Professor Lebnoch finished chanting. Dust sparkled in the candle-lit tomb as it danced in the air, and the chill of the ancient stones was as far removed from the heat of the Egyptian desert as it could get. As the echoes of the chant died away, reverberating ever fainter around the chamber, the mummy stirred at last, a bandaged hand reaching slowly from the sarcophagus.
It sat up to a chorus of snaps as the ragged bandages took the strain of movement and its head turned blindly to face the professor and his assistant, Detlef.
It leapt from the stone coffin with shocking agility, and a hand swept over the six canopic jars inset in the wall of the sarcophagus. As it passed the gap where the seventh should be the mummy growled, a dark, feline sound that rolled around the walls like a distant thunder-clap.
Detlef started shaking even before the mummy lunged across the room — backwards, the professor noticed, turned and tore his backpack from him. The canopic jar hidden there held the mummy’s heart.