Into the Dark (The Conjurors) (11 page)

“And me,” Cyrus added.

She looked out the window. The sun was already setting.

“Are you ready?” Thai asked.

“I want to thank Chisisi one more time before I go. I hope he isn’t still upset. We were kind of rude before when he was trying to help us.”

“Fine, I guess you’re right. I didn’t mean to offend him,” Thai said, picking up the phone. “Hi, Amun, could you send Chisisi to our room? Oh, when? Okay, thanks.” He hung up the phone. “Amun said that Chisisi was heading over to our room twenty minutes ago.”

“I wonder what happened to him,” Valerie said. It didn’t feel right to leave without saying goodbye.

“Who knows? Whenever we don’t need him, he pops out of nowhere. And now that we do call him, he’s nowhere to be found. But we can’t wait around any longer.”
    “He’s right, Val. Let’s get out of here before something else goes wrong,” Cyrus added.

“Well, we’re finally going to need these,” Thai said, pulling the night vision goggles out of their backpacks.

Valerie felt herself grin for the first time all day. It would be pretty cool to go all James Bond and sneak past the security on the Giza Plateau. She led the way out of the hotel, following the map in her head of the route to the Sphinx.

Rather than take the elevators downstairs and leave through the main entrance, she directed Thai and Cyrus to take the stairs, hoping that they would attract less attention. The minute she opened the door to the stairwell, a sour smell made her cover her nose. As they descended, the smell grew stronger, almost making her gag.

They were going down the last flight of stairs when she realized where she had smelled that rancid odor before. “Thai, watch out, Venu’s been here. That smell is his poison, I know it,” she whispered, and her fear made her feet feel as if they were glued to the ground.

They both stopped, but it was completely silent in the stairwell. Thai then moved in front of her, murmuring, “Let’s get out of here.”

“Hurry up; now is not the time to freeze up,” Cyrus said urgently, and she forced herself to hurry down the last few stairs at top speed and burst out the exit door behind Thai.

“I can’t believe he was that close,” Thai said.

Valerie noticed something lying on the ground, covered in yellow slime. She knelt down to examine it, and felt her entire body quiver with horror. It was a blue cloth with gold embroidery that she had seen before. “It’s that sash that Chisisi always wears,” she said, struggling to keep the panic out of her voice.

“You’re right. What happened?” Cyrus said. Before she could do more than blink, Cyrus vanished.

Thai yanked Valerie to her feet. “We have to get you out of here. Now.”

“We can’t leave without finding him! What if Venu really hurt him? You know what he’s capable of!”

“We don’t even know where to begin to look. I swear to you that I will not rest until I find Chisisi, but right now you need to get off this planet.”

At that moment, Cyrus popped back into view. “He’s alive, Val. He’s not in good shape, but he’s alive. Amun called an ambulance.”

“I have to see him, to help him!”

“There’s nothing you can do for him now. And Venu is not going to stop trying to hurt you and those around you until you get out of here. Once you’re gone, he’ll have no reason to hurt Chisisi or anyone else.”

“I bring everyone around me nothing but misery,” she said with despair.

“That’s not true! Please, don’t give up on me now, when you’re so close to making it to the Globe. For everyone’s sake, you have to get it together,” Cyrus demanded.

She took several deep, steadying breaths, staring into Cyrus’ blue eyes. “All right. Let’s go.”

As soon as they had made it off of the hotel grounds, Valerie and Thai put on their night vision goggles.

“I don’t see anything,” she said.

Thai pressed a button on the side of her goggles, and the world appeared before her in green and black. “They have a heat sensor, so we’ll be able to see the guards coming from a mile away. Speaking of which, drop to the ground, one’s about to pass us!” he hissed.

Valerie looked to her right and saw a glowing red figure walking closer. The guard was humming a tune, clearly not expecting to find anyone trying to sneak onto the Giza Plateau at this time of night. Still, she held her breath as he passed a few yards from where she lay on the ground, hoping that he wouldn’t be able to see her or Thai in the faint moonlight coming through the clouds.

“Thank goodness that it’s a cloudy night, or we’d be caught for sure,” she whispered to Thai after the guard was out of sight.

    Thai scanned the landscape in every direction. “Okay, it looks like the coast is clear, so lead the way.”

    Valerie and Thai hurried across the plateau, keeping a sharp eye out for any security guards – or threats like Venu, she remembered with a shudder. The sight of Chisisi’s sash covered in yellow slime flashed through her mind. Would he survive? She didn’t know how she could live with herself if he died because of her.

    “Stay with me, Val,” Cyrus said, seeing her expression.

    “You can do this. I’ll go back for him, and he’ll be okay,” Thai added.

She nodded and forced herself to focus on their mission. Finally, they reached the Sphinx. The sight took her breath away, and she was temporarily distracted from her worries. When she had seen the Sphinx from the distance during the day, it had seemed like a piece of ancient history whose story had already been told. But in the moonlight, the Sphinx came alive, and she was reminded that this was a living monument that still had a role to play, particularly in her own future.

Valerie took off her night vision goggles as she approached the Sphinx. Up close, she could see that the half lion, half man was wearing an ancient Egyptian headdress. Despite the fact that his face had been battered with time and he was missing his nose, the Sphinx’s wise and regal expression soothed Valerie’s troubled mind.

His stone eyes looked as if they held a fascinating secret, and they seemed to follow her as she approached closer and closer. It felt as if he could see inside of her mind, and she felt all of the hairs on her arms rise.

 “Unbelievable,” Thai said. “You can’t understand the power of these places by looking at pictures.”

Only Cyrus wasn’t awestruck. “So where’s the entrance to the tunnel, Val?”

“I think I have to ask – well – him,” she said, looking into the searching eyes of the Sphinx.

Almost as if she was in a trance, Valerie approached the Sphinx. She circled the entire monument without speaking and then stopped at the base, right beneath his head. Hesitantly, she reached out to touch the stone. Beneath her fingers, she felt warm muscle covered in soft fur. Gently, she stroked the fur, and she almost gasped in surprise when she heard a gentle, contented purr. She looked up and saw that the Sphinx’s eyes were softly glowing blue, just like the face at Stonehenge. Valerie’s feeling of eerie trepidation vanished.

The Sphinx was a guardian, protecting the magic of this place. But he recognized the magic inside of her, and his fierceness disappeared. She felt a tingle in the back of her mind, and suddenly she knew how to find the tunnel. “The entrance is through the top of the back right paw,” she said, looking at Cyrus and Thai for the first time. They stared at her, astounded.

She walked to the Sphinx’s back right paw, where the lion’s tail curled over the hind quarters. The top of the paw was rough stone that looked very different from the finished, exact lines of other parts of the Sphinx. It was the only part of the Sphinx’s paw that hadn’t been repaired over the years by people trying to preserve the landmark.

    “Why wouldn’t they fix the top of the paw too?” Thai wondered.

    “Let’s say that your Egyptian benefactor can do more than get you a room with a view. He made sure that the entrance was never touched,” Cyrus said. Valerie couldn’t help thinking that it was too bad that the benefactor, whoever he was, hadn’t been able to protect Chisisi.

Cyrus continued, “The top of the paw looks so old because it is – it hasn’t been changed since the time it was made.”

    “Duck!” Thai said suddenly, and he and Valerie crouched behind the paw. She put her night vision goggles back on and saw that another guard was doing his rounds. Minutes later he was gone, and she breathed a sigh of relief.

    They removed their goggles again to examine the stone. Thai turned on his flashlight and shone it on the rough stone. Then he turned the flashlight on her face. “Ready?”

    Valerie nodded, took a deep breath, and pushed on the stone with all her strength. Nothing happened. Thai added his muscles to the struggle, and they both turned red from the effort. Just as she thought her muscles would collapse, the ancient stone groaned, and then swiveled, turning sideways. It opened to a dark tunnel. “The keystone shaft,” she said quietly, referring to the map in her mind and straining her eyes to see into the darkness. She would almost have to crawl to get in the entrance.

    “This part of the journey is yours to take alone. It can be dangerous to be too close to the launch chamber when you take off, so Thai needs to stay out here.” Cyrus said. “And I need to be mentally back on the Globe during your journey.”

    “Wait!” Valerie said, feeling panicky. “What if this thing accidentally launches me to the wrong place? I don’t want to wind up floating around in space for eternity, all alone.”

    Cyrus laughed. “It doesn’t work like that – it’s not a rocket! It creates a kind of bubble around you that moves super fast. And you steer it with your thoughts. All you have to do is concentrate on me and in minutes you’ll be by my side, standing on the Globe. Don’t worry – it will all make sense when you’re there.”

    “Okay,” she said, somewhat reassured. Then she turned to Thai. “I guess this is goodbye,” she said, and hugged him tightly, memorizing the way his arms felt around her. He pulled back slightly and looked down at her with an intensity that made her breath catch. For one crazy second she thought he was going to kiss her.

    Cyrus cleared his throat loudly. “We don’t have all day.”

    Thai released her. “Be safe, Valerie,” he whispered. Then he turned to Cyrus. “You’ll project back here to tell me she’s safe?”

    “Of course.”

    “I’ll stay right here until I see you take off, and then I’ll find Chisisi,” Thai said. He turned to Cyrus. “I will see her leave, right?”

    “I think so. Look for a blue light that’s moving fast. In less than a second, she’ll look like a shooting star. And then she’ll disappear.”

    Valerie felt her heart race. This was really it. “See you soon,” she said to Cyrus with a smile, and his face lit up. With one last glance at Thai, she disappeared into the tunnel with the flashlight.

Valerie lowered herself into the tunnel, her heart thumping wildly inside of her. As she dropped a few feet to the ground, her night vision goggles fell beside her with a crunch. This couldn’t be happening. She couldn’t see anything! She panicked for a second, and then remembered the flashlight in her pocket, which she turned on as quickly as possible, scanning the room.

It was completely empty, and the walls were lined with rough stones. After walking for a few feet, she reached what appeared to be a dead end in the tunnel. An instinct told her to push on one of the stones as hard as she could. It swiveled easily, turning sideways to let her through, like the stone on the top of the paw. She stepped into the passage, and the stone swiveled closed behind her with an echoing slam.

The sound of the stone crashing shut caused panic to swirl inside of Valerie, and she forced herself to breathe slowly, fighting for control over her fear. The air inside the tunnel smelled stale, as if it had been stagnating in here for years – which it probably had, she realized. The tunnel was only a few inches taller than she was, and so narrow that she could touch both sides of it without extending her arms completely.