LATER…

He sat in the grand garden in a rare day of sunlight, topiary animals looming over him like something out of a child's nightmare. The two of them were sipping lemonade and eating little sandwiches with the crusts cut off like a couple of geriatric shut-ins. There was a folio of loose papers across his knees, some typed and some in Evelyn O'Connell's untidy scrawl.

Jonathan Carnahan's baby sister sat opposite, leaning forward somewhat impatiently, her hands clenched on her knees as she waited for him to finish the manuscript, looking for all the world like a little girl again and waiting for him to finish his homework so he could take her on a hike.

"Stop looking at me and finish it." She instructed.

"You're a real bossy-boots, has anyone ever told you that?" He sniffed.

Evy pulled a face at him and Jonathan grinned.

"Well? What do you think?" Her voice was anxious, seeking his approval, something Jonathan hadn't heard since they were children and she had been yet to realise that her idolised big brother was just as flawed and naively pathetic as the next boy, if not more so.

He sighed, carefully shuffling the papers neatly before closing the folio.

"It's… interesting."

She immediately deflated. "You don't like it."

"No! It's interesting. It is!"

"Jonathan, you were the one that told me that 'interesting' is what people say when they're too polite to say 'horrific'." Evy said archly, and Jonathan winced. He remembered that night. He'd gone as a chaperone to Evy's debutante ball and couldn't remember how many fifteen-year-old girls with terrible acne and greasy hair in horrible confections of lace and taffeta had drifted up to him that night fishing for complements as he was the only man there under thirty, and with a line of fathers glowering over their shoulders he had to say something.

"Evy, it's…" Jonathan rubbed his brow. This was a delicate situation. Arguably one of the most delicate situations he had ever been in, and he'd once disarmed a landmine while his stretcher-bearer was standing on it. "Old mum, the thing is, I'm a man. And as a middle-aged man, I'm not exactly your target readership." He tapped the manuscript.

"Because men don't read?"

"Don't be obnoxious." Jonathan's eyes narrowed. "You know exactly what I mean."

She looked so incredibly disappointed. "I do."

"Look, Evelyn, I'm pleased you've got your spark back, I am-" he genuinely was, because that meant that the dear girl would stop telephoning him all the time- "-but are you entirely sure with the new direction?"

For out were Scarlet and Dash O'Keefe, and in were instead Scarlet's reprobate brother Jack Harcourt and the coolly exotic Astrid Morgensdottir. He still wasn't entirely sure what he thought of his fictional counterpart, who was decidedly more audacious and swashbuckling than he was, but was also more dastardly and roguish than he'd ever been. It was amusing, yet at the same time slightly concerning that there was a small part of Evelyn that thought of Jonathan as a darkly charming scoundrel that could potentially slip into the role of maniacally-cackling evil genius if the wind changed.

Sure, he'd flirted with the darker side of human nature, particularly when he was younger, but he liked to think in the end he always made the right decision. Bar a few detours, certainly.

"You don't like it."

Oh, Lord. There was nothing more frustrating than a writer fishing for complements. "It was certainly a departure from the previous." And it certainly bloody was. Evy's previous novels, while purportedly set against an archaeological background, were essentially bodice-rippers with the debonair yet particularly thick hero and plucky heroine who was irresistibly drawn to him despite the fact that he was as dull as dirt and had the manners of a goat. Much swooning transpired, along with what felt like pages and pages of gazing longingly into each others' eyes. Bloody hell, if a gal did that to Jonathan; the first thing he would assume would be that she had been recently hit in the head.

The first in a possible series of Jack Harcourt novels had a decidedly different flavour, much more like the adventure books Jonathan read in his youth. It was glaringly obvious that Evy was steering her books in an entirely new direction the moment he'd opened the manuscript to find old Jack at the opening of a new museum exhibition, palming an ancient necklace and substituting a paste replica in its place. Which, truth be told, hit a little too close to home. Jonathan had only done that once and only because Evy insisted the necklace was cursed and the alternative was Ardeth bursting in with drawn swords like he had been more than willing to do.

"Oh, I'll still be continuing the Scarlet O'Keefe books." His sister said. "But Bridget-" the poor, put-upon agent that had to deal with Evy's tyranny- "-suggested that I should attempt to appeal to a wider audience. Jack ran well, and I thought, why not? It would be an interesting exercise as an author in any case."

Jonathan bet it was. There were a myriad of pages that were crossed out or ripped, Evy having started a romantic scene promisingly enough and then somewhere along the way losing momentum as she suddenly remembered that Jack was based on her brother and therefore her brain stuttered to a stop as it absolutely refused to picture him naked.

Ha.

"And-" she said somewhat reluctantly. "Long-term Scarlet readers have been finding Dash a tad insufferable of late."

"Insufferable? No!"

"Just because you were shot doesn't mean I won't smack you."

Jonathan grinned.

"Did you send Dr Magnusson my notes?"

Only because Evy was too chicken to do it herself. "I did."

"What did she say?"

"Well, after she finished rolling about laughing-"

"Ha."

"You have her blessing, dear sister, I assure you." Jonathan said lightly. Sigrun wasn't the least bit concerned that any of her colleagues may recognise her in the prose, for the main reason that in Scandinavia they tended to speak Scandinavian.

Evy looked at him from beneath lowered eyelashes, and Jonathan knew what she would have dearly liked to ask him about the woman but didn't. Instead she said something else, her tone overly casual. "Are you sticking around for a little while? Malcolm Burns mentioned to Rick that you sorted out the books for The Black Shuck and found them another four hundred pounds."

Jonathan shrugged. He was good with numbers, surprisingly good. As much as he would have liked to say that it was for reasons otherwise, he suspected that was why the girls asked him to hang around Bletchley Park in the first place. He would have liked to have gone to university for mathematics if it hadn't been for the fact that accessing the money left aside for him and Evy in his father's will was legally dependant on completing a history degree, and after the Great War he'd been in no mood to fight semantics. Jonathan was definitely the sort to toot his own horn, but for some reason the things he was genuinely proud of he kept close to his chest.

"It wasn't really all that hard, old mum. Anyone with basic addition and subtraction skills could have found it." Well, maybe not Rick, but anyone else.

"So you might be looking at coming back to England? Perhaps buying some property and such? Getting into the whole nightclubbing business again?"

"What's the rush?" He asked curiously.

"I was just wondering, moneywise, if you need a loan, I'm sure we can-"

"Any other time, I'd swear you were trying to keep me here, dear sister." Jonathan grinned. "I'm still a majority shareholder in Imhoteps, that'll tide me over for a while provided McGuire doesn't run the whole shebang into the ground or drink all the grog in Asia." It was probably the first time his entire life that Evy had seriously considering lending him money without him grovelling for about a week beforehand, and he found something endlessly amusing in that. "I think I'll shelve the whole nightclub entrepreneur thing for the time being, considering."

Uh oh, the suspicious look was back. "Considering what?"

He chose a sandwich, making sure there wasn't any cucumber on it. "I'm going to Alexandria."

"What?"

He bit into the sandwich. "And I'd rather like you to come as well."

"You what?"

"I've been asked by an old mate of mine to do some consulting work." He said delicately.

"More treasure hunting?" Evy's eyes narrowed. "'Old mate'?"

"Oh, all right, Sigrun has been asked to come in to evaluate the authenticity of some particular items that have been discovered on a dig."

"I thought her area of expertise was Norse and European history?"

Jonathan sipped his lemonade. "Exactly."

"Vikings in Egypt?"

"They were two of the most powerful civilisations in the world." He said.

"And then, because they're bringing in outside consultants, I assume it all gets sticky?"

"You have no idea. Apparently they've discovered an ancient docklands dating before Seti I, along with the port register. And as far as the experts can make out, there was a rather large shipment sent from the Northmen to Rameses II on his coronation along with a complete delegation of representatives, and therein lies the rub." He watched Evy for a reaction. "It is quite the coup when one considers that old Rameses didn't come to the throne until 1279 BC, and Norway wasn't even settled until 1200BC. The Golden Age of Viking occupancy really took place in 800 AD. Over two thousand years later."

"That is quite a large discrepancy." Evy said cautiously. "How do you know-?"

"I do read too, you know." Jonathan said archly. "Which means three things: either the Egyptologists have read the reliefs wrong and the shipment was sent to a much later pharaoh, the Norse historians are off with the estimates of when their civilisation actually started…"

His sister's eyes narrowed. "Or?"

Jonathan shrugged. "Well, when the historians say settled, do they mean actually discovered, or formally, shall we say, established, like with a mayor and a little corner shop with a chippie? Was there a formal settlement already there, or was it like a nomadic enclave, like the Bedouins?" He grinned at her doubtful expression.

"A civilisation that was somehow at the pinnacle of advancement before the official settlement of Norway?" Evy asked scornfully. "A civilisation that apparently faded into obscurity immediately after and leaving no trace behind?"

"Or were folded into the settlement. I'm sure the settlers couldn't afford to be picky. And they would hardly be the first lost civilisation." Honestly, for some reason her expression tickled him pink. "There are tales all over the world that speak about a race that came before the world of man."

"Just so you know, if you say Atlantis, I may actually hit you."

"Please. I'm not a complete fool. Everyone knows Atlantis is somewhere off the coast of Greece." Yes, Jonathan looked like he was heading for a smack. What could he say, he couldn't help himself. "Like the stories of giants!"

"Giants." Evy had a tired expression on like she just should have expected her brother's crackpot theories by now.

"As much as I love it, your face is going to set that way if you keep looking at me like that, old mum."

"And you can make your eyes as big and blue as you want, you won't be able to charm your way out of your nonsense that easily, Carnahan." She shot back tartly. "So Dr Magnusson's been brought it to consult. And you're going to be consulting the consultant."

Her tone was faintly mocking.

"Yes, yes, and now I'm asking you to consult the consultant who's been brought in to consult the consultant."

"You must be joking."

"Always, but not right now." He quirked an eyebrow at her, swirling the melting iceblocks in his drink. "Aaand I thought I'd take the opportunity to ditch the Gold Book."

Evy almost spat lemonade all over him. "You have the book?"

"Who else did you think? None of the boys wanted to touch the damned thing, not that I can blame them, and the Doc's been busy with her university and Nuremberg. It seemed like the best idea at the time."

"You had it the whole time?" Evy demanded. "And you didn't tell me?"

Oh, there were so many things he hadn't told his sister.

"You didn't do anything with it? Wait, what are you going to do with it? You better not be going to do anything stupid."

"Stupid? Me?" He asked innocently. "I'm not an entire idiot, Evy. Sigrun and I talked and decided-"

"Oh, you and Sigrun decided-"

"Stop being a baby. Anyway, we knew that slippery fellow Talbot would undoubtedly be keeping a close eye on us, and decided that taking off to Egypt immediately would tip off this Prodigium outfit that we had been fibbing just a tiny bit. And also it took me a decent amount of time to get a telegram to Ardeth. Bugger's harder to pin down than an Irishman with a passport and a disposable income." Jonathan raised his eyebrows at his sister's expression. "What? Did you expect me to just row over to Egypt and throw the book into a sinkhole?"

Evy coloured. "No." She said, after a beat. Honestly, how the dear girl had ever worked for the Foreign Department, Jonathan would never know. He loved her, but gosh, she couldn't even lie like a cheap rug.

"Well, I thought that since actually defeating evil is supposed to be old Mr Bay's job description, it was time to pass the buck, so to speak." He paused. "And hope I don't get any overdue fines for returning the Book late."

Evy frowned, staring down at her lap, thinking. Jonathan tapped his fingers on his knee. Waiting was never his strong suit.

"Are you coming or not?"

"What? Of course I'm coming!" Her eyes snapped up. "Jonathan?"

"Yes?"

"There's one thing I can't quite figure out."

He sipped the last of his lemonade, which had gone all hot and was like drinking warm sugar. "Yes, my darling sister?"

"How did the Book of Amun Ra get to Poland from Egypt?"

That wasn't the thing that he would have picked first, but oh well.

Jonathan shook his head. "The one explanation that makes the most sense is that the Afrika Korps must have brought it back to Germany with other manuscripts and artefacts that Rommel thought might appeal to Himmler's sense of the esoteric. If there are official records, the League of Nations or Nuremberg aren't exactly going to let us have a looksee."

"I suppose not." Evy said reluctantly.

"But we're going to Egypt. Africa's not that far." His eyebrows rose. Despite himself, it was a point of interest to him, too. And exactly where along the line Percy Golding had heard about the Book of the Living and decided he was going to be a god. "We can always scratch around, stir the pot and see what floats to the surface."

Evy's eyes were alive with excitement.

"Rick's going to hate you for this, you know."

Oh, he was absolutely shaking in his loafers.

"Bah, retirement doesn't suit that old blighter anyway." Jonathan said. "Besides, there's nothing that says you have to bring the old ball-and-chain. It's been absolute ages since just the two of us went off and did something ridiculous together."

"The two of us and Sigrun." His sister said archly.

Jonathan rolled his eyes.

"You are such a brat."

He would like to state emphatically for the record that none of this was his fault, thank you very much.

…somewhere else…

Work on the site had stopped for the night, discoveries roped off and protected, the diggers drifting off to their own spaces to drink and sleep, the crew and the archaeologists themselves gathering to celebrate the discovery of the ancient docklands. There was laughter and music, and people scurrying over the sand like ants.

The three riders on the ridge watched the events taking place below them, two men and a woman, in the flowing robes of the natives, all but invisible to the interlopers beneath.

"They violate the land, the savages." The young man said with disgust in his voice towards the foreigners. Despite his words, alongside ancestral weapons he carried a rifle and a Sten gun. "Some things are buried for a reason. We should move them on." The barely-veiled bloodlust in his voice was apparent, leaving none in any doubt of exactly how he wished to move them on.

The woman snorted, impatiently pushing back her fall of dark hair. "And draw undue attention to our presence?" She asked scornfully. "How wise. Do you not think that the desert has yet had her share of blood and death?"

He gave her a dark look, bristling that she had so bluntly rebuked him as a fool. "And I suppose you have a better solution."

"Enough." The third of their number interjected before it became a true disagreement. He was an older man with lines of happiness and sorrow etched deep around his eyes, his shoulders still somehow yet unbent under the burdens of chief of the tribe. "You must learn patience." The older said to the younger. "And you must learn tact."

The young man looked like he would much like to argue, but had the sense to hold his tongue. The woman just gave an inscrutable look that was much familiar.

"For now we wait." The older instructed.

"For what?" The younger asked curiously.

"One day you both will learn how to sense it." Ardeth Bay titled his head back, the desert breeze catching at his dark hair and tangling it about his shoulders, and for a brief moment he could hear the voice of his beloved departed Amira, whispering on the wind words too indistinct to truly catch. Eyes as dark as midnight flickered open.

"Something is awakening. And we must be ready."

The young woman straightened on her steed, chin raised proudly and jaw clenched in a manner that he recognised was his own.

"We will be."

Fin.

...

..

.

..

…

It's Ardeth! Hi, Ardeth! Yes, I really had to have everyone's favourite desert warrior cameo somewhere.

The only thing I found remotely interesting about the 2017 Tom Cruise Mummy movie was the introduction of Prodigium, a Torchwood/SHIELD-esque agency whose job it was to protect the world from monsters, and the nod to the Brendan Fraser movies by having the Gold Book in their collection. In my mind, Prodigium was established after the whole Imhotep thing, and the Book of the Living that briefly appears in the Tom Cruise movie was actually the fake one Magnusson mocked up.

To those who give a damn, Mr Talbot is also named after The Wolfman, another Universal monster.

AND IN REAL LIFE in 2016, a stash of 13,000 occult manuscripts that Himmler had looted from occupied territories were found in a depot belonging to the National Library of the Czech Republic near Prague, and was last accessed sometime in the 1950s. Many of the books had been looted from the Norwegian Order of Freemasons during the German occupation of Norway.

If anyone's interested, yes, a sequel to this fic is planned at some stage because when you're playing with these characters, you really need to get them back to Egypt sooner or later for more Mummy related fun.

Thank you :)