Never My Money
Rated PG-13
Disclaimer – All characters belong to Stephen Sommers and
Universal.
Marcher, Mbooker, thanks so much guys.
You're really helping me to keep going. :) And Eve, don't worry, chapter 5 isn't going to be far
behind. And see? I got it up "tomorrow".
:P
Chapter 4
The nice thing about bunking with Jonathan Carnahan is that he's never around. I spent the better part of the day double checking our supplies and mentally mapping the way to that damn city. Couple days up river, couple days on horseback, and I'd be back in Cairo, scot-free in two weeks. No more smashed Brits or uptight librarians. And thank God for that.
Just after nightfall, I decided to head up on deck and grab some food, and plow through the gunnysack, now that it was tolerable to be out in the open. I happened to find the esteemed older brother playing five-card stud with a group of Americans.
"Ah, O'Connell, sit down," Jonathan said, waving to the empty chair. "We could use another player."
"I only gamble with my life, never my money." If there were never a statement truer, let whatever power that felt like it bury me in sand.
"Never?" one of the Americans said. "What if I was to bet you five hundred dollars says we get to Hamunaptra before you?"
"You're looking for Hamunaptra?"
"Damn straight, we are."
"And who says we are?" Let me guess.
"He does," they all said, point to Jonathan. Jonathan looked up at me, grinning like a kid with his hand caught in the cookie jar.
"All right, you're on." Well, so much for that rule of life to live by.
"What makes you so confident?" came a rather snotty British voice to the side of the table. This guy reeked of a museum more than Evelyn, and that's saying a lot. But if he was anything like the rest of them, he'd never been there. So what was his deal?
"Well, what makes you?" I asked.
The tall blonde spoke up this time, stating, "We've got us a man who's actually been there." I could already feel my stomach tighten. I didn't have much time to think about though, as the Brit opened his mouth again.
"Well, what a coincidence," Jonathan started, "O'Connell here –" I promptly smacked him upside the back of the head with the heavy gunnysack as I swung it up onto my shoulder. "Whose deal is it? Is it my deal?" he spit out, rubbing the back of his head for a moment.
"Gentlemen, we got us a wager. Good evening. Jonathan," I added, with a hard squeeze to his shoulder, telling him to keep his big fat trap shut.
I turned a corner of the ship, the cloud of smoke following me finally dissipated, leaving me with nothing more than the fresh night air. Smoking was just one of those things I never really understood. I watched too many guys in my garrison go damn near crazy when they couldn't get a smoke for a week. They were liable to shoot your head off for saying the wrong thing.
I needed to plow through the gunnysack weighing down my shoulders, prep the guns and ammo, and none other than little miss librarian occupied a table on this side of the deck. Rather than announce myself and be told to 'bugger off', I threw the bag down on the table.
She damn near jumped out of her skin.
"Sorry," I said, trying not to laugh this time. "Didn't mean to scare you." Though I enjoyed it immensely.
"The only thing that scares me, Mister O'Connell, are you manners," she shot back, looking up at me over the top of her glasses, book still in hand. I figured she wasn't talking about her escapades on the deck this morning, when I had actually offered to help her, so there was only one other option to go with.
"Still angry about that kiss, huh?"
"Well, if you call *that* a kiss." That one was hitting below the belt. Without a word escaping my clinched jaw, I threw open the gunnysack, unrolling it across the table. If her eyes got any wider, they would have popped out. No doubt she was wondering why anyone would carry this much firepower on a dig. No doubt she was going to ask too. "Did I miss something? Are we going into battle?" Called it.
"Lady," I said, pulling up a chair and starting in, "there something out there. Something underneath that sand." I set to my mindless task, pulling out guns, loading and oiling, not having to give a thought to what I was doing.
"Yes, well, I'm hoping to find a certain artifact." Big shock. "A book actually." Good God, you would think she had had enough of books already. "My brother thinks there's treasure. What do you think is out there?"
"In a word, evil." I don't think that was the answer she was expecting, as it wiped the grin right off her painted lips. "The Bedouin and the Tuaregs believe that Hamunaptra is cursed. They call it the 'Doorway to Hell.'"
"Ahmar is Ossirion. 'Passageway to the Underworld,' actually." She grinned at me, that disgusting 'I-Know-More-Than-You-Do' grin. "Well, I don't believe in fairytales and hokum, Mister O'Connell. But I do believe that one of the most famous books in history is buried out there: The Book of Amun-Ra. It contains within it all of the secret incantations of the Old Kingdom. It's what first interested me in Egypt when I was a little girl. It's why I came here, sort of a life's pursuit."
"And the fact that they say it's made out of pure gold makes no never mind to you." Her eyes lit up that I had a clue what the hell she was talking about.
"You know you're history," she said, in a tone that almost sounded like it could have been a compliment.
"I know my treasure." It was my turn for the know-it-all grin, snapping the freshly oiled shotgun closed. She set her hands in her lap for a moment, looking rather uncomfortable until she finally said -
"By the way, why did you kiss me?" I shrugged, casually shoving bullets into the chamber of a revolver.
"I don't know. I was about to be hanged. It seemed like a good idea at the time." Open mouth, insert one size eleven foot. She obviously didn't appreciate my humor either, as she shot up out of her seat, huffing away in a little storm. "What?" I said, spinning around in the chair as I snapped the chamber closed. "What'd I say?"
Now, the last thing any man wants to hear when a woman, no matter how big a pain in the ass, has just stormed off is someone laughing. Keeping the revolver in hand, I carefully poked my way around to some mysteriously moving cargo. I reached behind and quickly produced a rat.
"O'Connell! My good friend! You're alive. I was so very, very worried." Yeah, I bet he was.
"Well, if it ain't my little buddy Beni." I had just decided there was a God and he had a sense of vengeance. "I think I'll kill you now," I added, cocking the safety back, aiming the gun at his chest.
"Think of my children," he squealed.
"You don't have any children."
"Someday I might."
"Shut up." As if dealing with this rotten weasel for two years in the middle of the desert hadn't been enough, now I had to listen to him whine about love lost and all that crap. A change of subject would be the only thing to keep me from throwing up. "So you're the one leading the Americans. I might have known. So what's the scam, Beni? You take them out to the middle of the desert, and leave them to rot?" And I wouldn't put it past him either.
"Unfortunately, no. These Americans are smart." Damn good thing I don't take offense to American-bashing, or he'd have a shiny new bullet in his leg. "They pay me only half now, half when we get back to Cairo. So this time, I must go all the way."
"Them's the breaks, huh?"
"You never believed in Hamunaptra, O'Connell. Why are you going back?"
"See that girl?" I glanced to Evelyn who had stopped to pet the penned camels. "She saved my neck." Literally.
And for the first time, as she glanced back at us, that I caught something in her look. It wasn't quite the contempt that it had been there off and on...it was something else...Something I didn't have much time to ponder because of the snickering in my ear.
"You always did have more balls than brains, O'Connell," Beni pointed. I grinned at him, with a little chuckle.
"Yeah?" I said, grabbing him by the collar. "Good-bye, Beni," and promptly tossed his ass overboard. Let's see the Americans get to Hamunaptra now. I turned back to the gunnysack, unloading my shoulder holsters when I head a creaking behind me. I spun around, my hand on the hilt of the revolver still within the holster, but saw nothing more than wet footprints. Wet footprints? I leaned over the side of the boat; Beni was still flailing in the Nile. I glanced back down at the trail, deciding this was not a good sign. I quickly reloaded my holsters, gathered up the contents of the gunnysack, and followed the footprints.
