Tis the last chapter my friends. I appreciate all those that have read and especially those that took the time to review. You are all godsends. I want to wish everyone a Happy Holidays no matter which holiday you celebrate. If you have ideas for the sequel, feel free to email me, im me, or put it in the reviews. They are much appreciated!
ThespianMoonlight: Sorry for the wait. My mind got caught up with other fics and other things.
Saxifrage: Gee, guess Alex will have to use the Book of the Dead to bring you back. lol.
Thanks also to Lilylynn, deiron lionheart, and SandraSmit19.
Chapter Eleven Title: Death is Thy Game, Part II

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Rick swallowed the enormous stone seeming to have materialized out of nowhere when the Scorpion King appeared. He had not expected to fight some half-human, half-scorpion hybrid thing. He thought the Scorpion King would at least look like a man, well both halves anyway. He backed away from Imhotep, who was too busy staring at the monstrous entity to notice. He noticed with a brief glance that his daughter had also paused in her battle with the demon creature to goggle.

The creature cast a dark, menacing gaze around his surroundings and let loose a majestic roar. Asleep for thousands of years he was now finally free to reign again. Now all that was left for him to do was crush the opposition and judging by the new form gifted by his patron god, it would be extremely easy. He centered his attention on the Egyptian-born man and charged towards him.

Imhotep, seeing that the Scorpion King had targeted him, thought fast. He dropped to one knee and bowed before the creature intoning over and over in the ancient dialect, "I am your disciple! I am your disciple!"

The creature halted right before cleaving his body and two and looked down at him suspiciously. Rick stood behind the pair; fervently hoping the bastard would kill the other bastard he had just been fighting. He saw Imhotep point to him and yell something, which Rick did not take as a good sign.

"But he was sent to kill you!" the high priest cried desperately.

The Scorpion King turned his derisive glare onto Rick and growled furiously. "Oh, shit," Rick mumbled as he turned on his heels and scampered down a corridor to escape the lunging monstrous pincers of the creature. The roars of the ancient menace echoed throughout the dank catacombs.

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Evelyn was like a machine of pure rage as her feet pounded on the ground whist chasing down her enemy. Anck-Sunamun had turned down corridor after corridor in vain attempts to throw off her nemesis's pursuit, but Evelyn, Princess Nefertiri reincarnated, was not to be thwarted. This woman had been the cause of so much pain to her and her family in both lives, past and present. It was time for her to get her comeuppance just like that dreadful man, Beni, had gotten his so many years ago.

They entered the cavern where the battles between Imhotep and Rick and Elizabeth and Sarfresca had been going on respectively. Anck-Sunamun skidded to a stop in a gilded archway as her black eyes took in the awesome sight of the Scorpion King. Her heart palpitated in fear for her lover, but she saw him across the huge gaping crater in the floor and breathed a sigh of relief.

"Oh my god," Evelyn breathed, her voice sounding so small and weak compared to the strength and hardness of it before. She whimpered slightly when the creature turned on her husband and prayed as he ran out of the caverns that he would be all right. She could not bear to lose him like he had lost her. She then remembered her enemy beside her and quickly grabbed the young woman's arm with a fierce scowl upon her face.

"You will not escape this time, Anck-Sunamun," Evelyn growled in the ancient language with perfect fluency. With a flick of her wrist, she jammed the butt end of her sai into the other woman's face and she went crashing to the floor unconscious. Evelyn stood there, as still as could be, trying and failing to turn the sai around and jab the pointed end into the woman who had shown her the same courtesy. Technically, for all she had put Evelyn through and all the destruction she had wreaked, it wouldn't be enough punishment for this foul creature. Tears of anger long harbored and the stabbing feeling of loss and betrayal all caused by this woman stung the back of Evelyn's dark blue eyes. Remembering her Nefertiri's father's brutal death at her hands and her own painful death just recently, the proud scholar's hands tightened on the handle of the sai and she lifted it up to prepare the final lunge.

Something made Evelyn's death blow halt in its path. It was not so much of a sound as it was a rippling sensation, eerie and foreboding in its intensity, that made her turn her head around. She gasped when she saw the losing battle her daughter was fighting with a…it must have been a demon. It was her maternal instinct; her natural alarm system kicking in to tell her one of her children was in very grave danger.

"Lizzie," she whispered, leaving Anck-Sunamun slumped against the wall and skirting across the floor to save her child. She screamed, "Nooooo!" as the creature prepared to impale Elizabeth with her own sword. Before anyone could react, Evelyn leapt upon the demon's back and thrust her sai right through its back, piercing it right through the heart.

Elizabeth just stared in dumb shock as the golden, blood drenched, sharp point of a sai poked through her opponent's chest and a piercing scream of pain rent the air. Sarfresca reeled back and whomever it was that had stabbed her was thrown off. Elizabeth's sword was released from those treacherous hands and the girl darted forward to retrieve it.

Sarfresca sank to the floor while blood, as red as any human's, spurted from her gaping wound and dribbled out of her mouth. Elizabeth wasted no more time; she swung the sword right at the demon woman's neck and cleaved her neck right from her body. She stood there for a while, her sword hanging loosely in her hand, and stared at the thing that nearly ended her life right there and then. If it weren't for her mysterious, as yet unknown, savior Sarfresca would have another dead slayer to add to her belt.

"Lizzie? Are you all right?"

Elizabeth felt everything within her stiffen and freeze at the sound of that gentle, anxious voice. No, it cannot be. It was the voice she had heard when she was a little girl and scraped her knee, the gentle, loving voice filled with motherly concern. It could not be her mother; this place must have been playing tricks on her. It was not possible that her mother had been the one to save her. She had sat beside her while she had died. She turned slowly around and felt her throat constrict and her sword dropped to the floor making an ominous clanging sound.

Elizabeth stared at the woman who had borne her with wide, dark blue eyes, just daring to hope that what she was seeing was real. She felt like something was compressing on her lungs and could barely get the words out to say, "Oh my god. Mum? Is it really you? How can…why…are you…" Elizabeth could not reach her usual articulate level with the amount of emotions that were attacking her. She cleared her throat and said as calmly as she could manage in a shaky voice, "Are you…alive? How is this possible?"

Evelyn smiled reassuringly and walked slowly to her child with her arms open. "I think we shall have to speak with those respective brothers of ours to figure out the how part," the woman said with a wry smile.

Elizabeth's jaw dropped in awe. "Alex and Uncle Jon? They did this? Where the bloody hell did they learn—oh! The Book of the Dead? I saw Imhotep's harlot carrying it after she…you know. How did they get it?"

"From Anck-Sunamun," Evelyn said crisply. "Don't just stand there, silly girl. Come and hug your mother."

Elizabeth was only too happy to obey as she sank into her mother's arms and let the tears of absolute joy where there had been nothing but grief and anguish before flow. Evelyn stroked her daughter's hair and whispered soothing words to her as Elizabeth wept on her shoulder.

"I thought we had lost you there, Mum. Don't scare us like that again," Elizabeth choked out. She could stay like this forever in her mother's tight embrace, feeling the serenity and security specific only to a mother's love. But, alas, she was the Slayer and possessed not the time to bask in her mother's return to life for very long. She reluctantly pulled away and picked up her sword from where it lay beside Sarfresca's headless body. After staring at it for a while, she began to giggle for no apparent reason to Evelyn.

"What's so funny?" Evelyn asked in confusion, failing to see the humor in the situation.

Elizabeth shook her head and wiped at her swollen, red eyes. "I don't know. Maybe it's the fact that Sarfresca was boasting about all the slayers she killed and she finally gets defeated, but it's not by a slayer. You, a normal…well, mostly normal human being, were the one to finally knock her off that bloody soapbox. It's just a lovely spot of irony, don't you agree, Mother?"

"But you were the one who…killed her," Evelyn pointed out.

"I wouldn't have been able to do that had you not stepped in and stabbed her with your sai, which is really nifty by the way. If it weren't for you, I would be a slayer shish-kabob right about now, I'd wager," Elizabeth replied, extricating it from the demon's back and handing it to her mother. Evelyn grimaced in disgust at the sticky, red blood that coated the blade, but shrugged it off.

"Well, I think we have ourselves a Scorpion King and an annoying mummy to send back to hell. I figure Dad could use some help right about now," Elizabeth said with a surprising amount of calmness. Though her body was near to dropping dead from fatigue, she intending to see all of this through to the end. She envied the effortless way her mother held herself upright and how not a drop of exertion seemed to drip from her body. I suppose being resurrected from the dead reenergizes you as well.

Evelyn nodded grimly and looked down upon the sais in her hands. Suddenly, Elizabeth lunged forward and wrenched her mother out of the way of Anck-Sunamun's blade. It seemed the woman had come to and decided to creep up on the pair unawares. Acting on pure instinct, the Slayer thrust her sword up and through Anck-Sunamun's chest. The woman gasped in surprise and pain and Elizabeth stood there, one hand on the pommel of her blade and the other on Anck-Sunamun's shoulder, staring in mute shock at what she had done.

The woman keeled over on Elizabeth's sword and then fell backwards, literally sliding off the metal embedded in her flesh. She fell to the floor and curled up in a fetal position, moaning piteously as blood pooled around her. She gasped helplessly for air as fluids poured into her lung where the sword had punctured it. She twitched and moaned for a while before lying still, her black eyes staring sightlessly ahead.

Elizabeth stepped away from the dead woman, completely shocked by what she done. She had killed a human being; she had violated one of the most sacred laws of the Slayer. Slayers were not supposed to kill humans. Period. She might have killed some humans back in the jungle, but she hadn't stopped to find out and didn't really care to. This she had done consciously, but it did not seem to matter. All that mattered was the woman had been intent on taking away her mother again and Elizabeth had to stop her.

"Lizzie?" Evelyn asked breathlessly. She looked into her daughter's bewildered eyes.

"Oh god. Mum, I…I'm not supposed to kill humans," Elizabeth lowered her gaze to see the shiny, ruby dripping blade of her weapon; dripping with the blood of Anck-Sunamun, Imhotep's lover.

"Elizabeth, listen to me. You know as well as I that nothing can be done about this. She would have killed either of us without a second thought and she nearly did kill me…again. You did what you had to do," Evelyn told her daughter sternly, gripping the stricken girl by the shoulders.

Elizabeth met her mother's steadfast eyes and nodded. She was right. Even if they used the Book of the Dead to raise the woman back from the dead—which was extremely stupid even to contemplate—it would not erase the fact that Elizabeth had killed her. The weird thing was, she was feeling only a little remorse at what she had done. If Anck-Sunamun had been some innocent bystander taking a misguided hit, then she would probably have been consumed with guilt. But this woman had been inherently evil and was supposed to have been dead for thousands of years. She had nothing but contempt for the rest of humanity. She was far more evil than many demons Elizabeth knew, which served to strengthen her belief in humans quite possibly being the worse monsters of them all.

"But, what if the Council finds out?" Elizabeth asked softly.

"They won't. They don't have to," Evelyn declared.

Elizabeth nodded and let her mother take the lead as they waltzed across the cavern, leaving Anck-Sunamun's corpse where it lay in the crimson pool. God willing, she would stay dead this time.

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Rick practically dived across the narrow catacomb in order to avoid being snapped in half by one of the Scorpion King's massive claws. His lungs felt like they were on fire from the lack of oxygen he was putting into them. He needed some place to rest for a short spell and regain his breath, but with the creature hot on his heels it would be very difficult to find one. He hoped his children and Jonathan were all right and he was especially worried about Elizabeth. But he didn't have enough time to wonder over her fate as he was swatted aside by the Scorpion King. The ex-Legionnaire smacked against a pillar and grunted in pain. He could have sworn a couple vertebrate had cracked with that hit, but he pulled himself to his feet with gritted teeth and determination.

He chanced a cursory glance at the design on the wall in the chamber he was in and frowned when he noticed that the design matched the tattoo on his hand. It was the drawing of a man who bore the mark of the Masonic Templars; only this man held the Scepter of Osiris.

Rick would have stayed to study the drawing for longer, but he heard the growl of the Scorpion King and was forced to dart away from the wall. He saw other pictures splayed across the golden surface of the wall that revealed the same man in several different poses: one where he held the scepter, another where he was reshaping it, and another where he was wielding a spear. Rick's eyes widened as he finally came to understand.

"Okay, now I'm a believer," he breathed. He ducked under the Scorpion King's tail and somersaulted to his feet. He ran out of the chamber to see his son and brother-in-law enter the room.

"Rick!" Jonathan yelled. His face paled when he saw the Scorpion King come into view right after his brother-in-law appeared. Both he and Alex screamed in horror.

"Jonathan! It's a spear! Your gold stick thing is a spear!" Rick shouted, dodging the Scorpion King's claws and tails.

Jonathan managed to take his eyes off the creature for a moment to look at his prized possession. He frowned and looked back to Rick while shouting, "It doesn't look like a spear to me!"

Rick rolled his eyes in spite of the situation and bellowed, "That's because it opens up into one!"

Jonathan still did not understand what Rick was trying to tell him. "Yes? And?"

Rick pantomimed pulling the scepter apart and fashioning a spear out of it. "Jonathan, listen! It opens up into a spear!"

"Give it to me," Alex commanded, snatching the scepter out of his uncle's hands. He began to quickly read through the inscriptions as Jonathan watched the cat and mouse game played by his brother-in-law and the monstrous creature known as the Scorpion King.

"Jonathan, why the hell did you bring Alex in here?" he heard Elizabeth yell. The man swiveled his head around to see his niece and sister come running towards them, their weapons coated with blood. Rick was too busy trying to swerve around the Scorpion King's claws to notice his daughter was safe and that his wife was alive.

"Evy, this trinket opens into a spear!" Jonathan told his sister.

Evelyn barely heard her brother as she and Elizabeth watched in horror as Rick was hurled through the air and landed spread-eagle on the ground. The poor man looked exhausted and any moment one of those claws could cleave him in two.

"Rick!" Evelyn cried out.

Rick looked up in bewilderment and his previously grimly exhausted expression changed to one of absolute joy. "Evy?" he cried, feeling tears wet his eyes. His beloved wife had been brought back to him! He did not care why or how, it only mattered that she was alive again and that renewed his confidence in himself.

"Oh, bloody hell! Dad, look out!" Elizabeth screamed, darting across the floor. She grabbed up a spear on her way and hurled it at the Scorpion King to avert its attention away from her father. The diversion worked though the spear had bounced harmlessly off its hard shell. It growled at her and she brandished her sword; her dark blue eyes glinted dangerously. She hoped it didn't notice her shaking exhaustion. Right now, she was basically bluffing the creature to give her father some time to do what he needed to do.

"Lizzie! What are you doing?" Rick yelled, terrified for her life.

"What's it look like I'm doing?" Elizabeth yelled back as she jumped over one of the swiping claws and ducked under another. "Hurry up with that bloody spear—oomph!" Elizabeth didn't see the staff swinging around to hit her in the head. She was batted down to the floor and her sword skittered out of her grasp. How she managed to remain conscious, she would never know, but she managed to turn over on her back and block the blow Imhotep was about to give her with a staff.

"So, you want to join your harlot, do you?" she drawled, kicking his feet out from under him. She staggered to her feet and dived to get her sword back before the Scorpion King's tail could swat her aside.

Elizabeth snatched it up from the ground and looked over to see how her uncle was faring with the scepter. She saw him twist its base to reveal a sharp tip. Her brother grabbed it and then pulled the tip out an additional few feet to turn it into a perfect spear. She shrieked at the advance of the Scorpion King and tripped over her own feet as she backed away. She slid out of the way of its claw just in time as it buried it in the wall.

"Hurry up, Jonathan!" Evelyn screamed.

Jonathan pushed his nephew aside saying, "Stand back, Alex. This is a man's work." He hurled the spear straight for the Scorpion King where it was turning around to come at Elizabeth again. Rick had run up to protect his daughter and they both had moved out of Jonathan's line of vision to give him a clear shot. It would have been a good shot, had Imhotep not stepped in to steal the sacred weapon out of mid-air with a triumphant snarl.

"Oh, come on," Elizabeth moaned. Was their luck really that bad?

She jumped at the exact same moment Imhotep threw the spear and caught it right before it could lodge itself inside the creature. She winked at Imhotep and said, "You're not the only one who still has a few tricks up his sleeve." It was too bad he could not understand her. And with a grin of complete malice for Imhotep, she tossed the spear to her father who thrust it right into the creature's chest.

Rick and the Scorpion King were hanging right over a deep cleft in the floor. Rick sneered at the monster and snarled, "Go to hell! And take your friends with you!" He thrust the weapon in deeper and the creature howled in agony before exploding in poof of black vapor. The force of its demise sent everyone sprawling to the floor; Elizabeth was thrown across the floor and sent tumbling into her uncle, mother, and brother.

At the death of its master, the pyramid began to shake; walls cracked and the ground split beneath them. As soon as Elizabeth, Jonathan, Evelyn, and Alex regained their footing they were nearly thrown off-balance again by the earthquakes that rocked the area. Elizabeth shoved her sword back into its scabbard and pulled Alex under her arms to shield him from flying debris. She looked frantically for her father across the cavern and cried out when she saw him and Imhotep hanging onto the broken edge of the floor over an endless drop into a dark abyss.

"Dad!" she and Alex screamed. Alex tried to go forward, but Elizabeth pulled him back. The ceiling was breaking apart and sending massive chunks crashing to the floor. It was a veritable death trap. Her father was doomed, she realized in despair. Why was this happening? She had regained one parent only to lose the other?

"Stay back! Don't come any closer!" Rick warned them in a hoarse voice. He yelled out to his wife and her brother, "Evy, Jonathan, get Alex and Lizzie out of here! Go now!"

"Rick!" Evelyn cried. She held onto the pillar in a death grip and turned her anguished eyes on her husband. She nodded to him and he screamed out, "Nooo!" to no avail. She started to run across the cavern with only one purpose in mind: to rescue the love of her life.

"Mum!" Alex and Elizabeth cried.

Jonathan too cried out for his younger sister to come back, but she would heed none of their desperate pleas. They watched with held breaths as she dodged the chunks of ceiling quite nimbly. Alex buried his face into his sister's arms, not being able to watch his mother dodge death. Elizabeth, herself, shut her eyes a few times as her heart pounded mercilessly against her battered ribcage. Her mother was insane, that was all there was to it. Only, she would have done the same thing had her mother not done it first. I guess insanity runs in the family.

Evelyn dove for her husband, who was hanging precariously onto the edge. She held out her hands and helped to pull him up with a strength she had not known she possessed. Husband and wife, wrapped in each other's arms, backed away against a pillar to look down upon Imhotep.

"Anck-Sunamun! Help me!" he kept crying over and over, not realizing his Egyptian princess had perished by the Slayer's sword. When he finally realized she was not coming for him, he gave one last hateful, sad look at Evelyn and Rick before releasing his hold on the edge and letting himself fall into the abyss, back to the underworld where he belonged.

"Good riddance," Rick muttered.

"In case you didn't notice, this bloody place is falling apart! Can we go now!" their daughter yelled impatiently. She, Alex, and Jonathan had cheered in jubilation over Evelyn's heroic rescue of Rick, but they were still stuck in this place.

Rick and Evelyn joined up with the other three survivors and the five ran for their very lives as the golden pyramid collapsed in on itself all around them. They reached the entrance with the golden lion sentinels, but they were unable to go any further due to the massive whirlwind sending trees and other vegetation through the entrance and down to the heart of the pyramid.

"It's sucking everything in!" Elizabeth shouted, caught between incredulity and horror.

"How do we get out of here?" Evelyn yelled, gripping her husband's hand tightly.

Elizabeth's eyes caught sight of an opening in the side of the pyramid. Although it wasn't the most promising of escape routes, it was the best she could find and it would have to do. They didn't have a lot of options, after all. Without thinking, she hoisted Alex up into her arms and shouted, "Follow me!"

The five climbed through the crack and outside of the pyramid near the entranceway. Refuse was being drawn in all around them and they even saw some hissing pygmy skeletons being sucked in along with it. The entire oasis was being sucked in on itself. Elizabeth hoped Ardeth Bay and his comrades were safely away…if they were still alive at all.

"Climb!" she ordered, not knowing what else they could do.

The family clambered up the golden pyramid while the oasis swirled around them. When they reached the top near the giant diamond, the Slayer found herself all out of bright ideas. Not that any of her previous ideas had been very bright at all.

"We're trapped!" Evelyn cried, clutching desperately at Rick. Husband and wife held onto one another as Jonathan, Alex, and Elizabeth clutched at one another, preparing to die.

"Well, we had a good run. At least we saved the world," Jonathan offered as scant comfort.

"Hey!" someone above them yelled. It was so hard to hear that only Elizabeth heard it at first, but when the voice cried out again, the rest heard as well.

"Izzy?" Rick and Elizabeth voiced in surprise and relief. The greasy pilot's blimp was so far above them, they couldn't hope to board yet.

"Fancy seeing you lot here!" Izzy joked, as he lowered the dirigible so they could board.

Elizabeth threw Alex aboard first and then pulled herself up. She turned to help her mother up after her and then held out her hands for her father and uncle. Both men were hanging onto the netting and climbing up as Izzy drifted further up.

"Come on! Come on!" Elizabeth urged them.

Jonathan got his foot tangled in the netting and fell backwards, hanging by his foot from the flimsy hold. "Arrgggg! Pull me up! Pull me up!"

"Pull him up, O'Connell!" Izzy yelled to Rick.

"Hang on, Jonathan!" Rick yelled, as he grabbed onto his brother-in-law's boot. But Jonathan had other ideas in mind when he saw the giant diamond.

"Let me down! Let me down!" he screamed.

"Oh for Christ's sake, Uncle Jon! It's not worth your life, you idiot!" Elizabeth reprimanded in exasperation.

Jonathan grabbed the diamond and then said, "Okay, now pull me up!"

After dragging Jonathan to the deck, Izzy pulled a lever to make the dirigible go faster. Rick dropped to his feet against the side of the deck and breathed a sigh of relief. Evelyn ran up to Izzy and kissed him on the cheek. "Izzy! You wonderful, brilliant man! Thank you!" If his skin hadn't been so dark, they would have seen him blush.

Izzy then glanced over at Rick and Elizabeth slumped on the floor, looking as if they had been to hell and back. In a way, it was true. "So, who the hell you been messing with this time, O'Connell?"

Rick fluttered his hand and said between gasps for breath, "Oh you know…pissed off mummies, pygmies…giant bugs. The usual."

"I can't believe I'm actually missing vampires and demons," Elizabeth breathed. "Oh god, Roland is going to so pissed with me."

"Ah, well, he'll understand," Rick assured her. He forced himself to his feet to join his wife and son at the edge of the trawler to look down over the army of the Medjai. The black-clad men all raised their scimitars in salute and cheered the family O'Connell above them. One man on a horse stood aside from the group and he raised his face to the sky with a smile upon his handsome face. It was Ardeth Bay, bloodstained and battle-weary, but alive.

The Medjai leader raised his hand in salute and intoned, "Harum bara shad." He waved and called out, "Thank you again, my friends."

Rick, Evelyn, Alex, and Jonathan waved back, glad to see their friend had survived. Rick gave his wife a tender look and pulled her close. "Thought I had lost you there for a second," he said softly.

Evelyn looked up at him with those beautiful cobalt eyes and smiled. "For a moment there you did. Would you like to know what heaven looks like?"

Rick leaned in closer and whispered, "Later," before pushing his lips against her own in a passionate kiss. Jonathan and Alex simultaneously moaned, "Puh-leeze," and left the couple to their private moment.

Alex walked over to sit at the stern and stare out at the setting sun while Izzy pursued Jonathan.

"Um, that's mine," the greasy pilot declared, referring to the giant diamond.

"What? No it isn't," Jonathan retorted defensively.

"You stole my gold stick!"

"I did not!"

"Yes, you did!"

"I swear on my wife's life!"

"You ain't got a wife!"

Amidst the bickering, kissing, and conversations the Slayer slept peacefully on the wooden deck of the Izzy's dirigible as they made their way back home.

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Roland Deavers sat in his large study pouring over volumes of ancient tomes in an absent-minded sort of way. A record played symphony music in the background as he copied down some notes on a pad of paper. Though he gave the impression of one who was utterly content with where he was and what he was doing, that impression couldn't be more wrong. He was riddled with anxiety over his slayer and the hasty message she had left to him over a week ago about returning to Egypt for personal reasons. He knew there was more to it than that, but he just couldn't fathom what it was. And now he was left here in London to imagine all kinds of horrible things that might be happening to his beloved charge.

Damn that wretched girl! Leaving me here to worry myself into a frenzy, he cursed in his mind over and over. He had tried to bury himself in ancient texts, but as he was fairly young for a watcher (in his early twenties) he had not yet established a solid interest in the perpetual studying of tomes. No, he would much rather be training with his slayer. That is, if she were here. She couldn't be dead because the Watchers Council would be sure to notify him. And if she were dead, he felt he would know. He would have to know.

He didn't hear the door to his house open or the soft footsteps creeping their way into his study. Elizabeth walked in, still bearing evidence from the ordeal in Egypt from the faint bruises and scratches on her face, arms, and legs. Her dark brown hair hung freely down her back and brushed down over her breasts in soft waves and she walked with a slight limp because of the broken ribs that had not fully healed yet. She grinned foolishly at her watcher trying to keep himself interested in all those books, but he kept averting his attention to the literature set beside him. It was most likely Poe or Dickens his green eyes kept turning to.

"Bored, are we?" she asked, deciding not to announce herself properly.

Roland jumped in surprise and turned around in his chair. His finely chiseled features glared at her from a curtain of golden hair, but she could detect the barely concealed relief and happiness in those emerald eyes. She saw how he fought to keep his face neutral and how he kept clearing his throat.

"Elizabeth. How cordial of you to finally show," he said flatly. Then he jumped up and hugged her so tight that she grimaced in pain slightly as her injured ribs protested. He noticed her stiffening in pain and pulled away with concern on his features. It was odd how she never noticed how handsome he was, but she figured that was because she was so relieved to be alive and to see him again.

"What happened to you? And why was I not there?" he asked. She winced at the betrayal she heard in his voice.

"Well, it's a rather long story," Elizabeth stammered.

Roland smiled rather humorlessly and gestured to the seat next to his. "It had bloody well better be a long story so you can explain why you left such a vague note and why you left me to wonder over whether you were dead or alive."

"First thing, you have to promise you won't get mad," Elizabeth said.

Roland closed his eyes and finally said, "What did you do?"

"Well, for starters, I…my family now knows about me being the Slayer. I sort of had to confess," Elizabeth said.

Roland groaned and rubbed his temples. "Why do I get the feeling that's not the worse of what happened?"

Elizabeth looked around and sat down while saying sardonically, "You might want to sit down and get yourself a strong drink because this could take a while."