Force of Nature ▸ House of Anubis [3]

chapter thirty-one. house of close calls

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            Chessie em hotep. Chessie em hotep. Chessie em hotep. Chessie em hotep. Chessie em hotep. Chessie em hotep. Chessie em hotep. Chessie em hotep. Chessie em hotep.

            When the blue lightning on the inside of the tank stops flickering all of a sudden, the four of us become completely still, staring at it. Did we do it? I can't tell if we did it. Fabian whispers, asking if it's worked. I shrug. He asks if he's awake. Again, I shrug.

            Seeing if we woke someone from an eternal coma using a chanting incantation in ancient Egyptian is more difficult than I thought.

            "One of you," KT says to Eddie and me, "say something."

            Eddie counters, "You say something."

            "You're the Osirian, and—and the Bringer of Death."

            "Well, you're his great-granddaughter by blood," I remind her, taking a deep breath as I look back to Frobisher's face in the tank. Well, one of us has to do it and I don't think anyone else is gonna volunteer. "I'll do it. Someone please catch me if I get scared." I step toward the tank, clasping my hands in front of me as I stand on my toes to speak to him. "So... hey, I guess."

            "Ashley, stop whispering," Fabian says, but he's still whispering. I glare at him. "He's in a tank, he's not gonna hear—"

            "Oh, if I end up yelling, it's gonna be out of horror—"

            "Oh, get out of my way," Eddie mumbles, pushing me backwards from the tank and taking my spot in front of it. Thank God. I really didn't want my voice to be the first one Robert Frobisher-Smythe hears and registers in the twenty-first century. Eddie takes out his phone and switches on the built-in torch, shining it across the face. He speaks warily, louder than I did, "Mr. Frobisher-Smythe. Hello?" No reaction from the man inside the tank. "Hello?" Eddie shakes his head. "Nope. Nothing, okay. He's still sleeping like a baby."

            We failed.

            I don't get it. We did everything right. We translated the incantation and chanted it around the zombie in the tank. We waited until nightfall. What did we do wrong?

            "Are you sure?" Fabian asks, speaking in his normal voice as he looks at the tank himself. "No, no, no. No, it has to have worked, surely."

            "It didn't, Fabian," I say. "We did something wrong. Although I have no idea what."

            "Then can we please get out of here?" KT asks. I turn back to her, finding that she's trying to mask the disappointment and sadness in her eyes. She wanted it to work, she wanted to know him. I don't blame her. She must have a million questions about her family. Kind of like me. "This place is giving me the creeps."

            "Are we forgetting something?" Eddie questions as KT walks around us and to the crypt's locked exit. "Your fabulous idea to have us locked in here. Remember?"

            "We just have to wait until Patricia and Alfie come," I tell KT. She comes back around and sits down on the ground, where we were before Fabian spotted the moon. "We'll figure this out, KT. We just got to look at everything with fresh eyes. We'll start again in the morning."

—

            It's been ten minutes since we realized we didn't succeed in reawakening Robert Frobisher-Smythe. All we've been doing is waiting for Patricia and Alfie to finally come around, which is taking longer than I expected. I'm sitting next to KT, rubbing her shoulder, but otherwise, it's quiet in the creepy crypt.

            "I heard something," Fabian says out of nowhere, lowering his voice to a whisper.

            I perk up, hoping it's Trixie and Alfredo chatting as they come to help us out. But as soon as I hear what Fabian did, my face falls. It's Victor's voice. He's somewhere near here! I jump up from my spot, taking a moment to locate the direction it's coming from. The south end of the room, near the ceiling, I tell them as we go over to it.

            "Here's the crypt," Victor's voice says, and he's definitely not alone. Sweetie and Denby are with him, no doubt, and if they catch us with the tank, or if they catch the tank at all, the whole world is literally doomed. "Watch your step."

            "It's Victor," Fabian recognizes, turning to us with wide eyes.

            "He's not alone, either," I add, shaking my head. "What do we do?"

            "No door handle," the evil one's voice continues. "How do we get in? Amulet?"

            The four of us are frozen in place as we hear them argue about how to get in. Then we hear a thud, which came after Sweet suggested brute force, leading me to conclude that someone tried to break the door down with their body. Probably Sweet. But it didn't work, because then we hear Sweet remark it's well-sealed. Looks like we've got some time.

            "We could try one of the grates," Eddie suggests, snapping his fingers as he runs to one. It's as good a plan as any. That leads to us kneeling in front of the grate he chose, pulling on it to see if it would break free and let us out. Only thing is, we can't get it open. Not with me and Fabian pulling on opposite ends of it, not when Eddie tries to help us. We have maybe five minutes before they get in.

            KT steps backwards and her foot hits a set of chains attached to a padlock. Fabian says harshly, "Shush, they'll hear us."

            The trio of evil's taking to hitting something non-living against the door, and it sounds like it's working. KT looks at us frantically. "What are we gonna do?"

            I glance back as a lightbulb in that thing Fabian calls a brain lights up and he grabs the chains KT hit, hitting my and Eddie's shoulders. "Hey, over here, reinforcements. Take this. Lock the door—that door!"

            Fabian locks the chain part of it to the knobs of a wooden door directly across from the one Eddie's locking the padlock to. KT and I share a glance as they do so, and when they finish, Eddie says to us, "Okay, we just have to hope that they don't get through before Patricia comes."

            If it were any other time, I'd remark on how he completely forgot Alfie existed in favor of Patricia. But as we hear another bang from where the door is, I make a quick note in the back of my mind to bring it up when we're out of danger, whether out of danger means the last day we're on school grounds or on our first day in the afterlife.

            The next thing we hear other than the bangs from the adults trying to get in is a fire alarm. "That's a fire alarm," KT states. "And we're trapped in a crypt that's locked."

            "It's not here," I assure her, confident on that. It'd be blaringly loud if it were anywhere near where we were. It's probably coming from one of the school's houses—Atticus Monroe probably set something on fire, like he's wont to do.

            "It's miles away," Fabian adds. "Don't worry. Actually, I think it might be coming from the house."

            "You think the house is on fire?" I ask him, an image of Anubis House with smoke crawling out flashing in my mind. That's not a good thought.

            "It's cool," Eddie says. "Stay calm, okay? It'll be fine. I bet Yacker has something to do with it."