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So there was a glitch, after all. He’d need to fix it, of course: but not right now. The software was loaded, the controllers were online and ready, the screens in place, the fog machine filled.
He might as well run it.
He drew in another breath, savoring the peace and quiet, his finger over the return key, ready to execute the program. Then he paused. A sound had drifted toward him from the deeper part of the tomb: the Hall of Truth, or maybe even the burial chamber itself. Couldn’t be DeMeo, since he’d be coming from the opposite direction. And the pizzas would take at least half an hour; if he were lucky, maybe even forty minutes.
Perhaps it was a guard or something.
The sound came again: a strange, dry, scurrying sound. No guard made a noise like that.
Mice, maybe?
He rose indecisively. It was probably nothing. Christ, he was letting himself get spooked by all this curse crap the guards had started to whisper about. It was probably just a mouse. After all, there’d been plenty of mice in the old Egyptian galleries, enough so the Maintenance Department had needed to place glue traps. Still, if some had gotten into the tomb itself-maybe through one of the cable holes DeMeo had opened up-all it would take was a pair of rodent teeth sunk into one cable to crash the whole system and cause a delay of hours, maybe even days, while they examined each cable. Inch by frigging inch.
Another scurry, like wind rustling dead leaves. Leaving the lights dimmed, he picked up DeMeo’s coat-ready to throw it over a mouse if he found one-then rose and made his way stealthily into the deepest recesses of the tomb.
Teddy DeMeo fumbled for his key card, swiping it through the newly installed lock to the Egyptian gallery while trying not to drop the pizzas at the same time. The damn pies were cold-the guards at the security entrance had taken their sweet time clearing him through, when the same idiots had checked him out just twenty-five minutes earlier. Security? More like moronity.
The door to the Egyptian gallery whispered shut and he strode down the length of the hall, turned into the a
A suspicion took root in his mind: had Lipper gone and done the first run without him? But he quickly dismissed it. Lipper, though a fussy artiste type and cranky as hell, was basically a cool guy.
He fumbled out his key card and swiped it, hearing the locks disengage. Still balancing the pizzas and drinks, he got an elbow into the door and shoved it open, then slipped through, the door clicking shut behind him.
The lights had dimmed to level 1-the level they would be at after a run-and once again, DeMeo felt a stab of suspicion.
“Hey, Jayce!” he called out. “Pizza delivery!”
His voice echoed and died away.
“Jayce!”
He descended the staircase, walked down the corridor, and went as far as the bridge over the well before pausing again.
“Jayce! Pizza time!”
He listened while the echoes died away. Lipper wouldn’t have done an initial test run without him: not after all the time they’d put in on the project together. He wasn’t that much of an asshole. He probably had his earphones on, checking the sound track or something. Or maybe he was listening to his iPod-sometimes he did that while working. DeMeo ventured across the bridge and entered their main work area in the Hall of the Chariots.
As he did so, he heard a distant footstep. At least he thought it was a footstep. But it had made an odd thumping sound. It came from deeper within the tomb, probably the burial chamber.
“That you, Jayce?” For the first time, DeMeo felt a creeping sense of alarm. He put the pizzas down on the worktable and took a few steps toward the Hall of Truth and the burial chamber beyond. He could see that it was quite dark-still at level 1 lighting, like the rest of the tomb. He couldn’t see a damn thing, to tell the truth.
He went back to the worktable, looked at the computer. It was fully booted, the software loaded and waiting in standby mode. He moused over to the lighting icon, trying to remember how to raise the light levels. Lipper had done it a hundred times, but he’d never paid much attention. There were some software sliders visible in an open window and he clicked the one labeled Hall of the Chariots.
Christ! The lights dimmed, sending the disquieting Egyptian carvings and stone statuary even further into gloom. He quickly moused the slider in the other direction, and the lights intensified. Then he began brightening the lights in the rest of the tomb.
He heard a thump and turned with a jerk. “Jayce?”
It had definitely come from the burial chamber.
DeMeo laughed. “Hey, Jayce, c’mere. I got the pizzas.”
There was that strange noise again: Draaaag-thump. Draaaag-thump. As if somebody, or some thing, was dragging one limb.
“It sounds just like The Mummy’s Curse. Ha, ha, Jayce-good one!”
No answer.
DeMeo, still chuckling, turned from the computer and strode through the Hall of Truth. He turned his eyes away from the squatting form of Ammut-something about the Egyptian god, the eater of hearts with a crocodile head and lion’s mane, creeped him out even worse than the rest of the tomb.
He paused beyond the door to the burial chamber. “You’re a fu
He waited for Lipper’s laugh, for the sight of his ski
Nothing. The other doors leading away from the burial chamber were dark-they weren’t part of the computer lighting scheme. Lipper must be hiding in one of those rooms, preparing to jump out and scare him half to death.
“Hey, Jayce, come on. The pizzas are cold and getting colder.”
The lights suddenly went out.
“Hey!”
DeMeo spun around, but the tomb doglegged at the Hall of Truth and he could not see back into the Hall of the Chariots-nor could he see the comforting blue glow of the LCD screen.
He spun again, hearing the strange, dragging footfalls behind him, moving closer now.
“This isn’t fu
He felt for his flashlight-but of course he wasn’t carrying it; it was back in the chariots hall, on the table. Why couldn’t he see the indirect glow of the LCD? Had the power been cut as well? The darkness was total.
“Look, Jay, cut the crap. I’m serious.”
He shuffled backward in the dark, came up against one of the pillars, began feeling his way around it. The steps drew still closer.
Draaaag-thump. Draaaag-thump.
“Jay, come on. Cut the bullshit.”
Suddenly, from closer than he ever expected, he heard the raspy sound of air escaping from a dry throat. A rattle that was almost a hiss, full of something like hatred.
“Jesus!” DeMeo took a step forward and swiped his heavy fist through the air, striking something that shuffled back with another snakelike hiss.
“Stop it! Stop it!”
He both heard and felt the thing rush at him with a high keening sound. He tried to twist aside but felt, with astonishment, a terrible blow. Searing heat knifed through his chest. With a shriek, he fell backward, clawing at the darkness, and as he hit the ground, he felt something heavy and cold stamp on his throat and bear down with shocking weight. He lashed about with his hands as he heard the bones crackling in his neck and a sudden, dazzling explosion of urine-colored light flashed in his eyes-and then nothing.