Subj: Moonstruck - Chapter 13
Date: 2/24/01 7:39:44 AM Central Standard Time
From: Scarlett
Behind Edith in the doorway, three cult members appeared. “It’s time Quentin, Isabella.” Edith said evilly. She nodded her head and the three cult members came towards them, two of them grabbed Quentin each one taking an arm and the other went over to Isabella and held her tightly pushing her roughly towards the door.
“Hey!” Quentin shouted, trying to break free from his captors but they were amazingly strong. Quentin and Isabella had no choice but to follow.
Edith and the other three cult members took them down a large flight of stone stairs which led far below the temple itself and was lit by torches fixed on the wall on both sides of the passage every few feet giving them plenty of light to see clearly. They came to a large room that had a thick stone door and looked like it was opened and closed by a lever on the left side of the passage. Looking over at his mother Quentin could see the fear in her eyes. As they entered the room the first thing Quentin noticed was the large sarcophagus in the center of the room buried in the shadow of a huge statue of Anubis, at the feet of their god.
One of the cult members closed the door behind them with a duplicate lever
on the inside, sealing them inside. In front of the sarcophagus Quentin noticed
there were 3 circular markings on the floor, each on had a different symbol
in the center of the circle. The middle one was lined up directly in front of
the statue with the other two on both sides. Edith went over and stood on the
circular marking on the left. Quentin just couldn’t believe she was willingly
a part of all this insanity. The man holding Isabella pushed her onto the marking
on the right of the statue, which only left one place for him to stand. Pushing
him hard onto the center marking the cult members
held on to him tightly.
“Were ready to begin.” Said on of the men holding Quentin onto the marking.
The head of the cult appeared from behind the statue of Anubis and walked directly over to Quentin. Removing his headpiece for the first time he signaled something Quentin couldn’t understand to the one remaining cult member standing in the room. Looking at the leader closely Quentin realized that he had seen a picture of him before….yes. It was Mahmud Mukhtar. The man who had sculpted all those glorious busts in the museum dedicated to him resting in Cairo. He was also the man Quentin had wanted to find so badly because Mahmud Mukhtar knew about at least one of the Seven Sacred Stones.
“I am sorry about what we must do but you are not worthy of the gift that was given so graciously to you. You cannot control it. It will be transferred to our leader, Airanubis.” Mahmud Mukhtar told Quentin.
The member he had signaled before came up to Mahmud and gave him a small box then bowed and backed away into the shadows.
Giving Quentin one last look he walked away from him and to the sarcophagus. Setting the box down he bowed before the feet of Anubis and opened the box removing the exact same stone that Quentin had been looking for. So that’s how he had known what it looked like, he had it all along.
Quentin knew that Isabella and himself would have to escape soon if they were going to escape at all, struggling he watched as Mahmud Mukhtar placed the stone inside a small hole in the lid of the sarcophagus. As soon as he did so the sound of rushing air filled the room and the lid of the sarcophagus slid open revealing an ancient mummy wrapped in layers of decaying bandages.
This was definitely their cue to leave, they needed to get away but how?
Mahmud started chanting in ancient Egyptian and one of the members brought him a large rod with a golden disk and other extravagance’s attached to the end of it. As Mahmud held it up Quentin noticed a large stone shaft about him that reached all the way to into the sky above. When Mahmud held the rod at just the right angle a touch of moonlight spilled over Quentin’s face.
His two captors let go of him and one of them revealed a sharp dagger that each one of the cult members seemed to posses.
“Don’t make a move.” One of them whispered to him menacingly as he pressed the dagger harder into the middle of his back.
Casting a quick glance over at Edith he could see she was fully cooperating with the cult of Hermanubis, closing her eyes and chanting with the rest of them. His mother on the other hand was struggling to free herself from the grasp of the cult member holding her captive.
As he watched her it almost seemed as if everything was happening in slow motion, even as Isabella quickly whirled around and reached into her captors cloak, revealing his dagger and shoving deeply into the mans chest forcing him to fall to the ground. One of the cult members behind Quentin left to help his friend with Isabella giving Quentin just enough of a distraction that he was able to spin around and knock the dagger out of the other man’s hand before he even knew what happened. Rushing over to Mahmud Quentin snatched the rod out from his hands and swung it around bringing it into the side of his head. The cult member that was holding the dagger behind him on the circle came forward in a rage but Quentin caught him under the chin with the heavy rod knocking him out cold.
Suddenly a sharp, piercing pain shot through his back bringing him to his knees immediately. He turned around to see that Edith had gotten a hold of one of the daggers and had buried it deeply into his back. Falling onto the floor Quentin looked up to see her smiling down at him wickedly. God, he hated that woman he thought to himself as pain shot through his body.
“You’re not going to ruin this Quentin!” she said to him, grabbing him under the arms and dragging him back to his mark. Intense pain was shooting up his spine as he watched Isabella out of the corner of his eye. She had seen what Edith had done to him and was becoming frantic trying to reach him.
Running over to the rod Edith scooped it off the floor and held it up to the light. Isabella had finally gotten the other cult member taken care of with the dagger and ran over to Quentin with tears in her eyes. “We have to get you out of this circle before Edith finishes the chant.” Isabella explained to Quentin quickly. Using all the strength he could muster he helped Isabella pull himself off the circle just as a flash of intense light came down the shaft, bounced off the rod and straight into the center of the marking on the floor where Quentin was moments before.
As Quentin lay on the floor he could feel the wound in his back healing thanks to the portrait. Silently thanking Charles Delaware Tate Quentin started to sit up.
“I’ll be all right mother but we better get out of here.”
“But you’re hurt! I---“
“No, it will heal in a few minutes, I’ll explain later. Let’s just get out of here!”
Quentin looked up just in time to see one of the most terrifying sights he had ever seen in him enter life. The mummy, Airanubis had gotten the life force from one of the existing cult members when he accidentally wandered into one of the circular marking at the wrong time and he was rising out of his sarcophagus.