Isaac grabbed her wrist. “No. She will kill you, too. Can you not see that she has powers beyond what Moriarty dreamed of? You will not help your friends by dying yourself.”
Mary wrenched her wrist from his grasp and crouched down again. He was right, she had to admit he was right, but she could not just stay here, doing nothing! Her wrist ached where he had grabbed it.
“I am, my queen,” said Mrs. Raymond, replying to Queen Tera. Instead of kneeling as Margaret had, she bowed low for a moment. “I have waited all my life for a glimpse of the powers you wield, and to avenge myself upon my father, who gave me just so much, and no more, of them.”
“Do not call me Queen until I sit upon the throne of your British Empire, heir to the Roman Empire of old. Call me Tera. Your language falls strangely on my tongue—it is an ugly language, without the mellifluous tones of Egyptian or Greek. So did the Roman tongue sound to my ears, when Octavian’s soldiers came.”
She looked around at the exhibition hall. “Shall we remain here, Margaret? Rise, and let us plan for the conquest of the known world.”
“No, Tera.” Margaret stood up again. “My house by the ocean is prepared for us, and we have a plan—Helen and I have it all figured out. If only Moriarty could have known what we were going to pull off! I would have liked to see his face when he realized—well, maybe he did, in those final moments. We’re putting his plan in motion, but for an entirely different purpose. It will be England not for Englishmen, but for us and whoever decides to join us—your loyal followers, my Queen. Within a week you will sit upon the throne in Buckingham Palace.”
Mrs. Raymond had once again grabbed Alice’s hand. She paid no attention to Sherlock Holmes. Although he was sitting, he still seemed unsteady, as though the effect of whatever drug he had been under had not yet worn off. “Come, Lydia. Meet your future Queen. She will rule this country better than it has ever been ruled, make it stronger than it has ever been. It will become the greatest empire the world has ever known.”
“And what of them?” Queen Tera was looking at Mary and Diana.
“They are irrelevant,” said Margaret. “I suggest you burn them up in your fire, leaving their ashes to scatter through these halls, as the ashes of Moriarty and his followers are doing even now.”
“No!” cried Alice. “You can’t do that! Not to Mary!”
At that, Holmes sprang up. He no longer seemed so unsteady on his long spider’s legs. It looked as though he was going to leap at Queen Tera! No, he must not—the Egyptian Queen would strike him down, just as she had Justine.
Mary lifted Isaac Mandelbaum’s revolver and pointed it at the platform. It was a .32, not her usual small but very effective .22 caliber revolver. She would have to aim carefully, adjusting for its harder kickback. She had Queen Tera in her sights. She did not want to injure either Alice or Sherlock Holmes. Carefully, carefully, she squeezed the trigger.
Bang! Bang! What was that? She had not yet fired. No, it was the doors of the exhibition hall, which had burst open and hit the walls behind them. Pouring through the doorway were the Baker Street boys, led by a tall, wild-haired boy who was yelling, “Charlie! Dennys! Get Mr. Holmes. Some of you fellows go to Diana. She’ll tell you what to do. The rest of you, with me!”
Here was the cavalry, come to save them in the shape of a group of ragged street urchins and ragamuffins! For a moment, Mary blessed all the poor, dirty boys of London. Then she thought, Queen Tera is going to kill them all. She must take out the Egyptian Queen. She aimed again—but now there were Baker Street boys in the way. She could no longer get a clear shot.
“It’s Wiggins!” said Diana. “Well, he took his bloody time. Wiggins, get Holmes and Alice, and don’t forget Justine! She’s on the floor—get her out of here! And then we’re going to tear that naked mummy limb from limb.”
On the platform, Queen Tera looked with astonishment at the stream of dirty boys rapidly spreading across the floor of the exhibition room. Holmes sprang toward her, but she waved her hand in his direction and he was hurled back, as though by a wave that had struck him in the chest. Mary could see Alice kneeling down beside him. Then, Queen Tera raised her hands. Multicolored waves rose around her. They swirled as though a wind were blowing them about. Mary heard a roar like the waves of the ocean. A rising tide of light surged around the platform, sparkling and flaring with all the colors of the rainbow, like small firecrackers going off.
Startled, the Baker Street boys fell back, staring at one another and then at Wiggins, wondering what to do. Was Tera going to blast them all?
If Mary could not shoot, then she must join the melee. If she and Isaac Mandelbaum both rushed Queen Tera, perhaps the mummy would only be able to take out one of them at a time and the other could get through? Although Mary remembered lightning coming out of her seven fingers at once… Nevertheless, they had to do something.
“Come on,” she said, but suddenly realized that Isaac Mandelbaum was not there. Only Diana sat beside her. The coward had run away! Perhaps he was not working with Mycroft after all? Perhaps he had simply been one of Moriarty’s henchmen, and had left to betray them to his other confederates.
“I’m with you!” said Diana. She had Isaac’s knife in her hand. “Let’s go get that Egyptian bitch!”
But the wind had grown so high and loud that Mary felt as though she were in the middle of a tornado. When she rose, it almost knocked her down again. Even if it were a good idea for her and Diana to rush the platform, they could not have.
“Bloody hell!” shouted Diana. Her hair was whipping in the wind like a red halo around her head.
Mary grabbed Diana’s hand. “Hold on!” she said. “Just hold on to me.”
Suddenly, the sound of rushing waves ceased. The waves of light that had surrounded the platform died down. Lower and lower the waves fell, finally swirling around the floor like water going into a drain, until they disappeared entirely. The exhibition room looked exactly as it had when Mary first entered it, except that now it was filled with Baker Street boys, looking around the room, puzzled.
Justine was still lying on the floor, in front of the platform with Queen Tera’s sarcophagus on it. Wiggins was standing beside her. Queen Tera, Mrs. Raymond, Margaret Trelawny, Mr. Holmes, and Alice were all gone.
There was a noise outside the door. In burst Isaac Mandelbaum, followed by a group of men in the blue uniform of the Metropolitan Police. “I have brought help!” he said. He looked around the room, now filled with boys. “What has happened here?”
“That was exactly what I was wondering,” said the man who walked in behind them. He had bright red hair and a frown that seemed to have permanently creased his forehead. “What are you doing here, Wiggins? And where is Mr. Holmes?” Then he saw Mary and Diana. “Oh, it’s you again. As soon as I got out of bed this morning, I knew it was going to be a bad day. Why don’t you explain to me what sort of mischief you’ve been up to this time?”
That was the very last thing Mary wanted to do. She was tired and heartsick. Once again, they had lost Alice and Sherlock, and Justine was—wounded? Dead? She braced herself for the interrogation she knew was coming, and said, “Good morning, Inspector Lestrade.”