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The five of them avoided talking about the creature until they were in the familiar halls of the Museum of Antiquities, when Mr. Daniels spoke up. "That thing followed us back here?"

"Yes," Evelyn responded, not wanting to discuss it. The sight of Mr. Burns' body had shaken her deeply. If only she had never opened that book, never read from it …

"You all right, Miss Carnahan?" Mr. Henderson asked. "That thing—"

"He does seem to like Evie," Jonathan said.

O'Connell frowned. She couldn't tell what he was thinking. "Yeah, what's that about?"

"What's this guy want, anyhow?" Mr. Henderson demanded.

"There's only one person we know that can possibly give us any answers," Evelyn said, already dreading the inevitable, and well-deserved, scolding she would get from the curator. But even she wasn't prepared for what she found when she turned the corner: the curator standing there with the man in black, the one they had last seen in Hamunaptra, warning them about the creature. "You!"

"Miss Carnahan," the curator said calmly, paying no attention to the guns that had suddenly appeared in O'Connell's hands, pointed at his companion. A companion who had already told the curator everything, it seemed, judging by the glares both of them were aiming Evelyn's way. "Gentlemen." The curator looked the men up and down, continuing to be unimpressed by the weaponry aimed at him. The Americans' guns were out, too, now.

"What is he doing here?" Evelyn asked.

"Do you really want to know, or would you prefer to just shoot us?"

With his usual swift and level-headed assessment, O'Connell appeared to size up the situation. He put his weapons away, and the Americans followed suit. "After what I just saw? I'm willing to go on a little faith here."

The man in black nodded approvingly at O'Connell. "My name is Ardeth Bey."

O'Connell returned the nod. "Rick O'Connell."

"Come in, then. There is not much time." The curator ushered them into his office, and began his explanation. "We are part of an ancient secret society. For over three thousand years we have guarded the City of the Dead. We are sworn at manhood to do any and all in our power to stop the High Priest Imhotep from being reborn into this world." He sank back into a chair in defeat.

Ardeth Bey looked at Evelyn. "Now, because of you, we have failed."

She frowned. His hands were hardly clean. His people had attacked the camp. "You think this justifies the killing of innocent people?"

The curator frowned back. He was better at it than she was. "To stop this creature? Let me think." He and Ardeth Bey spoke as one. "Yes!"

Evelyn ducked her head, unable to meet their eyes. They were right—it was all because of her. More innocents would die now.

Behind her, O'Connell spoke up. "Question: Why doesn't he like cats?"

"Cats are the guardians of the underworld. He will fear them until he is fully regenerated."

"And then he will fear nothing," Ardeth Bey added.

"And you know how he gets hisself fully regenerated?" Mr. Daniels demanded.

Mr. Henderson was staring at his pistol. "By killin' everyone who opened that chest."

"And suckin' 'em dry, that's how!"

As Mr. Daniels' cry echoed through the room, Evelyn looked up to see Jonathan, perched in a replica chariot, plucking at the chariot archer's bow. "Jonathan, will you stop playing with that?" He nearly fell out of the chariot in his haste to let go, and Evelyn rolled her eyes, turning back to the curator. "When I saw him alive at Hamunaptra, he called me Anck-su-namun." The curator and Ardeth Bey exchanged startled looks, and Evelyn continued, "And just now in Mr. Burns's quarters, h-he tried to kiss me."

"It is because of his love for Anck-su-namun that he was cursed. Apparently after three thousand years—"

"He is still in love with her," Ardeth Bey finished.

"Yes, well, that's very romantic, but what has it got to do with me?"

They both ignored her. Ardeth Bey leaned over the curator, speaking intently. "Perhaps he will once again try to raise her from the dead."

"Yes. And it appears he has already chosen his human sacrifice."

The look the two of them cast at Evelyn left no doubt as to what they meant. She didn't need Jonathan's soft "Bad luck, old mum" to understand the trouble she was in. Well, she deserved it, she supposed. She had started this, perhaps it was only fair that she should be the one directly in the monster's path.

"On the contrary," the curator said thoughtfully, "It may just give us the time we need to kill the creature."

Ardeth Bey's eyes were on the window high above their heads. "We will need all the help we can get. His powers are growing."

They all looked up to see the moon block out the sun, the day becoming dark as night.

"And he stretched forth his hands towards the heavens, and there was darkness throughout the land of Egypt," Jonathan quoted.

"So what do we do now?" O'Connell asked, his practical voice cutting through the hush that had fallen over the room.

"You return to the fort. You stay together so that he cannot complete his regeneration," Ardeth Bey said.

The curator nodded. "And we will study every piece of lore we can find to determine how best to end him, once and for all."

It wasn't a good plan, Evelyn thought, hurrying after the others out of the museum, but it was the best plan they had.