Tombquest: Book of the Dead

Amulet

And after all of that, Alex had to head back across town — and hope no one had pulled that ladder back up. "I don't think they'll come after you," Todtman had said by way of good-bye. "Not right away. But maybe you should take a taxi."

Not exactly comforting. Still, Alex needed some time to himself to process all this, and he was still exploring the limits of his newfound strength, so he decided to walk home. He made his way slowly through Central Park, sticking to the well-lit main roads and keeping a close eye on the shifting shadows around him. Mostly, though, he thought about his mom. She felt both closer now and further away. This organization, The Order, must have her, he thought. The Order must have taken the Lost Spells and my mom. Alex considered Todtman: He was definitely strange, but he'd saved his life and Ren's, too. Could he help me save my mom?

Alex held his hand out in front of him to see if it was still shaking. Just a little. He reached up with it and wiped away the tears that were beginning to well up in his eyes. He was alone now, and he was a mess. He needed a plan — or something he could do —

He took the familiar amulet out from under his shirt and looked at it for a few steps. It was beautiful but also plain, just polished stone and refined copper. It was a winged beetle, carved thousands of years ago — and it could do things. He wasn't sure exactly what, but there was no doubt it was special.

Mom must have known, he thought. Why didn't she tell me? She'd always protected him, he knew that, but had she always kept him in the dark, too? He shook the thought out of his head and felt the amulet's silver chain scratch against his neck. He reached up for it again. "All right, little beetle," he said softly, "let's see what you can do."

He looked around him, in front and behind, and waited for a lone jogger to pass. He closed his left hand around the scarab, a sense of anticipation, of something about to happen, tingling through him. His mind raced and his pulse revved. He took the last of the ebbing adrenaline inside his body and focused it.

Alex pushed his right hand out toward the top of a nearby tree, thick with fat green summer leaves. A leaf began to whip. Then the whole branch started to sway. He tightened his grip and pointed his fingers, and the leaves began to tear free and fly off into the softly glowing New York night, and it was so unbelievable that Alex couldn't help but laugh at the strangeness of it. He released the amulet and looked at his hand. Yep, he thought, that really happened.

He kept walking and breathed deeply. He had a lot of practice with that. His pulse began to slow; his nerves began to calm. He missed the rush before it was even fully gone. A single word formed in his racing mind: dangerous. After a lifetime of caution, he kind of liked the sound of that.

What else could it do? Todtman had done something to Al-Dab'u's mind.

"Get out of my head"? Isn't that what he'd said? Is that how he beat him? Another jogger passed. Alex held the scarab and touched his other hand to his temple. He looked at the jogger, her ponytail swinging left-right, left-right as she ran. Turn around, he thought. TURN AROUND. Nothing. Hop! he tried. Jump! Nothing. She turned the corner and was gone.

Either his amulet didn't work that way, or he wasn't doing it right. And now his head was starting to hurt, too. The rush he liked. The headache, not so much. He let go of the amulet and walked on in silence toward his aunt and uncle's apartment. The darkness was full of eerie rustlings, but Alex was too exhausted to care.

As he approached the west side of the park, he saw a group of people clustered near a streetlight by the entrance. They were looking down at something on the ground. It took Alex a moment to realize it was a person. He hurried over, taking out his cell phone as he ran.

"What's wrong with her?" said a man in a Yankees cap.

"She says she was bitten," said an old lady holding a very small dog.

"Bitten?" said the man.

"Look at her leg," said a younger woman.

Alex crowded in. It was the jogger from before. He had a flash of panic: Did I do that? But when he saw the wound, he knew he hadn't. There was a swollen red circle just above her ankle. The jogger had her eyes closed and her teeth clenched.

"Are there any snakes in the park?" said the man as they waited for the ambulance.

The old woman gasped. "I've never seen one here!" she said, holding her little dog tighter.

Alex scanned the ground one last time and caught a sudden jitter of movement at the edge of the streetlight's glow.

Just a quick glimpse of a small, spiky shadow.

Alex would've had no idea what it was.

If he hadn't seen the stinger.