Tut

by P. J. Hoover

  “Fine,” I said. “I’ll wait for you.”

  Which was a complete lie. I wasn’t waiting for anyone.

  “I’m serious, Tut,” Horus said.

  “So am I. I’ll wait.” I made a point not to promise.

  I held my breath, hoping Horus wouldn’t pick up on my lie. His tail had stopped moving again. Things weren’t looking good.

  “You better,” Horus said, and then he jumped onto the fire escape and out into the night.

  I let out the breath I’d been holding.

  “Be ready tonight,” I said to Colonel Cody.

  “You won’t be waiting for the cat?” he asked.

  “Not a chance,” I said. I’d already waited long enough for my revenge.

  14

  WHERE I ENTER THE REALM OF THE DEAD

  The shabtis cloaked themselves in shadows and we hurried through Georgetown to Oak Hill Cemetery. Two redbrick pillars stood guard at the entrance. Stretched between them, a rusty iron gate held back the cemetery, making me feel like an uninvited guest. Thousands of dead bodies lay on the other side of the fence. Dead like I would be if I didn’t get to the knife before Horemheb.

  The cemetery had more obelisks than Horus had catnip toys. They were nowhere near as grand as the five—well, four, now that one had exploded—new ones around D.C., but these obelisks were ancient. They came from the days when people prepared for life after death. Like how pharaohs before me had built pyramids for their final resting places. In a way, I could see Isis’s point, preserving the old ways instead of giving over to the new. There was beauty in those old ways … except for the mummification part.

  Because the shabtis were miniature, they easily slipped through the iron bars. I scaled the fence and met them on the other side.

  “This way, Master.” Colonel Cody pointed toward a hill terraced with overgrown paths and covered in cracked grave markers.

  We wound our way through the paths, stepping on graves as we went. That whole theory about never walking on someone’s grave? It’s a bunch of garbage. If graves weren’t meant to be stepped on, they wouldn’t be on the ground. Still, with each step I took, my anxiety grew. The cemetery felt like a bucket of creepiness had been dumped on top of it, like ghosts and goblins lurked behind every grave, waiting to jump out at unsuspecting visitors. I would have even sworn one of the little angel statues next to me moved, but when I looked, everything was normal: hands in front of her, eyes closed, praying.

  “Master, you’re turning green,” Colonel Cody said. “Perhaps we should turn back?”

  Maybe he was siding with Horus but didn’t want to say so. Maybe he thought this was a bad idea, too.

  I pulled my sleeve up and looked at my arm. Colonel Cody was right. My normally golden skin had a pale green pallor to it.

  “We’re not turning back,” I said. “I’m just excited, that’s all.”

  I would not give in to the worry that pounded through me. Everything was going to be fine. Better than fine. Perfect.

  We wound through the headstones and crypts, the mausoleums and markers. Once or twice I touched an obelisk, but each one was dead. They should be filled with energy. Something in this cemetery was keeping the immortal power away.

  The shabtis and I crested a hill, and I immediately dropped to the ground. Gil was at the bottom of the hill, in front of a massive mausoleum. It stood ten feet tall and had an oversized, locked iron grate keeping the world out. Gil fiddled with the lock, like he was trying to get inside but something was keeping him out. He let out a couple of choice words I can’t repeat and kicked the lock. It still didn’t budge.

  The knife had to be inside. My fingers twitched. I couldn’t wait to get my hands on it. I would finally get my revenge. Once Gil left, I could get the shabtis to unlock the gate.

  “Perhaps Great Master could refrain from growing the ivy?” Colonel Cody asked. “It may draw attention.”

  Sure enough, vines grew around us, twisting up every grave marker and fence post, cloaking the already black night in darkness.

  “I’m having a hard time keeping my powers under control,” I whispered. Weeds sprouted under my feet, and bugs crawled from the ground. Branches groaned from the weight of the vines, letting out noises I’m sure could wake the dead.

  Gil’s head snapped my way.

  I jumped behind a gravestone and held my breath, counting the seconds until he looked away. The freaky angel statues around me watched as time ticked by. All the obelisks—normally my favorite shape in the whole world—felt like bars trapping me in a pit of death. And for good reason.

  The angel on my left came to life. I barely had time to roll out of the way before she flew at me.

  I jumped up from my hiding spot and started running down the hill toward Gil. My cover was blown.

  “Tut! Get down!” Gil shouted. “There are more of them!”

  I leapt behind an obelisk. At least twenty angels swept down toward me. But they didn’t look all nice and sweet like angels on greeting cards. Their teeth had transformed into fangs, and what I’d thought were tears looked more like blood. Their leathery wings flapped, sending waves of a fetid stench my way.

  I jumped from one obelisk to another, evading the fanged monsters and swatting at them, using my years of rusty training. Sure, I’d trained with the palace guard back when I was pharaoh, but that was thousands of years ago.

  Gil leapt to the gravestone beside me. “You followed me, Tut! Do you have any idea what a stupid thing that was to do?”

  “I’m here for the knife,” I said.

  “You can’t have it! I told you that,” he said as a demon angel dove right at us. We tumbled out of the way.

  I knew what Gil had told me. I didn’t care.

  “What are they?” I yelled to Gil.

  “Some sort of shabtis!” Gil yelled back.

  Great. Demon shabtis.

  I grabbed a concrete vase from a headstone and swung it at one of the demon shabtis. The vase smashed. I ducked and the shabti passed overhead.

  I looked down at Colonel Cody. “How do you kill a shabti?” Since they were mostly made out of clay or granite, I’d always figured you just broke them to destroy them. But the vase hadn’t made a dent.

  Colonel Cody fell to the ground. “I will destroy myself.”

  “No!” I screamed. “Not you! Them! How can I destroy them?” I’d never lost any of my shabtis. I didn’t know if they were indestructible. For all I knew, Colonel Cody’s vows to end his existence were empty threats.

  “They can only be destroyed under a command,” he said.

  That sounded easy. “Die, you fiends from hell!” I screamed at the demon shabtis, but maybe I’d said it wrong, because they ignored me. Okay, they ignored the die part of the command. But my screaming did get their attention. Ten of the demons massed into attack formation and flew at me. Their leathery wings sliced through the air like swords.

  “It’s not working!” I yelled to Colonel Cody.

  Gil swore and cursed the shabtis. Twelve more demon shabtis surrounded him. He was trying to hold them off with some sort of kung fu fighting moves, but I swear they were just laughing at him.

  “Gil!” I screamed just as one clawed at his head, taking a swatch of his long black hair with it.

  He swatted at the demon. Heat pulsed off him in waves—the immortal powers from his patron god, Nergal—but it passed right through the shabtis.

  A demon shabti came at me with both hands extended for my throat. I vaulted out of the way and landed on top of an obelisk.

  “How do I command them to die?” I demanded from Colonel Cody. My shabtis had started their own attack, but the five of them weren’t doing much good against the army of shrieking fiends.

  “You must first get them under your control,” Colonel Cody said, slicing at one of the demons with a miniature sword.

  My control. Of course. They weren’t my shabtis. They were somebody else’s. Horemheb’s. There was no doubt in my mind. The
y were under his control. Had his commands to kill me. They wouldn’t obey me; they would only obey him. Like when my shabtis always asked before taking orders from Gil or Horus. I controlled them through the spells engraved on them.

  I had no plans to die today. I started to recite from the spell to control shabtis. It was written all over them, just like with my shabtis, but I’d said it enough times that I knew it by heart.

  “O shabti, allotted to me, if I be summoned…”

  I spat out the spell as fast as I could. Demon shabtis landed on my shoulders. Ripped at my hair. They cornered me and flew at me from all angles, wings flapping and hideous fang teeth smiling.

  As soon as the last word of the shabti spell was out of my mouth, I screamed, “Die!” And this time they did. All of them. The air became a cloud of thick dust as the army of demon shabtis exploded.

  Gil ran for me. Blood trailed down his face from gashes on his head. I couldn’t have looked much better.

  “You took your time,” Gil said.

  “You’re welc—” My words were cut off because lightning struck the ground between Gil and me. I jumped back barely in time. Smoke curled off the burnt grass. Another bolt struck, just missing the toes of my shoes. But the lightning wasn’t coming from the sky. It came from the mausoleum.

  Horemheb.

  Lightning crackled around him, striking the mausoleum and channeling down into the earth. Through the cloud of dust Horemheb beckoned to me, taking a step forward in challenge. I hadn’t seen him since that day in the tomb, thousands of years ago, but I would never forget his face. This was the man who had murdered my father, my mother, and my brother. I’d had nightmares about him for centuries. I’d dreamt of this moment. I couldn’t reverse time and make everything right. But I could kill Horemheb. Make him suffer the same way I had.

  The iron grate of the mausoleum burst open as a lightning bolt struck it. Another lightning bolt struck, illuminating Horemheb in all his hideous glory.

  I ran for him, tearing down the hill with Gil at my heels, but stopped as lightning blocked my path.

  “Little nephew. Are you still a weakling like you were so many years ago? Or are you ready to finish what we started?” Horemheb used the same condescending tone he’d mastered three thousand years ago. I wanted to choke him.

  He was taunting me. I knew it.

  “I’m ready,” I said, waiting for the lightning to end.

  “You’ll never defeat me,” he said. “You, just like your father before you, are too pathetic. Too pitiable. We can only hope the gods have pity on you when I send you to the afterworld.”

  That was never going to happen. I was not going to die. The knife had to be inside the mausoleum. I’d get it and kill Horemheb.

  The lightning shifted, making room for me to pass. I ran for him. A fresh lightning storm erupted behind me as Horemheb ducked inside the mausoleum. I passed through the entryway seconds later. Too many seconds later.

  Horemheb stood in front of a golden box. He grabbed the lid and threw it to the side where it smashed into the wall, and then from within it, he lifted a golden knife.

  “Get out of the way, Tut!” Gil pushed me to the side.

  But Gil wasn’t going to get in the way of my revenge, either. I vaulted through the air and flattened Horemheb. He couldn’t have the knife. I grabbed for the knife, but Horemheb clenched it in his hand. I had to get it. Horemheb had killed everyone I loved.

  “Wait!” Horemheb said as I struggled to get the knife. “I have to tell you something, Boy King.” And at his words, around us, a ring of lightning crackled in the air, separating us from the world. Gil was outside the boundary, trying to dart between the streaks of lightning with no luck.

  I was on my own, which was just how I needed things to be. I grabbed for Horemheb’s wrist, but he held the knife out of my reach. I could almost smell his blood by this point.

  “What?” I demanded. “What do you want to say before I kill you?”

  “You don’t want to kill me, Tutankhamun,” Horemheb said.

  I almost choked from the rage welling up in my chest. Three thousand years of rage. Time slowed down. “Of course I do.”

  “There are things you don’t know,” he said.

  “You killed my family. That’s all there is to know.”

  The general’s voice pushed sanity from my mind. “It wasn’t me. It was General Ay. Didn’t you realize that?”

  “Ay?” I struggled for the knife. General Ay had been one of my advisers when I’d been pharaoh. And after I’d disappeared from Egypt, he’d ruled.

  “Yes, Ay,” Horemheb said. “We were working together, but he’s the one who actually killed your family. Your father. Your mother. Your brother. He killed everyone. He wanted the throne for himself. If there is anyone to take revenge on, it is General Ay.”

  “Don’t listen to him, Tut,” Gil said from outside the ring of lightning.

  “You’re lying!” I tried to reach the knife again. I hadn’t gone through fighting demon shabtis to listen to lies from a Set-serving lunatic.

  “I swear it in the name of Set himself,” Horemheb said. “May he strike me down if I am speaking an untruth.”

  I knew enough about Egyptian gods to know you didn’t swear on their names lightly. Around us, the lightning continued to strike, but it stayed away from Horemheb. Could he be telling the truth? Was Ay really involved?

  “Get away from him, Tut,” Gil said, his voice tight with fear.

  In that moment, the knife in Horemheb’s hand started glowing and the circle of lightning vanished. Horemheb lunged at me, knife held high, ready to plunge it into my chest.

  Gil pushed me to safety and dove for Horemheb, shoving him out of the way. Horemheb leapt to his feet. The knife still glowed in his hand.

  “You can’t protect him this time, Gilgamesh,” Horemheb said. “You are powerless against me.”

  “I’m powerless against no one,” Gil said. Fire exploded from his fingertips, surrounding Horemheb in flames.

  Horemheb screamed with pain. He stumbled forward and nearly fell. Gil hit him again, and the flames doubled. Shrieks echoed off the stone walls of the mausoleum. Horemheb pulled himself to his feet and ran from the mausoleum, covered in an inferno.

  Gil took off after him. The sound of squealing tires ripped through the cemetery. I looked out just in time to see the red van appear. The side door opened, and Horemheb jumped inside, still a burning ember. He was out of Gil’s reach.

  The van tore away. Gil chased it, but it was too late.

  Horemheb had escaped.

  My brain cleared from its lapse. How had I been so stupid? Of course Horemheb had killed my family, not General Ay.

  That’s when I felt the pain in my side. When I touched it, my hands came back with blood. Lots of it.

  Gil rushed back into the mausoleum, gasping for air. “He got away,” Gil said. But his expression changed to one of horror. “Tut!”

  I held my hands to my side to keep the blood from spilling out. It made no difference.

  “I’m not sure I feel so good,” I said, falling forward.

  Gil caught me under the arms. “You’re fine.” But nothing about his voice was convincing.

  “I think I’m gonna die.” Every nerve in my body seemed connected to the pain. It radiated everywhere and pulsed through me.

  “You’re not going to die, Tut,” Gil said. “You are not going to die.”

  I shook my head. “I am.”

  “If you say it again, I swear I’ll kill you myself,” Gil said. He ripped his shirt off and wrapped it around my stomach. Blood seeped through within seconds.

  “Sorry,” I said, and I slumped to the ground.

  Gil hauled me up over his shoulder. “Don’t you dare give up on me.”

  I wanted to answer him, but everything hurt too bad to talk.

  I told him I was sorry for messing things up so badly. For letting Horemheb get away with the knife.

  I don’t thi
nk he heard.

  15

  WHERE I AM ISIS’S GUINEA PIG

  I woke up on the futon feeling like I’d survived the fires of hell. I struggled to open my eyes but came up short.

  “I think he’s waking up,” I heard someone say. Was it Henry?

  “Finally. If Horus gets home and finds him like this, he’ll skin me alive,” I heard Gil say.

  I managed to widen my eyes into slits. “What’s wrong with me?”

  “Horemheb cut you with the knife,” Gil said. He paced from one side of the family room to the other, kicking at the shabtis to get them out of his way.

  Horemheb had stabbed me? It was just my luck. I’d been searching for him for three thousand years, only to let him get away with the most dangerous weapon in existence. How could I have been so stupid?

  “Am I going to die?” I asked.

  “Gil doesn’t know,” Henry said at the exact same time that Gil said, “No.”

  Which was not a good sign.

  “Why haven’t I healed?” I tried to push myself up to a sitting position, but my side exploded with pain from the effort. My scarab heart should have healed me ten times over. Panic welled up in my stomach. I felt my chest. The normal warmth that came through my skin was gone. My shabtis swarmed around me, feeling my head, rubbing my feet. Colonel Cody knelt at my side with his head bowed in prayer.

  “Your scarab heart is weak because of the wound,” Gil said. “It’s keeping you from healing.”

  Perfect. I felt horrible. I’m sure I looked horrible. I forced myself to look down at my side. My normally smooth and golden skin had a six-inch-long gash crusted over with blood and oozing pus. “Has it gotten worse?”

  “It’s gotten way worse,” Henry said.

  “We tried recharging,” Gil said. “But it didn’t help.”

  I didn’t remember anything about recharging.

  “The shabtis carried you,” Henry said. “You should have seen them carting you around through the streets of D.C., trying not to be seen.”

  If my side hadn’t hurt so badly, the image might have been amusing. Now it was just depressing.