The Mummy or Ramses the Damned by Anne Rice

and looked out at the street. Please go away, Henry, she thought dully, disconsolately. She didn’t want to hurt her uncle. She didn’t want to hurt anyone. But what could she do? She’d known for years about Randolph’s embezzling. She and her father had discussed it last time she was in Cairo. Of course he had meant to take the situation in hand, always meant. And now it fell to her.
    She turned suddenly. The silence made her uneasy. She saw her cousin standing in the Egyptian room. He was staring at her, his eyes cold and seemingly lifeless.
    “And when you marry Alex, will you disinherit us as well?”
    “For the love of heaven, Henry. Go away and leave me alone.”
    There was something stunning about his expression, aboutthe sheer hardness of his face. He wasn’t young anymore, was he? He looked ancient in his habits and in his guilt and in his self-deception. Have pity, she thought. What can you do to help him? Give him a fortune and it will be gone within a fortnight. She turned round again and looked out into the wintry London street.
    Early passersby. The nurse from across the way with the twins in their wicker carriage. An old man hurrying along with a newspaper under his arm. And the guard, the guard from the British Museum, slouching idly on the front steps just beneath her. And down the street, in front of her uncle Randolph’s, Sally the parlour maid shaking a rug out the front door because she was sure that no one was awake to see.
    Why was there no sound behind her in the double rooms? Why didn’t Henry storm out, slamming the front door? Perhaps he had left, but no, she heard a tiny furtive noise suddenly, a spoon touching china. The damned coffee.
    “I don’t know how it could have come to this,” she said, still gazing at the street before her. “Trust funds, salaries, bonuses, you had everything, both of you.”
    “No, not everything, my dear,” he said. “You have everything.”
    Sound of coffee being poured. For the love of heaven!
    “Look, old girl,” he said, his voice low and strained. “I don’t want this quarrel any more than you do. Come. Sit down. Let’s have a cup of coffee together like civilized people.”
    She couldn’t move. The gesture seemed more sinister than his anger.
    “Come and have a cup of coffee with me, Julie.”
    Was there any way out of it? She turned, her eyes downcast, and moved towards the table, only looking up when it seemed unavoidable, to see Henry facing her, the steaming cup in his outstretched hand.
    There was something unaccountably odd about this, about the way he was offering it to her, about the peculiarly blank expression on his face.
    But this had no more than a second to register. For what she saw behind him caused her to freeze in her tracks. Reason ruled against it, but the evidence of her senses was undeniable.
    The mummy was moving. The mummy’s right arm was outstretched, the torn wrappings hanging from it, as the being stepped out of its gilded box! The scream froze in her throat.The thing was coming towards her—towards Henry, who stood with his back to it—moving with a weak, shuffling gait, that arm outstretched before it, the dust rising from the rotting linen that covered it, a great smell of dust and decay filling the room.
    “What the devil’s the matter with you!” Henry demanded. But the thing was now directly behind him. The outstretched hand closed on Henry’s throat.
    Her scream would not break loose. Petrified, she heard only a dry shriek inside her, like the impotent cries of her worst dreams.
    Henry turned, hands rising reflexively to protect himself, the coffee cup falling with a clatter to the silver tray. A low roar escaped his lips as he fought the thing strangling him. His fingers clasped at the filthy wrappings; the dust rose in gusts as the creature tore its left arm loose from the bindings, and sought to pinion its victim with both hands.
    With an ignominious scream, Henry threw the creature off him, and