❝death is only the beginning.❞
Mara El-Masri's fascination with the long-ago world of ancient Egypt started with the stories her stepfather would tell her when she was a child. Her brother Talib El-Masri is missing, left after their mother's funera...
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THERE WASN'T MUCH they could do with Hassan's body. It would be some time before they returned to Cairo and by then it would have been too late to carry his body back for him to be given a proper funeral. What they did was bury him in the sand outside the city. He was a horrid man to be around, that could not be denied, but it was the least they could do for him.
Night had fallen. Their group, four now, set up a camp just outside the city, away from the Americans and their diggers. There was a fire burning in front of them as Mara, Evy, and Jonathan sat together. O'Connell was down below, checking on the progress the Americans were making.
"What do you suppose killed him?" Evy said, breaking the silence.
"Did you ever see him eat?" Jonathan replied.
"I didn't see any injuries on him," Mara said, and then she paused and added slowly, "Well...aside from the one on his head from when he hit the wall."
O'Connell returned to their camp. "Seems that our American friends had a little misfortune of their own today," he said as he sat beside Evy, rifle in hand which he set down a few inches in front of him. "Three of their diggers were melted."
Mara leaned forward to look at him. Her eyes had widened exponentially at the news. Their deaths in addition to the wardens meant that four people had not survived the first day at Hamunaptra. And their deaths—how does a human body melt?
"What?" said Evy.
"Melted?" repeated Mara.
"How?" questioned Jonathan.
The answer to this was, "Salt acid. Pressurized salt acid. Some kind of ancient booby trap."
Jonathan glanced back at the Americans' camp. "Maybe this place really is cursed."
A gust of wind blew through their camp. The force of it caused the fire before them to flicker out for just a moment, but it was enough to send a chill up Mara's spine. It was then she remembered each and every story her father had ever told her about Hamunaptra. She never thought him a man who believed in the alleged curse of the city before this moment.
Mara looked at her companions, noting the nervous look Jonathan and O'Connell shared. Evy was having none of it and exclaimed, "Oh, for goodness' sake, you two! And you, Mara, you said you didn't believe in the curse."
"I don't," Mara insisted. Of course her own nervousness hadn't gone unnoticed by her friend. "It's just something my father said to me before I left, about always being on my guard. Not to mention everything he always said about the breezes."
