Fic: If There's Going to be Any Hysterics...
Title: If There's Going to be Any Hysterics... (ch. 2)
Fandom: Dresden Files (TV)/The Mummy
Spoilers: Spoils the film The Mummy and probably What About Bob? and Soul Beneficiary.
Rating: PG
Summary: Jonathan informs his sister of the Council's latest... assignment. Follows If There's Going to be Any Hysterics, They'll Come From Me!
Notes: So apparently Hysterics lied when it told me it was finished. Tsk. Warning: crack.


“EVY!”

Evelyn Carnahan O’Connell had been enjoying a rather lovely day until her brother shouted directly in her ear. She jolted, and accidently flung the cup of tea she was holding into Jonathan’s face.

“Well! I like that!” her brother huffed, brushing ineffectually at his jacket with quick, nervous motions. “I come to you for help and get drenched.”

Evy ignored his dramatics. “What is so important that you had to come tearing down here and scare me half to death?” she demanded, slamming her book shut and twisting to look up at him.

Jonathan paled.

That was not remarkable in and of itself—Jonathan frequently paled, and at the most inconsequential things, too. He was quite amusing with cockroaches, especially after the incident with the scarabs. But there was something about the way his hands started to shake…

“Jonathan?” she prompted, starting to feel uneasy.

“Evy,” he repeated, smoothing his hands against his sides. “Evy. That box I got. Who brought it?”

She blinked. “The Royal Mail, I suppose. What’s that got to do with anything?”

Jonathan shook his head. “No postmark. I don’t suppose that American of yours saw anyone.”

Evy snorted. “No, Rick did not see anyone. We were out at the museum when the mail came. Why? What’s in it?”

“A skull,” Jonathan said, baldly. “The Council sent it to me.”

“A what?” She jumped to her feet, spilling her book and now-empty teacup every which way and not really caring. “The Council? Is it a threat?”

That was all they needed, the Council getting on Jonathan’s back again. He wasn’t a very good wizard, but he obeyed the Laws, and he’d done them a favor, helping to put Imhotep back in his grave where he bloody well belonged. Just the thought of those stupid old men threatening her dear, silly brother… “Ooh, I’ll—“

“It’s not a threat,” Jonathan interrupted, and gave her a wan smile. “It’s not as bad as all that, old mum. It’s… an assignment, I suppose you could say.”

Evy sat again, slowly, and crossed her legs with great precision. “Oh, really. An assignment. After how long?”

“Evy,” Jonathan said, again. “It’s Imhotep.”

She did not move. In fact, she did not move with such emphasis that Jonathan began to sweat, apparently out of habit.

“Imhotep,” she said, calmly. Too calmly. She could hear the impending hysterics in her own voice.

“Evy,” Jonathan began, hastily, in his let’s-not-cause-a-scene-now voice. It was the voice he usually saved for when he’d done something horrible and didn’t want to get yelled at for it. “It’s not terrible, now, Evy, I promise. They’ve cursed him, stuck him in his skull for good, and he can’t get out of it, and between you and me I think the stodgers at the Council are much better than the Medjai at that sort of thing. When they curse someone he jolly well stays cursed, so you see there’s nothing to worry about, really…”

“Jonathan,” Evy said, in the tone she usually used in response to that particular voice of her brother’s. Where his suggested quiet in the interest of keeping a low profile, hers promised one of two immediate futures; either he stopped talking, or she would make him.

Jonathan, as he usually did, chose the former and hastily closed his mouth.

“You’re kidding,” Evy said. She fervently hoped he was, anyway.

He mutely shook his head, a look on his face like a kicked puppy.

“Oh, dear God.”