“I may not know of this place you call Ah-Merika, but there is another who will.”

The menace in the Egyptian’s voice made Jake swallow hard, which was difficult to do while hanging by the heels.

Kree turned to Dogo. “Go.” He pointed to the dungeon door. “Make sure we are not disturbed.”

The ogre grunted and lumbered out, plainly glad to obey this particular order. The door clanged shut behind him.

Once alone, Kree knelt beside the witch. He slipped a thin dagger from his wrist sheath. With a trembling hand, he positioned the blade’s point on the center of his tattooed eye. As the dagger pierced his skin, a fat, red drop of blood welled up, covering the tattooed pupil.

Kree thrust his arms to both sides and lifted his face toward the domed roof. “Let him come.”

A long, crooked wand of yellowish bone slid out from Heka’s sleeve. At its tip, a black crystal shone like a hard splinter of shadow. It sucked away the firelight, creating a well of growing darkness around the end of the bone.

Jake’s heart began pounding. He recognized the crystal. A bloodstone. A poisonous dark crystal, forged in the alchemical fires of Kalverum Rex, the very stone the Skull King used to poison and twist flesh and bend wills.

What was it doing here?

Jake twisted in his shackles and spotted two faces pressed in the tiny window of the cell door: Marika and Kady. Their eyes shone with fear, both for him and for what was about to transpire.

As the bloodstone touched the crimson droplet on the Egyptian’s forehead, the tattooed eye burst forth with writhing shadows. The darkness swept over Kree’s head, obscuring all features.

The witch stepped back as Kree rose, his head still hidden within a cowl of shadows. He faced Jake, which set Jake’s heart to thundering. Even the slug on his cheek slithered behind his left ear and hid.

From the mask of darkness, the middle eye opened, aglow with darker flames, as if a black hole burned in the center of the Egyptian’s forehead.

Cruel laughter scratched free of the darkness.

“We meet again.”

It was Kalverum Rex, the Skull King.

“Did you think you could escape me so easily?” The voice boomed with threat. “I am everywhere!”

Jake refused to give in to his terror. He forced his heart out of his throat so he could speak. “But you are not here,” he said. “You can’t be, can you?”

A low, threatening growl followed, confirming what Jake had already suspected.

“You can’t cross the Great Wind,” Jake said. “Only your shadow has seeped through, poisoning what it touches.”

The growl turned to laughter again. “Clever boy. You must be clever enough then to know what I want.”

Jake tried not to answer, but he couldn’t help himself. “The Key of Time. You need it to cross the storm, like my friends and I did.”