As soon as Alex began to run, the Walkers realized he’d been bluffing and came after him. Alex bolted out the short hallway at full speed and rushed between the crocs, now lying motionless on their backs. He heard Ta-mesah’s heavy footsteps slap the stone floor of the hallway and then soften as they hit dirt. He was right behind him!

“Over here!” Ren called from somewhere in the field.

Alex angled toward the sound and grimaced as Luke added: “Don’t look back, cuz!”

He did his best to protect the ancient Spells with his arms as he ducked his head and rammed into the barley. Luke and Ren were waiting a few rows in.

“I have them!” Alex gasped. “We need to get back to the portal where we came in!”

“Okay,” said Ren, already turning to run. “We can head to the riverbank and follow it back!”

The three friends crashed and stomped through the tall, fragile stalks.

With his friends beside him, their long-sought prize in his arms, and the concealing crops all around, a wave of hope washed over him. The Spells had saved his life twice now — and he’d just gotten a glimpse of their power. Three unstoppable Walkers had been held hostage by the mere threat of it.

But it wasn’t just the Spells they feared: It was Ammit. The gods really were stronger. Anubis had turned the Walkers back at the river. He was the guardian of the afterlife, and his word was law here. But Ammit was the enforcer of that law, and her jaws brought oblivion.

As Alex ran, the stalks stinging his face, a wild thought occurred to him: Maybe they could win.

And if they did … This whole time, he’d been almost as afraid of finding the Spells as of not finding them. They could save his world, but they could also end his life. He’d been willing to risk it before.

But now? Knowing that this plot began long before him, that his mom had never abandoned him, and that the Spells in his arms scared his enemies stiff … He still wanted to win, but feeling the wild elation of escape, the sensation of flight as he ran alongside his friends, he knew something else. He wanted to live, too. But how?

A sound much louder than three grain-stomping kids rose up behind them. Alex looked back over his shoulder and saw the barley bend forward in a massive wave. As it did, Alex felt a swift slap strike his whole body at once. “Guh!” he blurted, stumbling onto one knee.

Ren was knocked to the ground beside him. Only Luke managed to keep his balance. All around them, acres of slender stalks were pushed to the ground as they were overrun by the invisible wave. Regaining his balance and turning once again, Alex saw the source. The hulking frame of Ta-mesah stood in the twilit distance. His arms were extended and his palms thrust outward.

He had used his formidable powers to flatten the grain.

The three Amulet Keepers were suddenly out in the open. Movement caught Alex’s eye and he raised his gaze to the gray sky, which was turning a deep, bruise-like purple behind them, clouding over with a swarm of fast-flying shapes.

Ren scrambled to her feet, eyes darting back at the rows of flattened grain and up at the swarm of hungry spirits. “The portal’s too far away,” she said. “We’ll never make it!”

“We have to try,” called Luke, reaching down to help Ren up. He alone had the speed to escape, but he wouldn’t do it without them.

They turned and ran across the flattened field.

Ta-mesah had flattened the grain all the way to the edge of the field, and Ren squinted into the dim distance as she ran.

And there it was: an army on the march.

An uninterrupted line of men appeared out of a glowing gateway in the air at one end, only to march steadily forward and disappear into the air at the other. Ren had seen this before, when her amulet had shown it to her. She knew they were stepping out of one false door and into another, traveling from Egypt to New York by a macabre shortcut through the afterlife.

An odd feeling washed over her overheated system. As the infernal buzzing grew louder and closer and as the Death Walkers closed in, she stared at the spot where the undead soldiers were disappearing. New York, she thought. At least I’ll die close to home.

The fading gray twilight was filled with darkening swirls and whorls and streaks. Wails and growls and disembodied gasps filled her ears. Soon this would be the menacing nighttime world she’d seen on her first trip to the afterlife — if she lived that long. She turned her attention to the uneven ground in front of her. As she did she saw a faint but familiar glow hanging in the gray air just up ahead. Her muscles burning and her legs pumping, she looked a little closer.

“PUH!” she gasped as she felt a hard, sharp push from behind.

She stumbled forward, falling through the spectral light and into darkness.