Amulet of Doom by Bruce Coville

coffin.
    â€œWill you help us get out from under this?” asked Kyle, his voice testy.
    â€œI can’t!” snapped Zenobia. “I haven’t learned how to move things yet. It’s all I can do to materialize.”
    Marilyn, still in a daze, began to come to her senses. Gently she helped Kyle push Zenobia’s now empty body away from them. Then she shoved the amulet into her pocket, got to her feet, and reached down to help him up.
    When he was standing beside her, she turned to her aunt. “Don’t you vanish on me this time,” she said. Though she was trembling, her voice had an angry tone, and her jaw was set in a firm line that made it look remarkably like Zenobia’s. “I think it’s about time you filled me in on a few things!”
    â€œYou’re right,” said Zenobia, looking a little shamefaced. “I should have before. Only I didn’t know much. I only had guesses. I still don’t understand all of it, but I’m beginning to make sense of things.”
    She looked around nervously. “We’ll have to hurry. We won’t have much time before it starts again.”
    Kyle and Marilyn glanced at each other. “Before what starts again?” asked Marilyn.
    â€œSit down,” said Zenobia. “I want to tell you a story.”
    Kyle went to the row of chairs that had been set up for calling hours. He picked up two, then turned back to Zenobia and asked, uncertainly, “Do you want one?”
    Zenobia shrugged. “I have no need to take the weight off my feet,” she said with the ghost of a smile. “I’ll stand.”
    Kyle returned with chairs for himself and Marilyn. He placed them side by side, then took Marilyn’s hand. The two of them sat down together.
    â€œDamn!” said Zenobia. “This isn’t going to be easy. I wish I had a cigar.”
    â€œWe can do without the smell,” said Marilyn impatiently. “Let’s get on with this.”
    â€œAren’t we touchy?” said Zenobia.
    â€œConsidering that I’m sitting in a funeral parlor, which I broke into, in the middle of the night, and having a conversation with a ghost whose body just tried to kill me, I think I’m doing pretty well! Tell me you had an experience that topped this one in all your famous travels.”
    She was holding Kyle’s hand with a crushing grip and pressing herself against him to keep the violence of her trembling from being too visible.
    Zenobia shook her head. “Nope. You’ve got me on that one. I’ve been almost everywhere and never had an experience to top this one. Nothing like your own hometown for a good time.”
    Marilyn made a sound of exasperation.
    â€œAll right, all right,” said Zenobia. “I’ll get on with it. But this isn’t easy, because a lot of it’s my own fault, and I’m going to have to admit to screwing up in a way that I’m not used to.”
    She looked wistfully down to where her body lay on the floor. “If I’d handled things a little better, I might still be inside that, instead of struggling with all my might just to stay visible for you.” She shrugged. “But that’s neither here nor there. What you want to know is, what’s going on.”
    Marilyn nodded.
    â€œWell, I don’t know,” said Zenobia flatly. “At least, not entirely. But I can tell you this much: That amulet is haunted by a demon named Guptas, who was bound to it by the great Suleiman himself.
    â€œWhat Guptas wants most of all is to be free. But he is subject to whoever owns the amulet. If you know how to use it, you can command incredible power.
    â€œBut that’s the problem: knowing how to use it. If you try to summon Guptas without knowing the proper procedures, you can end up in big trouble.”
    â€œWhich is what happened to you?” asked Marilyn.
    Zenobia nodded sheepishly. “I really should have known