by P. J. Hoover
“Obelisk,” I said, without even thinking. But I guess the whole thing with recharging my heart at an obelisk not making me feel any different was weighing on me more than I knew. I had no idea if Gil’s heart would recharge the same as mine. Or if it even needed recharging now that it had been transferred to me. My level of immortal energy was stable, even after fighting Humbaba. And Henry … he didn’t even have a scarab heart to recharge. I’d given him all the energy from mine, but that was it. I had no idea if or when it would run out.
The guy shrugged. “Makes sense. Just don’t worry about it. Things will work themselves out.”
He couldn’t be talking about anything to do with my thoughts. Could he?
His eyes moved to Henry next, and they narrowed even more. “Give me a word.”
Henry didn’t hesitate. “Immortal.”
The graffiti artist cocked his head. “And are you?”
“I don’t know,” Henry said.
I elbowed him. We had no clue who this guy was or why he’d be asking us for words.
He jumped forward and got right in Henry’s face. “I don’t know either. I mean, you seem like you might be, from the energy coming off you, but then again, you seem like you aren’t. Do you want to find out?”
Henry took a step back and crossed his arms over his chest. “No. Not particularly.” For Henry to find out if he was immortal, he’d essentially have to die. Or at least almost die. His not dying is what would prove his immortality. But that would kind of suck if he were only mortal. I’d gotten really used to having Henry around.
“What do you think, Tut?” the graffiti artist said, looking down at his paint-covered hands.
“How in the realm of Anubis do you know my name?” I asked, before I could think about what I was saying.
The guy smiled. “Interesting choice of words.”
“Um, what?” I said, trying to play stupid.
“The realm of Anubis,” he said.
“Yeah, way to be discreet, Tut,” Henry said.
Nice to know that he had my back.
“Oh, that,” I said. “That’s just my polite way of referring to the underworld.”
“Anubis wouldn’t think it was very polite,” the guy said. “But you’d know that if you’d ever been to visit. Not that I’m suggesting you go visit. Anubis has been a little cranky these days. He claims someone escaped from the underworld, but it’s probably just an eternal shortage of chew toys, if you ask me.”
Even though Anubis was a jackal, which was sort of related to a dog, I didn’t imagine an Egyptian god ran around playing with chew toys all day. Then again, Horus sure liked catnip a lot.
Whatever the case, this was not just some normal D.C. graffiti artist.
“And you are…?” I asked.
But Henry raised his hand and waved it around, like he was in the middle of class or something. I’d seen him do it enough times this past year in school. “Oh, I know!”
How Henry had any clue about this guy’s identity was beyond me.
The artist smiled at Henry. “Of course you do,” he said, like that made perfectly logical sense.
I turned to Henry. “How do you know who he is?”
Henry smacked me on the arm. “Don’t you get it? The words. The…” His voice trailed off.
“What about the words?” I said.
“I don’t know. Just the words. That’s enough.”
“See? Henry’s smart,” the graffiti guy, who I pretty much decided had to be a god but I wasn’t sure which one, said.
“Smart” was one word to describe Henry. And I will say that Henry loved research. I’d never spent so much time in the library before I’d met him.
Henry beamed under the praise.
“So who is he?” I asked.
Henry reached forward and grabbed one of the spray cans from the guy’s belt. He squatted down. And, like he’d been drawing them forever, he painted three Egyptian hieroglyphs on the ground.
“Thoth,” I said.
The guy looked like some grungy teenager, nobody I would bow to. Not that I bowed to the gods. They had so many issues and problems, it’s not like they were role models.
“Nice, Boy King,” Thoth said. “Way to figure it out once your friend spelled it out for you.”
Yeah, that was pretty embarrassing. I still wasn’t sure how Henry had figured it out before me. Or how Henry had pulled hieroglyphs out of nowhere. Unless he’d learned those in his sleep, too.
“Aren’t you supposed to have the head of an ibis?” I said. The ibis was this sacred bird with a long pointy beak from back in Egypt. Thoth, at least according to everything I’d ever heard, was the ibis-headed god.
Thoth ran a hand across his short dark hair. It was way shorter than mine or Henry’s. But unlike Henry or me, Thoth had the start of a mustache over his top lip.
“I’m a god,” Thoth said. “I can look like whatever I want. I can do whatever I want.”
“So you vandalize D.C. for fun?” I said.
Thoth cracked his paint-covered knuckles, then took his paint can back from Henry and clipped it into his belt.
“It’s art,” Thoth said.
“It’s illegal,” I said.
“I’ve seen your art before,” Henry said. “Didn’t you have something last week over near the convention center?”
Thoth smiled. “As a matter of fact, I did. Do you remember what it said?”
Henry made a move to push his glasses up on his nose, but then he stopped when he remembered he didn’t wear glasses anymore. The energy from my scarab heart had not only saved his life, it had improved some of his deficiencies also. His eyesight was now perfect.
“Sure,” Henry said. “It said ‘darkness.’”
“Right,” Thoth said. “How about over near Ford’s Theatre? Did you see that one?”
“What are you doing here?” I asked, interrupting. From the way things were going, it seemed like Henry and Thoth could have carried on this conversation all day.
“I have a message for you,” Thoth said, and he started patting the pockets on his baggy jeans. If he really did have a message for me, it was probably covered in paint by now.
The first thing that sprang to my mind was Tia. Maybe after our wonderful text conversation, she’d decided to send a message via carrier-god.
“It’s not from your girlfriend,” Thoth said, like he could read my mind.
“She’s not my girlfriend.” My face got super-hot, and I knew that even with my tan complexion, it was probably bright red. I figured dropping the subject of Tia was my best tactic. “So who’s it from?”
Great Osiris, please don’t let it be a message from Set or anything like that. I’d had enough of the god Set and his crazy cult to last me the rest of eternity. Deadly snakes. Near-mummification. The last thing I wanted was anything to do with Set.
“Not Set either,” Thoth said.
“Thank Amun,” I said. “Then who’s it from?” But the second I said it, I knew, deep in my scarab heart.
Thoth’s eyes softened. “Right. It’s from Gil.” And then he pulled a piece of crumpled brown paper that looked like it had been torn from an old lunch bag from his pocket and handed it to me.
6
WHERE GIL SENDS A MESSAGE
I looked down at the paper for one second. I swear it wasn’t any more time than that. And when I looked up, Thoth was gone, along with his skateboard and all the paint cans.
“Where did he go?” Henry said.
I scanned the area, but aside from the graffiti-sprayed wall and the hieroglyphs on the ground, there was no sign of Thoth. I thought my immortal powers made me pretty quick, but they were nothing compared to Thoth’s.
“Welcome to dealing with the gods,” I said. “They never explain themselves to anyone. And what was up with all that attention he was giving you?” I’d have sworn that Thoth was way over-interested in Henry, and I had no clue why.
“I dunno,” Henry said, but the way
he said it, it seemed like he knew more than he was letting on.
I didn’t push it. I had bigger concerns than the gods being nosy. For the first time in six months, I had a real sign that Gil was alive. That Gil was okay.
I unfolded the wrinkled brown paper and pressed the creases out between my fingers. And sure enough, there was Gil’s handwriting: perfect script that was intentionally made to look sloppy. No matter how hard Gil tried to shake his royal background, he never could.
“What’s it say?” Henry asked.
I had to squint because even in the bright sunlight, the letters were pretty faint, and where the folds had been, they were hard to read. It was almost like he’d written the note and then balled it up, like a piece of trash.
Tut—
I feel you looking for me. I know you’re trying to find me. Seriously, just stop. Okay, I know you’re going to ignore what I just said, so I’ll say it again. Don’t come find me. I don’t need to be found. Really. Just go on with your life. Forget about me. And because I know what you’re thinking, listen to me this one more time. Don’t come find me. I mean it. You’ll be fine.
—Gil
“He can’t be serious,” I said, once Henry had read the note also.
“Pretty sure he is,” Henry said. “He said it, like, four times.”
“But still, he can’t possibly think I’m not going to look for him. And what about this part? ‘I feel you looking for me’?”
“Yeah, that is a little weird,” Henry said.
“Not too weird, though,” I said. “What if the visions are real? What if he’s feeling them, too?”
“You’re just worried about him,” Henry said. “Your mind is messing with you.”
“Well, yeah, sure. I am worried. But this note? It’s a complete cry for help. Like Gil is saying not to come find him, but what he’s really saying, if you read between the lines, is to find him.”
“I don’t think so,” Henry said. “He says it right here: ‘Don’t come find me.’”
Henry didn’t get it. He hadn’t had the vision of Gil in trouble.
I crumpled the paper into a ball. “And what? You think I should just listen to him? Be fine with that?”
I was all set to continue on my tirade when Henry stopped me.
“I never said that,” Henry said. “In fact, I think you’d be a complete idiot if you didn’t keep looking for Gil.”
“You do?”
“Sure,” Henry said. “It’s what we’re supposed to do.”
What we were supposed to do. I liked that. It had been so long since I’d had a real friend, I’d forgotten how great it could really be. I wasn’t in this alone.
* * *
When we opened the door back at my townhouse, I nearly tripped over a pile of junk in front of me. The whole place was jam-packed with so much stuff, my eyes could hardly focus. There were Sumerian tablets and leather-bound books and mugs and cups of every size. Gil had given me the hardest time about keeping so much stuff in the townhouse, things I didn’t want to get rid of for sentimental reasons, and he was a way worse pack rat than I was. No way had all this been in his bedroom. This much stuff would’ve filled five bedrooms. It must’ve been down in the basement. And yet looking at it now, knowing it was his—well, it made me miss him that much more. I couldn’t believe he’d just taken off like that. Without even saying goodbye. I should sell everything here in a dollar garage sale, just to get back at him.
I felt a tug on my jeans.
“What’s up?” I asked Colonel Cody.
“Would Great Master and his friend care for anything to drink?” Colonel Cody said. Next to the shabti leader stood Lieutenants Leon and Virgil, balancing a tray on their heads. On it were two sodas.
“Sure,” I said, reaching down.
But the shabtis shifted the tray around before I could grab the soda. “Not that one,” Colonel Cody said. “That is Master Henry’s drink.” He pointed at the other glass on the tray. “And this is the Great Pharaoh’s.”
“Master Henry,” Henry said. “I like the sound of that.”
“Don’t get used to it.” I narrowed my eyes, picked up the soda, and smelled it. “What did you put in here?”
“Herbal supplements,” Colonel Cody said, but I could hear it in his voice. He was definitely hiding something.
“What kind of herbal supplements?” I asked.
The lieutenants bowed and backed away with the tray.
“Those guaranteed to exorcise heathen spirits from any unfortunate situation,” Colonel Cody said.
“I don’t have heathen spirits,” I said, even though I knew he’d never believe me. “And this is not an exorcism.”
Henry licked his lips. “Does this mean I can’t have my soda?”
“Go ahead. The shabtis aren’t worried about cleansing you.” I set my soda down. Colonel Cody frowned, but I didn’t want any part of this cleansing.
Where the coffee table normally was, the chest still sat, unopened in front of the futon. Henry slurped his entire soda through the straw, eyeing the chest the entire time. And when he finished, he skipped around all the stuff scattered about my townhouse, knocking a bunch of stuff from the piles, and walked over to it.
“I know the word,” he said. And he uttered something in ancient Sumerian that he couldn’t possibly have learned in a book since he got the pronunciation perfect and everything.
No sooner was the word out of his mouth than the lid of the trunk popped open.
7
WHERE WE HACK INTO GOOGLE MAPS
“How’d you do that?” I asked Henry. It’s not like my scarab heart energy gave him some sort of magical power over words. Or at least it shouldn’t have. But Henry now not only spoke Japanese, he also spoke ancient Sumerian. For all I knew Mandarin Chinese would be next.
Henry stared at the now-open trunk, like he’d just performed some hocus-pocus magic trick. “I just knew it.”
“It was a heathen word,” Colonel Cody said, and he started waving his hands in front of him as if he were warding off any evil that might have been released.
“Gil’s not a heathen,” I said, but Colonel Cody was right in that it was a Sumerian word. Osiris knows I’d heard Gil utter enough ancient words under his breath in the last thousand years, including some I definitely shouldn’t repeat. “Do you know what it means?” I asked Henry.
Henry ran a hand through his messy blond hair and narrowed his eyes to slits, like he was thinking super-hard. “Away with thee?” he said, as if he wasn’t really sure.
I nodded. “Or in twenty-first-century English it means ‘Keep out.’ It must’ve been Gil’s password. But that doesn’t explain how you knew what it was.”
Henry ran his hands over the top of the lid. “It was the word Thoth painted on the side of the wall.”
Henry was right. It’s exactly what Thoth had graffitied near the Bayou club.
“Last time I checked, you didn’t know ancient Sumerian,” I said.
“Perhaps your friend is infected with the same heathen virus that you are, Great Master,” Colonel Cody said.
“I’m not infected with a heathen virus,” I said. “I have Gil’s heart. That’s all. It’s not a virus.”
“Of course, Great Master,” Colonel Cody said, but he edged my untouched soda closer to me.
“And the Japanese thing, too,” I said. “And that spell you started muttering at camp. Something weird is going on with you, Henry.”
Henry tried to recover from the weirdness. “I’m sure there’s a perfectly scientific explanation for it all.”
I was sure he was wrong.
“What is all this junk, anyway?” Henry asked, leaning over to peer into the trunk.
The chest was packed full of trinkets and bobbles and papers. It even looked like there were some granola bars tucked around the edges.
“Gil was a worse hoarder than you,” Henry said, bumping his hand against a bunch of golden charms that were sitting on the top. T
hey spilled from the trunk and onto the floor. A shabti dove for one before it ended up under the futon.
I rolled my eyes. “I am not a hoarder just because I collect a few things here and there.” I reached in and pulled out a big bundle and untied the string holding it together. “It looks like a bunch of letters.”
Okay, part of me felt a little intrusive—like I was violating a secret slice of Gil’s life. But that didn’t keep me from reading at least a couple of the letters. My face grew hot as I read.
“They’re from Gil’s girlfriend,” Henry said, reaching for the third letter. “Did you even know Gil had a girlfriend?”
I pulled it out of his reach and put it back with the others. “Are you kidding? Gil’s had, like, a million girlfriends.”
But none that I knew he wrote love letters to. A weird wave of … jealousy … ran through me. The fact that Gil had a complete life that had nothing to do with me. Maybe he was off living that life and was happy to be rid of me. Maybe I should just let him be. My visions could be a bunch of nonsense. Except they didn’t feel like nonsense. They felt real. Gil was in some sort of trouble. He needed my help.
“Who?” Henry said.
I tucked the letters away, out of reach. “I don’t know. He never introduced me to any of them.” Introducing your girlfriends to your kind-of younger brother must not’ve been on the top of his priority list.
“What’s this?” Henry said, picking up a pointy bronze object with two intersecting angles. He pulled at it, and it snapped in half. I cringed. If Gil had seen that, he would have wanted to pull Henry’s hair out.
“Let’s just put that down,” I said, taking the broken pieces and setting them on the coffee table. The shabtis could fix anything, even ancient Sumerian artifacts. Whatever it was didn’t give me any hint as to where Gil might be. I reached into the trunk and grabbed a round piece of paper that looked like a miniature vinyl record. At the top of the record, printed in silver foil, were the words THE BABYLON CLUB, along with some kind of weird picture of eight eyeballs centered around the middle like spokes of a wheel.
“What’s The Babylon Club?” Henry asked.
