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he thought he had to go out looking for me. I’d texted him and everything. “When will he be back?”
    Horus scowled. “You think he told me?”
    â€œNot really.” Horus and Gil tolerated each other at best. At worst, they fought over the best ways to protect me—not like I needed protecting.
    I looked down at the shabtis. Those not cleaning up the beetle remains stood at attention under the coffee table. “Can you get me a soda?” My throat was parched.
    Colonel Cody threw himself to the ground. “Nothing would give me more pleasure.” He snapped his fingers, and two shabtis I called Lieutenant Virgil and Lieutenant Leon ran off to the kitchen. They were painted solid blue and were almost always the ones who brought me drinks or snacks, like that was their specialty.
    Since our town house was smaller than my tomb, the two shabtis were back in less than a minute. Lieutenant Virgil balanced a glass full of ice on his blue head, and Lieutenant Leon held a soda. They set the items on the coffee table and returned to their perch below.
    â€œBack to Horemheb,” Horus said. “Tell me about the obelisk.”
    â€œHow did you hear—?”
    Horus stopped me with a paw in the air. “Tut, seriously, do you think I’m an idiot? I’m a god. What part of that don’t you understand?”
    â€œBut it just happened like a half hour ago.”
    Horus sighed. “The explosion stunk up the entire city. I can smell Set’s sulfurous stink from miles away.”
    I’d smelled the sulfur, too, right after the obelisk blew up. I waited. I knew what was coming next.
    â€œI told you Set was behind the obelisks,” Horus said. He crossed his front paws and looked at me with his eye. And I do mean eye. Set had ripped out his other one ages ago.
    â€œWhatever,” I said. This wasn’t the time for I-told-you-so’s.
    A low hiss came from Horus’s throat. “Not whatever, Tut. You need to start listening to me. If you’d believed me when I said the Cult of Set was behind the obelisks, this never would have happened.”
    â€œStop treating me like a child,” I said.
    â€œWhy shouldn’t I?” Horus said. “You’ve been acting like you’re fourteen for the last three millennia.”
    I took a sip of my soda. “That’s because I am fourteen.”
    â€œWell, maybe it’s time you grew up.”
    â€œThat’s not the point,” I said.
    â€œAnd what is?” Horus said. “Horemheb? So he’s back. What makes you think you can kill him now? Didn’t you already try that once?”
    â€œThis time is going to be different. I feel it inside.” I tried to keep my scarab heart calm inside my chest. “So how can I kill an immortal?”
    â€œYou can’t,” Horus said. But he’d stopped moving his tail. Horus never stopped moving his tail. Not even when he slept.
    â€œWhat aren’t you telling me?” I asked.
    â€œNothing, Tut,” Horus said. But his tail still wasn’t moving.
    â€œI know you’re lying. You stopped moving your tail and that’s what you always do when you lie.”
    â€œI don’t lie,” Horus said.
    â€œYou did just the other day when you were talking to Gil. Remember? He asked you about the beetle shells under his pillow and you told him you had nothing to do with it.”
    Horus started flicking his tail back and forth again. “That wasn’t a lie. The shabtis put them there.”
    â€œYou told them to.”
    â€œThat’s a technicality,” Horus said.
    â€œStill, there is some way to kill an immortal, and you’re not telling me what it is,” I said.
    â€œWhy would I not tell you?” To Horus’s credit, his tail only stopped moving for a microsecond.
    â€œI don’t know,” I said. “It seems to me that you’d want Horemheb gone as much as I do. He’s