The Eye of the Serpent (17 page)

Ethan adopted a hangdog look. He sighed. ‘I guess there's no use trying to lie to you, Biff,' he said. ‘Yeah, we found something.'

Biff looked at Charlie. ‘What'd I tell ya?' he said.

‘You said they'd found something,' said Charlie.

‘Yeah, and I was right, see. That's what they call reporter's intuition.' He turned back to Ethan. ‘Come on, spill the beans,' he said.

Ethan nodded. ‘Mickey, go and bring the finds tray for Mr Corcoran.'

‘OK, boss.' Mickey got up from the table and headed towards his tent.

‘See, this all ties in with my big idea,' said Biff excitedly. ‘You know I've been looking for the human interest angle? Well, it occurred to me last night that it was right there, staring me in the face.' He pointed at Alec. ‘There he is,' he said.

‘Alec?' said Ethan.

‘Me?' said Alec.

‘Yeah, you! Think of it. Intrepid young English
boy vows to carry on his uncle's work after poor Sir William gets dragged off to the funny farm. No offence, kid. Boy heads out to the wilds of Egypt all alone—'

‘Hardly alone,' said Coates indignantly. ‘I am Master Alec's valet. I accompany him everywhere.'

‘OK, point taken. He sets off for the wilds of Egypt with just his faithful flunky at his side.'

‘
Flunky?
' Now Coates looked positively horrified. ‘That's not a term I approve of.'

‘We'll haggle over the words later,' Biff told him. ‘Just listen a minute, will ya? Where was I?'

‘Boy goes to Egypt with flunky,' said Charlie tonelessly, and she snapped a picture of Coates.

‘Oh yeah . . . Boy gets to Egypt, joins the expedition. And to top it all, after weeks of hard work he makes an exciting discovery.'

‘Hardly weeks,' Alec corrected him. ‘I only got here yesterday.'

‘The timescale ain't important! It's the achievement that counts. Our readers are gonna love this story! Charlie, get some more pictures of our young hero. Get one with the flunky and one with Dr Cutie there.'

Charlie obediently started taking more pictures, but the bored expression never left her face and
her jaws kept chomping rhythmically at her gum. Madeleine meanwhile put her tongue out and made rude gestures at the camera.

‘Hey, knock it off, sister,' said Charlie. ‘You any idea how much film costs?'

‘
You
knock eet off,' snapped Madeleine. ‘I told you I don't wish to be photographed. Please respect my wishes!'

‘Aw, suit yourself.' Charlie directed her attention at Alec. ‘Look heroic, buster,' she told him. He just glared back at her, but she took a picture anyway.

Mickey came out of his tent carrying a small wooden tray, which he brought to the table, walking slowly as if it contained something precious. Meanwhile Biff went right on talking. ‘I can see it now,' he said. ‘Feature article: THE TUTANKHAMUN KID. We'll have a nice big picture of brave Alex—'

‘Alec!'

‘Whatever! We'll have a big picture of him standing in front of . . . in front of—' Biff broke off as Mickey placed the carefully prepared finds tray on the table in front of him. It contained a few shards of broken pottery, half a small statue and a mummified cat.

Biff stared down at it in silence for a moment.
‘Please tell me this isn't all you've found,' he said quietly.

‘Not
all
,' said Doc Hopper. ‘Just the best of it.'

‘The best?'

Charlie raised her camera to snap a picture of the tray but Biff lifted a hand to stop her. ‘Don't waste film,' he told her. ‘There
has
to be more than this.'

‘We hope there
will
be,' said Ethan. ‘But look – that piece of jar there. Eighteenth dynasty: there's no mistaking that.'

‘Oh, great,' said Biff. ‘That's your big discovery. A broken vase.'

‘
D'accord
,' said Madeleine. ‘And 'ere – you see this fragment of writing on the clay? The name of Akhenaten himself. Well, it
could
be if it was all there. So you see, we could be on the verge of something very exciting indeed.'

Biff raised a hand to his face. ‘On the verge is no use to me,' he groaned. ‘On the verge is nowhere. It has to be
bigger
than that.'

‘We have some bigger bits of pottery,' said Alec. ‘Not quite as old as this stuff, but . . .'

Biff shook his head. His great idea had just crashed up against a real problem. He thought for a moment.

‘Wait a minute,' he said. ‘Maybe I'll go talk to Howard Carter. Yeah . . . I'll see if he'll agree to me saying that Alex is really working on his dig. Then we can photograph the kid standing in front of a big sarcophagus. Something that will wow our readers.'

Alec glared at him. ‘But that would be a lie,' he protested.

‘Yeah, sure, but it would be a better story. Let's not get hung up on the details, kid. We photograph you standing next to that junk' – he pointed at the contents of the tray – ‘and we don't
have
a story.'

‘You're surely not suggesting that Master Alec should involve himself in a total fabrication?' said Coates. ‘What about his sense of honour? And where's your journalistic integrity?'

‘Forget about honour and integrity: he'd be featured in the
Saturday Evening Post
!' said Biff, as if that was reason enough to do just about anything. ‘He'd be in millions of households throughout the USA!'

‘What a nauseating proposition,' said Coates quietly.

‘Hey, listen, buster, there's plenty of people would give their eye teeth for a place in the
Post
.
Heck, we've featured the biggest stars in Hollywood.'

‘How thrilling for you,' said Coates, with just the right amount of contempt.

‘I'm sorry,' said Alec firmly. ‘I couldn't do it. Uncle Will's dream is to find the tomb of Akhenaten and that's what we're trying to do. Finding Tut was Howard Carter's dream and he's made it happen. I wouldn't do anything to take any of the glory away from him.'

Biff sat there, shaking his head in disbelief. ‘You guys are killing me,' he said. ‘You know that?' He drained the last of his coffee and stood up. ‘To think I gave up breakfast at the Winter Palace to come out to this godforsaken dump and look at a few bits of pottery I could've found in my own back garden. Come on, Charlie, let's get back down the valley to Tut's tomb.' He gave Ethan a withering look. ‘A place where they've
really
got something to shout about.' He glared at Alec. ‘You ever come to your senses, kid, you know where to find me.'

‘I won't change my mind,' Alec assured him.

The team watched as Biff and Charlie stalked off to remount their donkeys. The Arab guide managed to turn the beasts round and they
started off up the hill. Biff looked back to shout at Ethan, ‘I don't know why I came all the way over here. Wade, you're in charge of a bunch of losers. You'll never find that tomb you keep talking about. Y'hear me? If you find anything of interest, I'll eat my dad-blasted boots!'

Alec felt an overpowering urge to jump up and run after the newspaperman; to tell him to take his boots off and start chewing, because they
had
found something: they had made the most incredible find ever. But Ethan must have sensed what was going on, because he flashed him a warning look followed by a sly wink.

Once the two journalists were safely out of sight, the team let out a collective sigh of relief and had a good laugh about what had just happened.

‘Mickey, the tray was perfect,' chuckled Ethan. ‘It couldn't have looked more dismal if you'd tried. Maddie, that was a nice touch about Akhenaten – it just added the final straw. Thanks for that.'

Alec waited for Madeleine to protest at the shortened form of her name but she just smiled graciously. ‘Thank you for defending me,' she said, ‘against that horrible man.'

‘Oh, that's OK.' There was a brief silence while the two of them regarded each other; then Ethan made an effort to recall what he'd been saying.

‘And Alec . . . you clearly know the meaning of the word integrity. Some kids would have jumped at the chance to be famous.'

Alec shrugged. ‘I wouldn't mind being famous for something I really had done,' he said. ‘Like being one of the first people to enter the tomb of Akhenaten?'

Ethan grinned. ‘Yeah, that would be something, wouldn't it?' He glanced around the table. ‘OK, folks, let's get to work,' he said. ‘I figure if we go right through we'll have the antechamber cleared by nightfall. Which means that first thing tomorrow morning we'll be ready to open the second door. I don't know about you, but I'm with Alec on this one. I can't wait to get a good look inside that tomb!'

HE LAY ON
the hotel bed in his unfamiliar body, curtains drawn, windows tight shut against the morning sunlight. From the street below came the hubbub of voices, the shouting of tradesman, the honking of motor horns. Every part of his flesh itched to be out there, pursuing his quest, but he knew that this was not possible. For the moment at least, he could only walk by night.

His name was Sonchis; he was a high priest of Akhenaten and he had waited three thousand years for the opportunity to be reborn. Chance had released him from his sarcophagus hundreds
of years ago – a great movement in the earth that had split the copper-lined casket wide open, allowing his ka, or life force, to escape its prolonged captivity. But his joy at being freed from the casket was short-lived because he was still compelled by the magical power of the serpent's eye, created by three of the pharaoh's most powerful magicians, rendering him powerless to break through the wall that separated him from the world. Instead he was obliged to wait in darkness as the centuries rolled slowly by.

But over the long eternity of imprisonment, the hunger for revenge had never left him; nor the certain knowledge that one day he would be free to carry on the work he had started all those years ago. With what excitement had he sensed the arrival of people searching beneath the sand for whatever was hidden there! With what trepidation did he hear the sounds of them moving closer, day by day, inch by inch! And then, at last, the sounds of the doors of the antechamber being opened. The sounds of movement on the other side of the wall!

Finally . . . finally, human hands had taken hold of the serpent's eye and pulled it free, breaking the magical seal and ending the powerful
curse that had held Sonchis a prisoner for so long. In its mad rush for freedom, Sonchis's ka had plunged through the opening in the door and had passed through the eye of the young man who was peering through it.

Entering the body of a human host had been his best means of escape, but at first it had been confusing. As well as his own thoughts and memories, he had inherited those of the person whose body he occupied. Hinton was young and strong – he had fought against the invasion and it had taken some time for Sonchis to claim him completely; and then, of course, he had to wait till darkness fell before he could summon his scarab followers – they who had always been his most loyal subjects. Part of him had feared that after so long they would no longer heed his instructions, but he need not have worried. In the darkness they had come scurrying to do his bidding, thousands of them. They had consumed Hinton's body down to the bones and then had replaced his flesh with theirs.

What did it feel like to be free after so long? Incredible! Words could not describe the delight of finally being able to leave his place of interment, to view the world through borrowed eyes.
Up here on the surface, everything had changed immeasurably from the existence he had known, but somewhere, he knew, the great serpent still slept, awaiting the call that would reawaken him; and he had not changed, not one tiny bit – of that Sonchis was sure.

The host he dwelled in now was certainly a better choice than his first hiding place: this was a human who could move freely and ask questions, and moreover, one who was already known to those who had discovered the tomb. Llewellyn's body could be used to take Sonchis wherever he needed to go to regain his former glories.

But it was a process that could not be rushed. After such an age of inactivity, Sonchis knew that certain elements had to be in place before he could enjoy his full powers; and first and foremost he needed to be able to walk by daylight. Even now, more confident in the flabby body of the British detective, he knew that a single ray of sunlight upon his back would cause his scarab flesh to break apart and scurry into the darkest corners.

Tonight he'd go looking again for the amulet that would allow him to brave the daylight
hours. He thought he had a pretty good idea where he would find it. Right now he felt a powerful tiredness tugging at him and closing his eyes. He immediately fell into a restless sleep . . .