The Mammoth Book of the Mummy

by Paula Guran

  Fred didn’t care to set foot inside the Horus Tower. Just thinking about what had been done in the building made him sick to his stomach. He was on the forecourt as the coughing, shrunken, handcuffed George Rameses Bunning was led out by Inspector Euan Price. Jeperson had accompanied the police up to the pyramid on top of the tower, to be there at the arrest.

  Employees gathered at their windows, looking down as the boss was hauled off to the pokey. Rumors of what he had intended for them—for two hundred and thirty-eight men and women, from senior editors to junior copy-boys—would be circulating already, though Fred guessed many wouldn’t believe them.

  Derek Leech’s paper would carry the story, but few people put any credence in those loony crime stories in the Comet.

  “He’ll be dead before he comes to trial,” said Jeperson. “Unless they find a cure.”

  “I hope they do, Richard,” said Fred. “And he spends a good few years buried alive himself, in a concrete cell.”

  “His Board of Directors was wondering why, with the company on the verge of liquidation, Bunning had authorized such extensive remodeling of his corporate HQ. It was done, you know. He could have thrown the switch tomorrow, or next week. Whenever all was lost.”

  Now Fred shivered. Cemeteries didn’t bother him, but places like this—concrete, glass, and steel traps for the enslavement and destruction of living human beings—did.

  “What did he tell what’s-his-name, the architect? Drache?”

  “It was supposed to be about security, locking down the Tower against armed insurrection. Rioting investors wanting their dividends, perhaps. The spray nozzles that were to flood the building with nerve gas were a new kind of fire-prevention system.”

  “And Drache believed him?”

  “He believed the money.”

  “Another bastard, then.”

  “Culpable, but not indictable.”

  The Horus Tower was equipped with shutters that would seal every window, door, and ventilation duct. When the master-switch was thrown, they would all come down and lock tight. Then deadly gas would fill every office space, instantly preserving in death the entire workforce. Had George Rameses Bunning intended to keep publishing magazines in the afterlife? Did he really think his personal tomb would be left inviolate in perpetuity with all the corpses at their desks, a monument to himself for all eternity? Of course, George Oldrid Bunning had got away with it for a century.

  “George Rameses knew?”

  “About George Oldrid’s funerary arrangements? Yes.”

  “Bastard bastard.”

  “Quite.”

  People began to file out of the skyscraper. The workday was over early.

  There was a commotion.

  A policeman was on the concrete, writhing around his kneed groin. Still handcuffed, George Rameses sprinted back toward his tower, shouldering through his employees.

  Jeperson shouted to Price. “Get everyone out, now!”

  Fred’s old boss understood at once. He got a bullhorn and ordered everyone away from the building.

  “He’ll take the stairs,” said Jeperson. “He won’t chance us stopping the lifts. That’ll give everyone time to make it out.”

  Alarm bells sounded. The flood of people leaving the Horus Tower grew to exodus proportions.

  “Should I send someone in to catch him?” asked Price. “It should be easy to snag him on the stairs. He’ll be out of puff by the fifth floor, let alone the thirtieth.”

  Jeperson shook his head.

  “Too much of a risk, Inspector. Just make sure everyone else is out. This should be interesting.”

  “Interesting?” spat Fred.

  “Come on. Don’t you want to see if it works? The big clockwork trap. The plans I saw were ingenious. A real economy of construction. No electricals. Just levers, sand, and water. Drache kept to Egyptian technology. Modern materials, though.”

  “And nerve gas?” said Fred.

  “Yes, there is that.”

  “You’d better hope Drache’s shutters are damn good, or half London is going to drop dead.”

  “It won’t come to that.”

  Vanessa crossed the forecourt. She was with the still-bewildered Lillywhite.

  “What’s happening?” she asked.

  “George Rameses is back inside, racing toward his master-switch.”

  “Good grief.”

  “Never fear, Vanessa. Inspector, it might be an idea to find some managerial bods in the crowd. Read the class register, as it were. Just make sure everyone’s out of the tower.”

  “Good idea, Jeperson.”

  The policeman hurried off.

  Jeperson looked up at the building. The afternoon sun was reflected in black.

  Then the reflection was gone.

  Matte shutters closed like eyelids over every window. Black grilles came down behind the glass walls of the lobby, jaws meshing around floor-holes. The pyramid atop the tower twisted on a stem and lowered, locking into place. It was all done before the noise registered, a great mechanical wheezing and clanking.

  Torrents of water gushed from drains around the building, squirting up fifty feet in the air from the ornamental fountain.

  “He’s escaped,” said Fred. “A quick, easy death from the gas and it’ll take twenty years to break through all that engineering.”

  “Oh, I don’t think so,” said Jeperson. “Fifteen at the most. Modern methods, you know.”

  “The ghosts won’t rest,” said Lillywhite. “Not without revenge or restitution.”

  “I think they might,” said Jeperson. “You see, George Rameses is still alive in his tomb. Alone, ill, and—after his struggle up all those stairs—severely out of breath. Though I left the bulk of his self-burial mechanism alone, I took the precaution of disabling the nerve gas.”

  “Is that a scream I hear?” said Vanessa.

  “I doubt it,” said Jeperson. “If nothing else, George Rameses has just soundproofed his tomb.”

  In the following story, Gail Carriger delves into the history of one of her most beloved characters. The tale is set in the universe of her steampunk comedy of manners Parasol Protectorate series, in which Victorian England accepts the supernatural. We get to meet preternatural protagonist Alexia Tarabotti’s father, Alessandro Tarabotti, who died when she was an infant. This glimpse into his adventures should delight those who already know being sired by Tarabotti has negatively affected Alexia’s social standing and more. For those unacquainted with the series, never fear, Tarabotti’s adventure involving a most unusual mummy stands quite well on its own.

  The Curious Case of the Werewolf That Wasn’t, the Mummy That Was, and the Cat in the Jar

  Gail Carriger

  “Yoo-hoo!”

  Alessandro Tarabotti’s forehead crinkled under his grey top hat. Was that some peculiar birdsong?

  “Yoo-hoo, Sandy!” No, it was a voice hallooing at him across the broiling humanity of the bazaar.

  Mr Tarabotti was so thoroughly distracted upon hearing such a name hollered at him in such a place and voice, that he relaxed his grip. The place was Luxor. The voice was just the kind that bled the inner ear, trumpeting out a nasal ode to abundant schooling and little attention toward the details of it. His loosened grip allowed the scrubby native boy with terrified fly-ridden eyes to rip himself away and scuttle down a convenient alleyway, vanishing round a pile of broken pottery.

  “Well, that’s torn it.” Alessandro threw the scrap of material he was left holding on to the dirt street. He squinted into the alley, eyes adjusting slowly to the slatted light that crept through reed mats stretched far above. High houses and narrow streets—who would have thought Egypt a child of shadows and shade?

  “Sandy, old chap!” The voice was getting closer.

  “Who knows you here, sir?” asked Floote.

  “More to the point, who would dare yoo-hoo at me?” Mr Tarabotti turned away from the empty alleyway to glare at his valet as though the greeting were someho
w Floote’s fault.

  Floote pivoted and gestured softly with his right hand. His left was occupied holding on to a large glass specimen jar.

  The yoo-hooer hove into sight. Alessandro winced. The man wore the most remarkably bright blue frock coat, double-breasted, with brass buttons up the front. He sported a pair of Rumnook’s stained-glass binocular spectacles perched atop his tiny nose, and a limp cravat. In Mr Tarabotti’s world, nothing excused a limp cravat, even the dead heat of Egypt at high noon.

  “Do I know that repulsive-looking blighter?” Floote twisted his mouth slightly to one side.

  “Quite right, quite right. Someone from my early days. Before I cultivated a brain. School, perhaps?” Mr Tarabotti awaited his fate, brushing a non-existent speck of dust from the sleeve of his own gold frock coat. Single-breasted, mind you, with pearl buttons and a deceptively simple cut.

  “Blasted English, blemishing about the world. Is nowhere safe?”

  Floote, who was himself an Englishman, did not point out that Alessandro Tarabotti, of a similarly unfortunate over-education as the man approaching, dressed and spoke like an Englishman. He didn’t actually look like one, of course, boasting a long line of ancestors who had invested heavily in being dark, hook-nosed, and brooding.

  Mr Tarabotti continued grousing, right up until the yoo-hooer was in earshot. “I mean to say, Floote my man, what are your countrymen about these days? You’d think they’d leave at least one small corner of the planet to the rest of us. But no, here they are, shiny as all get up, ever expanding the Empire.”

  “We have benefited considerably from integration of the supernatural.”

  “Well, it’s hell on the rest of us. Do stop it, will you?”

  “Very good, sir.”

  “Yoo-hoo, yoo-hoo!” The man came to a wheezing halt before them, sounding like an exhausted steam engine, trailing some species of suitable young lady in his corpulent wake. “Sandy Dandy the Italian? By Jove, it is you! Fancy, fancy, fancy!”

  Alessandro, who did not like the name Sandy Dandy the Italian, lifted his monocle and examined the man downwards through it.

  The man said, to the monocle, “Baronet Percival Phinkerlington. How d’you do?”

  At least he had the good grace to introduce himself. Mr Tarabotti put down his eyepiece pointedly. Really, what a thing to do to one’s cravat.

  “You knew my brother, I believe.”

  The face above the unfortunate neckcloth did have a familiar something about the eyes and mouth. “Good Lord, old Pink’s kid brother?”

  The man grinned and doffed his top hat. “Right you are! Fancy I was a bit smaller back when you knew me last!”

  “Practically half the man you are now.”

  “You remember our sister?”

  The lady in question went red under Mr Tarabotti’s indifferent glance. He didn’t bother with the monocle. She bobbed a trembling curtsy. Ladies always caught the blush-and-flutters upon meeting Alessandro Tarabotti.

  He bowed. “Miss Phinkerlington.”

  “Leticia, you remember Sandy? Mr Tarabotti, I should say. Italian chappy, went to Oxford with Eustace. Used to bowl for New College. Toddled down for a stopover one session break. The same time Daddy had himself that whole werewolf pack visiting.” He turned back to Mr Tarabotti. “Fancy meeting you here. In Egypt of all places!”

  “Indeed.” Alessandro tried to remember why he would bother visiting this man’s family. Had it been an assignment? Investigating the werewolves? Or had he been there to kill someone? Perhaps just a mild maiming?

  Sir Percival leaned in conspiratorially. “You ought to see to your man there, Sandy. You realize, he’s got his arm ’round a jam jar of dead cat?”

  “Mmm, yes, preserved in some of my best formaldehyde.”

  The baronet gave a nervous laugh. “Always were a bit peculiar, Sandy. Eustace seemed to like you well enough. I say, this may be Egypt, but trailing about dead cats—not the done thing.”

  “I have an eccentric aunt,” replied Mr Tarabotti, as though that were explanation enough.

  “Don’t we all, my dear fellow? Don’t we all?”

  “It’s her cat. Or it was her cat, I should say.”

  Miss Phinkerlington noticed the valet with the glass jar full of cat for the first time. She colored a sandy sage and turned away, pretending interest in the bustling natives ebbing and flowing around them. A proper Englishwoman must find it a spectacle indeed, that tide of humanity in its multicolored robes, veiled or turbaned according to sex, loud and malodorous regardless.

  “Floote—” Alessandro used Miss Phinkerlington’s discomfort as an excuse “—shove off, will you? Find out what happened to our young friend. I’ll see you back at the hotel.”

  Floote nodded and disappeared across the bazaar, cat in hand.

  Sir Percival seemed to take that as an end to the business. “Well, well, well, what a thing to see you here. Been a while, old chap. Came for the climate, myself. Wettest winter in donkey’s years, decided on a bit of a change. Thought Egypt might suit.”

  “Imagine England having a wet winter, remarkable.”

  “Yes, yes, well, Egypt, here, a bit, eh, warmer, you understand, than I was expecting. But we’ve been taking the aether regular-like. Haven’t we, Leticia? Keeps a body cool.” The baronet jerked his head up at the three large balloons hovering high above Luxor. They were tethered by long cords to a landing platform dockside. Well, that explained the man’s abysmal choice in eyewear. Tinted spectacles were recommended for high floating.

  The baronet persisted in his social niceties. “And are you having an agreeable trip?”

  “Can’t stand travel,” replied Mr Tarabotti, “bad for the digestion and ruins one’s clothes.”

  “Too true.” The baronet looked suitably somber. “Too true.” Moving hurriedly on from a clearly distasteful topic, he asked, “Staying at Chumley’s Inn, are you, Sandy?”

  Alessandro nodded. It was the only place to stay in Luxor. Alexandria and Cairo provided a number of respectable hotels, but Luxor was still provincial. For example, it boasted a mere three balloons, and only one with a propeller. It was a small village, really, in an almost forgotten place, of interest primarily to those with an eye toward treasure hunting. Which didn’t explain why Phinkerlington and his sister were in Luxor. Nor, of course, why Alessandro Tarabotti was.

  “Catch a bite to eat later tonight, old man?”

  Alessandro decided it was probably better for his image to be seen dining in the company of British tourists, than to be observed too frequently about his own private business. “Certainly. But now, I’m afraid, I must beg to be excused. My man, you understand, is gadding about Egypt with a dead cat.”

  “Of course, of course.”

  Mr Tarabotti bowed to Miss Phinkerlington, who pinked once more at such direct attention. Not a bad looking chit, really.

  As he walked away, he heard the baronet say, in tones of deep censure and insufficient softness, “Really, Leticia, an Italian is most inappropriate. You must stop blushing at him so significantly.”

  Mr Tarabotti found Floote exactly where Floote ought to be, at the center of a milling whirl of dark limbs and bright fabric, engaged in a protracted bout of fisticuffs. It was unsurprising that Floote, who had fought werewolves in Scotland and vampires all along the French Riviera, was holding his own. What was surprising was that he did this while still clutching the jar.

  Alessandro removed his jacket and laid it atop a low mud-brick wall. He rested his hat carefully alongside. The jacket was tailored to perfection, flaring with just under enough fullness so as not to be thought dandified. It had three sets of invisible pockets in the lining, each housing a collection of sharp little sticks: silver, wood, and peppermint. The silver was for werewolves, the wood was for vampires, and the peppermint was for Mr Tarabotti. Mr Tarabotti was rather fond of peppermint. He was also fond of that jacket; it wouldn’t do for it to be harmed, and he wouldn’t need the weaponry, not in
the middle of the day. He did transfer the letter of marque from the jacket to a waistcoat pocket next to his monocle and his miniature antikythera device, for extra security. Then he dove into the fray.

  Alessandro was not burdened with Floote’s sentimental British predilection toward proper violent comportment. When Mr Tarabotti fought, he used both his fists and his feet, drawing on some spate of skills he’d learned in the Orient. He would have been summarily thrown out of White’s, for his technique was, it must be admitted, most ungentlemanly.

  He enjoyed himself immensely.

  Mr Tarabotti had always been fond of the occasional pugilistic endeavor, ever since he was a boy—reveling in that delicious slap and crush of flesh against flesh. He relished the heated blood buzzing through his brain, numbing all senses but those vital to security—sight and touch. Any pain was a boon, a reminder of watchfulness that he must keep his mind in play only so much as it did not hinder.

  It was almost too easy. Floote’s attackers were ill prepared for Mr Tarabotti’s sudden appearance. Soon enough, the swirling mix of appendages and colorful flowing robes resolved itself into three local malcontents: one fallen and two running away.

  While Floote recovered his equanimity, Mr Tarabotti sat astride the fallen man. He grabbed at the man’s arms, pressing them to the ground.

  “Who hired you?” he asked in English. No response.

  He repeated himself in Italian.

  The man only looked up at him, dark eyes wide. He writhed about in the dirt, shaking his head frantically back and forth as though in the throes of some fit. Then, before Floote could put down the cat and render assistance, the man surged up, shook Alessandro off, and dashed away.

  When Floote would have gone after, his master stayed him with a touch. “No advantage in following. We won’t extract any information from the likes of him—too frightened.”

  “Of us?”

  “Of whoever paid them to engage the foreigner brandishing a dead cat.”

  “Hired by your contact, sir? Perhaps he changed his mind about notifying the government.”