The Stone Warriors Read online

  The shadow concentrated. At first it was all it could do to hold the nostrils of the squirming boy closed. It was still a weak presence in this world, and this was the outer limit of its influence here.

  Alex opened his mouth and gasped. That was what the shadow had been waiting for. The strange creature breathed deeply, sucking the warm air leaving Alex’s lungs straight into its own dark form. And as it did, it grew stronger. Its hand grew more defined. What had been little more than a cold, dark paw now resolved itself into individual fingers, a wrist.

  The shadow pressed its new hand down over Alex’s nose. He thrashed beneath the increasing force and, finally, his eyes snapped open.

  What he saw made no sense to him, just an impenetrable darkness hanging over him. And then he saw its milky gray eyes.

  It was a sheut, the shadowy vessel that the ancient Egyptians believed contained a person’s spirit and self, their ka and ba. Alex had seen the pooled blackness at the feet of the living in the ancient art at the Met. But the body of this one was long dead, and the ka and ba had fled. Something had gone wrong, and they hadn’t been reunited in the afterlife. All that was left was this thing of darkness: a shadow of its former self.

  Alex watched in horror as a stream of soft white fog rose from his own open mouth and disappeared into the sheut. He rolled and thrashed, but the hand pressed down hard. How can a shadow hold me? Alex wondered desperately. But hold him it did. Stronger with each breath it stole, it pinned his head hard against the ground. It is taking my strength, Alex suddenly realized. It is taking my life force as its own!

  Alex reached up to wrestle the thing away, but his hands passed straight through the apparition’s arms. It could affect him, but he couldn’t affect it.

  His amulet!

  Alex’s lungs cried out for oxygen even as they gave it up. He felt his vision narrowing. He was on the verge of passing out. He reached desperately for his amulet and found only its silver chain. The heavy scarab had swung around behind him as he slept and was now pinned between the back of his neck and the ground.

  As its gray eyes turned milky white, the sheut lowered them toward Alex. How isss it you arrre alllliiiive? it asked, the words taking shape not on the air but inside Alex’s mind. He had no breath left to answer. And it didn’t seem to matter: He wouldn’t be alive for long.

  Under the stars and between the trees a few feet away, Ren was sound asleep and dreaming of home. Since this mission had started, she’d traveled around the world to battle Death Walkers and search for the Lost Spells and Alex’s mom. And along the way, her homesickness had progressed to something like home flu. Sleep was her only chance to visit.

  Her mom and dad were at the table in the small kitchen of their New York City apartment. Ren could tell immediately that it was a workday. Her mom was dressed in a sharp jacket and pencil skirt combo, set for another day of high-powered public relations work. She didn’t yet know which of the company’s clients had said or done something stupid, but she was prepared for anything. Her dad was in one of his familiar button-down shirts, the sleeves already rolled, the mechanical pencil in the chest pocket. Ready to solve problems of a more precise variety.

  They talked softly over the last of their coffee, slipping into Spanish now and then as they sometimes did. Ren understood every word this time. That wasn’t always the case at home, but she was dreaming these words, after all. As she slept, a tear slipped through the corner of one closed eye. They were talking about her.

  They were wondering how she was doing in London. They were proud of her internship at the British Museum. They missed her.

  I miss you, too, Ren wanted to say. The rest of it she wouldn’t mention, because she was a long way from London now — a long way from a fake internship. But it didn’t matter. She had no voice in this dream.

  The phone began to ring. Her father stood up. But something was wrong. He walked over to the sink and dumped out the dregs of his coffee, ignoring the phone entirely. And that ring — or tone, rather — flat and electronic. Generic, like …

  A disposable cell phone.

  Ren’s eyes drifted open.

  She reached up to wipe the tear away with one hand and reached down for her phone with the other. But her phone was quiet and still. “Alex,” she said, turning toward her friend. “Your phone.”

  And that’s when she saw it. Alex was flopping limply, like a fish too long on the dock, and a dark shape was looming over him. A human shape. Weak light filtered into the park from the streetlamps at its margins and the moon above, and it all ended at the edges of this entity. Its hand was clamped down over Alex’s face, and a thin vaporous line ran from his open mouth to the creature’s. Right away, Ren knew it was killing him.

  “Stop it!” she screamed.

  The sheut turned and regarded her with softly glowing eyes. It was strong now, unthreatened.

  Ren balled up her fists. She was small for her age, but brave for anyone’s. This thing was terrifying and she felt her own chest tighten with fear, but she was not going to let it take her friend. She. Was. Not. She needed to knock it loose, to allow him to breathe. She took a deep breath — and leapt at it!

  She passed straight through, feeling nothing but a profound chill, and crashed to the ground on the other side. She looked back, baffled and desperate. The line of vapor was almost gone now. She got up and swung at it with her fists.

  Nothing. It felt like dipping them in cold milk but had no effect at all.

  Think, she told herself. Be smart.

  My amulet.

  She reached up. The ibis was a symbol of Thoth, the ancient Egyptian god of wisdom, writing, and moonlight, and its main power was to show her images and provide information. She’d grown a little more comfortable with it lately, but she still distrusted the magic behind it. It just felt weird having it in her head like that — like letting a wild horse into a quiet study hall. But now she needed that power. She needed that wild horse — for once, she didn’t even care if she could rein it in.

  Her hand closed around the ibis. This time she asked it not for answers, but for justice. Thoth was the one who wrote down the verdict at the weighing of the heart ceremony, the test to determine whether a soul gained entrance into the afterlife. He was the divine scribe, the one who made sure everything was in the right place, written in the right column. Ren liked things in their right place, too, and she knew for a fact that this deathly presence did not belong here.

  She squeezed the ibis tight, feeling its edges dig into her palm.

  “Go!” she shouted. And as she did, a burst of blinding white light flashed outward, like the full moon pressed down to the size of one small, fierce fist and then released again.

  The sheut hissed against the light and was torn to shreds, like a cheap black suit caught up in a hurricane.

  When the light faded, it was gone.

  Alex gasped for breath.

  His phone beeped once. Voice mail.

  The sheut had popped like a black balloon in the moonlight. Now, a few last wisps of Alex’s breath hung over him like a pale white cloud in the warm night. So that’s it, he thought, looking up at the slowly scattering vapor. That’s what all this is about. It was more than breath, he knew; it was life.

  How can this little cloud of breath be worth so much trouble? he wondered as the last gasp dissolved. How can I be worth so much trouble? Ren saved me this time, but how many others have died because I lived? How many more will die before we can find the Spells and end all of this? If we even can. The doorway to the afterlife seems to open wider every day. All because of me …

  Ren knelt down by his side. “How do you feel?” she asked.

  Alex forced a smile. “Awful,” he said. It was a familiar feeling and one he’d hoped he’d never feel again. There were painful pinpricks in his arms and legs, fingers and toes, as if he’d just come in from too long in the cold. He felt tired and nauseous. He’d felt this way nearly his whole life, before the Spells had transformed h
im. He looked up at Ren. “I feel like before.”

  “Oh no,” she said. Apart from his mom, Ren was the one person who knew just how bad “before” had been. She shook off her concerned expression and forced a smile of her own. “You just need to recover your strength.”

  Alex nodded and sat there breathing and rubbing his arms. The more he breathed, the better he felt. Finally, Alex reached for his phone to check the missed call. Now he smiled for real.

  “Todtman?” said Ren hopefully.

  Alex gave her a big thumbs-up and put the phone on speaker so Ren could hear the message, too.

  “Hello, Alex. I got your message. I am sorry for the … delay. I am glad to hear from you.” Alex leaned closer to the phone. He was glad to hear the crisp consonants of Todtman’s familiar German accent again, but his voice was obscured by a faint buzzing. “Things have gotten worse in Cairo. The voices of the dead are everywhere now; the city is in chaos. I had to leave. I can be in Vienna by tomorrow, mid-morning. There is a small restaurant on Linke Wienzeile, near the Naschmarkt.” As he rattled off the address, Alex heard Ren rustling around for her ever-present pen. “I will meet you there at ten thirty. Stay safe.”

  They played the message again with the last of the battery power, just to make sure they had the address right.

  “I am going to eat so much at that restaurant,” said Ren.

  But Alex didn’t want to talk about Wiener schnitzel. He pictured the terrible darkness that had loomed over him just minutes earlier. “Thanks,” he said. “You saved my life.”

  “Saved your life again. But,” Ren added, “I have no idea how.”

  “You banished it,” Alex said, “with the light from your amulet.”

  Ren considered that. “I just knew that thing didn’t belong here,” she said. “And you’re welcome.”

  Alex didn’t get much sleep for the rest of the night. Instead, he kept watch. He was sure the sheut had followed them from the afterlife. What if something else had?

  And there was another shadow that wasn’t so easy to dismiss. This one wasn’t looming over him, but lurking inside. Ren’s words played on a loop in his head: That thing didn’t belong here, she’d said. And she was right. It had returned from the afterlife, after all.

  But then, hadn’t Alex done the same thing when his mom brought him back?

  He watched the new day dawn in softly glowing purples and pinks and wondered: Do I have any more right to this sunrise than that desperate spirit did?

  They arrived at the restaurant a few minutes early. “Schnitzel Box,” said Ren, reading the sign. “Promising.”

  Alex heard his stomach rumble in agreement. He’d recovered his health, and with it, his appetite.

  “How do you say large in German?” asked Ren.

  “Gross,” said Alex.

  “Seriously?”

  He nodded.

  “Well, I am going to have the grossest schnitzel they’ve got,” said Ren. “Let’s go on in and wait for Todtman inside. They won’t mind.”

  “We don’t have enough money for a place like this,” said Alex.

  “We can just drink a bunch of water until Todtman gets here,” said Ren. “And use the bathroom.”

  They pushed through the door into the restaurant’s dimly lit, dark wood interior. The place was dead.

  “Welcome,” said the lone waiter, a tall man in a white shirt and black vest. “Sit anywhere you would like. We have just opened.”

  Alex was surprised to hear the man greet them in English. Was it that obvious they were Americans? “Danke!” he said. “Thanks.”

  He headed straight for the restrooms, looked for the picture with pants, and went in that door. After taking care of some pressing business, he headed to the sink. He felt like a mess after a night in the park and another near-death experience, and let the water run until it was nice and hot.

  After scrubbing his hands, he swished some water around in his mouth. His own dirt-smudged face stared back at him from the mirror as he ran one wet hand through his mussed-up black hair. His fingers caught halfway and he winced. He’d need to get some shampoo in there one of these days. There’d be time for that later. He felt a buzz of anticipation. Soon they’d see Todtman, have a big meal, and resume their search for his mom and the Spells.

  Finally, he bent down and splashed hot water on his face. He dipped his hands in the sink again as he straightened up and checked the mirror to see if he’d gotten at least some of the dirt. But he barely saw his face at all, because the face behind it was so much more terrifying.

  Looking straight at him was a man with the head of a giant housefly. On either side were large eyes the size of half grapefruits and made up of thousands of individual lenses. Alex’s body froze from fear, but his mind raced. A mask in the shape of an animal head told him this man was an operative of The Order.

  They’d found him.

  He whirled around, splashing hot water on the tile floor as his hand reached desperately for the scarab. The thousand-eyed gaze followed him, the eyes of the mask shifting and moving as if alive. Painful experience had taught him that the masks were as ancient and powerful as his own amulet.

  A strong hand grabbed Alex’s left wrist before he could reach the chain at his neck. He reached up with his right, only to have that pinned, too. He struggled, trying to free his wrists, water still dripping from his hands. The fly head leaned in and regarded him with its bulbous eyes, and an overwhelming stink of garbage made Alex gag. A crashing sound reached his ears as furniture was overturned and silverware clattered to the floor out in the restaurant.

  Ren. He’d led her into trouble — again.

  Desperate, he struggled harder. It was useless. The fly man held him tight with hairy gnarled hands and regarded Alex with the eight thousand shifting lenses of his composite eyes. Then the fly man spoke: “Hello, Alex. I got your message. I am sorry for the … delay.”

  His voice was a perfect imitation of Todtman’s, though it was true, there was a slight buzz to it. The phone call, the meeting — it had all been a trap! Alex needed to act now to have any chance of escape. There was another crash from the restaurant and a high-pitched yelp. Was Ren hurt?

  Alex kicked out hard. The toe of his boot sank into the thick folds of the fly’s grimy robe and clipped the knobby leg underneath. His attacker flinched slightly, but instead of releasing him, his grip grew tighter. Alex kicked again. He was wearing good boots, designed for the desert, and this time, he caught the fly flush on the shin. The fly doubled over, releasing his grip and coughing out a cloud of disgusting brownish green gas.

  Alex held his breath — and grabbed his amulet with his left hand. Wet palm against cold stone, he formed the now-familiar words in his mind: The wind that comes before the rain. The scarab was a symbol of rebirth in Egypt, and this was among its most powerful manifestations. His right hand shot forward and with it an invisible lance of rushing wind.

  The fly-headed operative took the blast directly in the gut. The wind was strong — and the floor was wet. His sandaled feet skated straight back.

  WAMMP! He hit the wall hard.

  Alex bolted out the door. In the dining room, Alex was relieved not to see a squad of Order gunmen. Instead, he saw the waiter holding a large carving knife and chasing Ren around an overturned table.

  “Hey!” shouted Alex.

  The waiter turned toward Alex. He might as well have stepped into a wind tunnel. He tumbled over the upturned table and landed amid crashes and clinks on the other side. “Autsch, eine Gabel!” he cried. Ow, a fork!

  The door to the men’s room flew open and a fetid stink seeped into the chase-wrecked room, but as it did, the front door flew open as well. The two friends rushed out into daylight — and fresh air.

  The friends took twenty blocks’ worth of twists and turns at a dead run, stopping only when they were sure — well, pretty sure — that they’d given the world’s largest fly and rudest waiter the slip. At the end of it, they’d found
a public bench and another voice mail from Todtman, this one on Ren’s phone.

  “How do we know it’s really him this time?” she huffed.

  “Look at the time: 10:28 a.m.,” said Alex, pointing down at the screen of Ren’s phone. “It has to be Todtman. That’s when the fly guy was busy attacking me. Remember? We got there a little early.”

  Alex took another look at the screen, this time eyeing the little sliver of remaining battery life. “Play the message again,” he said.

  She did. And then, looking both ways and huddling close together on the little bench, they called the new number he’d given them. Todtman answered immediately. Ren put it on speaker and Alex listened carefully to his voice, but this time there was no buzziness as they got down to business.

  They gave Todtman a quick recap, including Luke’s betrayal and their current location, so that he could send someone to pick up the two remaining friends. Alex knew that Todtman was well-connected and never seemed to be short of cash. Still, he was surprised when a snow-white limo pulled up to the curb in front of them half an hour later. Somewhat skeptically, he asked the driver for the password.

  The man was wearing a black suit and a Bluetooth earpiece. “Tutankhamun,” he said flatly as he walked around the car to open the back door for them.

  Ren nodded — she had chosen it — and they both climbed in and headed to the airport, where their plane tickets back to Egypt were waiting.

  “No offense,” she said as the long car snaked through midday traffic, “but was this, like, the last car left?”

  The driver gave her a half look over his shoulder. “Not at all,” he said. “Your uncle requested this one in particular.”

  Alex and Ren exchanged looks, and Ren silently mouthed two words: Our uncle?

  Alex had heard worse cover stories. “Why?” he said.

  The driver shrugged. “Because the airports are being watched, and no one will expect you to pull up in a white limousine.” He glanced in the mirror and must have caught the surprised expressions of his passengers, because he added: “I am a professional. Now relax and enjoy the trip.”