Tut--My Epic Battle to Save the World

by P. J. Hoover

  “How did you know?” I asked. I’d only met Igigi a few days ago. It’s not like we’d exchanged cell phone numbers so he could track me via GPS. Maybe Igigi was more than a DJ working at The Babylon Club. Maybe Igigi was secretly working with Apep. He could even know where Gil was. Except for the fact that Igigi helped me break whatever spell had been placed over me.

  Why had I been so eager to answer the voice in the vision, anyway? It was times like this that I was actually glad Gil wasn’t around. He claimed I was always getting myself into trouble, and this kind of thing … well, it didn’t do much to clear my name.

  Igigi patted Humbaba’s head with a giant hand. “Your monster-dog came and warned me. He said he saw you. Said you were acting funny. He roared at you a few times, and when you didn’t respond, he came to the club and got me.”

  “It’s true,” Colonel Cody said. “It is exactly as the eight-eyed minor heathen god says. The monster nearly stepped on us in his efforts to get you to play. And then, when you wouldn’t, he ran off.”

  I thought back to when the world had first slipped away. Humbaba could have been the blurriness at the edges of my vision.

  “How did he know you were at the club?” I asked Igigi. “How does he even know you?”

  Igigi shrugged. “Me and Humbaba … we go way back. He’s been hanging out at the club recently. Pretty sure he missed me in these last few thousand years. Also, I think he likes the music.”

  It was either the truth or a really good cover story. I opted to consider it the truth, because my head might explode if I thought it out anymore.

  “Good Baba,” I said, which Humbaba must’ve taken as encouragement because he pounced forward and landed on me, knocking me to the ground. Drool dripped onto my face as he licked me. I wished I had a cookie from the funeral home to give him as a treat.

  “It was Apep,” I said, once I’d managed to roll out from under the Sumerian monster. “He was trying to see what I looked like.” I kept my voice low, though I’m not sure why I bothered. If people around us hadn’t noticed Igigi with his eight eyes along with a lion-headed monster, talk of an Egyptian god surely wasn’t going to get us noticed.

  “Did you let him?” Igigi asked. He started walking toward the Capitol, like he knew where I was going. I followed along next to him, happy to get as far away from the Reflecting Pool as I could.

  “No. But almost. He was controlling me. I couldn’t stop walking.” The idea of the Egyptian god controlling my mind made me want to incinerate him on the spot. How dare he do that to me?

  Humbaba must’ve sensed my unease, because he nudged his head so it was conveniently right under my hand. I scratched him between the ears.

  Igigi tapped my chest with one of his big hands. “Through your scarab heart?”

  “Yeah. I think so,” I said. Which was just wonderful. There wasn’t much I could do about that.

  We walked in silence until we got to the Capitol. “Well, this is where we part ways, King Tut.” He nodded to the north. “I’m headed that way. I got things to do.”

  I couldn’t imagine what Igigi did in his spare time. I’d have asked him except I had other things on my mind. I had to get the sun disk.

  “Thanks again,” I said.

  “I’m not looking for thanks,” Igigi said. He shuffled his feet and waited, like he was expecting me to hand him twenty dollars or something.

  “Oh,” I said. “Your name.” I’d almost forgotten, but now that he reminded me of it, I felt completely in his debt. He’d just saved me from some unknown fate over which I had no control.

  “Yep, my name,” Igigi said. “Did you find it? ’Cause if you didn’t…”

  I scrambled to think of something, because I didn’t want to tell him that I’d come up with nothing. I also didn’t want to go to the underworld without my hands and eyes. So I said the first thing that came to mind.

  “Bob.”

  A few horrifying seconds went by when I was sure Igigi would start screaming and drag me off to the underworld. I tried to keep my face steady. But Bob? What was I thinking? I was a complete idiot.

  But then Igigi’s eyes lit up—all eight of them. He snapped his fingers.

  “Yes! Bob! That’s it! That’s exactly it!”

  “It is?” I said.

  “Yes! It’s a palindrome, just like Igigi, except it’s my name. How did you know? Where did you find it?”

  I couldn’t believe I’d really gotten Igigi’s name right. I pored over my memories, trying to figure out why I’d said Bob, and then it came to me. It was the word that Thoth had given me. Once again, he’d known exactly what I needed.

  “It was a gift from the gods,” I said.

  Igigi—well, Bob, if we wanted to be technical—nodded his head. “I am forever in your debt, King Tut.” And then he grabbed me in a bear hug that made me feel like my insides were getting pulverized with a meat hammer. I waited it out, because I couldn’t move.

  “Keep the dog with you,” Igigi/Bob said. And then he snapped the headphones over his ears, did a couple little dance moves—including a pretty sweet moon walk—and walked away.

  17

  WHERE MY DOG GETS A BATH

  Nobody else in D.C. knew it, but under the Library of Congress was one of the largest warehouses in the world: the Hall of Artifacts. Horus had told me about it six months ago. I’d gone to retrieve a scroll. And the way to get in was under a giant statue out front of the Library. Tia and I had found it. Well, I’d found it, and Tia had followed along. It’s when she found out—or at least when she told me that she knew—who I was.

  Humbaba, the three shabtis, and I headed around to the front of the Library, but the second we got there, my heart sank into my stomach. There used to be a fountain with a few statues, including a giant statue of Poseidon, Greek god of the sea. That statue led to the secret entrance to the Hall of Artifacts. But the statue was gone. The fountain was drained. And there was nothing but smooth cement underneath. Yellow tape surrounded the entire area, and signs were spray-painted with the words RENOVATION IN PROGRESS. BUILDING A BRIGHTER FUTURE. The estimated completion date was three years from now.

  Three years! How could remodeling a fountain take three years? Apep would have destroyed the earth five times over by then. There was nothing bright about that future. I couldn’t wait three years. But I also wasn’t going to be able to get to the Hall of Artifacts the same way I had before. I needed a new plan. I needed Horus’s help. But Horus was back at my townhouse. At least I hoped he was.

  Humbaba trotted along next to me the entire way home, peeing on fire hydrants, sniffing the butts of dogs, all of which he towered over. I played around with my memory spells, making people think they were seeing a dog instead of a Sumerian monster. I just hoped Humbaba didn’t eat any of the other dogs. That would be hard to make anyone forget. My powers got stronger each time I used them. I even tried using more of Gil’s power, letting heat cascade off me. It worked brilliantly. I didn’t summon any fireballs because I didn’t want Humbaba to run away. After the whole Reflecting Pool incident, having him around might not be such a bad idea. Plus, it was kind of nice having a dog. Even if he wasn’t really a dog.

  When we walked into the townhouse, Horus was nowhere to be found. Aside from the fact that I needed to talk to him, this was actually a good thing because of Horus’s whole “no dogs” rule. But Lieutenant Roy ran up to me and bowed low to the ground. “Great Master, it seems you’ve brought the monster back with you.”

  I scratched Humbaba’s head, causing his tongue to slip out the side of his mouth. Drool dripped onto the wooden floor.

  “Yeah, he’s fine,” I said. “He won’t hurt anything.”

  Lieutenant Roy snapped his fingers and four shabtis ran over with a towel and started mopping up the drool.

  “As you say, Great Master,” Lieutenant Roy said. “Perhaps the monster would care for a bath?”

  There was a rank monster aroma in the air, but I highly doubted
the shabtis would be able to get Humbaba into the tub. I was wrong. At the word “bath,” Humbaba started jumping up and down, hitting the ceiling as he did so, and letting out little growling yips, like a Yorkshire terrier.

  Lieutenant Roy beamed. “Wonderful. If the monster would follow me this way.” He headed for the upstairs bathroom, trailed by at least fifty shabtis. Humbaba bounded after them and vanished into the bathroom. The door closed behind them.

  “Is Horus here?” I asked Lieutenant Virgil as I walked to the futon. He and Lieutenant Leon hurried over with a soda and a plate of scones.

  “Yes, there is a problem with that,” Lieutenant Virgil said, and his eyes drifted downward.

  That’s when I heard the low hissing coming from underneath the futon. I looked down, through my legs, so I could see what was beneath me. One glowing yellow eye stared back at me from the darkness.

  “Horus?” I whispered.

  The hissing continued.

  “As I was saying, Great Master,” Lieutenant Virgil said. “The cat seems to be under the weather. He’s been like that for hours.”

  “Horus?” I said again. “You need to come out here.”

  Nothing.

  “It’s about the Hall of Artifacts. I need to know how to get in. The main entrance is gone.”

  The hissing only got louder.

  “Come on, Horus,” I said, and even though he was a god, I couldn’t help the anger that crept into my voice. Gil’s life was on the line here. Horus needed to snap out of whatever weird trance he’d entered.

  “We’ve tried milk,” Lieutenant Virgil said.

  “And catnip,” Lieutenant Leon added.

  “Nothing has worked,” Lieutenant Virgil said.

  “Perhaps he needs time.” Colonel Cody joined the other two on the coffee table. He must’ve finished briefing the other shabtis on everything that had gone on in the last twenty-four hours. Majors Mack and Rex had a bunch of their battle shabtis lined up and were already running drills.

  “We don’t have time,” I said, sinking back onto the futon. This was a stupid mess. Hapi was a god. He would find some other way to get into the Hall of Artifacts. And it’s not like I could ask Nephthys. She was on Hapi’s side. She didn’t think I was capable of going after Apep myself.

  Just then the bathroom door flew open. I braced myself, ready for a dripping, furious Sumerian monster to come rushing out the door with shabtis clinging onto him for dear life. But instead, out pranced Humbaba like some sort of Pomeranian show dog. His curly black hair glistened. His face had been trimmed, making his eyes look super-big and innocent. And he had a bright red bow on top of his head, holding back his lion’s mane.

  Lieutenant Roy beamed next to him.

  “Great Osiris, that can’t be Humbaba,” I said.

  Humbaba thrashed his snake tail from side to side with happiness.

  “May I present Great Master’s pedigree show monster,” Lieutenant Roy said.

  “You did an amazing job! Was it hard?”

  “On the contrary,” Lieutenant Roy said. “The monster was most willing. Our estimates of the dirt under his nails suggests that he hadn’t been bathed in four thousand years.”

  Four thousand years. Even Horus would want a bath after that long. The pipes were surely going to clog from all the dirt.

  Humbaba jumped onto Gil’s chair and immediately started digging a hole in the stuffing.

  “No! Over here, Baba!” I said, and patted my side.

  His monster ears perked up and he bounded over, knocking stuff from Gil’s piles of junk on the way. I glanced under the futon again. Horus was still there, hissing. Humbaba got really interested in what I was doing and pressed his nose down onto the floor so he could see under the futon. And then he started doing the roar-bark thing again, trying to get Horus to come out. It didn’t work.

  So instead, Humbaba sank to the floor right there and rested his head in my lap, almost like, now that he had been properly bathed, he was going to protect both Horus and me. I wasn’t sure which of us needed protection more.

  I flipped through my notebook, hoping some sort of revelation would come to me, but it didn’t. And as the seconds ticked by, haziness took over me, and I fell asleep. Or at least I thought it was sleep until I opened my eyes and realized that I wasn’t in my townhouse anymore. I was back in the darkness. And I wasn’t me. I was Gil, crawling along the floor. In the background, the two guards I’d heard before were still arguing, this time about sunspots.

  “They’re getting bigger,” the one guard said.

  “Not bigger,” the other said. “That’s the boss. He’s pulling the light from it.”

  His words got harder to hear because I think Gil was getting farther away. And then he pressed his hands against the wall, but there was a handle, so he reached out to turn it.

  “Have you seen the immortal?” the one guard said.

  And then they started running across the floor, their footsteps getting closer. Gil knew he had to do something. He pulled on his powers, but they didn’t come, because I had Gil’s powers. And I willed them to move through whatever link we had, to give them back to him so he could defend himself and get out of there. I pushed heat out into the air around me. I summoned the fire. But it didn’t work. The powers stayed with me, not with Gil.

  The two guards grabbed Gil.

  “You think we should tie him up or something?” the second guard said.

  “We already did that,” the first said. “He tried to choke us with the rope.”

  I grinned at that. Gil might be a captive, but he was still fighting.

  “We need to give him that venom again,” the second guard said.

  “Boss won’t like that,” the first said. “He says it breaks some kind of link.”

  Link. They were talking about me.

  I snapped out of the dream.

  One glance at the clock told me it was already the next morning. I’d slept the entire night. I was still on my futon, but I was covered in sweat. My fingers brimmed with heat from the vision. Apep one hundred percent knew about the link between Gil and me. That was how he’d controlled me at the Reflecting Pool.

  Colonel Cody stood vigil over me, standing on my chest. Humbaba still had his head on my lap, though his eyes were wide open. The doorbell rang, and immediately my sensors went on red alert. Apep was definitely after me. Me, specifically. He knew I had Gil’s heart. I hated to admit that Nephthys was right, that I was in danger, but the signs definitely seemed to be pointing that way.

  “Shall I answer it, Great Master?” Colonel Cody said.

  I had a Sumerian monster at my side, over three hundred shabtis, and a really angry, crazy Egyptian cat god in my townhouse. I should be okay.

  “Who is it?” I asked.

  “Great Master, it is the beautiful mortal girl,” Colonel Cody said, throwing the door open wide. The shabtis loved Tia, ever since the first time she’d met them and she’d called them cute.

  I ran a quick hand through my hair and tried to make it look like I hadn’t just woken up. But it would have been nice to at least have had time to brush my teeth.

  “What are you doing here?” I glanced around instinctively. A bunch of Gil’s stuff sat in piles around the townhouse and the shabtis were still mopping up the monster drool.

  Behind her, a gloomy morning streamed through the open door. A gloomy morning with not much sun. And I thought of what the guards had been saying in the dream. He’s pulling the light from it. If Apep wasn’t stopped, gloomy skies would be only the beginning.

  “Are you seriously sitting here on your butt?” Tia said. “Do you have any idea what’s happening?”

  That got my attention. I shot up from the futon so fast I accidentally knocked over the two shabtis who were guarding me. Humbaba jumped to his feet, ran over to Tia, and started sniffing her.

  She glanced at him, but if she was surprised by the fact that he was a monster and not a dog, she didn’t let on.

&nb
sp; “What’s happening?” I asked. I still wore the same clothes I had on the last time I saw Tia, over a day ago. She, on the other hand, had dyed the streak in her hair purple and wore a tank top to match.

  She stormed into the townhouse, combat boots smashing scarab beetles with every step. “Do you have any idea what that monkey is going to do?”

  There was only one monkey Tia could be talking about.

  “Hapi?” I said.

  She nodded.

  “Don’t call him a monkey to his face,” I said.

  “Do you not think I know that, Tut? I’ve been living at the funeral home for six months.” Tia flopped down in Gil’s chair, causing a cloud of dust from deep in the cushions to erupt around the room. Lieutenant Roy, who was standing nearby on a shelf, gasped and jumped from the shelf. He flipped through the air, ninja-style, and landed on the floor, then trailed a tiny finger through the dust that was settling. With the claw marks and the burns and the stuffing coming out, they’d want to get rid of the chair for sure now.

  “I know what he’s going to do,” I said. “He’s going to the Hall of Artifacts. But he can’t get in. I went by yesterday. The entrance is under construction.”

  Tia looked at me like I’d lost half my brain matter. “And you think that will stop a god? Of course there are other ways in.”

  My hopes, which had been so low they may as well have been the scarab beetles under Tia’s boots, perked up. “Do you know them?”

  “Maybe,” Tia said. She tapped the toe of her combat boot and smiled.

  Great Osiris, this girl drove me crazy.

  “You do! You have to show me.” I grabbed my gym shoes from under the coffee table and shoved them on. This couldn’t wait any longer. I had to get there before Hapi. I knew I could talk his brothers into giving me the sun disk. Or at least I hoped so. There was this whole rule about no artifacts being removed from the place. But the fate of the world was hanging in the balance. They’d understand.

  “Has he already gotten there?” I asked. If Hapi did know how to get in, he could already have the sun disk in his grubby little hands.