THEBES – 1,290 B.C

Thebes. City of the Living. Crown jewel of Pharaoh Seti the First.Home of Imhotep, High Priest of Osiris, Keeper of the Dead, and the object of his affection, The Pharaoh' daughter, Princess Anai. The princess was in love with Raia, the leader of the Medjai, her father's personal guard. The Pharaoh, realizing the benefits of the match, and wanting his eldest daughter to be happy, agreed to the marriage. Imhotep was enraged with jealously and tricked the Pharaoh's mistress, Anck-su-namun, into believing he loved her. The two of them conspired to kill the Pharaoh and Raia, usurping them to become Pharaoh, but Anck-su-namun didn't realize that Imhotep planned to make Anai his queen. Little did he know, Anai and her younger sister, Nefertiti were on her balcony, and witnessed the entire thing. Anck-su-namun committed suicide and Imhotep was to resurrect her, but Raia and Anai stopped him. Since they were not yet married, Anai became Queen and sentenced Imhotep to suffer the Hom-Dai for murdering her father. His priests were to be mummified alive for their part in the assassination. Anai and Raia were married and his first act as Pharaoh was to instruct the Medjai to guard his sarcophagus, making certain that Imhotep was never to be released onto the world, because if he was, he would bring forth the Apocalypse.

CAIRO - 1925

I walk into the Cairo Museum of Antiquities to visit my little sister, Evelyn, whom I haven't seen in 2 years due to a dig down in Thebes. I'm an Archaeologist and have been traveling around the world, which doesn't leave a lot of down time in between digs. I'm one of a few archaeologists in the world with experience in discoveries others dream of, which makes me a valuable asset in any dig. I'm wearing a simple white blouse with a dark brown corset, brown trousers, knee high dark brown boots, with a dark brown holster for my two Colt 38 revolvers and I have a knife in my boot. I also have my tan messenger bag with brown buckles. My brown hair is down, reaching the middle of my back, in soft waves. I lean against the door, just in time to see Evy. She's mumbling to herself, not realizing that I'm watching, so I keep quiet. Carefully, so as not to lose her balance, she looks over her shoulder to the bookshelf behind her, where all the titles begin with the letter 'TO. Then she looks down. I can see that it's a long way to the bottom, and she isn't fond of heights. Evy gently sets the other books down on the top shelf, then turns and slowly starts to reach across the aisle with the book. It's a little too far, so she stretches, holding the top of the ladder with her fingertips, she's almost got it. And that's when the ladder pulls away from the shelf. Evy yelps in fright, flings the book and grabs the top of the ladder, which stands straight up. Evy is swaying precariously, a long minute, and then she loses her balance, the ladder swings around and she starts stilt-walking down the aisle.

"OHEIUGM! AHHHHHH!" She exclaims, as the ladder crosses the aisle, does an about face and heads back the way it came. Evy clings to the top, struggling for balance. The ladder teeters out into the main aisle and picks up speed. Evy screams as it does a 180, spins into another aisle and finally crashes to a stop at the top of a bookshelf. Evy sighs heavily, so I could hear it. And that's when the bookshelf falls away from her and crashes into the next bookshelf. Evy slides down the ladder and plops to the floor. She looks up just as the domino effect kicks-in: each bookshelf crashing into the next. And onward it goes. Bookshelf after bookshelf.

"You always were accident prone, little sister." My smooth British accent flows through the room and Evy looks up at me.

"Jessie?" She calls out in surprise and after getting up, she pulls me into a hug. She's wearing a white button up blouse with gray stripes, a long tan skirt, and her brown hair, like mine, in a bun, with her eye-glasses on. I've just turned 25 while Evy is 21 years old. We look very similar, the only differences are that my skin is slightly darker, from all my time in the sun, I have more curves where other women wish they did, my hair is shorter than her waist length hair, and I have green eyes while she has hazel eyes.

"Hey Eves. Been a while." I greet in reply and she nods, before looking over my outfit and frowning.

"What are you wearing?" She asks me, and I roll my eyes at the disapproval in her eyes as she glances at my trousers.

"You know I don't like skirts. Besides, I just came from a dig in Thebes. I wanted to see you." I explain and she smiles.

"You couldn't have helped me?" My little sister asks me and I shake my head, smirking.

"And miss all of that? Not a bloody chance!" I tell her, nudging her playfully and she smiles slightly.

"Language." She scolds. Just then, the curator walks in and sees the mess.

"Look at this! Sons of the Messiah! Give me frogs, flies, locusts, Anything but this! Compared to you, the other plagues were a joy!" He exclaims in anger, and I glance at Evy, who's looking down at her feet. She's always been a quiet one, never speaking in her defense, but I've never had that problem.

"I'm sorry. It was an accident." She apologizes, voice sounding small.

"When Ramesses destroyed Syria, it was an accident. You are a catastrophe! Why do I put up with you?" He asks her, rhetorically, in his anger. I tense up and Evy turns to me, silently begging me not to say anything, but I've always had a problem with not listening too.

"You put up with her, because she can read and write ancient Egyptian, decipher hieroglyphs and hieratic, and she's the only person, besides me, within a thousand miles who knows how to properly code and catalogue this library. And I'm willing to bet she's the only one who can put up with you!" I angrily rant and he scowls down at me.

"Who needs smart women? I put up with you, Miss Carnahan and your outspoken sister, because your mother and father were our finest patrons, Allah rest their souls. Now straighten up this meshiver!" He explains to Evy and I flinch when he mentions our parents. The curator storms out, and we stand there, me steaming and Evy looking sad. We hear a noise and I take out both of my guns, turning to where the noise came from. I'm still reeling from the curator's rudeness towards my baby sister.

"'Who needs smart women?' Moronic, arrogant, incompetent men that can't do their own work. How dare he treat you that way. Oh! I want to take my boot and shove it-"

"Jessica!" Evy exclaims and I bite my lip, effectively stopping my rant.

"You should stand up for yourself. In my line of work, men won't take you seriously unless you do." I explain to her, which is true. I'm only as famous as I am because I never let a man act superior to me, and I always speak my mind. That's another difference between Evy and me. I was sarcastic, confident, outspoken, reckless, had trouble with following orders, and I'm skilled with weapons. Evy was quiet, highly intelligent, book minded, and very mannered. She was my opposite in every way, which was probably a good thing, the world only needs one Jessica Carnahan after all. It couldn't handle two.

"Hello?" Evy asks and it's eerily quiet. We hear feet shuffling across the floor, coming from a gallery nearby, so Evy grabs a torch off the wall.

"Abdul? Mohammed? Bob?" Evy calls out and I roll my eyes, walking in front of her, into the gallery, guns pointed in front of me.

"Honestly, Eves. I don't think they'll answer back." I mutter and we hear the noise again, so we walk over to a tomb, and a mummy pops up, causing Evy to scream and I sigh, knowing who it is, so I re-holster my guns. She steps back, gasping, and we hear laughing as he kicks his legs, sitting up.

"You! You!" Evy stutters.

"Drunkard? Fool? Rat bastard? Make sure it's something original. He's heard it all before." I tell her, leaning against the statue behind us. Our older brother, Jonathon, laughs and I roll my eyes. I pull a cigarette out of the mummy's mouth and frown at him.

"Have you no respect for the dead? Or at least, for a good cigarette?" I ask him, looking at it sadly for a moment, before throwing the cigarette on the ground.

"Right now, I only wish to join them." He says, grinning drunkenly and I roll my eyes, while Evy punches him on the chest, causing me to smirk.

"Well I wish you'd do it sooner rather than later, before you ruin my career the way you've ruined yours. Now get out." She retorts, slapping him on the cheek and I smile at her.

"My dear, sweet, baby sisters, I'll have you know, that at this moment my career is on a high note." He informs us as he drunkenly climbs out of the tomb, before he belches so close to my face that I can smell the alcohol, then falls back and sits on the edge of a tomb.

"High note? Ha!" I scoff

"Oh, Jonathon. I'm really not in the mood for you. I've just made a bit of a mess in the library and the Bembridge Scholars have just rejected my application form again. They say I don't have enough experience in the field." Evy informs us, sadly, sitting at the base of a statue.

"What? Why haven't I heard about this before now?" I ask her, shocked that she was rejected as I sit next to her. Jonathon walks over and kneels in front of her, taking her hands.

"You'll always have us, old mum." He tells her, and I playfully smack him.

"Jon, we're supposed to be making her feel better, not worse!" I joke and the three of us share a laugh. "Eves, you can always come on a dig with me. It'll be fun. You can see me in action. We haven't been together in a while." I offer and she seems to perk up at the thought.

"Oh! I've got just the thing to cheer you up!" Jonathon exclaims, standing up and scrounging in his jacket.

"Oh no, not another worthless trinket, Jonathan, if I bring one more piece of junk to the curator to try and sell for you.." Evy trails off as Jonathan pulls out a small, ancient box. Evelyn is instantly curious, she grabs the box out of his hand, and I lean over her shoulder, my eyes examining the box.

"Where did you get this?" She asks him, fully entranced in the box. Jonathan gives us a mischievous smile and I frown, because nothing good ever comes from that smile.

"On a dig, down in Thebes." He answers and I immediately know he stole it because I've just come from a dig in Thebes. Evelyn rolls the box around in her hands, both of us mumbling to ourselves as we translate the hieratics and hieroglyphs covering it. Jonathan licks his lips in anticipation as we try to date the object.

"My whole life I've never found anything, Evy, Jess. Tell me I've found something. Evy's fingers play with the various little slats on the box, shifting them this way and that way, it's like a puzzle box. Then suddenly, it unfolds itself, almost-mechanically. Sitting inside the open box is a folded piece of golden papyrus. An ancient map of some kind.

"Jonathan?" I say, my fingertips tracing symbols on the box.

"Yes?" He asks, almost nervously.

"I think you found something." I tell him, my eyes trailing onto the map recognizing a symbol on it. We take the box to the curator so he can appraise it after Evy and I conclude that it is indeed authentic.

The curator sits at his desk, staring through a jeweler's eyepiece at the box as Evy hovers behind him, excited, Jonathon is pacing around the office, and I'm leaning against the wall, so I can watch the door, playing with my compass, that Evy got me the day of my first dig, it's gold and has JRC engraved on it.

"See the cartouche there, it's the official royal seal of Seti the First, I'm sure of it." Evy explains, pointing to it.

"Perhaps." He admits, looking up from the map.

"Two questions. Who the hell is Seti the First? And was he rich?" Jon asks and I roll my eyes.

"He was the last Pharaoh of the Old Kingdom, said to be the wealthiest Pharaoh of them all." I explain to him, uninterested, as I toss my compass and catch it.

"Alright, good, that's good. I like this fellow, like him very much." Jonathon tells us and I sigh at my older brother's greed, as the curator picks up the map.

"I've already dated it, this map is almost four thousand years old. And the hieratics over here..." She trails off, breathing deeply. "It's Hamunaptra." She tells him and the curator freezes, seeming nervous, before recovering.

"My dear girl, don't be ridiculous, we are scholars, not treasure hunters. Hamunaptra is a myth." He dismisses but I interrupt.

"Speak for yourself. You may be a scholar, but I'm an archaeologist and it is believed to be very real in my profession." I argue, catching my compass and putting it back in my bag.

"Are we talking about the Hamunaptra?" Jonathon asks us, almost disbelievingly.

"Yes. The City of The Dead. Where the early Pharaohs were said to have hidden the wealth of Egypt." Evy answers excitedly, and I smile slightly at seeing her so interested in a topic.

"Right, right, in a big underground treasure chamber." He says and the curator scoffs. "Oh, come on! Everybody knows the story. The entire necropolis was rigged to sink into the sand. On Pharaoh's command, a flick of the switch! And the whole place could disappear beneath the dunes." Jonathon rambles and my eyes widen at his knowledge in something other than pick-pocketing. I look at Jonathon and Evy, not noticing the curator hold the map closer to the candle-lamp.

"As the Americans would say: it's all fairy tales and hokum." He dismisses, the map 'accidentally' catching on fire, and the curator exclaims, throwing to to the floor. Jonathon and Evy drops to their knees and quickly put it out, lifting it up, and the left third of the map was burned off. I walk over from my place by the wall and glance at the map. It's practically useless without that part.

"You burned it! You burned off the part with the lost city!" Jonathon accuses angrily.

"It's for the best, I'm sure. Many men have wasted their lives in the foolish pursuit of Hamunaptra, no one has ever found it, most have never returned." The curator assures them and narrow my eyes.

"You killed my map." Jonathon says to him, devastated.

"I'm sure it was a fake, anyway, I'm surprised at you, Miss Carnahan, and even you Miss Carnahan, to be so fooled." The curator says to us, reaching over for the box, but Evy grabs it quickly, while I give him a suspicious look before we walk out of his office.

"Okay, Jon. Tell us where you really got that box." I tell him, crossing my arms, as soon as we're out of earshot of the curator's office.

"I told you..." He tries to explain.

"I've just come from a dig in Thebes. Try again. How about the truth?" I ask, and he sighs, nodding before telling us.