1. The Head of Anubis The Head of Anubis
It was a dreary sort of day, the kind made for dozing on the couch. (Did your parents say the park is closed? It’s not. They’re just too lazy to take you. Not that I would ever call your parents lazy…) And that’s exactly what the residents of Appleton, England, were doing in their cozy little homes: napping. But there was one house that was anything but sleepy; in fact, today it was downright lively.
Sprawling, peeling and crumbling like a cookie, this particular house—or I should say, mansion—did nothing to endear itself to the neighbors.
“I saw a spider as big as a hubcap walking up the front path, cool as you please,” said Mrs. Next Door, eyeing the cobweb-shrouded door with a shudder.
“That’s nothing,” replied Mrs. Across the Street. “Yesterday, a statue—ugly thing with horns—fell right off the roof.” She didn’t mention that she’d distinctly heard it say, “That’s the last time I let Bob help me fix the chimney.” (The amount of energy grown-ups spend pretending that monsters don’t exist is truly astonishing.)
“Makes you wonder what kind of people would live there,” Mr. Down the Road added.
Of course, people wouldn’t—and didn’t—live there; the members of the London MLM did. And at that very moment, they (unlike their nosy neighbors) were very busy indeed.
In the kitchen, Wilhelmina, the resident witch, was sweating over a cauldron, the contents of which smelled faintly of sage.
In the attic, the operatic ghost, Figaro, was practicing his scales to the dulcet tones of a xylophone made of crocodile teeth. In the tallest tower, Dracula, that most infamous vampire, was pacing beneath a fluttering cloud of bats, a letter bearing the initials HQ clutched in his cold, bloodless hands. But it is in the Ancient Curse Breaking Room that our story begins.
The Ancient Curse Breaking Room was rather spooky, even for a haunted mansion. The cavernous chamber called to mind a vast, gilded cave: The windowless walls were etched with Egyptian hieroglyphics and dotted with weapons, while dozens of painted sarcophagi lined the perimeter. A towering stone jaguar took up one corner, occasionally letting out a tremendous roar whenever he felt things were getting a bit too quiet. In another, Mummy the mummy was working at a desk made from the curved tusks of a woolly mammoth. Sitting beside her was a ten-year-old girl with grass-green eyes and curly red hair in want of brushing: Theodora Hendrix, of course.
Theodora was the reason the MLM was under investigation in the first place: when the monsters found her abandoned in a graveyard and adopted her some ten years previously, they’d broken Headquarters’ Rule Number One: Keep monsters hidden from humans. They got away with it, too—until a hag named Hilda had threatened to reveal their secret. The London MLM had no choice but to take matters into their own hands and had reported themselves to Headquarters. Luckily, Headquarters hadn’t punished them, reasoning that, while the monsters had broken the first rule, they had upheld Rule Number Two: Protect humans from bad monsters. However, they wanted to be certain that there was no pattern of rule breaking—hence the inspector’s imminent arrival.
At the moment, Theodora wasn’t concerned about the inspector, nor her investigation; she was concerned about the scary—no, frightening—no, horror-fying—sight before her. (I suggest skipping ahead a few pages if you’re squeamish.)
On the desk stood a clay figurine with the head of a jackal and the body of a man. It was twenty-five centimeters tall and its eyes were aglow, a stream of emerald smoke pouring from its mouth.
“Who dares to disturb me?” demanded the little statue.
The tiny hairs on the back of Theodora’s neck stood on end; the figurine’s mouth hadn’t moved. Despite this, its voice was booming, as if ten voices were speaking instead of one.
“Who dares to disturb me?” the statue repeated menacingly.
Mummy straightened, carefully tucking a loose strand of bandage behind her ear. “It is I, Mummy. Begging your pardon, Anubis, but we’re in need of your assistance.”
“Mummy, hmm? What assistance do you seek?”
In reply, Mummy opened an intricately carved, velvet-lined box. From its depths she withdrew a dazzling string of jewels, the oversized stones clinking together like wine glasses. “These have just arrived. There was no note. We’re going to examine them for magical properties, but first, can you please tell us if they’ve been tampered with, or cursed?”
Mummy took curses very seriously. The worst punishment Theodora had ever received was after she’d accidentally released one into the mansion. She’d been banned from the Ancient Curse Breaking Room ever since, unless she was with Mummy or another responsible monster. In effect, this meant she was only allowed in if she was with Mummy, because the others simply refused to enter.
“Meow!” Bandit, the masked vampire-cat, would tell his best friend Georgie, the zombie, whenever it came up. Now, I don’t speak cat, but I think what he said must have been something along the lines of, “That room has too many weapons and not enough mice and I don’t like it at all, not one little bit!”
“Eurg,” Georgie would reply with a shudder.
“Mew?” Bandit would ask, meaning, “I don’t understand why you don’t like sarcophagi, Georgie. They’re just like coffins and you love napping in those. Still, there’s something creepy about that room—lately, I’ve had the feeling that I’m being watched, even when it’s supposed to be empty.…”
The friends would exchange uneasy glances, tacitly agreeing to say no more about it.
Mummy, however, did not mind the abundance of weapons or the lack of mice and was wholly unbothered by the presence of sarcophagi, given that her own was among those in the chamber. Yes, she was perfectly at ease in the Ancient Curse Breaking Room—even when being ordered about by a tiny statue.
“Place it around my neck,” Anubis commanded in his thunderous voice, causing Theodora to jump.
Of course, this was impossible, as the necklace was meant to be worn by a fully grown adult and not a small figurine. Mummy wisely didn’t point this out, laying the jewels on the desk so that Anubis was positioned in the middle of the circle of gleaming stones.
There was a sudden bang, loud as a cannon. Mummy didn’t bat an eyelid, but Theodora was so startled she slid right off her seat. Looking up, she was met by a rather alarming sight: Anubis’s head was no longer attached to his body. It was upside down, teeth clamped onto a fat, shimmering ruby. With another bang, he flopped, head over neck, onto a glittering sapphire. On he went, nibbling on each of the stones as if tasting them. (Are you all right? You look a bit queasy—you’ll need to buck up if you’re going to make it as an agent.)
“It’s not been tampered with,” said the head of Anubis, reattaching itself to its body with a final bang. “And I don’t think it’s cursed—but you should still test it, just to be sure.”
“Perfect,” said Mummy, relieved.
Anubis didn’t reply. The light in his eyes had vanished; he appeared to have gone to sleep.
“And now to examine the amulet,” said Mummy. “That’s where you come in, Theodora.”
“How?” she asked eagerly, dusting herself off. Assisting Mummy in the Ancient Curse Breaking Room was one of her favorite things to do; it made her feel very grown-up indeed, being entrusted with such important work. Of course, she suspected that Mummy didn’t really need her help (she’d been breaking curses for thousands of years before Theodora was even born), but even so, it was nice to spend some time together, just the two of them.
“With this,” said Mummy, smiling mysteriously as she slid the desk drawer open. She withdrew an object that resembled a magnifying glass: it had a large, circular lens mounted onto a golden handle dotted with hieroglyphics. The only difference, really, was that the lens wasn’t clear—there was something inside it: a bright blue eyeball, identical to the one the monsters used in place of a doorbell (good thing Mrs. Across the Street had never noticed that).
“It’s a Sight Extender,” Mummy explained, passing it to Theodora. “Hold it over the necklace. If the eye turns red, then the artifact is cursed. If it turns yellow, it’s not.”
Theodora did as instructed, gripping the Sight Extender in both hands. After a moment, the eye glowed yellow, shining so brilliantly it looked as if she were holding a tiny sun.
“Thank darkness,” said Mummy. “I was almost sure it was cursed when I held it.”
“Pardon, madam,” called a deep, mournful voice from the doorway. It could only belong to Helter-Skelter, the mansion’s skeletal butler. “Dracula has requested your presence in his tower.”
Mummy frowned. “I’d better see what’s going on,” she said, placing the jewels and the Sight Extender back on the desk, one on top of the other. She stood, motioning for Theodora to do the same. “We’ll finish this later, okay?”
As Theodora and Mummy hurried from the room, neither noticed that the Sight Extender was no longer glowing yellow, but burning an angry, vivid red.…
But someone did.
