“No!” I cry. “Dickens killed young Dickenson. Young Edmond Dickenson. I am sure of that!”

I understand the motive for the murder now. Some sort of ancient, pagan, spiritual escape clause that allowed Dickens to avoid complete control by this foul magus. He traded the life of that orphaned young man for his freedom from Drood’s total domination.

Drood shakes his head and beckons a robed and hooded follower forward from the blurred circle of forms I sense all around me. The man pulls his dark hood back and down. It is young Dickenson. He has shaved his head and his eyes have that same heathenish blue shadow on them, but it is young Dickenson.

“Missster Dickensss was kind enough to suggest this soul for our small fold and our small fold to this soul,” says Drood. “Both Brother Dickenson’sss money and hisss faith are welcome here. The offer of thisss convert to our Family has brought Missster Charlesss Dickensss a… small dispensation.”

“Wake up!” I cry to myself. “For God’s sake, wake up, Wilkie! Enough is enough! Wilkie, wake up!”

Dickenson and the circle of robed figures take several steps back into the gloom. Drood says, “You may be silent again, Misster Wilkie Collinssss.”

He reaches down at the side of the slab, below the level I can turn my head to see, and when he straightens up, there is something black in his right hand. It is large and fills almost all of his pale palm with an even larger crescent on one end of the thing running almost the length of his absurdly long white fingers.

As I stare, the black thing stirs and moves.

“Yesss,” says Drood. “It isss a beetle. My people call representationsss of thisss a scarab and venerate it in our religion and ritualssss.…”

The huge black beetle flails six long legs and tries to crawl off Drood’s hand. He cups his fingers and the huge bug falls back into his palm.

“Our usual scarab wasss modelled after several speciesss in the Family Scarabaeidae,” says Drood, “but most were based upon the common dung beetle.”

I try to writhe, kick out with my legs, stir my untied arms, but can move only my head. A great nausea fills me and I have to relax on the cold stone, focusing on not vomiting. If I were to vomit now, without the ability to open my mouth, I would surely asphyxiate.

“My ancestorsss thought that all beetless were malesss,” hisses Drood, raising his palm so that he can study the loathsome insect more closely. “They thought that the little ball that the dung beetle ceaselessly rolls wasss the male beetle’sss seed substance—its sperm. They were wrong.…”

I am blinking madly, since that is one of the few actions I can take. Perhaps if I blink rapidly enough, this dream will fade into another one or I will wake and find myself back on my familiar cot in the warm rear alcove of King Lazaree’s den, not far from the small coal stove he keeps stoked there.

“In truth, as your British science hass shown us, it isss the female who, after dropping her fertilized eggsss on the ground, covers them in excrement on which the larvae feed and rolls thisss soft dung ball across the ground. The ball of dung grows larger and larger as it accumulates more dust and sand, you see, Missster Wilkie Collinssss, which is why my great-great-grandfathers’ great-great-great-grandfathers associated thisss beetle with the daily appearance and movement of the sun… and the rising of the great sun-god, the god of the rising sun rather than the setting sun, Khepri.”

Wake up, Wilkie! Wake up, Wilkie! Wake! I scream silently to myself.

“Our Egyptian name for the common dung beetle was hprr,” drones on Drood, “which means ‘rising from, or coming into being itself.’ It issss very close to our word ‘hpr,’ which means ‘to become, to change.’ You can see how this made the small change to ‘hpri,’ the divine name ‘Khepri,’ standing for the young rising son—our god of Creation.”

Shut up, God d— n you! I mentally scream at Drood.

As if he hears, he pauses and smiles.

“This scarab shall represent unalterable change for you, Misster Wilkie Collinsss,” he says softly.

The hooded figures around us begin to chant again.

I strain and lift my head as Drood holds his palm over my bare belly.

“Thisss is not the common dung beetle,” whispers Drood. “Thisss is your European-variety stag beetle—thusss the huge… what do you call them in English, Misster Collinsss? Mandibles? Pincers? They are the largest and most ferocious in all the beetle family. But this hprr—this holy scarab—has been consecrated to its purpose.…”

He drops the palm-sized black insect onto my straining bare belly.

“Un re-a an Ptah, uau netu, uau netu, aru re-a an neter nut- a.

I arefm Djewhty, meh aper em heka, uau netu, uau netu, en Suti sau re-a.

Khesef-tu Tem uten-nef senef sai set,” chants the invisible crowd.

The scarab’s six barbed legs scrabble at my cringing skin and it begins to crawl upward towards my ribcage. I raise my head until my neck comes close to snapping, my eyes bulging as I watch the black object with pincers longer than my own fingers climbing towards my chest and head.

I have to scream—I must scream—but I cannot.

The chorus of voices rises in the incensed gloom:

“Un re-a, apu re-a an Shu em nut-ef tui ent baat en pet enti ap-nef re en neteru am-es.

Nuk Sekhet! Hems-a her kes amt urt aat ent pet.

Nuk Sakhu! Urt her-ab baiu Annu.”

The stag beetle’s gigantic pincers pierce my flesh just below the sternum. The pain is beyond anything I have ever experienced. The tendons of my neck audibly creak as I strain to lift my head further to watch.

The scarab’s six legs flail at my flesh, the barbs finding purchase to push first the black crescent pincers and then the head of the beetle into the soft flesh of my upper belly. In five seconds the huge beetle is gone—completely submerged—and the flesh and skin close over its entry point like water sealing itself after being pierced by a black stone.

Jesus! God! No! Dear Christ! God! I scream in the silence of my mind.

“No, no, no,” says Drood, reading my thoughts. “ ‘For the stone shall cry out of the wall, and the beetle out of the timber shall answer it.’ But the scarab, not your man-god Christ, is the ‘only begotten,’ Misster Wilkie Collinsss, sir, even though your people’s pretender god once cried out, ‘But I am a scarab, and no man,’ in envy of the true Khepri.”

I can feel the huge beetle inside me.

The choir of black-robed forms chants:

“Ar heka neb t’etet neb t’etu er-a sut, aha neteru er-sen paut neteru temtiu.”

Drood turns his empty palms upward and closes his eyes as he recites: “Come, Ast! Life-truth comes to this stranger as it has come to our parents. Accept this soul as your own, O Opener of Eternity. Cleanse his former soul in the rising flame which is Nebt-Het. Sustain this instrument as you nourished and sustained Heru in the hidden place among the reeds, O Ast, You, whose breath is life, whose voice is death.”

I can feel the thing move inside me! I cannot scream. My mouth will not open. My eyes shed tears of blood in my agony.

Drood lifts a long metal rod with a sort of bowl on the end.

“May this scribe’s mouth be opened by Shu with that divine instrument of iron with which the godsss were first given voice,” chants Drood.

My mouth opens—stretches wider, continues to open until my jaw cracks and groans—but still I cannot scream.

Inside my belly, the scarab’s insect legs scrabble along my intestines. I can feel the barbs finding purchase. I can feel the chitinous hardness of its shell in my guts.

“We are Sekhet!” cries Drood. “We watch over the heaven of the west. We are Sakhu! We watch over the soulsss of Annu. May the godsss and the children hear our voice and hear our voice in the wordsss of this scribe, and death to all those who would silence usss.”