by Mark Hodder
Emma said, “So you’re going to take a little Dutch courage then rush the stage and beat the mummy about the head with a rolled story paper, is that it?”
Fogg shook his head and pointed at an oak tree that overhung the stage. “No, Mrs B, I’m going to climb that tree, pour alcohol over the hideous creature, set fire to this paper, then drop it onto the damnable thing. It should burst into flames in an instant.”
“I’m not sure that’s a very—” Emma began, but Fogg had already scuttled away.
Three more individuals in the audience dropped dead, their souls sucked into Am-Heh, making the returning Ancient Egyptian stronger and ever more mobile. Beside him, Mamud Atum ranted and raved, his eyes wild, flecks of foam spitting toward the dog masks that gazed fixedly up at him.
“It seems you had the very devil in your midst, Mr Humpty,” Emma muttered. “I suppose your Christmas tour was the perfect means for him to find those susceptible to his mesmerism and to bewitch them into coming here today.”
“To be sacrificed!” Humpty moaned. “This will do my reputation no good at all!”
“It might affect your ticket sales, admittedly. One attends a show to be entertained, not to become the fuel required to resurrect an ancient corpse. Atum must have planned this from the start. I daresay he was responsible for the death of your colleague, Christopher Breeze.”
“But what’s it all about, Mrs Boswell? Surely he doesn’t really think he can conquer the world with a mummy?”
“Can’t you feel the power radiating off that thing, sir? Can't you sense it growing stronger by the minute? Does it feel human to you?”
Humpty gaped at her, his eyes wide and filled with fear.
“I don’t think that’s a mummified man,” Emma continued. “I think it’s a mummified god.”
She caught movement out of the corner of her eye and, looking up, saw Macallister Fogg clambering onto a branch that overhung the stage. She held her breath as he manoeuvred himself until a leg dangled to either side of it. He started to inch along, saw her watching, grinned and waved.
“Get on with it, you nitwit!” she whispered to herself.
While the detective cautiously proceeded along the limb, Am-Heh fed on more members of the entranced audience. Thunder rumbled, though there were no more lightning strikes, and darkness settled over Battersea Park. In the gloom, Mamud Atum’s eyes and amulet glowed brightly, as if he was brimming with an unholy vitality.
“Am-Heh! Am-Heh!” he howled. “Devourer of Millions! Har Decher illuminates your triumphant return!”
Emma Boswell watched as Macallister Fogg lay flat on the branch. He withdrew Humpty’s silver hip flask from a pocket, unscrewed the top, and upended it. Whisky spilled out, missed Am-Heh, and splattered onto the stage behind the mummy’s heels.
Emma gritted her teeth.
Fogg shifted a little farther forward. He pulled The Baker Street Detective from inside his jacket, fumbled, and dropped it. The penny dreadful flew apart and floated down onto the scene below.
Emma groaned.
The mummy and high priest, preoccupied with their ritual slaughter, failed to notice as the separated pages curled to the ground around them.
Fogg retrieved another bundle of paper from a different pocket. Twisting the sheets together, he held them carefully in his right hand, produced a box of Lucifers, took one, reached down and struck it on his boot heel, then put the flame to the bundle. He waited until one end of it was burning fiercely, took aim, and let go. It fell, hit the mummy on the shoulder, bounced off, and rolled from the stage.
Emma slapped a hand to her forehead.
With a report like a gunshot, the branch the detective was clinging to snapped near the tree’s trunk and slumped downward. Fogg slipped uncontrollably along its length, dropped headfirst, then jerked to a halt, dangling upside down, his clothes snagged in foliage. Am-Heh looked up. A small object tumbled from Fogg’s pocket and dropped onto the mummy’s face, breaking with a glassy tinkle. Liquid splashed over Am-Heh’s bandages, staining his head, face, and chest a deep red.
“Oh, for crying out loud!” Emma moaned. She turned to Humpty and said, “In for a penny, in for a pound, I suppose.” And with that, she stood, fished something from her jacket, and ran out of cover.
Realising that his ceremony was going awry, Mamud Atum turned just as Emma leaped onto the stage. “What are you doing?” he shouted.
“This!” Emma responded. She twisted the top from the flask in her hand and jerked the container toward Am-Heh. Inky blue liquid flew from it and showered over the mummy.
“How dare you interfere!” Atum yelled. “You’ve forfeited your soul!” He addressed the Egyptian god. “Take her essence unto thee, Am-Heh. Consume her that thou may be further empowered!”
The mummy threw out its arms, leaned forward, and opened its mouth. Emma raised her hands as if to ward it off, but it loomed over her menacingly, appearing to grow taller. Then it looked down, and, following its gaze, she saw that it wasn’t growing at all, but had floated two feet into the air and was continuing to slowly rise.
“Your formula works, Mr Fogg!” she shouted.
“Spiffing!” came a voice from above. “Whoops! Look out!”
The mummy, with arms and legs waving, shot up, thumped against Macallister Fogg, then crashed through the foliage and soared into the sky.
“No!” Mamud Atum screamed. “Stop! I can't be parted from him!”
Fogg scrabbled for a grip as he started to slip from the tree.
“I’m nearly four thousand years old, girl!” Atum cried out. He squinted up past the detective at the distant figure of Am-Heh as it vanished into the rapidly dissipating clouds, and suddenly he was pleading. “My soul is preserved in this amulet and maintained by the power of Am-Heh. Bring him back! Please, bring him back!”
“I rather think he’s on his way to Mars,” Emma said. “Or Har Decher, as you call it.”
“No! If we are separated, any injury, even a mere scratch, will bring the weight of ages crashing upon me! Anubis will drag me into the Underworld! I must have Am-Heh at my side! He’s the only thing that stops Anubis from claiming me!”
However, it was not the weight of ages that came crashing onto him, but the weight of Macallister Fogg. The detective plummeted out of the tree and thudded down on top of Atum with such force that the wooden planks of the stage cracked beneath them. Lying sprawled on the high priest, Fogg looked up at Emma and said, “I say, Mrs Boswell, have I broken any bones?”
“None of your own, I think, but you might want to roll off the man beneath you, sir.”
The detective did as advised and scrambled to his feet. As he and his secretary regarded the stricken Mamud Atum, a ray of sunlight pierced the parting clouds and shone onto the campsite.
“Ra!” Atum croaked. “Forgive me!”
Somewhere in the near distance, a dog howled.
The sorcerer’s eyes widened in terror. “No! Anubis!”
In an instant, the skin sloughed from his bones, his skeleton crumbled, and he turned to dust, leaving behind nothing but his clothes and golden amulet.
Murmuring voices attracted Emma’s attention. She turned and saw that the members of the audience were removing their masks and dropping them to the ground, revealing drowsy and bemused expressions. One by one, people began to drift away as if sleepwalking.
“That’s that, then,” Fogg said cheerfully, slapping his hands together to clean fragments of bark from them. “I think I handled it rather well, don’t you, Mrs Boswell?”
Emma sighed and replied, “I think you handled it in your usual manner, sir.”
Tobias Humpty cautiously approached. He pointed a shuddering finger at the smouldering corpses dotted around the ground in front of the stage. “What am I to do?” he wailed. “Look at them! The police will never believe what happened here!”
“Tell them there was a lightning strike,” Fogg advised. He noticed the amulet on the cloak at his feet. “I say, Mr Humpty, do you
mind if I take this in lieu of payment?”
“Have it, Mr Fogg. I don’t want to ever set eyes on the accursed bauble again!”
Humpty walked away to join his fellow actors, who, liberated, were standing around looking totally befuddled.
Fogg bent and picked up the amulet. As he he straightened, an indistinct haze slipped out of him and soaked into the gold. He staggered and grunted.
“What was that?” Emma asked.
“Oof! I don't know! By golly, it felt like something of me got sucked right into it!”
“Mamud Atum claimed his soul was contained within it. Have you just become soulless, Mr Fogg?”
“I certainly hope not. But I think I’d better keep it safe, just in case.” He surveyed the camp. “I don't suppose there’s much else we can do here, is there?”
Emma peered up at the sky. The mummy of Am-Heh had vanished into it. “No, Mr Fogg. Not much.”
“Let us get back to the autowagon and be off, then. I’m eager to report the success of my anti-gravity formula to Professor Swatt-Godfrey. Of course, I’ll have to brew another batch to prove its effectiveness.”
“You remember how to make it then?”
“Remember? Good gracious, no! It’s far too complex a matter to commit to memory. Don’t worry, it’s all written down.”
“On papers in your pocket?”
“Indeed so.”
“Would they be the same papers you set fire to and threw at the mummy?”
Macallister Fogg opened his mouth to speak, hesitated, scratched his head, and said, “Oh dash it!”
THE END
