Chapter Ten

Outside of the hotel the cries of the guards taking their places could be heard.Military protocol had taken over after a day like this, and it was calming to hear their sure steps on the walls, their voices claiming that all was in order, and mixed with the happy noise of the people celebrating in the bar below. Of course nothing was all right, but that would not stop anyone here from acting like it was. Stiff upper lip and all that, so very British. Bonz could get sick just thinking about it.

Nervously he turned away from the window and the unnatural night beyond it. His fingers trailed over the gun in his hands. Damn it, he couldn't stay put here any longer; he needed to move, to shoot something, preferably something that would actually go down when shot. At this point, waiting was killing him faster than the mummy would.

"To hell with this!" At his exclamation Zygor's head shot up in surprise. His friend had been walking holes into the carpet. The two of them were the only ones in the room's foyer. The boy, Muto, had gone into the bedroom soon after his friends had left, still clearly in a huff about being left behind. He'd locked the door behind him while insisting that they should knock if something happened. Bonz didn't really believe that the boy was truly asleep, no matter how silent he was. Probably was still fuming in there and burning off energies by walking. Though why the hell he wanted to be out there to face a mummy would remain an unsolvable mystery. He had a few ideas about how to better spend his time.

"I'm going downstairs to get me a drink. You want something?" He looked over at Zygor, who nodded.

"Yeah, get me a glass of Bourbon."

Bonz was already by the door when he heard Zygor scream after him. "And a shot of Bourbon." He nodded again, only to hear the room's door open one more time when he was halfway down the stairs already. "And a Bourbon chaser!"

Irritated he turned around. "Yeah, yeah, I'll get your damn Bourbon! I got it the first time." Shaking his head, he want off. Stupid Zygor. If he wanted so many drinks so badly he could at least go get them himself.

Zygor had just returned to the room and resumed his nervous pacing when a slight breeze began to stir, making the curtains flutter and the shutters rattle. Annoyed Zygor got up to close the window, hand already on the window sill, when a sudden movement—a shadow racing in the dark just right in the corner of his eye—made him stop. His hand grasped his gun tighter, and he leaned forward a bit, trying to identify what exactly was moving there in the dark.

It was the last thing he ever did.

The mass of swirling sand hit him with the power of an oncoming bus. He didn't have time to scream, barely enough to realise what was happening, as he got lifted up into the air. The sand turned and threw his body around, twisting it into every direction, with every movement sucking at his dry, cracked skin. When it finally threw him away, the body that hit the floor was shriveled up like a desert mummy, bereft of all life and with an eternally silent scream etched into its features.

The sand hit the floor before rising again, forming a clear human shape. The person who stepped out of the sand into the room was the one Tristan and Joey had seen in the market place, now nearly full restored. Barely any holes were left in his body, and when he moved to step over Zygor's body his movements were fluid and almost human. A pair of dark red eyes flittered over the room, resting on the door to Yugi's bedroom, and a dark smile appeared on the mummy's face before he stretched out his hand and began to turn back into sand.

Despite what Bonz thought, Yugi had actually succumbed to sleep almost as soon as the doors were locked behind him. He had tried to stay awake—to look through every book, every little bit of information he possessed on Egyptian magic—to figure out a way to end this nightmare before it got worse. There had to be a solution, he was sure. It was the same sureness which had guided him to Hamunaptra, which had made everything about the city so familiar, a dreamlike knowledge just out of his grasp. He couldn't explain it, but he knew that he knew the way to end this. He just couldn't remember.

Frustrated with himself, with the whole situation and this damned strange memory thing which only seemed to work to tease him, he had let himself fall down on the bed and closed his eyes, just for a moment, to think better. He had been out like a light, the days of lost sleep finally catching up with him.

Darkness took him, deep and endless and without thought, a comfort for the weary. But it was not meant to last. He couldn't say how long he slept, how long it took for him to notice the first strand of violet fog mixing in with the darkness. He had no body in the darkness, no conscious thought, and yet it still felt like he was himself when he took a step towards the fog. One more step, and another, and another, till the fog swallowed him whole, and he opened his eyes, still inside his dream.

This time his surroundings were familiar: twisting corridors and impossible stairs running along the ceiling and the walls, laughing at the bare thought of such trifling limitations as gravity or physics. And door—endless doors all looking the same in this twisted labyrinth of stone. It seemed to be the same place he woke up in last time. At least the vertigo wasn't as bad this time; his stomach only complaining mildly as his brain tried to make sense of what his eyes told him.

Carefully Yugi stood up, surer on his legs than before. Now he could start to see the first difference in his vision, and it was a worrying one. Deep lines were cut into the stone walls, some of them extending as far as his arm, as if something had tried to cut the walls to pieces. Stairs had been destroyed, stone rubbles lying around everywhere; doors torn from their angles, leaving only dark, gaping holes. Yugi turned around, a little bit scared as to what had happened here, when a voice behind him nearly made him jump out of his skin.

"You're back."

The clear surprise in those words was the only thing that kept Yugi from screaming. And of course there was the fact that this velvety baritone was quite familiar. Still, his heart was racing when he turned around—more of a jump than a fluid movement he had to admit—to face the one who had visited him during his loss of consciousness in Hamunaptra...which meant that Yugi had to let go of his assumption that that time had all been just a very strange work of his unconsciousness. One strange vision was still explainable, the same one twice not so much.

His visitor looked the same, still impossible gorgeous and sure, but as with the room there was difference to him too. He looked tired: the lines around his red eyes had deepened, and there was a look in them which Yugi couldn't really understand, but that struck him like a sword blow. He took a step forward, almost involuntarily wanting to comfort his visitor, to lift a bit of whatever was dragging him down off his shoulders before he stopped himself surprised, and a little bit scared by those thoughts. What…? Instead he just shook his head, laughing a bit unsurely, and hoping that it didn't sound as afraid as he was. The visitor was still looking at him, and Yugi slowly realised that he was waiting for an answer.

"Ah… It looks that way?" He shrugged, but his visitor just looked at him, a hint of confusion in his eyes. It took Yugi a moment of really awkward silence to realise, that, his visitor having spoken Egyptian with him last time, there was a very good chance that he didn't understand the Arabic Yugi had used automatically for his answer. English was probably out of the window too. So he took a deep breath, and tried his first spoken word in a language he knew by heart but which he had never thought to have a chance to actually speak.

"I…It seems…to be so?" The words sounded heavy in his mouth, strange and halting. Nobody really knew how the Egyptians actually spoke—the way the text were read was educated guesswork—so Yugi was going out on a lot of trial and error, as fluent as he was. But, he could feel himself become more confident as he spoke, surer, as if he had always spoken that language. It helped that he had heard both his visitor and the mummy speak, as short and confusing both encounters had been. It gave him something to work with. "Honestly, I have no idea how or why."

His visitor nodded slowly at those words, understanding him, and that was the most important part after all. "I see. So you and your friends made it out of Hamunaptra alive. That's a relief" He smiled at Yugi, just for a second, but it seemed to lighten up his whole face, making it look gentler and easing the lines of worry etched around his eyes.

Yugi couldn't help but smile back, elated both at his triumph and the smile. He was actually speaking Egyptian, and he could be understood. His grandparents would be so proud when they heard that! That thought was enough to stop his smile. Yes, his grandparents would be proud and probably a bit envious as well. But, with the dark one on the loose, ready to destroy the world, there was barely a chance that either they or his friends would live long enough to hear that.

His visitor seemed to have read the look on his face, or maybe he was thinking along similar lines as Yugi, for he continued, closing his eyes for a moment before he spoke: "He is still hunting."

Yugi nodded. "The dark one? I know. My friends and my grandfather are currently trying to save the archaeologist from him." He turned away a bit when he said that, the first spark of worry coursing through him. Before he had been too angry at being left behind to think about the fact that his friends and his grandfather were walking directly into the creature's way, with barely any chance of defending themselves, and exactly zero chance of actually taking him down. Truth to be told, he had actually avoided thinking about them, trying to keep exactly this worry at bay. He couldn't help them—could do nothing but wait—and the fear about what might have already have happened gripped him with the force of a thunderstorm.

There was quiet noise behind him, the rustling of clothes moving, and then slowly Yugi felt a hand lying down on his shoulder. The gesture was so soft he could barely feel anything, but it felt warm and deeply comforting. Almost instinctively he leaned into the gesture, closing his eyes, while the stranger's voice, soft and comforting, washed over him.

"Your friends are still safe. He doesn't think of them as much more than an annoyance, so he just distracted them." The situation was way too serious to be amused by those words, but Yugi's still had to fight to keep back a smile. Neither Joey nor Tristan would be happy at being called nothing but an annoyance. Then the implication of the strangers words sunk in, and Yugi turned around, facing him wide eyed.

"And the Egyptologist?" He didn't need an answer, the look on the strangers face confirmed what he had meant by distraction. "Damn it."

The stranger nodded, face drawn and clearly worried "There are only two people left who opened the chest, and the Dark One is growing stronger every second." His eyes wander end over the room, they were standing in—the gorges left in the wall and the destruction around them—and anger and frustration lit up in his irises. "I can barely reach him anymore; much less do anything to hold him back."

It took Yugi a moment to recognise the feeling in the stranger's voice, buried under the anger: fear. His visitor was afraid, and somehow that made things even worse for Yugi. And it made his anger rise.

"So that is it? All is lost already?" He refused to believe that. There was always something to be done, one last trick to try. He ignored the voice in his head whispering that the Hom-Dai was quite likely exactly that last trick, instead focusing on his visitor with a challenging look. There was a spark of anger in those red eyes, probably at Yugi's tone, and he couldn't help but be angry about it. Good, so let him be angry, let him be mad at Yugi. Anything was better than fear and hopelessness. Fear was a paralyzer, locking you into your own heads; anger was the opposite; anger got things done.

For a moment their eyes locked, both sparking with anger and irritation, and neither willing to look away. Then the stranger tilted his head, and a small smile appeared on his face. "You clearly kept your spirit." He took a breath, and before Yugi could use this pause to ask what that should mean again, and why every supernatural being running around here seemed to know him somehow, he spoke again. "There might be something left to try." His gaze was calculating as he looked to Yugi. "He got resurrected using the Book of the Dead." The look he shot him now clearly contained a reproach that Yugi easily ignored. Yes, he knew what he did; he didn't need to be reminded about that again, justified as it was. "There is another book at Hamunaptra, its exact opposite."

He didn't get to finish what he wanted to say. "The Book of Amun-Ra, of course!" Yugi could have hit himself at this moment. He had thought and dreamed about this book nearly his whole life, and now, when it might actually contain the solution for his problem, he had completely forgotten about it. All this thought about balance and circles and he had overlooked the one thing that actually balanced the Book of the Dead.

He looked back up at the visitor, who regarded Yugi's slight attack with something that looked way too much like amusement sparkling in those red eyes.

Yugi narrowed his own eyes at him, but decided otherwise to ignore that. It was not the point right now. "You're saying it can stop him? Return him to the underworld?"

An unreadable look flitted over his visitor's face. "Not quite like that. But if you manage to find it, and read the first spell in it, I can take care of the rest." His eyes were hard when he said that, and his voice like cut glass. It was clear that the words were a promise. Yugi wanted to ask what exactly 'the rest' meant, but he didn't have time. The temperature around them suddenly plummeted, making Yugi nearly topple over with the abrupt change. Goosebumps appeared on his skin; cold crawled into every cell of his body and only now did he realise how warm and comfortable the air had been.

He looked towards his visitor, who had his head turned up, and stood now as still as if he actually was one of the pharaoh statues in the museum. "He's drawing closer to you. And he reached his third victim." A picture appeared in Yugi's head: Bonz and Zygor, sitting in front of his room, waiting alone for something they couldn't see coming.

He drew up. "I need to get back." It was something between and order and a statement, and while Yugi was relieved when his visitor only nodded, the confirmation of this small gesture alone was enough to turn his stomach into another round of whirls. A part of him had hoped for his visitor to contradict him, to state that it wasn't that urgent; that the dark one wasn't that close already.

"I'll send you back immediately. That way you've at least got a chance." His visitor was raising his hands again, and Yugi could see something on his forehead begin to glow, but before he could do anything, Yugi grasped his hands. His own were shaking, but he tried to ignore that. He needed to say this, and he didn't know why he thought that, but he was sure the other needed to hear it. They both needed a reassurance that this would go well, that they weren't alone in this fight.

"I'm going to walk out of that confrontation, and my friends and I are going to find that book." His words held the stranger's gaze unflinchingly. "Just try to hold him back long enough that there's still something left to use it for." The last words were spoken with a slight smile, and Yugi was threatened when his visitors smiled back.

"I'll do what I can."

Yugi nodded. "I know." He did. Somehow that was something he could never doubt, even if he didn't know why. "Can I just have your name before I go out there to face the incarnation of darkness on a destruction trip? I'd really like to know with whom I'm fighting, you know."

The laughter that was his answer, startled and surprised, rang in Yugi's ears like music. It didn't sound like his visitor had laughed a lot for a while now, a bit raw and unused, but it was still delightful, and his red eyes sparkled with mirth when he looked at Yugi.

"Atem. My name is Atem." He shook his head fondly, still smiling, and squeezed Yugi's hands. "May Horus and Seth guide you." With this last words a third eye on his forehead lightened up, and Yugi could only nod, heart still beating fast enough to break out of his chest, as the light consumed him. The last thing he felt was the feather light touch of the visitor's hands, warm and reassuring, break away, and then Yugi opened his eyes in his bedroom to the sound of sand streaming on the floor.

He slowly got up, eye fixated on the growing mound of sand in front of his door, just as the last grains fell through the keyhole. Yugi was just standing when the mound of sand exploded upwards, forming a very familiar figure. He was wearing the same clothes as in Yugi's dream; the face tilted a bit sideward as it mustered him, a teasing smile on his lips, a hurried parody of the smile Yugi had just seen. He was looking at Atem, and yet he was not looking at him. There was something terribly wrong about him, and that this wrong thing wasn't the last vestiges of his mummy status was even more unsettling. Like a bad copy of a statue, but he couldn't even pinpoint how. The worst thing was however that Yugi should have expected that.

There had been enough hints, between the story of the Medjay and Atem talking about holding him back, that everything should have been clear. And a part of Yugi had known, had expected Atem to be the Pharaoh who had sealed Zorc inside him. But knowing and actually understanding were two different things, and Yugi hadn't been prepared for the punch upon seeing the dark one wearing Atem's features,

The mummy must have seen his discomfort, for his smile grew darker. "You are awake. That's good. It's no fun dealing with someone who doesn't realise what's happening." He took a step towards Yugi while he spoke, his widening smile starting to decay again. The skin dried and flaked off; muscle strings turned brittle and hung loose, and the jawbone became visible. All the way through this nauseating spectacle his grin widened, and his eyes remained fixed on Yugi's. They were the worst part of this charade, looking so much like Atem's, but there was an emptiness in them, a lifelessness usually only found in the eyes of dolls.

Yugi was afraid his voice would break, but he still lifted his head to look at the mummy, while taking a step back and grasping frantically for something—anything—that could be used as a weapon. There was a burning candle on his nightstand; if the guy was still dry he should go up like tinder. "That's all you have to say? After all that terror around you, I didn't expect someone sounding like the bad guy of a third-rate radio drama." Brave words, which the slight shake in his voice sadly ruined a bit.

As a result, Zorc threw his head back and laughed. It drove pins into Yugi's stomach. It was Atem's laugh, down to the last sound, but without any of the warmness Yugi had just heard. The dead would laugh like that if they could. Then again, he was walking around wearing a mummified body like a suit, so that might actually be understandable.

At that moment the door behind the Dark One began to rattle frantically. Yugi could hear his friends, and his grandfather scream his name, and he couldn't help but scream back. "In here! I'm still ok."

Zorc turned his head back, looking sideways at the door, and then back at Yugi, whose hands grabbed that candleholder. "Your friends are very eager to die. Maybe I should do them that favour. And then you'll finally be my sacrifice." Still the speech of a radio drama bad guy, only it didn't sound less threatening in any way.

Yugi tightened his grip around the candleholder, and drew himself up. "You're going to be a dry corpse again before it comes to that."

Zorc took a step forward, grin finally giving way in to anger, but before he could do anything the door to the bedroom burst open, and Joey, Tristan and Yugi's grandfather stormed in, Tristan and the old man each carrying one of the Americans' guns at him.

"Get away from my grandson!" Yugi had never heard his grandfather sound so angry, or so scared.

With a look of pure annoyance on his face, Zorc turned around, just as Joey stepped up. He was clearly shaking, face so white he might have passed for a corpse himself, but he still held Zorc's look evenly when he raised his hands.

"Look what I got here! I brought a friend for you to play with." His shaking hands held up one of the hotel's stray cats, a beautiful black and white one that clearly didn't appreciate being held up, but that, taking one look at Zorc clearly appreciated him even less. Her face drew into an angry grimace and she hissed angrily at him.

The results were no less astonishing the second time. Zorc's face turned into a look of pure fear; he shrieked, stumbling towards the window that threw itself open, and, turning back into a whirlwind of sand, disappeared into the night. Silence settled over the room when they all looked at each other, nobody daring to say anything in case the mummy suddenly decided to make a comeback. Yugi carefully took a few steps towards the window, arm holding the candlestick raised over his head in a hopefully threatening way. He could hear Joey exhale.

"Oh my god, that cat thing actually worked." Yugi turned around to see his friend cuddle a squirming cat to his face. "I'm never going anywhere without a cat again. They are amazing!" Said amazing cat reacted by clawing his cheek, and using his slackening grip jumped to the floor to march off, head and tail raised high in rightful indignation. Behind Joey, Tristan turned his head to hide his laughter.

Yugi and his grandfather shared a short, hidden smile, before the old man's smile faded. "There is only Bonz left now. We found him with Tea at the bar, but he can't stay here."

So Zygor was the next one dead. A pang went through Yugi's heart, and his throat suddenly tightened. Another one being served a worse fate than he ever deserved. That had to stop.

He raised his head looking deadly serious from Joey to Tristan and his grandfather. "I think I have an idea on how to stop him. But we need to return to the museum for that."