Of course, the four in the bed of the truck were soon discovered by the owner…a rather disgruntled, middle-aged Englishman. But, although none of them would ever steal under normal situations (except, perhaps, Jonathan!), Ardeth tried to carefully and gently explain why they needed the truck temporarily.
When Ardeth's careful, gentle explanations didn't work, Rick tried his own kind of explanations…which were markedly less careful and less gentle. But, they seemed to produce the necessary results, and Rick and Suzette sped off in the cab, Jonathan and Ardeth still riding in the bed, and the disgruntled Englishman yelling obscenities from the side of the road.
"Do you do this often?" Suzette raised an eyebrow at the American.
"Er…well, no, not really." Rick smirked at her.
"Ah. Oui, I guess I understand." Suzette shrugged, and turned to look out the window, when Rick realized something quite important. He turned to the French girl.
"Hey, open the back window and ask Ardeth where we're going, because right now I have no idea." Rick suggested. They had left Cairo, and were now barreling through the oddly beautiful desert around the city.
"Dieu!" Suzette muttered, rolling her eyes, but did as she was told, turning to open the window to the cab and inquiring of the Med-Jai where they were headed.
Ardeth frowned at her in consternation.
"Don't you know?" He requested.
"Don't I know what?" Suzette returned, confused.
"Where we are going?" Ardeth replied.
"Er…no." Suzette shook her head.
"Bloody wonderful." Jonathan rolled his eyes, and Suzette and Ardeth shot him cocked-eyebrow looks. Jonathan shrugged and shook his head. Suzette sighed and turned back to the Med-Jai.
"Didn't the woman tell you where they were headed? I have no idea, honestly, where they would need to go. Up until now, everyone assumed that the Bridle was simply legend." Ardeth explained patiently.
"You boys considered something 'legend'?" Jonathan asked incredulously.
Ardeth ignored him, and Jonathan rolled his eyes again.
"We better figure something out soon, because this baby is running out of fuel---fast." Rick put in from behind the wheel.
"Did the woman say anything?" Ardeth prompted of Suzette.
Suddenly, something struck Jonathan, and he did not even hear Suzette's reply. The woman! The German woman! It had been her! The one he had seen, with the necklace on, which meant…oh God, something big was going to happen. Jonathan wildly motioned for someone to listen to him, and Ardeth turned, giving his English friend a look of confusion.
"I dreamed about her!" Jonathan spluttered.
Suzette, who was hanging out of the back window in order to speak to Ardeth, looked up in consternation, but as she did, she slammed her head on the top of the window. She cried something out in French that made Rick raise an eyebrow (after all, Rick had served with the French Foreign Legion, so he knew all varieties of French curses)
"Haven't heard that one in a while." Rick remarked, smirking.
"Dreamed about who?" Ardeth demanded of Jonathan, who had sunk into deep thought.
"What about who?" Suzette asked, still frowning angrily and rubbing the back of her head where she had smacked it.
"What about…what?" Rick frowned.
Jonathan turned to Ardeth, and opened his mouth, as if to speak, but then decided against it and crawled up to the front of the bed, motioning for Suzette to move out of the way so he could speak to Rick. The French girl nodded and pulled herself completely back into the truck and Jonathan stuck his head in the window.
Ardeth scrambled up behind him, so as to hear.
"Remember before this all started…I was telling you I had an odd dream about a woman, in the desert, wearing a necklace? And there were armies and two men in gray suits came up…?" Jonathan prodded.
"Yeah…faintly. I think I wasn't listening to you." Rick frowned, trying to recall.
Jonathan rolled his eyes.
"Come on, this is important! The woman in the dream…the woman I saw, looks almost exactly like our German fraulein!" Jonathan exclaimed.
"You dreamt of her…wearing the necklace?" Ardeth demanded, his eyes almost burning in seriousness and intensity. Suzette turned around, frowning in confusion.
"Yes." Jonathan replied.
There was silence, except for the tread of the wheels on the road below them and the desert wind whipping around the car. Suddenly, something also occurred to Suzette, as if Jonathan's epiphany was catching.
"British outpost." Suzette murmured.
Rick turned to her, raising an eyebrow. "What did you say?" he asked.
"The woman…er, Greta, I believe, is her name, told me it was some sort of British outpost. Abandoned. I don't know where, exactly, but they were going to take me on a boat to get there, so apparently we're talking about something a bit of a distance off." Suzette explained.
"British outpost…oh! Wait! I think I may…damn, we're going in the complete wrong direction then. Damn. We have to turn around. Besides, I want to stock up. If we meet up with our German friends again, then I wanna be armed." Rick exclaimed, wheeling the truck into an almost perfect 180-turn. Jonathan was thrown backwards on top of Ardeth, who rolled over and nearly fell off the side.
"Dieu! First you steal a car, then you drive it like crap!" Suzette pouted.
"Live a little." Rick winked at her.
Suzette rolled her eyes, but laughed as she heard Ardeth demand Jonathan get off of him. But she didn't hear the Med-Jai question Jonathan intently about his dream, and she didn't hear the note of fear in the warrior's tone.
***
Back in Cairo, Greta led Josef and Gerhard up to the hotel room she had rented, the three of them way beyond mad. The little French brat and her irritating companions had made them miss their boat! Now, they were forced to find some sort of alternate transportation to the outpost, and soon. The power of the pendant was growing, Greta could feel that, and they needed to activate it quickly.
"What do we do?" Josef demanded.
"We need a car." Greta suggested.
"A car! That will take twice as long!" Gerhard protested.
"But it will get us there, so shut up and let me call someone. Perhaps there is a rental service somewhere near…" Greta was cut off as a woman practically bowled her over, running down the stairs.
"Watch where you're going!" Greta snarled.
"Ah, forgive me." The woman apologized in a light, cultured British accent.
Greta simply shook her head and walked past as the English woman continued to run down the stairs, muttering about how rude certain people could be.
Once in the room, Greta dialed the operator and asked for the number of a car rental service. After securing the information, she, Josef, and Gerhard exited the room again.
Something occurred, then, to Gerhard.
"We need more ammunition…and bigger guns, as well. Our 'friends' are still out there, and they are not fools. Especially the Med-Jai. If we come into contact with him, then we need to make sure we can take care of him." Gerhard suggested.
Greta turned to him, her eyes intense.
"What, exactly, is a Med-Jai." She demanded quietly.
Neither of them saw the British woman come up behind them.
"A Med-Jai is a descendant of an Egyptian pharaoh's body guard. The Med-Jai are almost like the policemen of the desert…and strong, powerful, and dangerous warriors. If this Med-Jai finds us, then he could destroy everything we are trying to do." Gerhard explained softly. Josef nodded in confirmation.
"Of course." Greta whispered, as if she had already known the answer. Then she frowned. "Why would an Egyptian warrior be traveling around with an American and an Englishman?" she questioned.
"We have no idea. And we cannot worry about the 'why' of things…all we have to worry about is doing away with the four of them, and getting to that outpost." Gerhard replied sharply, and Greta nodded.
The three walked right past the British woman, without catching the horrified expression on her face.
After she was sure that they had not seen her, Evelyn Carnahan hurried out of the hotel after the three Germans who were apparently trying to murder her brother, her fiancé, and their Med-Jai friend.
***
Rick parked their newly-acquired truck in front of a small, dusty store, nondescript in every way except for a small card in the dusty window that read, in English, 'OPEN'. Ardeth, Jonathan, and Suzette exchanged looks in confusion as Rick opened the door and stepped out into the blinding Eastern afternoon.
"What are we doing here?" Suzette asked.
"Stocking up." Rick winked at the girl.
Jonathan scanned the grimy, disgusting-looking storefront window and raised a critical, distinctly British eyebrow.
"Looks like the only thing you'd be 'stocking up on' here is dirt." He remarked.
"Believe me, we'll find what we need in here." Rick assured, and pushed the door open.
Inside the store, it was cool and odd-smelling, and the four had to blink a bit before they could make anything out. Looking around, Suzette stared with wide-eyed wonder. Lining the poorly-made shelves were guns. More guns than Suzette had ever seen before, guns of all makes and models.
"Nice, huh?" Rick smirked.
"Should prove useful." Ardeth nodded lightly.
"Useful for what?" A scratchy voice asked, and Jonathan and Suzette nearly shrieked in fear. Rick, on the other hand, laughed loudly, and Ardeth looked around for the source of the voice. A man stepped out from the back of the store, a small, pale, heavy-set, old fellow who smiled widely, revealing more than a few missing teeth.
"Why do people always feel they have to scare other people to death!?" Jonathan demanded petulantly, and Suzette nodded in agreement. Rick ignored his soon-to-be brother-in-law and walked up to the old man, patting him on the back genially.
"O'Connell! What in the hell you doin' here? Though ya went to London or somethin'." The old man asked happily.
"Ah, you know me, Petey, just can't stay away. Petey, I'd like ya to meet my friends…and ask a favor of you." Rick motioned to Ardeth, Suzette, and Jonathan, then turned back to the old man with a winning smile.
"Lemme guess…ya want some guns." Petey raised a scruffy eyebrow.
"Yep." Rick nodded.
"What for this time, O'Connell?" Petey asked as he waddled back to the "display" rack and took down a particularly large elephant gun, handing it to Rick, who stroked it lovingly.
"Oh, the usual…destroying an ancient evil, stopping some power-mad Germans from conquering the World, looking for a little fun." Rick winked.
"O'Connell, you're always on the go." Petey sighed, and Ardeth held back a laugh of agreement as the bald old man handed him a Thompson.
Rick selected two handguns and fitted them in his holsters, then Petey handed two more to Ardeth. Jonathan grabbed a rifle, the weapon of his choice, and Rick turned to Suzette.
"You know how to shoot?" He asked her.
"Oui, of course." Suzette flicked an eyebrow.
"Huh? You…" Jonathan turned to her, surprised.
"Come now, Monsieur, an eighteen-year-old, unmarried girl living in Paris has to know how to shoot a gun. I'm just kicking myself that I did not have one in my apartment when those damned Krauts paid their little visit." Suzette sneered in a tough voice.
Rick handed her a small derringer, and was about to ask for some extra ammunition (all of Petey's guns came pre-loaded. Another reason why Petey preferred to keep his store plain and unnoticeable to the Cairo authorities.), when a car pulled up outside the shop.
"You, eh, expecting company?" Rick wondered faintly.
"No, but then again, someone always seems to need a cheap gun quickly in Egypt." Petey shrugged.
"Oh no…" Ardeth whispered, motioning out the dirty window.
"Well this is wonderful…" Jonathan muttered.
Their most favorite German friends, Gerhard, Josef, and Greta were heading to the store.
A/N: Thank you to everyone who reviewed so far! I'm so happy you like this…I was kind of nervous, this being my first attempt at a Mummy fic, so thank you for being so nice ^-^. Oh! And I have another fic in the works, so expect to see it soon…
Danke!
When Ardeth's careful, gentle explanations didn't work, Rick tried his own kind of explanations…which were markedly less careful and less gentle. But, they seemed to produce the necessary results, and Rick and Suzette sped off in the cab, Jonathan and Ardeth still riding in the bed, and the disgruntled Englishman yelling obscenities from the side of the road.
"Do you do this often?" Suzette raised an eyebrow at the American.
"Er…well, no, not really." Rick smirked at her.
"Ah. Oui, I guess I understand." Suzette shrugged, and turned to look out the window, when Rick realized something quite important. He turned to the French girl.
"Hey, open the back window and ask Ardeth where we're going, because right now I have no idea." Rick suggested. They had left Cairo, and were now barreling through the oddly beautiful desert around the city.
"Dieu!" Suzette muttered, rolling her eyes, but did as she was told, turning to open the window to the cab and inquiring of the Med-Jai where they were headed.
Ardeth frowned at her in consternation.
"Don't you know?" He requested.
"Don't I know what?" Suzette returned, confused.
"Where we are going?" Ardeth replied.
"Er…no." Suzette shook her head.
"Bloody wonderful." Jonathan rolled his eyes, and Suzette and Ardeth shot him cocked-eyebrow looks. Jonathan shrugged and shook his head. Suzette sighed and turned back to the Med-Jai.
"Didn't the woman tell you where they were headed? I have no idea, honestly, where they would need to go. Up until now, everyone assumed that the Bridle was simply legend." Ardeth explained patiently.
"You boys considered something 'legend'?" Jonathan asked incredulously.
Ardeth ignored him, and Jonathan rolled his eyes again.
"We better figure something out soon, because this baby is running out of fuel---fast." Rick put in from behind the wheel.
"Did the woman say anything?" Ardeth prompted of Suzette.
Suddenly, something struck Jonathan, and he did not even hear Suzette's reply. The woman! The German woman! It had been her! The one he had seen, with the necklace on, which meant…oh God, something big was going to happen. Jonathan wildly motioned for someone to listen to him, and Ardeth turned, giving his English friend a look of confusion.
"I dreamed about her!" Jonathan spluttered.
Suzette, who was hanging out of the back window in order to speak to Ardeth, looked up in consternation, but as she did, she slammed her head on the top of the window. She cried something out in French that made Rick raise an eyebrow (after all, Rick had served with the French Foreign Legion, so he knew all varieties of French curses)
"Haven't heard that one in a while." Rick remarked, smirking.
"Dreamed about who?" Ardeth demanded of Jonathan, who had sunk into deep thought.
"What about who?" Suzette asked, still frowning angrily and rubbing the back of her head where she had smacked it.
"What about…what?" Rick frowned.
Jonathan turned to Ardeth, and opened his mouth, as if to speak, but then decided against it and crawled up to the front of the bed, motioning for Suzette to move out of the way so he could speak to Rick. The French girl nodded and pulled herself completely back into the truck and Jonathan stuck his head in the window.
Ardeth scrambled up behind him, so as to hear.
"Remember before this all started…I was telling you I had an odd dream about a woman, in the desert, wearing a necklace? And there were armies and two men in gray suits came up…?" Jonathan prodded.
"Yeah…faintly. I think I wasn't listening to you." Rick frowned, trying to recall.
Jonathan rolled his eyes.
"Come on, this is important! The woman in the dream…the woman I saw, looks almost exactly like our German fraulein!" Jonathan exclaimed.
"You dreamt of her…wearing the necklace?" Ardeth demanded, his eyes almost burning in seriousness and intensity. Suzette turned around, frowning in confusion.
"Yes." Jonathan replied.
There was silence, except for the tread of the wheels on the road below them and the desert wind whipping around the car. Suddenly, something also occurred to Suzette, as if Jonathan's epiphany was catching.
"British outpost." Suzette murmured.
Rick turned to her, raising an eyebrow. "What did you say?" he asked.
"The woman…er, Greta, I believe, is her name, told me it was some sort of British outpost. Abandoned. I don't know where, exactly, but they were going to take me on a boat to get there, so apparently we're talking about something a bit of a distance off." Suzette explained.
"British outpost…oh! Wait! I think I may…damn, we're going in the complete wrong direction then. Damn. We have to turn around. Besides, I want to stock up. If we meet up with our German friends again, then I wanna be armed." Rick exclaimed, wheeling the truck into an almost perfect 180-turn. Jonathan was thrown backwards on top of Ardeth, who rolled over and nearly fell off the side.
"Dieu! First you steal a car, then you drive it like crap!" Suzette pouted.
"Live a little." Rick winked at her.
Suzette rolled her eyes, but laughed as she heard Ardeth demand Jonathan get off of him. But she didn't hear the Med-Jai question Jonathan intently about his dream, and she didn't hear the note of fear in the warrior's tone.
***
Back in Cairo, Greta led Josef and Gerhard up to the hotel room she had rented, the three of them way beyond mad. The little French brat and her irritating companions had made them miss their boat! Now, they were forced to find some sort of alternate transportation to the outpost, and soon. The power of the pendant was growing, Greta could feel that, and they needed to activate it quickly.
"What do we do?" Josef demanded.
"We need a car." Greta suggested.
"A car! That will take twice as long!" Gerhard protested.
"But it will get us there, so shut up and let me call someone. Perhaps there is a rental service somewhere near…" Greta was cut off as a woman practically bowled her over, running down the stairs.
"Watch where you're going!" Greta snarled.
"Ah, forgive me." The woman apologized in a light, cultured British accent.
Greta simply shook her head and walked past as the English woman continued to run down the stairs, muttering about how rude certain people could be.
Once in the room, Greta dialed the operator and asked for the number of a car rental service. After securing the information, she, Josef, and Gerhard exited the room again.
Something occurred, then, to Gerhard.
"We need more ammunition…and bigger guns, as well. Our 'friends' are still out there, and they are not fools. Especially the Med-Jai. If we come into contact with him, then we need to make sure we can take care of him." Gerhard suggested.
Greta turned to him, her eyes intense.
"What, exactly, is a Med-Jai." She demanded quietly.
Neither of them saw the British woman come up behind them.
"A Med-Jai is a descendant of an Egyptian pharaoh's body guard. The Med-Jai are almost like the policemen of the desert…and strong, powerful, and dangerous warriors. If this Med-Jai finds us, then he could destroy everything we are trying to do." Gerhard explained softly. Josef nodded in confirmation.
"Of course." Greta whispered, as if she had already known the answer. Then she frowned. "Why would an Egyptian warrior be traveling around with an American and an Englishman?" she questioned.
"We have no idea. And we cannot worry about the 'why' of things…all we have to worry about is doing away with the four of them, and getting to that outpost." Gerhard replied sharply, and Greta nodded.
The three walked right past the British woman, without catching the horrified expression on her face.
After she was sure that they had not seen her, Evelyn Carnahan hurried out of the hotel after the three Germans who were apparently trying to murder her brother, her fiancé, and their Med-Jai friend.
***
Rick parked their newly-acquired truck in front of a small, dusty store, nondescript in every way except for a small card in the dusty window that read, in English, 'OPEN'. Ardeth, Jonathan, and Suzette exchanged looks in confusion as Rick opened the door and stepped out into the blinding Eastern afternoon.
"What are we doing here?" Suzette asked.
"Stocking up." Rick winked at the girl.
Jonathan scanned the grimy, disgusting-looking storefront window and raised a critical, distinctly British eyebrow.
"Looks like the only thing you'd be 'stocking up on' here is dirt." He remarked.
"Believe me, we'll find what we need in here." Rick assured, and pushed the door open.
Inside the store, it was cool and odd-smelling, and the four had to blink a bit before they could make anything out. Looking around, Suzette stared with wide-eyed wonder. Lining the poorly-made shelves were guns. More guns than Suzette had ever seen before, guns of all makes and models.
"Nice, huh?" Rick smirked.
"Should prove useful." Ardeth nodded lightly.
"Useful for what?" A scratchy voice asked, and Jonathan and Suzette nearly shrieked in fear. Rick, on the other hand, laughed loudly, and Ardeth looked around for the source of the voice. A man stepped out from the back of the store, a small, pale, heavy-set, old fellow who smiled widely, revealing more than a few missing teeth.
"Why do people always feel they have to scare other people to death!?" Jonathan demanded petulantly, and Suzette nodded in agreement. Rick ignored his soon-to-be brother-in-law and walked up to the old man, patting him on the back genially.
"O'Connell! What in the hell you doin' here? Though ya went to London or somethin'." The old man asked happily.
"Ah, you know me, Petey, just can't stay away. Petey, I'd like ya to meet my friends…and ask a favor of you." Rick motioned to Ardeth, Suzette, and Jonathan, then turned back to the old man with a winning smile.
"Lemme guess…ya want some guns." Petey raised a scruffy eyebrow.
"Yep." Rick nodded.
"What for this time, O'Connell?" Petey asked as he waddled back to the "display" rack and took down a particularly large elephant gun, handing it to Rick, who stroked it lovingly.
"Oh, the usual…destroying an ancient evil, stopping some power-mad Germans from conquering the World, looking for a little fun." Rick winked.
"O'Connell, you're always on the go." Petey sighed, and Ardeth held back a laugh of agreement as the bald old man handed him a Thompson.
Rick selected two handguns and fitted them in his holsters, then Petey handed two more to Ardeth. Jonathan grabbed a rifle, the weapon of his choice, and Rick turned to Suzette.
"You know how to shoot?" He asked her.
"Oui, of course." Suzette flicked an eyebrow.
"Huh? You…" Jonathan turned to her, surprised.
"Come now, Monsieur, an eighteen-year-old, unmarried girl living in Paris has to know how to shoot a gun. I'm just kicking myself that I did not have one in my apartment when those damned Krauts paid their little visit." Suzette sneered in a tough voice.
Rick handed her a small derringer, and was about to ask for some extra ammunition (all of Petey's guns came pre-loaded. Another reason why Petey preferred to keep his store plain and unnoticeable to the Cairo authorities.), when a car pulled up outside the shop.
"You, eh, expecting company?" Rick wondered faintly.
"No, but then again, someone always seems to need a cheap gun quickly in Egypt." Petey shrugged.
"Oh no…" Ardeth whispered, motioning out the dirty window.
"Well this is wonderful…" Jonathan muttered.
Their most favorite German friends, Gerhard, Josef, and Greta were heading to the store.
A/N: Thank you to everyone who reviewed so far! I'm so happy you like this…I was kind of nervous, this being my first attempt at a Mummy fic, so thank you for being so nice ^-^. Oh! And I have another fic in the works, so expect to see it soon…
Danke!