Tut (7 page)

“What about seven?”

“You only need one for the plan to work.”

“What if something comes up?” I said. “It can't hurt to give me a little more. How about five?” I could handle five.

“Two,” Horus said.

“Four.”

So we settled on three. Three powerful spells from the gods to do away with my immortal enemy.

I flipped the box open and unrolled the scrolls. And then I braced myself.

Horus dug his claws into my hand. I'd been expecting it, but it still made my toes curl. We needed my blood for the power to transfer to me. I held my hand over the scrolls and let blood drip onto the thick, yellow papyrus. It vanished instantly. And then Horus said the words of power and I repeated them, making sure I didn't get a single one wrong. I'd tell you what they were, except they said things about pulling entrails out and owing debt to the god of feces and stuff like that. Not pretty.

Pain stabbed through my head, and every bit of air was sucked out of my lungs as the energy poured into me. My scarab heart pounded so hard, it felt like it was going to erupt from my chest. I fell to my knees and the shabtis circled me, but Horus hissed at them to keep back. They'd never seen me receive the power of the gods. Colonel Cody would probably want to take his own life for the pain I was going through.

No sooner had I repeated the final word than the pain vanished. I shoved the golden box and scrolls aside. With the power of the
Book of the Dead
running through me, I felt like I could face ten Horemhebs. Twenty. Bring them on.

“Tell me what I need to do,” I said. I was ready.

“Right,” Horus said. “So there's this knife. The gods know about it, but they don't like to talk about it.”

My impression of the gods was that all gossip was good gossip, as far as they were concerned. For them not to talk about something was as rare as the creation of intelligent life.

“A knife? And Gil doesn't know about it?”

“Gil knows,” Horus said.

“So what's the problem, then?” I asked. “Why can't I talk to him about it?”

“Because the knife is dangerous,” Horus said. “You know how he is. He'd never let you try to find it.”

“What kind of knife is it?” I asked. Gil was protective and all, but that seemed extreme.

“The same knife that was used to kill Osiris,” Horus said. “A knife that can kill an immortal.”

The knife that killed Osiris? I'd never really believed in it. I always thought it was more one of those figurative things. Like a symbol for death instead of an actual object.

“It really exists?” I asked.

“It really exists,” Horus said.

“That kind of knife could kill Horemheb,” I said. My mind buzzed with the image of me finally getting my revenge.

Horus scowled. “That kind of knife could kill you.”

Which explained the secrecy. Gil would freak for sure if he thought I was looking for a weapon with the power to end my existence.

“Where is it?” I asked.

“I don't know,” Horus said. “I'm not allowed to know.”

“Not allowed to know?” Though I'd never tell him, I kind of thought Horus knew everything.

“Don't ask,” Horus said. “Just go to the Library of Congress. You're looking for a scroll. But the scroll is invisible. Use spell number sixty-eight to reveal it. Got that? Spell sixty-eight.”

“Sixty-eight,” I repeated.

“Do we need to write that down?” Horus said.

That's when the doorbell rang. I wanted to mummify whoever was out there. This wasn't a conversation I wanted interrupted.

“Shall I do away with the intruder, Great Pharaoh?” Colonel Cody asked from under the coffee table.

I shook my head. “No. Go hide somewhere until I get rid of them.” And my army of shabtis filed off into the coat closet.

I pulled open the door without bothering to see who it was. Foggy Bottom was a safe neighborhood, and who'd have a chance against an immortal anyway?

“Henry? What are you doing here?” That was the last time I opened the door without looking through the peephole first.

“I thought we could work on our project.” Henry dropped his giant backpack to the ground and pulled out a book on King Tut. My shiny golden face stared back at me from the cover.

“Our project?” I couldn't believe he was here. His timing was horrible.

“Yeah, I found us a book. My parents had it at home. Can I come in?” He looked past me, into my sanctuary, and his eyes were filled with amazement.

Horus glared back at him with a scowl like a pirate.

“Uh, yeah, sure, I guess.” I moved aside so Henry could get through the door. And that's when I saw the van in the street—deep red, like it had been painted in blood, with some kind of golden designs on the sides of it. Some guy I'd never seen before with red hair sat in the driver's seat. And in the passenger seat was Seth Cooper, in all his greasy-headed glory. Smiling at me. How did Seth know where I lived? No one knew where I lived. I slammed the door.

“How'd you find out where my town house was?” I asked Henry. It couldn't have been the Internet. Even though it was a huge pain in my butt, I'd removed all references to my present-day self. Or, at least two of the shabtis had done it at my command; Captain Otis and Captain Otto were master hackers.

“That new girl, Tia,” Henry said. He made himself at home, dropping his backpack on Gil's favorite chair. His collection of Sharpies spilled out onto the floor.

A small scratching noise came from the closet. The shabtis had to know to stay hidden, didn't they?

“She told you where I live?” I said. How did not only Seth Cooper, but some girl I'd never met before yesterday, know my address? It wasn't even on Google Maps.

“Sure. Why? Is your address secret or something?” Henry started flipped through the King Tut book. It had so many sticky notes at the top that it looked like an accordion.

“Of course not,” I said. “Anyway, this isn't the best time.”

“It's never a good time for you,” Henry said. “Let me guess. You have other plans?”

Talking to my cat about a mythical knife wasn't something I could share. “I was just about to eat dinner.”

Henry pulled a couple of grease-stained bags out of his backpack. “I thought of that, so I brought dinner. That way we can crank out this project.”

“You got White Castle?” With revenge on my mind, my appetite was extinct.

“There is no substitute,” Henry said, putting up his hand to high-five me.

I did a halfhearted high-five in return.

“I almost stayed at White Castle to eat, but they must have some kind of insect problem,” Henry said. He glanced around the town house at the scarab beetles running rampant, but managed to stop himself from saying anything about them. “Once they clear up the bug problem, we could go eat there sometime.”

These were the kind of comments that made me feel weird. I mean, a year from now, Henry would be fifteen and I'd still be fourteen. Five years from now, Henry would be nineteen and—yep, that's right—I'd still look fourteen.

“Sounds like fun,” I heard myself say. It was like a strange part of my brain controlled my voice. I could stop it most of the time, but every once in a while, it would let a comment like that out.

“Great,” Henry said. But his eyes weren't on the bag of hamburgers. They roved the room, scanning the walls and tables and … well, pretty much every other bit of space. “What's up with all this stuff?”

It's not like I was a hoarder or anything. But after three thousand years I'd gathered my fair share of souvenirs. There were fans and statues and amulets everywhere. Hanging from the walls, resting on every table, stuffed in the drawers.

Horus opened his mouth, and for a split second I thought he was going to talk. Which would have been a disaster. So I kicked a scarab beetle, and like any good cat, Horus followed it and pounced.

“Just treasures,” I said, like it was no big deal.

“A feather fan collection?” Henry said.

“Those are real ostrich feathers.”

So some of the stuff was junk. And it's not like I got the shabtis to fan me or anything. Well, not too often. But there were some cool things, too. And important things. Like my
Book of the Dead
. Which was still sitting in the middle of the coffee table next to the King Tut book. I prayed Henry wouldn't ask about it. And then I prayed Henry would leave.

He didn't. Instead, he grabbed a sword off the wall. “Are these real teeth?” He held it up, and the teeth hanging from it rattled together.

I nodded. “From Africa. It's really old, so be careful with—”

Before I had a chance to finish, Henry swung it around ninja style, jumped, and landed a few feet away, nearly swiping Horus's tail off.

Horus whirled on him and hissed.

I took the sword from Henry and hung it back on the wall. “It's kind of like a hobby, I guess.”

“Sword fighting?”

“Collecting things.” Sword fighting had, at some point, been a hobby for me, too, but I opted against mentioning that.

Another shiny object hanging on the wall caught Henry's attention. “You have an antique star chart? Is this real?”

Not only was it real, I'd drawn it myself, hundreds of years ago, after spending decades watching the movement of the planets. The paper had yellowed, even behind the protective glass. I'd have to get it represerved one of these days.

I shrugged. “I don't know. It's just something I picked up at the thrift store.”

Henry jabbed a greasy finger onto the glass, and I tried not to cringe. The shabtis were going to be frantic after this visit. “Where's Pluto? It should be right here.”

I studied the map to act like I didn't know. “Maybe it hadn't been discovered yet?”

“Dude, you have to add it. I am a huge Pluto fan.” Henry had yet another Pluto shirt on. This one read,
PLUTO:
DWARF
PLANET MY
A**
.

“I figured,” I said. “But it's not a planet.”

“It should be,” he said. “I started this online petition to get it replanetified.”

“That's not even a word.”

“It will be once the petition gets accepted. You just watch and see.” Henry grabbed a hamburger and sat on a faded green camel seat on the other side of the coffee table like he was all settled in to stay for the evening. He took a bite, but a big chunk of the meat fell onto the wood floor. And that's when I heard the closet door rattle.

I ran over and slammed myself against it a millisecond after it started opening. Inside, I heard small scrapings at the door.

Henry stopped mid-chew and stared at the closet. “What's in there?”

“Another cat.” I shot Horus a look of pure satisfaction. “I take turns locking them up.”

Horus glared back at me and then leapt onto the camel seat next to Henry, staring at Henry with his one good eye until Henry moved.

I opened the closet door a crack. “Do not come out,” I ordered in an almost inaudible whisper.

“But master…,” Lieutenant Roy said. “Your visitor's food—” He looked like he was about to collapse from the strain of my town house not being immaculate. How did he even know … unless he'd left a shabti in the family room as a lookout?

“The food can wait,” I said, and then shut the door. When I turned back around, Henry was staring at me.

“Were you talking to someone?” he asked.

“Just the cat. Try not to drop anything else, okay?”

Henry nodded but didn't take his eyes off me as I picked the food up off the floor. And then he grabbed another burger and ate it in one bite.

“So can't we work on this project some other time?” I said. I needed to head to the Library of Congress before Gil got home.

“We're already behind.” Henry picked up the giant King Tut book. He was just about to flip it open when Horus pounced on a bug that had crawled up Henry's leg.

“Aaaaaahhhhhh!” Henry screamed. His jeans ripped, and he jumped like he'd been mortally wounded, dropping the book to the floor with a loud boom.

“Horus!” I yelled.

His claws were still attached to Henry's upper leg, but Horus didn't care. With expert precision, he peeled the scarab beetle out of its exoskeleton with his teeth and ate it. And then after a loud crunch, Horus spit the shell out on one of Henry's duct-tape-covered gray Chucks.

The closet door cracked open. I shoved it shut and kicked it. Then I swatted Horus away from Henry's thigh.

Henry collapsed. There was only a little bit of blood. His normally messy hair was a disaster, and his wire-rimmed glasses sat crooked on his nose.

I cringed. “Uh, sorry about that.”

“What a horrible cat,” Henry said, straightening his skewed glasses.

Horus hissed.

Henry wiped at the blood with his fingers, and his hands shook. Almost getting disemboweled by a cat can do that to you. At least he started to breathe again.

Horus jumped off the futon and headed for the fire escape.

“Wait,” I said. Horus had vital information I needed.

Horus rubbed up against a golden cat statue in the corner. I joined him, praying the shabtis wouldn't pick that moment to show themselves.

“How do I find the scroll?” I whispered. I pretended like I was scratching behind his ears so Henry wouldn't think I was totally crazy.

“Talk to Colonel Cody. I briefed him while you were busy entertaining your guest.” He said the word
guest
in the same way he would have said
rodent
. Or
pest
.

“Wait until he leaves,” I said. “I'll get rid of him.”

Horus rubbed against a catnip toy near the windowsill. “Too late. Gil will be home any minute. And Bast is waiting.”