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Daniels was in the bar, safe and sound. His grief and fear at being informed that he was the last one remaining of his friends was hard to watch. Evelyn had to look away in guilt.
"So now what?" Daniels demanded, his eyes darting from face to face, desperate for an answer.
She racked her brains. Somehow, there had to be an answer. The book, they'd said. The creature wanted the book. But it wasn't supposed to be the black book there, it had been supposed to be the golden book. The black book had brought the mummy to life … what if the golden book reversed it? "We need to go back to the museum," she said abruptly. All three of them started to argue with her, but there was no time for that. "Jonathan. The car." When he didn't move, she imitated O'Connell. "Now."
He hurried off.
"Evelyn?"
She looked up at O'Connell. "I need to look something up. We … I think we have to go back, to Hamunaptra, but we need to know what to look for, and where to look for it, first." Evelyn took a step closer to him, looking into his eyes. "Do you trust me?"
The answer came without hesitation. "Yes. Let's go."
They piled into the car and drove to the museum. The curator and Ardeth Bey met them, and O'Connell hurriedly caught them up on everything that had happened.
"You want to tell me the plan?" he asked as he and Evelyn followed the Medjai up the stairs.
Evelyn hurried up the stairs, pulling ahead of the men, hastily trying to explain. "Well, according to legend, the black book the Americans found at Hamunaptra is supposed to bring people back from the dead. Until now, it was a notion I was unwilling to believe."
"Believe it, sister. That's what brought our buddy back to life," O'Connell said bitterly.
She looked at him, wishing it hadn't been her fault. He'd warned her, hadn't he, and she'd gone ahead and done it anyway, and look what had happened. But there was no time to dwell on that, not if she was going to prevent further tragedy. "Yes. Well, I'm thinking that if the black book can bring dead people to life, then—"
"Then maybe the gold book can kill him."
"That's the myth. Now we just have to find out where the gold book is hidden."
A sound from outside brought the whole party to a halt. Footsteps. Many of them. And voices. And the voices were chanting something. A single word, over and over. "Imhotep. Imhotep."
They hurried to the window, looking out over the street, which was full of men with torches, marching side by side, all of them intoning the centuries-dead high priest's name again and again. "Imhotep. Imhotep." Their faces were blank and twisted and blemished, their steps inexorable. Evelyn shrank back against the comforting bulk of O'Connell behind her. How were they to escape, to fix this, if every man in Cairo was under Imhotep's spell?
"Last but not least, my favorite plague—boils and sores," Jonathan said.
Below them, the mob was converging in front of the museum.
"They have become his slaves," Ardeth Bey snapped. "So it has begun, the beginning of the end."
Not if Evelyn Carnahan had anything to say about it. No risen corpse was going to defeat her. She had brought him to life, she would see to it that he went back where he'd come from. "Not quite yet, it hasn't. Come on."
She fairly ran down the halls, searching for the relief where she expected to find the answer, trusting that the men would be behind her. Once there, she began scanning the hieroglyphs. It was somewhere here. It had to be.
Far below, they heard a rumbling, a series of dull thuds. The mob had reached the doors and was pounding at them. There were so many people—surely it wouldn't take them long to break in. Evelyn did her best to block out the sound, focusing instead on the images under her fingertips. "According to the Bembridge scholars, the golden book of Amun-Ra is located inside the statue of Anubis."
"That's where we found the black book," Mr. Daniels objected.
"Exactly."
"Well, it looks like the old boys at Bembridge were mistaken." Jonathan leaned over Evelyn's shoulder, his attention caught by the mystery.
"Yes, they mixed the books up," Evelyn said, working her way along the hieroglyphs. "Mixed up where they were buried. So if the black book is inside the statue of Anubis, then the golden book must be inside …" She frowned. The hieroglyphs were small, and she couldn't afford to be wrong. They wouldn't have time to come back and check again.
From below came a cracking sound, followed by shouting. The mob was inside the museum.
"Come on, Evie, faster!" Jonathan urged.
"Patience is a virtue."
"Not right now it isn't!" O'Connell snapped.
Jonathan backed away, hastily. "Uh … I think I'll go and … get the car started."
"I've got it!" Evelyn's finger lay on the evidence she needed. "The golden book of Amun-Ra is at Hamunaptra inside the statue of Horus." Carried away by the triumph, she punched the air. "Take that, Bembridge Scholars!"
"Yes, very impressive. Really," O'Connell said, taking her by the arm. "Now, let's get out of here so we can live to put that knowledge to good use."
"I second that!" Daniels put on a burst of speed, disappearing down the stairs ahead of them. The curator and Ardeth Bey followed.
They all ran out of the building, where Jonathan, good as his word, had the car running.
"Let's go, let's go, let's go!" Mr. Daniels shouted. "Get this thing in gear, boy, let's get out of here!"
"Evie!" Jonathan called. "Come on, Evie, hurry up!"
Just then, O'Connell's little friend appeared, calling for his master.
O'Connell helped Evelyn into the car, climbing in after her, and the others piled in as Imhotep appeared in the window above them, screaming his rage.
"You're gonna get yours, Beni! You hear me?" O'Connell shouted. He called out again as the car drove off, the mob running after it. "You're gonna get yours!"
"Oh, like I've never heard that before!" Beni shouted after them.