The Eye of the Serpent (24 page)

‘Yeah, but you know the English guy, Llewellyn?'

‘The
Welsh
guy. That's why he talks the way he does.'

‘Yeah, whatever you say. I took this photograph of him and it's
hideous
!'

Biff sniggered. ‘Oh, you only just noticed? I could've told you he's no oil painting. The British Museum clearly doesn't employ professors on the basis of their looks. He's got the kind of puss you'd put on the mantel to keep the kids away from the fire.'

‘No, look, will ya! What do you make of this? I did an enlargement, just to be sure I wasn't hallucinating or something.'

Charlie thrust a sheet of photographic paper into his hands and he gave it a cursory glance; then looked again as he registered what he was looking at.

‘Holy moly!' he said.

A face stared up at him from the print. The eyes were covered by a pair of dark glasses, but they were the only normal-looking things in the picture. They hung from a face that was a fright mask made up of what appeared to be hundreds of fat black insects.

‘Is this some kind of joke?' gasped Biff.

‘If it is, nobody's laughing,' Charlie assured him.

‘It's a little early for Halloween, wouldn't you say? Aw, come on, Charlie. He must have put on
some kind of a mask.'

She shook her head. ‘Uh-uh. You were there when I took it – he was sat in the back of Mohammed Hansa's automobile and he looked completely normal. Well, as normal as a guy like that ever looks. But I remember he wasn't too pleased about having his picture taken. He kicked up about it. Say, maybe he knew it would come out like this.'

Biff felt a sense of excitement stirring within him. Charlie had chanced on something here. He didn't know exactly what it was yet, but he was pretty sure it would make more exciting reading than some dry old stuff about digging up relics. Not so much human interest as
inhuman
interest – but what the heck. It would transfix readers from Hoboken to Colorado.

He slammed down his glass of whisky and stared at Charlie. ‘Great day in the morning!' he shouted excitedly. ‘This is incredible. This has to be the story of the century!'

‘You figure?'

‘Yes, I figure. This is gonna be bigger than the
Titanic
!' Biff thought for a moment. ‘Say, what room is the professor staying in? We'll get some hired muscle and go and have a little word with him.'

Charlie shook her head. ‘He ain't there,' she said. ‘I bumped into the desk clerk a little while ago and he asked me if I'd seen anything of Professor Llewellyn. Seems he went out early this morning and never came back. Told the clerk he was headed for Ethan Wade's dig.'

‘You're kidding me! Well, don't just stand there, go and find us some transport!' he cried. ‘Get Mohammed Hansa if you can. We're going up to the dig.'

Charlie stared at him. ‘At this time of night?' she cried.

‘Yeah, shake the lead out of your boots! I can see it now . . .' He lifted a hand to frame an imaginary caption. ‘
ANCIENT TOMBS HAUNTED BY INSECT–MAN HORROR
,' he said. ‘Exclusive feature by Biff Corcoran.'

‘Photographs by Charlie Connors,' added Charlie.

‘Yeah, sure. Now skedaddle! I want to get up there before that weirdo professor disappears on us.'

She turned and ran for the door. It was the first time Biff had seen her hurry over anything. He turned back to his glass of whisky and gulped it down in one before looking around for his jacket and boots.

SONCHIS PACED ANXIOUSLY
up and down, telling himself that he had waited long enough. He had returned from feeding Llewellyn's bones to the hyenas some time ago and had made himself sit quietly in the doctor's tent. It was late now and he was pretty sure that everyone in the camp must be asleep. He stooped, picked up a hurricane lamp and the heavy bolt cutters he had set aside earlier, but he did not light the lamp yet. He went over to pull aside the mosquito netting and peered outside. Not a soul in sight, but from a couple of tents he heard loud snores. He wondered how the
whole camp had not been awakened by it.

He stepped out into the open and, aware of how the slightest sound carried at night, began to creep towards the road, moving the doctor's clumsy feet as quietly as he could. He crossed the road and picked his way carefully between the rocks in the pale moonlight. Once he was a good distance from the tents, he walked more quickly, climbing down into the gully and crossing the intervening space.

Ahead of him, beside the entrance to the tomb, he saw Hassan, the arab worker who had alerted Llewellyn to the presence of Tom Hinton, dozing fitfully beside a small campfire. As he moved closer, the man snapped awake and directed a lazy smile at the approaching figure.

‘Dr Hopper,' he said in his poor English. ‘You up late.'

Sonchis arranged the doctor's features into a reciprocal smile. ‘Something I needed to check on,' he said. ‘How long before somebody comes to take your place?'

‘Hours,' said Hassan glumly. ‘I just come on watch.' He stood up. ‘Hassan go inside with you?' he asked.

‘No need,' said Sonchis. ‘In fact, now I come
to think of it, I have no further need of you at all.' He flung out a hand to seize Hassan by the throat and the Arab's dark eyes bulged in surprise. He opened his mouth to cry out but all that emerged was a brief hiss of expelled air. Sonchis exerted all his supernatural strength and felt the bones in Hassan's neck snap beneath his fingers like dry twigs. Hassan's eyes became vacant and he went limp, his life extinguished. Sonchis regarded him for a moment, not wanting to make any mistakes; he couldn't allow Hassan to recover and go shouting for help while he was inside the tomb. But the man's eyes were already glazing over. Sonchis stepped over the body and, taking a box of matches from the doctor's pocket, stooped to light the hurricane lamp. Then, holding it aloft, he went quickly down the steps into the tomb.

Alec was running for his life. It was night and he could see very little, but he knew that behind him in the dark shadows something ancient and evil was following him on silent feet.

Ahead of him lay a vast expanse of desert, pale and unwelcoming in the moonlight. The sand seemed to cling to his feet as though it was
damp; he could feel it sucking at his ankles and feared that if he slowed his pace, he would sink to his knees and be held there, a helpless captive. He tried to cry out for help, but his voice seemed to have gone and he could manage nothing more than a dry rattle of despair. From behind him a pair of skeletal arms were reaching out to grab at his shoulders—

He woke with a start and lay sweating on the camp bed, trying to get his breathing back to normal. At first he was surprised to find that he was dressed, but then he remembered he had been so tired when he finally turned in, he could do no more than pull off his boots. The dream had been so real, he could still feel the unspeakable touch of those dried fingers clawing at his flesh. He shivered, despite the heat, and gazed around the gloom of the tent, reassured by the sound of Coates snoring loudly nearby. But then he realized that something else had woken him: the sound of footsteps passing by.

He got up and went to peer outside. The campsite looked deserted in the eerie wash of moonlight. For a moment he thought he saw a shadowy shape moving amidst the jagged rocks on the far side of the road – it looked like
the tall shape of Doc Hopper; but then it was gone and he decided he must have been mistaken.

Whatever the answer, he could feel sleep plucking at him again and he was too tired to resist for long. He stumbled back to his bed and lay down, listening to Coates – an infernal racket that was somehow oddly comforting. Eerily, from Archie's tent across the way he could hear more snores, the deeper tones seeming to provide some kind of answer to Coates's more high-pitched ones. If he had been more awake it would have seemed funny, but he was so tired and sleep was pulling at him with irresistible power. He closed his eyes and was asleep again in moments. This time there were no dreams to trouble him.

Sonchis approached his own mummified corpse, drinking in the wonder of this moment, one he had anticipated for so many years. At last the time of his rebirth was at hand. He set down the lantern and pushed aside the remains of the wooden lid. Then, turning back, he took the powerful bolt cutters and sliced through the clasps that secured the copper manacles. Pointless to return to his own body only to find himself
once more a prisoner of that despised metal. He picked up the manacles and flung them aside.

He stood for a moment, looking down at the shrivelled, mummified corpse in the sarcophagus, a body that had once pulsed with strength and vitality and magical power beyond the comprehension of mere mortals. He told himself it was of little matter. He now held the life forces of three men within him, and once they had been transferred to his own body, together with his own
ka
, he would soon begin to regenerate flesh and blood and muscle. He would be as strong as ever, if not more so. From around the doctor's neck he took the thong that held the two amulets. Then, leaning forward over the sarcophagus, he slipped the thong around his own neck and draped the two talismans on his lifeless chest. He was ready to begin.

He placed Hopper's hands on either side of the bandaged head, moved Hopper's face closer and began to recite the words of transference; the words he had held in his mind for so very long.

He spoke softly, muttering them under his breath, and almost instantly he felt the change occurring within him. As he looked down, his hands began to melt away, the scarabs peeling off
in agitation, revealing the bare bones beneath. The insects swept over the still body below him, then up and over the edges of the wooden sarcophagus, raining to the floor and skittering across the sand at his feet; and now his wrists were dissolving, his arms, his shoulders; and as he looked on in wonder, the eyes of the body beneath him suddenly flicked open and regarded him in silent triumph.

Now the rest of him was bursting apart in a flurry: he could feel Doc Hopper's body collapsing, no more than a collection of bones in a set of clothing; then his final thoughts transferred themselves to their new home. And he was no longer looking down, but gazing up from the sarcophagus, just in time to see the last of Doc Hopper's wasted body bursting apart in an explosion of shiny, wriggling shapes.

He sat up and looked around. After so many unsuitable hosts, he was at last in the place where he belonged. He was Sonchis again. He lifted a hand to look at it, watching in awe as the flesh of his palm began to regenerate, stretching the slackened bandages taut again. He lifted his other hand and tore the bandages away; they came apart easily beneath his eager fingers and he
could see the black flesh beneath swelling, the colour lightening as blood flowed to long-dead veins and arteries. He tore the other hand free and pulled the wrappings from around his face. He explored the flesh beneath with his fingertips, feeling his proud nose reshaping itself, his shrivelled lips filling with moisture. There was no mirror here for him to see the transformation, but he knew he had more than enough life to power him; for he was more than just Sonchis – he also had the knowledge, the experience and the strength of three other men at his disposal.

He peered over the edge of the sarcophagus and saw the swarms of scarabs running this way and that in confusion, away from the fallen bones of Doc Hopper. They had served him well, these simple creatures. They had provided him with a means to walk the earth again while he drew up his plans.

He stood up in the sarcophagus and climbed over the side, crushing several scarabs beneath his feet as he did so. A poor reward for what they had done, but he wasn't about to get sentimental over a few insects. He had more important matters to attend to. He walked to the nearest of the standing sarcophagi and, taking the wooden lid in his
hands, wrenched it aside as though it was made of nothing stronger than balsa. He propped the lid against the wall and studied the occupant of the sarcophagus.

A shrivelled, bandaged face greeted him and he was shocked to note that he did not even remember the name of this man. It mattered little. His four lieutenants were here to aid him, though they would never be as complete as he was. He tore the bandages away from the man's closed eyes. Then he raised his arms and placed his hands on either side of his lieutenant's head, and muttered the words of regeneration.

After a few moments, with a dry click, the man's eyes opened and Sonchis saw in them an expression of absolute loyalty, undimmed by the passing centuries. This one he would leave behind, he decided, to take care of any who tried to follow him. The other three would accompany him to the Gates of Apophis, where they would help him to perform the sacred rite that he had planned three thousand years earlier.