"What's going on? What's going..." Parry had to freeze for a minute. Upending a plastic container didn't produce what he was looking for, just an old Prussian Pickelhaube. Pretty, but ultimately worthless. Like his panic. He was behaving like an animal trapped in a cage, not a proper Celestial. Then again, he hadn't behaved like a proper Celestial in thousands of years. So there was that to take into account too.

Finally, he had to collapse into the pallet of nappies, like King Lear facing his end in the third act (Or was that one the fifth act? He'd look it up in the Encyclopedia later) before the one person who trusted him implicitly. Parry would openly admit he never considered any child he watched over his own- they were his responsibility, sure. But not his own.

Abby came damn close to breaking that line.

Finally, he roused himself enough to say "Hey, Abby. Why don't you, uh, take a seat on the... throne of Pampers. I seem to have the Crown of Huggies on my head."

The Celestial had to pick his words carefully, but eventually, he had to say something too. Abby was scared. But Abby was also an adult now. Her bullshit detector was fully armed and operational, and she'd catch him on a lie without even trying. Hell, she was the only one who knew Parry was an honest-to-goddess Celestial (now that de Lacy was dead) because he couldn't keep that from her. The Fae blood and the adolescence helped with that one.

"Abby, remember when you were seven and I took you into Faerie? The Seelie took one of your friends off the playground and Victor and I didn't want to take you with us to get her back. You threw fits, you changed my shampoo with hair dye, and then you traded all of the balls in the ball pit with rocks. Never figured out how you managed the last one. But Victor said I wasn't supposed to take you to Faerie- and I finally told Victor to fuck off, we were going. I told you then- as I tell you now- that nothing in Faerie is set in stone. Your friend could've been perfectly fine, playing with Nixies and Pixies. Or we could've found her in the court's garbage, her bones picked clean of meat. I didn't know then what we'd find, but I was willing to take you, and tell you the rules of Faerie.

"Things went wrong, things went right, but we came back in one piece. So I'll tell you the rules for dealing with mummies and we will hope that we'll make it out the other side."

Parry leaned back into his pallet, drumming his fingers on a package of disposable infants' underwear like a king on his throne. 

"Mummies... do not see themselves as undead. They wake up, and like a child after a short nap, are cranky as hell, and then they remember 'Oh yeah, I'm a god-king. These people should be glad I'm awake. Time to get the worshiping on!' And when a bigger fish shows up, a lot of the smaller fish swim around him to fawn and beg for favors.

"So we're probably going to get a phone call. Or a visit. But the mummy will ask for fealty. Normally that'd be enough, he'll run things for a little while, run out of juice in a year or two, and go back to sleep and we get on with our lives. Problem is, this is Nemsemet. I never met him. I stayed clear of him. Because he left Egypt a magically radioactive wasteland after running the show there for a century- and then went back to sleep. But we have a bit of time. He'll need to learn English, figure out where he is, unscramble his own brain.

"One thing I do know about him. He's flashy and self-centered. He's not gonna take it well when the first person stands up to him. He'll turn them to ash... and then he'll turn a city block to ash to show he can. Or he'll... or he'll lock us all in the city... with him..."

So that's what was up. Someone in the court had probably refused to pledge to the mummy when he started demanding people scrape and bow. So he'd locked the doors to let everyone know he was now the biggest, baddest rat in the cage. Rusty had wolf ears, so he'd undoubtedly heard everything Parry was saying. But they still had a Unicorn, a sorcerer and half a dozen others milling around in the kitchen.

"When they come for us... I want you to understand something, Abby. It will absolutely be the safest thing in the world for you to go and swear you'll be a good servant to Nemsemet. He'll nod, he'll wave, and it'll be like the courts. Just... he won't have any qualms about taking your life if you break his rules. I wouldn't judge you for going. Victor probably won't. And if anybody does, they'll have to plow through me first to get at you. If you stay... things will get bad. Very, very bad.

"But I will ask you one favor before you decide... did you ever hide a sword about yea long, made of black iron and sheathed, tended to turn into a fire inferno if you unsheathed it? Cause I can't find the damn thing and I have a feeling we may need it. Also, I do remember how you hid my copy of Batman Number One in Underhill even though I never gave the combination of my safe to anybody."