Tut (20 page)

It was nice to have someone over six inches tall sticking up for me.

“That's because Tut has too much vengeance in his heart,” Gil said.

“And you don't?” I said. “Even after everything that happened?”

It's not like Gil's background and mine were that different. We both had people we cared about die because of the gods. Sure, Gil had started off as a pretty rotten king, unlike me. I'd always been a good pharaoh. But Gil had changed. And that didn't make the gods happy. He was no longer their puppet. So a bunch of petty Sumerian gods like Enlil and Anu got upset with Gil and cursed him. And they made his best friend, Enkidu, die.

“No, I don't carry any more vengeance,” Gil said. “I put my past behind me.”

I believed that like I believed in the existence of unicorns.

“Did you become immortal the same time Tut did?” Henry asked.

“Hardly,” Gil said. “Tut's a baby compared to me.”

“And a heathen,” Colonel Cody added, nodding his head emphatically.

Gil gritted his teeth but went on. “After Enkidu died, I went looking for immortality. I chose not to get revenge on the gods for what they did, but I also wanted to live forever. To become their equal. It was ridiculous, the things I had to go through. I died nearly one hundred times over. But finally…”

“Finally,” I continued, “Gil ate this funny plant, and then the Sumerian god of war gave him a scarab heart.”

“What kind of plant?” Henry asked. “What did it taste like?”

Gil actually cracked a grin. “Seaweed.” He looked down at Colonel Cody. “And for the record, I'm not a heathen. I got my scarab heart from Nergal, who's every bit as powerful as your Egyptian gods.”

I cringed, even though Horus wasn't home to hear. Horus had his own opinions of the Sumerian gods. And the Greek gods. And the Norse gods. And … well, you get the idea.

“Of course, Great Heathen Master,” Colonel Cody said.

Have I mentioned that I love my shabtis?

“So you've had the knife all this time?” I asked.

“For thousands of years,” Gil said. “I hid it each time we moved, keeping it from the gods and other immortals.”

“There are no other immortals,” I said.

“Are you sure?” Gil asked. “There's Horemheb.”

“Besides him.”

“How do you know there aren't any more?” Gil asked. “There could be others. The gods gave me the knife to protect and keep away from all immortals.”

“And we all know how that turned out,” Henry said.

Which brought back Gil's foul mood. Maybe Henry didn't have my back after all.

“You should have told me,” I said.

“No, I shouldn't have,” Gil said. “I was doing my job. And now my job is completely fouled up. This is the worst mess ever.”

I couldn't really disagree. I didn't have the knife. My immortal enemy did.

“We'll get it back,” I said.

“No, Tut,” Gil said. “I'll get it back. You'll have no part in the knife from here on out. You never should have even known about it, not to mention tried to find it. It should have remained a thing of legend, not some prize in a scavenger hunt. Pretend it doesn't exist. Pretend you never even heard about it.”

I crossed my arms, preparing to stare him down.

“Am I making myself clear here?” he asked. “Or do we need to go over this again? Because this is important. The knife is not to be used. Ever. Got it?”

So Gil wasn't going to help me. That's what I got.

“Got it,” I said.

“Good. And please listen this time, for once.” Gil climbed the stairs to the loft and stormed into his room, slamming the door behind him.

“I think he's upset,” Henry said.

“You think?” I said, fighting to keep from running up the steps, tearing Gil's door open, and snapping back a response.

“Maybe you should give him a little space,” Henry said. “He may just need a good nap.”

Gil needed more than a nap. Gil needed an attitude adjustment.

Henry pulled my sword with the teeth off the wall, clasping it way too hard.

“You're holding it wrong,” I said.

He shifted it in his hands and made a swipe through the air. His glasses slid all the way down his nose from the effort. “This better?”

“You look like you're trying to hack up firewood,” I said. “Let your body do the work.”

Henry backed up and slashed the air a few more times. I figured he was a lost cause and clicked on the television, letting the news stream through. With all the lightning and stuff last night at the cemetery, I wondered if anything had been caught on video. But all the newscaster was talking about was some Chihuahua that could walk on its front legs.

“Horus is going to freak when he gets back, isn't he?” Henry said.

“That's putting it mildly. It's a good thing I'm immortal, because Horus will want to kill me.” I changed to a different channel. This one had one of those “breaking news” banners at the bottom, and the skyline of D.C. was in the background.

Henry swung the sword around until the blade pointed down at the coffee table. Ten shabtis moved out from under it and stood ready to attack Henry if I so much as raised my pinkie.

“Should we work on our project?” Henry said.

At least he had the sense to look sheepish about asking.

“Please don't mention the project again until tomorrow,” I said. “I get a day off. I've earned it.”

Henry pushed his glasses up his nose. “Then fill me in on a couple details so I can work on it.”

“You can't wait twenty-four hours?”

“I'm making such great progress,” Henry said. “But these four heads on the Canopic jars … they're Horus's sons, right?”

“Right,” I said, focusing more on the TV than on Henry and our project.

“And Horus is the god of what?”

“Horus is basically chief god,” I said. “Since Set killed Horus's father, Osiris.”

“That's who your auntie Isis was married to, right?” Henry said.

“Right.” I shuddered at the thought of Isis and her hooks and bandages.

Henry replaced the sword and grabbed another one. Instead of teeth, this one had feathers hanging all over it. The feathers fluttered when he swung it, and a couple fell off when the sword stuck in the wall.

“Oops,” Henry said, and tried to yank it out.

The sword wouldn't budge.

“Sorry.”

“Don't worry about it,” I said. The shabtis made a ladder out of themselves, standing on one another's shoulders, until they could reach it. With the tiniest of tugs, it came free from the wall.

Henry scowled as they handed it to him. “So Set's not chief god?”

“Great Amun, no!” I said. “In fact, that's the whole problem. Both he and Horus think they should rule the throne of Egypt.”

“There is no throne of Egypt,” Henry said.

“Don't remind Horus of that,” I said. “He still has these grand dreams of restoring the Egyptian empire to the world. Set probably does, too.”

“That would be interesting,” Henry said.

But I wasn't listening anymore.

“Can you turn up the TV?” I asked Captain Otto.

He bowed and nodded to Captain Otis, who pushed the button on the remote control a few times.

“Reports are still coming in about the fire,” the news reporter said. “But from what we know now, the modern art wing of the Smithsonian National Gallery of Art has burned. Five people are in critical condition from burns. Never before have we seen such damage at any national museum.”

“The art museum burned down?” Henry said.

“Shhhh…,” I said.

“And what of the engravings found on the site?” the anchorwoman asked.

“Yes, experts are working on the translation as we speak,” the news reporter said, “but there are what look like Egyptian hieroglyphics scratched into the marble above the entryway.”

The image flashed to the engravings being talked about. I stopped breathing.

“Those look familiar,” Henry said.

They should. We'd just seen them last week on our field trip. They were the same hieroglyphics that had been carved above the entrance to the King Tut treasures exhibit. The same ones that had been engraved above the entrance to my tomb.

DEATH SHALL COME ON SWIFT WINGS TO HIM WHO DISTURBS THE PEACE OF THE KING.

On the television, black mist curled around the hieroglyphics like a thick fog.

The curse had struck again. And this time it wasn't just a warning. People had been seriously hurt. Incalculable amounts of art and history had burned.

I had to find a way to stop it. I had to save the world before the curse destroyed it. And the only option was killing Horemheb. I had to put an end to everything.

 

17

WHERE I TAKE THE SUBWAY STOP TO THE UNDERWORLD

“I have to find out where the Cult of Set is based,” I said.

Henry looked at me like I'd just told him I wanted to scale the Great Pyramid upside down. “You almost died. You're not really going running off after them, are you?”

“Of course I am,” I said. “Don't you see how this is all connected? The curse exists because of us. Because of Horemheb and me. As long as we're both still alive, the curse is going to chew its way through D.C. And when it's done with D.C., it's going to attack the rest of the world. People are getting sick everywhere. And in that fire … people got hurt. They're going to die next. I can't let that happen. That museum thing? That's just the start. And don't forget that this is Horemheb we're talking about. If you were in my shoes, you'd want revenge the same way I do.”

“I wouldn't,” Henry said. But he got really interested in cleaning his glasses, which he'd just cleaned.

“Not even if they were responsible for killing your entire family? They even killed my mother,” I said. “Do you have any idea what that feels like? To lose everyone? And then I was all alone. And the only person I thought I could trust—Horemheb—turned out to be the worst of all. He was my top advisor. I listened to everything he said. I knew him since I was a baby. And he betrayed me in the worst way possible. So yes, I think you would do the exact same thing.”

Henry didn't reply. But with every word that came out of my mouth, I knew I was doing the right thing. I had to get my revenge even if it ended up killing me. I didn't care what Gil said. This was my sole purpose in life.

“Fine,” Henry finally said. “I'm in.” He put his fist out, and I bumped it in return. It was a crazy, small thing, but it felt like the first moment of true friendship I'd had in years.

“Thanks, Henry,” I said.

“Are you going to tell Gil?” Henry whispered, even though the music coming from Gil's room shook the entire town house.

“I'm not stupid,” I said. “I'll tell him if we find something.”

More like once I had the knife in my hands and stood over the dead body of Horemheb. But not all the thoughts running through my head had to be voiced.

“How do we find the Cult of Set?” Henry asked.

That was the problem. I didn't know, but there had to be a way. Some clue I'd missed.

“Can you get me a map of D.C.?” I asked Colonel Cody. “An old one, if possible.”

He beamed under my request. “It brings me infinite happiness to serve you, Great Pharaoh.”

He ran off and returned moments later with the map, spreading it out over the coffee table. Four shabtis stood on the edges to keep them from curling up. The map was yellow with age and cracked in some places, but the ink was still visible.

“There's no way the Cult of Set just moved to town,” I said. “They've probably been here the whole time, just like me, Gil, and Horus. Since D.C. was founded.”

I grabbed a pencil and tapped it on the table, studying the map for some kind of clue to their location.

Henry flattened his bushy hair with his hands and sat down next to me so he could see the map, too. This was just the kind of thing he'd geek out over. “What about the obelisks?” he said. “You said the Cult of Set built them, right?”

“The obelisks! Of course!” I turned to Colonel Cody. “Can you get me a ruler?”

“It is my greatest—” he started.

I cut him off. “Just please hurry.”

And the shabti ran off.

“So during my little Trivial Pursuit quiz at the Library of Congress, Imsety asked this one stupid question,” I said. “Okay, he actually asked five stupid questions—one was even about Pluto—but that's beside the point. Anyway, the question was about Pharaoh Seti the First, who apparently had his body chopped into five pieces and buried around D.C.”

Henry looked at me like I'd told him a giant dung beetle god pushed the sun across the sky each day. Which he did. His name was Khepri. But that's a story for another time.

“Seriously?” Henry said.

“Yeah, who knew, right? And Pharaoh Seti the First? He was like this huge fan of the god Set. He started this whole Set revolution in Egypt. Turned him into some kind of rock star god. People sacrificed their children to him and everything. Anyway, you'll never guess what got built on top of the chopped-up pieces of Seti the First's body.”

“The obelisks!” Henry almost bounced up and down with excitement. He was way into this. It was like a puzzle, and we were going to solve it.

I scoured the map, orienting myself. Things looked so different now. I found the location of the obelisk that had blown up last week in Dupont Circle. Since the map was old, none of the current buildings around the obelisk still existed, but the circle was still there. I drew a ring around it.

“Dude, that map's like a million years old,” Henry said, cringing like I'd vandalized some sacred artifact.

“I have a hundred of these,” I said, scanning the map for the location of the next obelisk. It was also at the center of a large circle. How had I not noticed this before? I circled it. The third, fourth, and fifth obelisks were the same. Each obelisk had been built on a traffic circle and each traffic circle had been built on top of the hacked-up remains of Pharaoh Seti the First, super-cheerleader of the god Set.