Theodosia and the Serpents of Chaos-Theo 1 (21 page)

He shoved his face right in front of mine. "What do you think I did with it?"

We stood there nose to nose, fists clenched, neither one of us willing to budge an inch.

A voice from the stairway made us both jump. "I say, you two. What's going on now?" Nigel had just come up the stairs and was staring at us as if we'd just been let out of the zoo.

Fagenbush's eyes slid over to Nigel, then back to me. "Theodosia and I were just discussing some of the newest artifacts, that's all."

"Really? Then why do you look like you're ready to come to blows?" Nigel asked.

Fagenbush blinked, then began to stutter.

Oh, honestly. He was going to get us both in trouble. "We just had a disagreement over provenance," I explained.

Fagenbush whipped his head around to look at me.

"You're arguing over where the artifacts came from?" Nigel asked, incredulous. He looked down his nose at Fagenbush. "I don't think the museum's paying you to get into shouting matches with little girls, Clive. Now move along."

Fagenbush muttered something under his breath before quickly leaving. I would need to be on my toes from now on. Now that I knew about the traitor, I couldn't let him wreak any more havoc.

No sooner had Nigel gone back downstairs (after raising an eyebrow at me) than Henry appeared at my side. "Did you give it to them?" he asked. "What did they say?"

I grabbed him by the arm and pulled him into a dark corner of the foyer.

"Ow!" he said. "That hurts."

"Sorry, but you're talking too loud. You're going to get us both in trouble." I was stalling. What should I tell him? That Wigmere had ordered me to return the Heart of Egypt? But then Henry would fuss and whine and moan and insist on going with us to Cairo, which would almost certainly ruin all of our chances. "Yes, I gave it to them," I finally said, which wasn't exactly a lie.

Henry's face lit up. "Was he impressed? Did he congratulate us? Did you tell him of the part I played?"

He looked so hopeful, it broke my heart that Wigmere hadn't said anything nice. "Yes! Very impressed. I told him of the part both you and Will played and he said your distraction was sheer genius."

Henry folded his arms over his chest and rocked back on his heels. "I should say."

Having appeased Henry, I scuttled off to my closet to try and think of a plan to get Mother back to Egypt in a hurry. This was not going to be easy. And if Henry ever found out about my deception, he'd never trust me again.

I lifted my chin. That's all right. He'd only just begun to trust me. So it only meant we'd go back to being the way we were. I just wish it didn't feel so awful...

***

That night at dinner I kept glancing up at Mum, trying to see if I could sense any whiff of corrosion. Trouble was, it had been ages since she'd been home and of course she'd changed, but I didn't know if it had anything to do with becoming a traitor or not.

"Theodosia! Why do you keep staring at your mother like that?" Dad snapped.

Startled, I dropped my fork onto my plate, launching a small volley of peas onto the white tablecloth. Father had been in a horrid mood ever since we'd lost the Heart of Egypt. Which made all these secrets that much more painful. But the truth wouldn't make him any happier.

Father stabbed at his mutton so hard it nearly cracked the plate.

"Are you all right, Theodosia dear? You look a bit pale," Mother said.

If she shouldered the same burdens I did, she'd be pale, too. Pale! That was it! She'd just given me my first opening. "Well, I do feel a bit pale," I said. "I feel like I need a rest somewhere warm and dry." There. I'd dropped my first hint.

"I'll get you some chamomile tea before bed," Mum offered. "That will help you rest."

I hate chamomile tea.

I turned my attention back to my plate and cut my mutton up into tiny pieces, hoping I would fool Mum into thinking I'd eaten some. My worries rather squelched my appetite. Even though I had worked out that Clive Fagenbush was the mole, I couldn't help but wonder how to convince Wigmere of Mother's innocence. What would it take to prove it to him? What if I couldn't? Would Mum go to jail? Be found guilty of treason? Would anyone even care that it wasn't her, but the corrosive power of the black magic she came into contact with every day?

Except, I reminded myself, it
wasn't
her. Wigmere had got it all wrong.

After what seemed like hours, Father finally pushed his plate away and sighed in contentment.

Now it was time for my next move. "Mum, when do you think you'll be going back to Egypt?"

"Good heavens, Theodosia!" Father said. "She's only just got back."

I shrugged. "I'm just curious. Trying to plan out my year, you know, that sort of thing."

"Plan out your year? Good grief." Father didn't seem to think my year needed planning out. Henry just looked at me, clearly puzzled.

"Not for a while, surely," Mother said gently.

"But aren't you eager to get back? See what else was in Amenemhab's tomb? I mean, who knows what other marvelous finds might be hiding there? Doesn't that sort of thing get under your skin? Make you itch to get back to it?"

Father stared at me with his mouth open, and Mother frowned slightly. "I'm not sure what you mean, Theodosia. Of course, any sort of intellectual discovery is invigorating, but you make it sound like more of an ... obsession or something."

Maybe I'd poured it on a bit thick, but I was trying to see if I could detect any hint of the traitorous behavior Wig-mere had been talking about. "But aren't the winter months the best time of year to go to Egypt? Isn't the weather milder then?" I asked.

My parents exchanged glances. "Yes," Mum said. "Now
is
probably the best time to be there. But it's the time when Henry is out of school, and the museum board has its annual meeting. There are many commitments here in London right now."

Convincing them was going to be harder than I thought.

W
HEN
I
AWOKE THE NEXT MORNING
, I felt wretched. Not only had I not talked my parents into returning to Egypt, but I'd dreamed of those revolting little shabtis again. Only this time, one of them was chewing on my ankle. Terrifyingly enough, when I opened my eyes, the sensation didn't go away.

Had the shabtis come to life? I sat bolt upright, only to find that it was just Isis. And she wasn't gnawing on my ankle, but curled up in a warm furry ball, knitting at my feet with her claws. Gently. Which meant ... the Demon Isis was gone!

I reached down and rubbed her tummy, then scratched behind her ears. And then, I heard my favorite sound in the world.

Isis purred.

And purred and purred. It was like a motor that wouldn't turn off.

The mud bath had worked! oh how I wanted to stay there all day snuggling with my cat, but I had far too much work to do. Beginning with those filthy shabtis.

I gave Isis one last belly rub, and she gave me one last affectionate swipe with her paw.

Before I tackled the shabtis, I wanted to be sure I was adequately protected. First on my list of things to do was to make more amulets. I'd given one to Stokes and another to Danver. I was running low. Of course, I hadn't realized that both men had their own specially ingrained protection. Although, come to think of it, fat lot of good that had done Stokes. Or Danver. Can't use a tattoo as a tourniquet.

When I reached my study, I dragged the old carpetbag out of the cupboard and pulled Eggbert Archimedes'
The Power of Amulets: A Lost Art
off the shelf and got to work.

The trick with amulets is figuring out exactly which ingredients are needed to protect you against which types of curses. Providing you know what type of curse it is. If you don't, then you must resort to general protection, which isn't quite as powerful. So, while it might seem like an excess to have seven amulets, it's not. All you have to do is remember Danver and his unfortunate experience to know that.

I decided to regenerate the heart amulet I'd used on Stokes. It worked very well on physical injuries and the way things were going, I had an uneasy feeling there might be more of those.

I carefully scraped all the old wax and linen off the heart-shaped pebble, then rinsed it with purifying water. I cut a new piece of white linen and, using a special ink I'd made out of myrrh, I drew a wedjat eye in the center, then drew a snake around that. The viciousness of the snake would repel danger, and the eye would invoke wholeness and health.

I rummaged through my kit until I found a small sliver of malachite, a green, semiprecious stone used by the ancient Egyptians to invoke regeneration and healthy life. (You'd be surprised how many artifacts, in spite of our best efforts, crumble and disintegrate when handled. When that happens, I scramble to collect the tiny bits and slivers that no one else bothers with. They come in very handy at times like this.)

I placed the sliver of malachite in the center of the wedjat eye and carefully folded the linen over it until it was a tiny little wad. Next, I lit a candle stub and let the wax drip all over the linen to seal it. While the wax was still warm, I pressed it onto the pebble.

While that was cooling, I grabbed a length of gold-colored wire—to invoke the power of the sun god—out of my bag and began twisting that into the shape of an ankh. Ankhs are the Egyptian symbol for life and wearing one is thought to lengthen one's life. I looped a thin cord through the top of it, then slipped it over my head.

Then as one last means of protection, I took four white threads (purity), four green threads (life and regeneration), four yellow threads (representative of the sun, which was eternal and imperishable), and four red threads (fiery protective power of the Eye of Ra) and plaited them together. I tied it off in a knot, then added six more knots (to form a barrier through which hostile forces cannot pass). It would make a lovely bracelet. Perhaps I could even talk Mother into wearing it.

Now properly armed, I put my supplies away and hurried toward the short-term storage down by the loading dock.

Something felt different as soon as I stepped into the room. It was in the air, as if the elemental particles had been disturbed. It felt as if the invisible threads that wind themselves through the atmosphere had been snarled.

Something had tangled these invisible threads into a twisted mess.

Ignoring the familiar punch of nausea, I went over to the closest box of shabtis.

Once again, they had changed. They were now exquisitely detailed little statues and they lay in their crate in a jumble, not all nicely laid out as we had left them.

Bother. Had the shabtis got up and moved around on their own? Like they had in my dream?

My stomach did a somersault at that thought. It made perfect sense that Amenemhab would have included these small clay figures as part of his curse. He'd included every other possible thing—why not these? Perhaps they were to rise up and help bring the downfall of Thutmose and Amenemhab's enemies from the inside out. Sort of like an Egyptian version of the Trojan horse.

It seemed perfectly logical, in a black magic, revengey sort of way.

I moved on to the next crate and saw a dozen shabtis scattered on the floor around it. Was this the crate Henry had been using for soldiers? Had he carelessly left them out? Or had they climbed out on their own? No, surely one of the curators moved them. Probably Fagenbush had come down here, sniffing around.

Except even Fagenbush treated artifacts with the utmost care. The jumble of nerves in my stomach grew larger.

Looking for answers, I crossed over to the worktable where most of the stele had been laid out. I stood for a bit, studying the grisly images. The pharaoh's army lined up in endless rows, armed with spears and swords and daggers, grim expressions on their faces. Beheaded enemies lay at the pharaoh's feet, clearly the handiwork of these soldiers. Was that part of the whole plan? Were these shabti figures to rise up, not in the true afterlife like most shabtis, but whenever someone disturbed the tomb?

Words from Amenemhab's
Art of War
came to mind.

But let them remember, to be afraid, even after his death. Let them remember how he smote his enemies in two, renting their skulls asunder as they wished to lay your land. Let them remember that his retribution was swift and terrible, as it will always be through all eternity.

Something touched my shoulder. I jumped, nearly dropping the stele.

"Theo?" Mum's voice sounded above my pounding heart. "Whatever is the matter? You look like you've seen a ghost."

"Nothing, Mother," I said, clutching my heart to make sure it was still in my chest. "I just hadn't heard you come in. That's all."

She eyed me dubiously.

Anxious to get her concerns off of me, I pointed to the stele I'd been studying. "Mum, look here for a moment. You brought home nearly everything pictured in this stele."

"Hm. Yes, I did, didn't I? How clever of you to figure that out."

"But you didn't bring this," I said, pointing to a scepter the pharaoh held in his hand. "The Was scepter, according to the rubbing you gave me. Amenemhab speaks about it quite a lot, actually."