Indiana Jones and the Secretof the Sphinx (20 page)

"All right," Indy said, stepping up to the book.

He slowly turned the pages.

"Hurry," Sokai said.

"This isn't easy to read," Indy said.

Musashi grabbed Mystery by the hair, close to the skull, and twisted. Mystery choked down the pain.

"I'm going as fast as I can," Indy said, his eyes smoldering. "Sokai, born in Hawaii. Schooled at—"

"I know all that," Sokai said. "Go on to the future."

"Nineteen thirty-four," Indy said. "Blinded in Manchuria by an American he was torturing. Followed the same American, Indiana Jones, from Manchuria to India and eventually to Egypt."

Indy paused.

"Go on!"

"If you insist," he said.
"Burned to death beneath the Great Pyramid in the Hall of Records at the Giza necropolis."

"No!"

"That's what it says."

Sokai backhanded Indy with his fist.

"You are lying," Sokai said.

Indy wiped the blood from his split lower lip with the sleeve of his jacket and gave Sokai a hard look that convinced the spymaster that he wasn't.

"Change it," Sokai said.

"I can't," Indy protested. "I don't even know how it was written in the first place."

"Use a pencil," Sokai screamed. "You have a pencil, don't you?"

Indy took the pencil from his shirt pocket and tried to write on the page.

"It won't make a mark," Indy said.

"Try harder this time," Sokai said, "or Musashi will kill the girl."

Musashi switched the sword to her left hand, drew her pistol, cocked it, and held it to Mystery's head. Indy leaned so hard on the pencil trying to make a mark that it snapped.

Sokai grasped the page and tried to tear it from the book, but it wouldn't come loose. He succeeded only in slicing his hand on the edge of the page.

"Look," Musashi said.

Sokai's trouser leg, above the heel that had stamped out the torch, was beginning to smoke.

"My God, it's true," Indy said.

"No," Sokai said as the cuff burst into flames. He frantically tried to put the fire out, and when that didn't work he unbuckled his belt and tried to wriggle out of his pants. By this time, however, the flames had spread to his shirt and trench coat.

Sokai screamed. The room was filled with the stench of burning flesh and hair. Sokai dropped to the floor and began to roll.

"Cut them off me," he begged Musashi.

She dropped the pistol and attempted to slice the clothes away from his body, but succeeded only in stabbing him in a half dozen places. His very body seemed to be combusting, and the flames grew no matter how many articles of clothing were removed.

"My sword," Sokai croaked and grasped the handle with a burning hand. "I will at least take Jones with me."

Sokai struggled to his knees and made a lunge for Indy, but it was far too short. Pieces of burning flesh sloughed from his face and hands. Sokai fell upon his back, but held the blade aloft until the fire burned through his wrist and the samurai sword clattered onto the granite floor.

"Oh, God," Mystery said and went to Indy, where she buried her face against his leather jacket.

Sokai was nothing but a smoking pile of ashes.

"Want me to read your name?" he threatened Musashi.

She hesitated, then knelt beside the ashes. She removed her scarf and used it to pick up the samurai sword.

"Aren't you going to take his ashes?" Indy asked. "Or don't you care if he joins his ancestors?"

"To hell with Sokai," Musashi said and shook the sword at them. "This is the power!"

Then she ran from the room, and as she left the wavering music came again—except now it was an ominous, diminished chord. The lighting changed from white to red.

"I don't like the sound of that," Indy said.

"My mother," Mystery said, alarmed.

"Let's get out of here," Indy said.

"But my father—"

"Come on," he said as he pulled Mystery out of the Hall of Truth.

11
Miracles and Mayhem

Storm clouds hugged the eastern sky as Indy and Mystery emerged from the shaft between the Sphinx's paws. Faye and Sallah were kneeling on the ground, a pair of soldiers behind them with their guns pointing between their shoulder blades. Jadoo was standing in front of Faye, shaking his fist at her.

"This is not the Staff of Aaron," the magician said. "It does not work."

"It works," Faye said calmly.

"I'm sorry, Indy," Sallah said. "I tried to warn you—"

"It's all right," Indy said as a Japanese soldier took his whip and revolver from his belt.

"Shoot them!" Musashi said.

"No," Jadoo said. "We may need them."

"Who are you to give orders?" Musashi challenged.

"Sokai's dead," Jadoo said. "That puts me in command."

"Sokai Sensei is dead?" Miyamoto asked.

"Yes," Indy said. "He burned to death. The lieutenant has his sword."

Miyamoto turned to Musashi. She showed him the sword, and he clasped his hands together and gave a curt bow.

"Hai,"
he said. "Musashi Sensei is in charge."

"It was the American's fault," Musashi said quickly.

"That's not true," Mystery pleaded.

"It is true! He tricked him by twisting the words in the book!" Musashi said.

"You found the Omega Book?" Faye asked.

"Yes, they found it," Musashi said. "But they used it to kill Sokai Sensei. They must die."

The soldiers aimed their weapons at Indy.

"No," Miyamoto said as he unbuttoned his tunic. "Do not shoot him. I want the satisfaction of killing him with my bare hands."

"Don't kill the girl until her mother has shown me how to use the Staff," Jadoo said.

"If you're going to kill her anyway," Faye asked, "why should I show you at all?"

"To buy her a few more minutes of life," Jadoo said. "And the chance that the bloodthirsty little lieutenant may change her mind. You help me, and I'll try to persuade her to let both of you go."

"I don't care about the women," Miyamoto said as he threw his shirt down. Even in the moonlight, Indy could see the muscles in his arms and chest bulging. "But the man, he is mine."

Faye nodded.

Jadoo handed her the Staff, and she struggled to her feet.

"Faye, don't believe him," Indy said.

Miyamoto, threw a left jab, which Indy blocked, but he wasn't quick enough to deflect the pistonlike right that drove into his stomach, knocking the air out of him and sending him to his knees.

"Get up and fight, you cowardly American."

Indy held a finger up.

Miyamoto kicked him in the chest.

Indy flew backward and landed against the stelae.

Miyamoto advanced. Indy scrambled to his feet and punched him as hard as he could in the solar plexus, but Miyamoto just smiled and drove the knuckles of his right hand into Indy's jaw.

Indy went down again, and this time his mouth was filled with blood and the sickening feeling of a broken tooth loose in his mouth. He got back to his feet while spitting part of a bloody molar into the sand.

As he looked at the tooth, his mind spontaneously thought of the Old Testament admonition about "an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth," and that led his mind to the story of Exodus and the battles the Israelites fought....

"Faye," Indy mumbled. "The Staff—"

Miyamoto hit him again in the stomach, and as Indy was doubled over, the Japanese sergeant drove a hammerlike fist into the back of his head. Indy jerked and went down to one knee. He punched Miyamoto in the thigh, and the sergeant groaned in pain and stumbled away.

Indy tried to capitalize on the opening, but by the time he had closed the distance Miyamoto was ready again and pummeled his face with a series of jabs.

"Indy!" Faye shouted. "What can I do?"

It suddenly came to him.

"Hold it up," Indy mumbled.

"What?"

Indy took two more punches to the body.

"Hold the Staff up," Indy pleaded. "As long as Moses held the Staff up, the Israelites could not lose in battle."

Faye tentatively raised the Staff.

Indy caught Miyamoto's next punch in his right hand, then drove Miyamoto's wrist backward until he fell to his knees and cried in pain. Miyamoto wrenched his injured hand away and threw two more punches with his other hand, which Indy blocked.

"Give it to him," Mystery shouted.

Indy stepped forward and shot two jabs to Miyamoto's jaw, then sent a right crashing into the space between his nose and upper lip. Miyamoto fell to the sand and spat out his front teeth.

"Take that!" Sallah said.

"Have you had enough?" Indy asked.

Miyamoto held up an open hand.

Musashi stepped forward.

"You idiot," she told Jadoo. "Take the Staff away from the woman." Jadoo grabbed the Staff, and he and Faye fought for control of it.

"Get in there and finish him," Musashi shouted at Miyamoto.

The Warrant Officer shook his head.

"You're pathetic," she said and, in one motion, drew Sokai's sword and lopped off Miyamoto's head.

Mystery screamed.

Then Musashi turned, her face flecked with her comrade's blood, and came at Indy.

She was so fast that Indy hardly had time to react as he saw the point of the razor-sharp blade coming toward his solar plexus. He managed to deflect most of the thrust by bringing the leather sleeve of his jacket against the flat of the blade, but he watched as the blade pierced the right side of his jacket.

Indy was stunned.

"I don't feel anything," he said.

"You will," Musashi said, twisting the blade.

Pain shot through Indy's side as blood stained his jacket.

Faye hit Jadoo in the mouth with the end of the Staff as he stared at the sword piercing Indy's side. Then she held the Rod aloft once more. When Jadoo made a grab for it again, she kicked him in the groin.

Indy backed away from the now-bloody blade, and it fell into the sand as if it were too heavy for Musashi to hold. Indy stepped forward with his right foot and brought it down on the sword.

It snapped in two.

Musashi threw the hilt away and drew her pistol. Indy flinched, expecting a slug between the eyes. But when the pistol fired, Indy heard the bullet ricochet off the stone tablet behind him.

"How could I miss?" Musashi asked.

A drop of blood ran down the side of her nose.

The bullet had ricocheted off the stelae and struck her between the eyes. She touched the fingers of her left hand to the blood and examined them, then her eyes rolled back in her head as she fell at Indy's feet.

"No," Indy said.

Mystery knelt down and felt for a pulse.

"Is she—"

"As a doornail," Mystery said as she turned to Indy. "She got what she deserved. Do you know how many times she nearly killed me?"

"Still," Indy said.

She unzipped his jacket and looked carefully inside.

"I'm stabbed," Indy said incredulously.

"You're bleeding pretty badly," she said.

"I hate swords," Indy complained.

"But it went through the fleshy part of your side," Mystery said as she tore material from the sleeve of her blouse and stuffed it inside his jacket. "Good thing you have a lot of fat there, because I don't think it pierced anything vital."

"Thanks a lot," he said.

"You idiots," Jadoo told the soldiers. "Get the stick!"

The soldiers gave him a dubious look that asked, "And end up like Miyamoto?"

"Faye," Jadoo pleaded. "Let me have the Staff of Aaron and show me how to use it. I'll let all of you go."

"Don't trust him," Indy said.

"Why not?" Faye asked. "We still have soldiers with guns pointed at us."

"He killed Kaspar," Indy blurted.

"What?" Mystery asked.

Storm clouds passed in front of the moon.

"I'm sorry," Indy said. "I didn't want to tell you, but that's what the book said. Jadoo poisoned him when he came to see him in 1930, decapitated the body, and used the skull for a drinking glass. I'm sorry, Faye, but that was Kaspar's skull we saw on his shelf in Calcutta."

"I suspected as much," Faye said sadly.

The wind whipped her hair in front of her face. As a single tear rolled down her cheek, it began to sprinkle.

A frog plopped down at Jadoo's feet and hopped away.

"Did you see that?" Mystery asked.

Then it began to rain in earnest. Another frog fell on the brim of Indy's hat, and then came a barrage of the amphibians, thudding into the sand and scampering away.

"What is this?" Jadoo asked.

"Don't you know?" Indy asked with delight. "It's a plague."

The soldiers lowered their rifles.

Jadoo screamed at them, and they came back to attention.

"This is not unknown," Jadoo stammered. "It's rained frogs before, as anybody who's read Charles Fort's
Book of the Damned
knows. This is no plague, just a freak of nature."

"Oh, no?" Faye asked.

She spread her arms, the Staff held in her right hand, and turned her face to the sky.

"Hail,"
she commanded.

A bolt of lightning struck the head of the Sphinx, showering them all with sparks and leaving their ears ringing. The lightning was followed by chunks of flaming, baseball-sized hail that covered the sand.