Bathed Silver in Mercury

XV. Elerie

They sprinted out of the church. As soon as they reached the church yard, both took off in different directions. She headed for the crash site - maybe there was a cleanup crew who could help - while he headed for an abandoned ambulance. She realized this just as he climbed in the truck and started it.

"Hey! Hey! Wait!" But he was already speeding away. "Nick! Nick! You son of a bitch!" So he was going to drag her all the way here and now just leave her? What a jackass.

She turned and started running for the crash site - only to be stopped by the mummy herself. Ahmanet stood a ways in front of her, amber eyes narrowed, slowly making her way towards Elerie, who quickly began stumbling back.

Vroom! Screech! Crash! The next thing she knew was the ambulance was back - and had driven right into Ahmanet, knocking the un-dead woman back into the stone wall of the church.

"Get in!" Nick shouted, breaking Elerie's stunned moment.

This time she just managed to haul herself inside the ambulance as he sped away again. "We're you just going to leave me?!"

"You saw that, right?"

"You were, weren't you?!"

"You saw it right?!"

"I can't un-see it! You were going to leave me!"

"Oh like you left me?"

"What?"

"You divorced me?"

She gawked at him. "Really Nick, seriously?! You want to do this now, now of all times? Are you serious!? You're unbelievable - AH!" She was cut off then when in his hasty driving he lurched the ambulance forward sharply, and she slammed against her seat. "You bastard!"

They sped along a forest road. "Where are we going?" she demanded.

"Away. From. Here. There's a highway up ahead."

"How do you know?"

"I just know! Here-" He tossed something into her lap. A dark dagger with a long, curved blade.

"Oh my God, oh my God - do you know what this is?" she gasped.

"The Dagger of Set."

"Yes-"

"She was gonna drive that thing right through me."

"The stone, it is missing."

"Yeah that seemed to really piss her off."

A hand flew to her mouth. "Oh my God, it's real! We were right!" She was practically bouncing in her seat.

"Ellie could you please celebrate later!"

"This is my life's work!"

"You didn't almost die cause of it! How was it in that statue?"

"What do you mean?"

"She smashed off the head of one of the statues and the dagger was inside."

"It could have been a reliquary. Crusaders would use them to hide holy relics. But she knew it was there."

"Wait - are you saying she brought the plane down there on purpose?"

"That's why she wanted you to come to the church."

"I told you I wanted to go to the church. I wanted to see, see her-"

"See her corpse." There was a pause. "Oh God - Nick, she's in your head."

"What?" he scoffed. "That's ridiculous. She is not in my-"

SCREECH! This time, she was almost given whiplash again as he slammed on the breaks. "Bloody hell..." But when she looked to see what that was all about, she found that they were right back where they started: the church. And there was Ahmanet, not even baring a scratch.

"I drove right back to her," Nick whispered. "Oh God she's in my head."

"Back! Back! Back!" Elerie practically screamed as the mummy started making her way towards them. Nick threw the ambulance in reverse, only to crash into the stone wall surrounding the church before speeding off. Soon they were back on the dirt road racing through the trees.

"She's in my head, she's in my head. Oh my God, she's in my head," Nick kept mumbling.

"Move over-" Elerie began to climb over Nick, shoving him out of the way.

"Wh-what are you doing?!"

"She's in your head, I'm not letting you drive us back to her again!" She shoved him over into the passenger side and took the wheel herself.

Both began frantically screaming then when one of the mummy-zombie things smashed through the windshield, it's snarling face close to hers. The other smashed through the passenger window, clawing at Nick.

She kicked her leg out and felt her foot come in contact with something. She kept kicking.

"Ah that's my face! That's my face! That's MY FACE!" Nick yelled.

"Sorry!"

"Ah - a little help here!" Nick cried, trying to get rid of both attacking creatures.

"I'm driving! Get rid of them! AH!" One of the creatures grabbed her arm and tried to drag her out the smashed windshield. She grabbed onto the seat belt before being wrenched free of the ambulance and managed to kick off the zombie-mummy, but it tried clawing its way back up the front of the truck.

"Buckle up." Nick clicked her seat belt into place.

He didn't do the same for himself though so when the creatures attacked again and she lost control of the ambulance, sending it rolling off the road, Nick went flying as the truck flipped and turned off the road and down a hill. Elerie, as she was buckled in, stayed inside, but was no less thrashed around.

At last, the ambulance stopped rolling. Both groaned as they tried to recover from that ordeal.

"Ellie!" Nick stumbled to his feet, rushing over to her. The ambulance had landed upside down. She managed to unbuckle herself so she was no longer dangling upside down herself.

Then they saw her, emerging through the trees: Ahmanet. She had found them again.

(Sorry I didn't realize how long it had been since I updated! But here you go :) Hope you enjoyed, thanks so much for reading and for the 2000+ reads - that's amazing! (and yay, we finally got to meet Ahmanet :))