We touched ground in a giant throne room. It was so large that it actually reminded me of that room you see on television when the president talks. Sitting in a throne made from bones was an ancient man with skin the color of old dust. His face was fixed on the two wriggling figures in front of him.
I follow his gaze to the two people, and my breath exploded from my lungs. Lying there bound and gagged in black chains were Khufu and Aziza. They struggled, writhing in their chain cocoons. Beside them was a man I recognized from my visions with Thoth as Imhotep. He looked over at me and smirked. “Hello, Theseus.” Imhotep called, waving at me with one hand. “Glad you could make it.”
“What have you done to them?” I called, momentarily ignoring the fact that Khufu had ditched me and left me to die in a giant ice cave. It wasn’t like he’d been the one to impale me to death in a vision shown to me by Thoth.
“Me?” Imhotep asked, touching his chest with his boney fingers. “I haven’t done anything… yet.” He laughed, a sort of evil warble that made the hair on the back of my neck stand up and a chill settle in my belly.
Imhotep smiled, revealing a mouth with exactly three teeth and pulled a flute from the pocket of his dusty green tunic. He put the instrument to his lips and blew a cord that was mostly whistling.
“Oh no,” Sekhmet said and swallowed hard, her entire body rigid as she pulled her bow, Nesert, from the nothingness in front of her. Imhotep kept playing, and with each note, the feeling of dread in my belly increased.
“What’s going on?” I cried as moments before the roof of the room exploded, raining black rock down around us. I’ll admit, I was slightly relieved that I hadn’t been crushed by all the rock, but every time a piece fell more than a few feet it disintegrated into thick, black smoke.
The old man in the throne seemed unconcerned with what was going on as the smoke above our heads cleared to reveal the huge fanned head of a cobra as black as pitch.
“So we meet again, Theseus,” Apep hissed, his huge serpentine body snaking down into the room and filling it with choking black smoke. “And you brought me the staff. How nice of you.”
Chapter 26
“What do you plan on doing with that, Sekhmet?” Apep asked, his huge black tongue snaking out of his mouth to taste the air.
The goddess swallowed, and it was then I realized her knees were shaking. She opened her mouth to say something, but nothing came out. Her bow fell apart in her hands, hitting the ground in fist sized chunks that evaporated into wisps of darkness.
“That’s what I thought,” the snake god chortled. “Your resolve is nothing.” It turned its huge head toward Imhotep. “Go ahead and take her, Imhotep. She is yours as I promised.”
Imhotep shifted his gaze toward us, and even from here, I could see him looking upon us with a mixture of disbelief and manic glee. “Thank you, my lord.” The pharaoh turned on his heel and stepped over Khufu who still struggled in his chains despite the fact that it seemed to be having no effect whatsoever.
As Imhotep made his way toward us, he shot one glance over his shoulder at the huge serpent. “What if she resists?”
“She will not resist you,” Apep’s voice spread out over the room, making me feel like a speck of poo beneath the foot of a dung beetle. “She is too weak.”
Imhotep rubbed his hands together greedily with a look in his eye that turned my stomach. “I have waited a long time for this, girl.” He licked his lips when he finally reached us and touched Sekhmet on the arm. For a second, she looked like she might bolt, but instead of doing anything, she stood there, eyes open wide.
She took a step backward, but Imhotep seized her by the wrist and pulled her body against his. He leaned down so that his mouth was close to her ear. “You told me I would never have you.” His tongue flicked out, tasting her cheek. “But you were wrong.”
“No!” I said, the word bursting out of me with such fury that my wolf took over before I even finished the word. “Leave her alone!”
I swung with the staff as hard as I could. The ruby-encrusted end struck the ancient pharaoh in the side of the head with a thwack that reminded me of an egg hitting a tile floor. Imhotep staggered sideways, losing his balance, pulling Sekhmet down on top of him. He wrapped his arms around her as they fell, but instead of actually, you know, striking the ground, they plummeted through it.
“Sekhmet!” I cried, reaching out toward the spot, but my claws found only stone. “What have you done?” I snarled, swinging around to face the giant snake god. Only he wasn’t there anymore.
Walking toward us was a bald man with skin like polished ivory. He wore a pristine set of blood red armor that covered his arms, shoulders and legs, but left his midsection completely bare. His eyes burned like scarlet fire as he raised one black-nailed hand and made a ‘give it to me’ gesture.
When I didn’t comply, his cobalt lips curled into an amused smirk. “Give me the staff, wolf.”
“Not happening,” I growled, taking a step back as the old man in the throne watched me with dull grey eyes.
“We can do this the easy way or the hard way,” Apep said, his voice whipping around me like the winter wind. Only… only I had felt the winter before. Cold, remorseless, and hungry. This was not that winter. This was but a pale imitation.
I held the staff out in front of me, brandishing it like a weapon. “Be gone, snake!” I cried and fire leapt from my mouth, scalding the air between us. Apep waved his hand and the flames died away. The light in the staff faded just a touch.
“Yummy,” he replied, shivering. “Give me more, Thes. Give me all you have.”
“I’ll give you more!” Khufu cried. His ridiculous elephant key smacked into Apep’s skull. Black smoke spewed from the wound as the god reached up and touched the injury, regarding it with the same curiosity one might use toward a giftwrapped package from an unknown relative.
He reached out and touched the key with one finger. It evaporated into a hiss of emerald smoke. The wound fading as he grabbed Khufu by the throat.
“Interesting,” was all Apep said. He squeezed so hard the pharaoh’s head actually popped off his shoulders, shooting into the air like a cork from a champagne bottle. Blood and slime fountained into the air as Apep dropped the messy body. Somehow his clothing and hand were still pristine.
“Now then,” the snake god said, making a washing motion with his hands. “You were going to give me the staff.”
“Thes!” Aziza cried, and her voice was so faint I could barely hear it over the pounding in my ears. “Give me the staff! Quickly!” I almost couldn’t comprehend the words as I stared at Khufu’s body. He was the one who knew where Connor’s soul was. With him dead, how would I find it?
I looked up at the snake god and all I saw was rage. “You…” I said, and the word was like sewage in my mouth. “I needed him.”
“For your friend’s soul. I know.” Apep shrugged. “I will give it to you.”
I stopped. My fury vanished in a wave of confusion. I looked at him for a long time before turning my gaze to the glowing staff in my hand. Could I do it? Could I give the staff to Apep in exchange for my friend’s soul? Could I trust him?
“You can trust me, Thes. I swear on chaos itself. If you give me the staff, I will immediately give you Connor’s soul. I will offer no tricks in this matter. You will have it within one of your human minutes.” As he said the words, thunder shook the room and lightning exploded from overhead. I turned my eyes upward, staring at the swirling black clouds above because the temple no longer had a roof. All around me, darkness raged like a tempest, and still, I contemplated.
I should not do it. I knew that. I knew I should not, and still… How could I not? How could I sacrifice Connor?
“Thes, please!” Aziza cried, and her voice was like mouse whispers.
“Silence, jailer!” Apep’s head twisted around so that he was staring at Aziza. She stood there, looking like a pathetic drowned rat. She was covered in black goo, and her hair
was plastered to her skin. “Do not forget that you work for me.”
The sound of his words echoed in the chamber, reverberating into me. I inclined my head, and sniffed, but found no lie in the air. “Is this true?” I asked, and I realized I was pleading.
Instead of responding, she looked away. “Thes, just give me the staff… please.”
A thin-lipped smile spread across Apep’s face. “The jailer works for me. She has since before she was the jailer. Since she pledged herself to me in exchange for vengeance. And I, unlike my brethren, delivered. I always deliver. I am the darkness that engulfs all light. The cold that steals away all heat. The vast emptiness that swallows all things. I am unavoidable and forever.”
“Give me the staff, Thes. I will trade you whatever you wish.” Apep reached out, his hand extended toward me. “I will even give you the jailer too if that is what you desire.” He turned, gesturing at her, and her clothes vanished into black smoke, leaving her standing there naked and exposed before me. Her eyes were on her feet, but she made no move to cover herself. Apep smirked, turning his serpentine gaze back to me. “She will do whatever you wish, Thes.”
A million thoughts swept through me all at once, and I realized that, in this moment, I could ask for anything and everything and it would be granted. I could go home, could be a king, could be a super-powerful god… I could have any woman or all women… I shook my head as a smile spread across my face. I was never really interested in that sort of thing…
“No!” I said, and as I said the words, one weight lifted off my shoulders and another heavier one settled in its place. It was the weight that came with knowing I would sacrifice Connor to stop this demon. But, strangely, as I said the words, I knew them to be right. This was why I was here. To stop Apep from rising. The clarity of it was overwhelming.
I brandished the staff once more, and this time, the flames glowed like melted gold and sun fire. They hit Apep in a wash of heat, flinging him backward. He hit the ground hard. His body destabilizing into a cloud of particles that buzzed like angry hornets.
It reformed a few feet away, only his skin was covered in mottled black scales, and his features were decidedly more reptilian.
“I know you, Apep,” I said taking a step forward, the staff blazing like lightning in my hand. Light flowed around me like a shroud, banishing the shadows around me into the corners of the room. “We both know that you cannot win. There must always be balance. If you are strong, then Ra must be strong. Those are the rules set down from before time.”
I threw the staff at the ground. It shattered, exploding into a million flitting wisps of light that flapped through the air like liquid butterfly wings. The room brightened as the first rays of sunshine broke through the darkness above. Sunlight slammed down into the ground all around us, the temperature rising so suddenly that it was like breathing in fire.
One ray struck the throne with the old man. He lit up like a Christmas tree, throwing colors every shade of the rainbow into the air and painting the room like a disco ball. I covered my eyes from the glare as the man rose, not as a spindly old geezer, but as a solid black featureless mass of muscle and sinew.
He stepped from the throne and the light flowed with him like water. His skin was like blackened embers, and his eyes blazed like the sun. His beard was like living flame shooting wisps into the air around it. The space around him shimmered in wavy lines as he stepped off the dais, the staff inexplicably in his hand. The gemstones glowed like neon-lights, banishing all the shadow from the room.
“Be gone, Apep.” The figure commanded, and the room around us shook. More sunlight filtered through the clouds and dissolved the smoky darkness left behind by the snake god.
“Ra, give me the staff,” Apep snarled, leaping to his feet and striding toward the figure. “If you don’t, I’ll swallow you whole.”
“Even if you do, I will just cut myself from your stomach and rise again,” Ra said in a voice like the purest sunrise.
Apep stopped, considering this. “Our conflict is inevitable, brother.”
“Maybe so,” Ra replied. “Maybe it will not end here and now. Maybe one day, you will gain the upper hand, but today is not that day.”
“Do it,” Apep said, and as he spoke the words, Aziza dropped to her knees and pressed both of her hands to the stone floor. Purple energy exploded up into the air, filling the room with dancing shadows.
Ra peered at her, confusion filling his dark features. “What are you doing, jailer?”
That’s when I realized what was happening. “Watch out!” The words had barely left my lips when the portal opened up behind Ra like a huge towering purple pustule. Thick black veins crawled across its surface like wriggling worms.
Apep whirled, flinging both of his hands outward with so much force that a sonic boom ripped through the air, the shockwave enough to throw me from my feet. Darkness exploded from his palms, slamming into the sun god full force and flinging him backward. He didn’t go very far, but he didn’t have to go far.
Ra struck the portal, and with a flash of light, he and the staff vanished completely. The portal disappeared a moment later. Aziza stood, her eyes cast at the floor.
“And so begins my reign.” Apep smiled, turning his serpentine eyes on me. “You performed your part perfectly, Theseus.” He held out his hand out to me, and a small glass vial no bigger than an eyedropper sat on his palm. Blue fluid glowed within it. “Here is Connor’s soul. It is yours. Go back home.”
When I made no movement to take it, he reached out and pressed it into my hands. I wanted to reject it, to throw it down, but I couldn’t do that. This was what I’d come here for. Right? I looked down at the vial in my hand and felt dirty. I had it. I finally had it. So why did I feel like I’d lost? Why did Ra’s defeat worry me so much?
I looked out and spotted Khufu’s body, still leaking fluid onto the stone. I turned and stared at the spot where Sekhmet had vanished and felt my will power fading away. Apep had defeated all of us without even trying, and what’s worse, Aziza had been on his side from the beginning. The betrayal of it welled up in me like a fountain, filling me up so I couldn’t see past it.
“Thes, we should go…” my wolf pleaded in my ear. “We must return to our people… You must teach them about their wolves before He Who Must Not Be Named awakens…”
“We can’t leave it like this…” I replied as a burst of anger surged through me. I was suddenly so angry I couldn’t see straight. “How could she do this to me?” I screamed at my wolf. “How, after everything?”
My wolf looked at me for a long time before licking its lips. “That is true,” he said. “She should be punished.” I felt a surge of power rise in me as I settled my eyes on Apep.
“Jailer, please send him home,” Apep commanded, and as I turned to look at him, another portal popped into existence a few feet in front of Aziza. “That will take you home, Thes. No harm, no foul.”
I looked at Aziza, but she wouldn’t meet my eyes.
“Okay,” I said and took a deep breath. I walked up to the portal so that I was standing next to Aziza. “I don’t blame you for doing what you had to do, Zeez.”
She looked up at me, eyes rimmed with tears. One dripped down her cheek and spattered on the floor. I followed it with my eyes and looked up at her.
“Really?” she asked, and her voice was choked and hoarse.
I nodded, reaching up to give her a hug. She smiled, a sort of brittle damaged thing that reminded me of a broken-winged butterfly. The moment my arms were around her, I grabbed her by her stupid hair and flung her with all my wolf-infused strength straight into the portal. She hit with a sound like shattering glass, and the portal exploded into shards of scintillating lavender light that left spots dancing across my vision.
“Nice,” Apep said from behind me, and as I whirled, claws raised. But, I found he was gone. I was left alone in an empty tomb with a corpse. Worse yet, I wasn’t quite sure how I was going to get home, but som
ehow, that didn’t bother me very much. I sat down on the ground and stared at the vial in my hand and wondered a thought that made me want to crawl up into a ball and die. If I never got home, would a soul would last five thousand years on its own?
Chapter 27
“You didn’t think that’s how it would end, did you?” Khufu asked. His voice startled me so much that I nearly dropped the vial. Thankfully, I didn’t. That might have been bad. Or it wouldn’t have been. I wasn’t exactly sure what would happen if I broke the vial. Would it just float away? Would it evaporate?
I leapt to my feet, spinning to see Khufu standing there with his stupid toothy grin on his face. His body was spattered with gore, but his head was attached, and honestly, he didn’t look like a guy who had just gotten decapitated.
“How?” I asked, still staring at him. His eyes moved to the soul in my hand, and I glanced down at it before slipping it into my pocket. He smirked and cracked his neck. The sound seemed very loud in the empty throne room.
“I’m already dead,” he replied, waving his hand dismissively. “I know, I look pretty good for a dead guy, right? Also, sorry about locking you in the frost room with an ancient dragon, but I had to give you a chance to get the staff while I kept Aziza busy. I’d have told you the plan, but honestly, would you have listened?”
“Probably not,” I said, annoyed that he had played me like a fiddle.
“See, I knew you’d see things my way.” He threw his arm around my shoulder and began leading me toward what seemed like an exit. I hoped it was a considerably shorter journey out of here. “This is why I’m just going to assume you’ve forgiven me.”
“Is that so?” I asked. “How do you know I won’t kill you where you stand? I’m a werewolf, we’re prone to fits of rage like that.”
“First, you need my help to rescue your girlfriend from Imhotep. Secondly, I have this.” He opened his free hand to reveal an amethyst scarab pendant exactly like the one that was the source of Aziza’s powers. “Consider it a peace offering.”
Under Wraps: An Urban Fantasy Adventure (Werewolves vs. Mummies Book 1) Page 16
