Disclaimer: Of the characters I can claim only very few of them as my own - namely Rebecca. I do not make any claim on the characters featuring in "The Mummy".
Chapter 9 - Death and Power
Somehow, Jonathon found himself kneeling at Rick's side. He stared down at his brother-in-law, gently reaching out and pressing a hand to his neck. There was no pulse. No life. He knew that as he stared down at Rick's face, no longer graced with his almost perpetual smile. No amusement lurked at the back of his eyes, no life animated his expressive face. Jonathon wept, thinking of his sister, sat in her room back in Cairo, where she had stayed to look after Alex while the men went to save Ardeth. Tears dripped down his face as he remembered Rick kissing Evy goodbye, how she'd warned them both to be careful.
He didn't know how long he knelt there, didn't feel the touch of Ardeth's hand on his shoulder, and didn't see as Ardeth turned to confront Rebecca.
Her eyes were dark and grave as she stared at Jonathon. Then she shrugged, and turned her gaze back to Ardeth, an amused smile curving her lips.
"That is supposed to be justice?"
"It serves well enough. For now."
"He didn't do anything to you. It is me you wish to see punished."
"You killed my family, but you didn't kill him, and his, all those years ago. Didn't try to kill him, or the woman who would become his wife. If I can't have my family, or my happiness…" She shrugged. Ardeth strode towards her and she stepped back away from him, retreating until he was stood in the middle of the room and she upon the first stone step leading up to the throne where she'd first been sat. Unbeknown to Ardeth, he now stood in the centre of a circle marked by coloured tiles set onto the floor.
"I did try to kill them. I failed".
Rebecca just shrugged.
"Tell me something. Why is it that you wish to become a god? You already have so much power."
"This is nothing. So I can make things happen within a few feet of me. That isn't true power. Knowledge is. I want to know everything, and soon I can. Gods are omnipotent. I don't care about physical power." Then she smiled, tilting her head sideways again, playing with her hair. "Not much, anyway. It's useful, if you want revenge. But that's not what I'm pursuing. Knowledge is my life's pursuit."
She glanced upwards. "It's time." She reached down, grasping the knife from her belt, pulling it from the sheath. Ardeth tensed himself, preparing to leap to the side, but a force reached out, taking hold of him, preventing him from moving, keeping him in the centre of the circle.
Rebecca glanced towards the two men who were still stood near Rick's body, gazing vaguely down at Jonathon. Little expression crossed their dull faces. "Hold him" she said softly, gesturing towards Jonathon.
As Jonathon's grief finally released a hold on him, and he tensed, preparing to fight against the men, Rebecca killed Ardeth, stabbing him through the heart. As she pulled out the knife, as Ardeth fell to the ground, storm clouds suddenly coalesced in flawless blue sky, and a bolt of lightning shot down, striking Rebecca. Who smiled. Chunks of broken roof, fractured where the lightning had shot to the ground, crashed around her, and the pendant at her neck shone with a luminous blue light.
As the men reached down, and one grasped Jonathon, he prepared himself for the course of action he was about to undertake. It was not one he usually like to think of, but desperate times called for desperate measures…
Shouting wildly he sprang upwards, throwing off the mans arm, and kneeing him firmly in the groin. The man gave an agonised groan and sank to his knees. Jonathon quickly grabbed the gun form the mans belt - a gun he recognised as Rick's, which the man had obviously confiscated - and, squeamishly, shot both men, one upright and trying to back away, one kneeling and heedless to the world. Just another thing he didn't like - killing - but he supposed that in this situation they deserved it.
Then he turned, and carefully sighted the gun at the girl … and hesitated. What would he have done, all those years ago, if the Med-jai had succeeded in killing Evy? If they'd killed her on the boat, while he'd managed to escape? Could he really blame this girl for taking revenge?
He stared at the beautiful young woman as she stood, surrounded in a luminous stream of power that came from the heavens, a smile on her lips … and the body of his dead friend at her feet, the corpse of his brother in law lying only a few feet away. He set his mouth, and fired.