“This is all my fault!” Sir Gordon wailed. “I never meant to bring the curse down on us all.”
“Don’t despair,” said Charley, seeing Sir Gordon sinking deeper into a hole of self-pity.
“Ach, but ye haven’t seen this yet,” said Doogie. He led them out of the crime lab to the hall, stopping in front of the portrait of Sir Gordon. “This is enough to put the wind up anyone’s kilt.”
The portrait had been vandalized in the most horrific and personal way. Sir Gordon’s face had been slashed with a knife, leaving the canvas hanging in tattered ribbons. Then, in case that message was too subtle, the vandal had also painted on the portrait in dripping red paint:
“All right,” said Charley. “Now you can despair if you want to, but I haven’t got time.”
She spun her chair round and headed straight back to the lab. “I’ve got work to do.”
“Anything else you need?” asked the housekeeper.
Billy finished his bread and cheese and smacked his lips. At his feet, Wellington was tucking into a bowl of tripe. “Any biscuits going?” he asked.
Suddenly Billy felt overwhelmingly tired. He hadn’t had a decent night’s sleep since the case began, and the warmth of the fire and the comfort of the armchair were taking effect. Wellington curled up on a tiger-skin rug and started to snore. Lord Wintersfall’s safe sat in the corner of the room, a huge squat box with the Phoenix Egg inside. The blunderbuss and the cricket bat were both within easy reach. Billy knew he should have asked for a coffee to go with those biscuits. Oh well, five minutes sleep wouldn’t hurt anyone…
Billy was just beginning to nod when his sixth sense started to tingle, like spiders running around inside his head. He leaped up, totally alert. Danger was far better than caffeine at keeping him awake.
Something was wrong.
Billy felt a hot wetness on his top lip and instinctively touched it. His fingers came away red. Blood had started to pour from his nose as a wave of approaching magick overwhelmed him.
In his mind’s eye, Billy was in an Egyptian temple. The Sandman was there, towering above him. The man’s face was in shadow but Billy knew it had to be him; he was holding a curved bone wand in one hand…and a fresh human heart in the other! The Sandman was not alone – he was flanked by creatures that looked like gods…evil, powerful gods. Billy caught passing impressions of them; humans with grotesque animal heads. A lioness, a crocodile and a jackal…
Billy staggered. The vision was so strong that it felt as if his head was full of bricks, so heavy that he couldn’t stand. He stumbled and collapsed back into the chair. He tried to stand and fell almost immediately, tumbling forwards this time, but he managed to get his hands out and stop his face from hitting the floor.
Wellington licked Billy’s cheek. If the wave of magick hadn’t woken him, the dog’s bad breath definitely would have done the job. His face was now level with the glass eyes of the tiger-skin rug. Billy blinked…
The tiger moved.
Billy blinked again, trying to decide what was real and what was an after-effect of the vision. The tiger was definitely moving, but it wasn’t coming alive. The tiger-skin rug was moving because something was underneath it.
A hump appeared in the middle of the tiger’s back, and as Billy watched the hump grew. It was terrifying to see. Billy wanted to run away, but that was not what S.C.R.E.A.M. detectives did. Slowly the hump grew bigger, rising up off the ground and taking the tiger rug with it. Two other lumps emerged on either side of the first hump. A head and two shoulders, pushing the animal skin upwards.
As the carpet rose, Billy could see a swirling circle of sand. He recognized that he had seen the same effect before, at the railway station when they first arrived. It was as if there was a tiny tornado, driving the sand in dizzying circles. And appearing out of that magical circle – seemingly rising up from the floor – was the mummy.
So that was the secret of the sand circles! They were magick doors. That was how the mummy got in without breaking any windows or doors and how a burglar as conspicuous as a mummy was able to make a clean getaway without any witnesses. Charley would be fascinated. He only hoped that he lived long enough to tell her.
The mummy had fully emerged now in all its ragged glory. It towered over Billy, dominating the room. Billy already knew the raw power in those undead arms. There wasn’t a second to lose.
Brave Wellington was already on the attack. The terrier had sunk its teeth into the mummy’s leg. Billy grabbed the cricket bat and took a mighty swipe at the mummy’s head. He’d once hit a ball for six and he desperately wanted to do it again. Billy put all of his strength into the swing and the mummy’s head rocked on its shoulders.
The creature paused for a second. Its head was at an impossible angle, but with a sound of clicking bone, it righted itself again. The mummy gave a furious groan and lunged at Billy. It grabbed him by the lapels of his jacket and threw him across the room, kicking Wellington after him. Then it turned its attentions to the safe.
“Nnnnnnnnnnggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.”
Billy fell in an ungainly heap in the corner, followed swiftly by Wellington, who landed with a yelp. It was time to get out the big guns, literally. Calling on all his inner calm, Billy picked up the blunderbuss and levelled it at the mummy. It was a crude weapon, a type of shotgun which fired a single massively destructive charge. Aiming carefully, Billy pulled the trigger. A huge muzzle flare leaped from the barrel as the shot ripped a hole through the mummy’s torso. Billy’s ears rang. The air was filled with the smell of gunpowder, stronger even than the mummy’s graveyard stink.
The mummy swayed back on its heels, almost thrown to the ground by the sheer explosive force of the blast. But not quite.
The blunderbuss had done hideous damage. Billy could see right through the wound and out the other side. It was a ragged hole, but nowhere near as distressing as if the victim had actually been a living creature. The mummy bled only dust and sand.
The mummy howled, more in anger than in pain. But it did not stop.
It stomped over to the safe, twisted the door off its hinges and begun to stuff handfuls of jewels into a leather bag across its shoulder. Billy caught a flash of brilliant red – the Phoenix Egg that the Sandman needed for his potion of immortality.
When the safe was empty, the mummy raised its arms and advanced on Billy. Billy hurled the empty blunderbuss at the monster but it bounced off the mummy’s chest. Billy attacked again with the cricket bat as Wellington fearlessly went for the monster’s legs. He had to try to stop those cloth-bound hands before they reached his neck – but it was useless. He was trapped in the corner of the room with no way out and no way to stop the creature from killing him.
In the distance, he heard a commotion of footsteps and a voice which he recognized. Inspector Diggins had arrived! But it was too little, too late. With a hideous growl, the mummy lurched towards Billy and flung both arms around him in a rib-breaking embrace, picking him up as if he were just a doll.
The magical gateway swirled into life again as the mummy carried Billy into the vortex of sand. Wellington raced after them, sinking his teeth into the hem of Billy’s trousers in an attempt to hold him back.
But the dog failed.
Billy and the mummy plunged into the eye of the sandstorm, and the world around them disappeared. Billy felt his entire body being wrenched out of reality by the magick door; it was as if he was being torn apart by the desert winds. He thought that he might have been screaming, but he couldn’t hear anything above the raging of the sand.