The Mummy (30 page)

But they finally reached the bottom and were moving across a sandy-surfaced floor, as O’Connell followed his compass.

After a while, O’Connell asked, “This statue—what the hell does this Horus look like? Lion head, ram head, dog head?”

“Falcon head, actually,” Jonathan said. “Cute little fellow with a big beak.”

That Jonathan had any Egyptology knowledge at all was reassuring to O’Connell, who pressed forward into the darkness. His torch soon revealed that he’d led his trusting little party to a dead end: a passageway which had caved in on itself.

“We need to go through here,” O’Connell said, holding his torch close to the rock pile blocking the way. Looking carefully, he said, “I think it’s navigable, just beyond this entrance. We need to start clearing this stuff away.”

And they did, or at least two of them at a time did, as the quarters were cramped. On one of his breaks, Jonathan Carnahan noticed a grouping of jewels embedded in the nearby wall, glittering purple jewels arranged in the shape of a scarab.

Upon closer examination, Jonathan realized that the jewels were themselves shaped like those dreadful beetles whose skeletons had been discovered in Imhotep’s coffin. As the late Warden Gad Hassan had been before him, Jonathan was ignorant of the relative worthlessness of such semiprecious stones, the purple quartz winking at him attractively, like the jewel in a belly dancer’s navel.

With thumb and middle finger, Jonathan tested each stone, finally discovering one that seemed loose; he jiggled it, trying to free the scarab-shaped gem, and the object popped out. Dropping it into his palm, holding it there, Jonathan studied the stone, amazed to see the thing begin to glow, pulse with a light from within. Was something inside there? Something . . . wiggling?

“I say, lads,” Jonathan said. “Take a break and look at this! It’s quite remarkable . . .”

And then the scarab stone showed Jonathan just how remarkable it was, breaking open on its own accord, like a nut breaking out of its shell, and suddenly a real beetle was wriggling from the quartz cocoon!

Yelping, Jonathan immediately tried to throw the thing off his palm, and the gemlike shuck went flying . . .

. . . but not the vicious dung beetle, which already had begun to burrow into, and under, his flesh!

“Dear God, help me!” Jonathan screamed, and he began to dance in pain.

Whirling from the rock pile, O’Connell recognized the frenzied tarantella immediately: The late warden had danced himself to death with those very steps. Jonathan threw off his khaki jacket and was clawing at his arm.

“Grab hold of him!” O’Connell commanded the Med-jai warrior, and Ardeth Bay latched on to Jonathan from behind, gripping him around the waist.

Instinctively, O’Connell ripped the sleeve off Jonathan’s shirt; something was burrowing up the poor bastard’s arm,
you could see it,
right beneath the skin, like a bubble traveling up the bicep, as if on its way to his neck, where cords and veins bulged and throbbed!

“Scarab!” Jonathan shouted. “Beetle!”

If he hadn’t been hysterical with pain already, Jonathan might have passed out at the sight of O’Connell whipping his knife off his belt, the blade flashing past Jonathan’s bulging eyes.

And if Jonathan’s screams had echoed throughout the cavern before, now they resounded, as O’Connell stopped the bug’s progress with his blade, then cut the flesh in front of its path, and along one side, digging with the knife tip and flicking the dung beetle from its burrow onto the sandy floor in a splash of British blood.

The black bug was still hungry, however, and went skittering back toward Jonathan whose boot the bug was about to climb up on when O’Connell whipped out a revolver from under an arm and blew bastard away, turning it to jelly courtesy of a .38 slug as big as it was.

Having O’Connell’s bullet cut so close to his foot drew a yelp from Jonathan, whose screams had already subsided to whimpers. He slid down the rocky wall to the sandy floor and sat there, moaning, while Ardeth Bay turned the discarded shirtsleeve into a bandage.

“It’s not a bad wound,” O’Connell said, having a look before the Med-jai warrior covered it up. “Just superficial.”

Jonathan’s lower lip was trembling as he sat there like a hurt, frightened child. “It . . . doesn’t . . . doesn’t bloody well
feel
superficial!”

“From now on, for God’s sake, man,” O’Connell said, “don’t touch anything! Not a goddamn thing—keep your hands off the merchandise.”

Jonathan swallowed and nodded numbly, then said, “O’Connell . . .”

“Yeah?”

“My, uh, future children and I thank you.”

“We haven’t lived through this day yet. You rest while we get this passage the rest of the way cleared.”

Jonathan nodded again, and sat back, still breathing hard.

O’Connell and Ardeth Bay exchanged expressions, sharing silent knowledge that this little incident was only the smallest indication of trials, tribulations, and terrors to come.

And then they got back to work.

As O’Connell and his little crew had been descending down ropes into the embalming chamber near the statue of Anbuis, Evelyn Carnahan was already deep within the catacombs, the unwilling second of a three-person procession through the necropolis where, three-thousand-some years before, Imhotep and Anck-su-namun had died.

Skirts of her black gown flowing not unlike Imhotep’s robe, Evelyn was not as frightened as she might have been, believing as she did that Imhotep viewed her as the reincarnation of his lover. She was already mentally rehearsing her lines, in ancient Egyptian, so that once he had performed whatever hocus-pocus he had in mind, she could pretend to be the reborn Anck-su-namun, and wait and watch for the right moment to escape.

Ahead of her Imhotep led the way, torch in one hand, the massive, brass-hinged, obsidian
Book of the Dead
in the other, as they approached a stone slab that served as a bridge over a moat of bubbling black detritus, a foul moat on the edges of which large, hairy rats scurried at the sound of the humans. But a pair of the beasts were not deterred by these intruders, as they were busy feasting on one of their own, a smaller, deceased rat.

“That’s what happens to little vermin like you,” she said over her shoulder to Beni, who was holding his revolver on her.

Beni just laughed at her, then glanced where she was looking and saw the cannibal rats munching on their smaller crony, and blanched.

“You pride yourself on a familiarity with many religions, don’t you, Beni?”

They were crossing the stone bridge now.

“Keeping moving!” Beni said, nudging the base of her spine with the nose of the revolver.

“Well then, I’m sure you’re familiar with the Buddhist concept of karma. Your kind pays, Beni—they always pay.”

“Sure they do.” Beni laughed. Then quietly he asked rhetorically, “They do?”

Moving farther into the catacombs, the group reached a deep, ampitheaterlike chamber, whose walls were cavelike, but whose sandstone floor was as smooth and perfect as any temple’s. A steep staircase, carved in the rock face, emptied into this place. Though cobwebs draped the chamber—which was soon tinted orange as Imhotep glided about the vast room in his black robe, lighting ancient torches mounted on the walls—its stark majesty was inescapable. Statues of Anubis lurked here and there, icons and other precious objects perched on pedestals and mantels, and—most imposingly—a weird altar of heavy dark stone took centerstage. The altar was exquisitely decorated with winged scarabs, cobra heads, and rams’ horns, and as the daughter of Howard Carnahan, Evelyn could not help being overwhelmed by its dark beauty.

Yet to the hostage of a reborn mummy, this sacrificial altar was less than reassuring.

It was then that the echoes of O’Connell’s scarab-slaying gunshot, reverberating through the catacombs, reached the ears of Imhotep, his guest, and his servant.

The high priest scowled at the sound, even as Evelyn brightened, knowing that Rick, and rescue, had to be close at hand. Hope flooded through her—the man she loved, and her brother, had survived that crash landing into the sand, she just knew it!

But Imhotep’s coldly handsome features were etched with rage. On the altar lay a shattered canopic jar, which (if Evelyn was not mistaken, quickly scanning its fragmented hieroglyphs) contained the crusted remains of some vital organ of Anck-su-namun—probably her heart.

He held in his open palm the decayed remains of the organ—yes, her heart—and gazed upon the desiccated tissue with somber, respectful adoration.

Then he closed his fist, crushing the heart to powder.

Evelyn gasped, shuddered. Beni smirked at her, the way a schoolboy smirks at a skittish schoolgirl.

Black robes sweeping behind him, Imhotep strode to a wall of the chamber, holding the massive
Book of the Dead
open in one hand like a hymnal, reading from it, reciting an ancient incantation from its obsidian pages. Then he blew into his hand, with the force of a small gale, scattering the dust upon the wall . . .

. . . which began to squirm, as things within it came alive!

Beni gasped, shuddered. Evelyn might have smirked at him for his amazed fear had she not been clutched by the same emotion.

From behind the crumbling walls, in two tiny avalanches, came two living mummies—not handsome and lordly, like Imhotep, but the good old-fashioned brand of living mummy: horrific-looking, bandaged-wrapped, putrid, rotting corpses.

They stumbled toward Imhotep, unsure of their footing—it had been a while since they’d walked, after all—and bowed before him. He spoke to them in ancient Egyptian.

“My God,” Evelyn whispered. “They’re his priests! His long-dead priests!”

Beni, who had a revolver in one hand, was clutching his various religious icons with the other, praying silently in one language after another.

Then the mummies—surer footed now—marched off down a passageway.

Evelyn’s heart sank: Imhotep had dispatched these creatures to attack the intruders—Rick, her brother, and the Med-jai chieftain.

Face tight with self-satisfaction, Imhotep strutted to the altar and began to reach within his flowing robes; one at a time, almost magically, as if making them materialize, he produced from hidden pockets the remaining four jeweled canopic jars, setting them tenderly upon the table that was the black altar. As he arranged them in a row along the altar top, Imhotep spoke not in ancient Egyptian, but in Hebrew.

This struck Evelyn as curious, until she realized he was perhaps avoiding his own language because he knew she understood it. Hebrew—the language of the slaves, after all—was a tongue he and Beni shared.

“What’s he saying?” Evelyn demanded of Beni.

“Oh, and now you want Beni to translate? Well, I’ll tell you: Prince Imhotep is pleased to have won your heart.”

She sneered a bit. “Maybe he shouldn’t flatter himself; maybe it’s already taken.”

Imhotep, still arranging the jeweled jars, continued on in Hebrew, his voice echoing through the chamber.

Beni listened, then smiled as he said to Evelyn, “Perhaps you shouldn’t flatter
yourself.
You see, he also wants your brain, your liver, your kidneys, and . . . how do you say . . . those ropy slimy things in your sweet tummy?”

Though chilled by the revelation that Imhotep viewed her not as the reincarnation of his lost love, but as an appropriate human sacrifice, she managed to say, drolly, “They’re called intestines, you dreadful little man.”

“Ah yes! He wants those, too—all of you. What’s the American expression? The works.”

And, chin high, she called out to Imhotep in his own language, “So you only want me for my body? How like a man.”

Imhotep strode to her, showing how high a chin could really be held, and he grinned at her, looked her up and down in the most demeaning fashion.

And then he backhanded her, a blow so savage, so hard, that she was unconscious before she, and her black gown, pooled on the sandy floor.

Beni, taken aback by the viciousness of the blow, looked timidly toward his master, who commanded him in Hebrew to carry the woman to the altar, which Beni—straining his weak back—somehow accomplished. He even arranged her gown, smoothing it out, covering her legs, giving her some modesty even as his fingers glided over her curves.

Evelyn was unaware of any of this, and was not awake to see Imhotep turn to walk off toward an adjoining mausoleum chamber, seeking the last element required for this ancient procedure. But the high priest was interrupted by the sound of more gunshots echoing out of the labyrinth.

Frowning, he quickly returned to the altar, reached a hand into another of the jeweled canopic jars, filling his palm with his late lover’s liver and crushed the crusty decayed organ into dust. Hastily, he read a passage from
The Book of the Dead,
which lay open at the end of the altar at Evelyn’s sandaled feet; and he blew another controlled gale across his palm, sending the dust swirling into and down a passageway.

In ancient Egyptian, Imhotep thundered, “Kill them! Kill them all! And I bid you bring me
The Book of Amun Ra!”

Then Imhotep stormed into the adjacent mausoleum chamber, leaving Beni alone with the unconscious Evelyn.

Beni, shaken by Imhotep’s escalating violence, not to mention mummies crawling out of a wall and coming to life, decided to take this opportunity to scurry out of there, into the darkness, with the other rats.

A few minutes earlier, O’Connell and his two companions had been moving through the cleared passageway when he spotted a crevice in the wall, just big enough for a man to squeeze through. Holding his torch to the crevice, he saw something glitter within.

Checking his compass, O’Connell looked back into the stubbly face of Ardeth Bay, Jonathan dragging behind him, and said, “This tunnel’s taking us off course. I think there’s a chamber next door, which might get us back on track.”

Ardeth Bay, showing no strain from lugging the heavy machine gun, nodded his agreement to this strategy, and O’Connell, taking the gunnysack off his shoulder, handed it, and his torch, to the warrior.