“What is this place?” Todtman asked.
“It is a secure facility. The Death Walker protects it.”
Alex nudged Ren. “Not anymore.”
“Protects what?” said Todtman. “What is here?”
The guard’s subjugated brain seemed to search for the right English words. “The … stone warriors,” he said at last. “And the prisoners.”
Alex’s eyes opened wide. Had they caught his mom?
Todtman was clearly thinking the same thing. “Americans?”
“One,” said the guard.
Alex’s heart stuttered. The first guard shifted on the floor and reached for his head, but Alex couldn’t react. He needed to hear this.
Todtman pressed him. “A woman?”
The man looked confused for a moment and then shook his head. “Boy,” he said.
Not his mom. Alex exhaled. Then something else occurred to him: An American boy … Could it be Luke? But the next moment he was chastising himself for being so stupid. He knew all too well that his super-jock cousin was working with The Order — probably getting ready to buy an NBA team with the money they must have paid him to betray them.
Alex saw movement out of the corner of his eye and turned just in time to see the first guard recover his bearings and reach for his gun. Alex spun around too late — but not Ren. She kicked the man hard in one bent shin.
The guard grabbed his shin and swore, giving Alex enough time to unleash a second blast of wind. The guard’s head smacked back into the wall with a hollow coconut BONK, and he was knocked out cold. But no sooner had one threat ended than a larger one loomed. Voices echoed through the room, coming from somewhere out in the pit.
“We need to get out of here,” said Ren.
Todtman nodded but didn’t budge. “Where are these stone warriors?”
The guard resisted. Todtman clutched the falcon harder, leaned in, and repeated himself in a hoarse, angry whisper: “WHERE?”
The guard raised his hand despite himself, pointing to a doorway along the half-shattered side wall. “One … flight … up … to … right,” the man spat out, fighting himself on every word.
“One last thing,” said Todtman, leaning back.
“We have to go,” hissed Ren, the echoing voices louder now.
Alex gave her what he hoped was a reassuring look. “I’m sure it’s important,” he whispered.
“Do you have a broom?” asked Todtman. “It must get sandy in here …”
The guard looked confused but pointed to one shadowy corner. “Vielen Dank,” said Todtman. Thank you very much. “Now sleep.”
The guard crumpled to the floor as Todtman hobbled to the corner.
“Let’s go,” he said as he used the falcon’s power to shear off the head of the broom.
They rushed through the side door and up the stairs, one step ahead of the approaching voices. The only sounds were the soft, wooden thuds of Todtman’s new walking stick.
The staircase led up and away from the shattered wall, and by the first landing, the electric lights were working again. “One flight up and to the right,” Todtman repeated softly. “Here it is.” He gestured toward a large, vaultlike door.
Alex was less interested in these “stone warriors,” whatever that meant, and more interested in escape. “Why don’t we keep going up the stairs?” he said as Ren nodded emphatically in agreement.
Todtman turned the large door handle. Locked. He reached for his amulet. “We still know too little about The Order’s plans,” he said. “I must know what they are capable of, what tools they have. I saw something in Cairo, and it … troubled me.”
Alex knew he had a point: The cult was up to something massive, and they needed to know more — not just what they planned to accomplish, but how. He took one last longing look up the stairwell and then turned his attention toward the door. Hand on amulet, Todtman’s eyes slid closed and his augmented senses probed the inner workings of the lock, finding its weak point.
KLICKICK!
The lock opened, but still he searched.
CRECK!
The sound of a second, larger lock opening … There’s something important in there, thought Alex. Todtman pushed the door open and stepped inside, Alex and Ren following a step behind.
The room was dark and Alex was on edge. He jumped when Todtman swung the heavy door shut behind them. Then he heard a third click, much softer this time, as the old scholar found the light switch.
Alex’s breath caught and his heart nearly stopped. His hand flew up to his amulet and he took a quick step back, nearly shouldering Ren into the wall. “Hey!” she said.
And then she saw it, too, and gasped sharply. Facing them were five massive, menacing figures. Menacing — and familiar.
They were in the shape of the five Order operatives who already haunted their nightmares. There was the treacherous, jackal-masked Al-Dab’u, their first adversary in New York; the cruel, crocodile-headed Ta-mesah from London; Peshwar, the sinister, lioness-skull-wearing huntress who’d pursued them halfway across Egypt; the vulture-veiled leader; and the grotesque Aff Neb.
But these were carved from blocks of rugged stone: ten feet tall and powerfully built, like Hulked-out versions of the sinister originals.
“The stone warriors are … statues?” said Ren. “That’s so vain!”
“No,” said Todtman, his voice grave and fearful. “Not vain — terrifying. I was afraid of this. They hadn’t taken shape yet in Cairo. I only saw a glimpse. But now …” He looked from Alex to Ren. “We must destroy these!”
“Why?” said Ren, but there was no time for explanation, much less destruction. Behind them, the locks of the door were beginning to turn. The Order had caught up with them.
“We’re trapped in here!” said Alex, surveying the featureless room.
“No,” said Ren. “There has to be a back door.”
“How do you know?” said Alex.
She rolled her eyes. “Because these things are too big to fit through the front one!”
The first lock had already clicked open and the larger second lock was beginning to turn. The friends rushed across the bare, echoing chamber, slaloming between the looming statues. They gave Alex a serious case of the creeps, a mix of bad memories and foreboding. What are these things for — and why do they scare Todtman so much?
They passed the last statue — the graven image of the cult leader — just as the door swung open and the man himself strode into the room. They reached the back wall. In its center was the sort of large, rolling door you’d find on a loading dock.
“Phew!” said Ren.
“You two open it,” said Todtman, turning back toward their pursuers. “I’ll hold them off.”
Alex looked at him like he was crazy. How could he hold off the leader and the steady stream of armed men pouring in the door behind him? But there was no time for second thoughts.
“I’ll unlock it,” said Ren. “You push!”
Alex gave her a skeptical look, too. She had the least experience using an amulet — and this looked like a big lock. But she looked confident, and for the first time he realized that she had more faith in the ibis than he did.
He was plenty confident with his own amulet, though. He grasped the scarab, and once again the ancient energy coursed through him, quickening his pulse, sharpening his senses. He extended his right hand, palm up, and slowly raised it.
As he began to push, he saw a pop of white light and heard a muffled klink. Ren had done it! The big door began to move.
Behind them, Todtman’s delay tactic was a masterstroke. Rather than attempt a direct attack on The Order forces, he threatened what they held dear. As the door rose to waist height, Alex risked a quick look back. The first of the statues, Al-Dab’u’s, was wobbling and … falling! The Order forces shouted in confusion and concern. “Stop it!” barked the leader. “Do not let it fall!”
Todtman’s froggy face was red, his eyes protruding even more than usual
from the effort of tipping the massive statue. But now gravity was on his side. The leader extended his own hand, pushing back, as half a dozen men rushed to prop the thing up. Behind them, Alex saw the pale skull of a lioness enter the room.
“Peshwar’s here,” he gasped.
“Let’s go!” yelped Ren.
Todtman wheeled around, releasing the amulet with an exhausted gasp.
The three friends quickly ducked under the half-open gate as the room lit up red and one of Peshwar’s energy daggers rocketed toward them. The deadly dagger slammed into the edge of the door as they straightened up on the other side.
“Glad I didn’t have time to open it all the way!” said Alex.
Another advantage of the half-opened door: Closing it was much faster.
“Lock it!” said Todtman, already beginning to hobble across the broad concrete floor in front of them. “And break the lock!”
The same augmented senses and subtle manipulations that made it possible for Alex to open a lock with the scarab made it surprisingly easy to break off one of the small pieces inside.
He rushed to catch up with the others as a dozen hands began pounding on the stubbornly stuck metal behind them. The friends were in a large, bare room, its walls mostly lost in shadows. Up ahead, he could see a ramp sloping upward. It looked like an empty loading dock — but it wasn’t empty.
“Hey, guys?” Alex heard. Just two words, but the voice was so familiar that he recognized it immediately. He wheeled around, reaching for his amulet once again. But the person he saw posed no threat this time. Pressed between thick iron bars along the far wall, a face floated like a ghost in the shadows.
“Luke?” The word flopped weakly out of Alex’s mouth as he tried to come to terms with what he was seeing. He took a step forward and saw that there were three large doors along the far wall, each with a barred window in the center. Luke was in the middle cell. But why? His cousin was working with The Order — wasn’t he? Then why was he in a sunless cell in their desert citadel?
“You traitor!” shouted Ren. He’d betrayed her, too, but her tone softened as she stepped forward and got a better look at his pale, grime-streaked face. “You … snake?”
Luke managed a weak smile. “Okay, I had that coming,” he said. “But you gotta understand, I didn’t want to do it. I mean, at first, yeah. The money was good, but then —”
Pa-KRACK! Ba-DOOOM!
Two quick, explosive sounds came through the door behind them, and two large bumps appeared on its metal surface.
Todtman peered into the gloom. “They are coming through. That door will not hold them much longer.”
But Alex couldn’t bring himself to leave just yet. Todtman had interacted with Luke only briefly, but Alex’s cousin had been a big part of the team in London and the Valley of the Kings. His athletic ability and knack for saying the obvious had saved them more than once — even if he had been passing on information to The Order the whole time. Alex needed to hear this. “Why did you betray us?” he said.
Thin hands appeared on the bars of the other two cells, but the faces stayed hidden inside. For the first time, Alex caught a whiff of the stink coming from the cells. These people were being held in darkness and filth, and barely fed, by the looks of it.
“When I realized how bad these people really are,” said Luke, “I couldn’t do it anymore.”
“But you did!” yelled Ren. “You gave us away! We could have died!”
As if to punctuate her angry point, a third explosion rocked the door behind them. The metal began to give. Crimson light flickered through a long crack.
“I know,” breathed Luke. “I feel terrible, but …”
“WE HAVE TO GO!” shouted Todtman.
Alex looked at his cousin closely. He had betrayed them. They’d survived it out in the desert, but if he kept them here any longer this time, he’d deliver them into the hands of The Order agents — whether he meant to or not.
“I’m sorry, man,” he said, and turned to run. Sympathy and old loyalty tugged at him, but he pulled away. They didn’t have time to listen to Luke’s excuses.
Ren followed half a step behind. They’d already reached the ramp and started up it when Luke called out his last words. “They were going to kill my parents! I’m sorry, cuz!”
Alex wheeled around and stared back down into the darkness. An image formed in his head, one perfectly suited to this shadowy place. Once again, he pictured that complex spiderweb. Back in Alexandria, he’d imagined his mom was the center, but really he was the spider. This was all his fault, and not just on some big, abstract level, but right down to each person involved.
Luke had gotten pulled into that web because of Alex. He never would’ve betrayed them in a million years if it weren’t for the lure of money and the worst threat imaginable. Luke’s drained face watched him through the gloom, a glimmer of hope shining through now.
Hardly believing his own words, Alex heard himself say, “I have to save him.”
He turned and took a step back down the ramp, once again heading toward danger, but quick footsteps came up behind him.
“No, Ren, don’t —” he began, just as a burst of crimson light blew a massive hole in the metal gate. Fa-THOOOM!
In the quiet following the explosion, Ren made it crystal clear that she had no intention of following his suicide mission. She reached up and slapped the swollen lump on the back of his head. Alex winced as if he’d just bitten down on a lemon, and sucked air through his teeth. “OW!”
“Listen to me!” she said. “I don’t know what this cowboy craziness is all about, but if you don’t turn around right now, we are all going to end up in that cell — or worse.”
“But it’s all my —” Alex began, but Ren cut him short.
“It is not!”
Alex heard the metal gate begin to roll upward and the angry voices massing behind it. He was paralyzed. He felt responsible for all of them, but saving one meant putting the others in danger.
It was Luke himself who broke the deadlock: “Go, man!” he shouted. “Just go!”
Alex released a wordless shout of frustration and anger — but he went. He took one last look back at Luke’s face and then rushed toward Todtman, who was using his amulet to try to slow the rising gate.
Ren added a blinding flash to the delay tactics, and then they all turned and rushed up the ramp toward freedom. By the time the battered gate rattled fully open behind them, Todtman was already opening the next gate with his amulet. They hurried through, the slap of footsteps and crackle of energy close behind. Sunlight and dry desert air met them on the other side.
As Todtman and Ren closed the gate and broke the lock, two gunshots pushed little cones into the metal from the other side. Alex stared at them, understanding that if he’d hesitated even a few seconds longer, those bullets might be lodged in his back — or his friend’s.
“Our getaway!” called Ren, pointing.
A small fleet of expensive new cars sat in a square lot, all in identical gunmetal gray. Even with sun-stung eyes Alex could make out the familiar logo. Mercedes-Benzes.
“Ausgezeichnet!” shouted Todtman. Excellent!
They hustled toward the nearest one. “Can you start it?” asked Ren as Todtman slid into the driver’s seat.
“Of course!” Todtman said, grabbing his amulet. “These cars make perfect sense — they’re German!”
The powerful engine roared to life, and they burned rubber leaving the lot.
Alex took one last look behind them as the car hit the long ribbon of hot asphalt that would lead them to safety. He stared at The Order’s subterranean stronghold … Sand-colored canvas had already been drawn over the top of the shattered pit. The pit where they had lost Pai, and nearly each other, before encountering a goddess. The gate they’d come through was just beginning to slide open again. And somewhere behind them, his cousin, held captive and caught in the crossfire of all this, his life or death dependent on the whims of man
iacs.
Finally, he allowed himself to look at the road ahead, but he didn’t really see it. What he saw instead was a spiderweb. He looked down at himself, turned his hand over and considered it. He was the spider. And he was poisonous.
As the luxury sedan’s air conditioning kicked in, he took his first deep breath of cool air in what felt like ages. He filled his lungs with air and his mind with one single word, the only thing that could make this all worth it. The only thing that could tear the web apart and release everyone who’d been caught up in it.
Minyahur.
Todtman punched their destination into the navigation system, shifted the powerful sedan into gear, and pressed the gas pedal to the floor. Alex settled into the backseat, not noticing the fat black fly crawling slowly along the edge of the door.
The Mercedes sped south as the sun began to set in the west. Todtman took them through a few small towns and made a series of seemingly random turns, in case they were being followed. But Alex saw no suspicious cars tailing them, and the sleek vehicle seemed like a safe haven: a little bubble of tinted glass and air conditioning.
For a while, nobody said very much. They were too tired and all working through what had just happened in their own ways. Alex couldn’t see Ren’s small frame on the other side of the big front seat, but he heard her sniffle a few times and knew it was about Pai.
But eventually they recovered, like boxers picking themselves up off the mat, and the need to make sense of what they’d seen was too strong for silence.
Ren had been trying to puzzle something out herself for about thirty miles, and now she was just going to ask Todtman. “What was the big deal about those statues?” she said. “Why were you so — I mean, no offense, but why were you so freaked out about them?”
“They are powerful and dangerous weapons. I dearly wish we’d had time to destroy them.”
The Stone Warriors Page 9