The silken dunes were littered with imperfections – rises and falls, specklings of colour belonging to shredded cloth.
"By the sands," whispered Frans, "mus' be the whole lot of them."
Frans, pitiful creature that he was, happened to be correct. Dozens of bodies slept, ripped apart and left in tatters by something fierce. Bigfoot kicked a layer of sand over the severed hand and turned back toward the cliffs where the settlement's lights flickered. Above, a chill sank from the sky, immersing them before it settled at their ankles.
"We go now," said Bigfoot solemnly, pointing at the spot beneath the black cliffs. Frans didn't offer resistance, happily trailing him less than a step behind.
Bigfoot may have looked relaxed, settling into a firm pace, but he kept a sharp eye on the sands, inspecting every murmur of movement. Whatever had been locked in the tombs beneath was roaming free – hungry for sport since Helen had disturbed them.
"How your friends get out?" whispered Frans, slipping down a dune. He finished the distance on his arse, hands trailing over the cool dunes for stability. Beating the carefully trod Bigfoot to the flat, he scrambled to his feet and waited.
Bigfoot glared in Frans' direction as he passed, silently instructing him to keep quiet. Behind, Bigfoot could hear restless movement, kicking through the sand. Strange, considering the breeze had died hours ago.
"Tried to tell you, the desert things never sleep. Been here since the gods' time. They come, they kill and then they all creep back into –"
The big man, who was busy eyeing the night with caution, pricked his ears. Frans' incessant chattering, nuisance that it was, had fallen quiet before reaching its natural end.
Bigfoot did not stop, nor did he turn around. If Frans was silent, then he was dead.
*~*~*
Helen watched Kavanaugh tilt his head, trailing his sharp eyes over the sand creature's face. His calmness worried her almost as much as the creature's curiosity toward the detective. It had chosen to remain visible, picking a reddish brown for skin which might be its default setting.
"Didn't think I'd see one of these again," he whispered, sliding his hands down the bars. "Been a long time..." Kavanaugh spoke directly to the creature which remained transfixed by him. It wasn't clear whether it wanted to kill or speak with him – at least it was calm for a change instead of trying to rip their throats out.
"I'm – sorry," Henry ventured a few hesitant steps forward. "You met one of these before?"
Will had that, don't all look at me, I invited him because he reads and writes ancient Egyptian look about him while Helen moved in closer, slinking through the room until she appeared over Kavanaugh's shoulder.
"We should talk," she whispered into his ear, so that the others couldn't hear.
The detective turned away from the cage to face her, a dangerous glimmer in his eye. "Something I've been trying to do since I was seven. Why else do you think I clambered over your wall?"
*~*~*
Heaving for breath, Bigfoot leapt from one crest of sand to the next, stretching his arms out like wings until he hit the ground and scrambled down the other side. The camp lights were bright now and the mountain well above his head, strangling the night with its imposing blackness. There couldn't be more than two-hundred metres left to cover.
He was pursued by a haze of sand, whipping up in great swirls behind him. It was clawed into the air by a dozen sand creatures, scaling the dunes with incredible speed. They would catch him easily before he reached safety – rip him limb from limb.
Bigfoot pushed on, withdrawing a long knife from the folds of his desert cloth. He had waited until the last moment to do so because it made running difficult. With a final look at the camp, he stopped in his own storm of sand, and waited for them to arrive.
A line of sand cut diagonally in front of the others, thrown up by a rogue creature as it hunted impatiently. Bigfoot watched it, tightening the grip on the blade as the creature paused, then shifted direction. This time it headed straight for him. Seconds away, he swung the sword over his head and slashed down where the creature would be.
The 'crunch' never came. Instead, the creature dove into the sand at his feet and tunnelled beneath him, bursting forth from the ground behind. It wasted no time lashing his back, ripping his clothes open with liberal smears of blood.
Bigfoot howled, pulling the sword from the ground and throwing it in a sweeping arc behind him. The creature ducked, easily missing the blade. It fell backwards onto its arms and used its feet to kick, forcing Bigfoot to the ground without any breath left in his lungs.
Gasping, he sensed the creature circling him. Playing with him until the others arrived. Bigfoot could feel the group approaching. Their attack was calculated, calm even. The scout had gone to great trouble not to kill him, which the sand creature could have done easily on the first strike. No – this was revenge – and the group wanted it.
Sensing a chance, Bigfoot gasped, filling his lungs with air. Then he rolled onto his knees crawling forward a few paces. The sand creature guarding him snapped its head around. Keeping a careful eye, it crept closer, deciding how best to disable the prey.
In the split second it took for the creature to consider its options, Bigfoot ran his sword along the ground, inches from the sand. The swipe was so fast that its only mark was a metallic scrape upon the desert air.
The creature howled, collapsing to the side, separated from its feet.
"I'm not so easy," Bigfoot muttered, throwing the sword away as he made a dash for the camp.
*~*~*
Helen's study was warm. She kept a large fire burning in the corner, framed by a marble mantle and iron grate. The curtains were open, tied back with silk ropes so that the city could be seen to shimmer beyond.
Detective Joe Kavanaugh had imagined standing at this window, peering out at the world through Helen Magnus's domain. What a different world it seemed, full of monsters and magic.
"This is not the first time that you have been in my house, detective," Helen flicked through a creature profile lying on her desk before setting it aside. She dug through a desk drawer, retrieving several crumpled letters. "Your mother was very concerned about the time you spent here. She wrote several letters to that effect."
"Can't think why," he chuckled, stepping back from the window. "She took me to Egypt when I was four on one of her college projects she and dad worked on during the holidays. According to her, this one was a little different." Kavanaugh seated himself in one of the leather chairs opposite Helen's. She sat as well, folding her hands in front of her on the desk.
"Your mother worked on translation catalogues while your dad kept records of the –"
"I know what my parents did," he interrupted sharply. "When my father didn't return that night I thought of it every day for the rest of my life. My mother lied to me about how he died, so did everybody else."
A strange smile crept over Helen's lips, barely detectable. It wasn't sinister, merely one of understanding. "You saw one of them..." she said, her dark eyes glistening.
He ran a slender hand through his hair. "It came to the tent, just before – the creature was like nothing I had seen, rippling between disguises as if it lived in another world. I remember freezing, unable to breathe as it moved around the tent searching for something. The thing that gets me, even now, is that it saw me – I know it did, but it didn't touch me."
"You were only a child," Helen said softly. "Not a threat to it."
"But that's not it at all," he continued. "because it killed three other people that night, two of them were female students and the third was a baby left alone on the bed to sleep. You know what I think? They're intelligent and vengeful. Old as well, I imagine, as they speak the dead language. That's why you brought me here – as a translator. Isn't it?"
Her lack of reply was all he needed.
"I'll help you, but I want some answers, starting with why you haven't aged in three decades."
*~*~*
What Bigfoot couldn't see from the dunes was a small plane, prepped and ready on the dirt road outside the camp. As he half-ran, half-fell along the road, he saw that the lights were and empty gesture, not belonging to tents at all but carefully placed flares. Everything was gone, packed away and evacuated.
A woman stood next to the plane, waving him forward.
Bigfoot risked a look over his shoulder and saw the creatures still following him a minute or so behind. With the last of his strength, he made it to the woman at the plane who pushed him into the craft as it started to move. She followed shortly after, locking the door as the plane picked up speed along the runway.
Nobody said a word until they were airborne.
"Magnus's orders," said the woman, shaking her head as if she couldn't believe it was still attached to her body. "She's not usually one to run and hide, but these sand things are fierce. There's one waiting for you back home."
Bigfoot didn't bother asking how Helen and Will had made it out of the cave. He would have his answers after the flight. Right now, he was happy just to sleep.