"In the Clutches of the Mummy"
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dochermes"In the Clutches of the Mummy"
7/26/1980
I.
Cindy Brunner had never done anything more difficult in her young life than running by herself into the gloom of Necropolis. The atmosphere of dread and despair hung over the ruins like cold heavy fog. After a few minutes, she paused to unseal her war helmet and tug it off, fastening it to its clip high up between her shoulder blades. The helmet gave high level protection against gunfire or other attacks, and its visor enhanced available light to let her see clearly in near-total darkness. But she felt it somehow interfered with her telepathic powers, enough to cut down on their effectiveness, and she could not afford that. Not tonight.
Shaking her dark blonde hair loose around her shoulders, she started running again. To any observer, she would have seemed a helpless victim in this nightmarish city of the dead- a small blonde girl, still a teenager, only an inch over five feet tall, slim and with no signs of toughness in her face. But, unseen within her mind, tremendous power lay ready for use. She made her way down the narrow, twisting street, which was frequently blocked by rubble she had to climb over. Just how old was this city anyway? Jeremy had said that no one knew, that this city had been depopulated by a plague long ago and claimed by no one until the sorceror Damozar had brought his zombies and Ghouls here to stay. She kept her eyes moving warily over the shadows of doorways and arches, not tense but alert.
The rotted hulk of a zombie lurched up not ten feet in front of her, from where it had been lying dead behind a low wall. The thing was in tatters, bones sticking out, in the last stages of usefulness to its masters. Probably it had been discarded here to disintegrate. Against these nearly mindless undead, her telepathy was useless. She had known that and prepared at KDF headquarters by stocking up on weaponry she seldom needed to use. Normally, she only carried a non-lethal anesthetic dart pistol but tonight she wore a full arsenal.
As the undead thing lurched unsteadily to its feet, she involuntarily picked up the remnants of brain activity typical of a zombie. Her concussion gun was in her hand and firing in an instant. The resonance shell hit the zombie in the torso and blew it apart like dry confetti. There was no blood, only dust and scraps.
The dull thump of the shell exploding was not very loud, but in the eerie silence of Necropolis, though, it sounded for a mile. Cindy did not regret shooting, she was not giving her presence away. The masters of these zombies knew she was here. For half an hour, she made her way through the city of the dead, once coming upon three fresher zombies who were dragging bundles down the street. They did not spot her. She was tempted to blow them away with resonance shells but on second thought she did not want to know what was in those bundles they were hauling. She had seen too much already this night.
Despite the seriousness of her mission, her mind kept going back to the others of her team. They had their own assignments this night which had made them scatter. Especially she kept thinking about Jeremy. She could not take working with him like this much longer. All her instincts drove her to try to break down his emotional barriers. The man was living inside a shell that left him hardly alive at all. She had never seen him laugh and she was sure he never cried. Whatever had happened to him early in life had left him wearing emotional armor she could not break through.
Nearing a head-high wall, Cindy slowed and tried to focus. There was no reason for her to be so attracted to him, but there it was. She had had plenty of boyfriends, but he was something new. Maybe it was her basic nature to try to heal broken people with her telepathy and Jeremy Bane was badly damaged inside. He needed her, even if he didn't know it or admit it. Suddenly she shook her head and let out a deep breath. Look where she was, what she was doing and she was mooning over Jeremy again. If she wanted to be alive when dawn came, she had better get with it.
Holstering her gun, she ran lightly forward and leaped up to grasp the top of the wall. Cindy swung her legs to the side and got on top. For the past year, she had been training at Tel Shai, pushing herself harder than she ever thought she could, and she was as fit as any Olympic athlete. To her disgust, she was seen by a guard standing inside the courtyard directly below her. She had not picked up on his brain waves because she had not been concentrating. This was a living man, a beefy Egyptian with long straight hair to his shoulders. As he saw her, he started to shout but all he got out was "Marg-" before Cindy landed on top of him. They tumbled to the stone rubble and she drove an elbow to the back of his neck even as they hit. The sharp crack of bone breaking told her that he would not be getting up again and she was fine with that.
The young telepath got to her feet, running forward. She would need a second to fully take in the confusing scene before her, but that was a second she did not have. Of the four figures standing on the podium flanked by torches, one was making a move her Kumundu training recognized as a threat. He was drawing back one arm, holding a short spear. Before he could cast it, Cindy had drawn and fired. This time, the detonation had gruesome results, with a cloud of blood and a tangle of flesh flying away in all directions. As the man was blown apart, the spear spun away with a clatter.
Cindy swung her gun to cover the remaining three men on that raised platform. "Not a move!" she yelled. "Freeze where you are, boys-" but her voice broke off as she recognized one of the three and a cold jolt formed in her chest. Two of the men standing before her were ordinary, dark-skinned men in robes, with long black hair. But the worst was not.
It was Nebeht, the cursed Mummy. A massive bulk wrapped in ragged filthy linen strips which covered even the withered face. Only two staring red eyes glared at her with undying hatred. Cindy had only glimpsed the Mummy once, and that from a distance, but he was not something to easily forget.
II.
Cindy stood motionless as the monster strode toward her with surprising quickness. He was so big, she thought, way over six feet and heaviily built. The clawlike hands lifted and reached toward her...
And she snapped out of it barely in time. "Hey!" yelped the little blonde as she dropped to the ground and scrambled back out of the way before the massive fingers could do more than graze her neck. Jumping back to her feet, she backed up and shoved the muzzle of the concussion gun directly in the Mummy's shrivelled face.
"You big JERK!" she screamed. "You had me scared for a second."
Nebeht glared malevolently at her, barely able to keep his bloodlust down. He ached to kill her, to break her young body in his hands as he had done to so many others. Yet he had witnessed that the gun she held had done to his servant and he hesitated. Her hand was steady, with no sign of trembling and there was no fear in her face. The momentary paralysis which his appearance always caused was past now.
"Oh, I know all about you," she said. "Nebeht, the Cursed Mummy! You were found in 1903 in the hidden tomb and you have been popping up ever since. I bet you can't even remember how many people you've killed, can you?"
The deepset red eyes narrowed. He's still going to attack, she thought. He wants my death so bad he can't help himself. With her thumb, Cindy switched her pistol to automatic mode so that, when it fired, the entire clip would blast the monster into dust. An instant too late, she picked up on a mind behind her and she started to turn. That made the blow hit high on her shoulder rather than to her head and saved her life, although she was driven to her knees. Turning back to look up at the Egyptian, she blasted out a telepathic surge faster than any physical attack could possibly be. The man convulsed wildly and leaped into the air to drop with his brain burned out inside his skull. Cindy forgot him at once and got to her feet as Nebeht closed in and wrestled the gun from her hand. He was too strong for her to hold onto it, and she watched him fling the weapon far out of reach.
She knew better than to try to use the mace the dead Egyptian had dropped or to draw the combat knife on her thigh. Nebeht's flesh was ossified to a rock-like consistency. Jeremy had explained that only immersion in an alchemical solution during the day kept him flexible enough to move at all. Under those bandages, his skin was tough as leather. Cindy backed up a step,trying to figure out what to do. If he got those paws on her, it would be over fast. He did not breathe more heavily from excitement, because he did not breathe at all. He was as much a zombie as the poor things wandering in the ruins outside this courtyard, but he was a special case with extra strength and determination from the spell which had reanimated him.
As the brute tried to grab her, Cindy dodged and swerved out of reach. She could not keep it up forever. Her foot would slip or he would get her in a corner. The dry hands lunged and she jumped back. The young telepath could only think of one way to defeat this monster and she was not at all certain she could do it. From Tel Shai lore, she knew he was animated by three gremthom amulets under the linen wrappings. She could plainly see the largest one on his chest, barely covered by a strip of cloth. Strapped to her right thigh was a seven-inch knife with a serrated blade. If she could get in close and cut that amulet away before Nebeht killed her, maybe it would make him harmless. But she didn't think she could. She didn't have the reflexes or the experience to pull it off.
As she backed up, some of the rubble slid away from under her boot and she fell on her back, hitting her bruised shoulder. The Mummy snatched her up by both wrists, lifting her to within inches of his face. He smelled like a tomb. Cindy lashed out with all her telepathic force, knowing it wouldn't work but automatically falling back on her greatest gift. Nebeht gave no sign he even felt the wave of unseen power crashing against him but she knew he wouldn't. He was a corpse given life and will by another.
That was the way out! The answer came to her even as the cursed Mummy lifted her by the wrists so she dangled in front of him. Nebeht was not truly alive. He had only been given a semblance of life through forbidden sorcery. With his former master Menekartes gone, the Mummy had to be under the control of somebody else. And there was only one other living person in that courtyard. Cindy turned her dark blue eyes on the robed man standing by the torches. It was over in less than a second. Cindy Brunner launched a lethal bolt of invisible thought that traveled faster than light itself. When it struck the sorceror standing on the raised platform, he was killed as quickly as if he had been hit by mere lightning. Every pathway in his brain burned out at the same time.
As the sorceror fell right on his face in a way no living person would, Nebeht stiffened and reverted to being a lifeless petrified corpse again. "Goddam," Cindy said out loud. That was just a little too close. She was still hanging with her wrists held up overhead by the stony hands that had been about to crush her. She felt faint with relief. Then an unhappy thought struck her. She could not pry those fingers off her. They were as hard as rock. How was she going to get loose? "Everything happens to me," she grumbled.
5/6/2013
7/26/1980
I.
Cindy Brunner had never done anything more difficult in her young life than running by herself into the gloom of Necropolis. The atmosphere of dread and despair hung over the ruins like cold heavy fog. After a few minutes, she paused to unseal her war helmet and tug it off, fastening it to its clip high up between her shoulder blades. The helmet gave high level protection against gunfire or other attacks, and its visor enhanced available light to let her see clearly in near-total darkness. But she felt it somehow interfered with her telepathic powers, enough to cut down on their effectiveness, and she could not afford that. Not tonight.
Shaking her dark blonde hair loose around her shoulders, she started running again. To any observer, she would have seemed a helpless victim in this nightmarish city of the dead- a small blonde girl, still a teenager, only an inch over five feet tall, slim and with no signs of toughness in her face. But, unseen within her mind, tremendous power lay ready for use. She made her way down the narrow, twisting street, which was frequently blocked by rubble she had to climb over. Just how old was this city anyway? Jeremy had said that no one knew, that this city had been depopulated by a plague long ago and claimed by no one until the sorceror Damozar had brought his zombies and Ghouls here to stay. She kept her eyes moving warily over the shadows of doorways and arches, not tense but alert.
The rotted hulk of a zombie lurched up not ten feet in front of her, from where it had been lying dead behind a low wall. The thing was in tatters, bones sticking out, in the last stages of usefulness to its masters. Probably it had been discarded here to disintegrate. Against these nearly mindless undead, her telepathy was useless. She had known that and prepared at KDF headquarters by stocking up on weaponry she seldom needed to use. Normally, she only carried a non-lethal anesthetic dart pistol but tonight she wore a full arsenal.
As the undead thing lurched unsteadily to its feet, she involuntarily picked up the remnants of brain activity typical of a zombie. Her concussion gun was in her hand and firing in an instant. The resonance shell hit the zombie in the torso and blew it apart like dry confetti. There was no blood, only dust and scraps.
The dull thump of the shell exploding was not very loud, but in the eerie silence of Necropolis, though, it sounded for a mile. Cindy did not regret shooting, she was not giving her presence away. The masters of these zombies knew she was here. For half an hour, she made her way through the city of the dead, once coming upon three fresher zombies who were dragging bundles down the street. They did not spot her. She was tempted to blow them away with resonance shells but on second thought she did not want to know what was in those bundles they were hauling. She had seen too much already this night.
Despite the seriousness of her mission, her mind kept going back to the others of her team. They had their own assignments this night which had made them scatter. Especially she kept thinking about Jeremy. She could not take working with him like this much longer. All her instincts drove her to try to break down his emotional barriers. The man was living inside a shell that left him hardly alive at all. She had never seen him laugh and she was sure he never cried. Whatever had happened to him early in life had left him wearing emotional armor she could not break through.
Nearing a head-high wall, Cindy slowed and tried to focus. There was no reason for her to be so attracted to him, but there it was. She had had plenty of boyfriends, but he was something new. Maybe it was her basic nature to try to heal broken people with her telepathy and Jeremy Bane was badly damaged inside. He needed her, even if he didn't know it or admit it. Suddenly she shook her head and let out a deep breath. Look where she was, what she was doing and she was mooning over Jeremy again. If she wanted to be alive when dawn came, she had better get with it.
Holstering her gun, she ran lightly forward and leaped up to grasp the top of the wall. Cindy swung her legs to the side and got on top. For the past year, she had been training at Tel Shai, pushing herself harder than she ever thought she could, and she was as fit as any Olympic athlete. To her disgust, she was seen by a guard standing inside the courtyard directly below her. She had not picked up on his brain waves because she had not been concentrating. This was a living man, a beefy Egyptian with long straight hair to his shoulders. As he saw her, he started to shout but all he got out was "Marg-" before Cindy landed on top of him. They tumbled to the stone rubble and she drove an elbow to the back of his neck even as they hit. The sharp crack of bone breaking told her that he would not be getting up again and she was fine with that.
The young telepath got to her feet, running forward. She would need a second to fully take in the confusing scene before her, but that was a second she did not have. Of the four figures standing on the podium flanked by torches, one was making a move her Kumundu training recognized as a threat. He was drawing back one arm, holding a short spear. Before he could cast it, Cindy had drawn and fired. This time, the detonation had gruesome results, with a cloud of blood and a tangle of flesh flying away in all directions. As the man was blown apart, the spear spun away with a clatter.
Cindy swung her gun to cover the remaining three men on that raised platform. "Not a move!" she yelled. "Freeze where you are, boys-" but her voice broke off as she recognized one of the three and a cold jolt formed in her chest. Two of the men standing before her were ordinary, dark-skinned men in robes, with long black hair. But the worst was not.
It was Nebeht, the cursed Mummy. A massive bulk wrapped in ragged filthy linen strips which covered even the withered face. Only two staring red eyes glared at her with undying hatred. Cindy had only glimpsed the Mummy once, and that from a distance, but he was not something to easily forget.
II.
Cindy stood motionless as the monster strode toward her with surprising quickness. He was so big, she thought, way over six feet and heaviily built. The clawlike hands lifted and reached toward her...
And she snapped out of it barely in time. "Hey!" yelped the little blonde as she dropped to the ground and scrambled back out of the way before the massive fingers could do more than graze her neck. Jumping back to her feet, she backed up and shoved the muzzle of the concussion gun directly in the Mummy's shrivelled face.
"You big JERK!" she screamed. "You had me scared for a second."
Nebeht glared malevolently at her, barely able to keep his bloodlust down. He ached to kill her, to break her young body in his hands as he had done to so many others. Yet he had witnessed that the gun she held had done to his servant and he hesitated. Her hand was steady, with no sign of trembling and there was no fear in her face. The momentary paralysis which his appearance always caused was past now.
"Oh, I know all about you," she said. "Nebeht, the Cursed Mummy! You were found in 1903 in the hidden tomb and you have been popping up ever since. I bet you can't even remember how many people you've killed, can you?"
The deepset red eyes narrowed. He's still going to attack, she thought. He wants my death so bad he can't help himself. With her thumb, Cindy switched her pistol to automatic mode so that, when it fired, the entire clip would blast the monster into dust. An instant too late, she picked up on a mind behind her and she started to turn. That made the blow hit high on her shoulder rather than to her head and saved her life, although she was driven to her knees. Turning back to look up at the Egyptian, she blasted out a telepathic surge faster than any physical attack could possibly be. The man convulsed wildly and leaped into the air to drop with his brain burned out inside his skull. Cindy forgot him at once and got to her feet as Nebeht closed in and wrestled the gun from her hand. He was too strong for her to hold onto it, and she watched him fling the weapon far out of reach.
She knew better than to try to use the mace the dead Egyptian had dropped or to draw the combat knife on her thigh. Nebeht's flesh was ossified to a rock-like consistency. Jeremy had explained that only immersion in an alchemical solution during the day kept him flexible enough to move at all. Under those bandages, his skin was tough as leather. Cindy backed up a step,trying to figure out what to do. If he got those paws on her, it would be over fast. He did not breathe more heavily from excitement, because he did not breathe at all. He was as much a zombie as the poor things wandering in the ruins outside this courtyard, but he was a special case with extra strength and determination from the spell which had reanimated him.
As the brute tried to grab her, Cindy dodged and swerved out of reach. She could not keep it up forever. Her foot would slip or he would get her in a corner. The dry hands lunged and she jumped back. The young telepath could only think of one way to defeat this monster and she was not at all certain she could do it. From Tel Shai lore, she knew he was animated by three gremthom amulets under the linen wrappings. She could plainly see the largest one on his chest, barely covered by a strip of cloth. Strapped to her right thigh was a seven-inch knife with a serrated blade. If she could get in close and cut that amulet away before Nebeht killed her, maybe it would make him harmless. But she didn't think she could. She didn't have the reflexes or the experience to pull it off.
As she backed up, some of the rubble slid away from under her boot and she fell on her back, hitting her bruised shoulder. The Mummy snatched her up by both wrists, lifting her to within inches of his face. He smelled like a tomb. Cindy lashed out with all her telepathic force, knowing it wouldn't work but automatically falling back on her greatest gift. Nebeht gave no sign he even felt the wave of unseen power crashing against him but she knew he wouldn't. He was a corpse given life and will by another.
That was the way out! The answer came to her even as the cursed Mummy lifted her by the wrists so she dangled in front of him. Nebeht was not truly alive. He had only been given a semblance of life through forbidden sorcery. With his former master Menekartes gone, the Mummy had to be under the control of somebody else. And there was only one other living person in that courtyard. Cindy turned her dark blue eyes on the robed man standing by the torches. It was over in less than a second. Cindy Brunner launched a lethal bolt of invisible thought that traveled faster than light itself. When it struck the sorceror standing on the raised platform, he was killed as quickly as if he had been hit by mere lightning. Every pathway in his brain burned out at the same time.
As the sorceror fell right on his face in a way no living person would, Nebeht stiffened and reverted to being a lifeless petrified corpse again. "Goddam," Cindy said out loud. That was just a little too close. She was still hanging with her wrists held up overhead by the stony hands that had been about to crush her. She felt faint with relief. Then an unhappy thought struck her. She could not pry those fingers off her. They were as hard as rock. How was she going to get loose? "Everything happens to me," she grumbled.
5/6/2013
