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

by J. A. Cipriano

  Aziza stood just behind it, mouth open in shock. Her amethyst eyes were bright, but I was pretty sure she didn’t actually see me. As I moved toward her, her eyes didn’t follow my movement, didn’t track me as they should.

  The sand beneath my bare feet didn’t move, didn’t flex beneath my weight. Instead, it was more like I didn’t touch it, didn’t disturb even the smallest particle.

  That’s when I felt him inside me. My wolf. He was back.

  He loped forward in my mind, huge and substantial. Only he was different. His fur carried a golden sheen, like the sun was hitting it just right so it appeared metallic. Instead of amber, his eyes were ringed in gold. His tongue lolled lazily out of his mouth as those eyes fixed upon mine. Then it talked.

  “Hello,” he said in a voice that was like the ragged edge of a wound freshly licked.

  “Um…” I said for lack of anything better to say. My wolf had never talked to me before. He spoke more in emotion, feelings, never something as direct as this… and from what I’d been told by others, that was how they communicated with their beasts too. I didn’t know anyone who could communicate with their wolves through speech.

  He cocked his head at me, ears cocked, listening and waiting. “Did you not hear me?” he asked, regarding me like a pup.

  “Yes, I heard you,” I replied, and for the first time, I realized he was no longer an it. My wolf was huge, imposing, and very, very male. And he had a name. “Wepwawet.” As the name left my lips, the space between us shattered. In that moment, I knew things I hadn’t known before.

  Our wolves had names. They had always had names. We just didn’t know them. My wolf wasn’t the Wepwawet, the Egyptian wolf god, but had been so named. Why that was, I didn’t know for sure. Still, one thing was abundantly clear; our wolves were more than we thought. They were more, and because we didn’t know that, we were both less.

  “Finally you have learned my name, Thes. I have waited a long time to share it with you, for your kind to realize how little they know about us. Once, long ago, it was not as it is now. We knew you, and together, we stood atop the world. Together, we conquered the darkness and fed upon its flesh. Together, we howled at the moon, and it howled back.” My wolf spoke, and the truth of his words were like a kick in the gut. I stumbled, falling to my knees.

  “How? How is this possible?” I asked, shaking my head.

  My wolf licked me, tongue warm and wet on my skin. “This is how it should be, Thes. How it must be. You must bring us back together, must bridge the world between our two peoples. Time is short, and the darkness is coming.”

  “Thes!” Aziza’s voice shattered my attention, and my wolf retreated. “Thank Ra! You’re okay!” She wrapped her arms around me, pulling me into a hug. She buried her face into my chest, holding me there as tears slid down her cheeks. “I thought you were dead.”

  “You thought I was dead?” I asked. “Why is that?”

  “The statue grabbed you, and you went lifeless. Then the statues exploded, and you fell to the ground. You landed on your head. The sound of it was… I thought that there was no way even you could survive…” She pulled away, looking up at me with tear-rimmed eyes. “I should have known better.”

  Instead of replying, I just sort of blinked at her. Was this really the same girl who had tried to use me as bait for a giant crocodile?

  “Get a room,” Khufu said, walking up and putting one hand on my shoulder and squeezing. “Now let’s get going before you get too big a head.” He pointed at the pyramid. The door to the ancient tomb had been reduced to rubble. Smoldering bits of rock littered the sand in front of it. Gloom filled the entrance, and while it should have seemed foreboding, it just… didn’t.

  I tore my gaze from the doorway as Sekhmet strode up to us. The look on her face made me curious, but as I opened my mouth to ask her what the thought etched into her features was, she waved me off.

  “Later,” she mouthed and stepped past me into the darkness, one hand held out before her. Flame blazed within her palm, throwing back the shadows and fighting off the darkness.

  I followed her, leaving Aziza and Khufu to fall in line behind me. I wasn’t sure how I became the middle person in our lineup, but admittedly, even with my wolf back, I felt a lot safer sandwiched between an Egyptian war god and two powerful mummies. I mean, of the four of us, the only one not immortal was me.

  We made our way down some stairs that were so narrow, we had no choice but to walk single-file. Even still, I had to edge sort of sideways because my shoulders were too wide to make it through. I wasn’t sure how Khufu was managing since he brought up the rear, but I was pretty sure he must be having an even tougher time of it than I was, since he was quite a bit broader than me.

  A mural that seemed to depict all of Egyptian history, only in reverse, filled the walls. The entrance had started with Imhotep’s death, and as we descended, time stretched out backward. I wasn’t quite sure how far the tunnel went down, but since it seemed like every step only represented a few years at best, the possibilities concerned me greatly.

  “This is going to take a while,” I said. “Even if this only represents a thousand years, it’ll be a lot of steps, and somehow, I think it’s going to stretch a lot farther back than that.”

  “Or it is a trick to make us think that it’s an unconquerable distance so we turn back,” Khufu called from behind me. “Either way, we’ve got to get to the bottom. So think of something happy. Like how you don’t have a rock in your shoe.”

  I sighed and shook my head because he was right. Either way, we had to get to the bottom of these stairs. I just hoped the tunnel wouldn’t fill with poison gas before we did so. See, I could look at the glass and declare it half full too.

  “Always the positive one, pharaoh,” Sekhmet said, voice echoing in the tiny cavern. “We shall see how your positive attitude holds up when I dash you and your silly pyramid from this earth.”

  “I doubt you’ll be doing that,” Khufu replied, but didn’t add more.

  Why was he so confident about it? The way he spoke made it seem like it was fact. That concerned me because it made me think that the pyramid was part of his plan, somehow. Unfortunately, in the time we were in, the pyramid wasn’t finished yet, and it didn’t seem like it’d be done for a long while yet. Unless he was playing a really long game, I wasn’t sure how helpful a giant pyramid would be.

  Then again, this Khufu was a mummy resurrected in my time. He wasn’t the actual Khufu running this place anymore. If I ventured into the pharaoh’s gleaming hall, would I find the Khufu of here and now? I shook my head, trying to think about that might drive me a little crazy.

  It took a while to reach the bottom. So long that my legs felt like jelly, and my muscles screamed. I’d long since called upon my wolf for support, but now even he seemed out of breath. We came to a stop in front of a door made of solid obsidian. I wasn’t sure how heavy it was, but it looked like it probably weighed a million tons. The mural ended at the door, fading into a sort of inky blackness that made it seem even more imposing, like it was the gateway to oblivion.

  Sekhmet glanced over her shoulder at me, her face shrouded in the dancing shadows cast off by her flame. “Do you want to try and open it, Thes?” There was a faint tremor in her voice. Was she scared? If so, of what? What could make the goddess known to dash evil from the universe scared?

  “Okay,” I replied, and she stepped aside to let me pass by her. It was a tight squeeze, and as our bodies pressed against each other’s, I couldn’t help but blush. Thankfully, she made no facial expression at all. If she had smiled, or made a comment, I might have been too embarrassed to continue after what she had done to me earlier. The image of her pinning me down, looming over me with a lion’s mouth full of fangs wasn’t something I’d gotten over.

  The sad thing was, if Khufu hadn’t stopped her, she could have done whatever she’d wanted to me, and there wouldn’t have been a damn thing I could have done to stop her. It was a sobe
ring thought. It was also a little exciting because, well, she didn’t exactly look like she wanted to kill me…

  When I was in front of her, I walked up to the door and pressed my hand against it. The stone was strangely warm and tactile, like I was touching flesh instead of stone. I swallowed. For all I knew, I was touching flesh. Maybe some great beast was sitting against the doorway. Maybe he would turn around and eat us all.

  I shook away the thought and squatted down on my haunches, looking for a hand hold at the bottom of the door. I wasn’t sure why, but for some reason, this door felt like it should move vertically. Unfortunately, I didn’t see anything. I started to turn my head back toward the group so I could ask their opinions when the faintest trace of sulfur filled my nose.

  I sniffed again. Sulfur, for sure.

  “Do you smell that?” Aziza asked, speaking for the first time in so long I didn’t immediately recognize her voice as it echoed off the walls.

  Before I could respond, hands exploded from the floor, the walls, everywhere. They were thin black things that reminded me of charred skeletons. They grabbed hold of me and pulled, yanking me in every direction at once. I squirmed, trying to free myself from their grasp as a fireball ripped through the small space, passing so close to me that it singed my hair.

  It smacked into the doorway and died. There wasn’t a flare or an explosion or really anything at all. The door just swallowed it completely, and we were pitched into the endless dark of a starless night. The hungry dark of a deep cave. The predatory dark of the monster in the closet.

  A scream rippled through the air behind me, freezing my nerves into a block of ice. I tore my right arm free of the hands clutching me and reached out toward where the obsidian doorway had to be. My fingers brushed against the surface as I was jerked violently backward.

  “No!” I snarled as my wolf took over, surging to the surface and tearing the appendages free from the walls. I smashed into the door like a freight train. It moved, screeching backward against the stone floor. Heat washed over mw as amber firelight spilled into the tiny hallway.

  I put my shoulder against the stone and pushed. My muscles strained, burning within me. It moved. An inch. Two, three, a foot. The door gave way all at once, tumbling down into the dark abyss below. Fire raged in front of me, just beyond the precipice that fell into the depths of hell.

  I turned. The firelight rushed past me into the hallway, and I saw clear as day. Hands were everywhere, subduing my friends. I had to help them before it tore their flesh to ribbons.

  I strode into the room and grabbed the godling by the scruff of her armor and pulled. She came free of the hands with a sound like snapping bones. I flung her backward beyond the door, careful not to pitch her over the edge. I did not wait to see how she landed as I grabbed the princess and threw her as well.

  The pharaoh was on his knees, blood streaming from his body. He looked up as my hand seized him and jerked him free. His eyes opened wide, and his mouth fell open.

  I did not waste time. I retreated, carrying him through the door and into the safety of the burning embers beyond. The hands grabbed at me, tried to grip my flesh, but their fingers were like ash, falling away as they touched my skin.

  The godling and the princess were standing there, staring at me in disbelief. Their features were twisted, fearful. I moved past them, the pharaoh slung over my shoulder like a sack of flour. His weight was nothing to me. I reached the edge of the pit and looked down into the abyss. No that would not do. There must be another way.

  I turned back toward the others, and my shadow fell upon the wall, flickering with the light of the flames, and it brushed against a memory of a story of long ago. A story I had all but forgotten. A story I didn’t quite remember.

  “Thes,” Sekhmet squawked, and the fear in her voice was like sour candy. “Thes…” She shook herself, reminding me of a great dog shaking water from its back. “This way,” she said, pointing into the distance. Her voice had regained its usual calmness, but I still heard her fear, still tasted the candy in her words.

  I ignored it and inclined my head toward the spot she indicated. A low archway of golden metal gleamed in the firelight. Beyond it were more stairs. I did not like stairs.

  Chapter 20

  I was at the bottom of the stairs a moment later. I glanced backward, but my companions were still a long way away. I heard them whispering among themselves, but could not make out their words. I had moved ahead because they smelled like fear, rancid and filthy. I did not like their fear. It concerned me.

  They were scared of me. It made me wary they would attack me. Try to destroy me. If that happened, I would be ready. I would not allow them to hurt me.

  No. I shook off that thought, banishing it to the back of my mind. They were my allies. I should not distrust them…

  I stood and sniffed the air. The stink of sulfur and ash was stronger down here. The air was so thick and humid that I could taste it. Wavy lines trailed off the black stone as I padded along. It burned me, but not enough for it to matter. My feet healed between each step.

  The path in front of me forked off, but they both smelled the same. I did not like this. I did not know which to pick.

  It would mean splitting up to explore both or committing to one that could wind up being folly if we stuck together. I already knew what the others would decide. They would decide to split. Only… only Khufu had my friend’s soul, and he could not be trusted. He must stay with me.

  Yes. I must walk with the pharaoh into the path… only which one? Which path would be correct…?

  I crept forward and stared at the twin doors, one glittering like rubies cast from a fire, the other like freshly spilt blood. In the center of each door was the image of a man, the sun at his back and the moon at his front. He faced outward, hands outstretched. The same man upon both doors.

  I didn’t like it.

  I touched the blood door, and it felt hot and slick. I sniffed, and the smell of copper and rust came alive in my nose. No. I would not venture into the blood door. That left the other…

  I touched it, and it shattered beneath my fingers, exploding into a trillion scintillating shards. They crashed to the ground with a sound so loud that it hurt my ears as it echoed across the room. One of my allies shrieked, but the sound seemed far away. Farther away than it should have. I fought the urge to turn, instead I watched the opening. My ears perked up, listening. The musky smell of snake filled my nostrils. I stared into the darkness.

  Snakes or blood. Neither were good choices. I shook my head and stared. The stone beneath my feet rumbled. Fire leapt upward from the abyss. The burning geyser splashed against the ceiling and sprayed outward, painting the room in dancing flames for the space of a moment.

  There was something inside the door. Just past where I could see. It had been revealed for the space of an instant. Skin black and mottled. Talons like a lion. Teeth like a crocodile. Eyes like the soul of hell itself.

  It watched from beyond the door. Its smirk had been daring. “Come,” its smirk had said.

  “Come, and I will feast on your heart.” The sound slipped from the tunnel, on the cusp of my hearing. It was lower than the belly of a serpent, scraping across the ground, slithering into my ears. It was a challenge, a boast. It did not think I would. “Come and I will learn how heavy your soul has become.”

  “Choose blood if you dare,” it said. “Come if you wish to be judged.”

  “Thes, what is it?” Sekhmet called. She wasn’t as far away now, maybe a few yards away. I listened to her move, to her hit the bottom step and come toward me.

  “Something is in there. It smells like snakes and clings to the darkness.” Fire leapt again as I spoke, but the creature must have moved because I did not see it this time.

  Sekhmet came to my side and rested a hand on my arm. She stared into the darkness, her face a mask of determination. “I cannot see into the depths.” She looked up at me. “Maybe we should try the other door?” She turn
ed toward the blood door, and as she reached her hand toward it, I seized her wrist. It was so small in my grip, so puny seeming. How could this girl be a god? How could she break darkness over her knee and be scared of me? How had she held me down?

  “No,” I said. I released her because I knew she would not disobey. Not now. Not here. Her fear made her weak, and I was strong. I was Alpha. I would lead.

  I stepped through the doorway, and the air hit me like a dank breath. The smell of reptiles permeated every inch of the space.

  “So you come, Thes Mercer?” it asked, still clinging to the darkness like a cowardly shadow.

  “I come,” I replied. I strode forward unafraid. I was strong.

  Something scrabbled across the stone, claws scraped at the rock. I did not turn away. I was not afraid.

  “Come out and judge me,” I said. “You will not find me wanting, shadow clinger.”

  “I do not cling to the shadows,” it spoke from the darkness.

  “Then step forth, lest I judge you.” My lips pulled back to reveal my fangs. “I shall find you wanting.”

  It struck. Quick as a flash and twice as deft. I did not move. I let it sink its teeth into my thigh. Pain like a million suns burned in my veins, but I pushed it away to die beneath the force of my will. Its paw lashed outward. I caught it, gripping it in one hand as I stared down into its beady eyes.

  I struck back. I drove my claws downward. The creature screamed, gilded blood splashing across my fur. It tried to pull away, but I held it fast. “You will let me pass.” I released it, and it scurried back into the darkness.

  The stink of wet gold filled the air along with its lack of response. I turned my head back toward the entrance. “Come,” I called.

  Sekhmet was by my side a moment later. She glanced at my leg, but made no comment. Already it was healed over. The beast’s attack rendered meaningless.

  In the distance, something whispered, and Sekhmet called forth her flame. It filled the space in front of us, banishing the darkness. The creature lay on the ground a few yards away, golden ichor spilling out from a wound on its side. It was bleeding the same blood as Sekhmet. It was bleeding god blood.