Tut (5 page)

“Hope you have a direct line to Bes, then, because you're going to need some luck,” Horus said.

Sadly, praying to the god of luck was my only option at the moment.

I guess this would be a good time to mention that Horus isn't really a cat. Well he is a cat, but not only a cat. That's just the form he prefers to stay in most of the time. He's actually a god, son of Osiris and Isis who, without getting too technical, are the king and queen gods. Oh, and also, Horus can talk. Sometimes too much.

I collapsed on the futon, brushing aside scarab beetle exoskeletons on my way. After three millennia, I knew Horus well enough to know that he had no intention of cleaning up after himself.

“Couldn't you at least eat the shells?” I asked.

He licked his paw. “Too crunchy.”

I grabbed for a scarab shell, but the leader of the shabtis—I called him Colonel Cody—jumped on my wrist and tore it away. Scarab beetles follow me everywhere, even without me having to summon them. It was all thanks to Osiris. The fact that Horus ate them just made for a win-win situation.

“Please, Great Pharaoh, allow your undeserving servants to do that for you,” Colonel Cody said.

So I let go. Who was I to argue with the shabtis? I'd found the shabtis—or they'd found me—after my tomb was opened back in 1922. I wasn't sure how I ever lived without them.

Horus licked his paw again. “See, the shabtis will clean up. They're meant to serve us.”

“Me,” I corrected. “They're meant to serve me.” After all, they'd come from my tomb.

I want to point something out. I'm not just some egotistical jerk who likes to order people around—even if they are only six inches tall and made of clay. I'd asked the shabtis not to fall on the ground when I spoke. I'd asked them not to threaten to take their own lives if the toilet didn't get cleaned five seconds after I'd used it. But after years I'd finally come to the conclusion that they had to act this way; the spells written all over them bound them to me forever.

“Is Gil home?” I asked. He'd want to know about this Horemheb thing, too.

“He was,” Horus said. “But then he went out looking for you.” He squashed a beetle between his teeth, squirting the inside into his mouth and tossing the shell back onto the floor.

Gil was the only other immortal I knew of, because I was definitely not counting Horemheb. But unlike me, Gil got lucky and was eighteen forever. Gil lived here and pretended to be my brother and legal guardian, which kept Social Services away.

“I told him I was going to be late,” I said. I wasn't sure why he thought he had to go out looking for me. I'd texted him and everything. “When will he be back?”

Horus scowled. “You think he told me?”

“Not really.” Horus and Gil tolerated each other at best. At worst, they fought over the best ways to protect me—not like I needed protecting.

I looked down at the shabtis. Those not cleaning up the beetle remains stood at attention under the coffee table. “Can you get me a soda?” My throat was parched.

Colonel Cody threw himself to the ground. “Nothing would give me more pleasure.” He snapped his fingers, and two shabtis I called Lieutenant Virgil and Lieutenant Leon ran off to the kitchen. They were painted solid blue and were almost always the ones who brought me drinks or snacks, like that was their specialty.

Since our town house was smaller than my tomb, the two shabtis were back in less than a minute. Lieutenant Virgil balanced a glass full of ice on his blue head, and Lieutenant Leon held a soda. They set the items on the coffee table and returned to their perch below.

“Back to Horemheb,” Horus said. “Tell me about the obelisk.”

“How did you hear—?”

Horus stopped me with a paw in the air. “Tut, seriously, do you think I'm an idiot? I'm a god. What part of that don't you understand?”

“But it just happened like a half hour ago.”

Horus sighed. “The explosion stunk up the entire city. I can smell Set's sulfurous stink from miles away.”

I'd smelled the sulfur, too, right after the obelisk blew up. I waited. I knew what was coming next.

“I told you Set was behind the obelisks,” Horus said. He crossed his front paws and looked at me with his eye. And I do mean eye. Set had ripped out his other one ages ago.

“Whatever,” I said. This wasn't the time for I-told-you-so's.

A low hiss came from Horus's throat. “Not whatever, Tut. You need to start listening to me. If you'd believed me when I said the Cult of Set was behind the obelisks, this never would have happened.”

“Stop treating me like a child,” I said.

“Why shouldn't I?” Horus said. “You've been acting like you're fourteen for the last three millennia.”

I took a sip of my soda. “That's because I
am
fourteen.”

“Well, maybe it's time you grew up.”

“That's not the point,” I said.

“And what is?” Horus said. “Horemheb? So he's back. What makes you think you can kill him now? Didn't you already try that once?”

“This time is going to be different. I feel it inside.” I tried to keep my scarab heart calm inside my chest. “So how can I kill an immortal?”

“You can't,” Horus said. But he'd stopped moving his tail. Horus never stopped moving his tail. Not even when he slept.

“What aren't you telling me?” I asked.

“Nothing, Tut,” Horus said. But his tail still wasn't moving.

“I know you're lying. You stopped moving your tail and that's what you always do when you lie.”

“I don't lie,” Horus said.

“You did just the other day when you were talking to Gil. Remember? He asked you about the beetle shells under his pillow and you told him you had nothing to do with it.”

Horus started flicking his tail back and forth again. “That wasn't a lie. The shabtis put them there.”

“You told them to.”

“That's a technicality,” Horus said.

“Still, there is some way to kill an immortal, and you're not telling me what it is,” I said.

“Why would I not tell you?” To Horus's credit, his tail only stopped moving for a microsecond.

“I don't know,” I said. “It seems to me that you'd want Horemheb gone as much as I do. He's in allegiance with your sworn enemy. Getting rid of Horemheb would be a huge blow to the Cult of Set. Both of our problems could be gone.”

“I don't have any problems.”

“Right. Set isn't a problem.”

Horus said nothing.

“He's a huge problem. You know it. He ripped your eye out. Or did you forget about that little incident?”

Horus's ears flared back. “I did not forget about that little incident. Nor will I ever forget about how he killed my father. Ever.”

“Then tell me how to kill Horemheb,” I pleaded.

Horus bared his pointy teeth at me. “There is nothing to tell, Tut. And we're done with this conversation.”

“Whatever.” I stormed out of the room. Horus was a big, fat, kitty liar. His non-answers had told me what I needed to know. There was a way to kill an immortal, and Horus knew what it was. And I was going to find out.

 

5

WHERE HOMEWORK IS LIKE A VIRUS

I tried to pretend things were normal the next day at school, but my life had taken a wrong turn down Crazy Street. All I could think about was Horemheb. And the obelisk exploding. And the secret I knew Horus was keeping from me.

“Can you work on our project
today
after school?” Henry said when he sat down next to me in World Cultures. He had a black shirt on that read, P
LUTO:
N
EVER
F
ORGET
, and in addition to his notebook, he had ten different-colored Sharpies clenched in his fist.

Ugh, the project. That was just one more thing to add to my growing list of annoyances in life. Maybe it was time for me to drop out of school. Gil was the only reason I was here in the first place. He bet me I couldn't go a week without asking the shabtis to wait on me, and sure enough, he was right. I'd failed miserably after two hours and ended up back in public school.

“I'm kind of busy today,” I said. Making friends wasn't my top priority in life. Been there, done that. If someone wanted to be my friend, they could help me get revenge on Horemheb.

“Too bad, amigo,” Henry said as he arranged the Sharpies on his desk. “We need to get it done. Unless you want us to fail.”

If Henry flunked eighth grade it would only mean one more person who understood the tortures of repeating the same subjects time and time again.

“We're not going to fail,” I said.

“Maybe you will fail,” Seth said from behind me. “You could be the oldest kid in eighth grade.” He snickered like he'd made a funny joke.

If only he knew.

Tia stomped up in her combat boots just then and sat down behind me, next to Seth. The chair on the other side of me was empty, but she completely ignored that.

“Who's the oldest kid in eighth grade?” she asked.

“Tut,” Seth said. “But he's also the shortest.”

I gritted my teeth and let the short comment slide.

Tia had on basically the same outfit as yesterday, except her shirt was lime green and the streak in her dark hair had magically changed to match. If it was possible, she had more jewelry on. In addition to the ankh pendant, she had a feather pendant and a circle pendant that looked an awful lot like a sun. All three were Egyptian symbols. I was going to ask her about it when Henry opened his mouth.

“So, today after school?” Henry said.

“I guess,” I said, against my better judgment.

“What's today after school?” Tia asked.

“We're working on our project,” Henry said.

Tia punched Seth in the arm. “We should work on our project today, too.”

Which is how it worked out that at four o'clock that day I was sitting on the second floor of Martha Washington Public Library next to Henry with Tia and Seth across from us. By the time I dragged myself there, half our class was already deep into project research.

“I think we should do the creepy death box,” Henry said.

“It's a funerary box,” I said.

“Funeral. Death. Same thing. What are you guys doing your project on?” Henry said.

Seth was picking dirt out from under his fingernails, and Tia was playing with the ends of the green streak in her hair. They didn't have a notebook or a pencil between the two of them.

“What project?” Seth said.

“World Cultures, idiot,” Tia said. “Remember? We're supposed to pick some object from the King Tut treasures and present to the class on it.”

“Oh, that,” Seth said. “We're doing that kick-butt statue of Set, the most awesome god ever. It was either that or one of those ugly statues of the boy king.”

I let pass the way he emphasized
boy king
. Whoever came up with that title should be executed. I also let pass the ugly comment. But most awesome god ever?

“What do you know about Set?” I said. How was it that Seth, who didn't know how the sun managed to come up each morning, knew who the god Set was?

“I know he destroyed anything that got in his way,” Seth said. “Unlike those other pansy gods who made flowers and stuff grow.”

My scarab heart begged for retaliation, but I held it in check. The last thing I needed was some vines or flowers sprouting in response. Even with my efforts, a bunch of roaches crawled out from under the bookshelves. Tia slammed her combat boot down on a nearby roach, leaving a giant smear of guts all over the tile.

“Maybe we should get some books,” Henry said, scooting his feet away from the guts. “Before they're all gone.”

Anything to get away from Seth.

But Tia stood up before I had a chance to, yanking Seth along with her. “What's the Dewey decimal number for King Tut?” she said.

“Nine-thirty-two point zero one four,” I said, failing miserably at keeping any pride out of my voice. The number of books written about me was beyond flattering.

“Got it.” She winked at me and then was gone.

I sat in stunned silence, watching her stroll away. I tried to imagine Seth wasn't right there beside her, because it ruined the whole image.

“Come on, Tut,” Henry said, and then he was off, following them.

“I'll save the table,” I called.

Henry gave me a thumbs-up. “Good plan.”

Five minutes later, all three came back empty-handed. Henry looked like his world was collapsing around him.

“Where are the books?” I said.

“They're all gone.” Tia slumped into her chair and went back to fiddling with her jewelry.

“All the books are gone?” I said. There were so many. It wasn't possible.

“Yep. Every single one,” Tia said.

Henry put his head between his hands. “We're gonna fail.”

“What about the Internet?” I said.

“No Internet. Don't you remember?”

I shook my head. I guess I'd missed that part of the project explanation.

“Let's just go steal a book from someone,” Seth said.

“We're not stealing a book,” Tia said.

Seth pointed to Joe Hurd at the table next to us. Between him and his project partner, Brandon Knauss, they had six books on King Tut stacked up.

“There's no way they need all those books,” Seth said, loud enough for Joe and Brandon to hear.

Joe opened his mouth like he was going to snap out some witty reply, but his face turned a sort of funny gray color and his eyes got all watery. He jumped to his feet and covered his mouth and ran.

“That was weird,” Tia said.

The King Tut book Joe had been looking at lay open on the table. Brandon reached out to pull it over to himself, but Seth was faster.