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

by J. A. Cipriano

  “Actually not,” he replied, absently driving his spear though the back of her neck and pinning her to the ground. A horrible wheezing gasp filled the air as she tried to reach back and wrap her fingers around the weapon. Her hands only succeeded in brushing limply against it before falling emptily to her sides. “My parents were quite happily married, unlike yours. Do you Menhit even know who your parents are?”

  He turned back toward me, apparently unconcerned that he’d just speared a goddess through the throat. While she seemed pretty well incapacitated, I was more than a little worried she was going to call down a meteor to kill everyone in the vicinity.

  “I’m pretty sure they spawn in the water like frogs.” He shrugged his shoulders and rubbed his goatee with one hand. “Who is to say? Now where were we? Oh yes, Thes, you need to come with me if you want to live.”

  “Uh… why is that?” I asked, trying to swallow my fear. It was then that I realized I couldn’t feel my wolf. It was like when Aziza had stabbed me after I’d gotten the book of Thoth. Did Khufu have some weird way of making it so I couldn’t call on my wolf? My eyes opened wide. Was he behind what happened when Aziza stabbed me? Was that why I couldn’t call my wolf? Or was it something else?

  “If you don’t come with me, I’m going to kill you.” He shrugged, and the twinkle in his dark eyes told me that the possibility didn’t bother him all that much. “And, unlike the Lady of Slaughter, I don’t think you’ll recover from being stabbed in the throat.” His lips curled into a smile that was way too toothy. “At least not without your wolf because let’s face it, you’re nothing without it.”

  He was right, but he didn’t have to say it like that. Most werewolves were nothing without their wolves. It was what gave us strength, power, and the ability to tank unreasonable amounts of damage. There were very few of us who were good at kicking ass and taking names without our wolves. Sure, some of us could draw upon our wolf while in human form, but I wasn’t one of them. And well, let’s just say that I’d never even met a shifter who’d even taken a beginners lesson in karate.

  I wasn’t exactly sure why that was, but somehow, it’d become a faux pas to actually train to fight among the shapeshifting community.

  “Okay, what do you want?” I asked, trying my best to think of what to do, and where the hell was Aziza? Was she still knocked out from Sekhmet’s attack? Hadn’t that been hours ago?

  “I want the book of Thoth, and unfortunately for both of us, it’s inside you.” He tapped his chin with his knuckles. “I thought about trying to cut it out of you, but now that I see you, I can tell that its actually part of your essence, so I’m not quite sure how to get it out of you.” He sighed, a single explosive burst of breath. “You’ll just have to perform the ritual. Think you can manage that?”

  “I’m pretty sure that’s a bad idea since I have no idea how to perform said ritual,” I replied. “Besides I’m not sure it’s a good idea to help you anyway. You’re the bad guy.”

  “Feh, like you have much of a choice. It’s either help me or take a dirt nap. There is no third option. Besides, it’s not like the ritual is beyond the ken of mortal men or anything.” He moved to let me up. “All you have to do is seize the Staff of Ra from its dais. It’s really not that hard, but only someone with the book of Thoth will be able to perceive its location within this city.”

  “You mean the staff is here?” I asked, still lying on my back like an idiot. I forced myself to start moving, but it was tougher than I’d expected as hunger and fatigue washed over me. Without my wolf to keep silly things like the fact that I couldn’t remember the last time I’d eaten at bay, it was hitting me full force, despite the magic ring Aziza had given me.

  “Yes, that’s why I brought your friend Connor’s soul here and hid it. I wanted you to come here, to grab the staff for me. I knew that Aziza would take you to find the book, so I hedged my bet by making you come to me.” Khufu grinned that toothy grin at me. “If you get the staff for me, I’ll give his soul to you, and you can go back home. No harm, no foul.”

  I was suddenly very glad I hadn’t destroyed the book. If I had, I was pretty sure this guy would have destroyed Connor’s soul. Hell, he still might, but I could wait until I found the staff before I crossed that bridge. Besides, his offer didn’t seem that bad. It’s not like I was here to rescue Egypt or anything. I was here to get Connor’s soul back. Still, could I really find the staff and hand it over to Khufu? Could I really bail out on Aziza’s ridiculous quest and leave Egypt to sort itself out? Was that how I, Thes Mercer, wanted to leave things? Not really.

  “I just don’t think that’s going to happen,” I said, fixing Khufu with my best glare. “I don’t trust you.”

  “Why not?” he asked, puzzlement filling his features. “Is it because of the jailer? Has she been spreading lies about me?” He turned and gestured at Aziza. She was still lying in the same spot she’d been in after Sekhmet had tossed her to the ground like a broken doll. Her eyes were rolled up in her head, and her tongue fell out of her mouth so that a trail of slobber slid over her cheek and pooled on the sand. “I don’t think she’ll mind. Promise.”

  “I’m pretty sure that’s a lie since she’s been trying to capture you this entire time,” I replied, crossing my arms over my chest.

  “That’s true.” Khufu sighed, his shoulders slumping as he stared at Aziza. “She is under the misguided notion that we are enemies. That, however, isn’t true, Thes.” He turned to face me, and he looked totally sane. Great. I hated when insane people looked sane. Even worse, he didn’t smell like he was lying. So that meant he thought he was telling the truth. Great. He would be a lot easier to ignore if he was lying to me. “But you can trust me, Thes. I only have your best interests at heart.”

  “You punched a hole in me and got me stuck in Ancient Egypt. That doesn’t exactly inspire confidence in you.” I touched the spot on my chest where he’d hit me way back in Hades’ tomb.

  Khufu waved me off. “You’re a werewolf. Isn’t that how you say ‘hello’ in werewolf?” A smirk crossed his lips as he reached out toward me, but stopped just short of actually touching me. “The truth is, I’m on your side. You just don’t know it yet.” He walked past me toward Sekhmet and leaned down so that his knee was braced against her back. “Most of the gods have been weakened to the point that they’re mere shells of their former glory. And those are the ones we can find.” He licked his finger and stuck it in Sekhmet’s ear. “Do you really think I could do this if she was at even a sliver of her true power? No, she would rain down fire from the sky and cover this land in blood.” He looked at me, eyes filled with cold certainty.

  “So why is she so weak?” I asked, swallowing back the sudden fear that he might be right. Anubis and Bast had seemed strong, but Anubis was a god. So why did he need Aziza’s help to dispatch some mummies? Shouldn’t he have been able to blink them out of existence? Especially since he was the lord of the dead and the mummies were, you know, dead?

  “I can tell from the thoughts crisscrossing your face that you’re starting to understand.” Khufu stood, tearing his spear free in a spray of golden ichor that left Sekhmet curling her bleeding body into a ball. “The gods are under siege. It’s why I want the staff of Ra, not to take over, but to revive Ra. I’ve managed to pinpoint his location, but unfortunately, he’s still asleep.”

  “Wait a second,” I said, holding my hands up and making a time out gesture even though I was reasonably sure he wouldn’t understand what I was doing. “Let’s assume I buy that you’re not some kind of evil, vicious psychopath and what you say is actually, you know, true.” I took a deep breath. “What is besieging the gods?”

  Khufu’s face turned grim as he spun and pointed at the mural covering the wall. “Apep is rising. He hasn’t risen yet. I can tell that it will take a while, perhaps a thousand years or more, but someone is trying to call him forth. As he wakes, his essence is pulling apart the very fabric of reality. The more he awakens, the mo
re this negative inertia increases. In short, he is draining away the powers from all the other gods. He is like a great big sponge sucking in all their power.”

  “You mean to tell me that Apep is what you’re worried about?” I raised an eyebrow at him, and then shook my head, smiling. “Do you remember that girl you saw when you were awakened in Hades tomb?”

  “Yes,” he replied, gritting his teeth. “She stunk of Apep. It permeated nearly every pore of her being, but alas that was not the entire snake god. That was just a thin shadow of his power, the barest speck. I could tell that something had happened to him between now and then. Even right now, barely awake, he is significantly more powerful than the creature your friend brings to bear.”

  “See, so it all works out if something happened to weaken him so much.” I’d barely said the words when he slapped me across the face. Not hard, per se, but hard enough to let me know he thought I was a fool. I reeled backward, grabbing my jaw in surprise.

  “It all works out a few thousand years in the future, you idiot. Why do you think that is?” When I didn’t respond, he grabbed me by the shirt and pulled me close to him so he could look into my eyes. It was no easy task because he was almost a foot shorter than me. “It’s because someone in the past fixed it.”

  I swallowed as his words dawned on me. My time was what? Four thousand years in the future? Maybe, just maybe, we were the ones who stopped Apep here, making it so Lillim could tame that horrible god. And maybe, just maybe, that meant Khufu was actually telling the truth. If that was true, I had to help him. Goddammit.

  Chapter 17

  “I cannot believe you’re going to help him,” Aziza spat. She was walking a few feet behind us, arms crossed over her chest. Thankfully, her clothing had somehow cleaned itself so she wasn’t covered in scorpion slime. I, unfortunately, was not so lucky. I reeked of scorpion juice, among other things.

  “This is why we should have just left her unconscious on the sand,” Khufu said, before glancing over his shoulder at her. “I always liked you better when you weren’t talking, drooly.”

  Aziza wiped her mouth, her cheeks turning bright crimson. “Well, I never liked you.”

  “What’s that? I can’t hear you over all that slobber.” Khufu turned back and smiled at me, shooting me one of those looks that said, “women, eh?”

  “Look, Aziza, you heard his story too. It isn’t like I’m going off half-cocked. You agreed that what he said sounded legit,” I said, shrugging.

  “Yeah, that’s how you tell really good lies. You wrap it around a grain of truth.” She sighed and shook her head.

  Khufu shrugged, and his huge shoulders made the movement seem exaggerated. “Okay, don’t help me, and when the world ends in a swirling black hole of darkness, don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

  “Well, I wouldn’t say anything then because the world will have ended.” Aziza stuck her tongue out at him in a display of monumental maturity.

  “Children, can we just find the damn staff already?” I asked, turning so that I could look at both of them. I was beginning to be more than a little frustrated because we’d been walking through the tombs like dumbasses for the last hour, and I still wasn’t quite sure where we were going.

  Why? Because Khufu was playing things close to the chest. A little too close if you asked me, especially since he wasn’t exactly trustworthy. I mean, on one hand, I had no proof that he was actually lying, but well, he had been locked in Hades tomb of undesirable Egyptians. That had to count for something, right? Why, after all, would a hero get locked down there?

  And okay, while that was really annoying, I could have gotten past it. But their constant bickering was starting to make me edgy. This was not how people worked together.

  “We’re heading toward the staff,” Khufu replied, giving me the same bored look he had when I’d first asked him where to go.

  “Look, this place isn’t that big. We should be there already,” I said, sighing.

  “That’s because he doesn’t know where it is,” Aziza said, fixing Khufu with her best glare. “He’s just wandering around hoping you’ll spot it.”

  “I know where it is.” Khufu spread his arms out, gesturing at the city that lay before us. “It’s in Saqqara.”

  “Well, if that’s not wildly specific, I don’t know what is,” Aziza growled. She pointed at a tomb with an asp carved into the top of it. “Should we just pick tombs at random? Maybe we can play eenie meenie miney moe?”

  Khufu sighed and rubbed his chin with one hand. “It’s not that simple. See, Saqqara is made up of layers, and as you walk through it, the layout physically changes. We have to walk in a very precise path or else we won’t find Imhotep’s tomb.”

  Aziza’s face went pale, and her eyes got as big as trashcan lids. “You can’t be serious?”

  “Unfortunately, I’m as serious as death.” Khufu put one hand over his heart and nodded once.

  “What’s so bad about Imhotep? Didn’t you say you guys were friends, Aziza?” I asked, glancing between them. A bad feeling was starting to settle in my stomach, and I wished, not for the first time, that I could feel my wolf. If we got into some kind of scrape, I was going to be next to worthless without it. Not that I’d been much help anyway, what with every female god trying to… well…

  Aziza bit her lip, but didn’t say anything.

  “What she’s not willing to tell you is that they used to date, and it didn’t end well.” Khufu smirked and rubbed his bald head thoughtfully. “And no, it wasn’t because she’s what I like to call an ‘acquired taste.’”

  “You mean to tell me that the Staff of Ra is guarded by your angry ex-boyfriend?” I asked and that bad feeling in my stomach grew ten sizes as I said the words. “You didn’t think you should mention that?”

  “It isn’t that simple,” Aziza replied, looking away from me, her scent changing so I knew she was about to lie to me.

  I opened my mouth to say something along the lines of, “don’t bother lying because I’ll know you’re doing it,” but an arrow chose that moment to pierce the side of my knee. So instead of making a witty retort, I opted for screaming like a nine-year-old girl. I fell, hitting the ground hard, and rolling onto my back. I grabbed at the wound, blood gushing through my fingers as Khufu looked up toward the direction of the shot.

  “Damn,” he said a moment before three flaming arrows smacked into the ground at his feet. They would have hit him, but he was a little too quick. He scrambled backward, throwing his arms up as the arrows exploded. A wave of fire ripped outward across the sand, reducing it to glass.

  The blast threw him like a broken doll, and he slammed into a hawk-headed statue with a crunch. He fell forward, slumping to the ground on his knees, blood dripping from his mouth as a dozen more flaming arrows filled the sky.

  I screamed and reached down, tried to snap the haft off the arrow in my knee, and the pain of it shot through me like a lightning bolt. For a second, I couldn’t even breathe. My vision went dark and hazy around the edges. It cleared as Aziza grabbed me by the scruff of the neck and dragged me bodily out of the path of the arrows. She threw us behind the statue of a squat sphinx.

  The sound of arrows smacking into stone filled my ears as I struggled to staunch the bleeding in my leg. It was no good. There was so much blood. Why was there so much blood?

  “Aziza,” I said through clenched teeth. “You need to stop the bleeding. I don’t have my wolf right now… I can’t heal it.”

  She threw a worried glance at me, panic flashing across her face before her expression settled into an angry determination. “This is going to hurt,” she said, and her voice was calm and empty. Without another word, she grabbed the arrow. She smiled at me, a strange apologetic sort of thing, and yanked.

  Pain like I’d never felt before ripped through me, and for a second, I thought she’d torn off my leg. Before I could so much as suck in a breath, she reached out and touched the spot with her index finger. Purple light explode
d from my wound, and it went sort of numb and cold as though all the heat inside me was draining away through my knee.

  “You can open your eyes now,” she said, and I realized I had my eyes shut tight. I slowly opened them as my jaw unclenched. The pain was gone. I stared at the spot and found it wrapped in purple linen. I moved, and it felt fine. Guess it would take more than an arrow to the knee to end my adventure.

  “Come out, my darlings,” the voice of fire said as it raged across the land, melting the sand to slag. “I have a bone to pick with you.”

  There was a loud thud as something landed on the other side of the statue. Visions of buzzards feasting on my corpse filled the space between my eyes and my brain. It was so vivid that it took me a moment to will it away. The statue shrieked, the stone groaning and cracking as it lifted from the sand until it was fully suspended in the air.

  Sekhmet stood there, holding the twenty-foot tall sphinx above her head like it weighed less than nothing. Her eyes were thin slits that spewed fire. Crimson flames danced across her flesh as she took one angry step toward us, brandishing the statue like a weapon.

  “Where is he?” she asked, voice booming like thunder.

  I squeaked in fright. I wish I wouldn’t have, but I couldn’t help it.

  “And I swear to Ra if you say you don’t know, I will throw this statue at you. It won’t be pretty.” She hefted it like she might do it anyway. “I saw him with you a moment ago.”

  I glanced from the seething goddess to Aziza, but she stood there unmoving. Not like frightened unmoving, but like time had actually stopped. That’s when I realized that even the dust particles in the air had ceased moving. I searched back through my memory, but I was reasonably sure Sekhmet, as powerful as she was, didn’t have control over time. I swallowed, not sure of what to do, when I realized that Sekhmet was also frozen in place. Even the sweat upon her brow was suspended in place.