Amara, Princess of Egypt, the once-beautiful wife of Mentuhotep the First, lies in her coffin in the Charles Ward museum. Dead these 4000 years, now she's just an inanimate bundle of withered skin and desiccated bone. Or is she? When Barney the nightwatchman discovers that the mummy's coffin has been broken open, it seems grave-robbers are at work.

It's a pity Barney and the guards can't tell the authorities how the mummy came to be missing. But the dead can't testify to anything. Now Amara is free again, driven by an ancient need that can only be assuaged at the cost of human life, and nothing can kill her - for she is dead already.