Anubis paused for a fraction of a second, as if sheer terror was stopping his feet from doing what his brain was surely screaming for them to do – run, idiot! By the time he came to his wits, the mummy was already upon him. Billy flinched as he witnessed those cloth-wrapped hands reach out and grasp Anubis by the neck. Cowley laughed.
Billy saw the chance to try to make his own escape while Cowley and his accomplices were distracted. Inside the confines of the open coffin he struggled against his linen bandages like a stage escapologist, doing everything he could to try to get loose. Out of the corner of his eye, Billy could still see Sekhmet and Sobek shrinking back in fear as the mummy started to crush the life out of their partner in crime.
Cowley continued to laugh. The mummy continued to strangle.
“Stop it,” said Sobek. “Please.”
Anubis was struggling violently, but nothing could break the grip of the mummy’s cold, dead hands. Awful gagging, gasping sounds escaped from inside his golden mask.
“You’ve made your point,” pleaded Sekhmet. “Now let him go, for pity’s sake.”
Cowley ignored her whimpering.
The mummy lifted Anubis off the ground by his neck as if he weighed no more than a child. Sekhmet looked away. Billy guessed she couldn’t bear to watch the thrashing legs or hear the final gasps…
“Release him,” Cowley finally ordered with a clap of his hands. Anubis fell to the ground, wheezing and writhing in pain.
“You worms,” growled Cowley. “You pathetic, snivelling, spineless, gutless worms. Kneel before me!”
Gasping for breath, Anubis managed to crawl across the flagstone floor until he was sprawled in front of Cowley’s throne. Sekhmet and Sobek joined him there on their knees, their heads bowed in defeat.
“Are you crying, love?” whispered Sekhmet, as snivels echoed from inside the crocodile mask.
“Yes,” Sobek admitted, “and I can’t get a hanky inside this bloomin’ thing. There’s snot everywhere in here.”
“Silence,” Cowley hissed. “You can serve me willingly, or you can serve me as slaves, but you shall serve me. The mummy obeys only me and if you are stupid enough to still think that you might be able to outrun or hide from our undead friend here, then I have other ways to bring you to your knees.” Gloating, Cowley revealed three tiny wooden coffins that had been concealed beneath his throne. In each coffin was a wax figure. One had a fingernail for a smile, one had a cufflink pressed into its wax chest, one was bound in a length of yellow ribbon.
“You know what these are, don’t you?”
The fake gods nodded meekly.
“You recognize the totems as belonging to you, don’t you?”
“That’s my hair ribbon,” said Sekhmet. “I thought I’d lost it.”
“And I found it,” Cowley crowed. “So any time you get foolish ideas into your heads – ideas like…ohhh, I don’t know…betraying me to the police, or running away, or trying to wriggle your way out of our partnership – then all I have to do is take one of my little wax dollies here and…well, what could I do?” A malicious smile crept across his lips. “I could throw it into a fire and watch it bubble away into nothing, or pull its arms and legs off, or bury it so deep that no one would ever find it. Does any of that sound like something you might enjoy?”
Sobek and Sekhmet shook their heads. Anubis kept his face to the floor. Billy listened, still working on his gag. Nearly there.
“I thought not. So, back to where we started before I was so rudely interrupted. I almost have everything I need,” Cowley continued. He held up a bottle, pulled out the cork and sniffed the contents, flinching at the rancid smell that wafted out. “Milk from a black cow…” He pulled a small, furry object out of a pouch beside the throne. “The paw of a white cat…” A twisted vegetable came next, a root which had the appearance of a gnarled, misshapen man. “Mandrake root.” He rattled a handful of money. “Coins from a dead man’s purse. And, of course, the Phoenix Egg… Now all I need is my final ingredient. A human heart – is that too much to ask?”
Billy finally managed to spit out his gag. “It depends who you’re asking!”
“Oh, Master Flint,” said Cowley. “So glad you could join us. It would be awful if you were to sleep through your starring role.”
Cowley stalked over until he was standing beside the coffin, looking down at Billy. “You and your girlfriend think you’ve been so clever, don’t you, interfering with my plans? By the time I’m finished with you, you’ll wish you never escaped my scorpion.”
Billy wanted to say something witty, but fear had turned the words in his mouth to dust.
Cowley flicked his razor-sharp hippo-tusk wand back and forth over Billy’s chest. It had been sharpened to a lethal point. “One quick slice, and I will have everything I need to walk into eternity.”
“Make it quick then,” said Billy, with more courage than he felt. “I’m getting bored of the sound of your voice. All power-hungry lunatics sound the same to me.”
“You’d better get used to it,” said Cowley, “because once I’ve got your heart, I have other plans for your body. Sobek, Sekhmet, Anubis, fetch the wax!”
Obediently Cowley’s minions brought over a cauldron of wax supported on a metal tripod, with a brazier of hot coals beneath it. Billy could hear the contents bubbling explosively. Careful not to spill the red-hot wax, Sekhmet and Anubis removed the brazier and positioned the tripod and cauldron so that it hung over Billy’s coffin. This close Billy saw that the cauldron had a lip so that its contents could be poured…over him!
“Once I am immortal I am going to need more mummies to serve me,” Cowley declared. “I am doing you a great honour, Billy Flint. You will be the first in my army.”
“So remind me again why you’ve covered my conservatory floor with sand?” said Sir Gordon.
“We’re making a door,” said Charley. “A magical gateway that will allow us to travel instantly from one place to another. Or I think it will, anyway.”
Doogie had fetched a bag of sand from the garden. Charley instructed him to pour out a circle and now was busy writing in it with a bamboo cane. She had been staring at the hieroglyphs for so long that she could have written them blindfolded. “As far as I can tell,” she said, “all I have to do is enter the circle and…”
“And what?” said Doogie.
“If I’m right, I’ll be transported to the Sandman’s lair.”
“And if you’re wrong?”
“Then I might be lost for ever inside a magical tunnel over which I have no control.” Charley rubbed her legs. She was tired, and she was worried about Billy. Her back burned like fire. Same old, same old. There was a hard knot of fear in the pit of her stomach too; she had no idea what she would find at the other end of the magick circle. But Charley also felt excited; the same as every police officer does when they were closing in on their suspect. “I’m going through the gateway,” she said firmly. “This ends now.”
Charley drew her gun from under her blanket. Then she wheeled into the circle and waited for the magick to begin.
And she waited.
Then she waited some more.
“Something’s wrong,” she said, wondering whether she had copied the hieroglyphics correctly. She looked down and spotted the problem – the wheels of her chair had broken the circle. “Can you pass me the stick again, please, Doogie.”
Doogie gave her the bamboo cane and Charley redrew the circle with a flourish. “There!” she said, letting the cane drop and holding her pistol ready for whatever was waiting for her. Instantly the magick circle began to activate. “Goodnight, boys,” she said as the vortex began to swirl around her. The sand flew round at incredible speed and Charley had the sense that she was in the middle of a desert storm.