House of Scarabs Read online

  "Thank you, Stanley. I'm glad we got that sorted out. Have a good day."

  "You too, Professor."

  Bertram led them through a warren of corridors topped with aluminum-clad service pipes, deep into the bowels of the museum. He barked greetings to the people they passed, who nodded back at him, never quite making eye contact and scurrying away as fast as possible. Ellie smiled. Bertram's bluster had always intimidated people. Most never got past it to realise what a kind-hearted soul it disguised.

  Bertram stopped at a door labelled EDA24. He threw the door open with such force, it slammed against the wall and bounced back, nearly hitting him as he exploded into the room. Three of the four occupants jumped, one splashing coffee across the papers on his desk.

  The fourth, a blonde woman in her early thirties, looked up. "Morning, Bertram. Do come in. Don't loiter in the hallway like a vagrant."

  "Morning, Caro. Martin, do I need to buy you a bib? You seem inordinately clumsy for someone trained to restore priceless artifacts. To be frank, it worries me. Still, hey-ho, what can we do, eh? Now, Caro, these are the guests I told you about yesterday. Caro is my Assistant Keeper for Late-period Egyptian Archaeology - amazingly talented lass. Shame her training will be wasted when she settles down and starts a family. Still, until then, she's the best I've got."

  Caro studied Bertram silently over the rim of her stylish glasses. "You have heard of sexual equality, Bertram - remember? I copied the law and left it on your desk. Several times, actually. Anyway, the way you work me, I have no time to sleep, let alone meet the potential father of this family you have envisioned, unless you are suggesting yourself in that role?"

  Bertram flushed and shuffled awkwardly. "No, indeed not. I'm a happy bachelor."

  "As am I," she replied, pinning him with her icy blue eyes, "and quite as dedicated to my career as you." She turned to Ellie and with a conspiratorial wink. "You must be Elena. Sorry about that, but someone has to control the old fool, or he becomes unbearable."

  Ellie beamed back at her. "I'm delighted to see he's met his match. No need to apologise. You've made my year. Please call me Ellie. Only Uncle Bertram calls me Elena."

  Caro pushed her jaw-length blonde bob backwards and slid her glasses onto the top of her head. She had the hearty blushed cheeks, golden glow, and plummy tone that screamed out upper middle-class girl from the counties. Ellie imagined her entering gymkhanas on a palomino mare and enjoying skiing with her old school pals in Gstaad.

  Ben's imagination wandered elsewhere, mostly focused on her amazing, svelte figure and clean-cut beauty.

  "And you must be the archaeologist as this fine gentleman is far too distinguished to be with the Department of Egyptian Antiquities. So, by a process of elimination, you must be Herr Webber?" Caro said to Gerhard. "Caro Smythe. Welcome to the British Museum. Would you like a tour behind the scenes before seeing Gayer's cat? To be honest, a lot of what we do isn't that fascinating to watch. However, the conservation team and the secret storage areas can be quite interesting."

  "That would be great," Ben replied and Gerhard echoed.

  "Good-oh, Caro. I'll leave them with you. I have far more important things to do." Bertram barked the words behind him as he left the room, already studying a paper.

  Caro led them through a maze of identical corridors, stopping occasionally to let them peer through windows at the people ferreting away behind the doors. Clad in white coats and face masks, restorers carefully brushed away centuries of dust and dirt from the ancient relics on which they worked. She showed them the laboratories full of the latest technology, where they scanned, X-rayed, and carbon-dated the artifacts.

  To Ben's delight, Caro introduced them to one of the country's foremost experts in Egyptian hieroglyphs, Dr. Gillian Shoon, who invited them into her office. The three archaeologists chatted animatedly about Dr. Shoon's latest translation, an obscure plaque found deep in the deserts that seemed to hint at the story of Moses. Ellie watched Ben's face, alight with excitement, as she adjusted her position for the umpteen time. Gerhard had stretched his long legs out and was flexing his toes to restore circulation.

  Dr. Shoon glanced over. "Oh, I'm so sorry. You must be stupefied with boredom. I can get a little over enthusiastic on this subject. Caro, rescue these poor souls before those wooden chairs cripple them." She turned back to Ben. "You, sir, can come back again anytime. I like the way you think. Those Egyptians are lucky to have you. Original thought is so hard to find in archaeologists these days."

  Ellie raised an eyebrow and followed Caro from the room.

  Caro waited patiently outside the door as the men said their goodbyes to Gillian and then gestured down the hall. "So, on to the highlight of the trip. Let's go see our famous pussycat!" She guided them to a large, vaulted door. "I've taken it off display, so you can have a close look in private. Please store your bags in the lockers out here. Nothing personal, but she's rather valuable, and our insurance demands we take certain precautions."

  "Quite right too, my dear. One can never be too careful," Gerhard agreed. "There are all sorts of reprobates around. An arsonist destroyed my own dear shop just the other day."

  "Oh, my word. That's simply awful. Poor you!" Caro said to Gerhard, who was behind Ellie.

  Caro unlocked the door, and they followed her. Sat in pride-of-place on a table in a bland, cream room was the statue. Ellie walked straight over to it and bent down to take a closer look.

  The statue wasn't large, only slightly longer than a ruler, but what struck Ellie was its head. Smack bang in the centre, between its ears, was a scarab. Ye gods, Ellie thought. As she studied the statue, the scarab moved, raising up onto its back legs, and the cat winked. Ellie jumped back with a shriek, landing in an undignified heap on the floor.

  Caro rushed over and helped her up. "I say, are you okay?"

  Gerhard pulled Ellie into his arms. "Hush, mein liebling. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have opened the subject." He turned to Caro. "She's traumatised. We lost a dear, most beloved friend in the fire, and we nearly perished ourselves. Ben, can you take Ellie out for a glass of water?" He turned and stumbled into the table, knocking the statue, which swung precariously. Letting go of Ellie, he used his body to block its fall as his arms steadied it. Caro, eyes huge in her pale face, ran to the statue to check it was undamaged.

  "Oh, my lord. I'm most terribly sorry, Caro. I'm becoming clumsy in my old age. I'd better take Ellie and leave you with Caro, Ben. It's you who wants to study the statue after all. Come, my dear."

  Ellie’s eyes flitted from Gerhard to Ben. Something wasn't right.

  "Ah, mein liebling. Come, come. We'll get a nice cup of tea in the café back there. Sorry again, Caro."

  "Don't mention it. No harm done," Caro said with a warm smile. She gave Ellie a pat on the shoulder. "I'd be on my knees if I'd lived through that. Don't be upset. You're doing really well. Go have a drink, and we'll meet up again later."

  Ellie was ushered from the room as Ben and Caro discussed the statue's provenance.

  The corridor was empty. "What in heaven's name just happened?" she hissed at Gerhard. He shook his head slightly and retrieved their bags, shoving his jacket into his worn, leather duffel bag and pulling her along beside him to the café.

  "I could ask the same of you. What was the screech for? You were meant to faint."

  "I didn't screech. I exclaimed. It's different."

  "That may be, but you didn't answer my question," Gerhard said, putting his arm around her shoulder. "Keep up the act. You're in shock, remember?"

  "I'm not a girl who swoons. I don't need a man to support me! Too right I'm in shock. That bloody statue winked at me," she hissed, "and the scarab did a jig. I didn't have time to do my fainting scene before you grabbed me."

  Gerhard halted and looked down at her. "Ellie, please! Act shocked, and we'll discuss everything later in private, ja?"

  She studied him. "Okay, but I know something's amiss here, and I intend to find out what."


  Ellie munched on an apple and cinnamon slice as Caro and Ben made their way to the table. She watched them chat. Caro played with her hair as she listened to Ben, who, in turn, had a hard time maintaining eye contact and kept glancing sideways at her. Ellie shook her head without comment. It seemed Bertram was at risk of losing his second-in-command after all. She shuddered at the thought of another poor child being raised by two self-absorbed archaeologists.

  Caro escorted them out of the private part of the museum and left them to wander around the exhibits, with a promise from Ben that he’d email the report they’d been discussing.

  “Spill it, you two,” she hissed as soon as they were alone.

  “Spill what?” asked Ben nonchalantly.

  “Oh, spare me the ‘Mr. Innocence' routine. Save it for someone who cares, like Caro! What are you two up to?"

  "Oh, do you think she cares?" Ben asked with a huge grin.

  "Ellie, my dear. There's nothing to it. I orchestrated a way to touch the statue to see if I got a reaction. Hence the stumble."

  "And did you?" Ellie questioned. "Why did we leave the room so swiftly?"

  "I got a pulse but nothing more. Undoubtedly, Bastet has a link to the statue, but otherwise, it's of little importance. I fear we must travel to Egypt to learn more. Everything is pointing towards the land of the Nile."

  Ellie stared at him for some seconds. “I feared as much,” Ellie said with a sigh.

  “So, Egypt it is,” Ben agreed before extolling the considerable virtues of Caro Smythe.

  The Guardians of the Ankh

  "That's great news. Yes, well, send her my regards, and maybe we can catch up soon. Bye for now."

  Tjati slammed down the phone, jumped up, and kicked at his worn, metal filing cabinet, leaving a large dent in a drawer that would probably never open again. He stalked back and forth like a caged lion caught in the realisation that the House of Scarabs had survived—and worse still, were on their way to the location for the final meld.

  "God damn them to hell, where they belong," he spat out as he stared across the square, struggling to control his boiling rage. Every day they survived, they grew stronger and their destruction less likely. Eurydice had failed again, and he doubted her resolve. "Damn her as well. She set this path years ago. I should never have listened to her."

  He wheeled around and charged back to the desk with a certainty of purpose and a desperate hunger to be the last Grand Master of the Guardians of the Ankh. After the destruction of the House of Scarabs, he would dissolve the Guardians, who would all drift off into obscurity, and his destiny would be fulfilled.

  He tapped out her number, his leg jigging up and down. "Eurydice, meet me at the temple tonight. Your mission failed. The trio live." He slammed down the handset without giving her a chance to respond and immediately dialed another number.

  "Hello. It's time for you to be promoted. I have a mission for you."

  Arriving in Egypt

  As the door to the plane opened, the familiar smells of Egypt assaulted Ellie. The hot air was fragranced with a unique scent that could only ever be Cairo. Exotic spices, shisha smoke, pollution, and baked ozone combined into an evocative fragrance that brought a flood of memories she struggled to push away. She'd left never intending to return, and yet, now she was here, being forced to face her demons.

  She took her first step out, and the heat engulfed her. After the chill of England's winter, Egypt felt balmy.

  Her parents were away in Bahariya on an extended dig, so she'd arranged to stay at their villa in Maadi. She was relieved that she wouldn't have to see them again. They were an intrinsic link to Sam and never respected her feelings, conversing about him as if he and Ellie hadn't gone through a heart-wrenching divorce.

  She bought a visa at Bank Misr for Gerhard; both she and Ben already had one. They trooped through passport control and were pounced on by persistent porters determined to get every pound out of the unsuspecting tourists who didn't realise the trolleys were free. Ellie barked at them in fluent Arabic, and they dispersed, eager to find easier victims.

  Gerhard watched the chaos with fascination. Porters pulled bags randomly from the belt, stacking them in huge piles, forcing people to rummage through a mountain of bags rather than wait for the bags to traverse the belt towards them. Tourists struggled to wrangle bags away from the porters. Tourist police screamed at the airport staff, trying to regain an order that had never existed, and cleaners joked among themselves. The noise was like an avalanche, roaring and echoing as people shouted across the hall.

  "It's just like home," he said with a smile.

  As they passed through customs control, with nothing but a cursory glance from the customs officer, they faced a massed brigade of people all struggling for the first view of the person they'd come to greet. It was customary in Egypt that everyone came to the airport to meet a person returning from a trip, so every passenger had several people awaiting them. The wall of faces was overwhelming to the average visitor, but Ellie had already warned the guys, so they stepped adroitly through the throng and went straight outside to negotiate a taxi.

  Cairo was a seething mass of humanity crammed into too small a space, so the population battled every moment of the day. Cars wrestled for supremacy on the roads. Shops nestled cheek-to-jowl with their competitors and fought for every guinea they earned.

  The taxi crawled through the crazed traffic. “Look up there on the hill, guys. That’s the old citadel,” Ellie said, pointing at a fortress with a large, domed mosque at its centre. “Not long till we reach Maadi now. I think you’ll like Maadi, Gerhard. It was originally designed as a country retreat for wealthy Caireans in the early 1900s. It was packed with palatial villas surrounded by impressive gardens. It’s not so grand now, but there are still glimmers of the former glory in some of the remaining villas, although it has merged into Cairo now.”

  "How utterly charming, my dear," said Gerhard, studying the Swiss chalet in front of him as he stepped out of the taxi and stretched the travel kinks out of his long frame. "It's a requiem to colonialism."

  Ellie smiled at him and turned to settle the taxi bill, ignoring the protests of the taxi driver who was trying to charge ten times the going rate. Gerhard and Ben watched the fierce verbal battle and were bemused when the two foes suddenly beamed at each other and shook hands over the greatly reduced tariff. After many salutations and exaggerated farewells, the taxi driver drove off with a wave.

  "There's nothing an Egyptian likes more than a successful and vigorous barter," Ellie said with a grin in response to their raised eyebrows.

  "Well, you must be popular here," Ben answered. "You do nothing but barter and argue over everything."

  "You are how you were raised, and I, for one, am very grateful for your skills in that area. I'd have been lost without your assistance today, my dear," said Gerhard, ever the peacemaker.

  Ellie smiled at him. She led them through a creaky, dilapidated gate, along a heavily scented walkway of evening musk, and up to the ornate doorway complete with grilled peephole. She turned to them before opening the door. "Be prepared. They work in Egyptian funerary studies, and they bring their work home with them. The house is stuffed to the gills with funerary relics. Most people find it rather creepy."

  Gerhard patted her hand. "Ben and I are made of sterner stuff, mein liebling. We'll be fine."

  The house was dark but cool. Wood paneling stretched as far as the eye could see, with matching beams and parquet floors. The furniture was heavy antique oak and appeared Germanic. Every possible surface was covered in clutter; reams of paper and pots, statues, death masks and shards of ceramic scattered wily-nilly, all covered in a suffocating layer of dust. It felt unloved, a place to camp out rather than a home.

  Ellie flicked the light switch, but nothing happened. Cursing under her breath, she marched to the window and flicked the curtain. "Damn it to hell! Everyone else has electricity, which means they've forgotten to pay the bills again. Sorr
y, guys. They aren't terribly reliable. I should have checked before I left. I'll find candles for now and organise for it to be reconnected tomorrow."

  After a scavenged snack of crisps, biscuits, and Coke (which were the only edible things in the house), they cleared a space on the dining room table and planned their next steps. Ellie suggested meeting with a close family friend, Professor Mourad Soliman, who was based at the Cairo Museum of Egyptian Antiquities.

  "I think he's the best place to start. Most of the people I know have specific and narrow fields of study, but he's more of a generalist. If we share everything that's happened so far, he may be able to shine some light onto it."

  "Ellie, I don't agree. He's a scientist—yes, an Egyptologist—but first and foremost a logical, rational scientist, and we have nothing but hearsay and lunacy. If I hadn't seen it with my own eyes, I would never have believed a word. He's bound to throw us..."

  Ellie butted in. "I'm not totally without sense, Ben. We won't share the mystical stuff, but we can discuss the three familiars, the Gayer-Anderson Cat, and the vision you saw. We'll wrap it in a story; you're working on a paper on the rituals of ancient Egypt, focusing specially on the deities of Bastet, Sobek, and Khepri. You've appointed me to accompany you here to continue with your Arabic studies, and Gerhard is your uncle. He'll buy that. Anyway, he's a close friend. He'll be happy to help."

  "It seems we have a plan, but we need to approach this professionally. I would still like to have my reputation intact after this fiasco, and being linked to this craziness is career suicide, so I'd appreciate it if I could master the helm tomorrow."

  Ellie smiled and nodded. "I'd suggest nothing less. I'll run out first thing to get us a few home comforts. I don't know about you, but I'm exhausted. The last few days have taken it out of me, so I will turn in for the night. I'll make up your rooms. Mine is the door at the top of the stairs. Yours are the two rooms to the left."