The Petpet Detectives: Case of the Absent Anubis - Part Eight

     "Don't move and nobody gets hurt…"

     "Told you," whispered Damien. I hated that he was right.

     It was then that we noticed that Darius was not his usual self. His eyes were wild behind his mask and his blue ears and orange paws were twitching menacingly. He seemed to be losing control of himself: shaking with rage and keeping those pearly white teeth barred. The lantern was shaking in his paw and the curved golden staff was standing upright now.

      "I have to say…" Darius began, taking a step towards us. "I'm impressed. I was your client, your friend, your mentor on this case… and you destroyed me."

      Shaking from head to toe, I took a step forward with the lantern to try to pacify the insane Lupe, "Darius, please--"

      Without warning Darius pointed the staff at my lantern and a burst of white light emitted from the top, shattering the glass and causing the glowing flame to subside and flicker out. This was bad. There went our lantern and the only one was securely in the paws of a madman. Great.

      "I planned this for weeks," he continued on, as if nothing happened. "Carefully planting the false clues, putting on the false cheery smiles and offering to help in all ways possible. But Raia," I flinched as his daughter was dragged into the conversation, "Raia wanted to help, she wanted to play detective herself… that horrible creature!"

      Darius began to pace, twirling the lantern around his fingers. If it slipped, we would plunge into extreme darkness, trapped in the Sakhmetian caves with a psycho. I could not let that happen. There would be no way out. Darius appeared to be talking to himself now and it was like his pretending-to-care attitude had dissolved, stripping him of all benevolence. All that was left was a very angry Lupe holding a desert weapon in one paw and the only light in the cave in the other.

      None of us knew what to do. If we made him mad, he could drop the lantern or use that curved staff on us; neither action would do any good. Talking to him might have irked him even further so keeping silent was the best method… for now.

      "I was always just a little bit greedy," said Darius, speaking to us now. "As a child, I always wanted to be the most powerful and most successful. That Anubis was my ticket to fame and fortune."

      We stood there as quiet as garden gnomes. In my head was a dilemma: Do I let him keep talking, hoping that he'll calm down and reason with us? Do I tackle him and go from there? What if the lantern breaks? The light was the only thing keeping me from doing anything crazy… without it we'd be lost forever.

      "And now," said Darius, sweeping the staff around and nearly missing us by a few inches, "I make my departure. I can't imagine how long you'll be able to stand it down here, what a pity. I also can't imagine that anyone would come looking for you. I plan to tell them you've dropped the case."

      I watched in disgust and horror as Darius slowly backed up, menacingly pointing the staff towards us again. He continued to move back under the archway until he was clear of the retracting door. I wanted to yell or say something, but my throat went bone dry.

     "Failure is a real shame, isn't it? Farewell, Petpet Detectives. Good riddance."

     "No!" An outraged cry burst from me. Making up my mind, I sped towards the closing door, where the yellow light slowly started to disappear until it was finally gone. Darius had escaped… along with the lantern.

     Aggravated and a little freaked out, I sunk against the wall, breathing heavily. This was it. We had failed. It was so dark that there was no difference when I opened or closed my eyes. I closed them, seeing as there was no point in staring around at the blackness that engulfed me. There was a rustling sound coming up ahead and then a crunch. It sounded like Damien had stepped on a few pieces of broken glass from our lantern, but his boots protected his feet. The rustling sound was followed by a zipping noise and suddenly there was a snap.

     An eerie green light was shining faintly up ahead, floating in the darkness. When I squinted, I could see Luna's face. She snapped at the light twice more, and the stick lit up a few feet in front of her. She snapped the second one and the glow radiated around the room.

     "Glow sticks?" I asked slowly, making my way towards her.

     "'Luna, you're such a tourist!'" she mimicked my teasing voice the day that she had purchased them.

     "Guess they really saved our hides," said Damien, taking one. I took the second one, embarrassed.

     The four of us were feeling pretty glum. Luna was busy checking all around us to make sure that there was no way out that someone had missed, but there was only the tight crevice that Damien had tried to squeeze through, and seeing what happened last time, none of us dared to risk going back there again.

     Luna was re-checking the shrine, the walls, the floors, everything. Damien, Charlie and I were slumped against the wall, not speaking. We watched the green glow follow her around as she ran her fingers over the wall. The shadow Yurble was very persistent but to me it was no use being so determined to find a way out because there was none.

     "You guys want to give me a paw over here?" said Luna. "Instead of sitting around, why don't you help me check for an escape?"

     "It's useless," I said. "The only way out is through the door and it appears to be shut. There's nothing we can do but wait."

     I saw it on her face. Luna knew I was right but she refused to admit it. She continued to pace, because she could not just sit down with us and wait. A thought crossed my mind… wait for what? Wait for a member of crazy Darius's crew to come rescue us? Yeah right, from what he told us before his grand exit was that everyone would think we dropped the case. Our chances of being discovered within a week were slim.

     We waited for an hour, trying not to get at each other's throats because I knew we were all mad. None of us wanted to believe the kidnapper to be our client so there was no way to prevent our mistake of being cornered in the room. Another few minutes crawled by and Luna was still pacing, trying to find a way out. There wasn't. We couldn't get out by ourselves. I was strong, sure, but not strong enough to push over a solid stone wall.

     As the time neared an hour and a half of being trapped, something strange happened. A faint yellowy light was coming from the crevice in the wall. The four of us jumped up like we had been struck by lightning to see where the light was coming from.

     The light brightened so much that we had to squint. It was a lantern, but who was carrying it?

     "Hey!" Luna yelled, cupping her paws around her mouth. "Can you hear us?"

     The light stopped as if the unseen Neopet was listening to us. "Who's there?" came a female voice.

     "Raia?" I recognized it.

     "Marlo?"

     "Thank Fyora," I breathed a huge sigh of relief. "Raia, please, we're trapped in here. You have to let us out. We're in the temple, do you know where to go?"

     "Okay, just… just hold on, I think I know where it is!"

     The light began to fade as the desert Wocky's stride quickened to a run. We could hear her footsteps for a moment and then they were gone, leaving the room silent as a Pet Rock. We continued to wait but this time it was with a renewed feeling of hope that we would be found.

     Minutes later, there was an immense sound and the giant rock wall shifted, revealing Raia's shadow and something in her arms. We started forward, squinting again in the yellow light. A small creature with dark blue fur, pointed ears and a golden collar was watching us curiously in Raia's arms.

     "Sethnakte?" I asked, confused.

     "It's him," said Raia.

     "Raia, we know who it was," said Luna. "Do you know yet? Does the team know…?"

     "…That it was my father?" Raia finished and she frowned. "No, they don't. I was in his tent this morning and I found a map of the caves along with a guide on how to find Seth. When I saw him going back down there, I assumed he went looking for you. He's probably on the surface by now since I didn't see him when I went looking for Seth."

     "Why did you go looking for the Anubis?"

     "I told you I wanted to help," said the Wocky. "You did the dangerous part and since you were busy with that, I did the easy part of investigating on my own by finding Sethnakte."

     It was a little weird having someone do our jobs for us. I felt a little embarrassed that we couldn't save ourselves back there… in the past we had always managed to come out on top but this one nearly topped us. Still, I was grateful for Raia's persistence and the fact that she helped a lot by finding Sethnakte. All we needed to do now was find Darius.

     "Thanks for your help, Raia," Damien said. "We should all get back to the camp. Darius is still out there somewhere."

     "Agreed," said Raia, and she handed Luna Sethnakte so she could steady the lantern and her father's map.

     ***

     The news of recovering Sethnakte and revealing that the culprit was indeed the client spread at a rapid pace through the camp. When we surfaced with Raia, stories were already flying. Apparently, Darius had fled. Dr. Kysen was having a hissy-fit when he heard this, as the Ruki had not been paid before Darius had left.

     Dr. Kysen did not come to say good-bye on our last day in the Lost Desert. He was still in his snooty and unappreciative mood. Bek and Raia did come to the edge of camp; both girls repeatedly thanked us for our help. Raia was a little more on the quiet side… Darius was her father after all.

     "We're planning on moving to a new part of the desert a few miles from here," Bek was telling us. "There are more caves like this one that we have yet to explore."

     "What about Sethnakte?" I asked.

     "He'll be returned to his home, in the temple," said Raia. "I'm the new group leader and I think it's best for him to be left alone. The cave entrance will also be sealed."

     "It's for the best," added Bek.

     "I can imagine so," said Luna. When talk of the caves and Sethnakte died down, Luna said, "We should be heading off now. Take care!"

     The three of us also exchanged farewells, and Raia handed us a small sack of neopoints.

     "It really isn't much," she said. "But--"

     "It's very kind of you, thanks," I cut her off with a smile.

     Luna climbed onto my back behind Damien and Charlie secured himself atop my feathery head. Bek and Raia took a few steps back to let me prepare for takeoff. I couldn't get a running start because of the sand so I had to summon all my energy so we could go up.

     I crouched down and sprang straight up like a leaping Kougra, rocketing towards the sky and looping up so we could head north, towards Neopia Central.

     Below us I could see Bek and Raia. The desert pets' robes swished around them and their jewelry glinted in the sun. I could also see the group of little white tents and a cluster of Neopets surrounding them. Besides the Neopets and tents, looking at the whole picture was quite remarkable: palm trees, tents, and even a few pyramids in the far eastern side of the Desert. Those would have been fun to explore another time.

      The biggest thing was, of course, miles and miles of nothing but sparkling sand. How the desert Neopians could survive being in a place with so much space and so little luxuries I didn't know. My sights were set on the one place I knew I'd never tire of:

     Home.

     Somewhere in the Lost Desert…

     Raia, Bek, Dr. Kysen (yes, he decided to stay) and the team walked for three days to get to their new location. It was much like the Sakhmetian caves they had seen beforehand but each had different paths and surprises, nothing as great as the Anubis, of course.

     Just as they arrived to their new location, a Horus swooped overhead, dropping an envelope into Raia's paw. She and Bek opened the letter and read:

     Raia, Bek and the team,

     We're don't know if this letter will reach you, as we're not sure of the intelligence of the Horus delivering it. Anyhow, if this gets to you, we just wanted to say thanks for the reward and the pleasure of actually seeing an ancient Sakhmetian cave. We had quite an adventure! If you ever need us again, please don't hesitate to send a letter or drop by. Good luck with your discoveries.

     Sincerely,

     ~T.PP.D.

     The End

Author's Note: Thanks for reading TPPD #5. If you have any comments, please don't hesitate to neomail them my way. Thank you beewitched2 for editing. ~Playmobil