❝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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☾ ☽
THE UNDERGROUND CISTERN seemed pleasant compared to what awaited them at Hamunaptra. It was dark and damp, and it smelled awful, but they had only just managed to escape Imhotep's wrath, carried out by the people he had victimized with the sixth plague of boils and sores. Evy was still with Imhotep, but she was still alive. He needed her for the ritual to resurrect Anck-Su-Namun, and that very fact gave them time to save her.
There were a few problems with the plan. It seemed much easier on paper than in practice. Mara and her friends were still trapped underground. Jonathan's car was still crashed on the street with the people ordered to kill them. And looking at every mode of transportation they had attempted to use thus far (barges, cars, camels), none of them would get them to Hamunaptra quick enough to find the Book of Amun-Ra before Imhotep killed Evy.
"Where are we going?" Jonathan questioned, voice echoing off the walls. Mara glanced the direction of his voice and stilled. She'd been wondering the question herself as O'Connell tried to lead the way through the cistern, but it didn't seem like they'd gotten very far. "O'Connell!"
"I'm trying to find a way out of here," O'Connell said. Mara was hardly able to see him in the darkness, but she could see that he was looking up. "Lookin' for another manhole we can climb up through."
"How long is that going to take?"
"I don't know, Jonathan, I'm working on it!"
Mara realized then there was another problem with their plan. Getting out of the underground cistern was the priority, but even if they managed to find a way out soon, they needed somewhere where they could reconvene and actually figure out how they were going to get to Hamunaptra before it was too late, somewhere where they wouldn't be found easily.
There was one place she could think of that fit every box needed. Were they close enough to her flat that they'd be able to get there unnoticed by any prying eyes? The layout of the street they had crashed on was familiar to her, but there were many streets in Cairo that looked exactly like that. But she had seen a sign, when the crowd parted to let through Imhotep, with the name of the street on it...oh, what did it say? Ah, that's it!
"O'Connell!" Mara called. O'Connell wasn't the only one who turned the direction of her voice; so had Jamil, Jonathan, and Ardeth. She pointed the opposite direction he was going. "We need to go that way."
"What are you talking about?" O'Connell asked.
"Well, we—we need a place to go, don't we?" Mara said, and suddenly she was glad she could hardly see their faces. "Figure out what to do next? I saw a street sign before you pushed me down. My flat is at the end of the next block. If we find the right way out, we can stop there, figure it all out, and come back for Jonathan's car."
