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In the middle of the chaos, fireballs bursting from the sky and landing … everywhere, Rick pulled Evelyn to relative safety at the bottom of a stairwell. Out of the corner of his eye, as he was trying to figure out where to go next and how to keep her out of harm's way, he saw movement on the stairs, and turned just in time to see a familiar figure trying to leap back up the stairs. Reaching out, Rick grabbed the back of his old buddy's shirt. "Beni, you little stinkweed! Where've you been?"

From up the stairs came a loud squealing roar. While Rick's attention was distracted, Beni made his escape. Pulling his gun, Rick took Evelyn's hand and drew her up the stairs in the direction of the sound. Wherever Beni had been, trouble was likely to have parked itself.

In the room at the top of the stairs they found Mr. Burns, or what was left of him. He was a desiccated corpse now. They had come too late to save him.

And across the room, their old friend the walking dead. Even as they watched, the skeletal remains were adding muscle and flesh and filling out. He was still disgusting, but there was more to him now. Rick's hand shook so that he couldn't aim his gun.

The creature looked at them and roared.

"We are in serious trouble." As the creature stormed toward him, Rick drew his second gun and blasted away at it, but the bullets didn't slow it down at all. It was as though they went right through it, shattering the ornaments on the mantle but making no impact on the monster at all.

Rick was still blasting away as Jonathan and the two remaining Americans ran into the room. The creature reached him just as his bullets ran out, putting its hands out and shoving him back. Rick actually felt his feet leave the floor, and he landed in the midst of Jonathan and the Americans.

No sooner was O'Connell out of the way than the creature turned to Evelyn. She put her hands up, cringing away from him, but he came toward her anyway. "You saved me from the undead," he told her in Egyptian. "I thank you."

He leaned in toward her as she shrank back against the bookshelf. O'Connell was across the room—too far away to reach her before the monster did—and she was powerless to stop whatever he was about to do.

Suddenly, from across the room came the discordant notes of a piano, and the familiar meow of Hatshepsut, Evelyn's cat.

At the sight of her, the creature gasped in fear and spun away, turning into a whirlwind of sand. Evelyn tried to shield her face from the particles.

She thought she could see a face in the column of sand before it swept out the open doors of the balcony. The doors shut behind the sand, leaving an eerie silence in the room.

O'Connell sat up, staring after the creature. "We are in very serious trouble."

Before anyone could respond to him, Daniels saw what was left of Mr. Burns for the first time. "Jesus! What happened to him?"

"That … thing did," O'Connell answered. "We got here after …"

"We got here too late," Evelyn said softly. Too late to stop the consequences of what she had done.

Mr. Henderson's fists clenched. "That bastard. I'll kill it."

"I emptied both guns into that thing, and it didn't even slow it down," O'Connell pointed out. "And the guy at Hamunaptra said no mortal weapons could kill it."

"So what do we do? Wait to be choked to death on blood? Or blown up by fire falling from the sky?"

"There is someone we could talk to." Jonathan looked at Evelyn. "Someone who tried to stop us from going to Hamunaptra in the first place."

The curator. Of course. Not that she wanted to face him right now. Next to this, the mess she had made of the bookshelves was nothing. But what choice did she, or any of them, have? Whatever she had awakened at Hamunaptra, it had followed them here, and it was angry, and it wanted—well, she didn't know what exactly it wanted, but it was clearly nothing good.

Evelyn sighed. "I suppose we have no other choice." In response to O'Connell's bewildered look, she said, "The Museum of Antiquities. The curator there is an expert in Egyptology. Whoever—whatever that thing is …" She thought about the look in its eyes as it backed her against the shelves, and shuddered. "He'll know. Or … I hope he will."

"You hope he will?" Mr. Henderson demanded.

"Hey," Rick snapped. "It's the only lead we have."

"I suppose it's better than nothing." Mr. Daniels reached out and gently touched the bandage around Mr. Burns' head. "Should we, I don't know, do something for him?"

Evelyn wished there was something they could do.

"Stopping that thing has to be our first priority," O'Connell said, his voice surprisingly gentle. "After that there will be time to take care of your friend."

"Maybe we could, um, find somewhere else for him to rest, though, in the meantime," Jonathan suggested.

So they wrapped Mr. Burns' body in a bedsheet and carried him downstairs to the wine cellar. Outside, the fireballs had mercifully stopped, and clean-up of the disaster they had caused was ongoing. Evelyn wanted to stop and help, but O'Connell's hand in hers kept her hurrying along the streets toward the museum.

Stopping what she had started, that was the best way to help, she told herself. She only wished she believed it.