So, here is Chapter 7, this will probably be the last one of the week, as I'm going to be out of state this weekend.
bfireworks5: I've already sent you a PM explaining the status of Aaliyah and Ardeth, but I thought I might just clear it up for everyone else, just in case. Since the two were children the last time they saw each other, they're not ex-fiancées, because they were never engaged, they had an arranged marriage set up when they were babies, so they were betrothed. But that pretty much ended when Aaliyah's mother took her away from the tribe after her father's death. Ardeth and Aaliyah, however, knew each other as children, and he was pretty much her best friend.
Chapter 7:
Day 5: Part 1
By morning, we headed back to Cairo, at the British Fort and the soldiers let us through as we arrived at the gate once they checked our papers. My brother and Evy headed up Evy's quarters, I followed them, just to find out what the plan was, he probably wanted to get her out of Egypt, but he already knew that I wouldn't leave, I mean, this is where I'm from, sure I'm only half Egyptian, and half American, and even though I've been to America multiple times, and hold a dual citizenship there, I was raised here, there wasn't any way I was leaving it, not while it was in danger.
Already, the sky was getting gray and dark and it was thundering and lightning, which wasn't a good sign at all, I sighed as we walked into her room.
"I thought you said you didn't believe in that fairy tales and hokum stuff. " He said, carrying some dresses and carrying them to her suitcase. "Shoo." He told the cat, and Evy removed her.
"Having an encounter with a 3,000-year-old walking, talking corpse does tend to convert one." She started to remove her dressed from the suit case.
"Forget it. We're out the door, down the hall, and we're gone." Rick added another armful of clothes.
I sat on the free part of the bed, petting the cat, while watching their exchange, amused, eventually though, I would need to go home, check on mom.
"Oh, no, we are not." Evy said.
"Oh, yes, we are,"
"Oh, no, we are not. We woke him up, and we are going to stop him." She removed the last of the stuff he had packed. I snickered lightly, seeing my brother with an armful of books that he was about to pack in.
"We? What we? We didn't read that book. I told you not to play around with that thing." Rick said. "Didn't I tell you?"
"Yes right then, me, me, me, me." She said, picking up the books from the case. "I, I, I woke him up and I intend to stop him."
I raised an eyebrow. "Really?" I asked. "Really, ought to be interesting, do tell." I starched the cat behind the ears.
Rick rolled his eyes. "Yeah? How? You heard the man. No mortal weapons can kill this guy."
"Then we are just going to have to find some immortal ones." Evy said, picking up things and taking one from Rick's hands and putting it back.
"There goes that we again." He said.
"Look, will you just listen to me? We have to do something." She said, and slammed the suitcase shut on my brother's hand, who quickly took them out and exclaimed in pain. It took everything I had not to laugh at him.
"Once this creature has been reborn, his curse is going to spread until the whole of the earth is destroyed." She told him.
"Yeah?" Rick said. "Is that my problem?"
"It is everybody's problem."
"Evelyn, I appreciate you saving my life and all, but when I signed on, I agreed to take you out there and bring you back." He said. "I have done that. End of job, End of story. Contract terminated."
"That's all I am to you? A contract?" She asked.
Uh, I think I should better take my leave I thought, starting to stand up off the bed.
"You can either tag along with me, or you can stay here and try to save the world." He said. "What's it going to be?"
"I'm staying."
"Fine."
"Fine."
"Fine."
"Fine." And with that my brother left.
Evy turned to look at me with her arms crossed. "Is he always like this?"
I nodded. "Pretty much."
"How do you deal with him?"
I shrugged. "I just do, he's my brother, other than him, and I don't have that much family left on my mom's side." I headed towards the door. "Speaking of which, I should go home, check on my mom." I said.
I walked outside, back to where my horse was and mounted. I rode back to the stables and put my horse up for him to get some rest and walked up to the house, I walked in and into the kitchen to where I saw a note on the counter.
Aaliyah,
I've left you a note so you wouldn't worry. I'm heading back over to Arizona to visit with my parents, and check in with my family, and I'll send them your love. My mom called, asking me to come up there while she undergoes some medical treatments and I'll be gone for a couple weeks, and so don't worry, I'm okay, I just wanted to let you know where I'm at. Tell your brother that he better behave.
-Mom
The note was dated for two days ago, I was kind of relieved, and at least she wouldn't be here to be involved in all of this mess. I shook my head as I headed to my bedroom to change out into some fresh clothes. I changed out of what I had on for the past few days and then I went ahead and got a quick shower, going back to my room and pulled on a pair of tan cargo pants, a belt, a gray half sleeved shirt and a black light weight jacket and a gray scarf, just in case we'd have to head out into the desert again.
I put my sword back around my hip and dumped out my bag on my bed and threw in some stuff that may be needed, we would never know what would happen. I also threw in my daggers as well. I put the bag back over my shoulder. I brushed my hair, since by now it had dried, and instead of a bun, I just pulled it all back into a ponytail.
I walked back out the door and shut it behind me, then I started heading back towards the port, I didn't bother saddling Abarr back up, he needed the rest and I didn't want to overdo it with him. I caught sight of Evy not long after I had arrived back.
"Hey Evy." I told her.
"Hey." She looked down from her book. And then, my brother showed up.
"Oh, Evelyn! Aaliyah!" He ran up to us.
"Oh, so you're still here." Evy said.
"We've got problems." He said.
I looked at him, confused. "What happened?" Then it started thundering, and raining fire. Rick grabbed Evy's arm and started running back.
"Come on Aaliyah!" He called. People started screaming as they ran for cover, and I quickly followed after them. A few people caught on fire and started screaming and falling down, although, I was pretty sure, stop, drop and roll wouldn't work, not like they were trying to do that anyway.
Ben started running down some steps and then ran back up when he saw my brother, but Rick noticed him anyway. "Hey!" He grabbed him and pushed him against the wall. "Beni, you little stinkweed. Where have you been?"
A roaring started, and I suspected that it was from Imhotep, the creature, and Beni took this chance to escape from Rick. Rick grabbed his gun out and took Evelyn's hand and went up the steps, with me in tow. We followed after him while he went first, pointing his gun around, making sure nothing was there. That's when we saw Burns, who had literally had the life sucked out of him. And we saw the creature in front of the fireplace, facing it. Rick was pointing the gun at him as we watched as Imhotep was reforming a little bit.
"We are in serious trouble." Rick said. The creature started advancing towards us and Rick started firing at him with two guns, which didn't do much of anything to stop him. I turned around to see Jon, Henderson and Daniels arriving in the room. And Daniels and Henderson started in with firing at him. All of a sudden, the creature, half pushed, half threw my brother into the three men.
I ran back towards the door. "Evy! Come one!" I called out to her, but it was too late, Imhotep had noticed my cousin and started walking over to her.
Then her little white cat hopped onto the piano and started punching keys as she walked. Imhotep screeched and disappeared into a cloud of dust. That figured, cats were the guardians of the underworld, and he had every reason to be afraid of them, until he had fully regenerated that is.
The men started sitting back up. "We are in very serious trouble." Rick said.
We then left and were in the museum of antiquities.
"He does seem to like you, Evy." Jon said.
"Yeah, what's that about?" Rick asked.
"What does this guy want?" Henderson asked, as we followed Evy through the halls.
"There's only one person who can give us any answers." Evy said, as we saw the curator and Ardeth.
"You!" Evy said, upon seeing Ardeth and Rick and the guys held up guns. I sighed and rolled my eyes.
"Miss Carnahan. Miss. Massari, Gentlemen." The curator said.
"What's he doing here?" Evy asked, referring to Ardeth.
The curator looked at Ardeth and back at us, I was the only one who wasn't threatening them. "Do you really want to know, or would you prefer to just shoot us?"
"After what I just saw, I'm willing to go on a little faith here." Rick put his gun up. "Besides, from what Aaliyah has told us, or the lack of not, she knows something too." He said, looking at me, I shrugged.
"It will be revealed soon brother," I rolled my eyes at the mocking face he gave me.
We all sat down wherever we could find a spot, or stood, I stood in between Ardeth and Evy. "We are part of an ancient secret society." The curator said. "For 3,000 years, we have guarded the city of the dead. We are sworn at manhood to do any and all in our part to stop the High Priest Imhotep from being reborn into this world." He said, taking a seat.
"Because of you, we have failed." Ardeth said.
"You think this justifies the killing of innocent people?" Evy asked.
"To stop this creature?" The curator asked. "Let me think." Ardeth looked at him. "Yes." They both said.
"Question. Why doesn't he like cats?" Rick held up a hand as Evy moved away. I could answer that question.
"Cats are the guardians of the underworld. He will fear them until he's fully regenerated."
Ardeth nodded. "Then he will fear nothing."
I could see nervous looks on their faces. My brother looked at me. "So this is why you wanted nothing to do with this, you knew?"
I nodded, and showed him my arms real quick. "I was born into the society, so to speak, I grew up with the truth, but I couldn't say anything."
Rick nodded slowly, looking at Ardeth, who nodded, backing up my story. "Her father was one of the commanders."
One of the Americans finally worked up the courage to speak and we looked at him. "You know how he gets his self fully regenerated?" Daniels asked.
"By killing everyone who opened that chest." Henderson said.
"And sucking them dry." Daniels yelled.
"Jonathan will you stop playing with that?" Evy scolded Jon as he was messing with an arrow.
"When I saw him alive in Hamunaptra, he called me Anck-Su-Namun." She said. My eyes widen and Ardeth and the curator exchanged glances, I looked over at them. Well, hell, this wasn't good.
"And then just now in Mr. Burns' quarters, he tried to kiss me." She added.
"It's because of his love for Anck-Su-Namun that he was cursed." The curator said. I nodded knowing that. "Really, I thought it was because he also helped murder the pharaoh?" I asked Ardeth quietly.
Ardeth nodded. "Well, that too." He whispered back.
"Apparently, even after 3,000 years…" The curator continued.
"He is still in love with her." Ardeth finished.
"Yes, that's very romantic, but what has it got to do with me?" Evy asked.
"Perhaps he will once again try to raise her from the dead." Ardeth told the curator.
"Yes." The curator said. "And it appears it has already chosen his human sacrifice."
"Ouch." I muttered, looking at Evy as they both turned to look at Evy.
"Bad luck, old mum." Jon said.
"On the contrary." The curator said. "It may just give us the time we need to kill the creature."
"We will need all the help we can get." Ardeth said, looking up at the skylight, my eyes followed his gaze and I groaned.
"His powers are growing." Ardeth said. The others looked up and it appeared to be a solar eclipse, a round darkness covering the sun.
"And he stretched forth this hand towards the heavens, and there was darkness throughout the land of Egypt." Jonathan recited.
"Wonderful." I muttered, shaking my head.
Poll:
1. So, what did ya think?
2. The secrets are all gone now, how you feel about that?
3. What was your favorite part?
4. Anything else you would personally like to see?