I was beginning to think that Fate was against me.
What other explanation could there have been? Fate was determined to screw up my pathetic attempts at finding love. First it set me up to fall for a woman I couldn't have, gave a me a chance which I ruined, then gave me another which I ruined (although indirectly) even worse. Funny thing about flaming hailstones and the mass migration of frogs. They always show up when you least expect them.
After our little failed romantic interlude, I got Jonathan to drive us to the Museum of Antiquities, hoping my old mentor Dr. Bey was still around. He'd never really liked me (I suppose "put up with me for the sake of my parents" would be a more apt description) but he was the only person in Egypt who I knew would have some sort of answer to our little dilemma. And indeed he did, or thought he did. His tattooed friend seemed to have a pretty good idea, too. Introduced only as Ardina Bey, I assumed her to be a cousin of some sort. The Amazons had nothing on her--built scarily powerfully and swathed all in black, I was reasonably sure she could kill me with a flick of her wrist. She hadn't said anything to me, but it was clear she thought I'd destroyed the world.
Well...it wasn't destroyed yet. We had a bit of time.
"We have no time!" cried Dr. Bey. "Who knows how soon the Creature will regenerate! You have doomed us all!"
Um, overstatement? "Am I the only one trying to be optimistic here? What about the Golden Book? Don't you think the ancient Egyptians thought of this? There has to be some sort of reversal spell--"
"What does it--" Evelyn interrupted, "err, she, want, anyway?"
"Um. She said something about... Uh, she called me Prince...Imhotep, I think, wasn't he--"
Dr. Bey gasped in horror. "That's it! Anck-su-namun was cursed because of her love for Imhotep. That's what she's doing in Cairo. She wants to resurrect her lover."
"Uh....how exactly will she do that?"
Dr. Bey looked at me blankly. "Well, human sacrifice, of course. Standard practice. Luckily for us, she's chosen you!"
"Yes, luckily," I said weakly. This was getting better and better.
Evelyn was more blunt. "She can't do that! Can she? She can't!" Evelyn looked at me, and I read so many things in her eyes. Fury, indignation, shelter...love. "I won't let her," she whispered, and I believed.
A drawl from behind us contradicted her. "I don't think you have a choice, darlin'." Beni Gabor stood in the doorway. "My mistress is pretty intent on what she's after. And that includes your boyfriend."
The Evelyn of a few hours ago would have protested this comment, but she didn't say anything. Instead I felt her hand take mine, hold it tightly as we watched a figure enter the room after Beni. The woman was tall and stately, beautiful (quite an improvement over the state we had found her body in) and possessed of an awful grace. Her mouth twisted into a smile, but it held no joy--only shades of pain, which almost made me feel sorry for her. Until she started to speak, that is.
"Follow me, my prince," she said in her ancient language. "It is time--"
"No!" cried Evelyn. "You think you can just walk in here and tell someone it's time to go get sacrificed? You can't--"
Anck-su-namun raised a hand and Evelyn was suddenly ripped from my grasp. Her body flew backward, striking a chariot display on the opposite side of the room. She fell to the floor and didn't move. Anck-su-namun muttered something under her breath, and Evelyn was suddenly hanging in the air again, struggling to breathe, choking. She was dying.
"Come with me," I heard in ancient Egyptian, "and she lives."
Anck-su-namun walked to the doorway, waiting for me to follow. I did. It wasn't an impulse, it wasn't a decision, I just went. If I didn't, the woman I loved was going to die, and I was more than willing to trade my life for hers. I couldn't look back, but I heard a crash as we exited the room that I could only pray to God was Evelyn coming to earth.
~*~*~*~
Heh. It was only fair, you see, if we were going for a complete role reversal...;)