"What? What did I do? And why are they following us?" I asked as he hustled us down a short passage to an emergency exit. Looking over my shoulder, I could see the mummies lumbering, staggering, and crab-walking their way after us.
"You raised them," Adrian answered grimly.
"I did not!"
"You did. Normally you would not possess the means to lift more than one curse at a time, but with the power of the ring, you effectively lifted the curse of everything in the museum, including the mummies."
"The mummies were cursed?" The cool evening air blasted around us as Adrian kicked the emergency door open, a flashing blue light going off along with a siren. I glanced back. The mummies were still coming toward us; behind them trailed a cadre of museum employees and security guards, keeping well back but with guns drawn and radios held to their mouths as they gave orders.
"Some are. Not all. Those three you raised obviously were. Move quickly—the guards will have the police surrounding the building in less than a minute."
"Why can't I see one of the mummies?" Damian complained as we ran out the door. It was full dark now, and the streets around the museum were busy with commuter traffic, both on foot and in cars. We emerged into a small parking lot containing a number of official museum vehicles, mostly small cars.
"I understand what you're saying about me charming the mummies' curses, but why are they following us?" I asked as Adrian ran to the nearest car, yanking at the door and swearing profoundly when it proved to be locked.
"They follow the sound of your voice," he growled as he stepped back, lifting his boot to slam it into the car window. The window cracked but didn't break. "It's part of the ritual you used to unmake the curse."
I remembered the words contained in the charm book. The last thing I had said was spoken directly to the purpose of the curse: Thy power is dispersed. Thy desire is undone. Thy darkness is revealed. All who were bound to you, heed only my voice.
"Oh, great," I sighed as Adrian kicked the window again, wincing as the glass shattered all over the interior of the car. "I'm the only girl in the whole of England who ever voice-activated mummies."
"Get in the back," Adrian told Damian as he unlocked a side door. I hurried around to the passenger seat, waiting as Adrian ducked into the car to sweep bits of broken glass off the seat.
"I want to ride in the front," Damian whined.
I smirked. "Hey, is Damian affected the same way the mummies are? Does he have to follow my voice too? Does he have to do whatever I order him to do?"
"Not likely!" Damian snorted.
"No, he's not affected. He's a sentient being. The mummies aren't sentient any longer." Adrian swore colorfully in German as the emergency exit to the museum creaked open and three battered mummies staggered out into the night air. "Get in the car!"
Their blind eyes were turned toward me, the soft little noises they made halfway between a moan and a plea. I hesitated at the opened car door, torn between the desire to get away and the need to protect the helpless mummies.
"Nell!"
I waved my hand at the mummies. "Look at them, Adrian! They're helpless, and it's all my fault. What do you think the museum people are going to do with them? They'll torture them trying to figure out what's going on! I've got to put them back to their inanimate state."
"There's no time. Get in the car."
I looked around the parking lot. The first security guard had reached the emergency exit, poking first his gun, then his head around the doorway to peer out at us. Beyond the high stone perimeter fence that lined the museum lot, police sirens wailed. A guard stood outside a manned guard gate at the entrance of the parking area, his mouth hanging open as he beheld the mummies creeping toward him.
I spied a big white paneled van near the gate. It was empty. I spun around, slamming the car door as I sprinted toward the van, calling back to Adrian, "We'll take them with us! I can't leave them to be tortured, not when it's my fault they're walking around."
The mummies turned in my direction, the pitch of their nonstop mewling growing higher and more desperate as I raced away from them. I reached the side of the van, praying for a miracle.
It was locked.
"Damn," I swore, jerking the charm book out of my pocket.
Adrian and Damian reached me just as I found the unlocking charm and opened the door.
"Nell, what the hell are you doing?" Adrian demanded, shoving me to the side as a bullet whined past. "Why are you attempting to get us killed for a few mummies?"
"You can't be killed, remember? And the mummies are my responsibility, so I can't leave them." I lifted my voice so it could be heard above the sound of sirens, now multiplying in alarming numbers, joined by shouts from the museum guards and occasional bullets that zinged off nearby cars. "Mummies! Heed My Voice!"
They moved a lot faster now, and by the time I jerked the rear door open, they rounded the back of the van. "In!" I commanded, jumping in and hoping they'd follow me.
Adrian, smart man that he is, knew when he'd been outmaneuvered, and with only a quick fulminating glare at me, he tossed Damian into the van, scrambling over the kid to get into the driver's seat. Luck favored him better than me, because a set of keys was hidden under the seat and he quickly found them.
The mummies may not have been sentient, but they were smart enough to figure out that if I was in the van, they needed to be in the van, too.
Unfortunately, they all tried to cram into the same seat with me.
"Ack!" I yelled as Ginger lunged onto my lap. Another mummy, one bound totally in gauze, fell onto my shoulder, his face pushed into mine, the horrible mewling noise coming from lips that were dried and lifeless, and he smelled strongly of resin and age. I pulled away from his unintentional embrace, trying not to notice the black holes that were his empty eye sockets.
Adrian gunned the motor, looking over his shoulder as the last mummy, a bit more regal with its cartouches of a long-dead pharaoh painted on his wrappings, lunged toward the back seat, struggling to lift his withered legs high enough to get into the van. Adrian jumped out, grabbed a handful of gauze wrappings, and threw the mummy into the van, slamming the door behind him.
"Argh! What is this, pig-pile-on-Nell day? Get off!" I was covered with mummies. They moved feebly against me as I tried to push them off, but the force of the turn Adrian took as he swung the van into motion threw us all against the side of the van, me beneath the mummies.
Buried as I was, I didn't see the escape Adrian enacted to get us out of the museum parking lot, but if the amount of swearing under his breath and sounds of gunfire were any indicator, it was more than a little hair-raising.
"Police, Papa!" Damian said helpfully as I removed a withered elbow from my mouth, gently shoving a mummy aside enough so I could peer out through tangled bodies.
The police had indeed arrived, their cars pulling up outside the parking area.
"Get down!" Adrian ordered as his foot slammed down on the gas pedal. Damian crouched as we swung around, fishtailing madly, the rear of the heavy van slamming into a small police car blocking the street outside the parking lot. The mummies and I went flying to the floor in a heap, their cries taking on a happy, cooing sound as three pairs of ancient hands stroked the nearest of my body parts.
"I'm glad you guys are happy to find me, really I am, but this is too weird for words," I told them as I struggled out of the pile of mummies, pulling myself to my knees behind Damian's seat. Adrian had used the impact of the van to clear away one of the obstacles, the force of the van reversing at a high speed doing the rest of the job. He slammed on the brakes, yanked hard on the steering wheel, and jammed his foot down on the gas, effectively spinning the van around clear of the blockade. We burst out into traffic with a squeal of tires on asphalt, the mummies flying backward with the acceleration. I clung to the back of Damian's seat, damn near jumping out of my skin when a black shadow at the edge of the road threw itself onto the passenger-side front window.