Tut--My Epic Battle to Save the World

by P. J. Hoover

  I closed the door, leaving the creepy mannequins behind. One glance back told me that no one was following me, but I hadn’t been gone very long. I could definitely still be in the bathroom. I checked the next door and then the next. A couple of the rooms were empty. One was an indoor swimming pool. I also found the kitchen, which looked like some kind of stainless-steel butcher shop with knives and raw meat everywhere. My stomach turned. Finally I reached the door at the end of the hallway. The last door. It had to be the way out. I tried to turn the knob, but it was locked. Even better. A little extra immortal strength, and the knob turned easily. But I must have miscalculated. The knob came off in my hand.

  “That’s okay,” I said to myself, and I set it down on the ground next to the wall. Then I pulled the door open and stepped inside. Immediately my foot went down a step. I grabbed hold of the door, causing it to hit against the wall, making a huge sound. But it didn’t matter. It’s not like I was a thief trying to steal something. I was just trying to get out of here. If this was a basement there could be a door leading to the outside. I went down, holding onto the walls on either side. It was dim but not pitch dark, so I didn’t need to add any extra light.

  I counted twenty steps before I got to the bottom, and the light got brighter with each step. Once I was at the bottom, I saw why. In the center of the room was some sort of telescope-looking thing, like those telescopes you see out in the middle of the desert in Arizona. It had a giant receptor that looked like an upside-down umbrella with a bunch of antennas in the middle. It fed into some sort of tank that then led to a giant pipe that went directly into the ground.

  It made sense that Mr. Drake would have something like this, given that he owned a solar research laboratory. Maybe he did know what he was talking about. Except the weird thing—the really weird thing—was that coming into the antenna array on the top of the receptor was a steady stream of light. It funneled in from the skylight way up high in the ceiling, maybe a hundred feet above. This must’ve been the really tall part of the house I’d seen from the outside. But when the light came in through the receptor, I could see it pouring into the glass storage tank, bubbling around like some sort of super-hot liquid metal. I dared to reach a hand out and touch the tank, expecting it to burn, but it was completely cool to the touch. And then, from the storage tank, the metallic liquid was being sucked out through the pipe in the ground.

  Little pieces began to come together in my mind. This satellite was collecting something that was coming in through the sky. Through a skylight. And the stuff … it was bright yellow. Yellow like the sun.

  Clarity hit me like a herd of elephants. This wasn’t just any research satellite. This thing before me, satellite or telescope or whatever it was, it was a collector. And what it was collecting was exactly what was disappearing from the world. It was collecting light from the sun.

  My heart pounded in my chest. I knew now it hadn’t been just jealousy on my part. Blair totally was an agent of the enemy. I wasn’t in any normal house. I was in the home of Apep, the crazy god bent on casting the world into eternal darkness. Mr. Drake was Apep, the Lord of Chaos.

  I pulled out my phone. I had to text Henry. To tell him to get out of there. He was not safe. No one was safe. Not Henry. Not Tia. Not Horus. Not Gil. Not the entire world. This was my chance. I had to get back outside and stop Apep. Here I’d been so worried about finding Gil that I had failed to see the enemy when he was right in front of my face. And if Apep could fool me, the world had no chance.

  “What do you think of it?” a voice said.

  I whipped around and came face-to-face with Blair. She beamed at me. I stepped back, around the weird sun-collecting machine so I wouldn’t trip on it. On the back was printed the brand of the telescope: Zeiss.

  Zeiss, like Thoth had told us.

  “Um, I got lost, I think,” I said. Did she know that I knew? I couldn’t tell by looking at her. Her face was filled with its normal bubbly happiness, but like always, she wasn’t blinking. And she kept sticking her tongue out of her mouth.

  No wonder she didn’t blink. If she was related to Apep, she was part snake! Not human at all. That explained everything. The weird room with all the wigs and clothes. She had to dress up as a teenager every day.

  “It’s really cool, right?” Blair said. “My dad’s been working on it for months.”

  “That’s great,” I said, and I took a few more steps back, searching for a door. Osiris was with me, because on this far side of the basement was another set of stairs. “I’m just going to step outside for a little bit,” I said, and I ran up the steps, hoping she didn’t have some kind of laser eyes that could incinerate me from behind.

  “Wait, Tut!” Blair called after me.

  But there was no way I was waiting. I ran to the top of the steps and busted through the door. The dull dredges of whatever day was left hit me. The sun was low in the sky, getting near sunset. What worried me was that if it did set, would it ever rise again? Based on the machine I’d just seen, I’d bet all the gold in Egypt against it.

  I had to do something. I had to get rid of Apep now. But my mind kept playing tricks on me. Without Apep, I might never find Gil. Gil would die, wherever he was, and no one would ever know.

  Far off to the left was the table where we’d just been having dinner. Henry and Mr. Drake were nowhere to be found. I whipped around, facing Blair, who was just now bouncing up the steps behind me.

  “Why are you running, Tut?” she said. “We wanted to talk to you.”

  “Where’s Gil?” I said. She had to know.

  “That’s what I wanted to talk to you about,” Blair said.

  “Okay, then talk.” I had no time to waste. The sun was getting lower with each second that passed.

  Even out here, against the walls of the house, were more mirrors. They were everywhere else also, decorating the dead shrubbery like garden gnomes.

  “I know exactly where Gil is,” Blair said. “We thought he was immortal. There is no other way he could have survived that battle so long ago. He told us he was immortal. But he lied to us. Can you believe that? He lied to my dad. Nobody lies to my dad. Nobody.”

  “Just tell me where he is,” I said. “We can talk about his lying after that.”

  Blair shook her head, making her curls bounce around like miniature Slinkys. “I can’t, Tut. Did I mention how upset my dad was?”

  I nodded, even while I kept looking for Henry and Apep.

  “But the good news is that my dad is willing to put the lie behind us. He’s going to forgive Gil.”

  “That’s great,” I said. “Then just let him go.”

  “Oh, no,” Blair said, stopping any hope I’d felt at her words. “We can’t let Gil go.”

  “Why not?” I asked, not sure I wanted to hear the answer.

  “Here’s the thing,” Blair said. “My dad got out of that horrible, awful prison he was in, and he started out wanting revenge on Gil. Gil was a huge part of why my dad got imprisoned in the first place. That’s why he took Gil. But then he found out that Gil wasn’t even whole. That part of Gil was missing. Gil doesn’t have his scarab heart. And my dad wants that scarab heart. It’s the only thing that will make Gil complete.”

  And once Gil was complete, Apep could kill him. Completely. That was so not going to happen.

  If Blair noticed my horror, she didn’t react. Instead, she went on. “At first I thought Henry had it. The immortal energy was rippling off him in waves. And then I thought you had it. And then I thought Henry had it again. And then I wasn’t sure. I got really confused, and you guys were always together. I could never get you apart. But yesterday, at the hospital, I finally got Henry alone, and I realized that Henry didn’t have it. He didn’t smell quite right.” She licked her lips.

  Oh. This was not good and it was getting worse by the second.

  “Do you have any idea where I can find Gil’s scarab heart?” Blair asked, clasping her hands in front of her like she was plead
ing, which she definitely wasn’t. She completely had the upper hand here. She knew where Gil was. And she knew I had the heart. At least Henry wasn’t in immediate danger.

  “Maybe if you take me to Gil it will help me remember where the scarab heart is,” I said.

  This was a brilliant plan, if I did say so myself. I could play along. And once I knew where Gil was … boom! I’d grab Gil, imprison Apep, and be done with this whole mess in time for dessert.

  “Hmmm…” Blair said. “That could work.”

  The plan was going to be perfect. Finally. Except then something bounded out of the trees and over the fence and landed on the ground in front of Blair. Humbaba growled at her and lowered himself to his front paws. Drool slipped from the sides of his mouth.

  “Back, Baba,” I said, but I don’t think he was much in the mood for listening, because his tail was straight up in the air and his claws dug into the ground and he let out a roar that shook every bone in my body. Humbaba thought I was in danger, and he was not going to stand for it.

  I was so close to finding Gil. I had to stop him. “Baba, no!” I said more forcefully, and I summoned a fireball, sure that would distract him. I did not need him doing this. Not now. I pulled my arm back and threw the fireball, far into the gray sky. It flew off like a shooting star.

  Humbaba didn’t even look at it. Instead he let out a roar that shook the ground around me. He roared again, louder this time. Blair screamed and covered her ears, like the sound was deathly painful to her. And then Humbaba pounced on Blair, a direct hit to her chest.

  They flew through the air, then both slammed into the mirror behind her.

  There was a giant explosion of light as Blair and Humbaba hit the glass. I covered my eyes because it was like looking into pure sunlight. And when I opened my eyes, even though the mirror was perfectly intact, Blair was gone. Wiped from existence.

  But so was Humbaba.

  25

  WHERE I FAIL IN THE MOST EPIC WAY POSSIBLE

  “No, Baba! Come back!” I screamed at the mirror, but it didn’t help. Humbaba and Blair were gone. I’d been so close. But now my hopes of finding Gil slipped away.

  The sky began to blacken. The funnel doubled in size. And a horrible hiss filled the air around me.

  “Tut!”

  I heard Henry’s scream from the left, and I took off. I couldn’t do anything for Humbaba now. He’d given his life defending me. He’d taken down Blair, daughter of Apep, a monster of epic proportions. It would be the stuff of legends. I would never forget it.

  “I’m coming!” I yelled, running past the table where we’d been sitting only minutes before. Around the corner I found Henry, facing off against Mr. Drake. Except Mr. Drake was definitely not himself. His face had flattened into the jaw of a snake. His neck had widened, his whole body thickened. And then his arms began to shrink. There was no doubt that the creature in front of me was Apep, Lord of Chaos.

  “You still think there’s a scientific explanation for all this?” I asked Henry.

  “What did you do to my daughter?” Apep hissed, elongating with each second that went by. His legs melded together and stretched across the ground, ending in a point that flickered around like a tail.

  “Where’s Gil?” I screamed back at him.

  “Gilgamesh,” Apep hissed. “He’s already dead. And when I kill you, it will end his immortality forever. Then I will have my revenge.”

  Already dead? It couldn’t be true. I would have felt it. I would have known. But Apep’s words taunted me. If Gil was dead, then that would be it. I would have failed.

  “He’s not dead!” I screamed. I had to hear the words. I had to know if Apep was lying.

  “You die next, Tutankhamun.” The snake slithered and hissed and moved around on the ground, circling us with his long body. “And then the world will be cast into eternal darkness. It is going to be an era that will never be forgotten. I’ll rule the world like I should have so many thousands of years ago, before Gilgamesh got in my way.”

  “You have to stop him,” Henry said to me. His entire body glowed with immortal energy. It poured off him. And I knew that once Apep killed me, he’d come after Henry. And then Tia. Everyone would die.

  No matter how much I wanted to find Gil, to make sure he was still alive, saving the world was more important. Stopping Apep. Even if it meant never seeing Gil again. Even if it meant dying myself.

  “This stops here. Now!” I screamed. I fumbled with the drawstring on my bag, trying to get it undone, but it was knotted, so I yanked it apart. And then I pulled the sun disk from inside. This had to work. The world didn’t have much longer.

  I held the disk up, catching the last of the sunlight, reflecting it off the dull metal, directing it right at Apep.

  It was perfect aim, right to his chest. Apep hissed so loudly and deeply that it felt like worms were digging into my skin. Henry and I covered our ears. This was going to work. But instead of the disk trapping him, as we watched, Apep sprung from the ground, straight into the air, and vanished from sight.

  “Great Osiris!” I grabbed the torn bag from the ground and shoved the sun disk back inside. “We have to go after him.”

  “Why didn’t it work?” Henry asked.

  I glared at the sun, pouring all my fury out through my eyes. “Because there’s not enough light to catch his reflection. We’ll have to find another way.”

  “What other way, Tut?” Henry said.

  “We need sunlight.” I grabbed Henry’s arm. “Come on. I need your help.”

  Henry and I flew down the steps to the basement. At the bottom, the satellite device still collected sunlight, though it was starting to make a sucking sound like a straw at the bottom of a glass. There was almost nothing left for it to collect.

  I didn’t have to explain anything to Henry. He took one look at the machine and immediately understood what was going on.

  “It’s collecting the sunlight,” Henry said. “I knew there was a scientific explanation.”

  “This is not science,” I said.

  “It’s pure science,” Henry said. “It’s a magnetic receptor that’s pulling on the elements.”

  “We need to figure out where it’s going.”

  Henry dropped to the ground and started looking at the connection between the storage tank and the pipe that was taking the sunlight away. I scanned the room, searching for some sort of clue, but there was nothing.

  “Zeiss,” Henry said.

  “It’s the telescope brand,” I said. “Thoth told us that.”

  But Henry shook his head. “It’s not enough. The word is still burrowing into my brain. It still means something.”

  Zeiss. He was right. The word was still there, nudging at my skull. With the other words, no sooner had I used them than they’d gone away.

  “What else does Zeiss make?” I said. I knew they were a German company that had been around for ages.

  Henry started ticking things off on his fingers. “Microscopes. Telescopes. Camera lenses. Planetarium projectors. Medical la—”

  I put my hand up. “Wait. Planetarium projectors?”

  The second the words were out of my mouth, we both knew. Everything fit together. The circular seats. The stars in the sky. The construction sounds.

  We ran as fast as we could because there was no other way to get there. The Air and Space Museum was closed, like everything else in D.C., but I yanked on the door, and Henry and I ran inside, up the escalator, and to the doors of the planetarium.

  My scarab heart clenched up, almost like it was being pulled from the other side. The sign still hung on the door: RENOVATION IN PROGRESS. BUILDING A BRIGHTER FUTURE. I’d been here only a week before, in this exact spot. I’d been so close. That’s why I’d felt weird back then. I’d thought I was nervous, but it was totally because Gil had been so close.

  I yanked the chains from the door, and Henry and I went inside. The door slammed closed behind us.

  It was crazy-dark in
side except for the smallest bit of light escaping from a covered tank in the center of the room. It had to be filled with the stolen sunlight. Rows of chairs circled around the covered tank, and mirrors were plastered on every wall, but they didn’t seem to show any reflection at all. Only blackness.

  “Gil!” I screamed. He had to be in here. This was exactly what I’d felt in the visions. I’d been here, as him. I felt him close. My heart pumped in my chest.

  “Tut!” Gil yelled back, from behind me.

  He wasn’t dead! I’d gotten here in time. Except when I spun around to see him, something moved in the darkness, slithering between the chairs. I couldn’t let Apep get to Gil before I did. Everything had come down to this moment.

  I ran to the center of the room and yanked the cover from the collection tank. Brilliant light exploded around the room, bouncing off every wall and mirror and surface in there. I kicked out with all my immortal strength, aiming my foot right for the glass storage tank. My aim was solid. The tank cracked from the force, and sunbeams blasted from the small fissures in the glass.

  “Get the roof, Henry,” I yelled, and then I jumped over the chairs to where Gil stood. Apep was almost there. I yanked the sun disk from the bag and held it in front of me. In front of Gil, protecting him for once. Sunlight from the tank hit the disk, and I aimed the reflection directly at the giant snake-god.

  It was a solid hit. It should have worked. But nothing happened except my scarab heart started pounding and bouncing around in my chest like it was going crazy. Sweat trickled down my forehead. This had to work. This was my only chance. Except it wasn’t working.

  Nephthys’s words filled my head: You want to do this. But you can’t. You don’t have the power to do this.