I raised my own hand and my eyes widened. It too, was clean. So passage through the Darkness cleansed the Mark which had called it; perhaps the Darkness absorbed the stain back into itself.
I shuddered with relief. If I got out of here, I wouldn’t have to Mark Pete.
If I got out.
I searched automatically for other familiar faces. Tamsin was in the row behind James, highlighted by her blonde hair. Harley stood next to her. Tamsin’s face was twisted with so much terror that it made her ugly. Whatever had happened to her in here, it hadn’t been good.
I walked on until I saw the agoraphobic housewife, still in her nightclothes, her eye-mask askew on the top of her head. Her face was more confused and resigned than anything else. I wondered if she thought she was still dreaming, or if she’d somehow been waiting for retribution all the time.
Then I found the gang member, Jay, his gun still in his hand. Surely if anyone would have been able to escape it would have been him. Whatever was down here, he could have shot it.
My mouth felt dry as bone. Assuming these people had arrived as I had, still mobile and alert, what had turned them into living statues? And why hadn’t Jay’s gun been able to save him?
With increasing speed I searched through the rows, finding face after face. I didn’t recognise every figure; there had to be others like me spread around the world. Who knew how many of us were sending murderers here day after day? But at last there he was – the killer of the clown – my first mission.
The man, Bill, still wore his money belt bulging with fairground ticket stubs and cash. His muscles bulged from his wife-beater vest. Appropriate. This man had beaten his girlfriend then killed her friend when he tried to help her. By sending him into the Darkness I’d prevented him from hunting down the girl and probably saved her life. I looked around at the overwhelming mass of humanity. How many lives had been saved by removing these people from the world? How many could I yet save? Suddenly I understood what my mother had meant when she said she was proud of what she did.
Thoughts of my mother turned to her book
The Tale of Oh-Fa
; that was where my story had really begun. A great need to find the first of all the murderers burned in me. Oh-Fa’s first Mark had been given to him by his overseer. He and the rest of the workers had been killed by Anubis; but it was the leader of the expedition, the Professor, who had made them break through the image of the jackal-headed god of death and sent them inside, knowing what was trapped in the darkness, waiting for them.
My mind raced back over the passages containing the Professor’s description:
Due to an excess of coffee and lack of hygiene, the Professor’s incisors are dark yellow and the colour ensures that his giant tombstone teeth are the locus of his narrow face… The glare of the sun on his round spectacles erased his eyes.
I had always imagined the Professor like the German baddie from
Raiders of the Lost Ark
, so that was who I searched for.
I was racing through the middle of the lines to the back of the room, expecting the Professor to be the first man in the first line, when I spotted a pattern: not in the formation of regimented lines, but the dress of the entombed killers.
Bands of fashion cut through the rows like the circles of a tree, growing more modern as they extended to the outer edge of the cavernous space. In fact, it felt as if I was running through a museum of evil waxworks demonstrating fashions through the ages. I followed the lengthening of skirts, the smattering of changing army uniforms, the rising collars, the roughening materials until I found him in the centre, the crowds having grown around him.
He was taller and thinner than I’d pictured, but it had to be him. He sported old-fashioned desert dress and a gold insignia on the third finger of his right hand. He was just as Oh-Fa had described. And he wore a bag across his chest.
Oh-Fa’s tale
was
true
.
As if following its own plan, my hand reached for the bag. It had to contain the Professor’s book, with translations of the hieroglyphs and most importantly, maps showing the location of Nefertiti’s tomb.
Dad had said he wanted to find the original vector and this could tell him where it was.
Perfectly preserved, the man stood completely unmoving, without life or breath. But I didn’t take my eyes from his face as I pilfered his notes. He looked sadder than James, as if his anger had long ago burned out. I wondered if he felt the passage of time.
As I tucked the book under my shirt I hesitated. The people here were all alive, even those that should have naturally been long dead. The Darkness did not kill, it preserved; in some cases for over two hundred years.
So if Anubis did not want their lives, what were the killers being saved for?
I swallowed, wishing I had some way of moistening my dry lips. If this really was an army, what was it for?
And where was its General?
Something else was down here, hidden by the Darkness; something that had caught these people, frozen them and placed them in their lines.
I started to run back through the terrifying multitude.
Then I heard my name.
31
The greatest of the Lords of Death
It was only a whisper but it sliced through the silence like a knife. My heart leaped into my throat and I froze.
“Taylor, are you in here?”
I swallowed. It didn't sound like the voice of a monster. Carefully I peered around the back of what appeared to be a butcher, complete with apron and cleaver in hand.
“
Justin
! What are you doing here?” Abandoning caution, I hurled myself past the ghastly regiments of creepily silent murderers and flung my aching body into his arms.
He wrapped himself around me and I felt his lips on my hair. When I looked up though, he was staring over my shoulder. “Is that James?” he murmured.
I nodded into his shoulder then turned. “Tamsin’s there too.”
He stiffened. “Did you know this would happen to them?”
“How could I?” I pushed my hair back with an impatient hand. “No one’s ever come out of the Darkness.” I paused and looked back at him. “How are you here?”
“I followed you.” Finally Justin tore his eyes from his old friend. “The thing that took you – the Darkness – it was disappearing, shrinking, just like a portal. I wasn't going to lose you.” His fingers tightened on my arms. “So I jumped inside. I fell a long way then landed in some sort of room, alone. I've been looking for you since. I don't know how long, it felt like days. There's no way to tell time.”
“I can't believe you followed me. That was crazy.”
“I told you, I don't want to lose you. Anyway, it was my fault you were Marked and ended up here. You think I'd let you face this, whatever it is, alone?”
I shook my head. “How is it your fault?”
His eyes flickered to James once more. “I should never have done that dare. I should have gone to the police, or told Dad about V, instead I thought I could get out with my reputation intact and they killed me. Then I touched you. So it's my fault.”
I turned his chin until our eyes met. “It isn't your fault, it's theirs.” I tilted my head towards his murderers. “You can't blame yourself for this.”
Justin's face twisted with pain. “I don't know how you can forgive me, but I'm glad.” He closed his eyes. “I just wish I had managed to close the club down.”
I squeezed him tightly. “James won't be in charge anymore; that's something.”
“Someone else will be.”
“Think about it, maybe the old network could cover up your death, write it up as an accident, but what about James, Tamsin and Harley? Their disappearances won't look good.”
“They'll have them down as runaways.”
“Perhaps. Or someone might look a bit more closely at things in the school.”
Justin nodded. “It might be enough.”
“And Pete's still out there. He might shut it down.”
Justin stepped away from me. “
Why
didn't you just Mark him? You wouldn't be here.”
“He's my oldest friend.” I hung my head. “I couldn't.”
“You’re not close any more.” Justin frowned.
“That's not the point. He said he joined V because he had nothing left, because I'd been a bad friend. If I'd been more honest with him and told him about our curse, he might have stayed out of it. I’ve lost Hannah now too, because I didn't trust her to believe me. I mean,
Hannah
, who is convinced that vampires and aliens exist. She’d have believed me if anyone would. I was so determined to suffer alone, and my friends paid for it. So maybe I deserve to be here.” I shuddered as I looked around again.
Justin clenched his fists. “That's bull, Tay. You don't deserve to be here.” He followed my gaze around the room. “Do you have any idea where we are?”
I nodded. “I've been thinking about it. I know it sounds mad, but I believe this is Nefertiti's tomb. After my ancestor returned to his family, it was swallowed up by the desert and has never been found. I think I landed in the room where Anubis destroyed the expedition.” I pointed at the lantern I had discarded. “That might even be the lantern they fought over.”
Justin closed his hand over my whitened knuckles. “Are you OK?”
I tried on a half smile. It felt uncomfortably tight. “It's selfish, but I'm better now you're here. I didn't even know you could jump into the Darkness, I thought it had to take you.”
“I don't suppose anyone has ever tried before. I'm the only one stupid enough.” His smile matched mine. Then he turned back to James. “They haven't moved. They look like zombies.”
I licked my lips. “Something’s happened to them all, they’re frozen.”
“Can we help them?” Justin took a half step towards Tamsin.
I shook my head. “I've already examined James; if he'd have been able to move, he would have.”
Justin nodded. “Alright. But whatever it is could still happen to you. We have to get out of here.”
I gripped the lantern tighter. “No one has ever come out of the Darkness. You’d think they’d have tried before they got stuck.” I pointed to the figures of James, Harley and Tamsin and my mouth was dry as bone. “I don’t even know if there’s a way out through these tunnels.”
“There has to be.” His eyes raked the tunnels. “Your power brought us here, maybe it'll get us home. Which way do you want to go?”
“It isn’t a power; it’s a curse.”
“Which way, Tay?”
I stared round at the hundreds of tunnels that spilled their darkness into the massive cavern. Some of them were above our heads, some below ground level and cut off by rough stone. They looked like laughing mouths, mocking our desire to escape with baying humour. I prayed one of the tunnels would leap out at me, that there would be a sign of some sort.
There wasn’t.
“There are so many. They all look the same.”
“Except that one.” Justin pointed to a round hole at knee level just off to my right.
I squinted at it. “I don’t see anything different.” I frowned up at him. “What do you mean?”
“Are you serious?” His eyebrows climbed into his tangled fringe. “You can’t see the light?”
“Light?” I clutched him tighter. “You can see a light?”
“Well, yeah. I wondered why you didn’t want to go that way.”
“You can see a light, but I can’t?”
He shuffled his feet.
“Alright.” I gave him some room. “You lead.”
Justin took a single step towards the hole and, as if switched on, the entire army moved: every head, all ten thousand, turned with a susurration that made me clap my hands over my ears.
A small cry escaped my lips and Justin leaped back to my side. But the army weren’t looking at us. Every one of them was gazing fixedly at a large passage on the other side of the cavern.
Carefully Justin pulled me towards him. “We shouldn't be here.” He guided me sideways towards the hole. “We need to go.”
He gave me a shove and I broke into a run. He was right. There was no way I wanted to see what was coming into the cavern.
The words of my ancestor came back to me. Oh-Fa thought he had faced the
greatest of the Lords of Death
. A jackal-headed monster who traded him treasure for his soul.
And now he was coming for mine.
Behind us there was a ten thousand-throated sigh but I didn’t turn. Instead, I tossed the dead lantern to one side and, with Justin at my heels, hurled myself full length into a hole that glowed with a light I couldn’t see.
The tunnel wasn’t wide enough to stand, so we had to crawl, banging our knees and shoulders. A little way in the roof lifted from my head. Carefully I crouched then stood, all the time expecting a crack on the skull that never came.
Catching my hand in his, Justin took the lead. “You still can’t see the light?”
“No,” I gasped. As far as I was aware, we were standing in the pitch dark; this tunnel no different from the one I’d arrived through. “Keep going.”
Justin drew ahead and I followed the drag of his hand, sprinting full out to keep up with his longer stride.
Then I heard a growl. It shivered through my skin and my veins trembled with the tenor of it. Immediately Justin dived left and almost wrenched my arm out of its socket. My gasp of pain cancelled my cry of fear and I fell quickly silent.
But the silence was eerie. The only noise we made was the pounding of our feet against stone; my lungs weren’t heaving, no blood roared in my ears, I wasn’t even panting. Only the burning of my calves told me I couldn’t keep the pace up forever.
Then the silence broke inside my head.
Retribution, vengeance, justice, death.