Tut (19 page)

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 think 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.

“What do we do?” I managed to ask.

Gil slammed his fist into the coffee table. The shabtis scattered.

“I don't know what to do,” Gil said. “Tut shouldn't even be in this situation.”

“Then maybe you should have told him about the knife in the first place,” Henry said. “Told him where it was. Maybe even given it to him yourself.”

I noticed the shabtis edge closer to Henry as he stood up for me. If I somehow actually died as a result of this stupidity, I vowed to do what I could from the afterworld to make his life easier.

Gil looked out the window, away from us. “Am I the only person in the world who understands? This is exactly why the knife had to stay hidden. Now Tut is dying and Horemheb has the knife. Things couldn't be worse.”

When he put it that way, it did sound pretty bad. I guess I deserved my fate. I'd as good as let Horemheb go. Why had I even started listening to his lies? Now my side hurt like my liver was being pulled out. My future was as bright as a solar eclipse.

“Look, I'm sorry. I messed up. But isn't there something we can do to fix it?” Each word worsened the pain in my side. I'd never in all my years been hurt this badly. Sure, I'd broken bones and even lost a couple fingers and toes before. But I'd always healed. I lay back on the futon, and a few of my lower-ranked shabtis fanned me with my ostrich fan collection. I was a failure. My life was going to end here in my town house, and I'd never get revenge.

Gil lifted my shirt again and grimaced when he saw the wound. “Maybe some antibiotics will help.”

To say his voice was unconvincing was a major understatement.

“What about Isis?” Henry said. He pulled the card Hapi had given him out of his back pocket. “Maybe she can help.”

That's when the pain took over and I drifted off again.

*   *   *

I woke to the smell of incense so strong that I gagged. I opened my eyes.

I wasn't in my town house anymore. Instead, I was in the basement of the funeral home, lying on one of the mummification beds. Isis's face hovered inches from my side. Beaded necklaces fell on my stomach and chest, which the shabtis made a weak attempt to hold out of the way.

“Oh, the poor boy,” Isis said, pursing her bright red lips. “This is a nasty, nasty one.”

She poked at the wound with a long red fingernail.

“Ughhh!” I screamed in pain.

“Quiet!” Isis snapped. “You'll wake the dead.”

I didn't care anything about the dead except that I didn't want to become one of them.

“Can you fix it?” Gil asked.

Isis whipped around to face him. “Some protector of the knife you turned out to be.”

Gil transformed from my cool big brother to someone who looked like his mother was scolding him for breaking her favorite alabaster vase.

“I had it hidden,” Gil said. “It was your son who set this whole thing into motion.”

“Nonsense,” Isis said. “It was the defiler Set who started the feud. Who, I might add, would never have been a threat if I still had the knife to begin with. It never should have been taken away from me.”

“Would you two please stop arguing?” Henry said. “Tut looks green.”

“He's always looked green,” Isis said, patting me on the cheek. “It's my husband's blood. Good blood.”

“So green is good?” Henry asked.

“His body wants to heal,” Isis said. “It just needs some encouragement. It's a very good thing you called Hapi when you did. Tut has chosen his friends wisely.”

Gil glowered, but at least Henry smiled.

“So can you help or not?” Gil asked.

“Of course I can help.”

Thank the gods. I wasn't going to die.

“Hapi?” Isis said, and held out her hand.

Hapi moved into my circle of vision and handed Isis two things that made my heart skip about twenty beats: a long hook and a roll of Ace bandages.

“We've been experimenting with the latest in mummification techniques,” Isis said.

Hapi lifted a Canopic jar from a nearby table. I didn't want to imagine what they were going to put inside it.

“I don't want to be mummified,” I tried to say, but I'm not sure what came out.

“Silly boy,” Isis said. “We'll have you fixed up in no time.”

She leaned toward me with the hook, poising it over my scarab heart.

I tried to pass out, but Hapi held my eyelids open. I waited for the pain. The hook delved into my chest, toward my scarab heart. I let out a howl that everyone in Old Town must've heard. They twisted it a few times, making my toenails curl so much, they probably resembled Tootsie Rolls. When they pulled the hook free, I thought it was over. But then Hapi handed Isis a knife, which she proceeded to plunge into my scarab heart.

I slipped in and out of reality. I was back in my tomb, fighting with Horemheb over the
Book of the Dead
. I watched as our blood dripped onto the scrolls, sealing our immortality. I saw Osiris giving me my scarab heart. But instead of being a somewhat normal, although green guy, this time he was wrapped as a mummy. He was trying to talk, but I couldn't hear what he was saying because the mummy wrappings were getting in the way so all it sounded like was mumbling. Energy channeled from him to me, filling my heart.

I slipped away from my tomb and Osiris and back to the funeral home and to the present.

“That should do it,” Isis said. She grabbed the roll of Ace bandages and started flipping me back and forth, wrapping my side.

Energy pumped through my scarab heart, restoring my strength. And as it was restored, my side began to heal. The pain disappeared.

I wasn't going to die after all.

“He'll be okay?” Gil said.

Isis threw the remaining bandages to Hapi. “As long as you protect him better than you did the knife. I believe that's what you're supposed to do, isn't it?”

“I'll protect him,” Gil said. “And I'll get the knife back.”

“You do that,” Isis said, wagging a finger at him like a scolding teacher. “But trust me on this. If I ever find Ra, I will have a word with him about this knife situation. It should not be hidden away. It's a gift to be used by all. Starting with me. I should be able to claim vengeance for the death of my husband.”

I didn't disagree with her at all. But Gil obviously did.

Gil's face hardened, and any signs of bowing down to Isis vanished. “If you ever do find Ra, that's a conversation I'd love to hear.”

“Then we're all done here,” Isis said. “Hapi, dear Grandson, would you please see our guests to the door?”

“My pleasure,” Hapi said. He bared his teeth at Gil. And then at Henry. And he led us upstairs.

Henry grabbed a cookie on the way out. How he could eat in a place like this was beyond me, but that wasn't why I didn't grab a cookie. I was too busy planning my future. I was alive. Horemheb hadn't won. And there was still a chance for revenge.

 

16

WHERE I BURN DOWN THE MUSEUM

I slammed the door to our town house.

“Why you?” I demanded. I figured my best tactic to not have Gil lock me up for the rest of eternity would be to get him to change sides. To help me. Horus was still on his new moon exile, which was such an inconvenience. He could have helped me convince Gil.

The shabtis who had stayed at the town house rushed over the second I came through the door. I lifted my shirt and undid the bandages to show them my side. Colonel Cody almost collapsed with relief to see nothing but a thin, red scar.

“Why what?” Gil said.

“Why did the gods pick you to watch the knife?”

Gil paced the room. “Because I'm not a god.”

“I'm not a god, either,” Henry said. “But it's not like I got put in charge of protecting some knife.”

“And I'm immortal,” Gil said.

“So is Tut,” Henry said. “And he didn't have the knife, either.”