Devil's Advocate

"I don't get it," Daniels huffed, snapping his cigarette lighter closed, and then flipping it open again. The steady, agitated clicking of the lighter seemed to match Gretchen's heart rate; his nerves were setting her on edge.

They were sitting in Evelyn's room again, the false safety of the fort surrounding them in something like comfort. Gretchen sat stiffly in a chair, her eyes transfixed on the scuffed silver cigarette lighter Daniels was playing with. She wondered if he happened to have a smoke on him, but she wasn't about to ask him for it.

"Why don't he just 'regenerate' himself with all the dirty natives in the street?"

O'Connell shot him a look, but Evelyn--pacing thoughtfully in front of them--was frozen suddenly in her tracks.

"He has a point there."

The Legionnaire raised his eyebrows incredulously. "He does?"

Evelyn bobbled her head; she began to explain quickly, her mouth seemingly too slow for her train of thought. "Yes! With all the available resources--"

"Evy!" her brother chided with a grimace. "Really, you are talking about people."

She nodded impatiently. "Shut up, Jonathan. With so many opportunities to regenerate, he seeks only after those that opened the chest."

Henderson's brow furrowed. "Didn't we already know that? I mean, isn't that what the curator said?"

"Well...yes," the British woman allowed, "but--listen. If he wanted to kill anyone else, he would have by now."

Her glittering eyes locked with O'Connell's; they stared at each other in a moment of understanding. Gretchen frowned, wondering what the big deal was.

"You think we're safe?" he finally managed quietly. Evelyn swallowed, her shoulders rising in a shrug.

"Well, considering the circumstances--"

Jonathan snorted loudly. "Come now, Evy. This...Creature is going to do whatever he wants!"

"Once he's regenerated," she retorted pointedly. "So we must stop him from regenerating. Who opened that chest?"

Henderson supplied himself and Daniels--oh, and Burns of course. The egyptologist--

"What about my buddy Beni?"

Gretchen's head jerked up in interest, and she wasn't entirely sure why. The Americans assured O'Connell that he hadn't been present when the chest was opened; still, Gretchen had to wonder what he mattered. She thought Beni was dead---or, at the very least, left to the fate of the desert...

"What about you?"

She met O'Connell's eyes and her breath caught in her throat. The deep blue of his eyes took the words from her mouth, and it was all she could manage to shake her head numbly. Something in their depths felt like euphoria, and quieted her still-trembling nerves. If she had lost her mind in the museum, then the blue was certainly her anecdote.

"Nah," Henderson was answering. "She was sick or somethin'."

"Lucky's what she was."

Gretchen tore her eyes from O'Connell's, meeting the black depths of Daniels' gaze evenly. For the first time, she noticed a tragic desperation in him that had not been there earlier. Her stomach twisted, and she almost felt sorry for the bastard.

"Well," Evelyn's voice broke through the silence urgently. "We must find the egyptologist and bring him back to the safety of the fort."

Gretchen could feel O'Connell looking at her again, but she couldn't quite find it inside herself to look up.

"You were with him last, right?" She nodded. "Where'd he go?"

Gretchen shrugged. "He said he was going back to his office. He took that book--"

"Great," O'Connell breathed. "Okay, so the ladies'll stay here. You three--come with me."

A chorus of protests berated him. The Americans weren't going anywhere, they said--and Gretchen didn't really blame them. If this...mummy thing was after them, they probably shouldn't be out in the streets. Jonathan didn't see why he should have to go; Evelyn was whining about being left. Gretchen kept her mouth shut; she didn't have any problem remaining in the fort. Even if Evelyn was right, and the mummy couldn't--or wouldn't--kill her, she'd just as soon not run into it.

Gretchen leaned back in her chair and O'Connell hoisted Evelyn over his shoulder, hauling her into the bedroom. He dumped her on the bed and strode easily back into the room, the slam of the double doors muffling her persistent outrage. He twisted the key in the lock and handed it over to Daniels with a fierce enough warning. Gretchen was just getting settled when she felt the Legionnaire's commanding blue gaze on her.

"You make sure nothing happens to her."

The prostitute was fairly certain there was little she could do if Daniels and Henderson decided to ravage the lovely librarian, but she nodded anyway.

"Okay."

A moment later, O'Connell and Jonathan were gone. Daniels sighed, tipping his chair back on two legs. Henderson's nervous chewing filled the previously-noisy room. Gretchen shifted in her seat, wondering if she could get comfortable enough to doze for a little bit. Somehow, she knew the tension in their little enclave was enough to keep her from falling asleep, and besides, all of this ancient-Meela business was enough to make her fear her dreams. Breathing a nervous sigh, she ventured to speak up and distract herself from her creeping fears of insanity:

"So what now?"

Daniels scoffed. "We wait, dumbass."

Gretchen gritted her teeth. "Jesus..."

"You don't have to snap at her," Henderson muttered quietly. "She's stuck up in this mess the same as us."

His friend laughed humorlessly. "Ain't the same at all. Nobody's gonna suck her dry--turn her into a mummy." Daniels clicked his tongue, his dark eyes turning to Gretchen maliciously. "How's about it, honey? You wanna suck me dry before the world goes to shit?"

Henderson groaned. "Shut up, ya jackass."

But Gretchen only raised her eyebrows, barely glancing at the darker American. "You still owe me for last time."

Daniels snorted loudly. "Tell you what, sugar. You swim down to the bottom 'a the river and find my granddaddy's pistol and we'll call it even."

"Fuck you," she retorted. Barely two minutes with her countrymen, and she was already getting a migraine. "And fuck your pistol."

Daniels jumped to his feet, his hand ready and clocked back to deliver a painful slap. Henderson stood up quickly, grabbing hold of his friend's arm and shaking his head.

"Leave 'er alone," he told him evenly. "She's not worth it."

Gretchen looked away, pretending that the floor was extraordinarily interesting. She swallowed, feeling her stomach knot up with something like hurt. She's not worth it. No, the prostitute supposed, she probably wasn't. Not that she wanted to get decked, but Gretchen couldn't help wondering what she was worth, if she wasn't even worth a good beating. For some reason, she thought of Meela again--her eyes sad and dark and, in their own way, understanding.

"Enough of this," Daniels spat out, stepping away from his friend. Henderson released his grip reluctantly, watching the shorter man walk toward the door. "I'm gonna go get me a drink."

She pushed her thoughts away, breathing a private sigh of relief. That would at least occupy him.

"You want somethin'?"

He was talking to Henderson, and only Henderson.

"Get me a bourbon," he requested quietly. The blond was looking at Gretchen, and something in his eyes was strange. She heard the door close behind Daniels, but she stared steadily back at Henderson because she wasn't sure what else to do. He swallowed nervously, glancing away. "I'm sorry 'bout him."

Gretchen shrugged stiffly.

"He ain't takin' any of this too good," he continued awkwardly. The prostitute rolled her eyes.

"He's been a prick this whole time."

But Henderson was shaking his head, ready to defend his companion. "He's got his moments, I know. I mean, he can be a real pain in the ass. But Burns was his cousin--like, like a brother to him almost when they was kids. And it's real hard on him, 'cause he always used to take care of him. It's like...it's like he failed, you know?"

Gretchen swallowed, toying with a strand of her hair absently. It seemed so odd for him to be telling her all of this, and she wasn't entirely sure what to say.

"You know you look like my sweetheart back home," he told her quietly, his cheeks flushing a little. She glanced up, but he wouldn't look at her.

"I do not," she sputtered in disbelief. But he was nodding his head.

"You do, kinda. You got eyes like she does, and when you smile...I kinda see her in you," he forced a nervous laugh. "'Couse, you don't smile so much."

Gretchen snorted. She knew she ought to say something--ought to fill the awkward silence and reassure his venture. She'd been told, many times, that she looked like a loved one, but she knew that wasn't so. People saw what they wanted to see; she was what they wanted her to be.

"Can I--can I kiss you?"

She looked up, meeting his uncertain gaze. A glaze of fearful, boyish tears brimmed in his quiet eyes.

"I'm just gettin' scared...and I keep thinkin'--I keep thinkin' I might never get to kiss her again."

Gretchen swallowed, pulling herself from the chair. Standing in front of Henderson, she wrapped her arms around his neck and nodded faintly. He pressed his lips softly against hers, and she felt more than heard a sob in his throat. He tilted his head and kissed her more forcefully, his tongue slipping into her mouth and his tears wetting her face. He was holding her tightly--too tightly--and then, suddenly, inhumanly, he was ripped from her grasp.

Her eyes snapped open, only to squeeze tightly shut again. The room swirled and whirred with sand and wind, a croaking and tortured scream echoing in her ears. Gretchen dropped to the ground, cowering against the phenomenon that had taken Henderson but left her untouched. She let out a scream that was lost in the tangle of wind and sand and howls.

And then, quiet. Nothing. A cold hand touched Gretchen's shoulder, and she reluctantly opened her eyes, meeting a haunted gaze. She swallowed, staring adamantly into his eyes because she was afraid to gawk at the rotting patches of flesh on his face. He said something she did not understand, turning his head towards a twisted, dry corpse on the floor. Gretchen gasped, her stomach jolting with nausea. She wanted to vomit, but he was looking at her again, a tragic understanding in his stoic depths. He spoke again, and his voice chilled her; his lightless gaze pierced hers, and she saw a man who was as dangerous as he was beautiful.

"Imhotep," she breathed.

Anck-su-namun.

He looked shaken, and stumbled quickly to his feet. His body suddenly disintegrated into millions of grains of sand. A wind hissed through the room, and the sand gathered into an obscure cluster, slipping through the keyhole of Evelyn's door.

Gretchen stared.

Her whole body shook, but she couldn't convince herself to move. She wanted to run--wanted to flee from this room and this curse and this whole damned country, but she just couldn't force her feet to move. She stared stubbornly away from Henderson's corpse, the edges of her vision blurring with the very thought of the unfortunate man. Her stomach swam with sickness, and she gripped the table for balance. Her body doubled over and she gagged, but nothing came up.

The door opened swiftly, and she struggled to look up. O'Connell glanced at her briefly before rushing to the bedroom suite and kicking open the doors. Faintly, Gretchen heard a cat mewing.

A hand was on her shoulder again--warm, this time, and comforting. She looked up, meeting Jonathan's concerned gaze. He offered her his arm, and she leaned into him.

"I should've let you keep that puzzle box," he whispered sadly.