“I’m with you,” Sobek the crocodile agreed. “I’ve had enough of this.”
Cowley broke his silence with a whisper, somehow more powerful, more terrifying than any shout. “You are going nowhere,” he rasped. “You ungrateful imbeciles.”
“Just try and stop me,” said Anubis. “Come on,” he urged the other two. “Let’s leave him to it.”
“You really don’t understand, do you?” said Cowley, fingering his gold necklace. “I wear the Eye of Horus, I control the mummy and this isn’t over until I say it’s over.”
Anubis made a dash for the door, half stumbling over the hem of his white robe in his rush to be free of Cowley and his madness.
“Stop him!” Cowley ordered his undead servant. The mummy jerked into life. The bandage-wrapped head snapped round, eyeless gaze locking on Anubis. The jaw twitched and the mouth snapped, yellow teeth clacking together, like an insane clockwork toy. Then the arms rose and the mummy staggered across the chamber on stiff legs, slowly at first but gaining momentum with each step.
Anubis paused for a fraction of a second, as if sheer terror was stopping his feet from doing what his brain was surely screaming for them to do – run, idiot! By the time he came to his wits, the mummy was already upon him. Billy flinched as he witnessed those cloth-wrapped hands reach out and grasp Anubis by the neck. Cowley laughed.
Billy saw the chance to try to make his own escape while Cowley and his accomplices were distracted. Inside the confines of the open coffin he struggled against his linen bandages like a stage escapologist, doing everything he could to try to get loose. Out of the corner of his eye, Billy could still see Sekhmet and Sobek shrinking back in fear as the mummy started to crush the life out of their partner in crime.
Cowley continued to laugh. The mummy continued to strangle.
“Stop it,” said Sobek. “Please.”
Anubis was struggling violently, but nothing could break the grip of the mummy’s cold, dead hands. Awful gagging, gasping sounds escaped from inside his golden mask.
“You’ve made your point,” pleaded Sekhmet. “Now let him go, for pity’s sake.”
Cowley ignored her whimpering.
The mummy lifted Anubis off the ground by his neck as if he weighed no more than a child. Sekhmet looked away. Billy guessed she couldn’t bear to watch the thrashing legs or hear the final gasps…
“Release him,” Cowley finally ordered with a clap of his hands. Anubis fell to the ground, wheezing and writhing in pain.
“You worms,” growled Cowley. “You pathetic, snivelling, spineless, gutless worms. Kneel before me!”
Gasping for breath, Anubis managed to crawl across the flagstone floor until he was sprawled in front of Cowley’s throne. Sekhmet and Sobek joined him there on their knees, their heads bowed in defeat.
“Are you crying, love?” whispered Sekhmet, as snivels echoed from inside the crocodile mask.
“Yes,” Sobek admitted, “and I can’t get a hanky inside this bloomin’ thing. There’s snot everywhere in here.”
“Silence,” Cowley hissed. “You can serve me willingly, or you can serve me as slaves, but you shall serve me. The mummy obeys only me and if you are stupid enough to still think that you might be able to outrun or hide from our undead friend here, then I have other ways to bring you to your knees.” Gloating, Cowley revealed three tiny wooden coffins that had been concealed beneath his throne. In each coffin was a wax figure. One had a fingernail for a smile, one had a cufflink pressed into its wax chest, one was bound in a length of yellow ribbon.
“You know what these are, don’t you?”
The fake gods nodded meekly.
“You recognize the totems as belonging to you, don’t you?”
“That’s my hair ribbon,” said Sekhmet. “I thought I’d lost it.”
“And I found it,” Cowley crowed. “So any time you get foolish ideas into your heads – ideas like…ohhh, I don’t know…betraying me to the police, or running away, or trying to wriggle your way out of our partnership – then all I have to do is take one of my little wax dollies here and…well, what could I do?” A malicious smile crept across his lips. “I could throw it into a fire and watch it bubble away into nothing, or pull its arms and legs off, or bury it so deep that no one would ever find it. Does any of that sound like something you might enjoy?”
Sobek and Sekhmet shook their heads. Anubis kept his face to the floor. Billy listened, still working on his gag. Nearly there.
“I thought not. So, back to where we started before I was so rudely interrupted. I almost have everything I need,” Cowley continued. He held up a bottle, pulled out the cork and sniffed the contents, flinching at the rancid smell that wafted out. “Milk from a black cow…” He pulled a small, furry object out of a pouch beside the throne. “The paw of a white cat…” A twisted vegetable came next, a root which had the appearance of a gnarled, misshapen man. “Mandrake root.” He rattled a handful of money. “Coins from a dead man’s purse. And, of course, the Phoenix Egg… Now all I need is my final ingredient. A human heart – is that too much to ask?”
Billy finally managed to spit out his gag. “It depends who you’re asking!”
“Oh, Master Flint,” said Cowley. “So glad you could join us. It would be awful if you were to sleep through your starring role.”
Cowley stalked over until he was standing beside the coffin, looking down at Billy. “You and your girlfriend think you’ve been so clever, don’t you, interfering with my plans? By the time I’m finished with you, you’ll wish you never escaped my scorpion.”
Billy wanted to say something witty, but fear had turned the words in his mouth to dust.
Cowley flicked his razor-sharp hippo-tusk wand back and forth over Billy’s chest. It had been sharpened to a lethal point. “One quick slice, and I will have everything I need to walk into eternity.”
“Make it quick then,” said Billy, with more courage than he felt. “I’m getting bored of the sound of your voice. All power-hungry lunatics sound the same to me.”
“You’d better get used to it,” said Cowley, “because once I’ve got your heart, I have other plans for your body. Sobek, Sekhmet, Anubis, fetch the wax!”
Obediently Cowley’s minions brought over a cauldron of wax supported on a metal tripod, with a brazier of hot coals beneath it. Billy could hear the contents bubbling explosively. Careful not to spill the red-hot wax, Sekhmet and Anubis removed the brazier and positioned the tripod and cauldron so that it hung over Billy’s coffin. This close Billy saw that the cauldron had a lip so that its contents could be poured…over him!
“Once I am immortal I am going to need more mummies to serve me,” Cowley declared. “I am doing you a great honour, Billy Flint. You will be the first in my army.”
“So remind me again why you’ve covered my conservatory floor with sand?” said Sir Gordon.
“We’re making a door,” said Charley. “A magical gateway that will allow us to travel instantly from one place to another. Or I think it will, anyway.”
Doogie had fetched a bag of sand from the garden. Charley instructed him to pour out a circle and now was busy writing in it with a bamboo cane. She had been staring at the hieroglyphs for so long that she could have written them blindfolded. “As far as I can tell,” she said, “all I have to do is enter the circle and…”
“And what?” said Doogie.
“If I’m right, I’ll be transported to the Sandman’s lair.”
“And if you’re wrong?”
“Then I might be lost for ever inside a magical tunnel over which I have no control.” Charley rubbed her legs. She was tired, and she was worried about Billy. Her back burned like fire. Same old, same old. There was a hard knot of fear in the pit of her stomach too; she had no idea what she would find at the other end of the magick circle. But Charley also felt excited; the same as every police officer does when they were closing in on their suspect. “I’m going through the gateway,” she said firmly. �
�This ends now.”
Charley drew her gun from under her blanket. Then she wheeled into the circle and waited for the magick to begin.
And she waited.
Then she waited some more.
“Something’s wrong,” she said, wondering whether she had copied the hieroglyphics correctly. She looked down and spotted the problem – the wheels of her chair had broken the circle. “Can you pass me the stick again, please, Doogie.”
Doogie gave her the bamboo cane and Charley redrew the circle with a flourish. “There!” she said, letting the cane drop and holding her pistol ready for whatever was waiting for her. Instantly the magick circle began to activate. “Goodnight, boys,” she said as the vortex began to swirl around her. The sand flew round at incredible speed and Charley had the sense that she was in the middle of a desert storm.
Unexpectedly a hand burst through the swirling wall. “I’m comin’ with ye, miss,” said Doogie, stepping into the magick circle with her.
“Doogie! That was stupid of you!” Charley snapped. “You could have been torn in two, standing half in and half out of the portal!” Her voice softened. “Stupid, but very brave.”
The whirlwind surrounded them completely. Charley caught a fleeting flash of white above her head and as some loose feathers began to spin around them, Charley realized that Queen Victoria had flown into the gateway too. Honestly, was there anyone who wasn’t coming? Oh yes. Sir Gordon. She could just make him out through the blizzard of sand…he was waving…then he totally disappeared from view.
Charley became aware that the conservatory had vanished too. It wasn’t just hidden behind the wall of sand – it had gone. Beyond the vortex there was only a sea of black stretching in every direction. As vast as the ocean. As high as the sky. Doogie reached out and grabbed her arm, more for his comfort than for hers she suspected. Charley clenched her revolver even more firmly as the portal took them deeper into the darkness. There was no up any more, no down. Just emptiness for ever…
Except that it wasn’t really empty. Charley had worked for S.C.R.E.A.M. for long enough to know that the spiritual realm – whatever you wanted to call it – was real. Just as real as the flesh-and-blood, bricks-and-mortar world. Angels and demons and things all existed. She had seen some of them. Shot some too. And this magick door that the Sandman had created was taking them on a shortcut via one of those spirit realms.
Charley had no idea how long they had been travelling. It might have been a split second or a thousand years. She was pleased that Doogie had been foolish enough to come with her now. And even more pleased when the sandstorm started to slow.
It was only then that Charley spotted the terrible fault in her plan. She had completed the magick circle having no idea where it would take her. Was she going to find herself back at Lady Tiffin’s house or Lavinia Fitzpatrick’s front room? Charley’s theory was that each crime scene had two portals – an entrance and an exit – and that the “exit” sand circle led directly to the Sandman’s lair. Wherever that might be. But it was still just a theory.
The vortex was beginning to thin and Charley squinted through the sand as she tried to make out where they had materialized. “Definitely not Lady Fitzpatrick’s,” she breathed, as she took in their surroundings. Tall pillars supported a roof which had been painted to look like the night sky. Blazing braziers provided a flickering light which glinted off a golden throne and three animal-headed gods. They had landed in an Egyptian temple.
“Jings,” gasped Doogie, brushing at the sand that covered them both. “I guess we’re not in Scotland any more.”
“Shhhh,” Charley warned, all of her police instincts tingling. They were seriously outnumbered here.
Charley still held her pistol in front of her. There were five possible targets and six bullets in the chamber. Squinting along the barrel, Charley quickly passed over the mummy – who hadn’t been stopped by bullets the last time. There were three gods in a row, Sobek, Sekhmet and Anubis – what good would bullets be against them? She let her aim rest on a bald man who matched the description of the Sandman. He was holding a knife which he seemed intent on plunging into Billy, who – she realized to her horror – was tied up and helpless in a coffin. Charley levelled her gun and took aim; she’d soon put a stop to that!
At this range the mysterious Sandman seemed oddly familiar. Although she could only see the back of his head, the villain looked remarkably like Mr Cowley. Charley could slap herself for not having realized sooner – it was so obvious now! She held the gun a little tighter, her finger hovering on the trigger.
Charley squinted down the barrel of her pistol…she wouldn’t kill Cowley, but she could shoot the knife from his hand. What might happen after that was anybody’s guess. The only thing that was on their side right now was the element of surprise—
“We are not amused!” shrieked Queen Victoria as she flapped around the temple, ruining everything. Charley toyed with the idea of shooting the blasted bird instead.
The Sandman turned to face her. “We meet again, Miss Steel.”
“Mr Cowley,” said Charley. “So it’s true what they say. It really is hard to get good staff nowadays…” She eased back on the hammer and cocked her gun. “Now put the dagger down, slowly—”
“Or what?” Cowley challenged, still brandishing the bone knife above Billy. “Don’t just stand there, you imbeciles!” He snapped his fingers at his henchmen. “Get them! She’s just a girl playing at being in the police – she wouldn’t dare—”
Charley pulled the trigger as the three gods rushed towards her. She dared all right.
Click!
The gun didn’t fire. Charley pulled the trigger again. Another click. It was jammed.
“The mechanism is clogged with sand, I imagine,” said Cowley, gloating. “The gateways are swift, but they aren’t the cleanest form of travel.”
With a very unladylike cuss, Charley hurled her useless weapon at the nearest attacker. It hit the crocodile-headed god squarely in the face, leaving a dent in his mask. Not immortal after all, she thought with a smirk, and more than a little relief.
Sekhmet the lioness made a grab for Doogie, who ducked and swung his best punch, catching Sekhmet in the pit of the stomach. Sobek the crocodile was closing in on Charley. She backed away as fast as she could, but without her gun there wasn’t much she could do – Sobek was bigger and stronger. He clutched her by the shoulders, squeezing so hard that Charley could feel her skin bruising. Doogie threw a few more wild punches, but Sekhmet overwhelmed him, holding the boy from behind in a crushing bear hug.
It was all over in seconds. They were prisoners of the Sandman.
“I gave you a chance to run away,” said Cowley. “I warned you on the train. I sent Sobek to frighten you off at the station –” he glowered at the crocodile – “fat lot of good that was.” Sobek lowered his head, acknowledging his rather pathetic attempt.
“You’re all mad,” said Billy, sitting up in the coffin but still bound hand and foot. “You know that, don’t you?”
“Is it mad to dream of having the power of the gods to command? To be the immortal leader of an army of the undead?”
“Frankly, yes,” said Charley crisply. “As mad as a sackful of badgers.”
“But I can make it happen, Miss Steel. Who do you think read all those books about Egyptology? Who decided the location of the archaeological dig which unearthed my cloth-bound friend here? Sir Gordon Balfour, that bumbling idiot? No! It was me! All me! And what reward did I get for my troubles? More than five thousand gold items came out of that dig, and what did His Lordship give me as a thank you?” He waved his hippo-tusk wand. “A single piece of ivory… Little did the fat fool know the power that it held.”
“You’ll never get away with this, you despicable little man,” said Charley.
“Oh, that’s right, Your Ladyship, don’t forget to keep stepping on the servants. You and Sir Gordon come straight out of the same mould.” Cowley was almost spitt
ing. “You think you’re so much better than me, don’t you?”
“That’s not what I meant,” Charley protested.
“I think I’m better than you,” said Billy defiantly, as he continued to wrestle with his bonds, twisting back and forth. He wasn’t going to give up without a fight. He had spotted a rack on the far wall beside Cowley’s throne which held bows and arrows, swords with broad sickle-shaped blades, and a large axe with a curved head which splayed out on both sides like a fan. If I can get my hands on them…
“Why so cruel, young Master Flint? Have a heart… Wait a minute, why don’t I have yours?”
Suddenly, the woman disguised as a lioness released her grip on Doogie. “I can’t be part of this any longer,” she said, her hands lifting off her heavy metal mask and throwing it to the ground. “I don’t care what you do to me, I’m out.”
It was Lady Tiffin’s unhelpful housekeeper, Mrs Whisker! Charley recognized her immediately. She never forgot a hairy lip.
“Mrs Whisker!” said Cowley, glaring at her. “Put your mask back on at once.”
The snivelling crocodile also removed his headpiece and let it clatter to the floor. “I’m finished too.”
“Harris,” said Billy, remembering how those cold eyes had looked down on him when they first met. “What would Lady Fitzpatrick say?”
“‘You’re fired,’” said Harris, hanging his head in shame.
Billy stared at Cowley’s final follower and his detective brain told him who was hiding behind the jackal mask. It could only be Lord Wintersfall’s servant. The butlers did it! “Come out, Mr Humble. I know you’re in there.”
“ENOUGH!” Cowley bellowed. “If you miserable dogs don’t have the courage to stand with me, then you are against me.” He turned to the mummy. “Kill them all!”
The mummy raised both arms and lurched forwards. Harris and Whisker almost fell over each other in a scramble to climb the three stone steps that led to the door. They were quickly followed by Humble, who ditched his jackal mask and hitched up the hem of his robe. “Wait for me!”
The Mummy's Revenge Page 12
