Three Americans and a Booby Trap
Reality glittered back to Gretchen with a hard slap in her face. A whelp escaped her lips as she blinked to consciousness. The features of the blurry form sharpened in her line of vision; she glared darkly at the impatient, weaselly face.
"Are you awake?"
She reached a trembling hand to her forehead, trying to rub away the aching between her eyes. "Sort of..."
Beni glanced back at the ruins eagerly, running a slimy tongue over his chapped lips. "Great. I am going back now."
Gretchen pulled herself to a seat gingerly. Her fingers felt detached from her control as they roamed over her stinging cheek. "Why the hell did you hit me?"
The Hungarian thief rose to his feet, the joints in his legs cracking in protest. His body cast a relieving shadow over her, and his eyes gazed down in momentary superiority. "Water is too valuable."
She snorted, rubbing her temple plaintively. "Aren't you sweet."
Beni shrugged. "What can I say?"
"How about 'good bye'?" Gretchen muttered irrtably. Her throat felt dry, and every word was coming out hoarse. Her companion glanced at the ruins again.
"I am supposed to tell you to stay here," he informed, backing away from her. "I am going back."
She glared at him, pulling herself haphazardly to her feet. The sun glinted harshly in her eyes as his silhouette slipped off of her. "What am I supposed to do? Just sit out here?"
His shoulders rose and fell; he was almost to the opening. "Think of some names for our children."
Gretchen reached down her leg, the quick motion awakening strange, glinting little dots in her vision. She slipped her shoe from her foot and hurled it at him. "I can think of a few names for you!"
Beni laughed, slipping easily into the ancient doorway. Frustrated and hot, the prostitute glanced across the sand, taking note that her worn, leather heel had fallen unsatisfyingly far from hitting its intended target. With a sigh, she struggled to take a step, the rush of air unsettling those strange dots again. The edges of her vision were black and pixelated to the grainy color of the scene before her. Blinking hard a few times, Gretchen willed the fuzziness away. When she opened her eyes, she could see nothing.
"Anck-su-namun..."
She let out a scream, frightened of the dark voice and its strange utterance. The blood pumped faster in her veins as her anxiety mounted with each passing second. She stared persistently into the black, her mind reeling with a phrase of panic: I'm blind! I'm blind! I'm blind! Gretchen's mind felt dizzy and her stomach churned with the want to vomit. She waved her arms, reaching for something to grasp before she would surely hit the simmering sand. She gulped down the bile rising in her throat, her fingers crawling up the sides of her face to clutch her hair and drag it off of her skin. She doubled over, swaying so hard, she was certain she was going to fall. A glimmer of bland, golden pebbles surfaced through the center of her blackened view; her heart leapt with the hope of seeing again. But the sand faded into a strange form, a set of almost familiar eyes. Anck-su-namun. Squeezing her eyes shut, her jaw dropped to allow herself to vomit; she gagged but nothing came up. Shaking her weary head, she opened her eyes to the darkness again. Her body leaned into it--she was falling head-first into awake unconscious, and she knew she was going to hit the ground sooner or later.
Or not at all.
Something rough and strong gripped her elbow and tugged her in the opposite direction. She was enraptured in the stability of invisible arms, being held upright against her own ability and understanding. She leaned back, her spine colliding with the satisfying warmth of something solid and breathing. She felt the scratchy, coarse texture of a beard against her ear, and the soft, moist quality of gentle, patient lips:
"Easy," a quiet, accented voice instructed her. "You must lay down, and have a drink."
By some unnatural force, she was lowered to the sand, cradled in the soft, sun-soaked grains. Something cold and metal was pressed against her lips, and she opened them. A rush of cool water splashed into her mouth. Gretchen gulped it uneasily, her eyelids fluttering fervently. Her lashes seemed to sweep away the blackness; the fuzziness cleared into a vaguely-concerned face. A little gasp caught in the back of her throat as she met the patient black eyes. Pressing her lips together, she watched him replace his cantene and flit his gaze at the ruins.
"You are not alone here."
She nodded slowly, staring at the enigmatic black markings across his cheekbones and forehead. Gretchen wondered if he recognized her. "No."
He shook his head, looking at her again. He brought the cantene to her lips again. "This is a cursed place."
Gretchen eagerly swallowed another gulp of water. "You could probably say that again."
He inclined his head, gazing at her steadily with unblinking eyes. They were making her nervous. She flipped through the vague facts of her mind, trying to recall who he was. Ghazi had said something ... something about a prince, and then a strange Egyptian word. Med-Jai. Was that his name?
"You're Med-Jai?" she asked carefully. His brow furrowed in surprise. He seemed to frown in thought for a silent moment, studying her features with accute interest. She watched his Adam's apple jerk uncomfortably as his stare meandered over her body and back up to her eyes.
"We have met," he pronounced finally, scratching the jet-colored curls at the nape of his neck. "I remember you."
Gretchen let out a sigh. "I guess you should. I was almost tribute."
He tilted his head, a sad smile pulling at his lips. "You are one of Ghazi's girls."
She felt awkward, lying on her back as he loomed over. Slowly, she pulled herself to a seat, shaking the sand out of her knotted locks. "Yeah...sorry I skipped out on your harem."
He looked into her eyes carefully. It felt as if he was searching for something in her empty, coffee-colored depths, but Gretchen didn't know what there was to be hoping for. She glanced out of the intensity of his gaze, feeling her heart thumping a little faster. He made her nervous, yet strangely, in such a way that did not awaken her fear. He did not seem to be the same man she had seen in the brothel. She focused on her cuticles stubbornly, but the invasion of his dark depths persisted against her face. He held the cantene just within her line of vision. Gretchen caught a glimpse of it, eagerly accepting the cool water container. He watched her take another drink.
"I was not going to take you," he told her, wrapping his fingers around the article she held out to him at arm's length. The calloused tips of his fingers brushed hers as he slipped the cantene from her grasp.
Gretchen's eyebrows jerked up. She looked out over the city's ruins, shaking her head at the irony. "What a waste."
He seemed to be smiling, though his lips were only slightly upturned, and his eyes were as stoic and calm as ever. "Are you better now?"
She nodded, jerking her gaze at his for an abbreviated chance at eye contact. "Yeah. Thanks. The last guy really wasn't much help..."
His focus was intent on her for another moment, as if he found it crucially important to be certain of her well-being. Gretchen swallowed, turning her eyes reluctantly to him again.
"Really. I'm fine."
He took a deep breath, pulling himself from the ground. "Very well, then."
Gretchen smiled politely, reaching a hand up towards him. "I'm Gretchen, by the way."
His tattooed palm encompassed her own in a Western hand shake. "Ardeth Bay."
His black depths scanned the ruins, his jaw set in determination. A ruthless sigh escaped his lips, and, without averting his gaze from the remains of Hamunaptra, he breathed a warning:
"The Med-Jai are attacking this camp tonight. Leave this place while you can."
Gretchen blinked her confusion, her stomach twisting with a shock of anxiety. "But--I don't even know the way--"
Ardeth was adamant. His eyes were on her again, but neither soft nor searching as before. They gleamed like a set of onyx swords or loaded black magnums, deadly serious and commanding:
"You must leave."
She swallowed, declining her head in a slow, difficult nod. Sympathy wavered precariously in his stern gaze, and something about the way he stood there, staring at her--as if he was using all his will to make her understand the weight of this mystery--made him look very tragic to her. He had a scimitar in his belt and tears in his eyes, and something strange inside of her was fascinated by the contradiction. He was a white knight dressed in black; a noble man with a vendetta. The burning breeze brought his pleading whisper to her ear:
"You must understand. The danger of this place is not worth the cost."
Gretchen glanced away, staring out over Hamunaptra with a new, horrified interest. She scanned the crumbling pillars and statues of old until her eyes came to rest on the tall, looming jackal-man on the other end of the city. He glowered over the ancient metropolis, silently threatening her and anybody else who would dare to presume entry to a municipality hallowed for the dead. She took in a deep breath, her stomach sore from so many threats of vomiting and anxiety. She glanced up to ask Ardeth about the jackal-headed man, or god--whatever he may be--but her swarthy savior was gone.
She ran her fingers through her hair, a pain throbbing somewhere deep in her skull. Her mind struggled to recreate him in her memory, even though he'd only recently left her presence. The Med-Jai were attacking tonight, he'd said. And then he had commanded her to leave. Why her? Why even show up at the camp if he had plans to destroy it? Gretchen mulled this over for a bit as she stumbled to the luggage. He had probably come to get the layout of the camps--to figure how big they were and how many of these "Med-Jai" it was going to take to drive them out, or...more likely, kill them all. Everyone was supposed to be below ground, treasure-hunting.
But why help her?
He could obviously tell she had been exhausted from the heat and claustrophobic conditions of the underground labyrinth. It was possible he was even aware she had lost her vision at that point. He could have easily avoided her altogether--allowed her to pass out and learn what he needed to of the two camps. With a sigh, she picked out Beni's knapsack and rifled through its contents. With a slight smile, she gripped a few cigarettes and shoved them into her pocket. She glanced inside, just to see what sort of things he had already managed to pick off of his esteemed employers, and her eyes caught a curious little pouch. With a sigh, she took that, too.
Well, even if it was in Ardeth's conscience to help her, he still was under no obligations to warn her about his planned attack. Gretchen snorted uneasily. A desert warrior oughtn't be so merciful, and something in her was simultaneously grateful and suspicious of his gesture.
Her thoughts were interrupted in a rather unceremonious fashion, however, but the haunting echo of screams from the gut of the city. Gretchen clenched her jaw, staring intently at the opening the diggers had carved out only that morning. Within minutes, the Americans, Beni, Chamberlain, and a handful of diggers rushed into the sunlight with pale faces and wild eyes. Burns struggled to maintain his balance and the professor escaped their company to quietly wrtech behind a pillar. A shaking breath escaped her lips as Henderson tripped over to her, fishing a flask out of one of the supply bags.
"What happened?" she was almost too scared to ask.
The blond cowboy shook his head in wonder, taking a much-need swig. "I don't...I don't know."
Gretchen glanced around for an explanation, noting the diggers huddled in a quivering group. One wept. Everything inside of her seemed to churn with nauseous dizziness. But Henderson was talking again:
"They just...melted. Right there..."
"It was a booby trap," Burns put in suddenly. Gretchen reached a hand to her head, Ardeth's word's echoing loud and foreboding in her ears:
The danger of this place is not worth the cost.
She was going to get out of here, and fast.