Todtman punched their destination into the navigation system, shifted the powerful sedan into gear, and pressed the gas pedal to the floor. Alex settled into the backseat, not noticing the fat black fly crawling slowly along the edge of the door.

The Mercedes sped south as the sun began to set in the west. Todtman took them through a few small towns and made a series of seemingly random turns, in case they were being followed. But Alex saw no suspicious cars tailing them, and the sleek vehicle seemed like a safe haven: a little bubble of tinted glass and air conditioning.

For a while, nobody said very much. They were too tired and all working through what had just happened in their own ways. Alex couldn’t see Ren’s small frame on the other side of the big front seat, but he heard her sniffle a few times and knew it was about Pai.

But eventually they recovered, like boxers picking themselves up off the mat, and the need to make sense of what they’d seen was too strong for silence.

Ren had been trying to puzzle something out herself for about thirty miles, and now she was just going to ask Todtman. “What was the big deal about those statues?” she said. “Why were you so — I mean, no offense, but why were you so freaked out about them?”

“They are powerful and dangerous weapons. I dearly wish we’d had time to destroy them.”

“Dangerous?” said Ren. “What’s The Order going to do, hit people with them? They can’t even move.”

“Not yet,” said Todtman. At first, she thought he was joking, but the grim look on his face didn’t crack, just deepened. “You already know that the ancient Egyptians believed they could make a statue of themselves in life and inhabit that form in the afterlife …”

“Right,” said Ren, remembering. “Like in London, the second Death Walker, Willoughby … He looked just like the statue in his crypt.”

“And King Tut looked just like his famous mask,” added Alex.

Ren was happy to recall the sight of Tutankhamun in the Valley of the Kings, looking less like a boy king and more like a member of a boy band. “Yeah,” she confirmed. “He was supercute.”

“I will take your word for it,” said Todtman. “But these statues were not made for their looks. They were made to be warriors.”

“So wait,” said Alex, “The Order guys want to ‘inhabit’ those forms? They want to be ten feet tall and made of stone?”

“They want to be invulnerable to harm,” said Todtman. “Unstoppable.”

“But wouldn’t they need to be dead first? Like Tut and Willoughby?”

Todtman took his eyes off the road and turned back toward Alex in a way that made Ren fear for her own life. “And you don’t think they would do that?” he said sharply. “The Order —”

“Is a death cult,” she said. “We know. Could you please keep your eyes on the road?” But then she finally understood the full implication of what he was saying. “So wait, they plan to sacrifice themselves? They plan to turn themselves into Death Walkers?”

Alex groaned. “Into supersized, indestructible Death Walkers.”

HONK!

An approaching truck finally caught Todtman’s attention — with its horn rather than its grille, thankfully. He veered back into his lane. “And I suspect their powers would be just as large as their bodies,” he said. “The Lost Spells unleashed the Death Walkers into this world, and the Lost Spells would allow these new ones to cross over, as well. And with the protection of those Spells …”

“They would be impossible to banish, brought back for good,” said Alex. Ren turned and saw him looking down at his scarab. “The Book of the Dead, the scarab, nothing could stop them.”

Ren tried to imagine it. Supersized Death Walkers with supersized powers. “Can you imagine how powerful Peshwar would be?” she said. “Those energy daggers could take down a building! Or their leader? Oh wow …”

“He could control presidents, nations,” said Todtman. “And nothing could stop them — or even harm them.”

“No wonder they’re working with the Death Walkers,” said Alex. “They are planning to become Death Walkers.”

Todtman nodded solemnly. “The world of the dead is already bleeding into the world of the living, already taking hold. The Order and the Death Walkers plan to use that opening to rule — to live forever and rule a world shadowed by death.”

Ren sat back, trying to imagine a world ruled by The Order and the Death Walkers. It was not a world she wanted any part of. “It’s a good thing we’re on our way to find the Spells right now,” she said. “We need to slam those doorways shut and put everything back the way it was!”

She looked at the other two. Todtman was nodding, but Alex … Alex looked like she’d just punched him. She didn’t understand his reaction at all, at first. And then she did. “Oh,” she said. “Oh no.”

Todtman kept his eyes fixed on the road. “Yes,” he said. “We have no way of knowing what will happen if the doorways close for good, but the risk was always clear — the risk to Alex.”

Always clear? she thought. Clear to who? She hadn’t signed up for this.

“Was it clear to you?” she said, staring back between the seats at Alex and not entirely succeeding in keeping the pity out of her voice.

“I was kind of trying not to think about it,” he admitted. “But if we use the Spells and everything goes back to the way it was before, well …”

He couldn’t bring himself to say it, and she didn’t blame him.

Because he was sick before — sick, at best.

At worst, he was dead.

That night, with the sun gone red again and just kissing the horizon, they arrived in Minyahur.