Slowly, I inched my head out of the foyer doorway so I could peer around the corner, nearly screaming as a disembodied white head with wild, beady eyes seemed to float my way. After my initial shock, sheer exasperation propelled me around the corner. "You!" I said.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
The Scorpion Charmer
ALOYSIUS TRAWLEY STOPPED DEAD IN HIS TRACKS. There was an ooph as the many bodies following behind collided against him. He recovered himself, then sneered. "Theodosia. How lovely of you to meet us here for our midnight visit."
It seemed a bad sign he was no longer calling me O Giver of Light. "What are you doing here?" I asked, keeping my voice low so my parents—and Henry—wouldn't overhear. "It's the middle of the night!"
"Does she always state the obvious?" he asked one of the men in back of him.
"N-no, sir. N-not often."
"Stilton?"
The Third Assistant Curator peeked out from behind Trawley, blinked twice, and jerked his left shoulder. I tried to hide my deep sense of betrayal that he had let his grand master into the museum in the dead of night.
"You see what happens when you don't play fair, Theodosia? You invite us to come see for ourselves what you are withholding."
"Playing fair? How was I not playing fair?"
"By not sharing your power with us, like you'd promised."
"I promised no such thing!"
Trawley took a step closer. "You also led us to believe the power was yours. I'm beginning to suspect you merely had access to powerful artifacts, and they were the source of the power, not you."
I glanced at Stilton, who now had a tic in his right cheek.
"Oh no. Stilton didn't tell me, and he has been soundly punished for not doing so. He has had to choose whom he will serve, you or me, and I'm afraid he has chosen me.
"The last time you paid us a visit, I realized you were prevaricating and had no intention of ever letting us into your confidence, so I did what all men who seek power and arcane truths do when faced with such an obstacle—I took matters into my own hands and came to see for myself."
"You mean you've been here before?"
"Yes. I let myself in two nights ago and had a look around, paying close attention to the Egyptian artifacts."
Stilton poked his head out from behind his master again. "H-he was looking for the staff."
"Silence!" Trawley hissed. "I am looking for any artifacts of power. However, just because I found nothing that night did not mean I was ready to give up. As I was leaving, I noticed an otherworldly green glow coming from beneath a doorway—an unearthly light that spoke of great power. But before I discovered the source of it myself, your Egyptian watchman stopped me. But that will not happen this time, as I have brought my own reinforcements."
"What Egyptian watchman?" I asked, thoroughly confused.
Trawley glanced behind me, a look of supreme annoyance clouding his face. "That one," he said, pointing just past my right shoulder.
I whirled around to find Awi Bubu standing in the foyer. Honestly! We might as well put out a sign that said OPEN FOR BUSINESS with all the traffic we were getting.
"Good evening, Little Miss." The Egyptian magician bowed toward me, but his eyes never left Trawley. "I believe you know my assistant." Kimosiri's lurking frame slipped from the shadows, sending a jolt of recognition down my spine. He'd been the third man on the street following me earlier—the one who'd drawn the scorpions away.
"Please stand in front of Little Miss, Kimosiri, and do not remove yourself until I tell you to."
The large man nodded, then came and planted his huge self directly in front of me, effectively blocking my view of Trawley and the scorpions. I peered around his solid form.
Trawley laughed, a most disturbing sound. "You are two and we are eight. Do you really think you can stop us?"
Awi Bubu cocked his head. "Are you really eight strong? I would not be so certain, if I were you." Then he began to chant, softly at first, then louder. It took me a moment to recognize the words as the ones he'd used in his scorpion-charmer act at the Alcazar Theater.
"I do not know what you think you are doing," Trawley began, then he stopped as the scorpions at his side were tugged upright like marionettes on strings. There was another jerk as they stepped away from him. "Mefenet! Come back here. Tefen!"
Stilton's eyes were wide, his face panicked. Instead of obeying Trawley's command, he spun around and began walking away in stiff, halting movements.
One by one the other scorpions began to do the same thing. Even Basil Whiting, who seemed to be Trawley's most loyal follower, marched away against his will.
Trawley took three steps forward, then glanced uneasily as Kimosiri shifted his position and growled a warning. "What have you done to them?" Trawley looked as if he wanted to throttle the old magician.
Awi Bubu didn't speak until the last of the scorpions had disappeared. "That should do for now," he said, mostly to himself. Then he turned his attention to Trawley. "Your men are scorpions, are they not? I am a scorpion charmer, which gives me power over them. They have no choice but to obey my wishes when I call upon the scorpion goddess Selkhet."
"But they are my men!"
"But you have named them scorpions and so put them under the power of the scorpion goddess, and therefore they must obey scorpion charmers everywhere—although there are not many of us left."
Trawley's face grew mottled with rage. When he spoke, spittle flew from his lips. "You have not had the last word, I assure you. You will be hearing from me again, soon." He shot me a lethal glare, then followed his scorpions from the museum.
Awi Bubu nodded his head at Kimosiri. "Go and see the door is shut and locked once they have left. And do not let that watchman see you! We don't need another encounter with the police."
Without a word, the larger man followed Trawley down the hall. Trawley picked up his pace and fairly skipped toward the door.
It was just the two of us then. Awi cocked his head to the side like a very curious, very ancient bird. "Why did you not use the Orb of Ra on them?" he asked.
My hand flew to the heavy lump in my pinafore pocket. "How do you know about that?" I asked, then frowned. "And what do you mean, use it?"
"I sensed an artifact of great power on your person and could determine the approximate size and shape by the power it gave off."
Now that would be a skill to possess, I thought. Come to think of it, it wasn't so different from my ability to sense curses, just more refined. "How does one use the orb without the staff?" I asked.
"Ah, there are a few things Little Miss does not yet know. We will have to save that for another time, I'm afraid. And now, since I have just done you a good turn by saving you from the eggheaded man, perhaps Little Miss will do me one and fetch me the Emerald Tablet."
Feeling a bit braver with Trawley and all the scorpions gone, not to mention the absence of the silent, hulking Kimosiri, I said, "What Emerald Tablet?"
He tsked at me. "Little Miss, I am disappointed in you. Surely there should be truth between friends?"
"Are we friends?" I asked, well and truly curious.
"I would like to think so. Allies, at the least. Why else have I shown up at such a time to help you?"
"Um, because you wanted the tablet and you were afraid Trawley and his Arcane Order of the Black Sun might get it first?"
"Such cynicism in one so young is most unbecoming."
Honestly. He sounded just like my grandmother.