Valley of Kings

by Michael Northrop

  He was impatient and ready to go, as usual — but Ren felt an instinctive need to check him. His obsessive determination to find his mom had nearly gotten them killed in London. “Yeah, but, Alex, we can’t trust Hesaan!”

  Alex gaped at her, a stung expression on his face. “Yeah … but even if he is working for The Order, he thought we were about to get captured when he told us that. Captured or worse.” He flapped his injured elbow. “Why would he lie?”

  “Why would he tell the truth?” she countered.

  “Children!” said Todtman, a word that made Ren grind her teeth. “We do not know if Hesaan betrayed us, but he was telling the truth about Dr. Bauer’s passport. The call I made was to the Transportation Authority …”

  “You have a contact there, too?” said Ren.

  “Not exactly,” said Todtman. “In Egypt, right now, you see —”

  “He means he bribed someone,” said Jinn, sparing them all a speech on the causes and consequences of corruption.

  “So my mom really did come back here,” said Alex, wearing an expression like someone had slapped him. “After she disappeared from New York …”

  His voice trailed off, and for a moment all the unspoken truths hung in the air. The fact that Alex’s mom and the Lost Spells had disappeared from the Met at the same time had made sense when they thought The Order had taken them both. But now that they knew The Order didn’t have either, and that his mom was on her own, it meant she had to have them. It meant she was on the run — without her son.

  Ren watched him wrestle with this reality and felt bad. She sympathized with his blind belief in his mom — but did she share it? She liked Dr. Bauer, and knew she’d sacrificed everything to save Alex. But she’d also made a mess of things in the process.

  “But ten days is a lot of time,” said Todtman. “I just wish there was some way to be sure this is still the right path.” He turned toward Ren.

  “What?” she said cautiously.

  “Perhaps you could use the ibis …”

  Now all eyes shifted to her. She squirmed in her seat. Nuh-uh, she thought. The idea of fielding another baffling barrage of images in front of everyone and then admitting that she didn’t know what it meant caused her pulse to rise, her stomach to sink, and pinpricks of sweat to break out on her forehead. And it didn’t help that Todtman and Alex were so good with their amulets. No thank you very much. She needed to find some way to say no without seeming worthless, and then she realized … “I already used it.”

  “When?” said Todtman, surprised.

  “Last night,” she said. “I picked it up and …”

  “Yeah?” said Alex eagerly. Even Jinn and Luke were leaning forward now.

  She considered her next words carefully: “And I saw something.”

  That’s true, she thought. She’d definitely seen something …

  “What was it?” said Todtman, his eyes drilling into hers.

  She looked around one more time. She wanted them to stop staring at her. She wanted her amulet to help out, like the others did. And more than anything, she didn’t want to look dumb.

  “I saw the Valley of the Kings,” she heard herself say.

  For a second she panicked. Had she really? She pictured it again. The swirling sand devil on hard ground, the rocky slope, the blazing sun … Definitely the desert, she told herself. And it did seem more like a valley than open desert, where there would be deep, shifting sand dunes …

  Alex pumped his fist, their earlier argument instantly forgotten. “You are getting better with that thing, Ren-bo!” he said.

  “You are an ibis baller,” said Luke.

  Even Todtman said, “Impressive.”

  Ren felt herself blushing. Was she sure?

  They were all so impressed, all so happy with her … She was sure enough.

  “Thanks,” she said. “I’ve been practicing.”

  “It is time for you to leave Cairo,” Todtman said.

  Ren parsed the pronouns. “You’re not coming with us?”

  Todtman shook his head. “I will stay here for now. This leg is no match for deserts and valleys, and there is still much to be done in this city. I need to find out what The Order is planning, and what sort of evil is plaguing this city.”

  “And, uh, what exactly are we looking for?” said Luke, never afraid to ask a question twice.

  “For my mom,” said Alex.

  Todtman nodded. “And the Lost Spells.”

  So they had their mission, and Ren had no doubt it would be a dangerous one. They were splitting up and heading to the blazing desert without their leader — and to the city of ancient tombs beneath.

  “I cannot overstate the importance of this,” said Todtman. “The Spells may be powerful enough to end this all, to set things right. But if The Order finds them first, they will be unstoppable.” He paused. His English was excellent, but it was not his first language. He searched for the phrase that would make his meaning clear. And then he found it. “From now on,” he said, “it is winner take all.”

  Luke took a long sip of bottled water, wiped his mouth, and said, “Did we just get our butts kicked back there or what?”

  The three of them were sitting around a small fold-down table in the dining car of the overnight train to Luxor. Empty soda cans, snack wrappers, and crumpled napkins jittered lightly on the tabletop. Alex and Ren were on one side of the table and Luke was on the other. Their backpacks were piled in the empty spot. The last thing they wanted was company.

  “Kind of,” admitted Alex. He felt embarrassed about it, like it was his fault they’d been chased across half of Cairo. “And not just our butts.” He looked down at his elbow, cradled against his side.

  “Oh yeah,” said Ren. “How is that?”

  He shrugged. He could move it without too much pain now.

  “Well at least you can fight back,” said Ren. “Thanks for shoving me out of the way, but I wasn’t much use.”

  Alex glanced at the ibis, bouncing slightly over her T-shirt from the motion of the train. “You can’t, like, move anything with that?”

  “No,” said Ren. “Well … I think maybe I moved a paperclip once. But that might have been the wind.”

  “What’s it like?” said Luke, a mix of interest and jealousy in his voice, as if he were asking about playing some hot new video game.

  “Awesome,” said Alex at the same moment Ren said, “Awful.”

  The boys looked at Ren: Bad news is always more interesting. She turned to look out the window, avoiding their eyes. “I guess it’s not so bad,” she said. “But sometimes it’s like … having a computer virus in my head. Like it’s just in there showing me stuff and, I don’t know, I guess I just don’t like it having access to my hardware, you know?”

  Alex didn’t. He’d spent twelve years sick and weak, barely able to throw a ball. Now he could lift a refrigerator with his amulet, and he wouldn’t give it up for anything. But he knew Ren. He’d seen her notebooks full of lists and knew how much she needed everything to make sense. “Well, at least it let us know about the Valley of the Kings.”

  “We already knew about that,” said Ren.

  “Yeah, but you, like, confirmed it,” said Alex.

  “I guess,” said Ren, turning back to the window.

  Alex didn’t know why she was avoiding his eyes, but he let her. He felt pretty good about where they were, and grateful to his friend for helping to get them there. He looked out the window, too, as the train rumbled southward toward the best lead they’d had since his mom had disappeared. A clear mission plus forward motion made him feel like a bloodhound, hot on the trail. He knew his mom better than anyone. Maybe he could spot signs of her — maybe she was even leaving them for him. He indulged in these idle fantasies until Luke interrupted.

  “What are we gonna do once we get out there, anyway?”

  Alex answered immediately. “We can use the amulets. Mine can detect the undead, and I think it can detect the magic that make
s them. I can always kind of tell when there’s a Book of the Dead around, so the Lost Spells should really light it up.”

  As he said it, it occurred to him that maybe that was how his mom had found the Spells in the first place, back when she had the amulet. He paused before turning back to Ren and adding: “And you can get more info from the ibis, too.”

  Ren didn’t answer, just shrugged and turned back to the window. For a while, they all watched the Nile River roll by. Alex pictured the big map of Egypt in his mom’s office at the Met, the Nile running the length of it like a crooked spine. They were heading more or less due south along the river, toward the Valley of the Kings. He’d seen pictures of it. The valley itself wasn’t much more than a sunbaked, sand-swept bowl. But carved into the hard, dry ground underneath it was a city of the dead unmatched on earth. That’s where his mom had been … Was she still there?

  “I’ll tell you one thing,” said Luke after a while.

  “Yeah?” said Alex.

  “I’m glad to be out of that city. People were crazy.”

  “Yeah, things are supposed to be a little quieter outside Cairo,” said Alex. “According to the news and stuff.”

  “Not where we’re going,” added Ren. “I read there’s a lot of looting.”

  Alex nodded. He’d read about people robbing the ancient tombs and temples, too, taking advantage of the chaos in the country. He took a sip of his soda and Luke took a big gulp from a jumbo-sized bottled water. Ren popped a potato chip into her mouth.

  For a while, anyway, they were just three young Americans on an overnight train trip. With the betrayals of Cairo behind them and their deepest doubts pushed to the corners of their mind for the moment, they could almost think of it as an adventure. They all saw the businessman across the aisle, of course — his large frame and expensive suit made him hard to miss.

  They just didn’t realize he was watching them, too.

  An hour later, it was time for bed. None of the friends had slept well in Cairo, and the rumbling train didn’t seem too promising in that regard, either.

  The door to the sleeper car felt thin and flimsy as Alex slid it closed. He clicked the little plastic handle of the lock. It seemed more like a toy lock than a real one. “Think I should try to tie this shut — or put something in front of it, maybe?” he said to Luke. It was just the two of them. Ren was bunked with an elegantly dressed Egyptian woman in a separate sleeper car.

  Luke looked over at the flimsy door and shrugged. “Think we’re cool,” he said.

  Alex let it go. He didn’t want to seem paranoid.

  Luke went back to searching through his pack for his brand-new toothbrush. Todtman had given them a thick roll of Egyptian bills, and they’d peeled off a few layers to replace their lost luggage at a department store near the train station.

  “Think I saw a smile from you back in the dining car,” said Luke. “Just for a second.”

  Alex managed another sheepish smile. “Yeah, maybe. Sorry if I’ve been really gloomy and stuff.”

  “No problem, cuz. I know you got a lot on your weird little mind.”

  It seemed like an invitation to talk, and Alex took it. He really had been keeping a lot to himself. “It’s just, I don’t know, I feel like we might finally be on the right track.”

  “That’s cool,” said Luke. “Know something I don’t?”

  “Well, I know my mom has been to the Valley of the Kings before, like a bunch of times,” he said. “Not sure if I mentioned that.”

  “Oh yeah?” said Luke, finally locating the toothbrush and straightening up. “When was that?”

  “Just, you know, before all this …”

  Luke began brushing his teeth. With the door closed, it felt like a sleepover. His cousin had been way too cool for him back in New York, too obsessed with sports to pay attention to his sick, nerdy cousin. But out here, it felt like they were on the same team.

  Luke spat foam into the sink, splashed water on his face, and called top bunk. Alex looked at the cramped bottom bunk and groaned. Then he took his turn at the room’s tiny sink. It looked like the sink in an airplane lavatory, only smaller, dingier, and with a sign that read: DO NOT DRINK THE WATER; A CUP OF POTABLE WATER HAS BEEN PROVIDED.

  Alex looked around and saw two clear plastic cups: one empty and the other full and covered with shiny silver foil. Alex picked up the full one and saw a small swirl of sediment kick up from the bottom.

  “Dude, did you already drink your water?” he said to the top bunk.

  “Proper hydration is important,” came the reply.

  “This water doesn’t even look all that clean.”

  “You should see the stuff that comes out of the faucet.”

  Alex peeled back the foil and sniffed. Smelled okay.

  He brushed his teeth with the water from the cup, clicked off the light, and dropped into the bottom bunk.

  “You awake?” Alex said to the bed above him. He thought maybe they could talk some more, but there was no response. Now that Alex had gotten used to the rhythmic rumble of the train, he could make out the sound of deep, steady breathing above him. Luke was already out. Just as well. They planned to get up at sunrise and exit the train before it arrived at Luxor station. If Hesaan had told The Order they were coming, they’d be waiting there.

  Alex shifted around and tried to get comfortable on the thin mattress. The train took a corner, decreasing its speed but increasing its bumpiness. Little flashes from passing lights slipped in through the ill-fitting blinds.

  Lying awake, he wondered how Ren was doing down the hall. Was she safe there on her own?

  Then, inevitably, his thoughts shifted to his mom. Before, he’d been excited — eager as a bloodhound. But with the darkness came the doubts. A bloodhound shouldn’t have to chase his master — much less his mother. Why wasn’t she searching for him? He couldn’t come up with a theory that made sense. If she was trying to keep him safe, well, that definitely wasn’t working out. Still, he was mesmerized by the possibility that this train might be headed toward her right now. But were they? Did she even have the Spells?

  He felt his thoughts getting murkier and tried to concentrate harder, to bring them back into focus. Yes, his mom and the Lost Spells had disappeared on the same day, but she was the one who brought them to New York in the first place. Why go to all that trouble and then steal them? He knew her better than the others — how devoted she was, and how kind. It didn’t make sense to him. If she had the one thing everyone was looking for — the thing that had started this all and might be able to end it — why would they be hiding her from … No, wait … Alex was stumbling over his thoughts. His mind felt gummed up and fuzzy. Why would she be hiding them from … who?

  Something was wrong.

  “Luke?” Alex croaked, but he could barely form the word.

  Wait, he thought. Was Luke even in here? He was having a hard time remembering anything before …

  Chalky sediment kicking up inside a clear plastic cup … Luke’s cup empty … Luke out cold.

  The water. They’d been drugged!

  Alex tried to get up but his body felt so heavy that the best he could do was roll out of his bunk. He thunked heavily down onto the floor, his numb body barely registering the impact. His breathing suddenly felt as thick and labored as his thoughts. He managed to raise his right hand up and flop it limply against the wall until he hit the light switch.

  The room brightened, but his vision blurred.

  “Luuuuke!” he wailed, but it came out as little more than a breathy whisper.

  He paused to gather more breath, to try again. And that’s when he heard the door’s little lock click back. Alex tried to turn his head, but it was taking too long. He flopped over onto his back and looked up as the door slid open.

  It was the beefy businessman from the dining car. The man stood there for a moment, his large frame outlined against the black windows behind him, the Egyptian night rushing by. Alex now understood just w
hat sort of business he did, and for whom. The man took a long, quiet step forward and closed the door behind him.

  He looked down at Alex, smiled, and shook his head. Then he dropped a small metal key into the right pocket of his suit jacket and took a loop of white plastic out of the left … a zip tie. Alex had seen them before, had felt them cutting into the skin of his wrists and hands. Once they were on, they had to be cut off.

  Alex flopped his hand around his chest and found his amulet. But it was under his T-shirt, and getting it out from under there seemed impossible. He pushed his hand up to his neck but his fingers were too numb to grab the thin silver chain.

  “Luke,” Alex said through lips he couldn’t quite feel. The soft mumble was mostly drowned out by the rumbling train. But the next sound was much louder …

  KKLONNK! he heard as a hand shot out from the top bunk and clocked the intruder in the head with a shiny new ten-pound dumbbell.

  THWUMMP, he heard as the man collapsed heavily to the floor. His forehead smacked Alex’s shin, but Alex barely felt it.

  Luke’s head appeared over the edge of the bunk.

  “I couldn’t let him take you,” he said. “You’d never come back.”

  Alex stared at him incredulously. “But … you were drugged,” he managed. “The water …” His words were soft and slurred, but Luke seemed to hear them all right.

  Luke raised his eyebrows. “Like I said: proper hydration is important. All my coaches say that. And that water did not look proper. I poured it out. I’ve got a big bottle of water anyway.”

  “Oh yeah,” said Alex.

  Luke ignored the skinny ladder leading up to his bunk and vaulted down to the floor. He was wearing a T-shirt, shorts, and tube socks, and looked exactly two sneakers short of game-ready. He left the dumbbell behind and brought out the oversized water bottle.

  “I think you should take a drink,” he said, glancing back to make sure the intruder was still out cold.

  Alex fumbled with the bottle and missed his mouth slightly at first, but eventually he got everything lined up and guzzled down at least a pint of lukewarm, possibly Lukewarm, water. His head began to clear a little.