"Ummm, you know, if someone has to fall into my arms, I would prefer it to be her." O'Malley looked down at Alex with a smirk. The young man lay sprawled in the hallway, where he'd landed after O'Malley dropped him.
"Thanks for breaking my fall." Alex muttered dryly.
"Don't mention it." O'Malley grinned and opened a new page on his note book. He licked the end of his pencil and made a little notation.
"Is there anything I can help you with Detective?" Clarke pushed her hair behind her head and kicked Alex's feet out of her doorway and into the hall.
"Just a few questions." He held out a hand to help Alex up, and was amused, rather than insulted, when Alex refused it.
"She doesn't want to answer a few questions, she wants to fight, and you know what?" Alex flung out his hands, "you're welcome to her!" He started down the hallway and down the stairs. Clarke disappeared for a moment into the apartment and came back holding a large duffel bag. Alex stopped turned around and stalked to the door. She shoved the bag into his chest, causing Alex to whuff out a little breath and a little growl.
"Be a stranger, don't come around." Clarke spat angrily and turned to the Detective with a smile as a generous hostess. "Detective O'Malley, would you care for some tea?"
"Would you care for some tea…" Alex imitated Clarke in a childish and somewhat therapeutical manner. "My ass." He stuck out his tongue at her window and was amused when the shade was drawn. Someone had seen it and let their feathers get ruffled. He hung the duffel over his shoulder and started walking to the museum.
"Now, what can I do for you?" She handed him a mug and took a sip from one herself. She didn't taste it, she was so angry. She took the moment to look out the window, and shut the blind when she noticed Alex still standing on the sidewalk outside. He stuck his tongue out. "Child."
"Well, I went by the museum today, seemed someone had a rather explosive party." He took note as her shoulders tensed and she turned her wide, innocent eyes on him.
"Really, well its not unusual for students to gather and mess up the place. I'll let you know if we will press charges when I catch those responsible. Was anything broken?"
"Cut the bull." O'Malley was willing to let her hang herself, but he'd been a bit unnerved by the mess he'd walked in on. There were ancient bones strewn across the hallways, bits of artifacts had fallen from columns and the walls, left there like abandoned children. There was a fresh blood trail coming from the hallway directly outside the mummy exhibit and she had a fresh blood spot on her shoe. He could only deal with fools for so long before they started to annoy him, and he was on one of his last ropes. "Your car was seen pealing out of there tonight. What went down?"
Alex hitched a ride over. It took him less time than he thought to go through the carnage of the museum and to come to the conclusion that whatever had been there, revived mummy or otherwise, was no longer in residence. Neither was Mali.
"Alex was playing a rather elaborate hoax on me. And trust me, once I total the damage I will be pressing charges."
"Does that include a murder charge?" He looked up quickly to watch her face pale in shock.
"Murder?" her voice hitched.
"There was a rather large blood stain."
"No body?" Clarke put her hand on her chest and was angry all over again. "Mali, Alex claimed he is a Medji, a holy warrior, and his faked death was part of the prank. I'm sure the blood you saw was probably ketchup."
"Ma'am, this was blood. I'm a homicide detective, we know these things."
Alex followed the blood trail, down through the Egypt exhibit, the Knights of the Round Table exhibit and down the hallway to what he knew had to be the restoration rooms. He knew what he would see, having heard his father describe it many times, but the four guards in the middle of the room did not remind him of his father's tales, but of the hotdog he'd had for lunch, and the fierce desire to keep it down.
There, in the middle of the room, it was as if they'd been twisted and left to dry in the sun. One had no eyes, another's mouth gaped open with no tongue. Their skin was gray and ashy. He didn't touch them, he was afraid they'd dissolve.
"This is bad." Somewhere out there was a fully regenerated Mummy corpse. And Alex had no idea what he wanted.
"I have forensics going in to check it out, and the museum is to be closed for the duration. I have talked to the Curator and he is upset enough to offer full access to the museum and all files related to it. I would suggest you not leave town for a few days, and if you can, let me know where Alex O'Connell is staying."
At the moment Alex O'Connell was staring into the face of a dead man. Mali looked better than he'd last seen the man.
"What did you do?"
"I awakened my master." Mali held a wicked curved sword in both hands; Alex recognized it from Clarke's wall. Damn the girl had good weapons. Alex had gone back to the Egypt room to try and identify which mummy his walking corpse could be.
"That was incredibly stupid of you." He looked up from a book he'd been skimming and slowly slid his hand toward his jacket pocket.
"Ah- no moving, you think I don't know about you and your toy guns?" Mali jabbed the sword at Alex's hand. He moved it away and grabbed the blade from the top dull side. Yanking it aside the sword clanged on the tile floor. Mali smirked and pulled a gun from the waistband against his back. "To bad you didn't know about mine."