Amulet Keepers

by Michael Northrop

  “This way,” he said.

  As they got closer, he could see that light was spilling into the tunnel from openings on either side. Side tunnels, he realized. As they got closer to them, the thing he was sensing got closer, too. What is it? Is it the Walker? He didn’t think so, but he couldn’t say exactly why.

  “We need to go faster,” he whispered. Whatever it was, they needed to beat it to the intersection. He didn’t mention that part, afraid they’d stop instead.

  They began hustling down the hallway, their footsteps and breathing getting louder as their pace increased. He looked back: Ren was right behind him. Secure in his speed, Luke loped a little farther back.

  “Keep going,” breathed Alex, waving for Luke to pick up the pace. Luke waved back: Hello!

  Alex and Ren zoomed past the side tunnels and stopped. Alex tried to calm down and center himself for another look at that internal radar screen.

  But before he could, he saw his cousin just now reaching the intersection. Luke looked to the right and then to the left. And then his eyes grew huge in the green glow. Whatever Alex had sensed was right there.

  “Oh, snap!” blurted Luke as a pale figure lurched out of the tunnel toward him. It reached for him with outstretched arms, grabbed for him with tightly wrapped fingers.

  For one horrible second, Alex thought it had him. But Luke was fast. He went from walking forward to running to the right with one quick swivel of his hips. The mummy charged stiffly after him, and they both disappeared down the passageway.

  “LUKE!” Ren screamed.

  They both rushed back to the intersection and peered down the passageway. No sign of the mummy or Luke — and ten feet ahead they saw the glow of another intersection.

  Alex tried to push the panic out of his mind. They were in a warren of tunnels — and had just lost their strongest member. He closed his hand around the scarab and shut his eyes, trying to focus, trying to find the mummy. Nothing. Already too far away.

  Guilt poured into Alex like icy seawater into a sinking boat. On some level, he felt like everything that had happened was because of him. But this was his fault on every level. His cousin. Gone. Ren’s words echoed in his head, as clear as they’d been that morning. Maybe more so: “You dragged me there — you served me up!”

  But maybe it wasn’t too late to help Luke.

  Ren didn’t say anything now, just turned with him and ran after Luke. They reached the next passageway. Which way had he gone? They took their best guess and continued on, desperately hoping they’d find him. Hoping there’d be something left to find.

  “You can sense them, can’t you?” Ren huffed from beside him. “That’s why we were running.”

  “When they’re close,” Alex gasped.

  “How?”

  They reached another intersection. Two more choices, the odds stacking against them. They stopped, hands on knees, and Alex considered his answer.

  “I don’t know,” he said. But he did know — he’d sensed that, too. He just wasn’t comfortable saying it: Because they’re dead.

  The tunnels twisted and turned. They stopped to investigate another little room, but this one was unfinished, not much more than a cave in the dirt, and there was no sign of Luke. They’d lost him, and now they were lost, too.

  “Wait, I …” Alex whispered, coming to a sudden halt.

  “What is it?” said Ren. She shot a few skittish looks around the empty passageway and then down at the amulet. “Another mummy?”

  “I don’t know,” said Alex, closing his eyes to concentrate. “Feels different.”

  “Different how?”

  He shook his head. This ability was still new to him. “Just different.”

  Suddenly, his eyes snapped open. He looked directly at Ren. “It’s coming this way!”

  “Should we run?” said Ren in an urgent whisper.

  Alex considered it, and then: “No. We have to stop running. We came here for a reason.”

  Ren looked up at him. “I was afraid you were going to say that, but …”

  “But what?” he said urgently.

  “But we need to be smart this time. We can’t just stand out here and wait to be seen.”

  Alex knew she was right. If this was the showdown he’d been looking for, they needed to get the upper hand. “The little room,” he said.

  “An ambush?” she said skeptically. “But what if it’s …”

  But Alex was already rushing back to the little room. “Hurry,” he said.

  They ducked into the dark, dank chamber. It wasn’t much bigger than they were, so all they could do was huddle together inside.

  Ren stared out into the soft glow of the hallway and raised the shovel, her hands trembling slightly on the handle.

  Alex closed his eyes and gripped the amulet hard. It felt like this thing was right on top of them.

  “I don’t know …” Ren whispered. “If it’s him … I don’t know if I can go through that again. This place … it’s like our own grave.”

  They heard a noise in the passageway and fell silent. All Alex heard was the blood pounding in his ears, and then …

  Another noise, closer now, just outside the entrance. Ren raised her shovel a few inches higher, almost scraping the dirt roof. Alex grasped his amulet tighter, the wings of the scarab digging into the soft flesh of his palm. Had they prepared an ambush — or trapped themselves?

  Too late. It was here.

  “Mmrack?”

  Such a strange noise …

  Louder, closer: “Maa-RACK?”

  The sound bounced off the walls, and Alex realized that the thing was turning the corner. It was coming inside! Fear and anticipation swirled in his system. Beside him, Ren leaned back until her shoulders hit dirt. Alex took half a step forward to take her place. His eyes burned, but he didn’t dare blink.

  And there it was.

  He couldn’t believe it.

  A shadow filled the doorway — but only the first foot or so.

  “Mm-Rack?” went the mummy cat. “Mma-Raack?”

  Alex now knew what happened to meows when they died.

  “It’s Pai …” said Ren, lowering her shovel.

  “How did she … Where did she …” mumbled Alex, baffled.

  Her nerves shot, Ren crumbled to the floor, dropping her shovel with a thud. “I’m just glad it’s her,” she managed. Legs out and back to the wall, she reached one trembling hand toward the creature but reconsidered and drew it back. “Hi, Pai,” she whispered.

  The thin, half-wrapped cat stood there for a moment, considering them. Then she took a few very deliberate steps toward Ren. She shook her slender frame, flicked one paw against her ragged wrappings, and watched as a pale white object tumbled free, dragging a thin silver chain with it.

  “No way,” said Ren, her slumped body straightening slightly.

  The cat took a four-footed step back and looked up at Ren.

  Ren’s eyes, frozen with fear a moment earlier, shone brightly as she stared down at it.

  “Pick it up,” said Alex, his voice rising in the excitement. “It’s for you!”

  Ren reached down and picked up the amulet.

  Her amulet.

  It was such a big gift, but such a strange one. Ren’s expression was a perfect mix of Christmas morning and Halloween night.

  She glanced over at her oldest friend and then back down at her newest. But Pai-en-Inmar was already leaving.

  “Wait,” said Ren, but living or dead, cats never listened to things like that.

  As Pai’s bony tail disappeared back into the passageway, Ren lifted the amulet up into the light. She pulled her legs underneath her and used her free hand to push herself up. She stood up stronger this time, straighter. “A bird,” she said.

  “An ibis,” said Alex. “It’s a symbol of Thoth, the god of wisdom and writing.”

  “Thoth?” mumbled Ren. “But why did she … I mean, why me?”

  Alex looked at the spot where the a
ncient cat had been. “I think she was paying you back for setting her free.”

  Ren smiled. “I’ve got an amulet.” She slowly draped it over her neck. “Just like you.”

  She wrapped her left hand around it. Her breath caught and her eyes opened wide.

  As Alex watched, Ren’s brown eyes flashed silver.

  Ren felt her nerves settle even as her pulse revved. It was a sensation of going very fast under total control. A single image flashed through her mind: a clump of glowing green against a dark background, a distinctive S shape in its center, where the glow was strongest.

  The image vanished, and then the afterimage.

  Ren released the amulet and took a deep breath.

  “What just happened?” said Alex.

  “I saw something,” said Ren, a note of wonder in her voice. She looked down at the ibis. “It showed me something.”

  “What?” said Alex. “What did you see?”

  And that was the question. What had she seen? It wasn’t a memory, and it wasn’t imagination. It was something she had never seen before but that she knew, immediately and instinctively, to be true.

  She stepped out into the passageway and looked up at the ceiling, one way, and then the other. And there it was, in the glow coming from the top passage, the distinctive S shape she’d just seen, a bright bending line against the softly glowing background.

  She looked over at Alex and then down at the ibis. Given to her by a cat cadaver … Entirely, alarmingly unwashed … But it had given her the one thing she needed most, the one thing that put her most at ease. It had given her knowledge.

  “I think I know which way to go,” she said.

  “You think?” said Alex, his voice skeptical.

  “I know,” she said.

  As she led Alex through the dark, dangerous tunnels, she allowed herself a moment to think about it. She had always had one very simple problem with magic: It didn’t make any sense. Wisdom, on the other hand, was right up her alley. The images felt like puzzles for her to decipher.

  She wasn’t sure, though. As much as she liked knowing the answers, this felt too easy. It was the opposite of extra credit: just given to her. And it was creepy and unnerving to have this thing in her head. It felt like an alien had snuck into her brain and was flipping through the channels. An alien … or a ghost.

  Her eyes flashed again as she and Alex slipped past another dark, unfinished room. “Okay,” she said, and they paused as she worked out the new image.

  Two glowing circles, breaking the surface of still, black water.

  She realized too late that they were eyes.

  PUHHHHH!

  A massive force struck Alex so hard that he flew sideways into the wall.

  This stretch was mostly clay, and he left an Alex-shaped impression in it as he slumped down to the floor. A soft sifting of dirt rained down from the ceiling.

  “Alex!” called Ren.

  She spun around to find the long iron snout of a crocodile mask turned toward her like the barrel of a gun. Black eyes glistened in the green light. Her hands wrestled futilely with an unseen force clamping down hard on her throat, cutting off the blood flow. In a few seconds, she was dizzy; in a few more, out cold.

  Ta-mesah stood there considering his prey.

  Clinging to the edge of consciousness, Alex became aware of a faint shuffling sound. Two mummies appeared, the wrappings doing little to disguise the lanky bodies of two formerly healthy teen boys. The nearest one grabbed him, and he could do nothing more than clumsily slap at its arms as it dragged him into the side room. Then his hands were bound with coarse rope and he couldn’t even do that.

  Ta-mesah relit the room’s candles with the wave of his hand.

  Alex’s head slowly cleared and the world came into view: a small living chamber. There was a simple bed in one corner. Across from it was a tall stone altar with two raised columns framing a vertical indentation. A false door, Alex knew, the gateway between the world of the living and the world of the dead that all Egyptian tombs had. The mummies stood rigidly, blocking the doorway.

  Alex was propped up against the wall by the entrance, the flashlights in his pack digging into his lower back. Ren was next to him, her head drooping onto his shoulder. He jostled her with a gentle shrug. “Huh?” she said blearily.

  “Wake up, Ren,” he said, trying to control his fear. “We’re in trouble.”

  “Trouble?” she mumbled, and then she remembered. Her eyes snapped open and suddenly she was throwing her arms from side to side, struggling against the ropes at her wrists.

  “Don’t bother,” said Ta-mesah.

  She froze and looked up.

  “Oh no,” she said, her shoulders slumping. “Another one.”

  Alex’s battered ribs told him the same thing: that this was another powerful Order operative, like the hyena-masked psychopath they’d faced in New York. “What do you want?” he said defiantly.

  “Watch your tongue, boy,” said Ta-mesah, “or I’ll cut it out.”

  “I’ve heard that before,” said Alex, remembering similar words falling from the Stung Man’s lips. “Didn’t end too well for that guy.”

  “Who says it’s over for him?” Ta-mesah’s voice echoed slightly through the iron and emerged barely human.

  “I banished him,” said Alex.

  “Is that what you think?”

  “That’s what I know —”

  Ta-mesah flicked his hand and a wave of force smashed into Alex, snapping his upper body back against the plaster wall and knocking the wind from his lungs.

  “I can hear the fight in your voice,” said Ta-mesah. “But this fight is over. You’ve lost. Now you will answer my questions.”

  Alex glared at him. “Why should I? I don’t care what you do to me.”

  “I believe that,” said Ta-mesah. “And you’ve already died once. You’ve seen the worst. Alive when so many others have died.” He smiled. “The doctor, of course.”

  Alex stiffened, raising his head as Ren lowered hers. “Oh yes,” said Ta-mesah, “she is quite dead.”

  Alex took another quick look at the mummies. Ta-mesah followed his eyes. “No, not her. She served a different purpose.”

  Alex understood. He knew as well as anyone that the Walkers needed to feed.

  “Scumbag,” he said.

  Ta-mesah ignored him. “I have two questions for you,” he said. “And I will ask them only once —”

  “I’m not afraid of you.”

  “Maybe not. But your friend …”

  Alex looked quickly over at Ren and saw the fear fill her eyes. “Leave her alone!” he shouted.

  A soft chuckle echoed through the iron mask. “She has been much quieter than you, no? Because she’s smarter.” His tone hardened; his voice grew louder. “You will talk or she will die.”

  Ren gasped with pain and surprise as her bound hands were yanked over her head by an unseen force.

  “Stop it!” Alex shouted, but as he watched, she was dragged up the wall. She struggled to get her feet underneath her.

  “First question …”

  “No,” said Alex, unable to hide the desperation in his voice.

  Ren was standing bolt upright now, her arms straight over her head, but still the invisible force pulled on her hands. She rose to her tiptoes …

  “Where is your mother, little boy?”

  Alex’s head snapped back toward his interrogator. “What?” he said, confusion flooding his mind. “You have my mom!” he shouted. Is this some cruel trick?

  “Don’t toy with me. I will kill the girl!”

  Ren’s feet left the floor. She groaned in pain as her shoulders took all her weight.

  “She must be in the Black Land,” shouted Ta-mesah. “Tell us where!”

  Alex couldn’t believe what he was hearing. The Black Land was Egypt, named for the fertile soil along the Nile. It made no sense.

  “I don’t know!” screamed Alex. “Leave her alone!”

&n
bsp; He reached up for his amulet but could only paw at it with the rope of his heavily tied hands. Ren’s feet were a foot off the ground. Alex watched in helpless horror as her shoulders and arms strained. Her face was a mask of pain and despair. She opened her mouth and screamed.

  It was a ragged cry, broken only when she gulped for more breath, but in the brief pause, a new sound filled the room.

  “Mma-RACK?”

  Standing in between the two rigid mummies was a third, much smaller one. The little cat looked from the girl hanging in the air to the man in the mask. In the narrow gaps between the wrappings on her back, what was left of her hair stood on end. She opened her mouth and released a dry, angry HISS!

  “What is that … thing?” said Ta-mesah. His concentration broken, Ren dropped to the ground, landing in a limp crouch.

  Pai hissed again, gathered her haunches underneath her, and jumped. She covered the twelve feet to her adversary in one impressive leap. Ta-mesah put his hands up, but it was too late. He got a Pai in the face. He stumbled backward and smacked into the wall, then reached up and frantically attempted to pry the hissing whirlwind from his head.

  Pai swiped down repeatedly, her bony front paws landing like turbocharged drumsticks on the iron mask: TLAK! PRANG!

  “Help me, you idiots!” Ta-mesah called.

  The mummies sprang into action, rushing toward the epic hissy fit. Alex and Ren suddenly found themselves in front of the unguarded doorway. “Let’s go!” urged Alex.

  “We need to help Pai!” countered Ren.

  A tightly wrapped arm — an arm! — flew past them end-over-end and out into the tunnel.

  “I don’t think so!” said Alex.

  They took one last look back into the candlelit room. Pai was still pummeling Ta-mesah’s head, while one mummy struggled to get ahold of the squirming feline and the other gaped down dumbly at the place where its arm had been.