“Shhh!” Ian scolded him, index finger mashed up against his lips and pushing his nose out of joint.
Richie rolled his eyes at his twin and then waited for the room to come back into focus. Shhh…as if the museum guard they’d locked in the closet wasn’t already making enough noise to wake the dead.
And as if Ian was any more sober himself. Still, Ian wasn’t the one who was going to be bruised tomorrow from accidentally hip-checking that cabinet.
“If the cabinet’s a’rockin’ then don’t come a’knockin’,” he sing-song-sang to himself. He didn’t think that was quite right, but he couldn’t remember the actual words to the song. House, that was it. House, not cabinet. No matter.
Ian glared him silent. All right, already! He got it. Heists required secrecy. And silence. And copious amounts of liquid courage.
Really, he had no idea how things had gone this far. Sure, Ian had fantasized about bringing home a real souvenir and had pointed out casually the closed areas and the lack of guards at the small museum—possibly because of funding issues. But he never dreamed Ian would really go for it…or that his brother would convince him to come along.
Probably that sixth…or was it seventh?…drink had been a mistake.
“Hold this,” Ian ordered, handing over the flashlight he’d brought with him, as if maybe there’d been a bit of premedication. No, that wasn’t right. Premeditation. Sheesh. He needed to lie down, not to be skulking around dusty museum vaults.
He held the flashlight as still as he could on the cabinet Ian was poking through, opening drawers, rifling contents, sometimes bringing them closer to the light to inspect them…like the thing he held now, which was about the size of a half dollar and gleaming gold.
“What do you make of this?” Ian asked him.
Richie did his best to focus on the disk…or was it a medallion? Yes, definitely a medallion, chain and all. It seemed to flash in the light. Almost definitely gold, Richie thought. But, if so, why wouldn’t it be on display? Seemed like the sort of thing that would be a major find for a small museum.
“Cool,” Richie commented. “Grab it and let’s go.”
He hadn’t actually seen any other guards, but someone was bound to miss the one they’d locked up sooner or later. Plus, the place gave him the creeps. Those two sarcophagi they’d passed… Well, he’d seen The Mummy, the old black and white version and the newer version with Brendan Fraser and Rachel Weisz. Ah, Rachel Weisz.
“But look at it,” Ian insisted.
Richie sighed. He liked the vision in his mind’s eye better, but obediently he gave it another glance. “What’s that thing on the front? Looks a dog, but for those funny knobby things on top of its head. Maybe a giraffe? I didn’t think the Egyptians had a giraffe-headed god.”
“It’s Set, you dummy.”
“Who?”
“Bad boy of ancient Egypt. You know, god of chaos? Cut his brother Osiris into itty bitty bits.”
“Oh, that guy.”
Ian dropped the chain of the medallion over his head and went back to rifling through the cabinet. He came back with several more gold disks, smaller than the last, but each one bearing the image of the same strange animal.
“Such a waste to lock these away in dusty old vaults,” Ian said, pocketing the coins. “They should be appreciated.”
“Ian, I don’t think this is such a good idea.”
“Relax, we’re not going to get caught.”
Richie wasn’t so sure. This wasn’t like shoplifting for laughs back in California. Or “borrowing” that Batmobile replica for a joy ride the one time. This was art theft, wasn’t it? They could create some kind of international incident.
He opened his mouth to say something, but Ian had already moved along.
“Come on,” he said, “bring the light. I want to check out those sarcophagi.”
It was the last thing in the world Richie wanted to do, but he knew he’d get out of here sooner if he just went along. Arguing would only waste time and in the end they’d do what Ian wanted anyway. They always did.
He dragged his feet in approaching the sarcophagi. He wasn’t quite the expert Ian was on Egyptian stuff, but he knew there was something very wrong with these two coffins.
“Check them out!” Ian said, awe in his voice. “I’m thinking First Intermediate period, maybe.” On the other hand, Ian wasn’t quite the expert he thought he was either. First Intermediate period. Who was he trying to impress? All Richie really knew about it was that it was a period of unrest. All the intermediate periods were. “But…look, no prayers for the dead. No names. No spells to unite their ba and ka in the afterlife…”
A chill swept in out of nowhere, raising gooseflesh all over Richie’s body.
“There’s Osiris,” Ian continued, “but…”
Richie could see it now for himself. The images on the sarcophagi, still weirdly crisp after all these years, showed Osiris, the weigher of hearts…only these had clearly been found wanting. Severely wanting. A demon crouched beside the scales waiting to devour the atrophied organs. It was as though the priests had carved a sentencing recommendation into the sarcophagi. Those inside were never meant to pull enough of themselves together to reach the afterlife.
Richie shivered, as though to shake off the thought. The flashlight beam went wild and then Richie lost it all together. It rolled on the ground and under the cart on which one of the sarcophagi rested.
Ian cursed and reached for it, bumping into the sarcophagus and then…something happened.
Richie watched in terror as his brother’s body went suddenly rigid and he sparked, as though zapped by electricity. Against his chest, something glowed gold and then red, strobing. The medallion…
Crazy stupid terror flashed through Richie, and for a split second, he couldn’t move. Couldn’t do anything but watch, all those horror movies flitting through his head. And then he steeled himself. This was his brother. His twin.
He grabbed Ian and yanked, trying to separate him from the sarcophagus, to get him outside and away from this insanity, but Ian lashed out, landing a palm forcefully against Richie’s chest. Richie’s whole body convulsed as some kind of energy flashed between them, a bolt of pure power that blasted his heart and exploded outward until he lost control of his limbs, fell against the other sarcophagus…where something waited to grab hold…
More electricity zapped through him as he hit the coffin full force, branching out like lightning. Everything flashed through him. His past, his present…
His future, red-washed and full of pain.
He bit back on the pain, tasted blood. It flooded his mouth like memory.
But that flood was quickly blown away by the sandstorm that raged behind it—a dry, hot wind flecked with thousands, millions of stinging shards, scouring everything in its path, leaving him a husk, a shell. Dry, desiccated.
And then something filled him like a bellows. Pumping him full of so much—hunger, rage, lust… Pure animal need, startling in its intensity.
A sudden noise blew away the haze, breaking him from the sea of pain…
At a second sound, he and the one beside him looked up simultaneously, sighting in on the source of the sound.
Somewhere a door opened. Footsteps. Then a woman appeared, calling “Hello? Bakari, was that you?”
She spoke in Egyptian, but he no longer struggled so hard to understand. At the sight and sound of her, something inside went mad. Clawing at him, tearing and scraping, howling for release. Filling him with rage and hunger and a thirst for blood.
He saw red. Saw it and liked it and wanted more.
He and the other circled silently, closing in on her from either side. She saw them, but too late. Her screams fed his strange new hunger, but they were not enough. Would never be enough.