Spotting the light in their window, the mummy turned towards them and lurched in their direction. Billy closed the curtains again. Too late. They’d been seen.
“Quick!” he said. “The door.”
Charley manoeuvred her chair within the confines of the small room, heading for the only way out. Her hand was on the doorknob when the window shattered.
A fist burst through the glass, and they both watched as rag-covered fingers grabbed the curtains and yanked them down, ripping one end of the curtain rail from the wall. The mummy stood outside, reaching in, fingers now grasping at thin air.
The stench of putrid flesh filled the room and a strangled moan escaped from its ancient lips.
“Uuuuuuurrrrrrrgggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!”
The mummy punched more of the splintered windowpane out of the way.
Billy staggered backwards, throwing up his arms to shield his face from the shards of broken glass flying towards him like tiny daggers. He felt a sharp sting on his forehead, followed by a hot trickle of blood rolling over one eyebrow. If that had been an inch lower…
Blinking away the blood, Billy saw that the creature was still desperately trying to break in. Its head and shoulders were through the shattered window and both hands were grasping, sharp finger bones exposed. For a frozen second, Billy couldn’t drag his gaze away from those terrible hands.
It was a second too long.
With frightening speed, the skeletal hand grasped Billy’s arm.
“No!” Charley shouted, but even as Billy heard her warning, he felt his head begin to swim.
His gift allowed him to sense magick, the supernatural, the unnatural – all those intangible powers, those invisible forces could briefly become clear to him, as if a curtain existed between two rooms and for a moment it was drawn aside, allowing Billy a glimpse of what lay beyond…whether he liked it or not.
But up this close, actually in the grips of a five-thousand-year-old creature that should have stayed dead and buried, Billy’s sixth sense was overwhelmed.
The grave stink of the mummy washed over Billy as image after image struck his mind, like the blows of a hammer…
The pyramids. The stillness of the tomb. The cold of the coffin. The darkness. The silence. The eternity of death… Then the light as the stone lid of the sarcophagus was lifted… Immortal sleep disturbed. The taste of wax in his mouth. The pain! The anger! Ancient gods with monstrous faces, towering above him… A crocodile, massive jaws waiting to snap… A lioness, her mouth a silent roar. A jackal, lips drawn back in a snarl… And another figure…a shaven-headed figure…a powerful man…a man of cunning and magick—
BANG!
The sound of the gun being fired was enough to snap Billy out of his trancelike state. He saw Charley holding her pistol calmly in both hands, blue smoke coiling from the barrel. Billy felt the cold grip of the mummy’s hands on his arms, tighter than vices. With a snarl, the mummy shook Billy from side to side as if he was a rag doll.
Charley’s lip curled back in frustration. Her finger paused on the trigger; she couldn’t risk shooting Billy. “Just stay still, damn it!”
Billy did his best to resist the creature, but in spite of the fact that its muscles had long since shrivelled away to nothing, there was still incredible strength in those arms. Little by little, Billy was being dragged towards the jagged mouth of the broken window.
A second bullet sang out and Billy saw it hit the mummy square in the shoulder. The force of the impact rocked the creature back on its heels, but there was no sign that it had actually been wounded except for a trickle of sand which bled from the smoking hole left in the bandages.
Billy was struggling with all his might now, twisting and turning as he tried to wrench free of the mummy’s cold grip, but he was losing and he knew it. Charley positioned herself for another shot, this time aiming for the head. It was another direct hit, of course, and it knocked the mummy’s head back on its neck a full ninety degrees.
The mummy’s head hung there for a moment, as if it was only the bandages that stopped it from falling off and rolling down the street. But then, impossibly, the head began to rise again and Billy winced as the skeletal grip tightened around his arms.
“It’s no good,” Billy breathed. “You get out of here, Charley.”
“Shut up trying to be brave and let me solve this, will you?”
There was a small table by the bed with an oil lamp sitting on it. Billy saw Charley look at it, a small smile lighting up the corners of her mouth.
She quickly crossed the room and picked up the lighted lamp.
“No, Charley,” said Billy. “It’s too risky.” He thrashed around in desperation, doing everything that he could to break the mummy’s hold on him.
“You’ll need to get out of the way really quickly then,” said Charley, raising the lamp.
Billy knew that she meant it. In a last-ditch effort, he lifted both of his feet off the floor, planted them firmly on the window sill and launched himself back with all his might. His jacket sleeves ripped off and were left dangling in the skeletal fingers, but Billy was free! Gasping with relief he fell onto the bed just as Charley’s missile soared through the air above him.
Once again, the mummy responded with terrifying speed. The oil lamp would have struck it square on the chest, but with one sweep of its arm the creature batted it out of the way to smash against the bedroom wall. Instantly the burning oil took hold. Dozens of flaming drops splashed in every direction, and the moth-eaten bedspread, the stained wallpaper and the threadbare rug all flared into life.
The mummy did not escape unscathed. The arm which had deflected the firebomb was drenched in oil. Charley might have been mistaken, but she could have sworn that there was a note of panic in the creature’s voice as the first flame took hold.
“Aarrrrrrrrrrrrrrggggggghhhhhhhhhh!” the mummy wailed as the fire spread up its bandaged arm. It flailed around as it tried to manoeuvre itself back out of the window, setting the curtains on fire before finally falling backwards out into the rain-drenched night.
Inside the room the fire had taken hold of the broken curtain rail and was starting to attack the ceiling. Charley grasped Billy’s hand and dragged him towards the door. Billy didn’t resist. Charley only paused to snatch up her microscope and dump it on her lap.
“Quick!” said Billy, “before the whole place goes up!”
The Temple of the Seven Stars was cold and dark and oh-so-secret. Down here, in his underground lair, the Sandman ruled. He sat on his golden throne, his hand stroking the smooth dome of his bald head, while he dreamed his favourite dream; a dream of cold bright diamonds and steaming hot revenge. Tall sandstone pillars supported the high ceiling that arched above him. The stonework had been painted a fierce midnight blue, swirling into deepest black, and was pierced with a thousand points of glistening white. It gave the impression that he wasn’t in an underground tomb at all, but was sitting beneath the vastness of the night sky.
The stone floor was covered with carvings in the language of ancient Egypt. The hieroglyphic pictures and symbols declared that this was more than just a tomb; it was a portal between the Land of the Living and the Land of the Dead.
The Sandman was not alone. A king needed servants, after all. On a gold chain around his neck hung a pendant in the shape of a triangle surrounding a solitary lidless eye. The Eye of Horus belonged to him. He had the power and so he was the one who sat; the gods of Egypt could stand. The Sandman regarded them coolly.