Theodosia and the Serpents of Chaos-Theo 1 (16 page)

The problems before me were huge, and it seemed as if there was nothing I could do about any of it. Finally admitting that sleep was miles away, I crawled out of the sarcophagus and tiptoed to the door, which I had left open a crack. I checked my Isis lure (a tin of sardines stationed just inside the door) to see if she had snuck a nibble when I wasn't looking.

She hadn't.

I grabbed a blanket from the sarcophagus and wrapped it around my shoulders. Sitting down on the floor near the door, I leaned up against the wall. I would just sit here and will Isis to come, that's what.

I sorely missed her tonight. I needed the feel of that small, warm furry body next to me to chase away, well, everything. Then I had an idea.

One of the cornerstones of Egyptian magic is the art of creative utterance. Which is basically a fancy way of saying, it's all in how you say a thing. And the words you use. True names can be a very powerful tool. So, what if I tried to see if I could make it work for me? Wigmere said I had a unique talent and it wasn't all about following recipes; maybe I could use that to my advantage!

I reached over and traced the hieroglyphs for "Isis" on the floor near the sardine tin, then whispered, "Isis, come." Nothing happened. Then another thought occurred to me. "Come, Isis," I called again, only this time I used the ancient Egyptian I'd learned from my study of hieroglyphs.

I did this quite a few times, stopping every now and then to check for signs of her. Nothing. As I sat there, my thoughts drifted to Wigmere and his Brotherhood. I wondered if they had all stayed up tonight in order to try out the Moonlight Test for themselves.

I wondered if it would work for them.

Then, of course, thinking about Wigmere got me thinking about Stokes. I was glad he was going to be all right. If I closed my eyes, I could see the cold flat stare of the German fellow as he shoved that knife into Stokes's ribs.

Germans. Knife. Stabbing. Stop it, you horrid brain!

Why does one's mind always think of the truly awful things in the middle of the night when there's no one to talk to and nothing to distract oneself with?

I heard a creak on the floorboards outside my door. Oh, please let it be Isis.

I stood up as quietly as I could and tiptoed to the door, peering out into the gaping black of the hallway. There was nothing there.

Uneasy, I sat back down against the open door. I had to come up with a plan. After everything that Wigmere had told me, it was more important than ever to find the Heart of Egypt. And more difficult. Just how was I supposed to retrieve the wretched thing?

I shifted my position, thinking I'd return to bed, when once again I heard a slight creak on the floorboards outside in the hallway.

Which made me wish doubly hard I hadn't just been thinking about bloodthirsty Germans and stabbings and such.

Nonsense. Determined to be brave, I leaned forward and peered back into the dark hallway. "Isis?" I whispered.

My heart kicked into a gallop when I saw a tall, slender woman standing in the hallway. "Mother?" I breathed, but even as I said the word, my brain registered that this was most definitely
not
Mother. The woman wore a linen sheath with a wide gold collar. There appeared to be a solar disk held between two horns on top of her head.

I blinked to clear my eyes, and when I opened them again, she was gone. I slumped back against the door as relief surged through me. Perhaps Father was right. I really did need to get a grip on my imagination.

Just then, two iridescent golden-green orbs appeared in the hallway. Isis! I pulled back behind the door, my hand ready to close it once she decided to come in.

It took forever, but she finally nosed her way to the sardines, crouching like a panther and stopping every few inches to check for ... something. I don't know, whatever demonic cats check for.

When she finally reached the sardines, Isis tossed all caution to the wind and tore into the things as if they were dangerous cat-hunting rats. She'd take one in her mouth and shake her head back and forth (flinging sardine juice everywhere) as if killing the sardine all over again. Only then would she settle down and eat it.

While she was thoroughly absorbed in her meal, I reached forward and very slowly closed the door. As soon as she heard the click, she paused and looked up at me, a low caterwaul starting deep in her throat.

"Isis," I said, carefully enunciating her name. She stopped snarling and went back to eating her fish. I spent the next few minutes talking to her, saying calming things and using her name every three or four words. It seemed to work. She calmed down quite a bit and even ate the last sardine without having to kill it all over again.

Then I had to decide how to coax her over to the bed. If I'd been thinking properly, I'd have saved the last sardine and put it at my feet once I lay down in the sarcophagus.

Why is it that all the really great ideas always come too late? I went and settled myself in the sarcophagus, calling Isis's name and that of Horus, the god whose protection I'd put in her amulet, the whole time.

Her eyes grew more focused and less frenzied looking. After many stops and starts, she made her way to the sarcophagus and gracefully hopped up onto the edge, balancing delicately as she tried to decide what to do. Finally, she hopped down to my feet and began knitting at the blanket with her claws. Soon a loud rumbling purr started up. With a sigh of relief, I allowed myself to fall back against my pillow. It looked like that amulet might be doing the trick after all.

I could only hope a great idea on how to solve the whole toppling of Britain would come as easily.

I
WOKE UP TO THE SOUND OF SAWING
. Well, it sounded like sawing. When I managed to pry my eyes open and look around, I saw Isis raking her claws on the door, trying to get out. She'd left big raw gashes in the wood. Father was going to kill me.

I leaped out of bed. She took one look at me, arched her back, and hissed ferociously. Clearly whatever magic I'd woven last night was gone this morning. Heart sinking, I opened the door and watched her dash out of sight.

My eyes were gritty with sleep, so I washed my face, then changed into a clean frock.

Starving, I hurried to the sitting room to start breakfast, hoping Mum had thought to bring some supplies from home. When I reached the sitting room, I stopped to sniff. "Is something burning?" I asked Henry.

"No. Mum's making us breakfast," he said, fidgeting and banging his heels on the bottom rung of his chair.

"But Mum doesn't cook," I reminded him.

"Well, today I decided to," Mum announced as she carried a plate of charred toast and an eggcup over to Henry. "I've neglected you horribly for months. I want to make it up to you."

I stared at Henry's blackened toast. By poisoning us?

"I'll start one for you." She went back to the sideboard and slipped a thick piece of bread onto the toasting fork. "How many eggs would you like?"

I watched Henry pick up one of his blackened toast strips and
boink
it against his egg. He frowned. It was supposed to dip, not
boink.

"Only one," I said, my eyes still glued to Henry's plate.

"Coming right up, dear."

Henry
boinked
his toast once more, then gave up. He picked up the egg and took a bite.

"Mum?" I asked.

"Yes, dear?"

"How do you decide which artifacts to bring back with you when you're on a dig? You mentioned that you had to leave lots of things behind, so how do you choose?"

"Oh, I don't know. Sometimes it's because we don't have anything else like it in the museum, or it might be one of a kind. Mostly I just rely on instinct."

Ah! Perhaps Mother was mistaking a tingle of warning for an instinct. Surely this ability of mine came from
somewhere.
"Instinct?"

"Hm-hm. I let my instincts guide me as to which will make the most striking exhibit." She carried a plate and eggcup to the table and set them in front of me. "Why do you ask?"

"Just curious." I stared at my egg for a moment, then lifted my spoon and sliced off the top. Just as I feared. Hard as chalk. "Do you ever get the willies when you're down in the tombs? Just you and all those ancient relics?" I asked.

"What a ridiculous question! Of course not."

"Who actually knew about the Heart of Egypt, Mum? Knew that you'd found it?" I took a small bite from an un-burned corner of toast and began to chew.

"Well, there was the work crew, Nabir, Hakim, Stanton, and Willsbury. And the director of the Antiquity Institute. I had to tell him so I could get permission to take it out of the country."

I choked down the bite of toast and took a sip of tea. "That's quite a lot of people." I had hoped there were only one or two. Then it would be easy to trace the leak directly back to who was responsible for stealing the artifact.

I looked over at Henry, who'd stopped banging his feet and was listening intently.

"Oh! And von Braggenschnott knew. He was the one who helped convince the director to let me take it out of the country."

There it was! I knew I'd heard that name before. "Who is this von Braggenschnott fellow, anyway?" I asked as casually as I could. "I heard you and Father talking about him."

"He's the head of the German National Archaeological Association."

"What are the Germans doing in Egypt?"

"Oh, they've always been in Egypt. Just like us, the French, Americans, Italians, they all have archaeological teams over there."

"But didn't you say there were more Germans than usual this time?"

Mother frowned. "Yes. That's true. They've been increasing their presence there over the last four years. Ever since von Braggenschnott took over."

I studied my egg. Surely there was a way to avoid eating it without hurting Mother's feelings.

"He's a rather disreputable fellow, I'm afraid. Which is unfortunate as it casts a taint over all of Germany's excavations."

While Mother wasn't looking, I fished my handkerchief out of my pocket, snatched the egg out of its cup, and shoved it into the crumpled linen. "What makes him so disreputable?"

"He deals in black-market antiquities and smuggles artifacts out of the country for private collections. Among other things. Why all the questions?"

"No reason. Just trying to get a feel for how things work over there."

She cast me a puzzled glance, then shook her head. "I'm going to be down in Receiving cataloging the new things if you need me."

"Thanks for breakfast," I said, slipping the wrapped egg into the pocket of my skirt. "It was very thoughtful of you."

"My pleasure, dear. We'll have to do this more often."

Henry rolled his eyes at me and I gave him a sharp kick under the table. When Mother had gone, I reached over and took the newspaper from Father's place. He hadn't even touched it yet so I tried not to wrinkle it too badly. I wanted to see if there was any mention of the adventures over in St. Paul's churchyard the day before.

As I scanned the paper, a headline caught my eye. "Crop Blight Appears in Northern Counties. Record Shortfall Expected."

Lord Wigmere's words rang in my ears:
plague, pestilence, famine.
At the word "famine," my mind turned to the bleak, hungry faces I'd seen yesterday. I had a good idea what famine looked like.

I turned back to the paper and began reading about the record flooding and freezing temperatures in the north. Henry came round the table and began reading over my shoulder.

"What's a pustule?" he asked.

"It's disgusting, is what it is," I told him.

"No. I mean, what
is
it?"

"Where did you see it?" I asked.

He pointed to a small item on the bottom-left corner. I leaned over and read the headline: "Virulent Illness Strikes Dozens in Hampsford."

"Bother. Now all we need are locusts."

"What's a locust?"

"It's a big, beetley grasshoppery type thing. Eats crops," I explained, my mind churning furiously.

"Do you mean like that?" Henry asked, pointing to a big beetley grasshoppery thing clinging to the outside of the windowpane in the pouring rain.

"Oh, lovely."

"What?"

"Nothing." I wondered how hard it would be to get in touch with Lord Wigmere. Mum had just launched the end of civilization.