USA Today—bestselling series of novels.
An independent filmmaker in the Midwest, he has written and directed such features as the Lifetime movie Mommy and the recent DVD release, Eliot Ness: An Untouchable Life. His produced screenplays include the HBO World Premiere The Expert and the current The Last Lullaby, based on his acclaimed novel The Last Quarry.
His other credits include film criticism, short fiction, songwriting, trading-card sets, and movie/TV tie-in novels, among them the international bestsellers Saving Private Ryan, Air Force One, and the Scribe Award-winning American Gangster.
Collins lives in Muscatine, Iowa, with his wife, writer Barbara Collins.
The Mummy Tomb of the Dragon Emperor Page 17