For all of my reviewers, and also for those of you who are too scared to push the little purple button but are reading this anyway (although you shouldn't be scared because I don't bite!) here is chapter 6 of my story! I am really pleased on how this chapter turned out, even though I had to rewrite the beginning part of it a second time because my computer crashed and I lost the first draft. But it's okay now! Special thanks to everyone who reviewed… DangerousMutantxXx004, lilylynn, and immortalwizardpirateelf-fan, my most faithful reviewers, and also to onesoul-onemind. You guys are the greatest, and you are some of the biggest reasons I am continuing this story (although I'm also doing it for myself because it's sort of fun to do).
Also, the title of the story We Are Family is still a working title… if any of you can come up with something better, I'd love to hear it, since the current title is kind of cheesy and sounds like that disco song that the Village People sang.
Okay, I think that's it for the little author's monologue, so here is what you came for!
Chapter 6 Memories
"Th-That's me," Leah stuttered. "I mean, it's me, but it's not! I mean--"
Rick barely got the chair underneath Leah's body as she flopped heavily into it, raising her hand to her mouth in shock.
"Leah, you okay?" Rick asked. "Lee?"
Leah's eyes glazed over as her mind flew to another world, a world that existed over four thousand years ago.
"Daddy! Daddy, look what I found!" The little girl dashed through the long line of guards keeping watch outside her father's palace, her face smudged with dirt. "Look!" She dashed inside, where her father was reclining in a chair, servants surrounding him, fanning him with giant palm branches. "Aren't they pretty?"
The pharaoh's brother moved his hands, motioning his servants away. His daughter stepped forward, her open palm held out in front of her, her eyes shining with excitement. "What do you have, Samir-hi?" he asked.
Samir-hi grinned happily. "Pretty rocks," she said quickly in her native Egyptian language, offering her daddy her findings. "See? This one is really shiny and black." She held out the one she was speaking of. "And this one looks almost red! And this one is gold!"
"Where did you find these, my daughter?" Rathshad asked.
"In the garden," Samir-hi answered, hardly able to contain herself. "Aren't they beautiful?"
Rathshad smiled happily at the red-haired child, dirt smeared on almost every visible part of her body. "Yes, they are." He paused, then said, "Do you want to know something, Sam?"
"Yes, Daddy, of course I do," said Samir-hi solemnly.
Rathshad held out his arms and Samir-hi jumped excitedly into them. He enveloped young Samir-hi into a big bear hug. "You remind me of your mama," he said, his mouth next to her ear as he spoke. "You look and act just like her."
"Really?" asked Samir-hi. She looked up into her father's face, her green eyes big. "Can you tell me a story? Tell me a story about my mama? Please, please, please?" she begged.
"Of course I can," said Rathshad. "Let's start with the day you were born."
"Leah?" asked Rick, standing from his chair and going to his sister. "Leah, what's wrong?" Rick looked to his wife and exchanged a worried look with her. "Lee, answer me! Please!"
"Shh," he said to Rathshad's daughter. "I have something for you." He reached into his robes, fumbling inside for the object he was searching for.
"What is it?" eleven-year-old Samir-hi asked her father's priest, confused as to why he had taken her to this unoccupied room in the palace. She wasn't sure that she trusted this man, but he was her father's right hand servant, and so she had gone with him.
"This," Imhotep said softly, holding his hand out. He opened his palm to reveal a glistening sapphire hanging from a long silver chain.
"It's beautiful," Samir-hi breathed, stepping forward. She looked at it, amazed as the sun shone from the skylights above, glinting off the dark blue surface of the jewel.
"It is for you," Imhotep whispered as he slipped the sapphire around Samir-hi's neck. He gently lifted her hair and fastened the necklace.
"Me?" Samir-hi asked incredulously. "For me? But why? I don't understand," she said.
"It is a gift. But you mustn't tell who gave it to you," Imhotep said softly.
"Why not?" Samir-hi asked, confused at the whole situation. She couldn't understand why her father's priest, a man she barely knew, was giving her such an exquisite gift and swearing her to secrecy about it.
"Shh! I hear Arhoseth coming. You must not tell a soul, Samir-hi," Imhotep warned urgently.
Samir-hi saw a strange look on Imhotep's face, one that she swore she saw sometimes on her father's face when he looked at her. She nodded quickly as her dark haired bodyguard, Arhoseth, entered the room. "I won't tell if you won't tell."
"We must make it known that we do not agree with this unfair law," sixteen year old Samir-hi said to the intrigued crowd gathered around her. "The Jews are our brothers, and we must stand up for them, and for their rights as human beings. They do not deserve to be unfairly enslaved; they deserve to have the freedom that every man, woman, and child in Egypt has! Seti may be my uncle, but I do not agree with his unfair belief. We must stand up and speak out, and let it be known to whoever may listen that it is wrong to keep the Jews, our brothers, as our slaves! Who will join me in my crusade?"
The crowd cheered loudly, whole-heartedly agreeing with her. However, one man that didn't leaped towards the front and onto the platform Samir-hi was standing on. He lunged at her, but just before he reached her, Arhoseth appeared, warding off the attacker. As Arhoseth's men, the Medjai, or Egyptian police, led the assailant away, Samir-hi took her bodyguard's hands and pulled him towards her. "Thank you, Arhoseth," she said.
"Anything for you, my Samir-hi," Arhoseth replied, and their lips met.
"Leah?" Rick asked anxiously.
Evelyn stood and went to her husband's side, wondering what was going on in her sister-in-law's head. She thought she might know the answer to that, but she kept her mouth shut, not sure if she should speak it out loud.
"No! Samir-hi!" Rathshad shouted. But he was too late. Seti's soldier plunged his sword into nineteen-year old Samir-hi's side. She fell to the ground, blood gushing from her abdomen.
Rathshad, pharaoh of the new founded kingdom of Ikata, dashed to his daughter. "Samir-hi! No, Samir," he said as he fell to his knees next to her.
"Father," Samir-hi murmured. "Please, leave me here."
"Shh, do not speak," Rathshad said soothingly, slipping his arms around his daughter. "We must get you to the medics." He gently began to lift her.
Samir-hi gasped as she was lifted a few inches off the desert sand. "Oh, Daddy, it hurts," she moaned. "It hurts so bad." Her eyes closed as pain washed over her. "Please, just leave me."
"Leah!" Rick screamed as his sister cried out, grabbing her side. He reached out his hands to her, wanting to help as she gasped for air.
"No!" Ardeth said quickly. "You must not disturb her! She must remember it all!"
Rick's hands stopped moving towards Leah, and he looked on in horror.
"I cannot," Pharaoh Rathshad said, lowering Samir-hi. "I cannot, and I will not!"
"Yes, you must," Samir-hi breathed through parched lips. "You must. It is time for me to go. Mother has come to take me."
"If you must go, then I must go," Rathshad said, and he stood, unsheathing his sword. He raised it above himself.
"No! Father, no," Samir-hi said weakly. "Don't do it. You must go on! You must fight! The battle is not yet lost; you must leave me here and go on!"
"No!" Rathshad screamed, poised and at the ready to take his own life.
"It is too late for me," the red-haired beauty whispered. "But it is not too late for the cause. You must fight for what we believe in, Father. Please. Do it for me."
Rathshad stared into his daughter's pleading eyes, his heart breaking. "As you wish, my daughter," he finally bit out, and he collapsed over her body.
"It will be okay, Father," Samir-hi said softly, stroking her fingers through the Ikatan pharaoh's hair. "I promise you, it will be." Slowly, her breathing shallowed, and her fingers stopped moving, until the fair Princess of Ikata breathed her last.
Leah's head flopped violently over the back of the chair she was in. She gasped in a breath, and then began to look around her, taking in the walls, the windows, and the furniture of the room.
"It is over," Ardeth said.
When Rick heard this, his hands quickly reached out to grab Leah's. "Lee? Lee, are you okay?"
She was still looking around the room, taking in every object in the room. Then she finally realized that her brother was looking at her expectantly. She slowly nodded her head. "What happened?" she asked softly.
"You don't remember?" Evelyn asked patiently from next to Rick.
Leah's eyebrows knitted together as she thought, and then she bobbed her head. "Yes, I do. I remember now."
"And what do you remember?" Ardeth asked from where he was still sitting across from Leah.
"Everything," Leah said slowly. "I remember everything."
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"Are you sure she's going to be all right? I'm just not sure that I can sleep knowing that some strange thing will probably try to come after my little sister," Rick said as he and Evelyn were getting ready to go to bed in one of the two bedrooms of their suite in Thebes.
"She'll be just fine," Evelyn said from where she sat at the vanity table, running a brush through her hair. "Ardeth is camped out right outside her bedroom. He'll protect her with his life."
"And then what?" asked Rick. "Imhotep grabs her and uses her as a sacrifice to bring back this princess chick, and we never see her again!"
Evelyn set her brush down on the table and looked over her shoulder at her husband, who was standing by the dresser, loading every gun he owned with bullets and placing them in the drawers. "Rick, if that would happen, she's in the bedroom right next door, all we'd have to do is run out of here and into her room. Which I'm sure we won't have to do. Just relax."
"How can I, when the walking dead is after my sister?" One of the bullets in the shotgun he was trying to load jammed, and he unwedged it and threw it to the floor in disgust.
Evelyn stood from her chair and walked over to her husband. She grabbed the gun and set it down on the dresser top, taking his hands in hers. "Rick, you've got to let it go. She's less than twenty feet from us if she needs us, and with Ardeth keeping watch, she'll be fine! Come on. What do you say we get some sleep?"
Rick surrendered, knowing that his wife was right. "Okay. But if I can't get to sleep, I'm out of here."
"Fine," Evelyn said. "But I'm not planning on doing much sleeping tonight, anyway." She cupped Rick's face in her hands and planted a romantic kiss on his lips.
"Really," said Rick, and he returned her kiss. "What did you have in mind?"
"Well," Evelyn said, pushing Rick's upper body with her arms until he was standing by the bed. "A little of this…" she gave him a push, and he landed with a thud on the mattress, "and a little of this." She crawled on top of him and began covering him in kisses.
"I like how you think," Rick mumbled when he came up for air.
"I do have pretty good ideas," Evelyn commented.
The two of them curled up on the bed together, Rick holding Evelyn against him, just enjoying being together.
Rick's mind wandered and he spoke out loud as he thought. "I wonder what Leah is doing," he said.
Evelyn looked up at her husband, a bit exasperated. "I'm sure she's sleeping, like any normal person would be doing at this time of night. She's fine. Can't you just stop thinking about her for one minute?"
"You don't understand, Evelyn." Rick's hand stopped moving through Evelyn's hair as he talked. "Leah is my sister. I vowed always to protect her." He paused, then went on. "Our parents died about a year after she was born, and we were shipped from the States to Greece to stay with our godfather." Rick shook his head as he remembered. "I've never told anyone about this," he said. "Not even you, Evelyn."
Evelyn propped her head up on her hand and looked to Rick expectantly.
"He hurt her. Our godfather hurt her. She was just a little baby. She never did anything to him, but he hurt her. I remember all those nights when he had finished beating her, and she sat on the floor of the room we shared and cried. I always wondered, why did he hurt her, and never me? Why did he hurt a defenseless little three-year old?"
"I don't know," said Evelyn softly. "Some people are just not right in the head."
Rick shook his head in disgust. "One of those nights, I decided that I had had enough of watching my sister suffer. I vowed to protect Leah forever. I took her, and we left our godfather's house. I got us on a boat to Egypt, and when we arrived, we spent a few months living on the streets. But then I got really tired of never having enough food for Leah to eat, and so I turned us in. And for some reason, they didn't send us back to our godfather. Some how, we ended up in the orphanage in Cairo. I was so grateful that Lee and I weren't separated, until I turned eighteen and they made me leave because I was too old. I stuck around in Egypt for Leah, wanting to be there to protect her like I had promised I would be… I got a job and worked fourteen hours a day, in hopes that some day I would have enough money and be granted guardianship of Leah. Except that day never came, because when she was seven-years old, some long lost aunt of ours in the States decided that she wanted Leah, and so Lee was shipped back to New York City. And I fell apart. That's when I got involved with Beni and all of that shady business. Until I met you. You turned me around, got me facing the right way, gave me hope that I would see my sister again." Rick smiled down at Evelyn. "Have I ever thanked you for that?"
Evelyn nodded. "You do it every day by just being you," she said, running her hands across Rick's broad chest. "By being a good husband to me and a good father to Alex."
"And now, a good brother to Leah." Rick looked across the room, then back down at Evelyn. "Andrew broke her heart, and now she's got this Imhotep after her. She needs me, Evelyn. And I'm going to be there for her."
"Fine, fine," Evelyn said. "I'm not going to stop you. But right now, let Ardeth be there for her, and you be here for me." Rick opened his mouth to speak, but Evelyn put her fingers to his lips. "Don't say anything." She began to kiss him fervently.
Rick gave in to his wife's demands, allowing his thoughts to drift from the danger the creature was posing to his sister to the situation at hand as he and Evelyn made passionate love.
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Meanwhile, Leah was lying in bed, wide awake. She couldn't get her mind to stop running over the memories she had so suddenly recalled that afternoon. It was really starting to drive her crazy.
"Ugh!" she said, sitting up and throwing the sheets off her. She heard a thump outside the door to the bedroom and shook her head as she recognized the sounds of Ardeth loading a gun. Why do these macho men think I need my own personal security guard? He should be next door in the room Jonathan and Alex are sharing. Alex needs someone to guard him from Jonathan more than I need protection from that stupid jerk Empty or whatever his name is! She joked to herself. I can look after myself!
I need something to drink, she decided, and she flung her legs over the side of the bed, not bothering to flick on the lamp on the bedside table, figuring that the moonlight streaming in the window was enough for her. She groped along, trying to find her way to the door. However, she forgot about the crystal coffee table that sat at the foot of the bed, and her foot twisted around one of its wrought iron legs. Before Leah could even blink, she fell to the floor with a crash, wincing as her left ankle, the one that had been caught on the table, twisted beneath her.
"Oh, crap!" she said aloud as she lay splayed on her stomach, body parts in all directions.
She heard a voice outside her room. "Leah? Leah, are you all right?"
Leah was aware of the shooting pain in her ankle, and didn't answer right away. She reached gingerly to her appendage and immediately realized that was a big mistake as even more pain shot through it.
Suddenly, the door of the bedroom banged open. Ardeth entered, his gun drawn.
"Eeek!" shrieked Leah across the darkness of the room. Her new bodyguard's unexpected entrance had scared the breath out of her. Gasping, she spit out, "Holy crap, give a girl a heart attack, why don't you!"
Ardeth reached to the lamp on the table by the door and flicked it on, his gun still pointed to the interior of the room. He saw Leah sprawled on the floor and in no immediate danger and pocketed his weapon. "What happened?" he asked quickly, coming to her side.
Leah rolled her eyes. "Nothing, nothing. I'm fine," she said, putting her arms underneath her and lifting herself. Ardeth offered her his hand, but she was a tough girl and didn't need his help. "I got it, I got it," she said, pushing herself to her feet. Just as she did, her ankle began to throb even more, and her feet flew out from under her.
"Are you sure about that, Bent Hair?" Ardeth asked as his arms went deftly around her waist, catching her before she hit the floor again.
Leah sighed, annoyed. However, she had no choice but to allow Ardeth to fling her into the air and carry her to the bed. As he did so, another one of her memories came flooding back to her.
"Well, princess of Ikata, I see that you need me after all," Arhoseth said, carrying eighteen-year old Samir-hi.
Samir-hi jutted her jaw stubbornly. "I do not," she said in ancient Egyptian. "I could have gotten here myself."
"Really," Arhoseth said as he placed his charge on the bed and pulled the thick blankets around her. "And how do you propose you would have done that? A broken foot is not easy to walk on."
"Well, I still have one good foot," Samir-hi shot back, but her tone was light and teasing. She held out her index finger to her bodyguard and beckoned him with it. Arhoseth came and settled over Samir-hi, straddling her body.
"Kiss me," she ordered her lover.
"Your wish is my command," Arhoseth said.
Leah shook her head, willing the memory to go away.
"What is it?" Ardeth asked as he placed her on the bed.
Leah just shook her head again. "Nothing for you to worry about," she said.
Ardeth did not reply to that comment. Instead, he said, "Which one is it?"
"What?" asked Leah, her mind still turning in circles over what that last memory of Samir-hi's meant.
"Which foot did you hurt?" Ardeth asked.
"Oh, uh, this one," Leah said, pointing to her left ankle.
Ardeth lifted Leah ankle-length nightgown and reached out to touch the injured limb.
"Eeesh," Leah said as his fingers came in gentle contact with her skin. She glanced down and saw that her ankle was already swelled to twice its normal size and was turning a horrible purple color. "Oh, great," she muttered, electricity flowing through her body as she thought about how it felt to have Ardeth touching her. "I guess that means no more horseback rides with you," she said. "Oh, darn," she added sarcastically.
Ardeth ignored Leah, concerned with her swollen ankle. "It is sprained," he said as he examined it.
"And how would you know? Are you a doctor?" Leah asked, trying to tear her mind off Ardeth's fingers as they probed her skin.
"No, I am not a doctor," Ardeth said. "But I do know quite a bit of… what do you call it… first aid?"
"Oh," was all Leah could say, mesmerized as she watched him work.
"Are you hurt anywhere else?" Ardeth asked as his hands groped further up her leg, feeling for other injuries.
Leah felt herself begin to blush as Ardeth's hand continued touching her, all the way up to her thigh before it searched the other leg. "Uh, no," she said shyly. "Just the ankle."
Ardeth nodded, all business. "I must get some ice and something to wrap it in. Will you be all right while I am gone?"
Leah nodded, looking into his face. I never noticed how gorgeous his eyes are, she thought to herself. Or, for that matter, how nice his nose is.
Ardeth left the room, and Leah looked around. She closed her eyes, her latest memory of Samir-hi and Arhoseth running through her mind. How ironic is that, she thought. She leaned back against her pillows and closed her eyes, remembering. The recollection was so vivid in her mind that she thought she could almost feel Arhoseth stroking her cheek.
"Samir-hi," she heard a voice say, the fingers still on her cheek.
"Yes?" she asked breathlessly in ancient Egyptian.
"Samir-hi, my daughter, I have come for you, just as I promised."
Wait, that isn't right, Leah thought. Arhoseth wouldn't call Samir-hi his daughter.
Leah's eyes opened quickly, and she came face-to-face with a half-regenerated, gooey mummy. Imhotep was sitting on the bed with her, his eyes looking tenderly into hers.
"Samir-hi, my daughter," Imhotep said in his low mummy-like voice, reaching out to take her hand.
Leah let her vocal chords go wild, screaming bloody murder. "Oh! My! God!" she shrieked. "Let! Me! Go! Now!" Leah began to move herself across the bed with her hands, wishing now that she was not such a klutz and hadn't tripped over that coffee table. She lowered her feet to the floor, wincing as some of her weight accidentally fell on her injured foot. Then she began to hop on one foot towards the door, screaming her head off.
Imhotep zoomed to the foot of the bed as Leah stopped by the cursed coffee table, attempting to regain her balance. "Samir-hi, my daughter, do you not remember me?" he said, his cardboard-like thumb touching her cheek.
"Don't touch me!" she cried in his face. "And I'm not your daughter!" She began to hop again, trying to get around Imhotep, but lost her balance and fell face first to floor.
"Samir-hi, I have come for you!" Imhotep squatted down next to Leah and put his arms around her, picking her up. "We are going to complete the ritual!"
"No! I don't want any ritual! Rick! Ardeth! Evelyn!" Leah cried as Imhotep carried her to the window. Leah screamed again.
Suddenly, Ardeth burst into the room, followed closely by Rick and Evelyn, all three with guns drawn.
"Let her go, you bastard!" Rick shouted. "Let her go, or I'll--"
"Kill me?" asked Imhotep in ancient Egyptian, laughing. "I'm already dead." With that, he opened the first floor window and pushed Leah through it.
Rick lunged at the window as Ardeth and Evelyn opened fire on Imhotep. Of course, their mortal weapons had no effect on the half-regenerated mummy, but they thought they at least had to try.
Imhotep walked towards Ardeth and Evelyn, their bullets and little pieces of Imhotep's gooey body bouncing off him. He snapped his fingers, and about a dozen of his warrior mummies entered the room, marching in perfect step. "Now do you want to mess with me?" Imhotep spoke in Egyptian.
Evelyn and Ardeth turned and began shooting at the soldiers, taking them out one by one as Imhotep walked back towards the window, where Rick was standing.
"Where is she? What did you do with her?" Rick shouted at Imhotep, his gun still poised in his hands.
"That is for me to know and you to never find out," Imhotep said with an evil laugh, and then he jumped out the window and into the night.
"Leah!" Rick cried, and he pointed his gun out the window and began shooting at Imhotep as he walked arrogantly down the streets of Thebes, several of his soldier mummy sidekicks following.
"A little help, Rick!" Evelyn suddenly shouted, and Rick turned to find his wife punching one mummy, another mummy holding onto her back. Ardeth was wrestling four of them at once, kicking one, punching another, whacking another with the butt of his gun, and then hitting the fourth with his head.
Rick attacked the mummy on top of Evelyn. The mummy fell to the floor, and then Rick sent a bullet straight through his head.
With half of the original dozen of the warrior mummies gone, the other six jumped into formation and took one look at Evelyn, Rick, and Ardeth, their jaws dropping to the floor as they roared.
Evelyn, Rick, and Ardeth, in sync with each other, dropped their jaws as far as they would go and roared right back at the mummies.
The warriors turned in fear and ran quickly, still in step with each other, towards the window. They all jumped and ran down the street after their leader.
The three people left in the room ran to the windowsill and looked out across Thebes.
Only one of them spoke. "Leah…" Rick said.
