He stood for a moment, looking down at the shrivelled, mummified corpse in the sarcophagus, a body that had once pulsed with strength and vitality and magical power beyond the comprehension of mere mortals. He told himself it was of little matter. He now held the life forces of three men within him, and once they had been transferred to his own body, together with his own ka, he would soon begin to regenerate flesh and blood and muscle. He would be as strong as ever, if not more so. From around the doctor’s neck he took the thong that held the two amulets. Then, leaning forward over the sarcophagus, he slipped the thong around his own neck and draped the two talismans on his lifeless chest. He was ready to begin.
He placed Hopper’s hands on either side of the bandaged head, moved Hopper’s face closer and began to recite the words of transference; the words he had held in his mind for so very long.
He spoke softly, muttering them under his breath, and almost instantly he felt the change occurring within him. As he looked down, his hands began to melt away, the scarabs peeling off in agitation, revealing the bare bones beneath. The insects swept over the still body below him, then up and over the edges of the wooden sarcophagus, raining to the floor and skittering across the sand at his feet; and now his wrists were dissolving, his arms, his shoulders; and as he looked on in wonder, the eyes of the body beneath him suddenly flicked open and regarded him in silent triumph.
Now the rest of him was bursting apart in a flurry: he could feel Doc Hopper’s body collapsing, no more than a collection of bones in a set of clothing; then his final thoughts transferred themselves to their new home. And he was no longer looking down, but gazing up from the sarcophagus, just in time to see the last of Doc Hopper’s wasted body bursting apart in an explosion of shiny, wriggling shapes.
He sat up and looked around. After so many unsuitable hosts, he was at last in the place where he belonged. He was Sonchis again. He lifted a hand to look at it, watching in awe as the flesh of his palm began to regenerate, stretching the slackened bandages taut again. He lifted his other hand and tore the bandages away; they came apart easily beneath his eager fingers and he could see the black flesh beneath swelling, the colour lightening as blood flowed to long-dead veins and arteries. He tore the other hand free and pulled the wrappings from around his face. He explored the flesh beneath with his fingertips, feeling his proud nose reshaping itself, his shrivelled lips filling with moisture. There was no mirror here for him to see the transformation, but he knew he had more than enough life to power him; for he was more than just Sonchis – he also had the knowledge, the experience and the strength of three other men at his disposal.
He peered over the edge of the sarcophagus and saw the swarms of scarabs running this way and that in confusion, away from the fallen bones of Doc Hopper. They had served him well, these simple creatures. They had provided him with a means to walk the earth again while he drew up his plans.
He stood up in the sarcophagus and climbed over the side, crushing several scarabs beneath his feet as he did so. A poor reward for what they had done, but he wasn’t about to get sentimental over a few insects. He had more important matters to attend to. He walked to the nearest of the standing sarcophagi and, taking the wooden lid in his hands, wrenched it aside as though it was made of nothing stronger than balsa. He propped the lid against the wall and studied the occupant of the sarcophagus.
A shrivelled, bandaged face greeted him and he was shocked to note that he did not even remember the name of this man. It mattered little. His four lieutenants were here to aid him, though they would never be as complete as he was. He tore the bandages away from the man’s closed eyes. Then he raised his arms and placed his hands on either side of his lieutenant’s head, and muttered the words of regeneration.
After a few moments, with a dry click, the man’s eyes opened and Sonchis saw in them an expression of absolute loyalty, undimmed by the passing centuries. This one he would leave behind, he decided, to take care of any who tried to follow him. The other three would accompany him to the Gates of Apophis, where they would help him to perform the sacred rite that he had planned three thousand years earlier.
He moved to the next sarcophagus and removed the lid. He lifted his arms and spoke the words, and as he did so, he remembered one other little detail that he needed to take care of. Apophis would require a suitable sacrifice, and luckily, Sonchis knew exactly where to find one.
Mohammed Hansa was far from happy. He was not used to being roused from sleep at this time of night and told he must make a tricky journey across the desert. He had tried his very best to dissuade the journalists from making the trip now; had even warned them that he would have to charge them triple fare; but nothing seemed to put them off. Mr Corcoran had agreed to his demands with barely a protest, and that had instantly made Mohammed suspicious, because the American was not known for his willingness to spend money.
The ancient Ford rattled along the road to the Valley of the Kings, its acetylene-gas headlights sending two weak and watery beams into the darkness.
‘Can’t you get this old jalopy moving any faster?’ barked Biff from the back seat. ‘And why don’t you have electric headlights yet? Everybody has electric headlights!’
‘Not in Luxor,’ Mohammed shouted over the rush of wind. ‘And I must go carefully, Mr Corcoran. This is a bad road.’ He studied the reporter in the rear-view mirror, noticing how fired up he was. Beside him, Charlie Connors, usually the most indolent person in Egypt, was sitting bolt upright, staring ahead, her expensive camera cradled in her lap, ready for action. Something important must have happened to get these two out of their hotel beds at such a late hour. ‘I can’t imagine that anyone at the campsite will be awake at this time of night,’ he warned them.
‘We’ll wake ’em up,’ Biff told him. ‘When they hear what we have to say, they’ll wake up all right.’
Mohammed frowned. This didn’t sound good. ‘Is something wrong, Mr Corcoran?’ he shouted, keeping his eye on the mirror.
Biff’s face was expressionless. ‘I was about to ask you the same question,’ he said.
‘Whatever do you mean?’
‘You’ve been driving Professor Llewellyn around for the last couple of days, ain’t that so? You notice anything . . . odd about him?’
‘Well, he is certainly an unusual gentleman, but—’
‘See, while I was waiting for you to turn up, I checked at the hotel reception. It seems they ain’t seen Llewellyn since yesterday, when you picked him up and drove him off to Wade’s dig. How come you didn’t bring him back?’
‘Oh . . . er, well . . . he . . . he disappeared.’
‘He’s disappeared?’ Charlie nearly jumped out of her seat and Mohammed noticed that Biff gave her a warning nudge with his elbow to calm her down.
‘Yes, Miss Connors. I drove him over to the archaeological dig only yesterday, as Mr Corcoran said. I dropped him off and he went to talk to Doctor Hopper. After that, I didn’t see him again. When it was time to return to Luxor, there was no sign of him. I checked every tent. In the end we thought that he must have decided to walk to the Tutankhamun site.’
In the mirror he could see the two journalists exchanging bemused looks.
‘You think that’s likely?’ asked Biff after a while.
‘No, sir, most unlikely. But we couldn’t think of any other explanation – unless he simply wandered off into the desert. Funny, though. That’s the second person to—’
Mohammad broke off, realizing that he had just made a terrible mistake and hoping that Biff might have missed it. But of course he hadn’t.
Biff leaned closer. ‘Go on, finish what you were about to say,’ he snapped.
‘It’s . . . nothing.’
‘Sure it is. Come on, spill the beans. Listen, Mohammed, withholding evidence is a crime: you could wind up in a whole lot of trouble. You might even lose your precious car. Tell me, who else has gone missing?’
Now Mohammed was truly horrified. Without his Ford h
e wouldn’t be able to make a living. He licked his lips. ‘Well . . . only Mr Hinton.’
‘Tom Hinton? Sir William’s assistant? He’s missing too?’
‘Yes. Didn’t you know?’
‘No, I didn’t! Say, wait till I see that Ethan Wade. He sure kept that quiet. When did this happen?’
‘He . . . he disappeared the same night that Sir William Devlin suffered his breakdown. But—’
‘I don’t believe this. It’s a conspiracy!’
‘No. Mr Wade just thought it would be better if people didn’t panic.’ Mohammed felt terrible. Now he really had let the cat out of the bag. And after he’d promised Mr Wade he wouldn’t give the game away.
‘But I don’t get it,’ persisted Biff. ‘What’s the connection between Tom Hinton and some professor from the British Museum?’ he asked.
Mohammed shook his head but Biff was still staring at him in that intense way he had.
‘You know more, don’tcha?’ he said. ‘Come on, Mohammed, I’m telling you, you can give it to me the easy way or we’ll stop this car and I’ll beat it out of you.’
‘I promised Mr Wade,’ he said.
‘Don’t think Wade’s gonna help ya!’ snarled Biff. ‘I’m giving you to the count of three and then we’ll stop this car and we’ll really see how much you know.’
Mohammed didn’t doubt that the American would make good on his threat given half a chance. He realized it was pointless to keep up the pretence any longer.
‘He’s not a professor, Mr Corcoran. He’s a private detective, sent from England by Mr Hinton’s parents. We spent time looking around the bazaar in Luxor. I think he found Mr Hinton too . . . only when I asked him about it, he said it was somebody else, somebody who only looked like Mr Hinton. But you know, after that, Mr Llewellyn, he began to behave very strangely . . . as though something had happened to him.’
‘Something like what?’ interjected Charlie.
‘I cannot say. He came back to the automobile and . . . he was like someone else entirely. As though some spirit had possessed him.’
‘Say, did he have a face that looked like it was made up of hundreds of bugs?’ asked Charlie.
‘I beg your pardon?’ said Mohammed.
‘Just put your foot down!’ snapped Biff. ‘Something screwy is going on at that dig and we need to find out what it is.’
Mohammed nodded. He pushed the old Ford up to its top speed, crashing and shuddering along the uneven road to the Valley of the Kings.
Madeleine sat at her desk reading through the hieroglyphs on the scroll. She realized that she should have gone to bed long since, but what she was reading was simply too riveting to abandon. If this account of Sonchis’s exploits was to be believed, she could understand why Akhenaten had wanted him put where he could do no harm. Whoever had written this latest text was making some pretty wild claims.
Sonchis had an affinity with wild animals; could make them obey his every whim. She thought about the hyena attack and the fruit bats that had invaded the camp. Sonchis had turned base metal into gold; he could control the weather. Hadn’t Ethan said something about a freak sandstorm that had struck on his way back from seeing Sir William? Sonchis had even raised the dead, turning them into his servants, and his ultimate aim was to reawaken the great serpent, Apophis, and summon him to the surface of the world. Then he would command him to destroy the armies of Akhenaten, so that he, Sonchis, could take the throne and rule all of Egypt.
As she read, Madeleine was vaguely aware of the tent flap opening and closing behind her, but she did not look up. Ethan and Alec, no doubt, eager for more information.
‘You will ’ave to be patient,’ she said. ‘I am finding out more and more about this ’igh priest, but I need to finish all the scrolls before I can tell you any more.’
No answer, but she was aware of soft footsteps and measured breathing. Somebody was standing right behind her, looking over her shoulder, and she smelled the sharp tang of sulphur, as though somebody had struck a dozen matches all at once.
She started to turn in her seat, but in that instant a powerful hand clamped over her mouth and an arm locked around her chest in a hold that felt like a steel cable. She tried to struggle but the arm lifted her up as though she weighed no more than a rag doll. She kicked her legs, managing only to knock over her chair, and then she was being swung round towards the tent flaps.
She caught a glimpse of her reflection in the mirror that stood against one side of the tent. The man who held her looked hardly human – a bald head, dark piercing eyes and a naked chest and arms that seemed to pulse with unnatural power, his lower half wrapped in mouldering bandages. She saw him for only an instant and she would have screamed, but the hand across her mouth allowed her to emit no more than a soft grunt.
Then a mouth was beside her ear and, most terrifying of all, it spoke to her in the unmistakable Lancastrian tones of Doc Hopper.
‘Don’t struggle,’ said the voice. ‘We’re going to take a little trip, you and I. There’s someone I want you to meet.’
And before she could even wonder what that might mean, she was carried, kicking and struggling, through the open tent flaps and out into the night.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Crash
ALEC WOKE FOR the second time that night, and once again he was sure he had heard something outside. He glanced around the dark interior of the tent. Coates was still snoring like a walrus, clearly dead to the world. Alec yawned, got up and went to pull open the tent flaps. He looked groggily through the mosquito netting into the night. Across the way, he could see figures moving around the Crossleys . . . No, not moving exactly. Struggling.
He gave a grunt of surprise and pulled aside the netting. Now he could see more clearly. Madeleine was out there and she was being bundled into the car by two men who . . . Alec’s jaw dropped open and he asked himself if he wasn’t still asleep and dreaming. For the two creatures that held her were not men at all, but two shambling, wizened manikins wrapped in filthy bandages, their faces gaunt and hideous to behold, their eyes glittering with feral malevolence.
Another such creature was already clambering awkwardly into the passenger seat, while beside him, a fourth figure was climbing in behind the wheel; this one not as wasted as his companions, his arms and chest bare and apparently pulsing with life. As Alec watched in frozen terror, the man turned his head to look towards the tent and a triumphant smile etched itself across his cadaverous features. A shock of recognition lanced through Alec like the blade of a knife. He had seen that face before, staring up at him from the wooden sarcophagus in the tomb.
‘Sonchis!’ He heard himself say it, not really believing, but having to accept what his eyes were telling him. Sonchis and three of his lieutenants. They were alive. They were abducting Madeleine. Alec stumbled forward, unsure for a moment what to do. He glanced around desperately, but there was no weapon to hand and all he could do was bellow for help.
‘Ethan!’ he yelled. ‘Everybody! Wake up, wake up!’
Then the Crossley’s engine roared into life and the headlights flicked on to send two beams of light arcing though the darkness. The vehicle was moving away onto the road and Alec caught a glimpse of Madeleine’s terrified face as she struggled in the grasp of the two mummies. He began to run after them, dimly aware of people stumbling out of the tents behind him, but the Crossley’s tyres had hit the surface of the road with a screech and it was accelerating away up the hill.
Then, from out of the darkness ahead, two more headlights appeared as another automobile crested the rise and came rattling down the hill. Alec recognized Mohammed’s old Ford, its rusting metalwork clattering in protest at the speed it was doing. Alec felt his spirits lift because he knew that there simply wasn’t room for two cars to pass on that narrow road: the Crossley would surely have to stop.
Alec continued to run, not knowing what he would do if he caught up with them; and then he saw Sonchis lift an arm and make a brief gesture, an
d the Ford suddenly lurched sideways, as though swept aside by a giant’s hand. It smashed headlong into the boulders at the side of the road. The tail end lifted and the automobile turned over and came crashing down with an ear-splitting rending of metal. The Crossley did not slow for an instant. It raced on up the hill and dropped away out of sight.
Alec ran over to the Ford and looked inside to see three people tangled together. He stooped and grabbed the nearest of them – the photographer, Charlie Connors – and began to pull her free of the wreckage. She was barely conscious and had a deep gash in her temple, but she was holding onto her precious camera as though her life depended upon it.
Now other people were coming over to help. Ethan appeared, pulling a shirt over his head, and then Coates, looking ridiculous in his striped pyjamas.
‘What the hell’s going on?’ bellowed Ethan. ‘I thought I heard the Crossley . . .’
‘You did,’ Alec assured him, helping him to drag Charlie to a safe distance. He was all too aware of the smell of petrol coming from around the Ford. ‘Madeleine. They took Madeleine. They were driving away in the Crossley and Mohammed’s car came down the hill—’
‘Who was driving away?’ yelled Ethan.
Alec could see that Coates and Mickey were pulling Biff Corcoran from the wreckage now, his face a mask of blood.
‘Sonchis,’ he said. ‘Sonchis took her.’
Ethan looked at Alec. ‘Have you any idea how crazy that sounds?’ he said.
‘Oh yes,’ said Alec. ‘Absolutely.’ He ran back to the Ford and ducked down to reach for Mohammed, who was conscious but clearly in pain.
‘My Ford!’ he groaned. ‘My beautiful Model T!’
The Eye of the Serpent Page 18
