Tut--My Epic Battle to Save the World

by P. J. Hoover

  “We have our invitation,” I said, holding it out. I tried to put all my pharaoh confidence into my voice, but the scorpion thing had shaken me. They’d never heard of King Tut? I still couldn’t believe it. Colonel Cody would have wanted to execute them on the spot for their blasphemy.

  The soda guy took the invitation from me and shoved his black sunglasses onto the top of his bald head.

  “Great,” he said. He flipped it over and froze.

  “What?” I said. Aside from the date, the vinyl record was blank on the back.

  He looked up at me and Henry and narrowed his eyes. “Where’d you two get this?”

  I shrugged, going for the truth. “In my townhouse.” No need to mention whose trunk it had come out of. Gil wouldn’t be happy we’d gone through his stuff.

  “It’s not yours,” the soda guy said.

  “How do you know?” Henry asked.

  The soda guy pressed his thumb directly into the center of it. “It doesn’t have your name on it.”

  I’d thought it was blank, but a bunch of Sumerian letters began to appear. The soda guy was right. They didn’t spell my name or Henry’s name. They spelled Gil’s name.

  I grabbed the record from him and shoved it back in my pocket. “Do you know where Gil is?”

  He lowered his sunglasses and went back to pushing buttons on the soda machine. “You need to talk to Igigi.”

  “Who?” I said. There were probably four hundred people in The Babylon Club.

  “Igigi,” the soda guy said, pointing up at the balcony. “He’s up there.”

  It turned out Igigi was the DJ. Everyone knew Igigi. And seeing as how Igigi had eight eyes—two on each side of his head—he’d probably spotted us an hour ago. It’s not like Henry and I had been trying to keep a low profile.

  “Is your name Igigi?” I asked. After the scorpion bouncers and the soda guy, I didn’t want to take a chance offending him. He towered over me by a foot and looked like he could squash me with his fist.

  “Nope.” He looked down at Henry and me with the two eyes on the right side of his head. Even from the side, I could see his smile. He reached up to peel off his knit cap, exposing a head full of thick dark hair. His other hand kept spinning records—old-school vinyl records, just like the one on the invitation.

  “But the guy at the soda machine said you were,” Henry said, walking around behind him.

  Igigi kept his eyes on me, but I was willing to bet the pair on the back of his head watched Henry.

  Igigi flipped a button on the turntable and turned to me. “I know. It’s easier that way.”

  “So who are you?” I said, trying to stand a little bit taller so I didn’t have to crane my neck. Thankfully, Igigi sat down, so Henry and I joined him.

  “I’m Igigi,” he said.

  “But you just said you weren’t Igigi,” I said.

  “No,” the guy said. “What I said was that my name wasn’t Igigi. That doesn’t mean I’m not Igigi.”

  “So you are Igigi, but your name’s not Igigi?” I said.

  “Right,” Igigi said.

  “Okay, I’m confused,” Henry said. “What’s your name if it’s not Igigi?”

  “Don’t have one,” Igigi said, like he’d heard the question a million times before. “But you can call me Igigi.” He raised his giant arm, and a waitress ran over with a gallon-sized soda for him. She smiled at me and Henry, but didn’t offer to get us anything.

  “You have eight eyes,” Henry said.

  Igigi felt his head, like he wanted to make sure they were all still there. Once he was satisfied, he said, “So you noticed?”

  I looked down at the pumping dance floor. The lights flashed blue and red, and a disco ball spun above. “Doesn’t everyone?”

  “What, notice? Sure,” Igigi said. “But then again, they don’t really, because, you know, they’re only mortal, and the music kind of makes them forget.”

  I figured this implied that Igigi knew about the whole immortal thing.

  “Do you know who I am?” I asked. My confidence was shaken. I still couldn’t get over those scorpions.

  “Sure,” Igigi said. “You’re King Tut! Everyone knows you.”

  Relief flowed through me. I had not lost my mojo. The universe was making itself right.

  I pulled out the invitation and handed it over to Igigi. He flipped it over, and the smile fell from his face.

  “What?” Henry said.

  “Gil,” Igigi said, shaking his head. “Man, I miss that guy.”

  That made two of us. I missed Gil way more than I wanted to admit.

  “You know him?” I asked.

  “Sure,” Igigi said. “He used to come in here all the time. The girls loved dancing with Gil.”

  Gil was a girl magnet. When we’d gone places together, everyone gawked at him. But it wasn’t just looks. Gil drew people toward him. He’d always been that way. Kind of like what was happening to me more and more, and I still didn’t know if I liked it.

  “You said he used to come in here?” Henry said.

  Igigi handed the paper back to me. “Yep. I haven’t seen him in months. But…” And then Igigi stopped talking, and I noticed his eyes swiveling around in all sorts of directions—down at the dance floor, back to the soda machine, across the balcony.

  “But what?” I said.

  Igigi leaned close and so did Henry and I. “But I hear everything that goes on at the club, and I did hear a rumor.” He reached over and flipped another switch on the turntable. The techno song changed to disco and the lights flashed to green.

  “What kind of rumor?” Henry asked.

  “I’ll tell you,” Igigi said. His giant hands gripped the side of the table. “But it will cost you.”

  I was King Tut. I’d lived for three thousand years. I had more money than I knew what to do with. I could handle this. “Name your price.”

  Two of Igigi’s eyes got super-wide. “How did you know?”

  “Know what?” I said, worried that if they got any wider, they would fall out of his head. Of course then he’d be down to six eyes, which was still two hundred percent more than normal.

  “About the name?” Igigi said.

  “What about the name?” I said.

  “That’s what I want,” Igigi said. “If you give me a name, I’ll tell you what I heard.”

  That seemed like a simple enough request. “Okay, like Jim or Billy or something like that?”

  “How about Henry?” Henry said. “That’s a good name.”

  Igigi waved his hands to stop us. “No, you guys don’t get it. You see, the Igigi—like me—we’re the lesser gods of Mesopotamia. Well, lesser according to the creators. Personally, I think we’re way more awesome than those loser gods who created us. But they made us, and then they thought we’d be too powerful with names, because, you know, we were so awesome. So they didn’t give us names.”

  “And will a name give you more power?” Henry asked.

  “Maybe,” Igigi said. “But what’s wrong with power? Even you have power. At least that’s what the rumors say.”

  Wonderful. There were now rumors about Henry floating around amid the gods.

  “Why don’t you just name yourself?” Henry said.

  “I tried,” Igigi said. “But I can’t. Only a god can name an Igigi.”

  “I’m not a god,” I said, even though it felt like I was stating the obvious.

  “Duh,” Henry said.

  “I have faith in you, King Tut,” Igigi said. “You look like you’re going to accomplish big things in your life. You’ll find a name for me.”

  No pressure or anything, but I wasn’t going to disagree with Igigi. I wanted whatever information he had about Gil.

  He snapped his fingers. “Oh, but I should mention that if I do give you this information about Gil and you don’t find my name…” His voice trailed off.

  “Yeah?” I knew there was a catch.

  “Never mind,” he said. “I don�
��t want to worry you.”

  It was too late for that.

  “What’ll happen?” I asked.

  Igigi patted the air with his hands, like he was trying to minimize it. “Oh, it’s just this small technicality about debts being paid. Something about getting sent to the underworld without your hands or eyes. It’s really nothing to worry about.”

  That was easy for him to say.

  “Fine,” I said. “Just tell me what you know.” I had no clue where I’d get a name for Igigi, but I’d figure something out. I always did.

  “Right, so I heard this story about Gil,” Igigi said. “It seems there was this knife.”

  Not the knife. My side hurt just thinking about it.

  “The immortal-killing knife,” I said.

  Igigi nodded. “Right. The knife of the gods. Well, it turns out that some punk pharaoh-wannabe used it, which was a horrible idea.”

  Punk pharaoh-wannabe. Uncle Horemheb would have spit cockroaches if he’d heard something like that. Wait … unless Igigi was talking about me.

  “Why’s that?” Henry asked. I was surprised he’d spoken. Anything about the knife freaked him out now, seeing as how Horemheb had almost killed him with it.

  “Because this knife,” Igigi went on, “when it got used—well, it never should have been used—”

  “But it was,” I said, trying to get him to get on with the story.

  “Right. It was. And it cut the fabric of the universe. The stuff that holds everything together. Keeps everything in place. It was just a little cut, but it was enough.”

  “Enough for what?” I asked. A chill ran through my body at Igigi’s words. Whatever he was about to say was not going to be good.

  “Enough to weaken the world and let a god who’d been imprisoned for thousands of years escape,” Igigi said.

  “A god escaped?” Henry said. “From where?”

  I went over in my mind all the stories from mythology I could remember about gods getting imprisoned. Gods had fought all the time. Set and Horus were a perfect example. And they’d fought because Set had killed Osiris. Killing a god was a horrible, unheard-of thing, and it didn’t happen very often.

  For that matter, neither did imprisoning gods. Having all the gods around is kind of what kept the universe in balance. But there had been one time when things got so bad that all the gods banded together to defeat another god. I’d heard the stories since I was a baby. Even Set and Horus had fought on the same side for that battle. Yeah, it was that rare.

  “Apep,” I said. I hadn’t spoken his name in decades. It made Horus itchy. Once a god was locked away, it was where he should stay.

  Igigi nodded his giant head. “Apep. The Lord of Chaos. The creator of darkness.”

  “The Devourer of the Sun,” I said.

  “What do you mean, the Devourer of the Sun?” Henry said.

  Even though Henry was smart, he didn’t have the thousands of years of mythology under his belt like I did.

  “I’ll tell you what he means,” someone said, walking up to our table.

  It only took me a millisecond to recognize her voice. Tia plunked down in the chair opposite me and dropped her elbows on the table. Bracelets draped around her wrists and jingled with her every movement. A bright yellow streak ran through her cropped dark hair, perfectly matched to the tank top she wore.

  Henry cast a quick look at me and raised his eyebrows.

  I had no clue what she was doing here either.

  “Nice way to return my texts, Boy King,” she said.

  Me return her texts? “What are you talking about? I texted you.”

  She looked at me like I’d lost my mind. “I texted you tonight. I told you to meet me here.”

  “You did not,” I said, but even as the words left my mouth, I remembered my phone buzzing. It’s what had woken up the scorpion bouncers. I pulled my phone from my pocket, and sure enough, there were three text messages from Tia.

  meet me at the babylon club at 9, was the first text.

  you may want to come around back. bouncers are kinda mean, was the next one. Too bad I hadn’t seen it before we’d met up with the worst bouncers in history.

  you should check your phone more often, was the third.

  “Thanks for the warning,” I said. “There’s seriously a back entrance?”

  “Duh,” Tia said.

  “Okay, does someone want to tell me about this Apep guy?” Henry asked. “Not that this isn’t fun and all.”

  “Yeah, I’ll tell you,” Tia said. “Apep is this giant snake-god who devours the sun during solar eclipses. He’s over three hundred feet long and blacker than the deepest caves in the world.”

  “No one devours the sun during solar eclipses,” Henry said. “Solar eclipses happen during a new moon when the moon passes directly in front of the sun. It’s called astronomy.”

  “Believe whatever makes you happy,” Tia said. “But if you want to hear the bedtime stories about Apep, I’ll tell you. Back before he was imprisoned, he used to devour the sun every single evening. It was why the sun set. But he made a bunch of gods mad and got imprisoned by Ra. Safely tucked away until that stupid knife got used. And now he’s free. Lucky us. And here’s the really bad part. He’s super-mad about being imprisoned for so long. And he’s vowed to the other gods that he’s going to devour the sun and cast the world into eternal darkness.”

  Henry looked like his mind was about to explode. The melding between science and mythology was too much for him.

  “That’s not possible,” Henry said. “Giant snakes don’t eat the sun. That’s not how things work.”

  But I knew it was how things worked, at the core of everything. If Tia and Igigi were right, Apep being at large could mean the end of life as we knew it.

  “Also, I thought Set was the god of chaos,” Henry said. “Not this Apep guy.”

  That was a bit confusing.

  “Set is more the god of storms and violence and disorder,” I said. “Sometimes people lump it together into chaos. But Apep … he’s the Lord of Chaos. Like with a capital C.”

  “So he’s worse than Set?” Henry said.

  “Yeah, he’s worse than Set,” I said. Admitting that any god was worse than Set was hard for me, but I couldn’t lie about Apep. That was the reason he’d been imprisoned.

  “Great,” Henry said. “That’s just what I don’t want to hear.”

  “What does Apep have to do with Gil?” I asked Igigi.

  “I was just getting to that,” Igigi said. “So Apep, he’s now loose in the world. And here’s where the rumors come in. Apep started hearing stories. Stories about Set. And stories about Osiris. And about immortals. Scarab hearts.”

  My scarab heart started pounding in my chest.

  “And he decides that he wants one,” Igigi said.

  “What do you mean, he wants one? He wants someone with a scarab heart?” I said. Little flashes from my visions started coming back to me. “It’s not like you can just go out and find an immortal on any street corner.”

  Igigi raised one of his eight eyebrows at me. “No? Tell that to Apep. He hears through the rumor mill that there’s this guy Gil who’s an immortal. And he decides that he’s going to find Gil and make him start working for him. He thinks it will make him more powerful. Make him invincible.”

  “What?” I said. “You’re kidding. Apep has Gil?” But as the words left my mouth, I knew it made sense. The snakes near Gil in my visions. The note from Gil for me not to look for him, like he was still trying to protect me, even when he was the one in trouble. Even the weird dream I’d had where I was running away from something and my immortal powers wouldn’t work. These were all signs that everything Igigi was saying was true.

  “Gil’s not even immortal anymore,” Henry said. “So what good will that do Apep?”

  I didn’t know what good it would do Apep, but I did know what bad it would do Gil. When Apep found out that Gil wasn’t immortal anymore, he was going to b
e furious.

  Igigi raised his arms. “That’s all I know. Apep is loose and bent on destroying the world. And he’s kidnapped Gil to help make himself more powerful.”

  It was worse than anything I could have imagined. Apep would kill Gil. And then he’d destroy the world. We not only had to find Gil, we had to stop the most evil god in existence.

  11

  WHERE HORUS TRIES TO KILL ME

  “I could walk you home,” I said to Tia after we left The Babylon Club. Thankfully we’d taken the back door out and avoided the scorpion bouncers altogether.

  Tia laughed like I’d made some kind of joke.

  Not like I wanted to walk her back to the Cult of Set headquarters. She couldn’t still be living there. Or be a part of it anymore, even though she was related to the people who ran it. It was such a group of wackos. Like, who in their right mind would worship Set? But I didn’t want to ask where she lived because that would sound way too creepy.

  “I’m fine, Boy King,” Tia said. She gave me a cute little pat on the cheek. “Text me.”

  “Yeah, whatever,” I said, trying to keep the puppy dog look off my face. But this was Tia we were talking about. She was about as close to an Egyptian princess as I could imagine. And she smelled amazing, like fresh lotus blossoms blowing over the Nile River in the morning. I watched her walk away, until she turned the corner. Okay, I watched longer than that, but Henry finally elbowed me to get my attention.

  “I need to go, Tut,” he said.

  I blinked a few times to reorient myself. Tia made my heart do all sorts of weird flipping things like it hadn’t done in hundreds of years. Why did she have to be so mysterious, anyway?

  Fine, maybe I liked the mystery, just a little.

  “Need to go?” I said. “Did you not just have the same conversation I did?”

  He glanced at his watch. It was giant and digital and had more buttons on it than the bridge of the starship Enterprise. “I told my parents I’d be home an hour ago.”