The Final Kingdom Read online

  “I’m glad I found you,” she said, and then stepped forward and, awkwardly, hugged him. He hugged her back.

  When they pulled apart, Alex pointed to the device. “Did you open the door with that thing?”

  “Yeah!” she said. “It’s a lot easier from the outside. It took me forever to get under the plate thingy from inside my cell. But I finally got the spoon underneath to pry it open a little.”

  “Where’d you get a spoon?”

  Ren produced a slightly mangled spoon from her pocket. She was in the same outfit as the last time he’d seen her and looked pretty grubby. “It was for my soup.”

  Alex allowed himself a moment of amazement at his resourceful friend, then blurted, “Wait, where was your cell? Is my mom there, too? Is Todtman?”

  Ren shook her head. “I haven’t seen them since they brought us here. This is the first cell I found.” She made a big circle with the spoon and added, “This place is big.”

  Alex stepped out of the cell and looked down the tunnel. It curved gradually and had a slight slope to it. The ceilings were at least twelve feet high, as if made for some other species entirely.

  “Let’s get out of here,” he said. “We need to find my mom and Todtman.”

  “Okay, we should go this way,” said Ren, pointing farther down the hallway, converting his vague wishes into an actual plan. “Because I came from the other direction, and I think mine was the first cell in this section.”

  They walked cautiously, sticking close to the walls and heading farther down the slope. Here and there, flickering lights buzzed above them. Alex peered through the uneven glow until he spotted something up ahead. Two doors, one on each side of the tunnel. One was solid and painted black, but the other had a barred window at face height — another cell!

  Forgetting his caution, Alex rushed toward it. My mom could be in there!

  The faintest hint of light escaped from the small window. Alex knew immediately that it came from another small electric lamp. Someone was inside.

  “It could be anyone,” whispered Ren. “Be careful.”

  Alex put his ear up to the barred window and heard a faint sound, like a cornered animal breathing. He peered inside.

  “Who is it?” said Ren. “Do we know them?”

  “Oh yeah,” Alex managed despite his surprise. “Definitely.”

  On the floor of the cell, in between the cot and the lamp, a teenage boy was doing sit-ups. His arms were crossed over his chest and his head was just now rising above his raised knees. His eyes met Alex’s and froze somewhere between the sit and the up. “Hey, cuz!” he said.

  “Hey, Luke,” said Alex. It was his cousin from home, Luke Bauer, the jock who had been spying on them for The Order. The one whose betrayal in the Valley of the Kings had nearly cost them their lives.

  “Luke?” said Ren. She shoulder-checked Alex aside and, small for her age, hopped up to get a quick glimpse in the window.

  “Hey, Ren,” he said. “We have seriously got to stop meeting like this.”

  Despite the tension of the situation, Alex couldn’t help but smile. The last time they’d seen Luke was in a different Order cell, in the lair of a Death Walker. But that Walker had been destroyed, and that location was no longer secret. Clearly, the cult was consolidating its holdings here.

  “What do we do?” whispered Ren, keeping her voice low enough so that only Alex could hear.

  Alex knew his answer immediately. The last time, they’d had to leave Luke in his cell, his pale, dirty face pressed up to the bars, as they fled from The Order. Alex had regretted it ever since.

  Luke had betrayed them, but he’d also been betrayed by the treacherous cult. His captivity seemed proof enough of that, but it was his words last time that had clinched it for Alex. Alex remembered his cousin’s desperate cry: They were going to kill my parents. Alex didn’t doubt that The Order would make such a threat — or that they’d follow through. In his mind, it was clear: Luke had been lured into spying on them by the promise of easy money. Once he realized what bad news The Order really was, it was too late. He’d been kept in line by the worst threat imaginable.

  No, Alex would not leave his cousin to rot in a cell a second time.

  “Can you open this lock, too?” he said to Ren.

  “Yeah,” she said, then softer: “But are you sure?”

  He nodded. “I think we can trust him now.”

  Ren shrugged. “Keep an eye on him,” she said. As she knelt down and got to work on the lock, she called up: “This doesn’t mean I’m not mad at you!”

  It was way too loud. Almost immediately, there was a muffled exclamation from inside the door across the tunnel.

  “Dudes,” hissed Luke, “that’s the guardroom!”

  Alex glared at his cousin’s face. Now you tell us?

  His heart began to hammer in his chest as something toppled over in the room across the way, the sound of a man standing up too quickly. “Hurry!” he hissed to Ren. “We need him.”

  Ren seemed to understand. Without their amulets, their only weapon was the two-time New York State Junior Olympic gold medalist behind the still-locked door. “Right,” she said. She gave the curled piece of metal one final wiggle in the keyhole and then stuck the small piece of flayed plastic in beneath it.

  The door flew open across the hall as Ren fished around in the lock.

  The guard rushed straight toward them. Alex threw himself at his legs, but the man easily brushed aside the awkward tackle attempt. “Stupid boy,” he said as Alex hit the ground.

  Suddenly, there was a crisp, metallic click.

  Ren dove to the side, and Luke’s door flew open — smacking the lunging guard in the forehead just as he was straightening up.

  Luke burst forth, crazy-eyed and ready for a fight.

  But there was no need. The guard stumbled backward, holding his head in both hands, and crumpled gracelessly to the floor.

  “Thanks for the spoon and stuff,” Ren said as they locked the unconscious guard in the cell with his own keys. They left the lamp on for him, a small kindness in return for some bad soup.

  They crept across the tunnel toward the open door of the guardroom. Ren kept a close eye on Luke as he padded silently beside them in high-tech running sneakers, a dirt-streaked Under Armour top, and basketball shorts. In her mind, it was clear: He’d betrayed them again and again, and only stopped when he got caught. She kept Alex between her and Luke. If her friend trusted him so much, he could be the one to deal with the next betrayal.

  As they approached the door, Alex whispered: “Hopefully there’s a map of the other cells in here, or a list of prisoners, or … something.”

  Hopefully there’s not another guard, thought Ren. “Shhh!” she hissed.

  But the guardroom was unguarded now, just a small, simply furnished square. The soup can was still open on the counter of the tiny kitchenette, next to a bag of Egyptian bread and a stack of trays like the one she’d peeled her lockpick off of. The only thing out of the ordinary was a heavy-looking steel door built into the wall.

  The three examined it closely. “I would love to see what’s inside there,” said Alex longingly. “Maybe weapons.” Remembering his father’s words, he thought of another possibility. The scarab …

  Ren eyed the safe. The door was almost as tall as she was, and the lock was as big as her head. She tossed the remains of her lockpick kit on the table. “There’s no way we can crack that thing.”

  “Oh, there’s a way,” said Luke, hooking a thumb over his shoulder. “The guard’s still in my cell. Probably awake by now.”

  “Why would he help us?” said Ren.

  Luke smiled — a devilish smile that Ren couldn’t help but be a little charmed by. “Because if his bosses find him in there, after he let us escape, he is toast. So toast. Like the super burned kind you just have to throw away because —”

  “I got it,” she said. “Toast.”

  “Wait,” said Alex. “You want us to
, what, let him go in exchange for the combination?”

  Luke shrugged. “How bad do you want to get in there?”

  “Pretty bad,” Alex admitted.

  He looked over at Ren, and they both nodded.

  “Okay,” she said to Luke.

  He was standing there watching them with that same look on his face. The problem with devilish grins, thought Ren, is you can never tell if you’re making a deal with the devil.

  Alex looked through the bars to find the guard sitting on the cot with his head in his hands. “He’s totally awake,” he whispered back to the others.

  But like many guards, this one had excellent hearing. “Because if they find me in here, I am done for,” he said into his hands. After a brief pause he added, “Stupid boy.”

  The false bravado didn’t fool any of them. This was a desperate man, and a deal was struck quickly. He seemed to like the idea of giving them the combination. “Yes,” he said. “You free me, you open it and find what is inside. Then you cause the troubles, and I slip away. Am gone.”

  “Okay, but first you give us the combination, then we let you go,” said Alex.

  The man was silent, considering it. Finally, he looked up at Alex. “Bring to me pen and paper, from table,” he said, his face pushed out through the bars.

  “Why the paper?” asked Ren.

  “Because the combination is in hieroglyphs, of course.”

  They grabbed the pen and paper from the guardroom, and a few minutes later he had scrawled a string of hieroglyphs — the small symbols the ancient Egyptians used to communicate information. The guard’s last words as he scrawled the symbols: “You will want what is inside, yes, but wait a little. Then come back with the keys! You are the good ones, yes? The Amulet Keepers?”

  Alex heard the fear in the man’s voice. He wondered what horrible punishment he’d get if he was caught. “Sure,” Alex called, as he rushed across the hall. Did he mean it? They were Amulet Keepers, not Boy Scouts.

  Back in the guardroom, his hands shook as he began turning the large dial. The others crowded around, looking over his shoulders. Two turns to the falcon symbol, one back to the snake, three forward to a set of scales, back to a stack of lines.

  KLICK!

  “Sweet!” said Luke. “Open it!”

  Alex began to pull, but Ren stopped him. “Wait a little,” she said, quoting the guard.

  Alex paused a few long seconds. Then he pulled the heavy steel door open. He peered into the dim shadowy interior and saw two vaporous, glowing orbs staring back at him. His breath caught as he realized they were eyes.

  “What the —” blurted Luke, jumping back.

  “Oh, shoot,” said Ren. “It’s a sheut!”

  Alex gave the slightest of nods. It was a sheut, or shadow, a sort of ancient Egyptian ghost, a supernatural shell that had lost its self and soul. One of these had nearly drained him of his own life one very dark night in Vienna. But this one wasn’t attacking. It was just …

  “It’s watching you,” whispered Ren, her voice horrified, her small body leaning back and away.

  Not wanting to provoke it, Alex forced himself to stay very still. It seemed to work. The murky eyes narrowed.

  “Is it falling asleep?” whispered Ren.

  Alex nodded slowly. Opening the safe had woken the sleepy spirit, but now its eyes were little more than two narrow white lines hanging in the shadows. Alex exhaled and scanned the dim interior behind the drowsy apparition.

  He saw something so familiar on a small shelf that the shadows did nothing to obscure it. “The scarab!” he blurted.

  Forgetting himself, he lunged for it.

  “No, wait!” said Ren, but Alex had already pushed his hand through the veil of shadows inside the safe.

  The spirit eyes popped open.

  Alex’s fingers brushed the scarab, but before his hand could close on it, the shadow rushed forth. It hit Alex like an ice-cold wave, and a feeling of profound emptiness made him gasp and fall back to the floor.

  Luke backpedaled expertly, like a cornerback dropping into coverage. Alex crab-walked awkwardly back, hands and feet underneath him, as Ren tugged unhelpfully on his shoulders. “That’s what we were supposed to wait for,” she moaned. “Till it went back to sleep!”

  The sheut rose to its full height in front of the safe, looming above them. A mouth formed underneath its milky eyes — a trembling circle of deeper darkness. There was a hissing gasp — a quick, deep inhalation — and then:

  ssskkrreeEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

  Alex had never heard a scream more piercing or terrible. Still on the floor, he clamped his hands over his ears.

  Luke had one index finger jammed into each ear and was shouting, “We have to get out of here!”

  The desolate scream filled Alex with an unspeakable sorrow and he felt tears filling his eyes. The sadness was supernatural, he knew, but his fear was very real. The piercing scream would carry forever in the echoing stone tunnels.

  They had to get out now, get as far away as possible. Luke already had one foot out the door, and Ren wasn’t far behind. But Alex couldn’t bring himself to go — and not just because he was still on his butt. His eyes were focused not on the wailing apparition, but on the open safe behind it.

  He took one last deep breath and darted forward.

  “Nooooo!” screamed Ren.

  Alex tried to duck around the sheut, but the ringing in his ears made him disoriented and clumsy. Instead, he went right through. He felt as if he’d been painted with ice as he reluctantly removed his right hand from his ear. The scream pierced him down to his very soul, but he groped around inside the safe, grabbing the first shiny object he saw.

  He stumbled back and looked down. An amulet — Ren’s ibis!

  He held it up and saw her eyes gleam with recognition. He delivered the delicate carving of an Egyptian wading bird in an underhand arc. As it descended toward her, she lowered her left hand from her ear and plucked the amulet from the air.

  As soon as she had a hold of it, she dropped her right hand and thrust it forward, shouting into the horrible noise all around: “Go!”

  A loud FWOOOP cut through the horrid scream as a flash of brilliant white moonlight filled the room.

  The ibis was a symbol of Thoth, the Egyptian god of moonlight, writing, and wisdom. He was also the one who kept track of where each spirit belonged — so when the light faded, the deathly shadow was gone from this world. Alex was pretty sure the screaming had stopped, too, but it was hard to tell with his ears ringing like fire alarms.

  He wasted no more time, rushing forward and ransacking the safe.

  He grabbed the scarab, instantly feeling the current of ancient energy flow through him as he threw the chain over his head.

  Next to it was a third amulet: Todtman’s falcon, the powerful mind-bending artifact known as the Watcher. He grabbed that, as well as a fistful of money from a tall stack of bills and stuffed it all in his pocket.

  “Why would they keep the amulets right here, so close to us?” shouted Ren as they rushed out of the room and into the hallway.

  “Because they planned to make us use the amulets — for them!” called Alex.

  “Who cares why?” called Luke. “You got your bug back, dude,” he said to Alex. He turned to Ren: “And you got your, like, seagull!”

  They all grinned crazily. None of them realized they were shouting. Alex even took a moment to step across the hall and unlock the cell door. The guard had done his part, he figured, and posed no real danger to them now that they had their amulets. Alex knew time was tight, so he hurried.

  But he didn’t know how tight.

  With his ears ringing, he couldn’t hear the stampede of approaching footsteps. He did wonder, briefly, why the guard suddenly refused to leave his cell.

  The friends hustled down the dim corridor, deeper into the earth. Ren shot another look over her shoulder, knowing the gentle curve of the tunnel would hide any pursuers unt
il they were right on top of them — and nearly ran into a heavy door. The tunnel in front of her had ended.

  “Think we reached the end of the cellblock,” said Luke.

  Ren looked over at him and something occurred to her. He could have taken off running toward daylight at any time — definitely when that sheut appeared — but he was still here. She grudgingly gave him one point and turned back toward the door. It was bigger than the others and with no barred window. If this length of tunnel really was just a cellblock, was another one next? Would they find Alex’s mom and Todtman on the other side — or something much worse?

  But Alex was already gripping his scarab. He reached out with the amulet’s energy, probing the inside of the lock, pushing against it. The heavy lock turned.

  “Ready?” said Alex.

  Luke nodded and lowered himself into a wide athletic stance, as if there might be a charging running back on the other side of the door.

  Ren considered the question. Was she ready? Were they? She took one more quick look back over her shoulder — and now she was ready. “Yeek!” she squeaked. Because barreling down the sloped tunnel was a menacing menagerie of enemies.

  There were half a dozen of them, some living, some living dead.

  The first thing Alex noticed was the mummy. Its ragged wrapping betrayed its formidable age, and though it dragged one leg slightly, it was still moving at a full run.

  Three guards were on either side of the sprinting corpse, two of them already reaching for the pistols at their waists. Uh-oh, thought Alex as he tugged the heavy door open and Ren and Luke ducked under his arm and through.

  Alex took one last glimpse and saw two more figures behind the others. The first was a man clad all in crimson: bloodred robes and a ruby red headdress. Was he a wizard? A priest? A raspberry? Gliding silently beside him was a creature of inky blackness. This one was more than a mere shadow. Alex could already feel its deathly chill.

  He quickly ducked inside the door and pulled it closed as the first bullets thunked and pinged into the other side.

  He reached for his amulet. The ancient energy surged through him, mixing potently with his fear and adrenaline. He found a weak point in the lock — a small gear deep inside — and snapped it off. “That ought to hold ’em!” he crowed.