The Mummy (34 page)

“Let’s see how tough you are one-handed.” O’Connell grinned at the monster, hefting the sword with a two-handed grasp.

Imhotep’s remaining arm shot out and grabbed O’Connell by the shirt and hurled him into a pillar, across the black moat, twenty feet away.

Hitting the stone pillar hard, feeling a rib crack, O’Connell cried out in pain, bouncing to the equally hard floor, where he felt another rib crack. Pushing up, groaning, pain lancing through him, O’Connell saw Imhotep striding toward him, black robes swirling, scowling, his remaining arm outstretched, fist clenched.

Okay, so the bastard was left-handed . . .

Dazed, O’Connell staggered to his feet, looked drunkenly for his sword, which he’d lost on the trip to the pillar, and Imhotep was closing in on him as Evelyn’s voice called out, “Keep him busy!”

“See what I can do,” O’Connell said, and Imhotep slung his remaining arm, like a club, across O’Connell’s chest, and sent the American spinning through the air, crashing into the floor, near the altar, with an echoing slam. O’Connell did his best to get to his feet, but his knees were buckling . . .

Evelyn was at her brother’s side, bending over him, surprised to see him smiling, if somewhat dementedly.

“What . . . ?” she began.

Jonathan, breathing hard, held up the puzzle box. “Got it,” he said, clearly proud that he had mustered his pickpocket skills in the midst of being strangled by a living mummy.

“Get the book,” she ordered her brother, as she deftly opened the puzzle box, petals unfolding into the large, unusual key.

“You won’t be needing this,” Jonathan told the severed arm, as he lifted the golden
Book of Amun Ra
from its lifeless fingers.

And over by the altar, the regal, unstoppable Imhotep—eyes burning with rage—approached the barely conscious O’Connell, who was having trouble just staying on his feet, and clutched him by the throat, a deadly grip cutting off his air, lifting him off the ground.

Evelyn, kneeling over the book which Jonathan propped up in his hands, worked the key in the lock, and the golden volume opened with a hiss. Her brother held the book while Evelyn quickly turned the heavy golden pages, looking for the incantation, eyes racing over hieroglyphs, translating at record speed . . .

O’Connell, held high in the grip of the mummy’s hand, hung limp, like clothes on a line, was barely conscious, as an evilly grinning Imhotep spoke to him in ancient Egyptian. Evelyn was too busy to translate, but O’Connell—groggy as he was—felt he’d gotten the drift.

“I’m afraid your boyfriend’s finished,” Jonathan said glumly.

“Never,” she said, then called out to him, “Hold on, Rick! Hold on!”

But it was Imhotep who was holding on, to O’Connell’s throat, and now the mummy began to not just hold him there, but to tighten his steel fingers into a stranglehold. Coughing, choking, O’Connell’s body swayed, and so did his mind, in out and of consciousness . . .

It was like being back at the Cairo prison, with that noose around his neck, tightening, his feet kicking helplessly, the world turning red, then black . . . Maybe this had all been a dream, some final nightmare flashing through his last living moments, and he was still on that gallows, just another deserter from the Foreign Legion, hanging, dying . . .

And Evelyn stood, reading from the book her brother held open for her, and faced He Who Shall Be Named, as he strangled the man she loved, and in a loud, firm voice intoned:
“Kadeesh mal!”

Imhotep froze, easing the grip on O’Connell’s throat, but still holding him high, and glared at Evelyn.

But there was more than just rage in that glare: fear. There was fear.

“Kadeesh mal!”
she cried, voice echoing off the ceiling.
“Pared oos! Pared oos!”

Tossing O’Connell aside, discarding him, Imhotep pivoted and stared at Evelyn and his expression was no longer regal, nor enraged: Terror was etched there, sheer terror, as surely as the hieroglyphs were etched upon that golden page from which she’d spelled his doom.

As O’Connell, coughing, weaving, got to his feet, Imhotep turned and stared at the yawning stairway. Through the archway came a sudden, strong gust of wind; but this chill breeze, whipping Imhotep’s robes and Evelyn’s gown, had not been summoned by the mummy.

Evelyn Carnahan, who until recently had not believed in curses, had unleashed this wind, this curse . . .

Through a vortex of wind emerged a black chariot, or a vision of one, as it seemed at once misty and transparent, and yet distinct and somehow real, charging down the stairs, neither the wheels driving the chariot nor the hooves of the two black horses pulling it ever touching the stone, hurtling down the steps nonetheless, with a jackal-headed driver—Anubis, a god who had apparently come to discipline a headstrong high priest.

Imhotep stood, facing this vision, with arms outstretched, a posture as close to surrender as possible for this proud man, and the chariot plowed right through him, circling through the vast chamber, dragging a black, semitransparent image of Imhotep behind—though the man himself still stood there, slumped. Evelyn could only wonder:
Was that ghostlike vision, taken captive by this phantasm of Anubis, Imhotep’s soul?

Wind still whipping them, Evelyn and Jonathan took a quick step back. Though it was only partly visible, this horse-drawn black chariot was making a thunderous racket, and they instinctively got out of its way.

And Jonathan, holding the golden book, tripped, taking a fall, accidentally pitching
The Book of Amun Ra
into the black slime. As the gleaming volume sunk below the burbling surface, sinking into the black putrescence, Evelyn felt nothing, though her brother looked about to cry.

The chariot charged back up the staircase, Anubis whipping his steeds, dragging that black, misty image of Imhotep, reaching out yearningly, helplessly toward the physical form that was left behind.

And that physical form, Imhotep, the mummy who looked like a man, ran after his departing soul, hurtling up the stairs after it; but the chariot returned to the swirling winds from which it came and, in an eyeblink, disappeared.

Turning, his robes swirling, Imhotep dashed down the stairs. His soul may have been gone, but the rage was still here, his eyes burning with it, teeth clenched in the tanned face.

And he was striding right toward O’Connell.

The American, who had managed to find his sword, braced himself—O’Connell may have not have lost his soul, but he was battered, pulsing with pain, and could only wonder if he had another battle left in him on this strange endless day.

From just behind him, O’Connell heard the voice of the woman he loved.

“Don’t let him scare you, darling,” she said, and hearing her call him that made him smile, even in these circumstances. “He’s only human.”

And as Imhotep neared him, hand poised in that familiar viselike grip, O’Connell swung the blade of the sword up and into the mummy—deep, hard, right through the son of a bitch.

Imhotep’s eyes widened in surprise and pain. Wincing, he looked down at the sword impaling him, touched his stomach, and brought back a hand stained red.

“Tell him he finally got his wish,” O’Connell said, speaking to Evelyn, but spitting the words into Imhotep’s face. “Tell him he’s a man again.”

And Evelyn translated, shouting the words defiantly, and when O’Connell saw them register in the bastard’s eyes, he yanked the blade free, and shoved He Who Shall Be One Dead Sorry Son of a Bitch into the black bog.

Evelyn came up beside O’Connell, slipping an arm around his waist, and Jonathan came up along his other side.

“Good show, Rick,” Jonathan said. “Never doubted you for a moment.”

Imhotep was taking his time sinking, the black slime drawing him down almost lovingly, and he stared up at those who’d defeated him, flushed with princely, arrogant defiance, almost smiling.

Then his head was sucked under by the simmering blackness.

“Is it finally over?” Jonathan asked.

And as if in reply, Imhotep’s shaved head bobbed to the surface and he sneered at the victors, shouting out one last phrase in his ancient tongue. Then the slime pulled him under and he was, at last, truly, gone.

“What did he say?” O’Connell asked her.

Evelyn’s expression had a haunted blankness; she turned almost mechanically to say to him, “He said, ‘Death is only the beginning.’ ”

 
23
 

The Shifting Sands

W
hile men and mummies clashed in the vast ampitheater, the rats of Hamanaptra scurried about the perimeter, going on about their business, unconcerned about eternal life or undying loves, scavengers concentrating only on their own immediate well-being, their own narrow little existences.

Beni was no exception.

The sounds of battle echoing through the labyrinths of the City of the Dead had meant only one thing to the little thief: The others were preoccupied, leaving him to scurry about, gathering from the treasure chambers of Pharaoh Seti the First (Beni had discovered several more) the precious jewels and golden artifacts, which he stuffed into saddlebags he’d appropriated from the various stray camels that wandered about the ruins.

And while O’Connell, his girlfriend, and her stupid brother waged their hopeless war against the mighty Imhotep, the shrewd Beni made trip after trip, carrying the glittering booty up through the stairway in the temple, which the American expedition had uncovered. Rounding up, and tying up, three camels, Beni began piling the saddlebags onto the backs of the beasts; then he would scamper back down into the underground world, return to one of several treasure chambers and load up more saddlebags. Though any one of the chambers held a king’s ransom and more, Beni was flitting from one treasure room to another, looking for the smaller, more easily transported items: golden baubles, statuettes, loose jewels.

By the time the sounds of battle had died down, an exhausted Beni knew he would have to hurry, as Imhotep (he assumed the high priest would triumph over the mere mortals) came looking for his slave. So, despite his reluctance at leaving so much precious treasure behind, Beni knew this would have to be his last trip.

So he made sure he packed plenty of plunder into these last saddlebags, slinging one of them over an ornate golden staff that jutted from the wall like a fancy coatrack. Leaning against the wall, catching his breath, Beni heard a loud grinding, as if stone was rubbing against stone.

Not liking the sound of that, Beni reached for the saddlebags, slung onto the golden staff, and noticed that the weight of the heavily laden bags had pushed the staff down.

Backing away, startled, chilled with fear, Beni wondered if he’d accidentally pulled a lever . . .

The answer to that question was immediate: The hissing of pouring sand, thousands of pounds of it, filled his ears as, all around him, the walls of the treasure chamber began to lower, to sink into the ground . . . but the floor was staying put!

Abandoning the saddlebags, grabbing a torch, Beni scrambled out through a lowering doorway and into the tunnels, finding the walls sinking there as well, bringing the ceiling down, down, down; soon he was crouching, crawling along, more than ever like a rat, though even a trained rodent might not have been able to duplicate Beni’s feat of lighting the way with a torch in his teeth . . .

Moments after Imhotep’s slimy farewell, O’Connell, Evelyn, and Jonathan—standing at the edge of the bog—had also heard the rumbling of stones, the hissing of sand.

Immediately, they all knew something was terribly wrong, though Evelyn assumed it had to do with the demise of He Who Shall Not Be Named.

“Dear God,” she said. “Remember the legend?”

Jonathan, his Egyptology skills honed now, said, with some alarm, “That the pharaohs rigged Hamanaptra to slide under the dunes, at the flick of a switch?”

O’Connell didn’t need to hear any more expert opinions on this subject—the gnashing of stone against stone, the sizzle of sand raining in, had the last word.

The high walls around them trembling, visibly sinking, O’Connell yelled, “Come on!” grabbing Evelyn’s hand and she followed his lead, Jonathan tagging after. They raced across the stone slab over the black slime, past the trio of soldier mummies—frozen in place, awaiting a next command that would never come—and hustled past sinking pillars through a descending doorway.