Chapter Nine

Tally watched Gus and Reginald, who had gotten to their feet at five minutes to midnight, and she resumed her chant, taking a little while to remember exactly how it went.

Natalie's eyes narrowed as she watched Tally just stand at the edge of the gate of hell and chant like she had nothing better to do. She waved a hand, hoping one of the stone guards' spears would appear before her instantly, but the stone guards fought her, and she had to use all of her will to obtain what she wanted. Eventually, though, one of the giant stone spears flew toward her, and she took aim.

Cecil sprung forward and threw himself into Tally's body, pushing her own spirit aside. He looked up at Natalie, who had just thrown the spear, or rather, flung it at them.

Ahkmenrah tried to stop the thing, but Kahmunrah stopped him. "Let me go."

"I'm not going to watch you just die. Not again." Kahmunrah turned toward the spear just as Cecil/Tally kicked it toward them just before impact. He pushed his brother out of the way and pushed the spear aside before it could do any serious damage.

"I'd ask what that means, but we really don't have the time."

"One of these days, I'll have to tell you."

Cecil/Tally turned to face Natalie, who'd decided to walk over to them and face them. "Are you kidding me?" Tally mentally asked.

"Why would I do that?" Cecil replied.

"Because she's a super-powered psycho-bitch with glow-y jewelry."

"That's my line."

Natalie raised her arms, and Cecil/Tally placed a solid kick to her gut. While she didn't even flinch, she did stumble back, and they launched a series of attacks ending with her seizing them. "We can do this the easy way, or the hard way."

"That's my line," Reginald said, tapping one end of his cane against his palm. Next to him, it looked as if Gus would blow a gasket. "Now, you wanna put Tally down, or do we have to beat your face in?"

"You got five seconds to pick one, hopscotch."

Natalie released Cecil/Tally only to charge Reginald and Gus, who took her arms and pushed their way to the gaping hole serving as the gate of hell. "You can't do this to me," she screamed. "You can't." But they threw her in anyway.

Just as Cecil left Tally's body, Anubis took a step toward Tally, not even bothering to look her in the eye. She promptly flipped him into the hole with a curt, "Don't even bother coming back." She waved a hand over the hole whispering a spell on the fly for closing the portal to the living for good.

Cecil, Gus, and Reginald turned to smoke and vanished, Cecil waving to Tally as he left.

That left one thing.

"Hey, guys, what just happened?" Brunden asked, looking around.

"Got your big break after all," Tally replied. "Like a bat outta hell."

"Yeah, that was hell, and you know what, I'm not going back."

"You can start by shutting up," Kahmunrah said flatly.

"Nobody asked you."

"You know what, both of you can it before it gets ugly."

"Nobody asked you," Brunden and Kahmunrah said at the same time. Tally just sighed and walked over to where Ahkmenrah stood slackjawed, shutting his mouth for him as she passed.