"Where are you heading, miss?" the driver inquired.
"Two-two-one-b Baker Street. And just call me Martha, dear," Mrs. Hudson chimed as she climbed into the cab. The vehicle departed from Heathrow Airport and retreated onto the main road, which was cramped with morning traffic. After several minutes passed without any movement, the driver glanced at Mrs. Hudson in the rear-view mirror. It was then that he noticed what appeared to be a petite clay box nestled in the woman's lap, her thin fingers wrapped tightly around it.
The box had several chips and cracks lining its surface, indicating old age and wear. It was beige, and its lid appeared to have fused with the remainder of the relic. Among the many small fissures embellishing the object were several markings covering the entirety of its surface.
"What's that you got there?" the man found himself asking.
"Well," Mrs. Hudson began without hesitation. "It was my last day in Alexandria and I decided to head down to the local merchant market in Cairo—wanted to find myself a nice souvenir, y'know? Anyways, I came across this cart packed with ceramics and antiques; the fellow managing it almost immediately handpicked this box for me and persisted that I purchase it. It was supposedly worth a pretty penny, but he offered it to me for a mere 20 pounds. Sounded like a good deal."
The driver glanced again at the worn, seemingly useless box. "What's so intriguing about this box?"
"According to the merchant, it's allegedly an artifact from the tomb of Ptahmose, the High Priest of Amun during the reign of Amenhotep III and Akhenaton. If that were true, that makes the box more than three thousand years old. It should be in a museum. But of course, I gave him the benefit of the doubt and bought it," she replied.
The driver raised his eyebrows amusingly. "Is there anything inside?"
"The merchant told me, but it's absolutely ridiculous—what was it he said again? Ah, yes: 'Inside is the highest of His species...the third of seven...He beckons release', or something along those lines—"
"Wait—he?" the driver interjected. "There's someone in that box?" Martha chuckled at the question.
"Well, not someone, but something; a demon, apparently," she remarked nonchalantly. "A demon supposedly exorcised from Amenhotep himself. Aka Manah is its name, I believe." At this, she began to laugh hysterically. "Can you believe that? That's one of the funniest things I've ever heard."
The driver laughed along nervously, eyeing his passenger warily. The man himself wasn't very religious, but having been baptized and brought up as a Christian, he had been exposed to the topic of demonology and wasn't one to treat it as a joke.
"Ah, oh well, even if this trinket isn't worth anything, it'll be a nice addition to my flat," Mrs. Hudson sighed, raising the fragile clay box so as to get a better look at the faded inscriptions. "These markings on their own are somewhat fascinating—"
Without warning, a car beside the cab accelerated and dangerously merged into the same lane despite there being an obvious lack of space.
"Bloody hell," the driver cursed and floored the brake, the momentum thrusting him into the steering wheel painfully as the cab came to an abrupt halt. He heard his passenger shriek and a very audible crack sounded mere moments afterwards. The man sighed heavily in exasperation and quickly pushed back against his seat before continuing forward in the bustling traffic.
"I'm so sorry...are you alright, Martha?" the driver breathed as he recollected himself.
A good minute passed without a response, and in that time the driver felt the temperature of the cab drop several degrees. The man frowned, glancing at the air conditioner settings only to see that the system wasn't even on. He began to grow tense, for some reason reluctant to glance in the rear-view mirror. Almost immediately, his thoughts centered around the crack he had heard.
The sudden stench of must and rotten eggs met his nostrils, and the man inaudibly gasped.
"Martha?" he asked again.
"I feel...amazing, Sebastian. You have no idea," the woman cooed, her sing-song voice suddenly sharp and cold.
Sebastian quickly looked into the rear-view mirror, his eyes wide. His heart skipped several beats and a shiver raked up and down his spine violently. "...I never told you my name."
Mrs. Hudson didn't respond, and the man didn't dare utter another word; he couldn't do anything except drive and pray for the first time in years.
"Oh, He can't help you now," the woman taunted, a menacing edge in her voice. Sebastian looked at Mrs. Hudson, all of the color draining from his face.
The woman's eyes were completely obsidian except for the pupil, which was a burning crimson red. She was grinning madly, and the man felt his vision cloud with tears. "Martha" slowly leaned forward, nearing his shoulder. The driver tensed up, only to see the passenger's palm extend into his peripheral vision, on which he saw several differently-sized ceramic pieces—the remnants of the clay box. Mrs. Hudson leaned in even closer, until her lips were only inches away from Sebastian's ear.
"I'm free," she hissed.
The loud blare of a horn snapped the cab driver back to reality, and he swiveled his head to the right rapidly. Sebastian focused on the road, only to realize that he had ran a red light. The man's stomach dropped, and he quickly peeled his foot off the gas pedal in a panic, veering into the intersection and directly into the path of an oncoming semi-truck.
"Oh God," he cried. The deafening shriek of the semi's brakes filled his eardrums, and he could do nothing but watch the vehicular behemoth draw closer with every passing second. The truck's front bumper slammed into the driver's side of the car, and Sebastian's screams were silenced instantaneously.