Book of the Dead

by Michael Northrop

  “I don’t intend to,” said Todtman. He looked down at Alex and bent his face into something like a sympathetic smile. Then he put his phone back to his ear and turned away. As he did, something swung into sight under the open collar of his shirt. It wasn’t much, just a flash of old copper and a hint of blue stone, but Alex recognized it immediately.

  His mom’s scarab.

  He was sure of it.

  Hussein headed into the Egyptian wing, and Alex had no choice but to follow. He shot one more look at Todtman, still whispering mysteriously into his phone.

  They reached the room where the Lost Spells had been. It reminded Alex of Grand Central Terminal. Forensics investigators were walking back and forth across the room in purposeful, crisscrossing paths. Their legs made shush-shush sounds in their baggy plastic suits. They were collecting evidence — and there seemed to be plenty of it.

  “What have you got?” said Hussein to the nearest plastic suit.

  The woman inside shook her head. “What haven’t we got?”

  “That’s not an answer, Barb,” he said.

  “Okay,” she said. “First off, some psycho moved a mummy. Moved. A. Mummy. Then there’s the information plaque on the floor. No prints, but we sent the swabs on ahead.”

  “DNA?”

  “Yeah, as near as we can tell, dog DNA.”

  Hussein shook his head and frowned. “We’re gonna have to rerun that.”

  “Sure,” said Barb. “We can do that right after we source the scorpions.”

  “Scorpions?” said Hussein, quickly scanning the floor.

  “Yeah, two of them, in the next room.”

  “Exhibits, you mean.”

  “Living,” she said, “and aggressive. I’ve got ’em in specimen jars if you want to see ’em.”

  “This is crazy,” said Hussein. “Okay, what about the case? How’d they get the scroll?”

  Alex looked over at it. His brain was reeling again. Dog DNA? He stared at the case, trying to focus on something.

  “That’s the weirdest part,” said Barb.

  Hussein raised his eyebrows. “I find that hard to believe.”

  “The case is completely intact — still locked, still sealed. And utterly empty.”

  “We contacted your aunt and uncle, and they’ll be here by the end of the day,” said Hussein. He didn’t want to ditch the kid, but he had work to do. And the kid had a lot more questions for him than he had answers. “I can get an officer to stay with you if …”

  “Don’t worry about it,” said Alex. “I know my way around here.”

  “Don’t go far,” said the detective. That seemed responsible enough.

  After a few wrong turns, Hussein found his way to the small office where he’d been set up. He found the key and opened the door. The room was dark, and he flipped the light switch by the door: nothing. Bulb must be out, he thought. He walked carefully toward the desk, the outline of a small lamp just visible in the shadows.

  The door suddenly slammed shut behind him. Hussein swung around but saw nothing. The room was totally dark now except for a few lines of light slipping in through the slats of the blinds.

  “Very funny,” he said. “Jackson, is that you?”

  The lamp clicked on. It wasn’t Jackson. The light was weak, but the face of the man sitting at the desk was very pale and Hussein could see every fleshy fold.

  “Wait, am I in the wrong office?” said Hussein.

  The man’s left hand slowly wrapped around one of two shiny objects hanging from his neck. “You are in the perfect place, Detective,” he said in his crisp German accent.

  The police investigation had, for all practical purposes, just come to a close.

  It hadn’t taken Alex long to get tired of waiting around the office. He slipped into spy mode — determined to see what the investigation was uncovering. By the end of the day, no one seemed to know anything more, but he did find Ren. She was leaving Medieval Art just as he was heading in. The near collision resulted in a near hug — which Alex honestly wouldn’t have minded so much. The sight of his best friend filled him with a wave of relief and gratitude. It wasn’t that long ago that it seemed like he’d never see her again … But there was no time for that stuff now.

  He dragged her to a bench outside the museum, on the edge of Central Park. It was a beautiful evening, and he felt better than ever — no aches, no pains. All this would have been great except that there was a giant hole in the center of his world.

  “I heard everyone at the museum talking. What did the detective say?” asked Ren.

  “They think whoever took the Spells took my mom,” he said. “Maybe she was just in the way, and they’ll try to ransom her back to the museum. Or they might need her to help them ‘find a buyer’ for the Lost Spells.”

  He felt himself getting angrier as he talked. “I knew something weird was going on with that exhibit — that stupid exhibit!”

  Ren flinched at the volume.

  “Sorry.”

  Ren looked around, as if she were checking out the park. Alex knew she was trying to find the right thing to say. “The police will find her,” she said at last.

  Now it was Alex’s turn to be quiet. He thought about it. He needed to be honest with himself about this. “They won’t,” he said.

  “Don’t say that.”

  “They’re not even trying, Ren!” The words bubbled up from some deep well of frustration within him. “There are a ton of them here, but all they’re doing is sitting around. Talking.”

  “About the case?”

  “About the Yankees!”

  Ren shook her head, but she didn’t try to argue this time. “They weren’t doing much when I was up there, either.”

  Alex looked at her. She sounded sad about it. He wanted her to sound angry — as angry and frustrated as him. “I think Todtman has my mom’s necklace.”

  “Really?” said Ren, her voice rising with surprise. “Did you see it?”

  “Part of it,” he admitted. “But the detective wouldn’t even listen when I tried to tell him about it.”

  Ren shook her head: “Well, that is stupid.”

  For the first time, Alex thought he heard some anger in her voice.

  He tried to fan the flame a little. “Yeah, so stupid.”

  “And you know that Todtman’s in charge of the exhibition now, right?”

  “WHAT?” said Alex. He couldn’t believe it. “And they’re just sitting around, waiting for a call. A call that might never come. Until then, where’s my mom? Who’s she with? What kind of people would do all this?”

  “Bad people,” said Ren. “Or crazy.”

  A shudder shot through Alex. A plan was taking shape in his head, and he needed Ren.

  Ren looked at him. Her expression was still uncertain. And then her eyes got wide with recognition. “Oh,” she said.

  “Yes,” said Alex.

  “We need to do something.”

  “Yes!” he practically shouted.

  “We do know the museum a lot better than they do.”

  “And I know my mom so much better, and at least we know what the Lost Spells are, which they don’t even seem to.”

  “And if they missed Todtman, what else did they miss?” Ren’s voice was getting almost as loud as Alex’s now. “I have an idea,” she said. “I heard something …”

  Alex smiled.

  She was the hardest-working, most focused girl on the Upper East Side.

  He was the leading expert on ancient Egypt, age twelve and under.

  And they had a mission.

  In the forty-eight hours since his mother went missing, Alex had discovered only one thing: Even the most important mission can be sidelined by a well-meaning aunt.

  Alex was stuck in his new “room,” which was actually his uncle’s office. He was playing Dragon Stryke II: Out of the Sun on a semi-ancient computer and waiting until it was late enough for him to sneak out. His dragon crested a mountain peak. Alex flapped i
ts wings one more time and then took a quick look out the window at the old, rusty fire escape. Will that thing even hold me? When he looked back, his dragon was engulfed in flames.

  He scanned the screen to see where the attack had come from. It had come from out of the sun, of course. A fire-breathing red dragon had swooped down from above. Alex watched the crumpled, smoking frame of his lightning-breathing blue dragon crash into the mountaintop. In the end-of-game quiet, he listened carefully. Aunt Adele was still in the hall complaining loudly about one of her coworkers.

  Alex looked around the room and saw the confines of his new world. The thin foam mattress he slept on was rolled up in the corner. His clothes were stuffed into an old cardboard box marked Taxes, and Legend of the Death Walkers was propped up by the window along with a few of his mom’s other things.

  He turned back to the computer and hit reset on the game. His blue dragon re-formed in midair and breathed out its trademark lightning bolt. The dragon was brand-new, all the damage from the last game gone. A fresh start: full health. Just like me, he thought, scanning the sky for enemies.

  The TV blared to life out in the living room and was briefly muted. “Alex! TV!” screamed Adele.

  “No thanks!” he shouted back. “Playing Dragon Stryke! Probably going to turn in early! Tired!”

  The volume roared back to its normal, neighbor-shaking level. Alex locked the door and checked the time: a little past seven thirty. He was running late. He saved the game, turned off the light, and grabbed his backpack.

  Alex pushed the chair in and stepped over to the window. He tried to be quiet. The old window groaned but slid up with surprising ease. But as soon as the window opened, the door did, too. Alex looked back. It was his cousin Luke. His room was on the other side of the thin office wall. Busted, thought Alex. His cousin had been surprisingly cool to him so far, but Alex figured that was over now.

  “Where you going?” said Luke. Dressed in his standard array of workout gear, he looked like an ad for Under Armour.

  “Uh, nowhere?” Alex ventured.

  “Yeah, right,” said Luke. “Don’t sweat it. Why do you think that window slides open so easy? I use it, too.”

  “So you’re not going to …” Alex couldn’t bring himself to say “tell.” It sounded too babyish around his cool, cocky older cousin.

  “Nah,” said Luke. “Just wanted to let you know there’s a missing step halfway down. Kind of dangerous in the dark, so watch out.”

  And just like that, he was gone.

  Alex slid one leg through and stepped gingerly onto the battered metal fire escape. The whole structure swayed slightly and Alex glanced back into the safety of the office.

  What the heck, he thought. You only live twice.

  He slid the window closed behind him and crept carefully over to the steep metal stairs. The fire escape swayed a little more, but he climbed down to the second-floor platform without the whole thing peeling off the building. The missing step was tricky, but he got past it without breaking anything thanks to Luke’s warning. An extendable ladder led down to the alleyway. It let out a single, strangled-cat screech as Alex pushed it down. A light came on in the window next to him and he scampered down quickly without risking a look.

  The ladder ended a good four feet above the alleyway. Alex lowered himself and dropped. He landed safely next to the recycling bins, then straightened up, wiped his hands on his jeans, and headed out into the darkening city.

  Alex turned the corner and jogged to the bus stop. There was an emergency staff meeting at the Met, after hours at 8:00 p.m. “Crisis control,” Ren had called it. Everyone involved in the new exhibition would be there, packed into the main conference room. Everyone. That was their window of opportunity — apart from his actual window — and he couldn’t be late.

  The M96 bus pulled up two minutes later. He got a seat and tried to think about absolutely anything other than his mom. “You have powerful magic, my son. You have summoned the Ancient Ones …” He shook his head so sharply that the man sitting next to him shifted subtly away.

  He took that day’s New York Post out of his backpack to reread the story. “Trouble at the Met: Cursed Exhibit or Pyramid Scheme?” Their piece on the heist and his mom’s disappearance had been serious, but this one was written mostly for laughs. He already knew the parts about the “sleepless mummy” and “tipsy jars,” so he skipped down and reread the end: The Met isn’t the only famous museum having mummy issues. The Museum of Egyptian Antiquities in Cairo was recently shut down due to what officials there dubbed “mass psychosis.”

  He stuffed the paper back in his pack. It reminded him of the news reports from the morning he’d woken up: blood rain, night turning to day. Now the Lost Spells had been stolen, his mom was missing, and an entire museum was closed.

  But that was wrong. He knew it was wrong. His mom’s disappearance wasn’t an item on a list. It was the list. It was the paper it was written on and the pen it was written with. His mom’s absence was everything. And Alex would do anything to find her.

  “What took you so long?” asked Ren.

  It was 8:03. She was holding the door to the staff entrance open.

  “I literally could not have gotten here any faster!” Alex protested. “I ran all the way from the bus stop.”

  “You ran? From the crosstown stop?”

  “Yeah.”

  Ren frowned. “You need to be careful. You have your medicine, right?”

  He ignored the question. It wasn’t his own health he was worried about now. The thought that his mom might be suffering had entered his mind, and now it refused to leave. She might be tied up in the dark or hurt or —

  “We need to be quiet,” Ren cautioned as they headed into the shadowy hush of the closed museum. “It echoes less if we walk along the walls.”

  But they barely made it a hundred yards before they were spotted.

  “Where are you two going?” said Oscar. Alex had always liked Oscar. The guard had been working at the museum for ages, had seen them grow up — and basically let them do whatever they wanted.

  “Dad has a meeting,” said Ren.

  “Yeah, I heard about that. I’m sure they’ll get all this straightened out.”

  “How’d you get that?” said Ren, staring at the clean white cast on Oscar’s hand.

  The guard looked embarrassed. “Honestly? No idea,” he said. “Think I must have fallen and hit my head and my hand at the same time. That’s my best guess, anyway. I did have a headache.”

  “Can we sign it?”

  Oscar shook his head. “Not professional,” he said. “How you doing, Alex?”

  Alex gave him a weak thumbs-up.

  “He doesn’t like to talk about it,” said Ren, tugging him along.

  “Course,” said Oscar. “You two take care. And don’t set off any alarms on the way to the office.”

  “We won’t!” promised Ren as they headed toward the elevator.

  As soon as Oscar turned the corner, they changed course and hurried on toward the Egyptian wing.

  “I guess it’s only the guards assigned to the new exhibition who are in the meeting,” whispered Alex.

  “Yeah,” said Ren, looking around like they were in lion country. “We’ll have to be more careful.”

  They avoided a second guard near the main entrance and made it to Egypt by 8:10.

  The wing was dim and quiet. Alex felt a chill ripple through him as they edged deeper into the half-light. This was no longer friendly terrain, no longer his mom’s extended office. This was a crime scene now. A place where he’d seen things. At least he thought he had. Those last moments before his collapse seemed like a dream to him now.

  “Watch out for scorpions,” said Ren.

  Alex knew it was supposed to be a joke, something to break the tension, but neither of them laughed. The eerie quiet wrapped around them. Alex could hear Ren’s hushed breathing between the soft slap of their footsteps. It was a silence that reminded h
im they were on their own: no help, no witnesses.

  “Okay, so the police have been all over this place,” he said. Even at half his normal volume, his voice seemed to fill the room. “And then the cleaning crews.” He side-eyed the little tomb where he’d collapsed, and picked up his pace.

  “Slow down,” said Ren. “You always … you, like, practically run by that thing.”

  “I just don’t like it,” he said. He remembered the feeling of lying on the cold floor, the helplessness. The jackal’s eyes. But he didn’t let his thoughts get sidetracked this time. “So we’re not going to find anything, like, lying on the floor. But we might see something out of place or …”

  “I know,” said Ren. “I have some theories.”

  Alex watched her pull a notebook from her messenger bag.

  “What did you do, make a list?”

  “Two pages,” she said. Alex looked over and saw the neatly printed items filling the first page. Back in school, Ren was always making lists. She didn’t show them to anyone else, because she knew they’d make fun of her. Plus Ten Ren. But she showed them to Alex, because she knew he wouldn’t. All it proved to him was that he had the right partner.

  “First I want to show you the little mummy,” she said. “Because it’s freaky.”

  The curtain was up over the doorway, but there was no guard in front of it. There honestly wasn’t much left to guard. Alex wasn’t sure he wanted to step through, but Ren’s busy efficiency made him feel safer somehow.

  “Speaking of freaky,” he said as they walked past the Stung Man’s sarcophagus.

  They passed the empty case in the next room and headed straight into the side room that held the mummy child. Alex had seen it just a few days earlier, and he noticed the change immediately. Alex stared at it through the glass. “You know what it looks like?” he whispered.

  “What?”

  “Like it can’t sleep. Like it’s trying to get comfortable.”

  “She,” said Ren. “Like she can’t sleep. The sign says she was a little girl who died from disease.”

  “You’re not making this any less spooky,” said Alex.

  “Spooky,” said Ren, holding up her notebook, “is not on the list.”