Author's Note: Please let me know what you think!
Chapter 2: Attacked
When the cops arrived, Mike and Davy left to greet them and show them into the side room where Mr. Williams lay. Micky wondered how exactly this man died. Was he murdered, or did he just have a heart attack or something? Micky didn't see any obvious sign that told him how this man had died. There was no blood or any injuries. He looked to be approaching 80, but still had an incredibly athletic body. Isis stood up and stuffed the note Mr. Williams had written in her pocket as Mike and Davy led the police into the room.
"What happened here?" One of them asked as another man who looked to be a coroner knelt by the body, examining it to make sure he was dead.
"I don't know," Isis said. "We just found him like this. I have no idea what happened. I told him I was coming over and when he didn't answer the door, I let myself in. I've known him since I was a baby and he's always welcomed me in here. Then I found him. Just like this."
"Was he ill at all?"
"I don't think so," Isis answered. "I really don't know how this could have happened. I'm really sorry, but I am incredibly tired. I stayed up all night at work, and now with this…I really want to go home and sleep." The cops looked at her suspiciously. Micky briefly wondered why she wasn't bringing up the men who were trying to steal the amulet.
"We will do what we can to figure out what happened here," another officer said. "Can we get your information so we can contact you in the future we have any further questions?" Isis nodded and wrote down her information for him.
"Please let me know as soon as you find out what happened," Isis said, trying to appease their suspicion. They nodded in agreement and Isis walked out of the room with the boys following her. Once they got out to the car, the boys sat there staring at her.
"Why did you not tell them about the amulet?" Peter asked.
"Well, because technically I stole it when I slipped it in Micky's pocket," she answered. "If I told them about it, I could be thrown in jail for a very long time."
"Yeah, but you stole it to keep the curator from stealing it!" Davy exclaimed.
"That's sort of splitting hairs. Besides, I told you, I have no proof of that. I'm a college student; he's a museum curator. It's my word against his."
"You said the only people who could have put those crates in that room with the goons in it were the curator and Mr. Williams, right?" Mike reasoned. "Well, isn't that enough to investigate him if you point that out?"
"No, he's a little smarter than that. He'll try and pin it on Mr. Williams. Especially now that he's dead and can't defend himself."
"Why would Mr. Williams steal it?" Micky asked, agreeing with the others. "It's an artifact from his own dig."
"He wouldn't, but the cops don't know that. Mr. Manfred will think of some way to paint Mr. Williams in a bad light just to save his own skin." They all sat in silence. She had a point.
"What do we do now?" Mike asked.
"Take me home," Isis said. "You aren't involved in this. I need to shower and change. And sleep. I'll figure something out."
"You sort of involved us when you slipped that amulet in my pocket," Micky argued.
"Well, now I'm un-involving you," she said. "I don't want you getting into trouble on my behalf. Mike, please take me home. Head straight, and then turn right at the first fork." The boys all exchanged looks, but decided not to argue it right now. Mike followed her directions and within twenty minutes, they had arrived at Isis's house. Micky leapt out of the car and started walking with Isis towards her front door.
"Let me at least walk you inside," Micky said at her confused look.
"Alright," she sighed. Micky was scrambling to try and find a way to convince her to let them help, but was coming up empty so far. She just seemed so stubborn. Micky waved to his friends in the car saying he'd be right back and followed her to her front door. When she opened it, he followed her inside. "Ok, I'm home. You can go home now."
"Not so fast," Micky said. "How do you know there's not someone in here waiting for you to get here?" He was grasping for anything now.
"I suppose I don't unless I check," she smiled at him. Somehow he thought she found this humorous. She set her keys and purse down on a table in the hallway and began to walk the rest of the way into her house. The walls were lined with shelves and each shelf held about half a dozen rocks. Micky walked over to the nearest shelf and looked. He'd heard about people collecting rocks, but he always thought they would be more spectacular than the collection she had. The rocks all looked very plain to him. On the shelf he was looking at sat 6 different rocks. The first was a black rock that almost looked like glass. Two looked like sponges because they were so full of holes, one gray and the other a very dark brown. A fourth rock was black with a few holes in it and a couple spots full of green crystals. Another was white with several black flecks. The last one was very light gray with only a couple of shiny dark red flecks in it.
"Wow," Micky said. "You have an awful lot of rocks." Isis smiled and chuckled a little.
"Of course I do," she answered. "I'm majoring in geoarcheology."
"What's that?"
"A geologist at archeological digs," she said with a smile, now looking very excited, much like Peter did when he talked about his music. "I'll reconstruct the geology of the area through the millennia which will help the archeologists get a better picture of what they're looking at. This wall holds all my igneous rocks. Over there is a collection of fossils, those are sedimentary, and those are metamorphic. I've been collecting them since I was twelve. Wanna know what these are?" She pointed at the rocks Micky was looking at.
"Sure," he answered. This might be a good stall to give him time to figure out how to convince her to let them help.
"This is obsidian," she said pointing at the first one. "It's volcanic glass. Cools incredibly fast, forming a glassy texture. These are scoria and pumice. Both come from lava that was incredibly gaseous forming all those holes as they cooled and solidified. The holes are ways for the gas to escape. The different colors signify the amount of amount of silica present in the lava as it cooled. This is basalt; your basic lava flow. The green flakes are a mineral called olivine, otherwise known as the gemstone peridot. This is granodiorite; a type of granite. Basically forms when a magma chamber cools. The last one is rhyolite which comes from very explosive volcanoes. See those red gems? Those are garnets."
"Wow," came a voice from down the hall. "That was incredibly boring." Both whirled around to see a man standing in the hallway with a gun pointed at them. Micky really hadn't wanted to be right about someone being in her house; he had just wanted to stall for time to come up with a plan. Which he still hadn't done, but that seemed pretty moot now anyway.
"Who are you?" Isis asked, her voice strong and cold. She didn't seem very afraid.
"Does that really matter?" he sneered. "Give me the amulet. We know you have it."
"We?" Micky asked wondering if there were more men in the house.
"Shut it, fool," the guy spat. "Give me the amulet, sweetheart."
"First, don't you ever call me 'sweetheart'," Isis spat back. "Second, I really don't see a compelling reason why I should do anything you tell me."
"If you don't, your friends outside might have some problems, sweetheart," the man laughed. He clearly thought it was fun to antagonize Isis. Micky's heart sank though. His friends were in trouble. He had no idea how many men were outside or what had happened to his friends. He suddenly wished he had encouraged them to come in with them.
"I told you not to call me that," Isis said. She still seemed very cool and collected; Micky was terrified. With lightning quick moves that mirrored what she had done in the basement of the museum, she leapt into the air and grabbed a hanging light fixture swinging towards the man with her feet outstretched. She grabbed his hand holding the gun between her feet and twisted, causing him to cry out in pain and drop his gun. She let go of the light fixture, landed in a crouched position and swung her leg out to hook behind his and knocking him to the ground. Once his head hit the ground, he gasped in pain and closed his eyes. He'd passed out. She did this all so fast, neither Micky nor the man had time to react.
"Uh…" Micky sputtered, too stunned to actually speak.
"Peek out that window," she told him, ignoring his shock. "Very carefully. Don't let anyone see you. I need to know what's going on with your friends and how many men are out there."
"Right," Micky said and quickly snuck over to the window. He knelt down below the window and peeked between a crack in the curtain. There were four men surrounding the Monkeemobile, all with guns. He could see Mike, Davy and Peter all inside the car holding very still. He breathed a small sigh of relief. At least they weren't hurt; yet. He turned back to where Isis had been, but she wasn't there anymore. He walked down a hallway and saw her rummaging in her room and throwing things in a large duffel bag sitting on her bed.
"Um…there are four goons surrounding the guys in the car," Micky told her. She didn't even look up at him; she just kept stuffing things into the bag. He couldn't tell exactly what she was stuffing in there, but it looked like books, candles, and other strange objects. But she wasn't putting any clothes in there.
"Are they hurt?" she asked.
"Not yet, but I don't see how two of us can get the drop on four guys."
"You underestimate me, Micky," she smiled at him as she stuffed one last book in the bag and zipped it up. She turned to her dresser and picked up what looked like a very large knife in an old leather sheath. Carefully she slipped it in her back pocket and walked over to where Micky was standing, still very terrified, but trying not to show it.
"I can tell you have some definite skills, don't get me wrong, but all four of those men have guns."
"And that's why you're going to distract them for me."
"Distract them?" Micky thought she was crazy. He was very likely to get himself or his friends shot.
"Yes. Distract them. You wait at the door for my signal, and then run. They'll chase you."
"Or shoot me," Micky gulped.
"Not if you're fast enough," she leaned forward and placed a very soft kiss on his lips. Micky felt a slight tingle at her touch and somehow a small amount of fear left. It took him a second to realize she had left the room already.
"Wait," he said as he ran back into the hallway to catch up to her. "You didn't tell me what your signal was."
"Simple," she smiled at him, pulling the bag over her shoulder. It was an ironically sweet smile considering what they were talking about. "The signal is going to be my knocking out as many as I can. Whoever's left will think you did it and chase you. You have to remember to run fast. And not straight. Dodge around and make them follow you."
"Right," he said. She turned and pulled on a rope hanging from the ceiling that pulled a ladder down leading to an attic. He watched her ascend the ladder before heading back over to the window. One hand hovered over the doorknob, ready to yank it open and run for his life. And his friends' lives. He didn't have to wait long before two of the men suddenly dropped to the ground. Micky couldn't see what had caused this, but took this as the sign. He yanked the door open and ran out of the house. He briefly looked over his shoulder to see the two remaining men aim their guns at him. With a yelp, he quickly darted around the side of the house, thinking they wouldn't be able to shoot him and would chase him to try again. It worked; he heard one of them yell at the other to go after Micky. He glanced over his shoulder again and saw one of the goons round the corner. Micky quickly realized that he was about to run face first into a fence and quickly leapt up to try and climb it. He knew that this was making him a sitting duck and tried to scramble up as quickly as possible. When he heard a thumping noise behind him, he turned and saw the goon had fallen to the ground-unconscious. Isis was standing above him with a triumphant look on her face. Micky jumped down from the fence and walked over to her.
"Three down, one to go," she said. They peered around the corner and saw the last goon standing at the car still. He looked very nervous. She motioned for Micky to lean against the side of the house and for him to stay quiet. He watched curiously as she rolled the unconscious goon so that he was in view of the fourth and final one. She quickly picked up a branch that had fallen on the ground and waited. A few seconds later, the fourth goon rounded the corner and Isis swung the branch like a bat. As soon as the branch made contact with his head, the fourth goon fell to the ground on top of his friend.
"Wow," Micky breathed.
"Come on," she said as she ran to the car, picking up the duffel bag Micky hadn't realized she'd dropped on the ground. When they got to the car, Davy and Peter were hanging out the window staring at the two men lying passed out on the ground. Mike had gotten out of the car and was kneeling next to them.
"You guys ok?" Micky asked when they got to the car.
"Yeah," Mike answered standing up. "Just really confused. What just happened?"
"I'll explain in the car," Isis said, opening the door and throwing the duffel bag across the seat. "I don't know about you, but I don't want to be here when they wake up. Nor can I really explain any of this to the cops." She ducked into the car without waiting for a response. Mike looked at Micky as though he'd get an explanation from him. Micky just shrugged and followed her into the car. He really didn't know much more than Mike about what had just happened. Mike shook his head and got behind the driver's seat again.
"Am I going somewhere in particular?" Mike asked when he started the car.
"No," Isis answered. "Go wherever you want. I just can't be here anymore. I'll figure out where I'm going to go later."
"You keep talking as if you're in this alone," Micky said.
"I am."
"Is that why I just ran around the playing distraction for you?"
"No, you only did that so I could save your friends. If you had listened to me from the beginning none of you would have been here; and none of you would have been in any trouble."
"So you would have taken on five guys at once?"
"Probably not," she admitted, "but I would have been able to run without having to worry about anyone else getting hurt."
"Wanna explain what is going on here?" Mike interrupted. "You can't seriously tell me people are still trying to steal that amulet! I mean, things seem to be a lot more complicated than that. They killed a man for it, and now they're trying to kill you for it."
"Actually, they are after it," Micky said. "The goon in the house told us to give him the amulet."
"I told you," Isis added. "It's incredibly rare and very valuable."
"Why is that piece worth more than the other artifacts you found?" Peter asked, also skeptical.
"It's complicated," she replied. "You wouldn't understand. Just know that they cannot get their hands on this."
"Ok, how about telling me how you single-handedly took out 5 men," Micky asked. "The moves you pulled were straight out of an action movie! I mean, swinging on a ceiling lamp like that? I don't even think James Bond can move that fast."
"I told you, I learned how to fight when I was a kid in England."
"Why don't you have an accent?" Davy asked. "And you can't say it faded. I've lived here 4 years and still have mine."
"You all ask way too many questions."
"We just want to know the truth," Peter said.
"And what makes you think I'm lying?"
"Let's see," Mike said holding up a finger to keep count, "the dead man."
"The nonexistent accent," Davy added.
"The goons trying to kill you," Peter supplied.
"And the wonder woman moves," Micky completed. Isis sat there, almost looking defeated.
"The goons killed Mr. Williams to try and get the artifact," she said, sounding very annoyed. "Now they're trying to kill me for it. It's very valuable and I can't really explain why because it's very complicated. I did live in England for a few years and started to learn to fight there, but I moved around a lot when I was a kid because my dad was an archeologist, too. I enjoyed it so much that I kept learning different fighting styles in each country I lived in. I took the first two goons out with this double sling-shot." She pulled a cloth slingshot out of her pocket. It had two pouches instead of one. "I learned how to use this when I was 10 in Egypt. They used it a lot in warfare in ancient times and the design is very similar. You line up the shots and if you hit the right spot on the back of someone's neck, you can pinch a nerve and render them unconscious. It was luck that they were standing just the right distance apart where I could line the shots up right and hit them both at the same time."
"Your father let a 10-year old learn how to knock someone out?" Peter asked.
"They wouldn't let me come to the digs that often, so I learned that in my spare time."
"Again, there are better things a 10-year old should be learning." Peter was against violence, even though they sometimes had to use it to get themselves out of trouble. Isis sighed and put the slingshot back in her pocket.
"Perhaps, but if I hadn't learned it, where do you think you'd all be?" No one answered. They all knew she had a point. "I jumped out of the attic when I saw the third goon round the corner and try to shoot you. That wasn't that hard. I made sure he cushioned my fall. And then I swung a tree branch in the face of the last one. That'll knock anyone out."
"So what now?" Micky asked.
"I'll just have to run from them until they're stopped."
"Seems like a lot of hassle to protect one artifact," Mike said, again touching on the shared thought they all had that this artifact was more than what she was telling them.
"Like I said," she responded, now very annoyed. "I can't let it fall into their hands. I will handle this on my own. You guys don't need to worry about me anymore."
"Really?" Mike said, completely flabbergasted. "Four men with guns surround me in my car and tell me to sit still and shut up while another points a gun at you and Micky and you think I shouldn't be worried?"
"I told you I can take care of myself. I think I just proved that."
"No one is denying you can kick some serious butt," Micky said, "but what if they come after us thinking we know something?"
"Why would they do that?"
"It's happened before," Davy said. "A lot."
"We seem to get kidnapped or held at gunpoint or have someone trying to kill us at least once a week," Peter added. "Still haven't figured out why."
"So do you need me to protect you?" she scoffed.
"We didn't say that," Mike said. "We've gotten into a lot of trouble, but we've obviously gotten out of it, too. What we're trying to say is that we're involved now whether you want us to be or not, so we need to look out for each other." Mike pulled down the street that led to their house, which Isis must have realized because she suddenly got very uncomfortable and began shifting in her seat like she was going to bolt the minute they stopped.
"Mike's right," Micky said, placing a hand on her shoulder, trying to get her to stay. "Those men may think we have the amulet and come after us. So let us help you figure out what to do with this thing so we can get them off our backs." He looked into her eyes as he said this. He could see a hint of fear in them, but mostly all he saw was determination. Finally, as they pulled up to the house and Mike turned the car off, her eyes softened a little and she relented.
"Fine," she sighed. "I'm too tired to fight you anymore."
"Did you really stay at the museum all night?" Peter asked as they all climbed out of the car.
"Yeah," she answered. "I wanted to clean up the mess and keep an eye on the curator. Then I snuck down to his office to look up your address."
"You must be really exhausted!" Davy said. "It's already nearing noon!"
"I am," she replied with a yawn.
"Well, why don't you come in, shower, get something to eat and crash inside?" Mike said. "I don't think we have to worry about any attacks for a while." She nodded and followed him and the rest of the Monkees into their pad. She showered very quickly and came back out wearing a new pair of jeans and a red blouse.
"I didn't see you pack any clothes in that bag," Micky said curiously.
"I packed a few at the very bottom," she replied. Mike handed her a plate with a sandwich he had made for her. They had already eaten their lunches. She gratefully accepted and as soon as she was done, Mike showed her to his room so she could get a little sleep. When he walked out, he shut the door very quietly behind him saying that she had fallen asleep as soon as her head had touched the pillow.