Imhotep's Key Chapter 12
By Joseph Black
Disclaimer: Red Storm and Tom Clancy own Rainbow and Characters. Joss Whedon owns Buffy and Characters. If you recognize any other character they belong to their respective owners. Original characters belong to me. I make no profit off the following except to have a little fun.
Spoilers: Buffy to present. Rainbow to Bear and the Dragon.
Authors note 1: I am adjusting the Buffy time line slightly, this fic starts just after "Never Leave Me", moving things back about a month.
Authors note 2: I can't seem to get Fanfic to except my special formatting. So anytime you see this ' anything inside is in a foreign language. And if you see this it's some ones thoughts.
Authors note 3: This is a continuation of the story started in 'Rainbow Over Sunnydale'. It would be helpful to read that fic first.
Notes to Reviewers:
JJM6383: You bet I am! Thanks for the review.
Antionio: Glad you liked it. I hadn't really thought about that when I introduced the character. You've given me something to think about.
JA Baker: Thanks for the trust. I have definite plans for the demise of Mr. De Vries. I hope when it happens you enjoy it.
Jade eye's: It will be a challenge for Anuk to get at Dawn.
Dorothy: Yes that was the dragon I used, I was ticked that Whedon didn't use it in either season six or seven. Buffy the Dragon Slayer has a nice ring for a title of an ep.
Joe: Sorry Joe, it's not that ring.
John: With Buffy you're right, we didn't really see all that much of the rest of the magical community. However if you look at Angel it defiantly implied that there is a large magic Sub Culture out there.
Allen Pitt: That scene you imagined is coming soon, I hope you enjoy my take on it. As far as Faith goes, she is coming, I have to ask for patients though.
Paladin Steelbreaker: Thanks, for the review. I don't know if Buffy would be worse than Imhotep and SK together. But she would defiantly cause a raise in the Medji's medical insurance rates.
nascar girl: Thanks for the understanding. Yeah Wes is in some dutch with Angel yet. It's toward the start of the season. I will be doing a little more with Faith's dreams soon.
Thanks to all that reviewed. Constructive criticisms always welcomed. Flames cheerfully ignored.
Sunnydale Airport, Hanger 4
Sunnydale CA
29Oct2002
1655 Hours
Riley Finn was disappointed when the first female off of the VC 20 had four legs rather than two, the owner of the four legs more than made up for his disappointment though by bounding down the steps and jumping up on his chest, barking excitedly in greeting to the pack leader she hadn't seen in two weeks.
Riley grabbed the German Shepard behind the jaws, partially in greeting, but mostly to keep her from slobbering all over his face. "And how is Ginger," Riley asked in the tone that people saved for babies and dogs, "Did you have a good leave?" Ginger pulled her head out of his hands and barked twice as if in agreement. She then dropped back onto all fours and began sniffing around Riley's shoes and legs to see what he had been up to while they had been separated.
Bob Cugren, Ginger's handler was the next out of the plane and gave Riley a smile in apology for his dogs actions. Behind Bob came the female that Riley had been waiting to see. Sam smiled and ran to her husband; embracing him in a huge hug that was firmly returned.
"I missed you Major," she said into his chest. "Congratulations honey," she said, as she raised her face for a kiss. Before Riley could kiss her though she spotted the bruises on the side of his face and reaching up she turned his pucker aside so she could get a look at them. "What happened?" She asked, very concerned.
"Err, I walked into a door?" Riley said rather lamely.
Samantha Finn cocked an eyebrow at her husband, "I can see the knuckle marks Riley. Are you going to tell me who you got into a fight with or am I going to have to start measuring knuckles?"
"It was Xander. I deserved it though, I hit him first."
"You did what?"
"I'll tell you about it on the way to Buffy's house. She's called a meeting and General Clark wants us there."
Riley was watching as people continued to exit the plane, when Graham Miller finally descended the stairs he nodded to Riley that they were clear. "Okay folks listen up!" Riley called and waited for his squad to gather around. Riley wished they had a magic user with them, but unfortunately the two that the Initiative currently had on the payroll had both bolted with Billingsly, then again with Willow on the scene it wasn't really a much of a loss. The men he did have, with the exception of Bob Crugen, were all Sunnydale veterans so they knew what was coming, "We are currently staying at a local motel. We have a base that should be ready to move into by the end of the week. Since we have experience with what we are dealing with our team will be splitting up. Two of us will accompany four of the Rainbow troops on patrols; until they are up to speed we are going to be some busy people. We also lucked out in that General Clark has managed to retain the services of the Slayer for training."
"He says that like it's a good thing," Graham Miller mumbled.
"You don't think she's qualified?" Sgt. Ed Tusken the team radio operator asked.
"Naw, that's not it. It's that I still have bruises from the last time I trained with her."
"If I'm not interrupting anything Graham," Riley asked his old friend.
"Naw, I'm good," He replied sardonically.
"That's good, come up here I'll give you the keys to our rooms and the cars."
Riley and Graham huddled for a couple of minutes then Graham waved the rest of the unit to follow him as Riley and Sam got in another car and headed out.
123 Front Street, apartment 254
Raleigh NC
29Oct2002
17:25 hrs
Nicholas Eddington was about to knock again on the apartment door when it opened under his hand. The young woman that answered it had tears streaming down her cheeks. From the glassy look in her eyes Diggs could also tell that she had been drinking. She was shorter than Eddington and stocky, with a pleasing face surrounded by brown hair cut in a pageboy style.
"Uncle Nick!" She sobbed, and all but threw herself into his arms.
"Cindy, what's wrong honey?" Eddington asked his niece as he hugged her tight.
"That bastard Trankard told me today that he wasn't picking up my contract." Cindy Stewart opened her eyes and saw Marion Diggs standing there with a concerned look on his face. She pushed herself off her uncle and said, "I'm sorry, I didn't realize there was someone with you."
"Cindy, I'd like you to meet Major General Marion Diggs, he has something he wants to talk to you about." Eddington told his niece.
"General Diggs…?" Cindy's hand went to her mouth and her eyes went wide. "General, I'm sorry, I usually don't drink this early, I mean when I do, which I don't mostly, and oh I'm just digging myself in deeper," she looked to her uncle for help.
"Relax Ms. Stewart, I've been known to down a couple when I got bad news," Diggs said, trying to put the young woman at ease.
"I'll go and get straitened out, Uncle Nick could you get the general something to drink?" Cindy said as she motioned both of the older men into her apartment. She then disappeared into an adjoining room and shut the door.
Diggs looked around and liked the apartment. Judging by the doors it was probably a one bedroom, though the kitchen was a little bigger than you'd normally find in this kind of apartment. She had the living room area set up with a couch facing the TV with overstuffed chairs on both sides and a larger than normal coffee table with glass end pieces and a wooden center section. On the table was a half empty bottle of Maker's Mark bourbon and an open scrapbook. It looked like there were newspaper clippings on the pages. The walls were mostly covered by bookcases except for where the TV was and one section of wall that had a bronze crucifix hanging on it. Looking closer at it Diggs saw that it wasn't the normal depiction of Christ dead on the cross, rather it had a living Jesus holding his hands out away from the cross, his arms out with his right giving a blessing and in his left a sheppard's staff. A Stylized sunburst surrounded the figure.
Eddington had gone to the kitchen and had grabbed a couple of Cokes out of the fridge. Turning he saw Diggs admiring the crucifix on the wall and said as he strolled over to his friend, "It's called 'The Cross of the Resurrection, Jenny Hudson's parents gave it too her when she helped find their daughter." Eddington handed Diggs the soda and motioned for him to sit on the couch. Once he and Diggs were seated Eddington grabbed the scrapbook and passed it over.
Diggs scanned the headlines and saw that they were about the kidnapping of a young girl earlier in the year. She had been taken on her way home from school. According to the story, police had received a tip and they had managed to rescue the girl. The next story was from several days later when it was revealed that they tipster had been an assistant teacher at the girl's school. Once Cindy's identity was out it appeared that the local press tried to turn Cindy into a heroine, until the police announced that they were investigating Cindy because the information she had given to the detective in charge of the case had been so precise that the only way they could see that she had it was if she was an accomplice. Cindy had gone from heroine to villain in less than a day.
"She almost lost her job then," Eddington told him.
"Why didn't she?"
"They put her and the perp's life history under an electronic microscope. They couldn't find a single instance of Cindy and that bastard coming within 5 miles of each other, except when he took little Jenny."
"How did she get clued in to where the girl was then?"
"She found her hat."
Diggs cocked an eyebrow at him.
"I told you, Cindy is a sensitive. She gets feelings every so often and if one of the feelings is about you then you better listen. Also, if she picks up an item that there was very strong emotions around she can tune into the owner of the item. That's what she did there. Cindy knew which cops that deal with the supernatural in and around Raleigh. So she went to the guy in charge because she knew there wasn't much time."
"If the cops know that she's sensitive why did they give her a hard time?"
Eddington sighed, " Cindy is my sister's second daughter. The Eddington and Trankard families have had a low level feud going on since before the War Between the States. Corbin Trankard, Cindy's Boss, is the scion of the Trankards that live in the Raleigh area. He saw Cindy find the cap and since Crowley witch women are somewhat infamous in the backcountry he put two and two together. The cop that pushed for the investigation is a Trankard cousin, as is the reporter who wrote the stories. Now it looks like he's using this to force Cindy out."
"There is no looks like it, with my contract not picked up, I'm afraid no other school district is going to touch me, at least in this area," Cindy said as she came back into the room.
Diggs noticed that she looked sober; she had also changed into a jean skirt and a flannel shirt. He was impressed, the only other time he had seen someone sober up that quick was coming home from a night on the town with a friend and they had almost clobbered a deer that jumped out in front of them. His buddy had gone from well lubed to cold sober in a heartbeat.
"Well you know what Gram always said when something like this happens," Eddington said philosophically.
"When one door closes another opens? Uncle Nick I love this area, I don't want to move out just so I can teach."
"I'm sorry to hear that you don't want to move Ms. Stewart," Diggs said. "I was hoping to hire you as a consultant on my staff."
Cindy sat down in one of the easy chairs across from the couch and frowned, "You need someone with a Degree in Education for your staff?"
"Honey, the General has been ordered to put together a staff because we have received information that there is going to be a try to open the Sunnydale Hellmouth. There are some locals on the ground that we are backing up that have an excellent track record of stopping things like this, but if they fail then General Diggs will be the next line of defense. We need someone who has a working knowledge of the supernatural to advise on what we might be looking at."
"The Government doesn't already have people for this kind of stuff?" Cindy asked, clearly surprised.
"We did, unfortunately they are the ones who are trying to open the thing," Diggs said, then went on to give her a brief overview of the problem. When he got to the part about Billingsly thinking that the President was the Anti-Christ she just snorted.
"I knew I should have paid more attention to CNN, I completely missed the Rapture," She said with dry sarcasm.
Diggs nodded, "So what do you think, are you interested? Nothing may come of this, but I understand that something trying to open this thing is a somewhat common event so the protocols we set up my help someone else down the line."
Cindy thought about if for a couple of seconds, "Okay, I'm in." She got up and crossing to the coffee table she tripped a latch and open the wooden section up. It raised and extended so that someone sitting on the couch would have a tray comfortably in front of them. Underneath the table part was a couple of nooks that had papers in them. Cindy reached in and pulled out a folder and handed both her uncle and Diggs a sheet from one of them.
"I'm going for my Masters in ancient languages. For my final project I'm doing a study on meaning drift caused by multiple translations. I found the works of a minor prophet, well to be fair most people consider him to be a mystic, called Meltecic. There was only one work ever ascribed to him. It included nine prophecies. Eight had to deal with Babylonian exile; the last as far as can be told hasn't happened yet, or if it did then it was never recorded. His eight prophecies on Babylon though were spot on leading many scholars to believe that they were written after the fact."
Diggs interested flipped to the last page and began reading:
"To close a Hellmouth true
This is all that you need do.
Seven mages you will need
be they any sex or creed,
One of Black in dark might.
Who however fights for the Light.
Three of Gray
Three of White
Each linked by bounds of honor, blood, or life.
In a circle the six will kneel
Arms outstretched to form Solomon's Seal.
In the center of them all
the black one will heed the chanters call.
Pull and stretch the cosmos weave.
When released the trickster leaves."
"Well damn," was Diggs comment.
1630 Revello Drive
Sunnydale CA
29Oct2002
1740 hrs
Jonathan O'Connell sat on the couch and half listened as Ahmed finished explaining to General Clark and his people the history of the Medji. His eyes slid off of the Rainbow officers and over to Buffy and Dawn. He had been worried about broaching the subject of Dawn as the Key, especially since he wasn't a hundred percent sure that Dawn was the Key. Logically it made sense, Glory had been ripping up the town looking for the thing and Dawn had ended up on the tower and that was where the fireworks had started. He hadn't had too good of a view of what happened there that night, he had set up about four blocks from the scrap yard with his team and had just about decided to get involved with what ever had been going on there when they had been jumped by about twenty of those little trolls that Glory had used as minions and what ever had happened on top of the tower was over with by the time he could stick his head up. He had wounded to see to so he wasn't even able to check on the Scoobies until almost three days later.
When he had explained this too her Buffy digested it and asked what they intended to do. The look in her eyes told him that the wrong answer here could have extreme consequences and he had been thankful when Ahmed had told the Slayer quietly that they would do what ever they could to help protect Dawn. After all he had explained, when the first Medji maiden had been Chosen it meant that the Slayers had become part of the Medji, and the Medji protected their own. Buffy had accepted that, but said that it would be up to her to explain about Dawn to Clark and his people. Ahmed agreed readily.
Clark, Ding, Alistair Stanley and Pete Covington had arrived twenty minutes after Buffy had called. They explained that Riley was off picking up his team and he and Sam would come right over. They had started giving the commando's the background and were just finishing it up when Riley and Sam got there.
Willow got up to great them but stopped as Sam came in the door, "What happened to your hair?" Willow asked, when Samantha had left last year she had been a brunette.
Sam lifted up a group of her locks and shrugged, "I got captured in Tibet. The mage we were after had been told that if he tried to marry anyone but a red head bad things would happen to him. He liked my attitude so he changed my hair color. I'm thinking the fortuneteller that gave him the prophecy probably should have also told him not to cheat. Because when Riley got there bad things sure did happen to him."
Willow cocked her head at the other woman, "If you want I can try to reverse it," she offered.
Sam shrugged as she came forward and took Willow into a hug, "Thanks, but I just got all my paper work changed over, besides I kind of like it."
Willow hugged her back and then push away, "What did you tell your parents?"
Sam smiled, "That it was a side effect of a weird jungle disease I contracted in Mexico."
Buffy muttered from her seat in the living room, "They must be from Sunnydale too."
Riley and Sam found seats after Sam got finish greeting everyone. Clark then said, "Okay everyone is here, what's going on?"
O'Connell looked at Buffy but when she nodded that he should begin he stood up and addressed the gathering. "Ahmed has discovered that Anck-Su-Namun is in Sunnydale and is looking for a component of a spell that will allow her to revive Imhotep, her lover."
Riley cocked his head and asked, "This is bad because…"
Ahmed Bey replied, "Imhotep would rise a walking disease, he would be invincible and have control of the ten plagues of ancient Egypt."
Riley nodded, "Okay, stopping that defiantly a good thing."
Ding then asked, "Do you have any idea what she is looking for?"
"Yes, she seeks The Key," Ahmed replied.
Clark noticed that the Scoobies tensed up at the mention of it. Riley frowned trying to remember something, "That was the thing that Glory was looking for wasn't it?"
Buffy nodded.
"Did you ever figure out what it was?" Riley asked.
"Oh yeah," Xander replied. Buffy gave him a hard look and he sat back on the couch.
"And you didn't destroy it?" Riley questioned, wondering why.
"It would be a little hard to do that Riley," Buffy told her former boyfriend, "it's in a person."
Riley stared at the ceiling, "Of course it is."
Turning to Clark he said, "General, I suggest we get this person and move them either to Groom Lake or Cheyenne Mountain Complex. Those are probably the closest secure facilities."
Bringing his attention back to Buffy, "You do know where this person is don't you?"
Buffy nodded.
"What's Groom Lake?" Dawn asked.
"It's normally called Area 51, it's outside of Las Vegas," Riley told her, "The Air Force uses it for flight testing for their experimental aircraft."
"And that's where they store the aliens," Xander said, only half joking.
Everyone joined in a quick laugh, though in the back of Clarks mind he wondered, after all if the supernatural was real…
"What if the person doesn't want to live in a desert or under a mountain?" Dawn asked.
Clark noticed that Buffy was starting to get agitated, he saw that Dawn saw it too, but choose to ignore her sister.
"We'll just have to convince them is all Dawnie," Riley replied.
"Start convincing," Dawn told him, "I got to tell you though you better be a lot more convincing than you used to be."
Riley smiled at the younger Summers, "Thanks for the vote of confidence Dawn, but I think I'll let someone else do it so I don't need the practice." Turning back to Buffy he was going to ask for the identity of The Key when he realized that everyone in the room was staring at him.
"Here's your sign," Spike said from where he was leaning up against doorframe with a mug of blood in hand.
Riley was about to say something when he stopped, what Dawn had said sinking in. He looked at her frowning and asked, "When did that happen?"
X.X
Authors after note: Spikes saying comes from an American Comedian by the name of Bill Engvall. His signature piece is a bit called, "Here's Your Sign" (The following belongs to Bill Engvall) It starts out like this, "I hate stupid people, they should have to were signs that say 'I'm stupid.' Warning labels on packages are for stupid people, we wouldn't need them if people wore their signs cause we would know not to sell them the item. For example, do you know on a bottle of shaving foam there is a label that says do not use around an open flame? Where was this guy shaving?…..
If you have never heard the whole piece I totally recommend it.