The world darkened around me and when I opened my eyes; we were inside the tomb once more. My stomach recoiled, and my breakfast from this morning threatened to repeat on me. I fell to my knees from the sudden shift and teleportation, breathing in deeply.
Zenon leaned against the wall, trying to catch his breath, while River doubled over and coughed, spitting out blood. His skull was aflame, but there were more dull blue flames than his usual bright yellow and red ones.
“What’s with this place?” I asked, climbing to my feet on shaky legs. “I thought we were going home, not back here,” I grumbled.
“I thought of your home too,” River said, his body still burning.
“And you’ve brought me along for the sick ride. Now I’m stuck too,” Zenon moaned, dusting his clothing.
Whatever was going on, we had to see it positively; there had to be a reason we kept coming back to the tomb. “At least I bring excitement to your life.” I tried for humor, but Zenon wasn’t budging. “If you were back home, you’d be playing online games with your buddies.”
“I have a job,” Zenon said, his tone harsh.
River coughed, and his flames slowly receded. He stretched out his back and Luna barked, running up to him. River bent on one knee and rubbed his best friend, and she licked his hands, fingers, and face.
“What now?” Zenon said wearily, pulling me out of my thoughts.
I blinked and turned toward him. “Honestly, I don’t know. We went to see Alec but got no answers. All that happened is we heard a man being tortured by lizard shifters.”
“What about the locket?” he asked, holding out his hand.
I pulled it out of my bag and remembered the book I’d taken from the professor’s office and pulled that out, too. I placed both items on the sarcophagus. “Didn’t we leave this open?” I asked.
“Yeah, but we seemed to go through time wormholes or something. Nothing is as it seems,” Zenon said, approaching. “And this is probably another time in another dimension.” He shooed me away. “Let’s see what you got here,” he opened the book, “just great… a journal.” He opened the locket and frowned. “The picture has changed, though. There’s a little boy, Harry, with Alec at the institute. It looks like some sort of magic show.” Zenon showed me the locket and pointed at the boy’s name sewn into his clothing.
The locket revealed clues to our next destination, and I groaned; I didn’t want to go back to the institute. “There has to be another way,” I said, closing the locket. “If we go back to the institute, we’ll just get caught by the lizards. And besides, it’s probably just showing us a memory of Alec with this boy Harry.”
“We’ll probably go to that time and the lizards won’t know about us because it’s in the past,” River said, frowning.
“Wait,” Zenon said, holding up his hands. “I agree, we can’t go back to the Institute. We’ve learned all we need to know about what goes on there and the lizards probably hurt that child, too. And if he’s still alive, he is not well for surviving that place. There has to be something here.” He turned on his heels and carefully looked at the walls within the tomb. He took his time dusting the sand off the hieroglyphics and mumbled to himself.
Zenon not only aged quickly, but he also absorbed information like one breathed air. He read every book he could get his hands on and remembered each word in a sentence on every page. He was one of those brilliant minds, except this one came with an attitude.
He walked around the tomb once more and then pushed the heavy lid off the sarcophagus. “He looks different,” he said, pointing at the mummy.
I approached to see what he was talking about. River stayed in the corner with Luna. His face had become more gaunt than before. I wanted to say something but didn’t think he would tell me the truth; that he was dying with my father. I blinked back unshed tears and swallowed hard. Then I smiled when Luna placed her goofy head on River’s leg, her long tongue hanging out of one side of her mouth.
Movement beside me caught my attention. I closed the gap and peered over the side of the sarcophagus to see what Zenon was looking at. The mummy was undisturbed. Nobody had ever moved his body since they put him there. There was sand all around him and parts of the linen had fallen away from his face, revealing his mummified face. But where there was nothing before, now under his left arm was the remains of a case.
“No idea what to make of this,” I said with a sigh.
Zenon rubbed his face. “Do we have all the information? Shouldn’t we ask Victor exactly what had happened? River might have heard wrong and we’re trying to solve a puzzle by playing broken telephone.”
“Your father isn’t doing well,” River whispered, ignoring Zenon’s jab. He coughed again and pressed his head against the wall.
“What’s going on?” I asked and approached. “Tell me the truth.” I crouched beside him and rubbed Luna’s head.
“Victor is dying, and so will I if we don’t solve this.” River looked at me with those warm amber-brown-colored eyes. He scratched the stubble on his chin and sighed, wincing every time he moved. “I don’t think I can go anywhere,” he nodded in Zenon’s direction, “but your brother can help you. The two of you can do this.”
River burst into his angry flames as if trying to conserve his human energy. Luna burned with her owner as they sat there resting.
“How much time do we have?”
River shrugged. “Can’t anymore.” His dark orb eyes flickered gray and his once bright red and yellow flames became dull.
River and I had our problems, but I loved him still. And it pained me to witness his demise.
The back of my throat ached and as much as I didn’t want to say it, I would miss him if anything happened to him. “Don’t worry, we’ll find the mask,” I said with determination in my voice. I needed River to know that we could do this and before time ran out.
“There has to be something else in this tomb that can help us.” I stood, giving River and Luna space.
River pulled something out of his pocket; the newspaper clipping. I took it out of his flaming phalanges.
“That’s the professor and here’s his brother,” I pointed at the two men who were closest to the camera, “but who is this?” I pointed at the man in the background holding a box. I’d been so focused on the professor and the sarcophagus that I didn’t notice the other men. The fact that Alec had been in the photo all along left me angry with myself for not seeing it before. But then again, neither River nor Zenon noticed it, too. We needed to find the other two men. Perhaps they could help us.
“That looks like the box that’s now in the sarcophagus,” Zenon said, taking the clipping out of my hand.
“It looks similar.” I peered inside the sarcophagus again, looking at the box there and the one in the clipping. “Yep, same box.”
“Let’s find this guy,” Zenon said, pointing at the man in the back. “He has to know something.”
“But how? We don’t even know what time we’re in or who he is.” I moaned as I reached for Zenon’s hand.
“Focus on him,” he pointed at the man again, “and then when we teleport, that’s all we think about. We must land somewhere near him.”
River coughed again and his burning skeleton flared to life, then settled down to a gentle burn, but his skeleton started turning gray. We had nothing to lose. We had to try.
“Fine, brother, let’s do this.”