Rick kept shooting glances at Evelyn as they rode in Jonathan's cream convertible through the dark streets of Cairo. It had taken a couple of hours to form some sort of plan but Evelyn had done it. Rick couldn't help but admire the woman's seemingly endless resolve and impressive intelligence. He could even admit, if only to himself, that part of him was actually glad to have gone back to Hamunaptra if only because it meant meeting Evelyn and sharing this adventure with her.
It was Jonathan who has briskly organised the disposal of Henderson's remains, once more offering a few trusted souls a high payment for a subtle but honourable burial. They had not stayed to see it happen of course, that would take too much time, and time was something none of them had anymore. Jonathan had then urged the pallid and cursing Daniels to stick with them but unsurprisingly it had been Jess who had swayed his decision, reminding the American that so long as they were still alive they had a chance.
Jess had been reluctant to stick with Rick and Jonathan after learning of their failure to save Dr. Chamberlain and secure the Book of the Dead. She had cursed at Jonathan several times upon learning of that, ignoring the Englishman's babbled apologies and protests that it had been about timing not bravery. It was only when Rick had scorned her and reminded her that two men had died and that their lives were surely more important than a book that Jess had fallen silent on the matter. After considering their options she had decided that staying with O'Connell and the others was her best chance for survival and getting the book.
"Thank you for saving me again," Evelyn piped up as she caught one of Rick's lingering, concerned stares. She was seated between him and her brother at the front of the car, pointing out startled pedestrians every so often to her brother with a wary wave of her hand.
"Well I couldn't let you get kissed to death now could I?" Rick joked back.
Evelyn pulled a face at this before retorting sullenly, "I think you were jealous."
"Jealous?" Rick sneered. "Are you kidding me? Did you see that face? I don't think a gooey thousand year old mummy has anything on my charm."
Daniels' eyes widened in disbelief at Evelyn and Rick actually thinking that now was the time to joke around about their feelings for each other. "SHUT UP!" he bellowed at them angrily as he leaned forward and gripped the back of the leather seats with both hands. "JUST SHUT UP! We gotta do something, we gotta do something!" he snapped frantically as the whites of his eyes showed. "Before it's too late!"
Rick glanced over his shoulder to give the final tomb raider a look of displeasure. "Daniels you screaming about it isn't going to do much of anything, is it now?"
Jess, who was seated in the back beside Daniels, now armed with her stolen bow and quiver, squeezed his right arm gently. She then slipped her fingers into his sweaty palm and eased his hand off the back of the seat. "We are doing something," she reminded him when he looked at her.
Jonathan's car finally screeched into the driveway of the Museum of Antiquities and they were quick to leap out and hasten into the museum. It was at the entrance that they met the curator and Ardeth Bay, both standing as if they had been expecting the panicked party.
Evelyn gave the pair a brief nod of greeting as she entered the building before she hurried up the stone steps ahead of everyone, her hazel eyes gleaming with excitement. "Last month I came across an inscription mentioning the Book of the Dead," Evelyn explained as they ran.
"That damn book," Daniels cursed, "I wish we'd never found the thing."
"Anyway," Evelyn continued, "I dismissed it because it mentioned bringing people back from the dead, a notion I was unwilling to believe in." She flushed slightly feeling Rick's sardonic stare on her back.
"Believe it sister, that's what brought our buddy back to life," Rick chimed up.
"And now he's going to use it to bring his girlfriend back, right?" Jonathan queried as he glanced from Ardeth to the curator.
"Because you let him get it," Jess reminded him snidely as she glowered at Jonathan's back.
"And if he succeeds the two of them together will bring about the apocalypse," Ardeth remarked grimly.
"When he resurrects Anck-su-namun he will be truly invincible," the curator continued as they finally reached the top of stairs.
There wooden and glass cabinets of artefacts and books stood, whilst stone tablets and tattered scrolls hung on the walls between them. It was a long, thin room, more of a balcony than a room even, designed for the private usage of the museum workers and not tourists. Evelyn immediately started hunting frantically amongst the ancient treasures, yanking open cabinets and shoving objects out of the way as if they were worthless. "I'm thinking that if the black Book of the Dead can restore life-" she began.
"The gold book of Amun Ra can return them to the underworld," the curator realised her plan with an eager gleam in his brown eyes.
"Exactly," she concluded with a faint smile. "Oh now where did I see it? Was it on a vase? A scroll?" she queried with a look of frustration.
"So you're sayin' if we find the golden book we can send this guy back to Egyptian hell?" Rick surmised.
"That's the myth," the curator admitted.
There was a loud crash from outside and several loud moans called through the windows. The group rushed as one to the large, hexagonal window that looked down onto the dark streets of the city. There was a crowd forming down there and it was shambling towards the museum as if everyone in it was driven by the same purpose. The throng glanced up at the window, their horrid faces illuminated by the torches some of them carried. All of them bore pus leaking, bloody boils and welts on their faces.
"Imhotep! Imhotep! Imhotep!" they chanted the mummy's name over and over again like it was sacred.
"My favourite plague," Jonathan remarked grimly as he winced at the sight, "boils and sores."
"They have become his slaves," Ardeth commented icily as he eyed the crowds warily.
"So it has begun," the curator commented shakily, "the beginning of the end."
"Not yet," Rick insisted, "come on Evelyn!"
The woman turned from the window and resumed her purpose, pouncing upon a large, black, stone slab with gold engravings. "According to the Bembridge scholars the golden book of Amun Ra is located at the foot of Anubis," she murmured.
"That's where we found the black book!" Daniels protested. He reached for his Colt nervously as a loud pounding came at the doors downstairs.
"Exactly, they mixed the books up!" Evelyn retorted, a sly grin appearing on her fair face as she couldn't help but feel satisfied to find that the Bembridge scholars weren't as perfect as they thought.
"So if the black book is at the base of Anubis then the gold book must be..." She paused as her fingertip brushed over the ancient inscriptions.
"Now is not the time for your English grandstanding," Daniels complained with a wretched look.
"Come on Evy, faster," Jonathan urged as he glanced over his shoulder anxiously as the banging grew louder.
"Patience is a virtue," Evelyn chided them.
"Not right now it isn't," Rick snapped as he tugged out both his guns and turned to face the stairs.
"Uh I think I'll go get the car started," Jonathan decided as the chanting became louder.
"Can you make it?" Rick demanded.
"I think I'll have to chaps," Jonathan retorted with forced bravado as he gave a faint smile.
"I'll go with you," Jess offered as she readied the bow.
Daniels gave the woman a pain stricken look and for a moment she thought she spied the concern there before it was swallowed up by his fear.
"Let's go then," Jonathan insisted.
Daniels moved to Jess then before she darted off though it was clear he didn't know what to say. Part of him wanted to protest or offer to go but time was of the essence and whilst Jonathan needed help Evelyn needed protected while she read the inscription.
"I'll see you in a moment," Jess assured the raven haired male with a fleeting smile.
"Damn it jackal you'd better," he retorted sternly.
Seeing that Jonathan had already started to move, Jess hastened after him. Jonathan led them downstairs briskly and out through a side door before they hastened round to the front and stumbled into a crowd of possessed townsmen.
The pair exchanged a look of alarm before a spark of genius or madness struck Jonathan and he hissed, "play along!" He thrust his arms out before him, hands limp, and started shuffling slowly chanting, "Imhotep. Imhotep."
Jess looked at the man as if he had lost his mind before she felt a few hostile stares upon her. She immediately slung the bow over her shoulder and copied Jonathan. She felt a cold sweat trickle down her skin as she was certain they wouldn't be fooled and she and Jonathan were going to be killed in a horrible fashion.
It seemed to take forever but miraculously the crowds passed them by leaving them free to drop their charade and rush for the car. Only a minute later they heard footsteps ringing out loudly on the stone path as Daniels came sprinting towards them with the others close behind.
"Let's go! Let's go!" the Texan shouted. "Get this thing in gear boy!" He sprang into the back beside Jess as the motor finally purred to life. His wild, frightened gaze met her reassuring mahogany-gold stare and he filled with relief to see her still safe.
Jess moved swiftly towards the man as the others joined them, stunning him with a quick, brief kiss. It was soft like a feather brushing against him and he barely tasted it, it was too fast for him to form any opinion of it and distracted him from his fear for only a couple of seconds.
"Had to take the chance while I still had it," she said softly to her lap as she bowed her head towards it as her cheeks turned rosy.
Rick and Evelyn resumed their position in the front as Ardeth and the curator clambered into the middle just as Beni rushed down the steps of the museum, eyeing them with hate. "IMHOTEP!" the Hungarian yelled. "IMHOTEP!"
Daniels' eyes rolled up to the shattered window they had gazed from just minutes ago and there he saw his death in the form of an immortal man who glared at him with the eyes of his own friend.
"You're gonna get yours Beni!" Rick shouted angrily as the car started to move.
"Oh like I never heard that before!" Beni spat back mockingly.
Jess rose from her seat in a moment of blinding hatred, swinging round the bow and tugging out an arrow with lightning speed. She aimed well but unfortunately the car rolled over a bump as she fired the arrow. Daniels let out a grunt of protest as the bow knocked off his head but when he heard Beni's wail of pain he felt a mild satisfaction. Jess had hit him through his right shoulder.
"Down missy," Daniels snapped before he yanked Jess back down as the car headed onto the ill-designed, bumpy streets of Cairo.
The car came to an abrupt stop as they met with a crowd of eerily still people. Jonathan paled as the people turned their way showing boil plagued faces and they immediately started shambling towards them.
"Drive Jonathan!" Rick ordered.
Jonathan mentally prayed for forgiveness as his foot pressed down hard on the accelerator and he ploughed into the crowd. Sure he wasn't going that fast but he was certain as he heard the thuds of bodies bumping off the front of the car that more than a few would suffer internal injury. They might be trying to kill him and the others but it wasn't their fault, Imhotep had possessed them somehow.
They were attacked almost instantly as the car swerved past stalls, screeching in protest as Jonathan turned the steering wheel frantically. The group cursed and fought hard as boil ridden people tried to clamber onto the car, little caring for the Americans' guns, Jess' arrows, and Ardeth and the curator's scimitars. Ardeth hacked them back mercilessly whilst Jess whacked at them with her bow, they were getting too close for her to notch an arrow.
They screamed and raised their hands to shield themselves as the car collided hard with a couple of stalls resulting in dust and merchandise flew through the air.
"Hang on!" Jonathan grunted as he pressed the gear into reverse.
Evelyn screamed as hands groped at her before she shoved them back frantically, pushing out with everything she had. "Get going Jonathan!" she snapped as she shoved a man off Rick.
Daniels let out a yell of horror as two men grasped him from either side, placing their hands under his shoulders and pulling him up and back. "O'CONNELL! O'CONNELL!" he screamed.
The car lurched forward as Daniels was pulled back, sending him tumbling to the ground as his blazer was pulled off his right shoulder and fell in a crumpled heap. Rick glanced back just in time to see Jess spring from the car without a moment's thought, unleashing an arrow as she did.
"Jonathan stop the car!" Rick roared. The car was speeding from Daniels and Jess fast and Rick was already losing sight of the pair to the crowds.
Daniels stood up hastily, backed against a wall and immediately started shooting both his guns. He would be damned if he would go out without a fight! BANG! BANG! BANG! He shot and shot at the crowds until he had nothing left to give. His heart was hitting off his lungs so hard he was certain they were bruised, his breaths came out in deep, sharp gasps that only added to aches in his lungs and despite the chill of the night air he was soaked in sweat. He looked at his guns in horror as they betrayed him with their telltale clicking.
The crowd turned as one to the man, looking at him expectantly as he paled and clicked his guns again in desperation. When they parted he felt a very real rush of terror run through him and when the mummy appeared, almost fully formed and still robed in black, he almost lost it as a whimper escaped him. His eyes went wide with horror and his mouth parted slightly as he looked nervously up at the approaching form.
The Texan dropped his useless guns and began fumbling in his pockets for his canopic jar, hoping to bargain for his life with it. Shit, where was it?
"Here! I have what you want not him!"
The colour drained from Daniels' face at the bold voice crying out from the crowd. The mummy delayed his attack of the American to turn curiously to spy the source of the yelling. The crowd parted once more for him and there she was. Her golden-brown hair was a tangled mess spoiled with dirt and debris, a blood smear stained her left cheek, and there were fresh stains all over Evelyn's cream shirt, which hung over her own tan trousers messily. She had abandoned the bow and instead held out both hands, one clutching the shattered remains of a lion canopic jar whilst the other clutched a jackal headed jar.
Daniels let out a gasp of horror as he patted his pockets in disbelief. When the hell had she swiped that and why? He shook his head in protest as her eyes flickered towards him briefly and she gave him a sad smile.
"I took them!" Jess shouted at the mummy as she looked back at him. He looked half-living and half-dead, a gruesome mixture of monster and man. "Me!" She took a brave step towards the creature, not once betraying the fear that flooded through her.
Out of the corner of her eye Jess saw the others; Rick and Ardeth had come back, thank God! She was afraid to draw the mummy's attention to them but she had to talk to Rick. "You get him out of here!" she snapped at O'Connell fiercely. "And you do it now damn it!"
Rick nodded back dumbly at the woman even as he raised his gun, preparing to help her somehow.
She threw the canopic jars at the mummy before he could react to Rick and the bow was in her hands again, an arrow ready for firing. The creature frowned before letting out a hiss of displeasure as an arrow became imbedded in his chest. He bent and swept up the canopic jars in one fluid motion as Rick and Ardeth took the opportunity to rush over to the stunned Daniels.
Daniels shook his head and tried to shake off the men as he looked to Jess in horror. "No, no!" he protested.
The mummy snapped the arrow in his chest just as another one sank straight into his brow. Jess looked past him to Daniels and she actually smiled again. Daniels couldn't understand it and he yelled out several curses as he struggled hard against Rick and Ardeth as they tried to usher him back to the car.
"Move you fool!" Rick snapped at him. "I'll get her, I've still got bullets!" He pushed the Texan hard, sending him stumbling to the car the others waited in, transfixed as they looked to Jess. For a moment no one was attacking them, the crowd's poisonous stare was locked on Imhotep but Rick could see Beni's red fez bobbing along the mob, moving towards them and he knew it wouldn't be long before the Hungarian spied them and ratted them out again.
The mummy's hand was on Jess' throat, lifting her up with ease from the ground as its jaw dislocated and dropped down to devour her life force.
"NO!" Daniels seemed to scream then as Jess started to twitch and shriek in pain. Rick punched him, sending him into a daze of pain and confusion. It made him compliant enough for Ardeth and Rick to bundle him into the back of the car once more.
Rick turned back for Jess quickly, guns at the ready but it was too late. He shuddered in horror before daring to do the unthinkable. With a curse at himself Rick jumped back into the car and abandoned the doomed woman.
Beni was beside Imhotep now, rubbing his bloody shoulder as he watched the woman being drained with a gleam of joy in his beady eyes. She flailed against the creature, howling in pain as she grasped at his hand on her throat pointlessly as her skin turned paper thin and her body seemed to shrink in against itself.
The car was moving again, the figures becoming a blur in the dust but Daniels could still see Jess. He cursed again when she fell still. "WHY?! WHY?! STUPID, STUPID GIRL!" Daniels yelled angrily.
The group didn't have much time to contemplate their fresh loss as the car was attacked once more. The crowds came harder this time and Jonathan lost control of the wheel as a man grabbed him about the shoulders with both hands. His feet fumbled for the brakes and accelerator simultaneously as he tried to right the car and shake the form off himself.
The car slammed into a wall hard sending the adventurers in all directions with several cries of pain. When the world stopped spinning and the dust settled they moved to right themselves and stumble out of the ruined vehicle now bearing fresh cuts and bruises. No sooner than they were out of the car they found themselves surrounded anew but the diseased mob wasn't attacking them, yet.
The crowd began to part and they knew what was coming. "Get back Daniels," Rick ordered the Texan as he stepped in front of him. Jonathan shuffled before him too as did Ardeth, ensuring the last of the unlucky trio was concealed.
There he was again, their everlasting foe now looking fully reformed he was more god than monster, a being of muscular, bronze flesh, smooth from head to toe, and his eyes now bled to brown.
"He has consummated the curse," the curator gasped, "and he has all the jars, now all he needs to do is raise Anck-su-namun."
Jonathan glanced at the curator with a raised eyebrow before looking back at the mummy in terror. Somehow he looked even worse without the bandages and decay.
"Keetah mi pharos... aja nilo, isirian," the mummy spoke, his words for Evelyn alone as he gave her a penetrating stare.
Beni appeared then, a sneer on his face as he stared to translate. "Come with me, my princess. It is time to make you mine forever."
"For all eternity, idiot," Evelyn retorted scornfully as she rolled her eyes at Beni. She tried to seem unfazed but she was terrified and close to tears for poor Jess. It had happened so suddenly and unexpectedly than Evelyn hadn't even really registered the loss yet.
Beni shrugged carelessly even as his eyes scanned over them suspiciously; he had arrived to see Imhotep consume Jess and was unsure of the Texan's fate, not seeing him he decided Imhotep must have gotten him too. 'Pity I missed that one's fate,' he thought mournfully.
"Koontash dai na... aja nilo," the creature continued before extending a hand out to Evelyn.
"Take my hand... and I will spare your friends," Beni translated once more before glancing up at Imhotep with a look of displeasure. The Hungarian didn't see that anyone should be spared now, save himself of course.
"Oh dear, any bright ideas?" Evelyn quipped as she looked to Rick nervously.
"I'm thinkin', I'm thinkin'," Rick muttered as he eyed the crowd warily.
Evelyn swallowed hard, her decision made. She could see no other option and she knew what Imhotep had planned for her would take time, if she could at least gain them some time that was something. "You better think of something fast," she addressed Rick sternly, "because if he turns me into a mummy you're the first one I'm coming after!" She stepped forward then before anyone could stop her and accepted the waiting hand. His grip was hot and strong against hers and she flinched to feel it.
"No! What are you doing?!" Rick snapped. He almost stepped forward betraying Daniels' presence but the Texan held him back, grasping his shirt from behind, as much for his own self-preservation as for Rick's.
"Evie!" Jonathan looked to her in horror. He wanted to rush forward but Ardeth held him back.
"He has to take me to Hamunaptra to perform the ritual," she reminded them.
"She is right," Ardeth spoke up. "Live today, fight tomorrow."
Beni came forward then, his hand darting into Jonathan's shirt pocket. The pair scuffled for a moment and Daniels found himself pressing hard against the wall behind him, holding a breath in desperately as he feared detection.
"That's mine!" Jonathan snapped as Beni found the trinket he had been seeking, the key for the Book of the Dead.
"Thank you," Beni said snidely before stepping back to the safety of Imhotep.
Imhotep turned then with Evelyn tight in grasp and uttered his damning words. "Pared oos."
"Kill them," Beni translated with a delighted smile as he turned and started walking beside Imhotep.
Evelyn started screaming and struggling then. "No!"
The crowd moved for them like a pack of ravenous hyenas and they were lost from Evelyn's sight as she tried to turn back to them. Ardeth and the curator cut back at them fiercely with their swords whilst Rick fumbled for salvation, a cistern in the ground. He looked to Jonathan and Daniels to help him but Jonathan was busy fighting back two assailants whilst Daniels was just standing there, his face drawn and his expression blank.
Rick gave a grunt as the cistern finally came free and he pushed it to one side. He stood then, grabbed Daniels and pushed him down inelegantly without a word of warning. The Texan came to life then with a scream of alarm before he hit the ground with a hiss of pain.
"Now you!" Rick snapped as he held a hand out to Jonathan.
"In a moment!" the Englishman retorted merrily. "I'm a little occupied." He kicked out hard at one man before punching another and then running to Rick. He accepted the hand and let out a yell as he was swung into the hole.
Daniels cursed as he was sent crashing back to the ground by the force of Jonathan.
"Your turn!" Rick snapped at Ardeth. BANG! Rick shot a man coming at him with a sickle. BANG! He hit another in the arm.
Ardeth looked to the curator who pushed him on with a firm nod before swinging his scimitar at several assailants. "Go!" the curator snapped.
Ardeth jumped down the hole unaided and landed on both feet unlike Jonathan and Daniels.
"Come on, you next!" Rick snapped at the curator with a look of impatience. "Hurry!"
"No!" the curator protested without looking back as he swung his scimitar again and again. "Go, find a way to stop the creature! I'll close the cistern!"
Rick nodded as he swallowed back his own protest; he knew someone had to close their exit to stop them from being pursued. He supposed grimly that the zombie like crowd might just reopen it and follow them but he didn't credit them with such mentality. "Good luck," he muttered before jumping after the others.
The curator said nothing; instead he swung out again and again, the sweat lashing down his brow as he did. He moved then, ducking to the cistern lid and pushing hard against it. He ignored the hands pulling at his clothes and the nails raking down his skin as he did. Screams of pain emerged from him as blood was drawn from his skin and his clothes were ripped, they were going to tear him apart! The cistern lid finally slipped into place and he turned back with his scimitar once more as they forced him to the ground.
Ardeth tensed and murmured a prayer as he heard the howls from above, echoing down through the old underground passage they now strode through. They could scarcely see, what little light reached them came from the pale, grey moonlight seeping through cracks in the ceiling above turning the tunnel to shades of grey with long shadows. Rick had to keep lightning matches to give them any kind of help.
"Why?" Daniels groaned weakly as his eyes swelled with tears. "Why did she do it? I don't understand," he croaked with a shake of his head. "She had her own plan, she had to keep going, why the hell did she do it? Fuck!" He raked his hands through his dark hair and doubled over in a moment of grief. Now he really was the last one left and what for? What was the point? To delay the inevitable? Hell even if he somehow managed to survive all this what was he going to do after? Go back alone? They had all failed, their treasure had been cursed and was now in the hands of the creature, Jess' family remained beneath the dirt and Set had found victory through the mummy. 'And me,' Daniels thought numbly, 'she died because I let them get me, I got pulled from that car and she had to come after me, this is my fault!'
Images of his fallen friends repeated over and over in his mind. Bernie at first with bloody sockets where his eyes should be, there in Henderson's arms searching for them in despair as he tried to form their names and couldn't, then drained, a green husk lying on a hotel room, dead in a place he had never even seen. Next was Henderson, brave until the end, a sharp shooting cowboy reduced to a dried up body lying on the floor of a hotel room, dead in a foreign land. Daniels knew Henderson would hate that, the man had always been determined to die at home on his ranch and now he had been denied that. He had wanted to remarry too, he had shared that with Daniels, find a nice girl and have some sons. He had encouraged Daniels to do the same but Daniels had had no interest after Bethany. Finally there was Jess, an odd thief in Cairo, he had dismissed her so easily, hadn't even liked her to begin with but she had been stubborn. She had stayed despite his insults and God wasn't she plucky for one so terribly scarred by life? He might never have even realised the small spark of something he had felt for her if not for Henderson, oh how he could curse his late friend for that now. If only the blonde had said nothing, well that wasn't entirely true, perhaps he might still have kissed the woman at the bar if only to answer his own curiosity.
Jess was supposed to be buying herself time, staying alive until she got that wretched book and ended the curse of Set on her family either by bringing back her family or freeing their cursed souls from this world, or simply proving her father's innocence, Daniels didn't really know what solution she would have found with the book. He knew she had clung to the belief of getting them back, it had kept her going through all this but maybe, maybe when he had scorned that she had lost some hope. "Oh God," he choked out, "did I make her give up? I told her she couldn't have her family back; did that make her want to die?"
"No you idiot," Rick scorned him as he stepped towards him at last. He had decided to give the man some berth, fearing a punch or kick if he went to him, but it was time to move and as much as he sympathised with the man they did not have time to grieve right now. "She liked you, for whatever reason, and she couldn't lose you. Hell I don't pretend to understand it, or her, people do crazy things for other people that's all I know."
"He's right, man," Jonathan remarked as he dared to do what Rick did not, and reached out to Daniels. He clamped a hand down on the man's back in a shared sympathy. He was still in shock, both over Jess' death and Evelyn's dramatic departure. He feared the worst for his sister but he had some of her hope too and knew that so long as they kept breathing there was a chance. "Jess had her own goals in this but she set them aside when she thought you might die," he explained, realising the truth of the matter even as he said it. "She lost too many people, she couldn't lose one more." He bowed his head in his own sorrow; he had liked Jess a lot and couldn't believe she had been taken from them.
Daniels swallowed down a sob, letting it out as a sigh as he realised that Jonathan was right. Her mother, her father, and six brothers, all lost in a horrible, gory and drawn out fashion and she the guilt stricken survivor, believing herself responsible simply because she could not stop it. Then Burns, she had been with him just moments before, she had sent him from the chamber of ghouls in a desire to protect him, unwittingly sending him into the path of the mummy. It had taken her a long time to confess that to Daniels and Henderson, the guilt had been clear in her watery eyes as she had told them of it, evidently expecting them to agree and curse her out but Henderson had just shook his head whilst Daniels had grumbled that she had 'done right even if wrong had happened'. Finally Henderson, Daniels had always thought she was more drawn to him, too stupid to realise it was himself she looked too. Henderson was the cowboy of her favourite stories after all but now he supposed morbidly, Henderson had been more like a brother than anything else, blonde like Jess and undoubtedly like her brothers, he was probably like Lorcan who spoke of the cowboys so often with high regard. In the end Henderson had become another brother she had lost.
Yes, the Texan could see how the woman might have lost it at the thought of failing someone else, of losing yet another person who mattered in her life. 'Did I matter?' he wondered dumbly with a shake of his head. 'Shit Jess, why?'
"It wasn't worth it," Daniels grumbled.
"You can make it worth it," Rick said sternly. "Let's finish this Daniels, let's send this bastard back to the ground once and for all and save Evelyn."
"It won't bring them back, will it?" Daniels quipped numbly.
"No but it might let them rest," Ardeth answered him with a solemn look.
Daniels just shook his head before shrugging off Jonathan and standing upright. He thought of Jess' ramblings about the book and then Evelyn too admitting the powers it held that she had dismissed as myth. His eyes flickered towards Jonathan as he formed an unsaid question in his own serious stare.
"One thing at a time," Jonathan murmured as he tensed slightly under Daniels' gaze, as if he knew what dark thoughts the man was thinking. "Let's get out of this place first," he added as he looked about the shadows nervously.
"Her curse is different," Daniels mumbled as he walked. "The curse of Set, how does that get ended? What if ending it..." He trailed off, he didn't even know what he was thinking now, Set's curse had destroyed her family and brought ghouls after her and anyone who got near her but it was the mummy's curse that had ultimately ended her. Why was he even bothering to contemplate it? Maybe ending Set's curse would see her family at peace but it wouldn't bring her back, would it? Would the book? Shit he didn't know, he knew so little about this messed up country and all its myths that were turning out to be horribly true.
"Is the curse really consummated with Daniels here still walking around?" Rick queried Ardeth as he walked beside him.
Ardeth shrugged. "I do not know, it is plausible the mummy needed the jars more than the thieves, the thieves made him flesh again but perhaps he did not need all of them to do so. Or, perhaps, that may be our remaining chance and he is not yet whole but simply thinks that he is as he took your friend at her word and believed her to be the last thief."
They walked quietly then moving into a damp sewage system that they treaded through with shared looks of revulsion. It took them another hour before they finally escaped; pushing out a worn, rusting grid to the mercifully empty streets of Cairo now bathed in violet blue.
"Now what?" Jonathan quipped with an anxious look. "Are we going to get to Evie?"
"We must make haste," Ardeth advised, "for the creature can travel across the desert with great speed."
"I know how we can beat him there," Rick said confidently as he wiped some of the grime from his brow.
"How?" Daniels croaked morosely.
"I have a friend with a plane who's eager for death," he answered with a bright smile.
Wow this was a tough one to write! I hope no one was expecting it :-) So here the presence of Jess finally shifts the plot from the movie with Daniels' survival. I hope this explains more of Jess' character too, why she was so drawn to the Americans. It was Henderson at first because he reminded her of her brothers being blonde like them and then being the cowboy they constantly talked about it but then it was Burns who treated her like a sister due to the recent loss of his own sister Katie so that made Jess want to continue to linger with the Americans as Burns gave her a small reminder of the brotherly love she was missing and finally Daniels she developed feelings for.
As always thanks for the favs, alerts and reviews and please continue to read and review!