Under Wraps: An Urban Fantasy Adventure (Werewolves vs. Mummies Book 1)

by J. A. Cipriano

  “Aziza, don’t do it.” The words barely left my lips as she sprang, one hand swinging her sword in a wide arc at my head. Purple energy trailed off of her as she moved, making me think of a ghost leaving its essence behind.

  I twisted. The blade swept by me, so close that the wind of it buffeted my clothing. Without thinking, I drove my right hand outward, catching her in the throat with the heel of my palm. The blow knocked her backward on her butt, the sword slipping from her hand and skittering across the stone.

  “Setne, what is going on?” I asked, and my voice was only partially mine. It had the spirit of the wind in it, thrumming under my words like the first stirrings of a winter storm.

  “I’m not sure.” Setne swallowed. He shook himself from his trance and took a couple quick steps forward. Aziza regained her feet. Her eyes threw daggers at me as I lifted my left foot and planted it square in the middle of her chest so that the ball of my foot rested on her scarab pendant. The light of it throbbed, sending amethyst shadows scampering across the dark stone.

  “Move again, and I’ll end you, jailer,” the wind said with my mouth. One of my hands reached down and plucked the book from her satchel. It felt good in my hand, like a drink of iced tea after a day in the hot sun. Relaxation rippled through my body, and I heaved a sigh of relief.

  The cover began to swirl into a litany of colors. The wolf buried deep within me raised its ears and inclined its head toward the book of Thoth. It glanced around, one slow, sweeping gesture that scanned the room for predators.

  “You’re too late, Neferkaptah,” Aziza said, her mouth puckered up like she’d bitten into a particularly sour lemon. Little silver sparks leapt from the book’s surface and zipped through the air before dying away like firecrackers in the night.

  The volume fell open in my hand as green mist swarmed over it. Deep down inside me, the wolf began to pace restlessly, ears perked. The wound in my abdomen twisted and writhed like some giant beast was pawing through my insides. It wasn’t painful per se, but it sure felt invasive.

  Hieroglyphs brighter than the sun filled my vision, making black spots dance across my eyes. I tried to look away, but the wind held me transfixed upon the pages as they flickered in my hands. My flesh squirmed, bones shifting beneath my skin. I tilted my head up toward where the moon would be if it were in the room. My wolf cried out. A low rumble elicited from my lips as they curled back to reveal its fangs.

  Silver light burst from the book, filling the room like a metallic sunrise as the pages revealed a wolf-headed warrior ascending a pyramid, one clawed hand gouged into the surface of the stone.

  I turned the book in my hand and shoved the pages into Aziza’s face. “Do you see this?” the wolf roared and the wind howled. “This is what you have done.”

  Aziza’s face went perfectly blank as she stared up at me. “No…” she whispered, voice so faint that I could barely detect the hint of it. The wolf’s ears perked, catching the faintest twinge of a sound so distant that it had to have been miles away. It tasted of fear, of panic, of the rabbit dashing away into the bushes. It smelled of prey.

  I licked my lips.

  Black smoke burst from Aziza’s lips, eyes, and well, pretty much every hole in her head. It exploded upward, reminding me of the time the great tree had burned and filled the sky with thick, dark smoke for miles. Bits of paper white ash flitted through the air on unseen currents as darkness pooled against the silver backdrop of the room.

  Aziza shuddered, her body writhing beneath my foot as we stood, the wolf, the wind, and I.

  “You may have spoken the words,” the wind raged. “But you will not succeed in entering the temple. Not without this.” I held the book out once more, and as I did so, it burst into a million golden beetles. They scurried across my flesh, back bright and glittering, before disappearing within me.

  Chapter 10

  “We’re not going to talk about anything that happened, are we? Even though you stabbed me in the stomach and left me to die.” The words tumbled out of my mouth though I wasn’t quite sure I’d said them aloud until Aziza turned and looked at me, eyes half-staring into the distance as thoughts writhed beneath their surface.

  We were walking along the bank of the Nile. Toward where? I wasn’t sure. Thick mud squelched as I moved, covering my feet in the stuff. Unfortunately, that sound was the only response that greeted me. I sighed, a small explosion of air that made Aziza’s eyebrow quirk upward just a hair.

  Thanks to Setne, I’d managed to carry her to the surface and make camp. After what felt like hours, she had woken up, and without even saying a word to me, proceeded to walk down the riverbank. Tromping off like it wasn’t filled with crocodiles, evil mummies, and mud. That had been about an hour ago. Since then, she’d offered little in the way of explanation, and every time I tried to talk to her, she either blew me off or stayed silent. Whatever was going on in her mind was clearly for her brain only. Did she even have a brain? Didn’t they remove those from mummies?

  “What’s there to say? That I got taken over by some spirit? That it trapped me inside my own head so all I could do was scream and shout, and do little else of consequence while it gutted you and stole the book?” she snapped, swallowing back an additional retort, her throat convulsing with the effort. The sound of her voice was like a box of knives strewn across the floor. Pointed, sharp, and dangerous.

  I looked away from her, glancing off into the distance so I couldn’t see the rage starting to fracture her face. “I’m not trying to upset you or anything, Aziza. I know it must have been horrible.” I swallowed, unsure of what else to say. I wasn’t exactly the most comforting person. My parents had subscribed to that whole tough love thing, and as an Alpha in my pack, I wasn’t exactly encouraged to talk about my feelings. Feelings were weakness, and weakness was for omegas.

  Aziza didn’t reply, but her hands balled into fists. I could tell she wanted to yell at me from the way her top lip quivered. Her scent changed, taking on sort of a muskiness that reminded me of brambles and fire. She opened her mouth, but sound didn’t come out. Her mouth closed, compressing into a thin line.

  Without thinking, I reached out toward her, presumably to put my hand on her shoulder? I wasn’t really sure, but before I could do so, she slapped my hand away and turned toward the river in a huff. A small sob wracked her body as she stood, back to me, and shoulders shaking.

  “I don’t need your pity, Thes.” Her words were tight and strained, like a ball of razor wire, and I knew that untangling them would leave me cut and bloodied. I wasn’t sure I was up to it. Still, staring at her was tearing me up inside, leaving something raw and unfinished inside. I sucked in a barbed wire breath and shut my eyes for a second.

  “I don’t pity you, Zeez.” I swallowed, dropping my hand to my side. “I feel bad that something horrible happened to you, but it isn’t pity.”

  She said nothing, and the silence between us stretched out into infinity.

  “Come on, let’s go,” I said, and my words sounded hollow and empty in the air. I smiled, tossing the back of her head my best ‘it will be alright’ smile. It didn’t seem to do any good.

  “Okay,” she squeaked after what felt like an hour, and her head inclined into the barest nod. She spun on her heel, and her cheeks were bright and puffy from tears. Unsure of what to do, I watched as she started forward, putting one foot in front of the other in a slow line.

  “You know we’re going to stop Khufu, right?” I said because I didn’t know what else to say. “We’ll pay him back for everything.”

  “I know that,” she said, and I got the feeling she was leaving something unsaid. I’d gotten that feeling a lot since she’d awoken. I knew that part of her silence was related to the takeover, but somehow, I didn’t think that was everything. There had been a look in her eyes when she had woken up that told me she knew something I didn’t. It was something she knew because of what had happened when I had absorbed the book of Thoth.

  Only
she wasn’t telling me what it was. I wasn’t sure how I felt about that, either. Part of me wanted to grab her by the shoulders and shake her until she told me exactly what was going on. I knew that part of me well. It was fear. It was scared something bad had happened. It filled my mouth with a sour taste I couldn’t quite dismiss. It was like the faintest stirrings of a sore throat signaling a cold you desperately wanted to fade before it got worse. But just like with the sore throat, I knew that it would get worse before it got better. Maybe I just needed some spiritual vitamin C?

  Still, it was hard to be really scared because my wolf was back. I could feel him in the back of my mind, head on his paws as he looked out my eyes. Absorbing the book didn’t seem to have worried him. If it didn’t worry my wolf, it shouldn’t have worried me. Unlike most other Alphas, my wolf was a little bit of a scaredy cat.

  It was actually the reason I’d moved from beta to Alpha a few years back. Because my wolf was so damn paranoid, he leapt at the first sign of a threat, all gnashing teeth and flashing claws. He reduced enemies to smithereens before they had a chance to throw more than an untoward glance in our direction. After it had happened a few times, others had backed off, and I had become an Alpha, albeit a reluctant one. The thing was, no one screws with Alphas.

  I always knew that one day this would end badly for me, and because of that, I was hyper aware of my wolf. I couldn’t always control him or my rage, but I tried really hard to let things slide off me. It’d also had a strange effect, at least around the other wolves. They assumed that because I ignored things, I was strong enough for their antics not to matter. Somehow, they bothered me even less, which was good.

  All that being said, I was still pissed at her betraying me. Even though I knew it wasn’t her fault, what with the possession and everything, part of me wanted to grab her by her stupid neck and shake until a prize came out. And then there was the book thing. It worried me, and Aziza’s reaction was worrying me more. Why wouldn’t she tell me what was on her mind? What was she hiding?

  “Say, Zeez,” I said, but before I could say more, she cut me off.

  “Why do you keep calling me that?” she asked, glancing at me with half-narrowed eyes. It made her amethyst eyes look like twin slits of lavender glass. “That is not my name.”

  “It’s just a nickname,” I replied, shrugging, “If it bugs you, I could go back to calling you Aziza.”

  “I don’t know if we’re close enough for you to be giving me a nickname.” The barest hint of a smile crossed her face, and her face thawed just a touch. It was the first smile I’d seen since she had woken up.

  “Actually, you’ve been calling me by a nickname the whole time. My name is Theseus. It's why I go by Thes, though. You might not understand what it’s like to be named after a Greek hero, but where I come from, it isn’t exactly the best name to have.”

  “Why is that?” she asked. “If it belonged to a hero, it must be a strong name.”

  “I guess.” I shrugged. Theseus had been the guy who killed the minotaur and done a whole bunch of other crazy tasks. To be fair, I’d never really read the mythology behind it, so for all I knew he was a pretty cool guy. You’d think I would have, but honestly, it always felt a little arrogant, as though I was trying to compare myself to a mythological hero.

  Aside from that, going to high school in the twenty-first century with a name like Theseus was a bit of a downer. It stopped being cool in like third grade. Being named Theseus was right up there with being named Perseus. Although I was pretty sure if someone was named that, he’d probably use a nickname too.

  “So what were you going to ask me?” she asked, batting her long black eyelashes at me. I wasn’t sure if she did it on purpose, but it made my stomach do a little flip flop.

  “Um…” I said because I didn’t have anything better to say right then. I shook my head and looked off into the distance. It was nothing but desolate sand for miles and miles. I sighed. There was no good way to ask, really.

  “Do you know what happened with the book?” I asked, and as I did, Aziza seemed to deflate just a touch. She bit her lip and looked away from me, staring out over the waters of the Nile. Great, neither of us were good at eye contact.

  “Yes.” The word had an ominous quality to it, like the crackle of distant thunder in a grey sky.

  “Will you tell me?” I asked, doing my best to ignore the fact that I had to pull the information out of her. Throughout this journey, she had been more than willing to share every facet, every single iota of information with me. So why was she so reluctant to tell me this? Was it really that bad?

  “Thes, you’re going to die.” It took me a moment to process what she said. Even then, it didn’t seem right. How could I die?

  “How could I die?” I asked, reaching out toward her and spinning her so that I was staring into her face. Tears lined the edges of her eyes, threatening to spill out at any time and my heart wrenched. Was she telling the truth? No… no she couldn’t be.

  “Anyone who uses the book of Thoth dies.” She looked away, not meeting my eyes as she stared past me into the distance. “And before you ask why we went after it, remember that I am already dead. So is Khufu. It cannot harm us.” She swallowed. “But you? You absorbed the book, so how could you not die?”

  “So you don’t know for sure?” I asked, and an undeserved feeling of relief washed over me. “You’re just assuming then?”

  “Well… yes, but—”

  “If it’s just a rumor, then I’m not worried. I’m not a normal guy, remember? I’m a werewolf.” I smiled as I wrapped my arms around her, pulling her against my chest. She felt good pressed there, fitting against me like a puzzle piece, her body warm and soft. I inhaled a breath that smelled of lavender and cinnamon.

  “Perhaps you should be,” said a low, gravelly voice behind me.

  I spun so quickly that I actually pulled Aziza off her feet and wound up toppling to the ground with her on top of me. I looked up, and my heart leapt into my throat. Shrouded against the sun so that he was like a black statue, a tall, bronze-skinned man stood. In one hand, he held a spear that glittered like polished obsidian. He bent down toward me, his other hand reaching out as if to help me up.

  He wasn’t a man at all. Instead of a face, he had the head of a black-furred jackal. His huge jaws were curled into a smile that reminded me of my pack leader the moment before he taught me some kind of painful lesson. It was a smile that made my wolf leap to his feet, ears straight up, jaws just on the edge of curling into a snarl.

  “Anubis…” Aziza growled, and the anger in her voice left me unable to speak. This was Anubis? The god of death? Why was he here, why now? Was he coming to claim me like Aziza said? And why was she so mad at him? Shouldn’t she be nice to him so he didn’t, I don’t know, turn her into a toad?

  He reached out and gripped my wrist, pulling me to my feet like I was weightless. It was sort of weird because Aziza was on top of me, and she tumbled to the ground in an annoyed heap. I was about to say something about it, but his eyes glowed like a pair of enormous rubies with flames flickering around the edges.

  “Hello, Thes.” He nodded toward Aziza who was still lying on the ground, mouth clenched together so hard, her jaw-muscles stood out against her flesh. “Jailer.”

  “Um… hello,” I squeaked. You would think that by now I would have gotten used to meeting Egyptian Deities, but really, I hadn’t. Every time it happened, I sort of forgot how to speak.

  “I have a problem, Thes.” Anubis smiled, baring his huge, dagger-like teeth, and the wolf inside me raised its hackles. “There seems to be a number of mummies on the loose within my realm. I would stop them, but unfortunately, Osiris has disappeared, leaving me to deal with the entirety of the underworld myself.”

  “What a jerk,” I murmured as Aziza got to her feet. She nodded once, but I don’t think she was referring to Osiris.

  “Indeed. You go and ask for one day off and instead of granting it, he just takes of
f like a jackass, leaving me with even more work.” Anubis shook his head. “Anyway, as we both know, the jailer had one job, to keep the mummies locked up. She’s obviously failed at her only task since there’s a full on mummy invasion going on down below.” A faint glimmer passed through his eyes as he gestured toward Aziza’s still seething form. “I want to bring you down there. Perhaps you can stop them before they release even more prisoners. What do you say?” He raised an eyebrow at me.

  Why me? The thought twisted my insides into a knot. I was just a werewolf and knew virtually nothing about mummies while Aziza was the jailer responsible for keeping the mummies at bay. Of the two of us, Aziza was clearly the better choice, so there had to be something else going on here… I just wasn’t sure what. Either way, I was pretty sure it wouldn’t be good for me and my quest to save Connor’s soul.

  I glanced over at Aziza, but her face was perfectly blank. Still her scent had changed and her hands were curled into fists. She was angry, why? Was it with Anubis, or how he had dismissed her?

  Anubis followed my gaze until his eyes rested on Aziza. He sighed and waved his hand. “I’ll even let you bring her along. You know, so she can pretend like she’s helping.”

  I was about to tell him how we were very busy and that I had a soul to rescue when Aziza shot me a look that made me clamp my mouth shut.

  “We’d be honored to assist you, oh great and wise Anubis.” It looked like she was about to say more, but even though her mouth kept moving, no sound came out. She reached up and rubbed her throat with one hand, her eyes burning with hatred.

  I tried to say something, to protest, but I found that I couldn’t talk. Every word stuck in my mouth like peanut butter.

  “Excellent,” Anubis replied and waved his hand in front of us. The air between us shimmered, taking on a haziness that swirled like the surface of a lake after dust had been kicked up. “After you,” he added, gesturing toward the spot. “Step right up. Don’t be afraid.”