A Prince's Loot
Gretchen let out a little scream, flinching away from the invasive hand. Shrill, annoying chortles retorted that her fear was in vain; she glanced up and met Beni's amused face. She shot him a glare, leaning around the statue to see what had become of her companions. She was mildly surprised to find that they had left her.
"Looking for someone?" the Hungarian sneered. Gretchen swallowed her pride and pulled herself to her feet.
"Shut up."
His nerve-grating smirk was still slung across his face when she turned to look at him again.
"Come on, Gretchen," he chided in a sing-song tone, "it is not as if you would be much help to them." He laughed cruelly. "I do not think a quickie will save the world."
She only huffed, picking her way around the statue and back to the main pathway. Her brow furrowed at the doorway ahead of her, and she tilted her head to the side in puzzled concentration. They had to have gone this way; there was nowhere else to go. But who knew how many hallways snaked beneath this city...and who knew how many led right into painful traps?
His fingers crept over her shoulders again. Gretchen gasped in surprise; she hadn't heard him sneak up on her. She glanced over her shoulder coldly.
"Would you stop that?"
Beni smiled smugly. "I do not think you want me to."
She rolled her eyes, trying to shrug off his grip. "Well, you're wrong. I want you to get your slimy fucking hands off me!"
He scoffed, his breath warm and remotely damp against her neck. She grimaced, but he pulled her more tightly against him. One of his hands slid down her back, and for the moment it left her body, she thought he might leave her alone. But his arm returned slinkily about her waist, holding a dusty sack.
"What if I give you this?"
Gretchen glanced at it and snorted. "Tempting."
His arm pulled her closer. "What if I give you this to fill with as much treasure as you can fit in it?"
She snatched it out of his hand, her breath hitching with a sudden flow of joy. She turned around to stare at him. "Are you...are you serious?"
Despite his greasy grin, Beni shrugged nonchalantly. "Two hands work faster than one."
Gretchen thought about correcting him, but she was too ecstatic to fret over his inadequacies. As she gazed into his glinting, conniving eyes, though, her smile soured.
"And what's the catch?"
He laughed dismissively. "There is no catch--"
Her frown cut him off. "You always have a catch."
Beni's mouth gaped a little, offended. "You do not trust me?"
"No," she retorted simply. "I know how you work. And I don't want to wake up alone in the middle of the desert tomorrow morning."
He sighed, leaning down to pick up a jeweled crocodile statuette. "Then you will have to be worth keeping around."
Gretchen's jaw dropped a little. She watched him shove the trinket into another bag on his shoulder and turn his attention to something else. His eyes darted up to her expectantly.
"You can start by filling that sack."
Her teeth clenched as she bent over and examined the treasure on the floor. After perusing a few exceptionally sparkly items and stuffing them in her sack, she turned to look at him again.
"So what are you thinking...then?"
Beni let out a thoughtful hmm, tossing a few more ancient relics into his bag. "I am thinking that, by tomorrow morning, O'Connell will be dead, a mummy will rule the world, and I will be the richest man in history."
Gretchen swallowed, throwing a gilded hippopotamus in with her loot. "And you're okay with that?"
He snickered. "Aren't you?"
Her hand paused just above a strange, black stone falcon. She hadn't expected him to turn the question on her. She was certain, up until he spoke, that the opposite answer was the obvious one.
"Come on, Gretchen," he reasoned. "Who cares who rules the world? Good people and bad people are kings, and they still never changed the fact that I have starved my whole life."
She bit her lip, overlooking the falcon to grab a gold headdress. It felt safer, somehow. "So you don't think it'll be any different, if Imhotep wins?"
"It will be different," he assured her. "I will be rich."
Gretchen stood up, cracking her back. "Will you be happy?"
He glanced up at her, catching her puzzled dark eyes. Holding up a diamond-studded bracelet, he gave her a greedy grin. "I think so, yes!"
She nodded slowly, bending down to gather more treasure, but his gaze stayed fixed on her.
"What is the matter with you, anyway?" he demanded tersely. "Don't you understand? You will be a rich woman, and wear expensive clothes and go anywhere. With money, no one will care that you are a tramp and I am a thief. You will be a lady--"
"If I'm worth it," she reminded sharply.
He shrugged, allowing the comment. "With so much money, no one will know better."
Gretchen shook her head. "No, I mean--you said I'll have to be 'worth keeping around' if I don't want you to dump me off in the middle of the night. So what do you mean?"
He cocked his head to the side, giving her an odd look. "Did Imhotep suck out your brain? What do you think it means?"
She swallowed, tossing a few rings into the sack. "This is gonna take an awful lot of payback sex."
Gretchen didn't have to look at Beni to know he was smirking grimly. "Yes..."
Something about his tone told her to look up. His impish grin was waiting for her. "You said you would marry me if I had the money."
"God," she sighed irritably. "Why the hell do you want to marry me so bad?"
He shrugged with arrogant nonchalance. "Because I mean so much to you."
Gretchen rolled her eyes. "In your dreams. You were just another man."
Beni straightened, resting his hands on his hips argumentatively. "Then why did you come to me when you needed a place to stay? Why didn't you call on your good friend Jon Carnahan? I am sure his house has more room--less cockroaches, too. And--how lucky for you!--he would probably pass out drunk before you ever had to fuck him!"
She turned away, trying to concentrate on fitting more treasure into the almost-full bag. "You're such an asshole," she spat bitterly.
"Perhaps," he countered evenly. "But I have been here, in this goddamn desert, living like a rat--just like you. And I know what nobody else knows...I know what nobody else understands."
His gaze beseeched her, but she only stared at him, confused. His eyes bugged, as if the answer was too obvious:
"That we have lived in hell all this time!" He took a few, aggitated steps nearer to her. "Do you think any other man could forgive you for being a whore, Gretchen? Nobody else knows what it was like here. Nobody knows what it does to you, like I do."
Gretchen swallowed, his words sending stings of pain shooting through her body. Maybe he was right. She remembered trying to talk to the Americans on the way to Hamunaptra, and the way they so bluntly revealed that her culture back home had gone on callously without her. She remembered O'Connell, forfeiting self-preservation because he owed it to Evelyn, and Ardeth's lofty ideals about the Med-Jai. She remembered Jonathan telling her that he "fancied" her, and something gaped wide and lonely inside her. They didn't know--couldn't know--what her situation was like. And even if they could sympathize with what had happened...they could never understand why. Even O'Connell, who had paid his dues to the streets as well, could never comprehend the weakness, helplessness, the surrender. She blinked hard a few times, looking at him again.
He wasn't much, but he was the only one who knew...who really knew...
Suddenly, she found herself too quickly distracted by the glittering golden mounds that surrounded him. A slow smile began to slither up the sides of her mouth, and it suddenly didn't matter if he was right or not. If he was so convinced of their comraderie, then he wouldn't desert her in the night. Once they were back in Cairo...well, it wasn't as if she'd never screwed a man for money before. Her stomach felt sick for a moment; Ardeth's words echoed in her head. How empty you must be. She shook her head, trying to quiet his voice. With a wry smile that didn't quite make it to her eyes, she turned to pick up a final gleaming something, being sure that her humble cleavage was in his line of vision. She gave him a flirtacious wink, knowing that he would not have been worth the effort a week ago.
"So do I get a ring or what?"
"That's the girl I know," he muttered, not quite smiling. When her expression persisted, Beni's mouth jerked distastefully. He glanced over the treasure beside him, roughly digging out an anonymous glint of jewelry.
"Here." He called just before tossing it to her. "You are starting early with this...what's the word? Asking for money?"
Gretchen didn't respond, shoving the ring over her knuckle and glanced over it. "How'd you manage to find the only silver one?"
He scoffed, attempting to haul his sack onto his shoulder. Its weight nearly toppled him, and he quickly pushed it off of his body. The treasure clinked softly within its swollen cloth pouch as it landed on the sand with a thud. Taking a ragged breath, Beni resolved to drag it towards the doorway Gretchen and the others had entered.
"Come on," he grunted. "When we get back to Cairo, we'll hire diggers."
The very idea of being able to hire somebody to do anything sparked excitement within the prostitute. Ex-prostitute, she thought with satisfaction. But as she gripped her own bag and started to pull it along behind Beni, she couldn't help looking up and catching a glimpse of his gaunt, sickly form. She would be sleeping with him for money...and only for money...which probably still meant she was selling herself. But...her stomach kept twisting uneasily--and for what? Beni was right. The chances of O'Connell destroying the mummy were slim to impossible, and even if he did--the Hungarian con was going to be one of the wealthiest men in the world. Who would she rather sleep with?
And...and it wasn't like she would be sleeping with him much, anyway. It wouldn't take long for him to realize that dozens of more beautiful girls would be more than happy to accomodate him. He'd be too busy with infidelity to waste much effort on her. In less than a month, it would certainly be just her and the money, and...whatever she wanted. Gretchen had been so deprived for so long that she wasn't sure what would make her happy, but she would soon have the funds to find out.
Somehow, that thought wasn't nearly as satisfying as she thought it would be. Glancing at the glittering contents of her bag, something inside of her began to ache.
"You are awfully quiet," Beni commented suddenly.
Gretchen looked up, surprised to see the rubble from their previous barrier so near.
"Yeah," she breathed. Dragging the treasure was considerably more strenuous than her usual activities, and she could feel sweat beading on the back of her neck and the sides of her face. Her partner let go of his sack, straightening to his full height.
"I think if I get on one side of the rocks, you can pass the bags to me."
Gretchen nodded complacently. As he stumbled over the stones, she glanced again at the ring on her hand. The delicate silver band was woven with a scaly pattern, the yellowish stone set in a cobra's jaws. She was too concerned about how she was going to lift their heavy loot to find humor in the jewelry.
After a great deal of straining and cursing, the sacks made it over the barrier. Gretchen's skin was damp and Beni smelled, but they struggled the remaining few yards out of the ruins. The sun blazed on her face, but she forced a smile. After five years...well, to be honest, nearly twenty-three years of nothing, she had something.
Then why did it feel like so little?
The white hot light caught hold of the precious metal in her sack, a blinding beam dazzling her eyes for a moment. Blinking away the dots in her vision, she noticed Beni was on his way towards a camel. She couldn't help laughing out loud as her "fiancé" tugged on the halter of a particularly stubborn beast. God knew how many thousands of years, and she and Beni--of all people--were about to make off with the treasures of Hamunaptra. If she had not survived the same filthy streets he had, she would have found the situation unjust.
The camel finally heeded to Beni, and he led it over to her with something like irritation in his eyes. But, Gretchen supposed, new millionaires rarely stay irritated for long. He held out the rein to her, eyes squinted against the sun.
"Keep it steady. I will load the treasure."
She watched him struggle with the bags curiously, tilting her head to the side. "Where do you want to get married?"
"I don't care," he grunted, slamming the burden onto the animal's back. With a ruthless breath, he reached for the other one. "Some place quick. You cannot wear white, anyway."
Gretchen rolled her eyes, dodging out of the way as the camel shot a wad of spit at the ground. Beni heaved the second bag up, smiling in weary satisfaction.
"Are you ready?" she asked. But his eyes were far-off, gazing at the nearby entrance to the ruins. He licked his lips, turning back to the camel and unbuckling its saddlebag. "Beni--"
"I'm getting more," he told her mechanically. "Come on."
She shook her head. "I'm beat. I'll wait out here with the camel...make sure he doesn't wander off."
Beni looked at her carefully, something strange and unreadable glinting in his eyes. "You will not wander off with him?"
Gretchen laughed. "Come on. I don't know how to ride these things."
He nodded slowly, glancing at the sand. "Alright."
His feet didn't move. His eyes kept looking her over, suspicious, almost...or skeptical. He jerked his head at her, and kind of smiled. "Kiss me."
With a strange, dead feeling in her heart, she released the reins, closing the space between them. His arm wrapped around her waist, pulling her against his body and forcing his mouth against hers. His tongue thrust deep into her mouth, and his teeth scraped against her lips, inciting a little wimper in the back of her throat. Just as she started to fold her arms behind his head, a sharp, fierce pain ripped through her thigh. He released her, allowed her to tumble to the ground screaming. He glanced at her once as he ran back into the ruins.
Gretchen's fingers found the stinging point in her leg and gasped in shock. Blood was smeared over her trembling digits, splattered the sand around her...
And bathed the bullet that glinted murderously in the heat.