The Mummy's Revenge Page 10

  There were stones around the ornamental fountain and she took one of those, hefting it in her hand for weight. Charley took careful aim, threw it…and missed. Her missile sailed over the branch, clean past Queen Victoria – and straight through the glass wall of the conservatory with a jangling crash.

  With a sense of resignation, Charley wheeled around the trees to inspect the damage she had done.

  Sir Gordon’s indoor jungle was impressive during the day, but at night it had a different atmosphere. The leaves that were such brilliant greens in the sunlight were now all black, and they crowded around Charley, making her feel trapped. There was a stirring in the undergrowth and she stopped dead in her tracks. It sounded as if she was not alone.

  Charley tensed, straining her ears to hear. The noise came again: a definite rustle of leaves, followed by the soft padding of feet. Queen Victoria was somewhere above her. Prince Albert, the massive snake, was coiled sleepily around a tree. The spiders and scorpions were in their glass tank, feasting on dead mice. Something else was coming her way.

  The footsteps got closer. And closer.

  Charley felt sure that only a curtain of leaves separated her from the other presence in the lab. “Billy Flint,” she said, grabbing the branches and pulling them apart. “I’m really not in the mood for your silly—”

  A face stared back at her from between the branches – but it wasn’t Billy’s. This was a nightmare face, with two holes where eyes had once been. The ragged bandages couldn’t disguise a long, flat, ape-like skull, with flaring nostrils on the end of an elongated snout. Clumps of wiry hair emerged through the gaps in the rotting cloth. It was the mummified baboon!

  The baboon screeched in Charley’s face, its grave breath making her skin creep. As quickly as she could, Charley wheeled backwards out of its reach towards her workbench.

  The baboon ran up a tree into the canopy of leaves overhead. Charley was shocked to see a flash of its bum, still bright red after thousands of years, mooning out from the tatters of its bandages. The baboon was quicker than her, and most likely stronger too. Charley knew she couldn’t match this beast in a physical fight, but she firmly believed that science could find a way where brute force wouldn’t. Providing she could make it to the chemistry set alive…

  “What is it, boy?” said Doogie.

  Doogie had taken Wellington for his evening walk but the little terrier had been skittish ever since they returned to 44 Morningside Place. They were standing together in the entrance hall and Wellington was barking furiously. The hair stood up across the dog’s shoulders as he growled at something only he could see.

  Doogie crouched down to the dog’s level. “What is it, laddie?” The dog’s lips curled back in a snarl and Doogie did his best to follow Wellington’s line of sight.

  That was when Doogie saw it too. It looked like a cat.

  “How did that get in?” Doogie wondered. He was about to shoo the thing back out onto the street when he saw what sort of cat it was.

  A dead cat. Wrapped in mouldy bandages, prowling through the house as if it owned the place.

  The mummified cat hissed at Wellington, its skeletal tail twitched and then it took off like a flash, with the plucky terrier in pursuit. The chase was on! Doogie watched in horror as the animals unleashed mayhem in Sir Gordon’s house, hissing and growling, spitting and barking.

  War was declared, and it was the cat that made the first strike. Needle-sharp claws emerged from its bandaged paws as it suddenly ran forward and took a swipe at Wellington’s nose, drawing blood. Wellington howled in pain and outrage, and then shot towards the cat, determined to get his own back. The cat leaped from the floor and used its claws to climb up an expensive tapestry. Then it perched calmly near the top; gloating as only cats can. Wellington grabbed the edge of the tapestry in his teeth, and pulled as hard as he could.

  “No, Wellington!” yelled Doogie. “Bad doggy.”

  Wellington didn’t care.

  The tapestry tumbled to the ground, bringing the cat with it.

  The mummy landed on its feet, then arched its back, its ancient spine making horrible crunching noises, tail straight up in the air. It circled the terrier, looking for its moment to pounce. Wellington glared back from underneath his massive eyebrows, nostrils flaring, hair bristling. The dog drew back his lip to show his teeth…and the cat mummy retreated. In a graceful fluid movement, it leaped over Wellington’s bemused head and on to one of Sir Gordon’s display cabinets.

  Doogie’s hands went to his mouth in horror as first one, then two, then three of His Lordship’s treasures came crashing to the floor. “Oh jings!” Doogie cursed, rushing over and trying to catch the next ornament to be sent tumbling as the mummy cat ran along the top of the cabinets, leaving destruction in its wake. Doogie made a diving leap and got his hands around a crystal vase just in time… Although he was still one step behind the cat, which had jumped over to balance on the shoulder of one of Sir Gordon’s Greek statues.

  The smug cat sat on the marble woman’s shoulder and seemed very happy there. Or at least it was until Wellington ran at the narrow plinth on which the statue was balanced and threw his paws against it with full force. The cat mummy jumped clear, a strip of bandage flapping after it it like an extra tail. The statue wobbled…then fell, landing against another statue which also fell, this time into a priceless Ming vase.

  Wellington’s black hair was powdered with white dust from the smashed statues. He gave a doggy sneeze and then looked around again for his arch-enemy. The mummy cat was slinking off towards the crime lab. Wellington set off in hot pursuit.

  Doogie ran after them, muttering.

  “This isn’t gonna end well!”

  Charley made it to the workbench first – but only just. The baboon mummy jumped down out of the trees and landed on the table with a crash, rattling the glass bottles.

  It was a monstrous creature, Charley thought. The human mummy had been bad but there was something especially terrifying about this undead ape. Even in life the only intelligence which the baboon had possessed was pure animal cunning: kill, eat, repeat. Charley didn’t know whether this rotting monster would actually eat her, but she didn’t doubt that it could rip her to shreds. It screamed again, its mouth opening so wide that the ancient flesh at the corners of its lips was ripping with the strain.

  Charley’s eye scanned the bottles of chemicals in front of her until she found the one that she was after – sulphuric acid. That should slow it down! She pulled the glass stopper from the bottle at the same instant that the baboon took a swing at her. The ape’s mighty fist sent the chemicals on the workbench flying, and Charley was grateful for the blanket across her legs as a deadly acid rain fell all around, scorching everything it touched.

  Charley threw the whole bottle of acid at the baboon’s legs and then wheeled backwards with every ounce of strength she possessed.

  The effect was extraordinary, from a scientific point of view. In every other respect it was ghastly.

  When the concentrated acid struck the animal’s legs there was a mighty hissing roar – and the monster began to dissolve. Plumes of smoke rose from the creature as the lower half of its body began to liquefy. The baboon’s legs collapsed into a bubbling mess, a revolting soup of bandages, bones and ancient flesh until only the upper half remained, twitching in the pool that used to be its body.

  Charley let out a sigh of relief.

  The baboon snorted with anger and then started to crawl towards her, dragging its stumps behind it.

  Charley met Doogie running into the crime lab as she was propelling herself out. Two shapes rushed past her: a dead cat being chased by a terrier who was very much alive.

  “This way!” said Charley, grabbing Doogie’s arm and dragging him away from the lab.

  Doogie glanced over Charley’s shoulder and spotted the mummy baboon, crawling towards them, teeth bared. “Where are we going?”

  “To the lift,” said Charley.

  If
she couldn’t stop the baboon then Charley at least wanted to prevent the thing from reaching her. They arrived at the lift, and after some wasted moments fumbling with the mechanism, the metal gates opened wide. “Inside, quick!” said Charley, shoving Doogie in and following after, slamming the doors shut behind her. Charley was locking them again when a pair of leathery hands, partially wrapped in decaying bandage, grabbed the cage from the outside.

  The baboon began to shake the bars, screaming and screeching. Charley hadn’t been able to secure the locking mechanism, but she didn’t dare come within the baboon’s reach. Experimentally she inched forwards and the baboon responded by shoving its snout between the bars, snapping savagely. Then it pushed its arm through too, swiping at Charley, forcing her to back away.

  She knew that there was no brain in its head, no air in its lungs…actually no lungs at all… And yet there was a magical fire that burned inside the beast, driving its withered muscles and crumbling bones to attack.

  And then, quite suddenly, that mystic fire went out. The arm fell limp. The mouth hung open.

  Cautiously, Charley poked the mummy; it didn’t respond.

  With a creak and a jerk, the lift sprang into action, carrying Doogie and Charley up to the first floor. The baboon came with them, its stiff arm still stuck between the bars. Billy was waiting for them upstairs.

  “I see you’ve dressed for the occasion,” said Charley, taking in the towel that was wrapped around his midriff. “What have you got there?” she asked, pointing to the long object he was carrying, bundled in another towel.

  With a flourish, Billy let the towel slip and the baby crocodile rolled out. It hit the floor with a heavy thwack, as lifeless as a plank of wood. “It was attacking me,” said Billy.

  “And then it stopped,” Charley finished. “Any idea why?”

  “Just a theory,” said Billy. “I think that they were being controlled by someone and for whatever reason the connection broke.”

  “Like cutting a puppet’s strings?” suggested Doogie.

  “Exactly,” said Billy. “But who is the puppetmaster?”

  “Someone who wants us dead,” said Charley softly.

  Five minutes later Billy was dressed again and back in the crime lab with Charley. They had locked the crocodile and the baboon inside the lift cage, just in case the Sandman woke them up for a second round. Wellington, meanwhile, was digging a hole beneath one of the trees and burying something. It looked suspiciously like a mummified cat.

  “The Sandman is even more powerful than we imagined,” said Billy. “I think he even has the power to cloak his abilities and stay hidden from me.”

  “And I think I know what his goal is,” said Charley. “I knew I remembered the Sandman’s list from somewhere. I’ve been rummaging through Sir Gordon’s library. Listen to this.” She picked up a tattered book and began to read. “This is from the diary of John Dee, magician in the court of Queen Elizabeth I.” Charley cleared her throat. “Root of a mandrake, paw of a white cat, milk from a black cow, coins from a dead man’s purse, the sparkling phoenix egg, a human heart… Sound familiar?

  “Well, according to John Dee, the Sandman is gathering everything he needs to become immortal.”

  Billy was stunned. “So out there somewhere is a man with enough knowledge of Egyptian magick to reanimate mummies, with a fortune in stolen jewels to buy whatever he wants, and the dream of living for ever… It’s incredible.”

  “It’s terrible,” said Charley.

  “At least we’ve got a reliable description of him now,” said Billy. “That’s something to go on.”

  “But not enough!” said Charley.

  Billy continued pacing. “What about the burglaries? What linked them?”

  “The victims were guests of Sir Gordon,” said Charley. “Very wealthy, obviously.”

  “And on each occasion the mummy knew exactly where to look, which suggests that no matter how powerful a magician the Sandman is, he is being given information by someone on the inside.”

  “The other thing that links the burglaries is the traces of Saharan sand,” said Charley.

  “The circles with the hieroglyphics,” said Billy. “You’ve translated them, haven’t you, Duchess?”

  “I’ve got a partial translation,” said Charley, with frustration. She wheeled over to her blackboard. “We got four glyphs at Lady Fitzpatrick’s and two more at Lady Tiffin’s, and combined they give us this sequence. The trouble is that because they are written in a circle, I can’t know for certain which glyph is the start of the sentence.”

  Sir Gordon joined them then, announcing his arrival in the crime lab with a polite cough. “Thought I’d come and see how you two detectives are getting on,” he said quietly. “Don’t like being on my own in the house right now, what with most of the servants gone, and the living dead on the rampage destroying everything I own.” He sounded pitiful but he brightened a little when he looked at the blackboard. “Hieroglyphics, eh?”

  “You must understand a lot of it yourself,” said Charley, talking to the man over her shoulder, “having excavated a genuine Egyptian tomb.”

  “Well,” said Sir Gordon, “I haven’t done much actual studying myself… So, let me see if I’ve got this right? The funny little pictures are words?”

  “Yes,” said Charley as patiently as she could manage. “The funny little pictures are words.”

  “So what does it say?”

  Charley furrowed her brow. “To make – or possibly see – a servant fly in an instant something power.”

  “I don’t get it,” said Sir Gordon.

  “Neither do I,” said Charley, “and it isn’t helped by the fact that I haven’t been able to find a meaning for one of the glyphs at all.” She circled one of the hieroglyphs with such force that she snapped her chalk in half.

  “The Sandman has been one step ahead of us the whole time,” said Billy. “We know what he wants but we don’t know how to stop him.”

  “Ah, yes, you told me about this Sandman chappy. Sounds like an absolute scoundrel,” said Sir Gordon. “What exactly does he want?”

  Billy shared a look with Charley. Sir Gordon was hardly going to be able to help, was he? “The only things the Sandman still needs are a phoenix egg and a human heart.”

  “Oh,” said Sir Gordon. “I know a fellow who’s got a phoenix egg.”

  “What?” spluttered Billy.

  “It’s a beautiful thing,” said Sir Gordon. “A really massive ruby, must have cost a fortune. It’s so big that it’s called the ‘Phoenix Egg’.”

  “Who has it?” said Charley.

  “Lord Martin Wintersfall,” said Sir Gordon. “A good friend of mine – he thoroughly enjoyed my mummy party. Or at least he did until the mummy came to life and went on the rampage.”

  “Where does Lord Wintersfall live?”

  “At The Grange, a magnificent house, about fifteen minutes from here by zebra.”

  “I’m going now!” said Billy, grabbing his jacket.

  “You won’t be able to stop the mummy from stealing the jewel, it’s too strong, we know that,” Charley warned.

  “I don’t plan to stop the mummy,” said Billy. “If it comes for the Phoenix Egg, I’m going to follow it back to the Sandman’s lair!”

  Although Billy had said that he wouldn’t try to stop the mummy, it didn’t hurt to go prepared. He had borrowed a cricket bat and Sir Gordon’s new blunderbuss, in case things really cut up rough. Charley’s bullets hadn’t stopped the mummy, but the blunderbuss – with its massive barrel shaped like a trumpet – could blow a hole in just about anything. Backup was also coming; Doogie had been sent to summon Inspector Diggins and his men. Nine times out of ten the local police just got in the way of a S.C.R.E.A.M. investigation, but Billy wouldn’t say no to having some more muscle to call on if he got into a confrontation with the Sandman and his bandage-wrapped sidekick. Best of all, Billy had plucky Wellington at his side.

  It was still d
ark when Billy arrived at The Grange. It was the most impressive house he had seen yet, even putting 44 Morningside Place to shame. But there was something sinister and unwelcoming about it. It probably didn’t help that it was situated next to a graveyard.

  Billy and Wellington approached the front door and after a few minutes of banging they were greeted by the housekeeper, who was clearly annoyed to have been dragged out of bed.

  “Tradesmen go round the back,” she barked.

  “Policemen walk right in,” said Billy, flashing his badge.

  “Begging your pardon,” said the housekeeper. “I didn’t realize you was an officer of the law.”

  “I’ll let you off this time,” said Billy, with a twinkle in his eyes. “I’m sorry it’s the middle of the night, but I must speak to Lord Wintersfall.”

  “His Lordship is at Balmoral,” said the housekeeper, “as a guest of Her Majesty. And the butler, Mr Humble, had some urgent personal business which has taken him away tonight. Can I help you?”

  “I need two things,” said Billy. “Firstly, I need to know where Lord Wintersfall keeps his jewels. I think that someone might try to steal them tonight.”

  The housekeeper’s hand went to her mouth in shock. “And the second?”

  “You couldn’t rustle up some cheese and pickle, could you?” said Billy. “Fighting crime really takes it out of you.”

  Charley scribbled away on the blackboard while Sir Gordon watched, half dozing in a chair. She was determined to unravel the riddle of the hieroglyphics no matter how tired she felt. Her sleeves were covered in chalk dust up to the elbow. Charley tried a new combination of the glyphs, frowned at it, and then scrubbed it away. If only she could translate that last blasted symbol.