They crossed the sunbaked boneyard. At first Ren complained bitterly about the tomb robbers, digging deep for something hurtful to say and coming up with: “I hope they never get tenure!” But with sand and hot wind blowing in their faces, it was easier not to talk. Alex leaned forward into it, like a dog tugging hard on his leash.

It wasn’t hard to find Tut’s tomb. KV 62 was the valley’s main attraction, and there were signs for it spread around, in various languages. But time was becoming a major issue. Dawn had become early morning. The sun rose higher, and the heat did, too. It was over 100 degrees already, and climbing rapidly.

“Look,” said Alex, pointing. “Here it is.”

It was a sad scene as they approached. One of the world’s major tourist destinations stood exposed: no lines and no tourists. A broken-down cab puttered around the corner and into view as they approached, as if summoned by the prospect of paying customers. As the kids arrived at the tomb, the driver lowered his window and smiled.

“You are just in time!” he said, his accent thick but his English solid. “I was on my way out of the valley. I can take you!” He gave them a price.

“Could you stay here?” said Ren, pointing toward the tomb. “While we go in?”

The man glanced nervously up at the sun and shook his head. “It will be too hot very soon.”

“It isn’t even eight,” said Alex. He couldn’t leave without checking out the tomb. His mom had been inside there — maybe she was in there now!

“You don’t understand,” said the driver. “The heat. It is not normal. It is not …” He searched for the English word and then found it: “Natural.”

“One hour,” said Luke, and then doubled the price the man had quoted.

“Half hour,” said the man, and then tripled it.

They shook hands.

The friends hurried past a large sign out front, with Arabic text on top and below that:

TOMB OF
TUT ANKH AMUN
NO: 62

Alex felt a thrill go through him: history and possibility and fear all at once.

And there was something else. Something he’d sensed. Because as hot as the air was, his amulet was hotter. Even through his shirt, he could feel it: hotter and more electric the closer they got. Now he reached up and wrapped his left hand around it. His internal radar screen lit up, and it was no vague shimmer this time.

“What is it?” said Ren.

Alex answered: “Something big.”

Is it the Lost Spells, he wondered, or something more dangerous?

“Keep an eye out for the guards,” said Alex, as he pushed aside an open metal gate.

The others nodded, eyes wide open, flashlights on, as they plunged into the hushed darkness of the tomb. The friends swung the beams from side to side, on edge and on guard. “Hello!” Alex called. No answer.

His heart pounded with each new chamber they entered. But King Tut’s tomb was surprisingly small — only four chambers, like a heart — and it soon became clear that they were alone. The disappointment was a bitter pill, but Alex swallowed it and tried to concentrate on the details around them. The walls were light on paintings and hieroglyphic writing. The boy king had been buried in a hurry and in a tomb meant for someone else. His feet had even been chopped off to fit him into the secondhand sarcophagus. Alex had heard all the theories: disease, murder, betrayal … They had just entered the third room, the burial chamber, when Alex heard Ren scream.

He swung his flashlight around, grasping for his amulet with his other hand, but she was already apologizing.

“Sorry, sorry,” she said, her own flashlight beam resting on a pile of charred cloth and very white bone. “It’s bones,” she said. “Skeletons.”

Alex didn’t scream, but he nearly blacked out. Stars filled his eyes. Mom?

“I think we found the guards,” answered Ren, a slight tremble in her voice.

Alex forced himself to breathe, to focus. The three friends washed the piled remains with their flashlight beams. Scraps of scorched uniform; the remains of a pistol, its melted barrel drooping down like a water faucet; two skulls, two large rib cages. Men. Alex’s horror turned to a guilty sort of relief. The bones were bleached pure white, as if by the sun. He remembered the taxi driver’s words: This heat isn’t … natural.

The heat, the flashes of light turning night to day, the bleached bones … This confirmed what he’d been thinking.

“I think we might be in trouble, guys,” he said. “I think there’s a Death Walker in the valley.”

Ren turned toward Alex, her eyes wide with both fear and realization. “The heat — it’s a plague …”

“Oh, great,” said Luke.

Ren took out her phone and glanced at the time. “We need to hurry up.”

A quick check of the fourth chamber — the now empty treasury — revealed no more bones. His mom wasn’t there, either. He looked down at the amulet that had once been hers. There was no Death Walker here now, no mummies … And yet the scarab had lit up as strongly as it ever had. It still felt hot and charged against his shirt. Had he been right? Was it sensing the undead — or the death magic of the Spells? He wanted more time to look around. He knew from experience that tombs hid their secrets well. “How about one more look around?” he said.

“The taxi is going to leave, Alex!” said Ren.

“But …” he began.

Luke put his hand on Alex’s shoulder. His grip was friendly but definitely firm. “If that dude leaves,” he said. “We are toast.”

Alex exhaled. Thoughts of his mom jostled with memories of the scorched skeletons. “Okay,” he said. They’d have to come back.

They rushed out of the tomb, but as they did he saw something that stopped him cold. “That’s weird,” he said.

It was high up on the wall near the entrance, half in light and half in shadow: a charcoal-black disk with long, thin lines extending down. Each line ended in an ankh, an ancient symbol for life that looked like a cross with a loop on top.

“What is it?” said Ren, her eyes flicking between the image and the exit. The intense heat from outside was already hitting them.

“It’s an Aten. A sun disk. Tut abolished that religion,” said Alex, as if explaining who George Washington was. “It shouldn’t be here.”

“We shouldn’t be here, either, bro,” said Luke.

Alex knew he was right, but this charred graffiti felt important. He craned his neck for a closer look. If he could just tell how it was made … or when … And that’s when they heard the taxi’s engine sputter to life. They pushed through the gate and rushed out to the road — just in time to see the taxi speed away. From the backseat, Bridger and the other two men waved gleefully. The back of Izzie’s red cap was just visible in the front.

“Those snakes!” said Ren.

Luke took off running after them, but stopped after only a few steps, already sweating. It was at least ten degrees hotter than it had been half an hour earlier, well over 110 now.

“I can’t believe we lost our ride because of some symbol painted on the wall,” said Ren, giving Alex a side-eye.

Alex stood in the baking, hard-packed sand and watched the taxi turn the corner. “It didn’t look painted,” he mumbled, distracted. “It looked burned.”

Burned, just like the bones had been.

Just like they were about to be.

“Okay, let’s go,” said Ren, pointing back the way they’d come, a long and winding route.

“No,” said Alex, tilting his head up toward the brutal sun, his concern rising as the temperature did. “If we don’t find a shortcut, we won’t make it out alive. You’ve got to use the amulet.”

Ren hesitated, and Alex saw her looking around for options. “Couldn’t we go back inside?” she said, looking back over her shoulder.

“All day?” said Luke. “With the bones?”

“Ren, come on!” said Alex. “If a Death Walker did that, it could come back, and we’d be trapped, with no Book of the Dead to fight it.”

Ren swallowed. “Fine,” she said. “I’ll try.”

Ren closed her left hand around the ibis. Even in the blistering day, the pale white stone felt cool against her fingers. Think, she told herself. Think hard: How do we get out of the valley? She felt her pulse race, and a rapid-fire slide show of images flashed through her mind so fast that she gasped.

A path, low and sandy; the sun cut in half by a high ridge; a man in robes; a dark gap in light stone …

She released the amulet, overwhelmed.

“What did you see?” said Alex, leaning in.

How could she explain it to him? How could she tell him the simple truth: I don’t know.

“Too much,” she said. “And not enough.”

His expression sank. Even Luke, standing next to him, made a stink face. She always worked so hard to have all the answers, and now all this stupid amulet did was give her questions. Unless … “Maybe I know which way to go, though?” she said, remembering the first image, the path.

“Really?” said Alex.

The sun beat down on her. She felt like she was being baked. Focus, Ren! She concentrated on the second image. “We need to follow a path and then head up the ridge,” she said.

“Okay,” said Alex, desperation growing in his voice. “But which way? This place is full of paths.”

Ren thought hard. If they went in the wrong direction, they were fried. She’d seen the sun cut in half by the ridgeline in her vision. It had been rising. “East,” she said, pointing toward the morning sun.

“You’re sure?” said Luke. His face was bright red beneath his cap.

She nodded. They needed to move, and it was the best she had. “We need to find a higher ridgeline.” At least they were headed in the same direction the taxi had gone.

They moved along the valley floor as fast as they could in the punishing heat, looking up occasionally to size up the ridge above them. They stayed off the little road and followed a winding path that hugged the base of one of the limestone cliffs that formed the edge of the valley. The morning sun was still low enough that the ridgeline above them offered some shade.

Still, the temperature was climbing steadily. Ren felt her body temperature rising, too. It was like she had a fever inside and out.

She looked at the others: Alex in his silly hat, Luke in his cap, both pouring sweat, leaning forward as they marched grimly along.

We won’t last long, she thought.

“I feel trapped down here,” muttered Luke.

Alex nodded. “When the sun comes over that ridge, we’ll be baked alive,” he said.

“We need to get out!” said Luke. He veered to the side and scrambled up the valley wall.

But the combination of hard stone and shifting sand made climbing too hard, and Ren watched as he slid back down to where he started.

Alex turned to her. “Does any of this look familiar?” he said.

His voice was pleading, desperate. Ren looked out at the path in front of them and up at the ridge. When it came right down to it, one desert path looks a lot like another. So did one rocky ridge. Her earlier confidence evaporated, and for a moment she wished she’d never found the ibis. She peered into the distance again. She saw a wall of wavy heat haze rising from a dark strip of road running along the sun-blasted valley floor. She followed it with her eyes.

“Is that a little building?” she said.

The others whipped their heads around.

“Maybe it has AC!” said Luke, taking off at a run. Alex followed. Ren refused to run after them. It was just a little hut on the side of the road. It didn’t have air conditioning. Where would it even get the electricity?

She arrived just in time to see Alex and Luke rushing back out of what she now realized was a one-room guard booth or checkpoint, maybe both. She saw the familiar logo of the Supreme Council painted on the side, white paint on red, all of it peeling from the heat.

“Any cooler inside?” she asked, knowing the answer.

“It’s like an oven!” said Alex, stuffing something square and plastic into his backpack.

“Is that a binder?” said Ren, a bit of an expert on the subject.

“It’s the visitor log,” he said. “From the guard booth.”

The group left the little red oven behind and trudged on, deeper into the deep fryer. The sliver of shadow shrank, forcing them closer and closer to the valley wall. But then …

“Let’s ask him how to get out!” said Alex, pointing.

Ren followed his finger and couldn’t believe it. There was a man walking toward them. He was out in the open sunlight and his entire bottom half was obscured by the heat haze. But one thing was clear: He was wearing loose-fitting desert robes — just like the man the ibis had shown her.

“Hey!” called Ren.

“Dude!” called Luke.

The man adjusted his course immediately, turning to head toward them. And for just a second, Ren had a bad feeling.

The man’s head was wrapped in white cloth, with just a narrow gap for his eyes. Was he a desert tribesman? wondered Ren. A nomad? She’d read about them, how they could survive in even the harshest conditions.

His robes were loose and lightweight. Their light color matched the sand, and she could see how they might offer some protection from the brutal heat. The man was no more than ten feet away now.

“Hello!” Alex called with as much cheer as he could muster.

Ren searched the man’s eyes for any sign of kindness or understanding and found none. Alex must have seen the same thing, because she saw him take hold of his amulet.

Now the man did speak — a handful of words — but Ren didn’t understand the language. Alex replied, and she couldn’t understand that, either. She’d seen this before. The amulet was allowing him to speak ancient Egyptian. But that meant …

Before she could finish her thought, the man stepped into the shadow cast by the ridge, and everything about him changed. His loose clothing shimmered and faded away, gone just like the heat haze that had surrounded him. In its place, an ancient outfit: a white tunic laced with golden thread, a white kilt of similar material, sandals on his feet. And on his head: an ornate headdress. The face beneath it was dark tan, the color of a fawn’s fur, and horribly blistered.

Now Ren knew exactly what they were facing — and how much trouble they were in.

“Holy —” began Luke, but before he got any further, a pulse of pure white light flashed out from the man’s eyes. All three friends called out in pain and surprise. Every inch of exposed skin had been suddenly and severely sunburned, but they had a bigger problem. Ren blinked, testing.

She was blind.

“Death Walker!” Alex shouted. Ren cupped her hands over her light-stung eyes. All she could see were swirls of yellow and orange.

“Run!” called Alex. “Follow my voice!”

But the first thing Ren heard was Alex tripping and falling heavily to the ground.

Ren turned and tried to run. She made it five steps before her boot caught on some unseen edge and sent her sprawling. The hard-packed, sunbaked ground scraped her palms.

She felt a whoosh of air and knew it was Luke rushing past, faster and more coordinated by a mile. She scrambled to her feet as her eyes began to clear.

She turned and squinted at the man. He was standing with his head tilted toward the sky and his arms raised above him. In between his outstretched hands — and in between the pinpricks of light dotting her vision — she saw a roiling ball of fire. The flames swirled in a circle and licked outward greedily. She could feel the heat of the thing on her face.

The swirling ball of flames grew larger, and the man’s face tilted down toward the spot where she stood transfixed, hypnotized by the liquid fire. Her feet wouldn’t move, but her mind was racing back toward the piled bones in the tomb. She knew all too well that Death Walkers fed on souls, and now she understood that this one preferred hot meals.

He smiled as he saw the horror dawn on her face.

He pulled his arms back. When his arms came forward, so would the flames.

Alex’s eyes were dazzled, his knees were skinned, and his left hand was wrapped so hard around his scarab that its wings threatened to punch right through the skin of his palm. Once again, the Death Walker spoke, shouting the same question he had asked before: “Little children, who do you worship?”

Alex knew that ancient Egyptians could be very particular about their many gods, but he had a more pressing question in mind: How do you stop a walking undead flamethrower?

As the Walker’s fierce, predatory eyes focused on Ren, as his arms swung back like a pitcher about to deliver some high heat, Alex swept his free hand back and swiftly forward.

The wind that comes before the rain … His amulet had desert magic, and they were in the desert now. A wind more powerful than Alex expected rose instantly and swept across the floor of the valley. Alex braced himself as it rushed past, nearly toppling him. The wind carried with it a swirling, stabbing sea of sand. He felt a thousand sharp stings against his exposed arms. His hat flew off and forward, and now he felt the stings against his neck and cheeks, too.

Scraped up off the valley floor and carried along, the sand was so thick that it seemed to block out the sun itself. The world turned tan and then almost black. Alex saw the glow of the flaming orb smothered completely. As it blinked out, he closed his eyes against the stinging tumult.

A moment later, it was over. The sand and wind had passed. Alex opened his eyes to find Ren hunched over on the ground, hands shielding her head. Luke was a little farther back, bent over, spitting out sand. The Death Walker had dropped to one knee, his headdress slightly askew.

He looked up, and Alex’s breath caught. Sand clung to the Walker’s face, wet from the oozing blisters, and he glared at his enemy with eyes that were now glowing red.

“RUN!” called Alex.

They rushed past the Walker as he slowly rose to his feet. They gave him a wide berth — except for Luke, who shouldered directly into him. There was a sizzling sound as he made contact.

“Aaah!” cried Luke.

But the impact had done its job, knocking the Walker back to the ground.

Injured or not, Luke ran like a gazelle. “Are you okay?” shouted Alex as his cousin quickly caught up.

“No!” shouted Luke. “Felt like tackling a campfire.”

After a few more strides, Alex risked a quick look back. The Death Walker was on his feet now. His hands were raised above him, and in between them, a ball of flame was forming. Alex kicked it up a gear, still amazed at his new health, still testing its limits. It was torture to run in this heat, but crazy desperation fueled him. His body responded, his engine revved, but at any second he expected it all to end in flames.

He’d caught the Walker off guard. He knew it wouldn’t work again. By the time he turned and faced him, he’d be a pile of ash and bone.

Alex searched for some escape, but to their left, the limestone face of the valley wall rose steeply. To their right, the ground was exposed and bathed in brutal sun.

“Over here!” said Ren, already veering toward the base of the slope.

“Why?” he shouted in between gasps for air. “Where?”

But now he saw it: a gap in between two jutting wedges of limestone. The opening was narrow, barely as wide as he was, but the darkness within hinted at depth. “Is that a cave or —”

“Just go!” Luke shouted, passing him.

Alex heard a crackling sound growing behind him as he took a sharp left on the fly. A fireball whooshed past him. He felt its searing heat as it passed, scalding his skin even though it missed.

The Death Walker roared his disapproval behind them — and the roar sounded close. A quick glance back confirmed it. He was rushing toward them at incredible speed, sandals slapping sand.

Alex turned to see Luke and Ren running for the crevice in the valley wall, just steps ahead of him. It was a thin slice of pure black cutting deep into the base of the slope. It could hold anything or nothing at all — and the friends hit it at a dead run.

Alex saw Ren disappear into the darkness.

And then Luke.

And then it was his turn. He closed his eyes and braced himself, expecting to run straight into the back of a cave, or at least his friends. Instead, he ran into a dark, narrow passage.

“This way!” Ren shouted from somewhere up ahead, her voice echoing off the limestone that surrounded them.

He followed the narrow, sloping passage: forward and up.

“Hurry!” he shouted, risking a quick look back at the wedge of light at the entrance. “He’s right behind us.”

Alex’s heart hammered in his chest and his entire right side burned. The claustrophobic darkness raised his fear to near panic. His frantic mind could form only the most basic questions: Where did this passage go? Were they just moving deeper into the mountain? Wedging themselves in?

The sound of footsteps and hard, sharp breaths filled the narrow stone gap at first, but soon another sound rose up. A crackling sound, like a thousand insects feeding.

“Go, go, go!” called Alex from the end of the line.

Up ahead, Ren finally managed to wrestle the flashlight free from her pack. She clicked it on just in time to avoid running into the wall at a sharp bend in the passageway.

She swung around the corner, then Luke. Alex thrust his left hand out to avoid crashing into the wall as he made the sharp turn to the right. The fireball hit the wall a split-second later.

Flames licked around the corner, and the passageway lit up and filled with a wave of heat that nearly buckled Alex’s knees. But the thing had extinguished itself on the wall.

And now there was light up ahead. Not fire, but sunlight.

The friends made for the opening as fast as they could, but their heavy legs and overheated systems couldn’t manage more than a jog. Ren stumbled out first. Then Luke. Alex took one last look back, but all he saw was gray smoke curling in the darkness.

He turned and burst into sunlight. Ren and Luke were bent over with their hands on their knees on the slope of the ridge, balanced on a small ledge that protruded like a lower lip under the cave’s open mouth. The valley spread out below them. Luke stuck out his arm to prevent Alex from toppling off it.

Alex nodded his thanks, then bent over and coughed smoke out of his lungs. He looked up, trying to gauge the distance to the top of the ridge.

“Look at this,” said Luke. “I think it’s a path.”

Alex looked and would have pumped his fist if he’d had the energy. An old footpath led upward from the ledge, cutting back and forth across the face of the slope, leading toward the top of the ridge and out of the valley. Alex looked back at the passage and understood: a secret escape route for the tomb raiders that pillaged the valley in ancient times. Tired, overheated, burned, thirsty, and cramping badly in his side, Alex fell into line behind the other two and followed the path as best he could. “How did you know that cave would save us?” he said to Ren’s back once he had some fresh air back in his lungs.

“I didn’t, really,” said Ren. “But I was hoping it wouldn’t try to kill me twice.”

Alex wasn’t really sure what she meant, but the climb was too tough for follow-up questions or complicated answers. Instead, he kept his feet moving and his eyes peeled. There was no sign of the Walker on the slope below them, but there was trouble above. The rising sun was eating away at the last of the shade. The heat was unforgiving as they climbed. They trudged on, bent over and silent except for their labored breathing, until eventually they made it.

At some point during the climb, he’d passed Ren. Now he reached back and tugged her over the top of the ridge with him. Luke was already collapsed on the ground. The air was instantly cooler on the other side. Even the direct heat of the desert sun paled in comparison to the supernatural sauna of the valley itself. For maybe a minute, all they did was lie on their backs and breathe.

Luke dug his water bottle out of his pack, took a swig, and then passed the bottle to his cousin.

It was the best thing Alex had ever tasted. He took two greedy gulps, wiped his mouth, and passed the bottle to Ren. She took a sustained gulp that would have made a camel proud.

“You were hoping what wouldn’t try to kill you twice?” said Alex, finally picking up the question he’d let drop on the climb. “The Death Walker?”

Ren looked up into the bright blue sky and shook her head. “My amulet,” she said.