We emerged out into the harsh light of the late Egyptian afternoon and it was quickly clear that the temperature of the interior of the station had been several degrees lower than that out on the street, air conditioning or not, and that baklava and hookah smoke were infinitely preferable to the supposedly non-polluting diesel fumes that the ill-maintained trucks and cars were pumping out in grey-blue clouds as the drivers clashed their way up or down through the gears without resorting to use of the clutch. The street was jammed with people making their way as quickly to their destinations as they could to get out of the sun at the earliest opportunity. None of those destinations seemed to be the same since everyone was moving in a completely different direction, creating the illusion of controlled chaos. The illusion was in the controlled part, not the chaos. Car horns blared at regular intervals, pedestrians yelled at drivers who were more than willing to yell back, stallholders at the nearby market hawked their wares and various radio stations played conflicting music from open windows all around.
“Isn’t it fantastic?” Miranda demanded, drinking it all in through wide eyes. “It’s like a whole other world.”
“Same world,” I replied, getting my bearings. The three days I had spent stranded here had allowed for some sightseeing, but the only site I had been eager to see had been one possessing a climate controlled interior, “different heat setting. This way.”
We took our lives in our hands and darted across the road and up the main street towards the temples, both of which could be glimpsed through the buildings from time to time with their huge, seated carved figures casting watchful, and no doubt disapproving, gazes over the town. We had to fight our way through the crowds of randomly moving people, but finally emerged into a wide square fashioned out of gleaming, fresh sandstone.
The entrance to the Abu-Simbel Centre For Egyptian Antiquity (which had been constructed since my last, enforced, visit to the place) was almost as impressive as the temples beyond it thanks to the eighteen pillars holding up the roof. Each of them was a representation of a pivotal figure in Egyptian mythology and each of them glared down at the approaching crowds with naked contempt, a rather unusual expression for the stonemason to have chosen for an academic centre that wanted to make its visitors feel welcome. Making those same visitors climb up a dozen or so wide steps leading to the main entrance under the searing heat of the day seemed to be a bit inhuman as well, but the coolness that washed over us as we stepped into the shaded interior of the building was gloriously welcome even after such a short walk.
As well as being a wonderful temperature, the Centre was surprisingly empty with only a few visitors, mainly European like us going by their appearances, wandering amongst the sparse displays that were to be found this side of the entrance ticket booths. There was a good chance that they had just popped in to revel in the artificially-induced temperate conditions rather than to increase their education in the history of the country. The combination of size, emptiness and construction style served to act as a sounding chamber, amplifying the sound of our arrival and advance across the tiled floor towards the information desk until I was sure that each of the few heads in the place must be turned to follow our noisy progress.
The man at the desk looked up from his computer screen as we approached and his features reassembled themselves into something approximating a smile. I wondered if his face had been designed by the stone mason who carved the sculptures outside since it showed the same shaky grasp of appropriate expression.
“Masa el-kheir,” I stumbled with the Arabic greeting.
“It is all right,” the receptionist said with an accent that could have been cultivated in the corridors of Oxford’s University, except for a slight nasal twang that suggested a more easterly educational establishment, “I speak some English. We are nearly closed and there are no more admissions for the day. How else may I be of service?”
“He calls that some English?” Miranda whispered in my ear. As with many people who learn English as a foreign language, his speech was more precise and more grammatically correct than native speakers of the tongue and therefore he was instantly marked out as a non-native speaker.
“The Curator,” I opened my wallet somewhat ostentatiously to show my ID, “if you would be so kind.”
“Of course,” the man allowed with a slight nod of his head. Raising his voice slightly he spoke across the room, calling to someone. Miranda and I turned to look, just as the man being referred to turned to look at us. He was tall, with a finely-chiselled face wearing an expression that spoke of superior breeding and upbringing, in his mind at least. His dark skin was in contrast to the lightness of the suit that he wore, which was expensive and tailored. On one of his fingers he wore a ring that was instantly familiar.
He reacted to the ID still in my hand before I could react to seeing the ring on his finger, bolting for the doors that led deeper into the Centre. That, and the fact that he was a good deal closer to them, meant that I wasn’t able to intercept him before he slammed into, and through, the wooden entrance doors with a bang that echoed around the empty foyer like someone had fired a cannon. I made a similar noise as I followed him. The Abu-Simbel Centre For Egyptian Antiquity had been designed using the very latest thinking in modern museum and architectural design, which meant that it was airy and light with huge exhibit areas surrounded by equally huge walkways to accommodate the crowds. Since the place was nearly shut, it was empty of admiring crowds of tourists and fretful groups of schoolchildren who had been promised that the trip would be fun and were finding out that their definition of ‘fun’ differed significantly from that of the teachers.
The Curator, it turned out, was something of an athlete who had represented his country at the Olympic Games in Bradford and he was stretching a lead out on me with every step. The fez flew off his head and landed under my foot, nearly sending me cartwheeling across the floor. Only a desperate flailing of my arms, my forward momentum and some good grip on the soles of my shoes kept me from falling headlong and face-first across the floor. Fortunately for me, the Curator was running out of museum. Large though it was, the Centre was built around a central courtyard in which the real prides of the place, towering stone figures recovered from the various desert sites recently discovered, were ranged in a landscaped area that boasted palms and date trees to provide shaded areas for relaxing with a cup of Hibiscus Tea and taking in the majesty of these ancient artefacts. Neither the Curator nor I were relaxing as we sprinted across the open area and I managed to gain a little on him since I was more experienced at running across uneven ground and therefore stuck to the walkways less and a direct path more.
At the far end of the open courtyard, the Curator ran up a wide, gleaming white sandstone staircase, taking the steps two at a time with a stride that was still controlled and fluent. My own steps were becoming less even and sure as I reached the base of the staircase and followed him, keeping to just one step at a time for fear of tripping myself up. At the top of the staircase, the tall glass doors that accessed the second exhibition area of the Centre were still swinging shut on their controlled hinges, so I was able to dodge straight through.
The Curator was waiting for me inside, just to one side, and my progress was such that I wasn’t able to stop myself before I reached him. As I tried to avoid what I was expecting to be a punch at my head, he grabbed me by the arm and pivoted, using my own momentum against me. I twisted and fell backwards against a low balustrade overlooking one of the display areas. I reached out to grab something, but I was too far away from any pillars and pitched over the barrier.
The drop from the balcony was thirty feet or so, but instead of crashing onto the ground and smashing my spine and various internal organs, I plunged into liquid. The impact drove all the air out of my lungs and I was disorientated from spinning through the air, so when I came to the surface I was coughing and spluttering and in no condition to defend myself. Fortunately, when I wiped my eyes clear of the water and weeds, th
e Curator was still stood on the balcony looking down at me.
“You should not have come here,” he said, his English as good as his employee’s but labouring under a heavy accent. “There is nothing for you here except death.”
“Yeah,” I was far too soggy to be impressive or tough, but I tried to sound it anyway, “well once I get out of here I’m not the one who’ll need to worry about dying.”
The water rose halfway up my chest, so I had to half-wade, half-swim to the edge of the display case and pull myself out … right into a sheet of glass that squashed my nose across my face.
“It is lucky, then, that you will not be getting out of there,” the Curator laughed down at me.
I followed the line of the glass and saw that it went all around the exhibit area, mainly marked by the posts holding it in place since the glass was so well-polished that it was almost invisible. The exhibit was a large, rocky pool filled with greenish water and weeds. At one end there was an outcrop of rock with a small, sandy beach and a waterfall spilling down in streams to oxygenate the water. It was some sort of habitat. My first thought was of Nile crocodiles, but then I spotted some large coils of scaly skin that were unwinding into the water.
“In case you are wondering,” the Curator called down, “its name is Apep.”
“I’m not sure I’m familiar with the name,” I replied, though I was.
Apep was, if my memory served me, an Egyptian demon of evil that dwelled in darkness and tried to eat the sun god Ra as he sailed around the world in his ship carrying the sun. Whilst not one of the major players in the mythology, the size of the tail that was gliding into the water didn’t exactly suggest that, whatever Apep was, I should hang around to make its acquaintance. There was a fallen log as part of the display nearby and I made my way to it as quickly as I could and attempted to climb onto it. I was barely out of the water when a bullet ricocheted off the glass containing wall and into the water.
“Now, now,” the Curator chided from above me, waving the dark shape of a revolver, “We didn’t go to all the trouble of raising him to allow his dinner to escape. Though he prefers his prey alive, you will taste the same either way.”
“Apep’s a legend, a myth,” I shouted back, scanning the water for any sign of the creature or its passage, but the surface remained glassily smooth.
“Isn’t that why you came here Agent Ward?” the man mocked from on high, “Because you feared that the Children of Osiris have the power to reinstate the ancient gods of these lands? Because you wanted to know if the ceremony that you have uncovered is genuine? Well now you will be able to judge for yourself. Clearly we weren’t going to try it on one of the gods until we were sure that it worked, so we picked something a little bit smaller for the first attempt. Of course, all size is relative.”
A few feet away, what appeared to be a snout raised itself slowly out of the water, just far enough for the nostrils to dilate as it sniffed the air and a tongue flickered in and out of a lipless mouth, tasting for my presence. Apep was supposed to be a snake-demon and if this really was its head then I was in big trouble. I was getting out no matter what the man above me thought and hauled myself up onto the log. The gun fired again and I yelled as my left arm ignited in pain. It gave way and I plunged back into the water. Something big and muscular slid alongside my legs as it slipped smoothly out of the path of my fall.
“Now Agent Ward I thought that I had made myself quite clear about your escaping,” the man chuckled. “Try that again and I will put a hole in your head.”
Apep, or whatever the thing in the tank was, suddenly emerged in a shower of spray as it struck across the water at me. I could hardly react in time and then only enough to throw myself sideways. The wedge-shaped head hurtled past me and the strong, muscled body followed it, knocking me sprawling into the water. The log splintered under the impact of the beast and was quickly lost under the water.
“Ole,” the Curator cheered ironically.
“You are so dead,” I told him as I regained my feet and cast around frantically for the next attack. I had the feeling that it had been the log and not me that Apep had been aiming for, which led to the distressing conclusion that the serpent was playing with me like a feral cat plays with an unlucky mouse just prior to biting its head off.
“I believe that you should worry about yourself, Agent Ward,” the Curator replied jeeringly. “It is you who are ‘so dead’. I am quite safe.”
He paused for a moment in thought and then looked down at the spear point that was sticking out of his chest. The head was made of bronze and showed signs of its age in both the primitive manufacture and the oxidisation of the surface. The wooden shaft was new, a replica created by the Centre’s staff from fossilised remains or paintings that had remained intact on the walls of caves housing the Nubian tribe that was identified by the coloured bands around the neck. Those bands were all stained red by the blood that flowed from the Curator’s chest down along the shaft of the weapon to drip from the tip onto the floor in front of him.
“I may have been mistaken,” he suggested as he frowned with incomprehension as to what this particular exhibit was doing projecting from his body rather than adorning some campsite recreation for which it had originally been intended.
“Yes you were,” Miranda spoke into his ear and twisted the spear viciously, causing the man to convulse as the shock of the fatal wound wore off and the pain of the fatal wound set in.
Apep chose that moment to rise up out of the water above me, taking my attention away from the tableau on the balcony. As the giant serpent’s sinuous body swayed slightly backwards and forwards and the forked tongue lapped at the air, I wish I’d taken the snake charming course offered during basic training, but it had been only been mandatory for those agents being assigned to jungle locations and I hadn’t foreseen any circumstances in which it would be of use to me. I consoled myself with the thought that there probably wasn’t anyone else who could have foreseen the circumstances I now found myself in.
I froze.
I would like to say that I this was a deliberate act taken as a result of the immediate realisation that the creature wasn’t looking at me, that it couldn’t see me, that since it was a creature of the underworld who lived in eternal darkness it was completely blind and therefore staying still was my best defence, but the truth of the matter is that I was just frozen in front of this huge, rearing serpent. It wasn’t fear so much as awe that was the cause. Whatever the reason, it was the right thing to do and Apep lost me. It would take only seconds for the creature to locate me again with its enhanced senses of taste and smell, but those seconds were denied it.
Miranda used the spear that the Curator was impaled upon as a lever and forced him far enough over the balcony for gravity to do the rest. He fell in a graceless arc and landed on Apep some way behind the head, but still close enough to cause the creature to collapse into the water under the impact.
“Move!” Miranda shouted urgently, but I didn’t need to be told. I splashed frantically through the water towards the far end of the tank and the beachy outcrop that the snake monster had been sleeping on before I’d glimpsed it slipping into the water. Blood was streaming down my arm and dripping from my fingers into the water, leaving a trail that must have been like a bright neon sign for the creature’s senses and I felt it rear up behind me, saw its shadow on the rocks that I had so nearly reached and heard the soft hissing so close behind me. Miranda screamed and I flinched for the impact that didn’t come because at that moment the Curator, who by rights really ought to have been dead by this point, surfaced in a mass of thrashing limbs and pained yelling. Apep’s head swung around, distracted by the noise and the taste on the air of the blood that was pouring out of the Egyptian’s chest wound in a much greater quantity than my messed up arm. The Curator opened his eyes just in time to see the creature’s open mouth descending with its fangs extended, but his scream of terror was cut off as those fangs punched deep into his neck
and delivered a jolt of venom that was powerful enough to cause the flesh around the bite to bubble and froth.
I didn’t stop to watch. For one thing, Apep might decide that two humans would make a better meal than just one. Ignoring the searing pain in my arm, I hauled myself out of the water onto the rocks and leaped for the top of the glass. I didn’t clear the barrier, wishboning myself at the waist over the glass that was, as well as being bulletproof, so heavily reinforced that it was thick enough not to slice into me. With my head dangling down on the outside, I saw Apep come streaming out of the water across the rocks, the Curator’s body floating limply face down in the water beyond. I swung my legs up and threw my weight forward, overbalancing and plunging onto the floor in a mass of pain. I felt like every bone I had was broken and every muscle had been torn, but since I was still able to feel the pain I assumed that I was still alive. Whether I was glad about that remained something on which I was undecided.
A shadow loomed over me and for a moment I thought that Apep had escaped his prison, but it was Miranda, looking down at me all concerned. “I see you’ve managed to get wet again,” she commented.
Slowly, and with a lot of help from Miranda, I was able to climb into a sitting position on a nearby bench provided for the benefit of tourists who found themselves a bit fatigued after the long walk around half the museum. Had the outfitters known of what use it would be to me they might have made it more comfortable. Whilst Miranda bandaged my arm, I watched Apep. For a while, the snake demon slithered back and forth along the inside of the glass, looking for a way out to get to us, its tongue flickering in every direction. All the time, it hissed with frustration at being close enough to taste its prey, but being prevented from reaching it. Finally, it gave up and flowed back down into the water. The body of the Curator was pulled down beneath the surface and we were mercifully unable to see what happened to it next.
The Man From U.N.D.E.A.D. - the Curious Case of the Kidnapped Chemist Page 20