CHAPTER 25

Beni spilled the beans.

"He is at his altar. Where he tried to resurrect Anck-su-mun three thousand years ago."

"Is that so?"

Pinned against the camel, the sharp edges of the Khonsu statue ready to slice into the end of his nose, he found himself realising that this was the first time he had surrendered to a woman.

In a non-sexual manner, of course.

Perry was eyeing him with suspicion, ensuring that he wasn't concocting some elaborate lie to wriggle his way out of failure. Beni's words seemed genuine, but his eyes kept on slipping to where their bodies almost met at the torso.

At first, she thought he was eyeing her midriff. She wouldn't hold it past a vile man like Beni to descend into perversion at a moment like this.

But between his feverish blinks and twitches of his neck, she caught onto the fact that he was wearing a holster, and that the pistol it held was what he'd set his sights on.

Why he hadn't thought of pulling the gun on her before, she had no idea. Perhaps the tiniest sliver of a gentleman lingered somewhere in the darkest depths of his soul, and he subconsciously kept shooting women as a last resort.

Or, he had just forgotten he had a gun until now.

Either way, this was working to her advantage.

"Tell me, Beni," she said, meeting his ever-exhausted blue eyes with a challenging stare from her own ebony ones. "How do I get to this altar?"

He was about to answer, and then he felt her hand brush against his stomach.

Freezing, it was all he could do to shut his eyes and wince as she removed the pistol from its place on his hip.

There was a click.

Opening one eye to peek at the consequence of his silly mistake, Beni found himself staring straight into the end of his own gun.

He swallowed.

The small Egyptian woman to whom the finger on the trigger belonged was smirking at him.

"It is below all you have seen in Hamunaptra," he admitted, wearily. "In the cemetery. You can get to it from the most eastern tunnel in the treasure room, behind the sphinx statue."

Perry took a step away from him and opened the bullet cartridge to see how much ammunition he had left. It was full.

"Isn't this entire place a cemetery?" she muttered, rhetorically.

Beni, with a face like thunder, was somewhere between sulking and loathing. He glowered at her as she backed away.

"If I leave now," he began to ask, "how do I know you won't just send your boyfriend and his gang out to slaughter me in the middle of the desert?"

Obviously, he was referring to Ardeth and the Medjai.

It was true. Beni knew about Hamunaptra, about the secret. Bloody hell, he worked for Imhotep. If she made him leave now, she would be probably be violating the Medjai's code...

"I won't." she decided.

Tossing him the Khonsu statue, a dull thud sounded as it landed by his feet. For probably the first time in his life, Beni didn't take notice of the gold.

"If you get on that camel and leave," she gestured to the animal with a wave of his gun, "I'll not tell anyone of your survival or whereabouts. But you must promise to leave Jonathan Carnahan and Marina Quatermain alone, and never speak of Hamunaptra again."

Even though he was standing perfectly still, something about Beni looked utterly defeated.

In the smallest movement, she saw his head jerk downwards in a little nod.

Taking this as her cue to leave, she turned and ran in the direction of Hamunaptra's nearest entrance.

Beni's voice, whiny and strained, shouted out after her as she grew close to disappearing.

"What about all that gold?"

She stopped and glanced over her shoulder at him. He hadn't yet mounted his camel, but his hand was brushing readily against one of its reigns.

"Beni, if you follow me back in here, you won't make it out alive."

And with that, she left the Hungarian man to stare glumly at the Khonsu statue by his feet.

XxXxXx

For all of his terrible traits, Beni had proved to be truthful in his directions. Behind a statue of a solid gold sphinx adorned with gemstones, there lay an opening in the walls, concealed by shade and easily missed.

There were no gunshots in the treasure room, now. No mummies screeching. No machine gun rattling.

Perry booted the bad thoughts out of her mind and headed fearlessly into the narrow passageway, discovering after a couple of stumbles that it mostly consisted of stairs.

The tunnel wound down and down, the dusty steps grew thinner and harder to keep a pace on, and the walls turned cold beneath her fingertips.

"Please don't be dead," she whispered into the darkness, praying for Jonathan and Ardeth and Evie and Rick. "Please don't—"

"The Book of Amun-Ra! I've found it Evie, I've found it!"

She gasped.

Jarring to a halt, Perry's eyes went wide and a little laugh left her suddenly smiling lips.

She had never been so relieved to hear Jonathan Carnahan's voice.

And it was close by, too.

"Shut up and get me off of here, Jonathan!"

Evie's distressed tone met her ears next.

Moving quickly again, Perry flew down the steps, towards the sounds of their voices that undoubtedly lay at the passage's end.

"Open the book. It's the only way to kill him! You have to open the book and find the inscription!"

"Bloody thing, I can't open it! It's locked, or something!"

There was a light at the end of her tunnel, now. Just a minute, and she'd be in the altar room, as Beni had said...

"We need the key, Evie!"

"It's inside his robes!"

Evelyn's words were masked by the blood pumping through Perry's ears, the pounding of her footsteps against the stone floor.

The glow of amber light was inches away. She rushed into it, finding herself face to face with—

Smack.

"Oww!"

Jonathan. Jonathan's skull on hers, to be more precise.

In a haze of groans, she found herself mirroring the Englishman as he massaged the point of impact.

"Jonathan, don't you ever look where you're going before you round corners?" she snapped.

He blinked away the pain and looked at her with surprise and confusion and startle, but the matter of his sister's life was obviously pressing him to not stand around.

Then, he spotted the gun in her hand.

"Is that a gun?" he asked. "Wait a minute, where have you been?"

She shook her head to signify that it didn't matter, and then changed the subject by pointing to the heavy-looking book in his arms. He grew excited when she noticed it, smiling and nodding, gun forgotten.

"Is that—"

"— The Book of Amun-Ra!" he exclaimed, beaming as wide as ever. "I tell you, Perry, I'm hitting on all six cylinders tonight!"

In that moment Jonathan seemed, to his assistant, a better archaeologist than Augustus Pitt-Rivers, Mortimer Wheeler and John Lloyd Stevens combined.

"Well done, Mr. Carnahan!" she breathed, gleefully.

Howard Carter couldn't lace his boots.

Her employer snorted in false modesty and waved his free hand in dismissal.

"Well, O'Connell helped, I suppose, but I did find that Horus statue single-handedly..."

He was chuffed with himself. Face flustered, hair out of place, a sheen of sweat coating his forehead; one would think Jonathan just run a marathon to retrieve the book, and then all the way back again to tell her his story.

A yelp echoed out from the hall that Jonathan had fled, leading Perry to believe that that was where Imhotep had held Evie captive.

If Jonathan was here, then Rick was probably holding off Imhotep. Whether O'Connell's machine gun-toting comrade was at his side, she didn't know.

"Where's Ardeth?" she asked.

Jonathan's mouth hung open, as if an answer was supposed to come out of it but he was too afraid to give one.

Straining her ears, Perry could hear the undead moaning, and Evie shouting things to Rick. Swords slashed, now, but she had a terrible feeling that her Medjai friend wasn't around to brandish one.

"He stayed back to hold off some, err, mummies," Jonathan told her.

Anxiety stabbed her chest.

"What? Where?"

Jonathan raised his eyebrows and sputtered something about a hall and the statue room.

"Look, Perry, I need the key!" he eventually cried. "We're running out of time!"

Perry frowned. Terence Bey had told her about the powers that the book in his arms possessed. Reaching out, she tugged at it until he let her see the cover.

"Read these incantations," she whispered, eyes scanning the hieroglyphics on its front. "Raising some undead opposition to even the playing field might be a good idea..."

Jonathan's eyes grew wide.

"What did you say?"

She bit her lip.

"I don't know, but if you just read these inscriptions, they'll buy you some time."

Overwhelmed, he gulped and examined the hieroglyphs with uneasiness.

"I'm a bit rusty," he stated, voice afraid. "Usually Evie translates everything. And right now she's—"

His sister's panicked voice caused them both to glance away from the book. She was telling O'Connell to 'look out'.

"— In a bit of a pickle."

Perry took a look at the spells that would grant Jonathan some power. He could read these, if he just put his mind to it. Laziness had lulled him into a false sense of security over the years, and now he was doubting himself.

"I'll get you started," she whispered, tapping the first symbols with shaking fingers. The twisted flax, an owl and a lasso were among the first engraved alphabetical pictures; hands, vultures, reeds and snakes followed, and with every annunciation Perry gave of their meanings, Jonathan grew more confident.

Within seconds, he was reading pretty fluently.

"I can do this," he whispered to himself, struggling to bring the heavy book closer to his face with his injured hand. "I can do this!"

Perry patted him on the back in reassurance.

"Good! You go out there and save Evie!"

He made to take off, still concentrated on the book cover, and then turned to her when he realised he wasn't being followed.

"This way! Hurry up!"

Dampening his eagerness to be a hero, the look of confusion that set itself upon his face made her want to run along with him.

Jonathan certainly didn't resemble the man who had stumbled into her flat with the puzzle-box last week, and this she was very proud of.

He had found the statue of Horus and the Book of the Living independently. Assuming the role of older brother, which he often fell out of by mistake, he had near enough saved his little sister in her time of need.

Yet here he stood, not realising that he didn't require Perry's assistance anymore.

She wasn't going to follow him.

"I'm going to help Ardeth," she said. "He needs me more than you do."

Jonathan looked like she'd just informed him of a long-hidden death wish.

"You'll die!"

Oh, he has so much faith in me, she thought.

"Maybe," she admitted with a certain bravery, grimacing at the boldness of this decision. "But it's what I have to do. You have to find the key! So, go!"

Jonathan pulled his face, making jerky little movements on the spot from repeated hesitation.

"Go!"

He fled, Book of Amun-Ra held close to his squinting eyes, thin feet clumsily navigating their way out of this corridor.

Perry looked back at the passage through which she had just arrived. The notion of climbing all of those flights of stairs was one that made her feel queasy. Luckily, a new option had arisen: Jonathan's route.

Scooting under the broken stone archway in which he had just appeared with the book, she found herself with a full view of the cemetery.

Wide stone steps ascended and descended from either side of the landing she was stood on, suggesting that Jonathan had run down from their start.

Not too far below her, at the centre of this darkly palatial hall, there lay two stone slabs; chained to the top of one was Evelyn Carnahan, and at her side the mummified body of Imhotep's beloved Anck-su-namun lay in waiting.

Rick had a sword, and a posse of priests had obviously had their malicious intentions cut short by its blade— bandage-clad body parts were scattered in all directions.

And, perhaps the most terrifying feature of this resurrection room was situated just across the way from her. Halfway up the flight of steps, Imhotep stood watching over everything with bitter calmness.

Perry didn't move, incase he saw her. He had that affect. If she was a jerboa, he was a jackal.

Evie stumbled away from the table as O'Connell freed her from the last of her restraints.

Once the librarian had moved, Perry realised that another item remained on the stone slabs, beside Imhotep's dead lover. The Book of the Dead.

Had everyone forgotten about it?

Her attention was diverted when Jonathan reappeared, finishing the last part of one of the incantations adorning the Book of Amun-Ra.

There was a bang, and then the unmistakable sound of marching, like the cavalry had just been called by Jonathan's goofy attempt at a spell. Into the room filed ten undead soldiers, tall and solid, brandishing spears and shields. They lined up to square off with the living.

"Oh yeah, this just keep getting better and better," Rick said, backing Evelyn away from them and holding out his sword.

Perry looked on worriedly as Evie urged her brother to do something.

Things sped up considerably, then.

Jonathan disappeared. The soldiers closed in on Evie and Rick, and in a flurry of screeches and scratches, Evie found herself under attack.

The body of Anck-su-namun had removed itself from the resurrection table. Apparently, it was displeased with its would-be host body.

Imhotep shouted a command in his tongue. The soldiers closed in on O'Connell, who was now alone and looked no match for their agile, unnaturally fast and strong figures.

Rick bolted. They chased him.

If Imhotep was going for the 'divide and conquer' strategy, it seemed to be working.

Perry realised that she had done no more than the High Priest for a while, standing on the steps, overseeing everything. It was time to move.

Swallowing fear for the millionth time, she rocketed down her steps and past where was Imhotep stood.

She didn't look back to see his reaction to her presence. The stone resurrection tables lay in her sight, and to those she headed with determination.

Fingers finding the cold obsidian of the Book of the Dead, she snatched it up and took flight towards her exit.

The last thing she heard before she reached the cemetery's exit was Evie shouting,

"Hurry up, Jonathan!"

XxXxXx

The Book of the Dead was heavy, but she didn't regret picking it up.

Her arms ached, and the stairs weren't any easier to defeat with the added mass; but she had been compelled to grab it, to swipe it from beneath Imhotep's nose, even if its damage was already done.

She found a little chamber, dark and oddly structured— layers upon layers of varying panels building up its walls— in which to pause and take a breath. There were statues draped in cobwebs in little coves here, and the sand was bright where the ceiling was hidden in darkness.

Ancient writings ran in golden columns on the black stone, but she didn't take time to read them. Ardeth was on her mind, and it was high time she found him.

Lugging the Book of the Dead around would be a major inconvenience, so she placed it snugly within a gap between two panels. An odd extension protruded from this space also, jutting out from the black walls like a man-made weed.

The extension had a bronze jackal's head at its end, and after finding it close to her face when crouching to hide the book, she recognised it to be that of Anubis.

Anubis' presence was ominous anywhere, but she ignored it and tucked the book below it. It served as a good reminder that she'd put it there, anyway.

Certain that the cursed book was efficiently concealed in this room, Perry got to her feet and headed off to find her Medjai friend.

- Expect Chapter 26 to be up soon, guys! :D