The monster roars in anger and turns to face me. I back up, matching its pace until I reach the stand I was aiming for. I stop and take a non-threatening posture. I prop up my elbow on the large stone slab and whistle a tune. For some reason, the first thing that comes to mind is the theme to The Addams Family'. I guess it seems appropriate considering my current setting.

Would Morticia Addams have Rhonar as a pet? Probably. Just for my own amus.e.m.e.nt I add in the finger snaps too. I know, I know...I'm an idiot.

But it gets the desired effect out of my opponent. Confusion.

"You know the biggest problem with gloating and s...o...b..ating, Nannot you-"

He-it-or whatever the h.e.l.l this thing is, roars at my casual use of the name, interrupting me.

I continue, "You become unaware of your surroundings and the others in it."

BOOM!.

A ma.s.sive .50 caliber round slams into Rhonar's face, sending stone and horn flying.

Its head snaps back and it screams.

ROAR!.

BOOM!.

Another round hits home and spins the ma.s.sive stone monster around.

A shadow pa.s.ses over my head. I look up just in time to see Kane land on the giant's back, and hold on for dear life. He must have climbed the stand and jumped off, I think in amazement.

Rhonar tries to toss him, but Kane digs a large knife into a fold of rock, keeping him on board, for better or worse. He then places his weapon up to the back of the rhino's skull and pulls the trigger.

BOOM!.

BOOM!.

Two ear splitting blasts pound my ear drums, forcing me to cover my ears like the Hear No Evil' monkey. Through the gong-like ringing now filling my head, I see Rhonar fall, head missing. Destroyed.

But Dead?

Can they be killed?

Kane dizzily climbs off the now seven-and-a-half foot headless monster and tumbles to the ground, alive, but exhausted.

Nicole goes to him and helps him sit up.

I go to...Rhonar. I now know that it wasn't it trying to kill us, but The End, which had infiltrated its mind. The pain it suffered was its attempt to deny him and expel the evil.

I kneel down beside the unmoving ma.s.s, close my eyes and pray. I pray for the brute's forgiveness. Rhonar can finally rest in peace after what could only have been centuries of torment. These creatures are not Nightmares-their treatment and slavery is the real nightmare.

I feel a hand on my shoulder and look up through blurry, tear filled eyes. Kane and Nicole are standing over me. Nicole looks saddened, but just Kane looks confused.

"Um, it did just try to kill us?" He says not understanding my emotions.

I give the fallen creature's shoulder a final pat, wipe my eyes and stand, joining the others by a vacant stand. I lift myself up on the now forever-empty pedestal and sit, telling them what happened, the conversation I just had, Nicole not hearing much of it.

"So, The End, is really an ancient elder named, Na-noot?" Kane asks looking over to the stone body, eyebrow raised.

"Nannot," I correct.

"Bless you," He says, without skipping a beat. "And this person, Nuh-Not," he continues, carefully annunciating the name, mocking me. "Can take over your mind once he's allowed in, forever supplying him a backdoor in causing pain and suffering that could cripple the average man." He takes a breath. "Sound about right?"

I nod.

"Well then," He says reloading his gun with a smile. "We're just going to have to fix that."

34.

After retrieving my gun, we head deeper into the, patio of pain, as Kane has come to call it, continuing our search for Omar and my father. If this was any other ancient palace's courtyard it would be a beautiful sight.

The manicured gra.s.s-yes I said gra.s.s-is perfectly cut and well...grey. I bend down and run my hand through it, feeling its soft texture. It reminds me of the gra.s.s you'd find up north in Michigan, or maybe on a local golf course.

The rest of the grounds are decorated with more statues, but these haven't come to life...yet. Upon closer inspection, these particular effigies are fully human in design and ring around the outer perimeter of the clearing. I step up to the closest one, inspecting it. There's a name plate attached to the front of the sculptures stand, identifying the person immortalized there. Unfortunately it's in a language none of us can understand. We inspect a few more of the statues and find the same thing. The one constant is that they are wearing what looks like different types of crowns. It seems this was some sort of mausoleum to the kings of old, the ancient rulers of this land.

"Come on guys, let's go," I say waving them on.

We continue on our quest, towards the foreboding black pyramid. We only get interrupted one more time, too. Fortunately, she wasn't as tough as Rhonar was.

The second Nightmare was another humanoid, this one mixed with a snake-a cobra to be exact. Her body was pure h.o.m.osapien except covered in stone scales, sort of looking like Mystique from the X-Men series. Only this wasn't nearly as head-turning as the movies portrayed it to be, probably because this was real and not some expensive Halloween costume filled with the body of a supermodel. The woman's head was something else altogether.

First off, she sported a four foot long neck that fanned out like a cobra's did. Secondly, the she-snake also had a set of nasty fangs imbedded in her fully human face, complete with some type of venom or other form of crippling toxin. The human quality threw us off a little...until she tried to bite me.

Avoiding the spitting cobra's a.s.sault was easy enough. We just kept out of striking distance and attacked from a distance, focusing on her neck. I'm not exactly thrilled that we've decapitated two heads in the last 30 minutes, but it's d.a.m.n effective.

"They stay dead with no head," as Kane would explain.

Nicole tried to comfort me, knowing that the slaying of the two beasts bothered me by summarizing that we severed the connection to Nannot and released the suffering victim from his grasp. She then went on to add that each one of these things is filled with the same pain and anguish as Rhonar was, and at least we can do some good by liberating them from their physical bondage and psychological torture.

I appreciate the effort, but I'm not listening to a word she says. I'm just looking for my father.

We cautiously make our way down the boulevard, maybe another two hundred yards from the wrought-iron gate I saw in my actual nightmare. Kane is in the lead with Nicole and me bringing up the rear. We scan every nook and cranny before advancing to the next section of pillars and pedestals. Not getting ambushed by a pack of these things would be nice.

Half way through the rows of empty pedestals we reach another of the royal shrines. There's just one BIG, shiny difference with this one. It's huge and it's made of orichalc.u.m.

Instead of matching the more realistic sizes of the other memorials, this one is twice the size. This particular monument reminds me of the Jefferson Memorial in D.C. and is around 18 feet tall, 25 if you add in the height of the stand it's perched on. The features on this man are incredibly life like. His perfect posture screams royalty and his clothing is regal, with flowing robes.

Robes? It can't be?

I run up to the statue, realizing who I'm looking at. I'm in complete shock when the others catch up to me. The Egyptian clothing makes his ident.i.ty a dead giveaway as does the readable name plate, written in common hieroglyphs, some of which I know.

"It's Thoth," I say in utter bewilderment. "The stories are true! He came from this land and travelled east to establish what would become ancient Egypt." I turn to the others, judging by their confused looks, they don't know the legend. Then I remembered I had this conversation with Dad on the plane, not with these two.

"Thoth, the Egyptian G.o.d of writing and math, was said to come from a land to the west' where he was ruler. The information after that is sketchy at best as to why he came, but many supporters of the Atlantean myth believe he may have been the last king of Atlantis and escorted the residents to a new home during the kingdoms final days."

I then notice another symbol, this one gives me a different sort of feeling though...one of hope. Thoth, who is facing the pyramid as if holding it at bay, has his arm stretched out in front of him and is holding something. I take a step back and see the object for what it is. It's an ankh! I think. It being one of the oldest Egyptian hieroglyphs, meaning life, brings a smile to my face.

Good versus Evil.

Life versus Death.

"If this is Thoth...who are the three elders?" Nicole asks.

I don't get to answer.

Pat. Pat. Pat.

Pat. Pat. Pat.

We spin around at the sudden outburst of automatic gunfire coming from back in the stone forest. Apparently, our friends from Zero have come across something unfriendly in the woods of the Atlantean underworld. A big bad wolf perhaps? Either way, I guess Kane's tall tale of seeing shadows in the forest has merit. There must have been a couple of these things roaming the maze of stone. We got lucky.

Pat. Pat. Pat.

Pat. Pat. Pat.

ROAR!.

More gunfire erupts from somewhere in the forest, along with a roar twice as loud as Rhonar's. What could possibly be bigger than the nine-foot tall rhino-nightmare we dispatched earlier? Whatever it is, it's p.i.s.sed and it's bulldozing through some of the stone trees.

Pat. Pat. Pat.

Pat. Pat. Pat.

ROAR!.

Pat. Pat. Pat.

Pat. Pat. Pat.

One thing is clear, this thing is putting up one h.e.l.l of a fight. It took three of us to take down Rhonar. Whatever that thing is, it's going up against half a dozen or so trained a.s.sa.s.sins with a.s.sault rifles.

The three of us look down at the seemingly puny hand guns we are holding and realize how out matched we are. We don't wait for confirmation that the monster survived the a.s.sault, it wouldn't matter. Instead, we run straight for the entrance of the pyramid, to h.e.l.l with caution.

As we pa.s.s through the doorway, I think I may have seen something written in the black stone surface. I recognized the Omega symbol from before and a form of text. But since we don't exactly have time to stop and smell the roses, I'm not 100% sure what it said. But, if it is anything like the other ominous warning we saw earlier, then I would bet money it would say the same thing Save yourself from h.e.l.l.

35.

It takes us all of 26 seconds to sprint the distance to the gate. Not exactly the Flash, but under the circ.u.mstances I think we made d.a.m.n good time. I'm even more surprised that Kane got here without having to stop. He's been holding his side ever since he got slammed by the Rhonar beast.

"You good?" I ask him.

He shrugs and stretches, then winces, and curses, "Bruised ribs for sure, maybe even a broken one somewhere in there. I've had worse. I'll be fine."

Pulling a small pill bottle out from a pocket on the outside of his backpack, Kane pops the top and throws a white pill into his mouth. He then flushes it down with some water, Nicole and I watching him dubiously.

"What's in the bottle?" I ask.

"800 milligram ibuprofen. Why, you want some?"

As if knowing my answer he tosses the bottle to me. I immediately procure a pill from the bottle and follow suit, swallowing it down with some water.

I offer the painkiller to Nicole, holding it up for her to take, but she shakes her head. She goes to turn, but notices that I'm still holding the bottle up. The woman may be a real life Tomb Raider, but even Lara has her limits.

I shake the bottle, rattling its contents.

Nicole-like a praying mantis-s.n.a.t.c.hes it from my hand and dry swallows one of the capsules, making both Kane and I grimace and her smile.

Nicole nods a thank you to Kane and flicks the bottle back to him.

Kane nods his approval, "You know, at first I pegged you for some uptight b.i.t.c.h who was more show than substance."

"And now?" Nicole asks honestly interested in what Kane has to say, but not happy about him calling her a b.i.t.c.h.

"And now..." He says choosing his words carefully. "I still think you're one." He smiles. "But you're my kind of b.i.t.c.h."

I just stand there silent as dead man, waiting for Nicole to pull her Ruger and shoot the big dumb ox. But instead she just shrugs her shoulders, quickly nods in agreement and turns back towards the gate.

G.o.d, I love this woman! I think. There is no way I'd have the b.a.l.l.s to say that to her, but it's amazing to know she has that type of personality.

"Ahem," I say through a cough, motioning to the gloomy entrance. "May we?"

Kane winks and steps up to the already opened gate and clicks on his flashlight, having lost his Night Vision Specs in the fight with Rhonar. I laugh to myself about it. He was right when he said that he constantly loses his gla.s.ses. I just hope it's not always under similar circ.u.mstances.

Nicole follows his example, drawing both gun and light. I switch off my gla.s.ses and join in with my light for their benefit. Plus, having two LED based light sources would really screw with my night vision. We then slowly creep into the ma.s.sive structure, listening for anything and everything.

"Where the h.e.l.l did they go?" I whisper. "You think something chased them through here?"

"Let's hope so, because they're as good as dead if they're still outside," Kane replies. "This place is crawling with these Nightmares, not to mention the Zero hit squad."