Into the Dark (The Conjurors) (10 page)

“Your eyes didn’t change!”

“Yeah, that happens sometimes. It takes less effort for him just to speak without taking over completely,” Thai explained.

    It was going to be strange to talking to two people in one body. It would take some getting used to.  She took a deep breath. “Hi Tan. Do you want to see inside the pyramids?” she asked.

    “Y-yes. Thai told me a l-l-lot about them.”

    Valerie smiled. “You’ll have to tell me what you’ve learned. It’s all new to me.”

    “Ready to go?” Thai asked, in control of his voice again.

    “Definitely,” she said eagerly, excited to visit the site that would launch her to the Globe that night. Chisisi was waiting at the entrance of the hotel as they left.

    “Good morning to you both.”

    “’Morning, Chisisi,” Valerie replied.

    “I caution you to stay alert today, young ones,” he added.

    “Thanks, we will,” she said, waving goodbye.

    Once they were out of his earshot, Thai whispered, “Who does Chisisi think he is, calling me young? I’m a grown man!”

    “Not much fun being treated like a kid, huh?” she said with a little snicker. “But Chisisi’s cool. He’s looking out for us.”
    “I know. I wish he would tell us who his employer is. Maybe he would know more about Venu.”

Valerie shrugged. She didn’t want to dwell on the battle at Stonehenge. It was her last day on Earth, and she wanted to relish every second. The Giza Plateau was a 10-minute walk from their hotel, and she stared as the pyramids grew even larger the closer they came.

After getting their tickets, she hurried over to the base of Great Pyramid, Thai trailing behind her. As she stood in line waiting to enter, she looked up at the thousands of golden brown stones that made up the Great Pyramid. It towered above her, hundreds of feet high, its ragged edges standing out in sharp relief against the cloudless blue sky. “So what do you know about this place?”

    “I know it was the first of the pyramids built here. It was ordered to be created by a Pharaoh named Khufu a long, long time ago – around 2500 BC, I think. It was supposed to be where he would be buried when he died, but they never found his body inside,” Thai said.

They reached the entrance to the pyramid, and Valerie squinted, staring into the dark opening and trying to see what was in store for them. The second she stepped inside, an oppressive, humid heat hit her like a punch in the face and instantly made her start to sweat. The hall was dark and narrow, and she felt as if the space around her was shrinking and would soon crush her. A bead of sweat trickled down her back, making the hair on her neck rise. As they walked deeper into the heart of the pyramid, she felt the same vibrating inside of her that she felt at Stonehenge. It was so strong that it almost overwhelmed her.

    “It’s d-dark. I don’t like it,” Tan’s gravelly voice said.

    “Don’t worry, buddy, we’ll be out of this hall soon,” Thai said quietly.

    The halls split off in different directions, like a maze. An instinct steered Valerie away from the stream of people who were heading up the biggest of the passageways. “This way,” she whispered, leading Thai and Tan down a smaller hall. It was so low that they had to hunch over, and she felt as if the tight space was squeezing her. For a sudden, terrible moment, she panicked that she had taken the wrong path and they would be lost inside the pyramid forever, doomed to search in the darkness for a way out.

    She breathed a sigh of relief when they reached the end of the hall and entered an empty room with a vaulted ceiling. The vibrating was even stronger in here.

    “It’s b-b-buzzing in here,” Tan said quietly.

    “You can feel it too? I’m glad it’s not just me,” Valerie replied.

    “This must be the Queen’s Chamber,” Thai said, looking around the room with interest. “No one knows for sure what this room was for. Some people think it was supposed to be where they would put the Pharaoh’s body when he died, but they changed their minds and built the bigger room above us for the body instead.”

    Valerie walked around the room, running her hands along the surface of the walls and marveling at the way that the stones were perfectly cut and joined together. She knew that the entire pyramid had been built by hand, each stone shaped by a person, not a machine. She couldn’t imagine how they had accomplished it.

    “It’s right below here – the room that will launch me into space tonight.”

    “I w-w-want to s-see it!” Tan said.

    “Sorry, Tan, there’s no way to get to it from inside of the pyramid. But there’s a tunnel from the outside that leads straight to the room,” she explained.

    “That makes sense. Otherwise someone would have found the entrance in here, I guess,” Thai said thoughtfully. “Where’s the entrance?”

    “At the Sphinx.”

    “It’s true then, there are tunnels from the Sphinx to the pyramids,” Thai said, his voice filled with curiosity and excitement. “Lots of people have thought that’s true, but no one has found one yet.”

    “We’ll get to see one up close tonight,” Valerie said. Then she closed her eyes, concentrating. “This pyramid is such a maze – I can see the entire map of it in my head. It’s so cool.”

    “I wish I had a copy of that map in my head too,” Thai grumbled. “To make sure you don’t get lost.”

    “L-l-look! I don’t like her,” Tan said, lifting Thai’s arm to point down the dark hall that led out of the Queen’s Chamber.

    Valerie squinted, and saw a flash of dark red that stood out against the neutral stones. Seconds later, a woman glided down the hall and entered the room. When she stepped into the dim yellow light inside the chamber, Valerie felt all of the heat drain from her body. A vision from her worst nightmares had come to life – the woman standing in front of her was Sanguina. Evil radiated off of her body in poisonous ripples, and Valerie’s heart pounded.

Sanguina had terrorized and chased her for as long as she could remember. And she was real – Tan had seen her too. She stared right into Valerie’s eyes and her mouth stretched in a soulless smile of triumph.

    “Found you,” she said, and the sound of her voice made Valerie’s stomach clench painfully. Thai stepped protectively in front of her.

    “Get away from us,” Valerie said in a wavering voice. But Sanguina glided closer and closer, and Valerie knew that they would soon be cornered in the small space. “Run,” she whispered to Thai.

Valerie sprinted past the woman before she could get any nearer, and Thai was right behind her. He didn’t need to ask why they were running – the evil surrounding the woman was so strong they could almost touch it.

    They were only halfway down the low, narrow hallway when Sanguina appeared in front of them a few yards away, out of thin air. They stopped short, and Thai yanked Valerie’s hand so that she was behind him. She felt as if the damp heat inside the pyramid was closing around them, smothering them.

    “What do you want?” Thai demanded.

    “I know what you’re here for. And if you leave this planet, I will kill you. I promise you that,” Sanguina said, speaking only to Valerie as if Thai didn’t exist.

    “If I stay, I die. You can’t stop me.”

    Sanguina was close enough now for Valerie to see that her eyes were as black as they seemed when she was unconscious. “I can and will stop you. And I will make your life a living hell for defying me, I promise you that.”

    Sanguina took a step closer, and Valerie felt like a cornered animal. Thai raised his fists, ready to fight. There was nowhere to run; Sanguina blocked the passage in front of them. How had this figment of her nightmares entered her reality?

    “Why do you chase me in my dreams?” Valerie asked, and saw surprise flash across Sanguina’s face.

    “You know me?” Sanguina said, unable to disguise her shock. “Where? How–”

    It was the second of distraction that Thai had been waiting for, and he charged at Sanguina with all the speed he could manage. But instead of toppling her to the ground, he went straight through her. Valerie stared at her in amazement, and then she heard Thai laugh with surprise and relief.

    “She isn’t even here! She’s on the Globe. This is only her projection. There is nothing she can do to either of us.”

    The anger on Sanguina’s face was a horrible sight to behold. “You don’t know how wrong you are,” her voice boomed. Despite how pale she was, she turned a shade whiter, her purplish-blue veins pulsating with her anger. Her eyes bored into Valerie as if she would kill her if she could.

    “Valerie, let’s lose this psycho. Run!” Thai’s voice yanked her out of her frozen terror.

    Valerie did run, squeezing her eyes shut as she passed through Sanguina. She grabbed Thai’s hand and they ran as fast as they could. They burst out of the pyramid into the bright sunshine at full speed, and didn’t stop until they were on the manicured lawn of their hotel, where they both collapsed, breathing in gulps of fresh air. Valerie looked behind her, half expecting to see Sanguina chasing them, but she had vanished.

    “Who was that freak? You knew her?” Thai asked.

    Suddenly, from behind, they heard a man clearing his throat. When they saw Chisisi, they sighed in relief. “Welcome back. You seem exhausted. Let me take you to your room for rest and refreshment.”

    “Thanks anyway, but we’ll be fine now that we’re back at the hotel,” Thai said authoritatively.

    “You must not assume that anywhere in Giza is safe. Danger may lurk where you least expect it, even here at the Mena House,” Chisisi said, his tone sharp for the first time. Then he abruptly turned and left them.

    Valerie immediately felt bad that they had offended Chisisi after all he had done for them. But before she could chase after him, Cyrus appeared by her side. “What’d I miss? Who was that woman at the Great Pyramid? I barely saw her inside the pyramid before she disappeared. Who do you guys know from my world besides me?”

    “Sanguina. She’s some kind of monster or something whom I always see when I’m unconscious. I never imagined that she was real. She said she’d kill me if I go to the Globe,” Valerie said quietly.

    Cyrus looked shocked, but he quickly recovered. “She’ll have no idea where to even start looking for you on the Globe, Val. Everything about your identity and your trip is a secret to everyone but a few people. And once you’re here, I’ll be able to protect you. In the meantime, I’ll ask the others about who this Sanguina person is. Don’t worry, they’ll find her. She’ll never get near you.”

    “Venu must be working for her,” Thai said thoughtfully. “Maybe at Stonehenge he was trying to stop you from leaving Earth.”

    “I don’t understand. Why is she after me?” Valerie wondered.

    “Because you’re special, of course,” Thai said, as if the answer was obvious.

The group went back to the hotel and settled on the couch. Valerie and Thai munched on some fruit that Chisisi had sent up.

    “Is Tan ok? He seemed scared back there,” Valerie said.

    “I think so. When something is more than he can handle, he kind of retreats inside me for awhile. He’ll come out again when he’s ready. But are you okay, Valerie?” Thai asked.

“It turned my world around to realize that there will still be someone chasing me when I go to the Globe. What’s waiting for me there is worse than what’s chasing me here.”

“But there you’ll have your magic to protect you.”