Her clothes were on a hanger as she paced about, now dressed in a sleeveless nightgown while reading a book. "George Bembridge," Evelyn read aloud. "In eighteen..." She paused, almost in a trance for a moment. "In eighteen sixty-five was..." Again, she stopped in mid-sentence, holding her hanger now and simply dropping it and her clothes to the floor just as she was about to hang it up. "Was...oh for heaven's sake, girl!" Evelyn hissed, almost reprimanding herself. "It wasn't that good a kiss anyway!" With a slap to the porthole window to open it, she walked to the sink and set her book down, now picking up a comb and brushing her hair.

There was a muffled clatter as the book fell to the ground. Evelyn sighed, set down her comb, and bent over to pick up the book. When she got back up and looked in the mirror, she saw that someone was standing behind her, dressed in black with a repugnant face.

He grabbed her by the neck just as she gasped, pushing Evelyn against the wall and holding up his right arm to show he had no hand there, but a serrated hook instead, which was now touching her cheek. "Where is the map?" he hissed.

"Map?" Evelyn replied. She glanced to the table. "It-it's there."

"And the key," he continued, pushing against her throat a bit more tightly. "Where is the key?"

Now she had no answer. "The key, the key...what key?"

Someone was coming toward the door. "Evelyn!" That was O'Connell, which meant that not far behind was...

"Get your hand off of her!"

Van Helsing, right on cue.

The black clad man growled and spun Evelyn about while readjusting his grip on her throat and holding the point of his hook at her neck now. Both O'Connell and Van Helsing drew their guns to aim, not firing for fear of hitting her, but it was Gabriel who noticed as the flame on the table perched candle flickered toward the window. He shifted his aim just as another black clad man appeared at the porthole, a pair of revolvers in his hands. His own silver automatics firing to life, Van Helsing let off a pair of rounds that slammed into the window assailant and send him dropping from view. The second burst from his guns, however, hit the wall-mounted lamp and caused it to fall from its place to ignite the couch on fire.

The hooked man glanced over, distracted enough for Evelyn to grab the candle from the table and thrust back to hit him in the eye. He let go, allowing her to run over to O'Connell, who was now joining Van Helsing in firing at the window as two more gunmen appeared. Rick noticed she was safe, then nodded. "Let's go!"

Just as they got out the door, Evelyn came to a halt, then spun back around to make a dash for the room. "The map, the map! I forgot the ma-"

"Relax," Rick intoned, grabbing her by the wrist and calmly pulling her along while he began reloading his revolvers. He gestured then to his own head. "I'm the map, it's all up here."

"Oh, that's comforting."

He held his eye, wincing in pain, but it was then that the hooked man noticed a small octagonal metal object laying on the ground. He recognized it immediately, now moving to take possession. "The key," he whispered.

"Evy!"

Just as he was about to grab the object, the hooked man was rammed from behind, sent stumbling forward and into the burning couch, where his own robes ignited almost instantly. He screamed out from the heat and pain, turning madly in vain attempt to put out the flames.

Jonathan, looking about, saw the small object and reached to grab it, but pulled away when the hooked man slapped his hook against it and took the chance to grab it. With a gasp, Jonathan wisely back away when the hook swung at him, and ran out the door and down the hall even as the burning man moved to give chase.

Outside on the main deck, it was chaos. The boat was lit ablaze, and several of the black clad men were only adding to that by throwing lit torches into the most highly flammable parts of the boat. Passengers scrambled to escape, the Arab workers quickly freeing the horses and camels while everyone was diving from the deck and into the river.

Amidst this havoc, the trio of Rick, Evelyn, and Gabriel came out of the hallway. Rick picked his weapons bag up from the ground and quickly passed it off to Evelyn. "Hold this," he said, now reloading his other revolver. Van Helsing grabbed his own bags, yet unlike O'Connell, was considerate enough to sling them crosswise over his own shoulders. While Rick was calmly loading the bullets into his gun, Van Helsing was firing his own weapons with little care to his ammunition. The chambers click as the last rounds fired, and he quickly ejected the empty magazines to the ground. Now reaching around to the back harness and locking a fresh clip in each gun from the bottom pair, he heard a click and pulled down to free his weapons while the remaining magazines on each side slid down to be ready for the next reload.

The black clad men were returning fire, blowing holes in the wall and slowly aiming more toward O'Connell. He wasn't paying much attention, and so, Evelyn grabbed him and pulled him aside just as he finished loading his gun, saving him from the bullets which impacted into the wall right where his head had been. He hesitated a moment, then brushed her hand away and pulled out the revolver in his left side harness holster. "Ready?"

Van Helsing raised up his own automatics, the chambers snapping shut as the first round of each gun loaded. "Always."

Both men turned the corner, guns blazing as they fired at the black-clad attackers. Two of the assailants went down from where they were perched on the upper deck, Rick turning and firing at a third, who yelled out as the bullets tore through his body. Van Helsing was quickly to follow the move with a series of rounds that took out three more men, then, firing one more twin burst that brought down a seventh gunman, spun his revolvers about on his fingers and slipped them into the back holsters. "We have to get out of here now!" he exclaimed while keeping his eyes open for any more gunners.

Rick, as he took his weapons bag back, looked around for a moment. "Can you swim!" he asked of Evelyn.

"Of course I can!" she replied indignantly. "If the situation calls for it!"

He groaned, then, picking Evelyn up off her feet, held her over the railing. "Trust me," he said just as he dropped her. "It calls for it!"

Gabriel spun back around at that moment, a second too late to warn them. "O'Connell, no!" he cried just as Evelyn went splashing into the river. He growled and pulled the bags off from around his shoulders, then, reaching back, flung them hard toward land. Rick for a moment thought the man was insane, then stared in shock as he watched the unbelievable scene of those two bags, filled with heavy weapons, fly over the river and land somewhere on shore.

Considering the distance involved, no human man should have been able to preform that feat of strength. But before Rick could even question it, Gabriel was already leaping over the side, diving in after Evelyn. Now O'Connell realized that sound he'd heard after he'd dropped her in the river wasn't angry yells; it was screams of horror. Something else was down there! "Evelyn!" he cried, moving to follow, but was slammed back onto the deck as one of the black-clad men climbed up and caught him.

In the river water, Van Helsing dove down, his eyes unhindered by the dark water. He could see exactly what had grabbed Evelyn, his worried about this confirmed. It was large, about the size of a man, with a definite humanoid shape which was distorted by fish-like features. The woman was struggling against it, but unlike it and Van Helsing, she was running out of air and would drown.

He surged forward, backhanding the creature across the head with his arm-guard once he was close enough, then pushed Evelyn upwards, now the focus of the creature's attention. While Evelyn swam as hard as possible to escape, the creature started to go after her, but was halted when Van Helsing grabbed its webbed foot. Even under the water, he could hear the horrible scream from this fishman as it turned back to stare at him angrily. Exactly what he wanted.

The fishman was amazingly agile in the water, moving like, to it, it was but thin air. A hard swipe caught Gabriel across the face, the sharp scale-claws slashing his cheek. There was a glimmer of golden fluids from the cut as Van Helsing growled, then, to return the blow, brought his left leg up with a hard kneeing motion to the creature's gut. For a moment, it backed away, then savagely assaulted him. For every blow he delivered, it seemed as if this creature was able to give it back.

A swing caught him across the face, close to his eye this time as the creature hit the left side of his face. With a look of pure rage, Van Helsing triggered the blade of his arm-guard, then thrust into the creature's side to drive the blade in. It let out a roar of pain, and as he pulled the blade out, it pushed away and swam down into the depths of the river. Gabriel, if he was able at the moment, would have breathed with relief. Instead, he settled for swimming back for the surface, where he broke through the water and took in a deep breath to get real air back into his lungs. He didn't need the large amounts of oxygen, but it still felt a lot better all the same. Now, he just need to get to shore.

"Wait here, I'll go get help!"

His ears picked up traces of an exchange back on the boat. One was obviously O'Connell, and the other sounded like the portly man from the pier, Warden Hassan. It didn't take much to figure that Rick had left him standing on the deck and leapt into the water. A few seconds later, there was a yell as Hassan dove into the river. As sadistic as it was, Van Helsing could not find some humor in the situation. If it had been him in Rick's place, he probably would have done the same thing.

Across from where they came onshore, the quintette could hear a ruckus as the Americans and their group were gathering horses and pulling them from the river. Van Helsing winced as he could still feel the sting from his injuries, but thankfully, those cuts on his face were already rapidly healing. He still made sure, though, that there was no sign of the golden fluids which he had in place of human blood.

"We've lost everything!" Evelyn exclaimed as they walked onto the sandbar. "All our tools, our equipment...all my clothes..." She paused as she looked back and saw Gabriel walking out of the river. "And what in God's name was that thing! It was... hideous, and it tried to drown me!"

He nodded, cracking his neck while walking over to where his bags had landed. He could feel the stare of amazement from O'Connell, but right now, he had better things to worry about. "Trying to claim you as a mate was probably more like it," he replied. It was the most logical conclusion, from all the things that had been happening. "If it was trying to kill you, it would have done so more quickly than drowning you."

"Hey!"

The hoarse yell was coming from across the river. Van Helsing looked back and could see the havoc that was going on over there, and standing in the middle of it all was that weasely Hungarian, Beni. "Now what?" he muttered.

"Hey, O'Connell!" the man continued to scream out. Really, the way he was acting was almost childish, not at all the way a grown man his age should have been acting in this day and age. " Looks to me like I've got all the horses! "

"Hey, Beni!" Rick shouted back. Gabriel almost slapped his face in disappointment of how O'Connell was returning the immature gesture. "Looks to me like you're on the wrong side of the river!"

He's even doing it with a sing-song tone of voice! the archangel inwardly exclaimed. Granted, Beni, who by now realized that O'Connell was right and started to swear his head off with a string of Hungarian vulgarities, was already starting to grate on his nerves. But this like of behavior was suited to children, not a pair of grown men. And the irony was that it fixed even more in Gabriel's head that Rick reminded him of someone from his past. Beni, however, he still couldn't figure out. Something just felt so familiar about him. Maybe it was the fact he was Hungarian, maybe it was that weasely attitude, but he just seemed to look so familiar, like they had met before.

It could wait. Right now, he just wanted to get into some dry clothes, then start on the way to Hamunaptra. The sooner they got going, the better, because once the sun got up and they hit the desert, it was going to be...

Something was missing. He looked around, then swore as he realized he'd left his hat behind on the boat. No doubt, it was burnt to a cinder now, so no point in going back for it, but he'd prized that hat. "Son of a bitch!"

"What?" Rick said as he looked back at Van Helsing. "What's wrong?"

"I left my hat back on the boat!" he replied. When his companions gave him an odd look, Gabriel sighed. "That hat was a gift from my father, I never went anywhere without it!"

Now they understood. O'Connell could only give a sympathetic nod as he sighed and picked up his weapons bag from where he had thrown it on the sandbar. "Sorry," he remarked. "I can only guess then what it meant to you."

As he sighed and picked up his bags, Van Helsing shook his head. "You have no idea," he whispered lowly. They was a silence from him as he looked toward the burning boat, then gave a quick and heartfelt salute to his last memento from his adoptive father. That hat had lasted him forty years, but he should have anticiapated the day that he'd lose it. "Sorry, dad," he whispered before following his companions. There was little time left to say good-bye to lost mementos, they had to get moving.

Mid-day, and the sun was high in the sky over the small desert village. The inhabitents went about their business, selling wares, herding animals, and dealing with the group of travelers who had made a stop to gather supplies and mounts. The latter of those objectives had turned into quite an interesting sight for Van Helsing.

"I only want five!" Jonathan yelled while he argued with the short little Arab man who they were trying to aquire a group of camels from. In the Englishman's opinion, he was being charged too much, and the Arab...well, he was jumping up angrily and refusing to lower the price. "Just five, not a whole bloody herd of them!"

"As much as I love the sound of you shooting your mouth off," Gabriel remarked when he decided to finally intervene. "Would you just pay the man already, and be done with it!"

Carnahan groaned and pulled out his wallet, withdrawing a large bundle of bills to pay the Arab. "I can't believe the price of these bloody flea bags," he spat while handing over the money to the short man. It didn't miss his attention with the Arab smiled and started going through the bills after handing off the reins. "Oh, yes. Very happy now, all good!"

With a snort, Rick took hold of a pair of reins. "You know, you probably could have got 'em for free," he remarked while leading the camels along. He noticed as Van Helsing took hold of the other three reins and sighed. "All you had to do was give him your sister."

Jonathan almost laughed at the suggestion. "Yes, awfully tempting, wasn't it?"

When he noticed Evelyn walk toward them, dressed in modest black robing, Rick found that he wasn't so fast to respond. "Yeah," he said faintly. "Awfully."

His eyes shifted back and forth between the two, and Gabriel inwardly laughed. He'd seen this enough times to know the signs. Good to find someone discovering some possible romance around here, he thought. But, considering the need to get moving, he knew tha he'd best break up the moment. "Stunning as always," he said while walking over to Evelyn and giving a nod. "I'm sure that Mister O'Connell can agree."

"Huh?"

Yes, exactly as he'd predicted. "We should be heading out soon," Van Helsing replied to his dumbfounded American friend. Handing the reins to a white furred camel to Evelyn, he gave a light chuckle while he noticed that Rick still was speechless. Most likely rethinking his words, Van Helsing inwardly reflected as he and his companions gathered their newly purchased supplies and packed them onto the camels. Now came the hard part of the trip; crossing the vast deserts of the Sahara.

A yellow sea of sand as far as the eye could see, and the sun was barely moving to set in the west. It had been two hours since they had set out from the small village, with little more than Rick's memory to go one in their search for the lost city of Hamunaptra. And already, Jonathan was complain about the camels.

"I can't stand the creatures," he muttered while they all crossed over a sand dune. "They're rude, they smell bad, they spit..." Carnahan glanced back at that moment to see Warden Hassan spitting out something and taking a bite of the food in his free hand. The camels weren't the only ones who fit each and every one of those descriptives.

Evelyn just reached forward and scratched her camel behind the ears. "I think they're adorable," she intoned while the camel let out a sound that indicated its pleasure.

Van Helsing smiled while he patted his own mount on the side. Yes, camels had a few disagreeable personality problems, but so far, he and his ride had been getting along just fine. After a few moments, he winced as he heard a horrible sound, then realized that it was Warden Hassan making some attempt to sing. That man could not carry a tune at all. "Two days ride," he muttered to himself, hoping that he'd be able to make it that long before giving in to the urge to maul Hassan just to shut him up.

Nightfall. The moon was high in the sky, waxing against the light of the stars, and the five camel bound riders continued on through the desert. Evelyn had dozed off, her camel groaning while Rick quickly made a hushing sound for it to be quiet. At the same time, Jonathan looked back as he was woken up by Hassan's terribly loud snores. He sighed, then swatted the warden with the stick in his hand. Hassan grumbled something in Arabic while Jonathan was quick to look completely innocent, just incase the man woke up.

There was a grin on his face, and Van Helsing sighed. Maybe this mission wouldn't be so bad, and for once he'd have a chance to relax and actually take things easy. But, he just as quickly took that thought back, knowing that, regardless of the outset of an assignment, the universe would usually find some way to make things difficult for the Archangel of Judgement.

Speaking of things going wrong already... Gabriel perked up as he heard something off in the far distance, out on a hillside near the horizon. His inhuman vision could see a cluster of about half a dozen men on horse-back, looking down upon them carefully. He had a sneaking suspicion that he knew who they were, then felt a pang as he thought back to the boat and realized who those men had most likely been. It looked like there would be someone who wanted some answers later, that as gong to be for sure.

"You snore!"

"I do not!"

Not even sunrise, and already those two were at it again. Van Helsing groaned at just how childish some of his traveling companions could be. He expected this kind of behavior from ten year olds, but not these men. Perhaps he shouldn't have so much faith in the maturity of humanity at large.

"Pass gas, maybe, but snore, never!"

Like that was any better.

Carnahan merely snorted in reply. "And then there was the drooling. Anyway, how would you know, you were fast asleep!"

Yes, mankind was hardly to be considered, by any stretch, mature enough in general. But, so long as they were making progress toward the city, he could deal with it, so long as it didn't get so annoying that he had to take action to get them to shut up. Sometimes, Gabriel wondered if it had been such a good idea to politely turn down going back to Heaven in favor of staying on Earth.

"Look sharp!" Rick called as they crossed over a dune. "We're getting close."

"Are you sure?" Evelyn asked, though the question was soon proven redundant as they saw what lay before them.

"Yep, I'm sure."

For miles, they could see skeletons, the remains of other travelers who tried and failed to find the City of the Dead. It was a sad testimony to Hamunaptra, to its attraction and its deadly price of failure. Disturbingly enough, it was also a fitting gate of sorts to the city; a field of death, with nothing but the scorpions as the lone thing moving around.

Rick's eyes wandered about, looking at the body. "I knew that guy," he muttered while pointing to one corpse, or what was left of it. Indeed, quite a few skeletal remains bore what was left of Legionnaire uniforms, not doubt from Rick's unit three years ago.

The sun was just barely beginning to peek over the horizon. O'Connell frowned then. It wouldn't be long now before they reached the city, and found whatever lay beneath the sands in wait for them.