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uncle. I’d hoped—okay, actually I’d prayed—that somehow Horemheb had been destroyed when the tomb was opened. That maybe dung beetles had eaten him. Or he’d been buried in a sandstorm. But deep down, I knew better. If I was immortal, he was immortal. It meant you got to live forever. Which was fine for me, but not for my murderous uncle. He didn’t deserve immortality. He didn’t deserve anything but death. And now he was back in my world.
    Immortal life was looking up.
    *   *   *
    â€œI’m going to kill Horemheb,” I told Horus once I got back to my town house. My scarab heart was pumped full of energy, and the man who’d killed my family had finally surfaced after three thousand years. Revenge was going to be mine.
    Horus stared at me from the futon, flipping his tail back and forth.
    â€œAnd how exactly are you going to do that?” he said.
    That was the only problem with my plan: I didn’t have one. Since Horemheb was immortal like me, then there was no way I knew of to actually kill him. The only upside of that was that there was no way for him to kill me, either.
    â€œI’m working on it,” I said.
    â€œHope you have a direct line to Bes, then, because you’re going to need some luck,” Horus said.
    Sadly, praying to the god of luck was my only option at the moment.
    I guess this would be a good time to mention that Horus isn’t really a cat. Well he is a cat, but not only a cat. That’s just the form he prefers to stay in most of the time. He’s actually a god, son of Osiris and Isis who, without getting too technical, are the king and queen gods. Oh, and also, Horus can talk. Sometimes too much.
    I collapsed on the futon, brushing aside scarab beetle exoskeletons on my way. After three millennia, I knew Horus well enough to know that he had no intention of cleaning up after himself.
    â€œCouldn’t you at least eat the shells?” I asked.
    He licked his paw. “Too crunchy.”
    I grabbed for a scarab shell, but the leader of the shabtis—I called him Colonel Cody—jumped on my wrist and tore it away. Scarab beetles follow me everywhere, even without me having to summon them. It was all thanks to Osiris. The fact that Horus ate them just made for a win-win situation.
    â€œPlease, Great Pharaoh, allow your undeserving servants to do that for you,” Colonel Cody said.
    So I let go. Who was I to argue with the shabtis? I’d found the shabtis—or they’d found me—after my tomb was opened back in 1922. I wasn’t sure how I ever lived without them.
    Horus licked his paw again. “See, the shabtis will clean up. They’re meant to serve us.”
    â€œMe,” I corrected. “They’re meant to serve me.” After all, they’d come from my tomb.
    I want to point something out. I’m not just some egotistical jerk who likes to order people around—even if they are only six inches tall and made of clay. I’d asked the shabtis not to fall on the ground when I spoke. I’d asked them not to threaten to take their own lives if the toilet didn’t get cleaned five seconds after I’d used it. But after years I’d finally come to the conclusion that they had to act this way; the spells written all over them bound them to me forever.
    â€œIs Gil home?” I asked. He’d want to know about this Horemheb thing, too.
    â€œHe was,” Horus said. “But then he went out looking for you.” He squashed a beetle between his teeth, squirting the inside into his mouth and tossing the shell back onto the floor.
    Gil was the only other immortal I knew of, because I was definitely not counting Horemheb. But unlike me, Gil got lucky and was eighteen forever. Gil lived here and pretended to be my brother and legal guardian, which kept Social Services away.
    â€œI told him I was going to be late,” I said. I wasn’t sure why