Tut Read Online Free PDF Page B

Circle.
    I hopped the Metro, even though it was standing-room only. My stomach grumbled, but eating would have to wait until I’d recharged. On a good day, my scarab heart made me feel like I could slay a Tyrannosaurus rex. Right now, I don’t think I could have summoned the energy to squash a bug. My powers were virtually gone.
    Invisible energy sizzled in the air around the obelisk. It drew me toward it as I came up from the Metro station. All I could think about was recharging. The obelisk was the perfect collector of immortal energy. My scarab heart leapt in anticipation.
    It was rush hour, so the streets were packed with cars and people filled the sidewalks. I crossed the street, barely waiting for the light to change. How had my heart gotten so low? It had to be the anxiety from the field trip. Once I got to the traffic island, I fought to keep from running up to the obelisk because I didn’t want people to think I was strange.
    The thing was enormous. So huge, twenty schoolkids could have sat around it and had their picture taken. But there were no schoolkids around today. Only some stinky homeless guy crashed out near the base. There was some sort of black graffiti painted on the obelisk behind him, but I couldn’t see what it said since he was pressed up against the limestone base. I plugged my nose because he smelled like dirty socks, and skirted around him to the other side. The immortal energy called to me. So fresh. So powerful. I couldn’t wait any longer.
    I put my hands on the obelisk.
    The connection was instant. Raw energy pulsed through my heart, filling it. I devoured it, feeling my powers grow and replenish with every second that passed. It pumped out of my heart and through my arteries, reaching every single part of my body. And then it returned to my heart and collected. Great Osiris, it felt good to be an immortal.
    I stepped back, basking in the glory of recharging … and the obelisk exploded.
    I flew backward, landing on my butt on the crowded sidewalk. Around me, cars screeched to a halt and started blowing their horns. People screamed and ran away from the traffic circle.
    Some woman with a giant flowered purse ran up to me. “Are you okay? Are you hurt?”
    No, I wasn’t okay. This had never, in the three thousand years I’d been recharging my heart, happened before.
    â€œI’m fine,” I said, and got to my feet, brushing limestone dust off my jeans and windbreaker.
    â€œYou could have been hurt,” she said, clutching her purse so it didn’t get swept away in the crowd. “You could have died.”
    â€œIt just surprised me,” I said. “It’s all okay.”
    Except it wasn’t all okay. Limestone dust filled the air so thick that I couldn’t even see where the obelisk had been. Mixed in with the dust was black mist putting off the overwhelming scent of sulfur. It was the same odor and the same kind of black mist I’d seen three thousand years ago when I’d been fighting with Horemheb.
    With a final assurance that I wasn’t hurt, the woman finally scurried away, getting swallowed by the crowd. The police and fire trucks would be here any second. I could already hear the sirens.
    By some miracle the homeless guy was still asleep, but I rolled him out of the way so I could get a closer look at the graffiti behind him. I held my breath to keep the smell of singed limestone and the sulfur mist out of my nose. Someone had drawn something on the base of the obelisk: an image of the scepter of Set with some hieroglyphs next to it. Since I knew Egyptian hieroglyphics better than my ABCs, I recognized them the instant I saw them.

    Horemheb.
    The hair on the back of my neck stood up, and the world slowed down around me. General Horemheb was in Washington, D.C.
    It had been almost a hundred years since my tomb had been opened by archaeologist Howard Carter, and in all that time, there wasn’t a sign of my