A BALL AND PAIN

 

 

“Don’t do it,” Jagger pleaded, his head humming with adrenaline. He felt alive with energy, like lava was flowing through his veins.

It was the kind of buzz that hit him sometimes when the answer to a calculus problem was just out of reach. Jagger had no magic, no real powers but those granted to him by a necklace. He didn’t even have Aria’s purse. The one thing Jagger had was a mind that processed information quickly and accurately.

“They’re going to kill you too.” He stared up at the prince, connecting dots in his mind. “The General will take the throne. You thought it was yours. You didn’t know Herihor would be part of this, did you? You thought you were casting the Death Spell. Did you really believe the General would work for you, a skinny, teenage pharaoh?”

Smenkare paused, lips pursed.

“Every member of the family has to die. Tatia saw it when she cast the Meseneh Rek spell to bring us back in time.”

Smenkare’s stare bore into Jagger. He tilted his head to the side, listening.

“Dude, you and I are like super distant cousins. Your half-sister said we’d cease to exist if the Heqa-oo Moot was cast. No member of the family will be left alive. If we can’t exist, you can’t exist.”

The prince chewed his cheek, then glanced over at the General.

Jagger’s chest tightened as Smenkare shoved a hand into the bag slung over his shoulder.

“Don’t …”

The prince pulled out a vial and splattered something wet and red over the captain. The drops multiplied, leaving Babi drenched in a blood-like liquid.

Still alive! Jagger swallowed, eyes glued to the prince.

“Now, for you two—”

“Don’t hurt her. Please,” Jagger begged. The request was ridiculous, and he knew it—this kid just murdered his own sisters.

Smenkare considered Jagger through narrowed eyes, then shifted his gaze to Aria. Jagger shifted closer to her, which was absurd—the prince just defeated Babi with a word. There was nothing Jagger could do to protect his vulnerable, little sis.

Smenkare grunted, then pulled a black, linen ribbon from his bag. “Bind.”

The linen shot at Jagger, winding around him in an instant. He tossed his body, and the bindings tightened. He fell to the floor. Aria toppled down next to him, wrapped tight like a mummy. How had that tiny bit of linen covered them both so fully and quickly?

“Stop squirming,” Jagger advised. “It makes it worse.”

Aria blew a curl out of her eyes, glaring at the prince. Her entire body was covered in black, linen strips. Only her head was left free, like Jagger’s.

“They’ll kill you the second they get the chance. Herihor thinks you’re a punk—”

“Enough!” Smenkare crossed his arms, staring at them a moment longer before pivoting and returning to the burial chamber.

Jagger wiggled, gently, in his mummy wrappings, trying to see what the prince was up to.

The High Priest hadn’t bothered to block the door again, but Jagger’s view was sideways. Herihor fished the two Ka stones from the shattered, clay balls, then plucked the others from the seven remaining wax figurines.

“Clean that up,” the priest ordered the prince.

Smenkare bent over to pick up the shards. He glanced back at Jagger, jaw tight.

“He let Babi live,” Aria sighed. “That’s something.”

Jagger shook his head. It wasn’t enough.

Babi’s eyes, the only thing on his body he could move, shifted from Aria to Jagger.

Jagger sucked in a lung full of air, then released it. What was the prince up to? “I don’t know if he believes me,” he whispered. “But he would be in line before the General. For the General to become pharaoh, Smenkare has to die. And he ruled for a few years. I read about it.” Jagger swallowed. “Maybe I’m overestimating him. I was hoping he wouldn’t feel like murdering his entire family for some other guy to get the throne. But who knows? Maybe he just wanted to be the one who killed his family.”

Babi’s eyes bore into him.

“Blink once if you agree, twice if I’m nuts.”

The captain closed his eyes. Once.

Aria let out a long, slow breath. “Is he going to help us?”

“I doubt it. He just wrapped us up like mummies. But at least Babi’s still alive. He might even survive the next hour.”

“And the princess?” Aria’s sob caught in her throat. “Is she alive still? Did he kill her?”

Jagger looked at the captain. One blink.

“I think he killed the two little ones we saw outside the palace. Not Tatia. And Herihor didn’t stomp the big, green malachite stone yet. That one is Mek’s. But none of us will be alive for long if we don’t do something—”

“Come, Aten. Come to me.” Herihor’s chanting began again. Wind whipped through the tomb.

This time, they were bound tight: no more flashing lights, or flying lip-gloss, or sick beats. They’d overcome magical crocodiles, a giant scorpion, and even temporarily stopped a nasty, old High Priest and an evil General from murdering a boatload of their family members. But they were out of tricks.

Aria eyed her purse, a few feet away. Coins were scattered next to it. Babi’s sword lay serenely on the ground.

“Your phone?” she asked.

Jagger sucked in a breath. It was in his right hand, bound to his side. His left arm was stuck to his chest, unmovable. Could he use his phone? He struggled to free his thumb and twist it so he could reach the screen.

“I’ve got it, but what am I supposed to do with it?”

“Anything!” she whispered loudly.

Jagger tapped the screen, trying to get anything at all to happen. Nothing. Stupid passcode!

“You depict the enemies of Aten.” The priest was turning wax into bodies, one of which was Jagger’s. Worse, another was Aria’s.

Jagger knew, deep in his bones, that she’d be the next to die. Herihor had been murdering the youngest princesses first, maybe to work his way up to the most powerful. Jagger’s fingers tapped frantically at his screen as he choked back tears. He couldn’t watch his sister die, not even knowing he was seconds behind her.

The wind picked up, and the red lights winked off and on, bathing the cell in unnatural light.

“I’m sorry!” Jagger moaned. “I don’t … I can’t …”

“Poor Mom.” Tears streamed down Aria’s cheeks. “She’ll never know what happened to us.”

The noise that came from deep within Jagger was something between a wail and a moan. He didn’t know he could make such a mournful sound.

Maybe he should tell his little sis he loved her or something. This would be his last chance. Looking at Aria, Jagger’s brain reached for words. He should say something big, something important, before they dropped dead. But what could he possibly say?

He’d die seconds after her. That made it better for him, but it wouldn’t help Mom, or Grams and Gramps, or Dad, or Tatia, or Mek and her family.

“I love you, Brainy.” Aria blew out a puff of air. “It’s not your fault.”

Jagger couldn’t see his sister—his eyes were too full of tears.

“The nine are assembled, the Ennead is created,” Herihor screeched.

Blood coursed through Jagger’s veins like lighter fluid.

“I name you enemy of Aten,” Herihor wailed from the next room.

Jagger struggled against his bindings, desperate to stop the priest before another clay ball was smashed and his sister dropped dead next to him. The linen grew tighter around him.

The priest dropped the ball.

Time sped up.

One second, Jagger was trying to think of something, anything, to stop the old priest from killing Aria. The next, it was too late.

Jagger heard the crunch of the mud ball shattering, and Aria sagged, lifeless.

“Nooooo,” Jagger wailed.

He closed his eyes and squeezed them tight. “No, no, no,” he mumbled.

He opened his eyes.

She was still there, lying next to him. She was staring right at him, but her hazel eyes were empty, devoid of all the life and energy that animated his little sister.

Aria was gone.

“I’m sorry,” he moaned. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

He squirmed closer to her—close enough to lean the top of his head against her shoulder. He was moments away from death himself. He welcomed it. This piercing pain would end. He didn’t want to live with this failure.

He’d failed himself.

He’d failed Mom.

Worst of all, he’d failed his baby sister.

He took a deep breath, waiting. At least his pain would end now. He couldn’t think about Aria, or Mom, for another second. It was too painful.

The High Priest’s voice came for him. “I name you enemy of—”

CRASH!

Small bits of something dry and hard struck him, and he opened his eyes.