π Sky and Starsπ
"Shit!" Marc cursed himself.
"Marc don't!" Layla bade him. He let the gun go and joined the ladies in holding up his arms in surrender.
"Anton stop!"
He only shook his head at her. "Layla, I was so ready to make peace with you."
"You don't understand, we're trying to save many lives!"
But he wasn't paying attention. "Well isn't this interesting - we seem to have a concerned third party here."
Harrow. It really did seem like Marc and Steven were being followed by the eccentric cult leader.
"Whatever they've told you, I'm sure I can offer you something much more tangible-" Harrow held up the scarab in his palm. "Why settled for a clue when you can have the treasure?" he tempted.
"Anton, don't listen to this man," Layla persisted, but he wasn't listening to her, much more interested in Harrow now. "He's going to kill millions, trust me!"
This caught Mogart's attention. He whirled around to face her angrily. "Are you seriously talking to me about trust?" he demanded.
"Please, there's no need to descend into violent accusations," Harrow cut in. "Each one of you has so much more in common than you know. Evelyn, will your loneliness ever go away? You try and bury yourself in your work to distract yourself from it, but it doesn't help. It's getting to the point of painful. Layla, you keep thinking that distance will prevent the wounds from your father's murder from reopening. But something stands in your way. Your ex-husband doesn't tell you the truth. And Marc, you don't tell her because you know that if you do, she'll see you exactly as you see yourself: as unworthy of love."
"You piece of shit," Marc spat back.
"Anton, the lore surrounding these relics, I offer proof that it's real." He held up his cane which was glowing the same purple as when he had summoned the jackal back in London. "Anton, would you like to see for yourself?"
"Yes, I do."
Harrow began his chanting, only this time he wasn't summoning anything, but destroying Senfu's sarcophagus.
"No!" cried Eva.
"That is just a taste of the godly power I offer," was the note Harrow left them on.
"Where'd he go?" cried one of the guards. Eva and Layla turned - Marc had disappeared, simply vanished.
"Up there!"
One of the guards pointed to a cloaked white figure with glowing eyes standing atop the tent. Mogart was ushered away by guards while others descended on them, fully armed.
"Layla, grab the cartonnage!" cried Eva, drawing her knife.
"Got it! Buy me some time!"
"We can do that-"
The two, one former Knight and one current Knight, leapt into battle. Marc was a brutal fighter as the Knight.
Suddenly, Eva was engulfed in white and warm arms wrapped around her, Marc's body covering her from a spray of gunfire. "Oh - thanks."
"Of course. Promised I would take care of you."
"To who?" But he was already gone.
"Oh, sorry!" A familiar English accent suddenly said. "You all right?" he asked the body he had just thrown to the ground.
"Steven!"
"Hi Eva!" he waved. Then he turned back to the guards - more and more kept on coming. "That's it, time out, time out! Guys, let's all calm down, yeah. We're all worked up. Let's all just like chill the F out and talk for a second-" He was cut off when one guard's spear struck him through the back.
"STEVEN!"
Suddenly, it was Marc who was back. He was impaled by several of the spears. Despite knowing the healing properties of the suit, Eva still panicked at the first sight of it. Anything happened to Marc happened to Steven as well.
"Go, I've got this!" he called.
"You sure?"
"Yeah, help Layla!"
Eva reached Layla just as she was facing one of the guards. She removed the elaborate necklace she had been wearing and impaled the sharp edges into the guy's chest.
"That was brilliant!"
"Thanks." Layla picked up the guy's gun.
"I'll have to get one of those!"
The ladies rejoined the battlefield. Layla and Marc turned out to be a pretty sweet team in battle, and it would seem that Eva and Steven were as well.
Layla was suddenly knocked down by Mogart who rode by on horseback, armed with a spear himself.
Eva took off at a run, taking a great leap and throwing him off the horse. Marc threw one of his curved blades and finished the man off.
"Nice teamwork," Eva said.
"Don't let Marc hear that," said Layla. "He doesn't like teamwork.
Marc just grumbled in response.
π π π
They got themselves as far away as possible, stealing one of Mogart's many cars. Only then did they attempt to assemble the cartonnage.
"I'm not getting any whole constellations," grumbled Marc, clearly frustrated with the extensive process. "Just little pieces and fragments. This is gonna take forever."
"I could use some help," Eva said.
"What are we?" Marc gestured to himself and Layla.
"I mean someone more well-versed in this field..." Her words were clear: Steven. "I really think we need him."
"It's true, he understands all of this," Layla agreed. "I think it's worth giving him a shot."
As usual, Marc was not receptive to this idea.
"What are you doing?" Layla asked as he tore off one of the car's mirrors and stormed away with the pieces of cartonnage.
"Cheers thanks a lot," said a new voice.
"Steven?"
"Eva! Isn't this great? Being out in the field? I can't believe that I'm actually here, that we're actually here! This is brilliant!" His excitement was adorable and contagious.
"Do you think you can help with this?" she asked.
"Oh yeah, sure, I'd be happy to. Layla, you want to come watch?"
"Sure."
The three knelt in the sand.
"Egyptians invented modern navigation. There's not a lot of landmarks in the desert, so they came up with a way to get about using the sun and the stars. Genius isn't it?"
They worked in unison, bumping hands every now and again, sharing excited and smitten chuckles and smiles. Layla seemed to be smiling herself watching them.
"Voila!" Steven held up the now completed cartonnage, in the shape of a star.
"So what do we do with it?" asked Layla.
"Umm... Oh, hang on a minute-" Eva held it up so that the light from the car streamed through.
"Oh look at those little pinpricks there," said Steven. "It's a constellation."
"A constellation - we should be able to triangulate the stars into coordinates then, right?"
"Yes!" cried Layla, with her tablet out. "Let me just scan it-"
"Well, unfortunately it's not that simple," Eva told her.
"Yeah, Senfu marked that tomb like two-thousand years ago," continued Steven. "And stars drift over time. Not much as far as stars go but it could mean the difference between us searching miles and miles away from where we're meant to be looking. So unless we know exactly what the sky looked like on that date, we're buggered."
"Unfortunately there's no record of that," Eva finished. "At least not to date."
"Khonshu?" Steven started climbing a dune, the ladies following. "Khonshu?" He stood for a moment before extending his arms out at his sides and tilting his head up, his suit appearing over his body. He began moving his arms and, to their utter astonishment, the sky and stars started moving too.
"My stars!" exclaimed Eva. "Literally!"
Faster and faster the world spun - they were literally turning back time, turning back the years.
"It's working!" cried Layla.
"This is surprisingly painful! I can feel my energy leaving me - oh god I don't know how much longer I can do this-"
"Let me help!" Eva stood before him, facing the sky like he was, and like she assumed Khonshu was behind him, and started mirroring his movements. Technically she didn't share a connection to the God of the Moon anymore, but maybe she could help take some of the strain off Steven. "I can't feel anything, I don't think it's helping!"
Layla's tablet was beeping madly. "I got it!" she cried suddenly. "Twenty-nine degrees North, twenty-five East!"
Steven gave a cry and toppled over.
Rest in Peace Gaspard Ulliel.
Thank you so much for reading and I hope you enjoyed!