I fought the urge to scream like a little girl and leap into the air, but there were no tables for me to leap upon. Instead, I tried to pretend I was extremely manly and glanced at Osiris, who seemed to take the bugs in stride. He approached the door and tentatively placed his left hand against his own symbol. A shudder went through the room, blowing across the back of my neck like a soft wind stirring the grass in a graveyard at night.
White light spilled from Osiris’s fingertips, flowing outward like a gentle ocean wave and crashing into Anubis’s black light. The energy called by each of them mixed and warped as the door inched backward, scraping along the stone with a sound that made my teeth hurt.
With a jolt, the door lurched backward several feet, revealing a passageway barely big enough for me to move through. Darkness spilled out from behind the doorway and where it touched the scurrying bugs they froze, stopping in near mid-motion.
“What the hell is through there?” I asked, fear lacing my words as frost crept out from the passageway, coating the floor and walls with a sheet of ice.
“That is where the great ice dragon Frost sleeps,” Osiris said, and I instantly pictured the effeminate man in a ball gown. “You’ll need to ask him to let you into the prison.”
“Um, I thought we were under the prison now? Wait…” I held up my hands, making a time out gesture. “What do you mean me? Are you not coming?”
“No, we need to hold the door. If we let it go, it will slam shut, and we won’t be able to open it again for a hundred years,” Anubis said, voice strained with exertion.
“And I’ll be trapped inside?” I asked already knowing the answer and hating them because of it.
“Yes. You need to make it through the tunnel and into Frost’s lair before we lack the strength to hold the door open. If it closes before you reach him, you’ll be trapped in the in-between.” Anubis turned back toward the door as he spoke, his muscles corded with effort as sweat dripped down his well-sculpted body. “Hurry.”
“But what am I supposed to do in there? You haven’t given me even the faintest clue,” I snapped, a combination of worry and annoyance filling my voice. It was one thing to go see Frost. It was quite another to go see him without any idea why I was going to see him.
“I am absolutely positive you’ll figure it out. Now hurry up,” Osiris replied, strain evident on his face. “Good luck and Thes?”
“What?” I grumbled, annoyed with his lack of details as I darted through the opening.
“Don’t give him any balloons,” he added like it was the most important information in the world.
“Why not?” I called, glancing at him over my shoulder as my sandals fast froze to the ground beneath my feet.
“You can’t trust an ice queen not to let it go,” he replied, shooting me a wry grin as I let out an exasperated sigh. I knew he was just trying to make me feel better, but it hadn’t worked. In fact, if anything, it’d made me warier because he had tried. It was weird. Him trying to reassure me made me realize he was worried, and if Osiris was worried, I sure as hell was too.
A chill crept along my skin as I stared down the tunnel ahead. Every surface was covered in thick ice, and the floor and ceiling were brimming with crystalline stalactites and jutting stalagmites. It was just like the cave of doom I’d seen when I’d met Frost so very long ago. The ground beneath my feet rumbled, and I turned to see the door slide back toward the entrance a fraction of an inch.
“Damn,” I muttered and took off down the corridor in a dead sprint. My sandals tore from the ice, but the chill was getting to me. Every breath froze me from the inside and every exhalation produced a cloud of freezing mist.
Without think, I spit a mouthful of saliva into the air. It froze before it even hit the floor and shattered. The ground rumbled again, but this time it came from in front of me and was more like the distant beating of a massive heart. Frost hadn’t exactly been unhappy with me the last time I’d seen him, but the guy had certainly been weird. The thought of seeing him again didn’t exactly fill me with excitement. Still, what was I supposed to do? Get trapped in the in-between? Screw that.
I had only gone a few yards when the cavern began to close off, shrinking so I had to duck my head and edge carefully forward. Then it got worse, and I had to start crawling on my hands and knees. The glow of the ice faded, leaving me unable to see more than a few feet in front of me as icy cold seeped through the knees and elbows of my tunic. My teeth chattered so hard, I heard their echo. Still, I pressed forward, even as the walls pressed so close to my sides, their icy touch on my skin.
“Who goes there?” called an ancient, reptilian voice that carried ice and sleet with it. Wind rushed by me, frosting my eyebrows.
“Thes!” I yelled, surprised I could even make a sound over my teeth chattering. To say my tunic wasn’t providing adequate cover from the cold was an understatement.
“Thes, how are you?” I felt a hand on my shoulder, so cold it was like someone had touched my skin with liquid nitrogen.
“Okay,” I replied between shivers, glancing behind me to see the Frost peering at me. His ice blue eyes were filled with a mixture of confusion and delight. He gestured with one hand and the space around us opened up, the ice actually receding to allow us room to stand.
“Why are you here?” He asked as he stood up and glanced back at the way I’d come. The movement made his ankle-length, white-blond hair whirl around his black-cocktail-dress-clad body like a cape. “Someone has opened one of the doors to my domain, and I came to see who could possibly be so stupid as to disturb me. Imagine my surprise when I found you of all people.” He rubbed his black goatee with his fingers. “Care to tell me why you’re so very interested in my company, Mr. Mercer?”
“Sure, but I’d rather we did that back in your lair so I don’t get trapped out here in no man’s land.” I smiled at him as best I could, while I got clumsily to my knees. It was a miracle I’d managed it without falling because I couldn’t feel my hands or feet. I sincerely hoped he’d take me somewhere a tad bit warmer to continue our conversation. Who would have thought a frost dragon would like it below freezing? Then again, I guess the cold didn’t bother him anyway.
“Why, Thes, if I didn’t know you had another in your heart, I would think you were anxious for me to take you home.” He cocked a wry smile at me and arched his perfect, white as snow eyebrows a couple times. Before I could respond, he strode forward, entwined his white-gloved fingers in mine, and stepped into the shadows cast by the icy cave. Frosty stairs opened before him like magic, descending into the depths of the ice. More steps didn’t appear in front of him until the moment his foot fell upon them, but that didn’t seem to worry him terribly. Even though he could totally slip off of them, especially since he was wearing a pair of black stilettos so tall, it’d have given even my sister pause.
“Yeah, well, priorities,” I replied, hoping he didn’t lead me off into oblivion, but as soon as the thought flashed through my brain, we appeared at a rather simple looking door carved from the ice. He reached out with his free hand and pushed it open. It was still cold inside, but I could tell it was several degrees warmer than the in-between.
“Indeed.” He released my hand and held the door for me, gesturing for me to enter. “But if you gave me a balloon, I wouldn’t let it go.”
I let those words rattle around in my brain as I stepped past him. Was he coming on to me? The thought made me shudder, and not just because he was male and I was male. No, it was more because he was an immensely powerful dragon who could swallow me whole.
The room itself was pretty much exactly like I remembered it when I’d been here with Sekhmet. That is to say, it was mostly a square covered in a light dusting of blue frost and little else. Bits of furniture were scattered here and there, but they didn’t look very comfortable since they looked like they had been carved from blocks of ice.
The door behind me shut with an ominous click that echoed through the otherwise silent room
. I whirled around to see Frost standing there, leaning against the icy door. White mist flowed around him like a cloak as he stared at me with his piercing ice blue eyes.
“Well, Thes, I’ve kept my bargain. You are in my humble home.” He gestured around the room. “Why are you here?”
“Honestly, I sort of have no idea, but I’ll try to explain,” I replied, feeling heat rise on my cheeks as the dragon shook his head in sad acceptance.
“So it isn’t a whole lot different from last time. Very well.” His words made me blush. The last time I had run into him had been pretty similar.
Frost strode past me and sat down on his sofa, evidently ready to accept my lack of knowledge as par for the course. It was a little disconcerting that he thought so little of me, but not nearly as much as when he stretched out so I could see way more of his milk white legs than I cared to see. “Enlighten me to the best of your ability.”
“There’s a being who cannot be named circling his host. When he finally convinces the host to accept him, they will merge and become something called the destroyer. The destroyer will proceed to kill everyone and everything to the best of his abilities.” I took a deep breath as Frost watched me completely impassively. “I am trying to get back into the prison of the gods so I can release Nephthys and Set from the influence of he who cannot be named so they, in turn, will release Horus. Then, hopefully, Horus can rally the gods to fight the destroyer.”
“Seems reasonable,” Frost said when I finished speaking even though what I’d said hardly sounded reasonable to me. “What do you want me to do?”
“I’m not sure. Anubis and Osiris said we were going to go fight Nephthys and Set, but then led me here. I’m assuming you’re supposed to help me somehow.” I gave him a pleading smile.
“Oh, I can help you,” Frost replied, crossing his arms over his chest. “But then you’ll owe me two favors. Is that really what you want?”
“Is there another way?” I asked because I had to ask even though I knew there probably wasn’t.
Frost tapped his chin with one white-gloved finger a couple times as he looked into the distance thinking. “No.”
“Then yes, I’ll owe you two favors,” I said without hesitation because I really had no other choice. I had to rescue Horus. If I didn’t, sure the destroyer would rise and blah, blah, blah, but at the core of it, I didn’t care about that nearly as much as I cared about getting Sekhmet back safe and sound.
I’d tried to keep her imprisonment out of my mind, tried to focus on the mission, but as I stood here in the hollowed out ice cavern with Frost, I remembered how I’d felt when I’d seen her trapped within the ice, battered and bruised. I’d wanted to save her then, and I’d barely known her. Now, well, let’s just say that if all I had to do was owe an ancient, unstoppable dragon an extra favor, I could live with that.
“Very well, I shall lend you some of my power to rescue Horus,” Frost said, studying my face for what felt like an eternity before standing and walking toward me. He pulled his left hand free of his glove and held it out to me. His fingernails gleamed like black ice in the ambient light of the room.
I took his hand and rime exploded across my flesh, turning my blood into ice water and making my heart beat slower and slower in my chest. Frost leaned down and placed his lips against my forehead. The touch of them was like being stabbed in the brain with an icicle while sucking down a mondo-sized slushy. Freezing air whipped up around me, enveloping me in a titanic hurricane of sleet and snow.
“Good bye, Thes. I wish you well,” he said, releasing my hand and allowing the winds to whisk me away. They carried me up through the ice like I was no more substantial than a dream, and as my atoms disassembled themselves, the world spread out before me. It was vast, empty, and cold enough to make Frost seem warm by comparison.
Chapter 17
I hit the ground in a whirlwind of sleet and snow, Frost’s power thrumming through me like electricity. Hoarfrost spread out along the stone where I stood, surveying the room. I was back inside the prison of the gods. Horus’s cage was just a few feet away, still blazing like a funeral pyre though the heat no longer bothered me. I exhaled slowly, and my breath came out in a cloud of white mist. I reached out toward the fire writhing around Horus’s prison and felt the heart of the flames. It pulsed with the burning need to consume and devour, but the fire’s appetite was nothing compared to the senseless hunger of the remorseless winter.
My footsteps crackled along the brittle steel beneath my feet as the surrounding air solidified and fell to the ground as hail. I licked my lips. The air tasted of life. It was like rich candy on my tongue, sweet and melty. I sucked in another breath, and the fire dimmed and sputtered. Its heat filled me, extinguishing upon my tongue as I swallowed it all.
There was a flicker of movement to my left. I spun toward it. Nephthys raced toward me. Her hands were curled into fists. Her lithe body was encased in crystalline armor the color of freshly dried blood. Her eyes were set in determination, but within them, I could see something more, could see recognition scurry across their depths.
“Why have you come here?” she asked, and I got the feeling her words were not directed at me.
I cocked my head toward her and raised my other hand into the air, offering it to her. “Why not?” I replied, and my voice was like the wind howling across snowcapped peaks.
“You should not interfere in the business of gods,” Nephthys said, and I got the distinct impression she wasn’t talking to me, but to Frost himself. She didn’t bother to take my hand as she stepped up to me and poked me hard in the chest with one slender finger.
I gripped her wrist and frost spread out along her skin. The dragon’s anger filled me as I spoke. “You should not be so arrogant as to tell me what to do, Nephthys.” I tapped my chest with my other hand. “I do what I want.”
The sound of her wrist snapping as I threw her across the room was strangely satisfying. She crashed into the wall across the arena with a splat that reminded me of a bug smacking into the windshield of a big rig on the freeway. Ignoring her as she collapsed to the ground, I strode toward Horus’s cage.
The heat grew with every step I took, but it didn’t bother me. I sucked in another breath that tasted like cinnamon and candy canes. Then I exhaled. A gust of wind burst from my lungs, licking across the ground and leaving snow and sleet in its wake. It hit the cage, and for a moment, the flames dimmed enough for me to see the glowing embers beneath. Then the fire roared back to life, flowing hungrily over the blackened wooden bars of the cage.
The flame might be strong, but the insatiable need of hungering winter was forever. I gripped one of the bars with my bare hand, and the fire died. Ice spread along charred wood in my grip, turning it white blue before the whole of it shattered into powder.
A horrific scream pierced my ears, but I ignored it as I grabbed another bar. My power flowed outward just before something slammed into me like a freight train. My body cartwheeled brokenly as things inside me snapped. When I finally crashed into the metallic wall of the room, my vision was hazy and lopsided like I’d just ridden on a high speed merry-go-round.
Nephthys stood before the cage, her body broken and battered. Her once pristine armor was cracked and broken. She had the head of an ape now, but the rest of her was still that of a beautiful woman. Her eyes were angry as she reached out toward the cage. Flame leapt from her fingertips, filling the space where the bars had been. The entire cage shuddered, and a scream exploded from within as the fire rose higher and higher, filling in even the spaces between the bars.
Heat poured off of the prison as I got slowly to my feet. My head was woozy, but as I stumbled toward her, the heat hit my flesh and vanished, and as it did so, I felt better.
“Stop Nephthys. If you do, I won’t hurt you.” As I said the words, wind whipped across the space between us and struck the goddess, throwing her backward.
She hit the ground covered in ice. Thin frozen crystals clung to her ha
ir and eyelashes as she lay in a pool of frosty water. The fiery bars she’d created winked out with a tragic gasp of smoke. Horus surged toward the opening, but it wasn’t yet wide enough for the falcon god to escape. I’d have to break a few more bars to release him completely.
I sprinted toward the cage, but before I’d made it a few steps, Nephthys was back on her feet. Her head had changed back to normal, but her human mouth was opened impossibly wide. I threw my arms up to protect myself as a gout of flame leapt from her throat and slammed into me. I didn’t feel the heat of it even as the ground beneath my feet melted into a molten puddle. Still, I could feel my power ebbing, weakening under her onslaught of godly might.
Winter stretched out around me, protecting me from her fiery breath as I stepped forward, pushing through her assault. I reached down with one arm and gripped Khufu’s khopesh in my hand. She took a step toward me, and the torrent of flame doubled in size, sending me sliding backward across the molten floor.
I don’t know how I managed to do it, but I stepped sideways, whirling to gain momentum as I hurled Khufu’s khopesh in a deadly arc. The sword flew from my hand as Nephthys adjusted to douse me in still more flame. The weapon sailed through the air and caught her in the side. It tore through her armor like it was made of warm butter and sliced into her flesh, spilling her golden blood.
Her fiery breath winked out as she stared at the wound, mouth opening and closing in shock. Before she could recover, I leapt through the air and landed on top of her chest with my feet, driving her to the ground with my weight. Her head smacked into the metal, and her eyes went glassy as I reared back and slammed one icy fist into her face. Bones broke in both my hand and her head, but when I pulled back to swing again, I realized she was unconscious.
Not wanting to miss my opportunity to free Horus, I bounded to my feet and sprinted for the cage. A bolt of scarlet lightning struck the ground in front of me, and as I tried to veer around it while simultaneously throwing my arm up to block the sudden glare, Set drove both of his flaming khopeshes into my torso before ripping them outward and spilling my entrails across the cold metal floor. Then he kicked me in the chest hard enough to crack my ribs and drive the breath from my lungs. I toppled onto my back as blinding agony swept through me.
Unwrapped: An Urban Fantasy Adventure (Werewolves vs. Mummies Book 3) Page 12
