“Is that what I think it is?” I asked, swallowing the lump in my throat.
He nodded, his grin growing even wider. “I have sticky fingers it seems. That’s also why I hid mine in a place no one will ever find it.” He shrugged. “Anyway, I want you to have it.”
“You want me to have her pendant? Why? What am I going to do with it?” I looked at him for a long time as thoughts swelled in my brain. I was still so angry at Aziza I could scream. How could she betray me like that, after everything we had been through? Why had she done it? Still, there was a darker thought that lurked just under the surface of my consciousness. If I ever saw her again, I’d kill her.
I’d done my best to try and keep my rage at bay, to try and not be like the other wolves. What had it gotten me? Disemboweled and betrayed to the god of darkness by a girl who was supposed to be my friend?
“If I say I feel bad, will you believe me?” Khufu asked loud enough to interrupt my thoughts. He raised one bushy eyebrow at me.
“Not really.” I shrugged. “You don’t exactly seem like the most empathetic time.”
“I thought not,” he replied. “Anyway, I just think it will be better off in your hands, and hey, if you want to destroy it here and now and leave her trapped in gods know where, I’m cool with that too.” He shoved the scarab into my hand and closed my fingers around it. “No matter what you decide, know that I don’t really care what you do, Thes.” He smirked at me again.
I didn’t reply, which was rude, but I couldn’t take my eyes off the amethyst scarab. The light had already faded from it, making it resemble a piece of ugly costume jewelry. I stared at it so long that it went sort of blurry, which was weird, right?
I wiped my eyes with the back of my hand because dust must have gotten in them. I moved to hurl the thing at the wall. But at the last second, I just couldn’t let go. It sort of fell out of my hand and dangled off the chain so that it caught the light.
“Hey man. Take the day. Feel bad. Feel deceived, cry like a six-year-old girl. Do whatever it is you wolves do when you’re horribly betrayed because tomorrow. Well, tomorrow we have to go after a larger than life snake.”
“And save Sekhmet,” I said, swallowing back a mountain of pain. I slipped the pendant around my neck and tucked it into my shirt, which was more of a bloody, torn rag at this point.
“And save your girlfriend,” Khufu agreed.
“Why do you keep calling her my girlfriend?” I asked, glancing up at him. “She’s a goddess, and she doesn’t like me. Wait… do you think she likes me?”
“You really are dense, aren’t you?” he asked, shaking his head. “Haven’t you seen the way she looks at you? She sure as hell didn’t look at me like that.”
When I didn’t respond, he laughed. “Anyway, let’s get out of here. The way back isn’t quite as complicated as the way in.” And with that, he grabbed me around the waist, raised one hand into the air, and shot a mummy wrapping into the air. It latched onto the broken stone of the ceiling and snapped taught with a sound like a gunshot.
“And yes, I know you’re terrified of heights. It’s why I’m going to zig and zag.” Then we were jerked into the air and everything went kind of blurry as my stomach lurched into my throat…
Glossary
I’ve decided to include a glossary of Egyptian terms and deities that are found within this book. This list, more or less, falls into line with the actual Egyptian mythology and some of them have been twisted slightly in my story. Hope this helps.
Ammit – The Deification of divine justice. He was the creature who consumed the hearts of the unworthy in the underworld.
Anubis – One of the gods associated with the underworld in Ancient Egypt. He had the head of a jackal and was responsible, primarily, for coordinating where souls in the underworld went.
Apep – Apep is the Egyptian deification of darkness and chaos. He is doomed to fight Ra every day. Night was said to fall because he swallowed Ra who cut himself free in the morning. He is also sometimes called Apophis.
Aziza – A name meaning precious in Egyptian.
Bast – A cat-headed goddess. She is primarily a war goddess and is said to be married to Anubis.
Book of Thoth – A book written by Thoth thought to contain the wisdom of the gods.
Duat – The supernatural realm in which the Egyptian gods dwell.
Giza – A temple built in around 2,500 BC. It was constructed by the Pharaoh Khufu and is one of the largest pyramids. It is considered one of the seven wonders of the ancient world.
Hathor – A goddess of healing and medicine who was merged with Sekhmet over time.
Horus – The falcon-headed god of the sun and pharaohs. He is the son of Isis and Osiris.
Imhotep – One of the most powerful priests of Ra. He designed the pyramid of Djoser within Saqqara.
Isis – The goddess of Magic. She is the sister of Set, the wife of Osiris, and the mother of Horus.
Khufu – A Pharaoh who ruled Egypt in around 2,500 BC. He commissioned the building of Giza, and is considered to be one of the greatest, and most terrible, pharaohs of all time.
Menhit – One of the original warrior goddesses before Sekhmet and Bast came into popularity. Her name literally means “She who massacres.”
Mummy – The Egyptian dead went through a process to preserve their corpses called mummification. These became known as mummies.
Neferkaptah – An Egyptian prince who stole the book of Thoth. He was punished for this and entombed with the book so he could guard it forever.
Nesert – Egyptian for “the flame.”
Nile River – A river in Egypt. It is considered the longest river in the world and is almost two miles wide in places.
Osiris – The ruler of the underworld. The god of the dead and the afterlife. He is the father of Horus.
Pharaoh – Basically, the Egyptian word for king or ruler.
Ptah – Ptah is a green-skinned older god who was originally responsible for creation. He is the husband of first Bast and then Sekhmet. He is thought to be the father of Imhotep.
Ra – The sun god who ruled in Ancient Egypt. He was the leader of the gods until Isis tricked him into giving his power to Horus.
Saqqara – A vast burial ground in ancient Egypt. This was the primary site of burial for Egyptian royalty before Giza was built.
Scarab – A type of beetle in Egypt. Believed to be magical by the Egyptians.
Sekhmet – A lion-headed war goddess. She is said to be an example of the rage of Ra and was often unleashed to destroy his enemies. She is said to be merged with Hathor, who is the goddess of healing and medicine.
Set – One of the Egyptian gods of chaos. He is neither evil nor good, but somewhere in the middle.
Setne – A boy who stole the book of Thoth and was driven into madness by the ghost of Neferkaptah.
Sobek – God of crocodiles, strength, and the Nile River. He had the head of a crocodile. He was feared and worshiped, mostly because people feared crocodiles.
Sphinx – The Sphinx was a creature with the body of a lion and the head of a human.
Thoth – The god of time and wisdom. Considered to be one of the most powerful Egyptian deities. He was said to interfere with Ra and Apep’s battles to ensure neither would win.
Wepwawet – A wolf god who came to be associated with Anubis. He was a god of hunting.
Thank you for reading Under Wraps, If you wouldn't mind, please leave a review. If you are wondering what happens to Thes next, check out All Wrapped Up. As a special bonus, the first chapter is included on the next page.
If you are curious how Thes got to Ancient Egypt, you might want to check out the Lillim Callina Chronicles. The first book, Kill it with Magic is available for free.
You may also want to check out my other series, May Contain Spies. It is currently free.
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Chapter 1
“Have I ever told you about the time I was waist deep in muck and how awesome it was?” Khufu asked as he pulled one foot out of the brown, goopy swamp and placed it on the shore with a wet-sounding squelch that turned my stomach.
“Are you talking about right now?” I asked, arching an eyebrow at him as I reached my hand out to help him out of the slime. “Because I think you’re talking about right now.”
We were standing on the bank of the Nile River in ninety plus degree heat, which was part of the problem. The river was filled with about a thousand tons of mud so the water had turned into a sludgy mess that smelled like a cross between raw sewage and rotting fish. I’d like to say this sort of thing was uncommon, but unfortunately since Apep had banished Ra from the face of the earth, it wasn’t.
Khufu smirked at me, his stupid toothy grin spreading across his face like warm butter across toast as he reached out to take my hand. Just as his fingers were about to touch my palm, I pulled my hand back and ran it through my long brown hair before flinging my sweaty fingers at him. Spattering him with my sweat was strangely satisfying, but not as much as the look on his face.
“Too slow,” I called, spinning away from him and walking away from the swollen river, my sandals squeaking on the wet, muddy sand with each step. Behind me, I heard Khufu mutter to himself as he hoisted his mud-splattered body onto the bank.
I half expected him to stand there sucking in gulps of air, but that would have been silly since he was a mummy, and therefore didn’t need to do silly things like breathe or eat. I put my hand to my stomach as the thought of food made my mouth water. When was the last time I’d had some good old fashioned sustenance? I couldn’t even remember. We’d need to remedy that soon because my inner werewolf was starting to get pretty hungry. This was a bad thing because as much as the idea of chowing down on fish that had been left dead in the sun for a few days made my stomach slosh, my wolf was starting to lick its chops at the sight.
“That joke got old like fifteen times ago,” Khufu said, sidling up beside me and matching my brisk pace with ease. “And cut your damn hair, you freaking hippy.”
“I will not cut my hair. It’s a werewolf thing. We’re supposed to have long hair. Besides, I’m Native American, having long hair is part of my mystique.” I shrugged at him, but he didn’t seem to be listening to me anyway. “So what’s the plan, anyway? We’ve been tromping around in the mud for two days, which isn’t exactly helping us do anything unless you’re trying to give me trench foot.” I wiggled my toes in my sandals, spreading mud around on the hard leather soles. They were a step up from the straw ones I’d had before, but not significantly more comfortable.
“I told you I’m looking for something. Do you think I want to be frolicking in the mud with you?” Khufu replied, spinning around in front of me. His eyes went wide as he reached down, grabbing the hilt of the curved saber attached to his belt. “Get back!”
“What? What is it?” I cried, whirling around as my heart hammered in my chest. Only… only I didn’t see anything. A snarl crossed my lips. “Are you just screwing with me?”
“Who? Me?” Khufu said from behind me, humor lacing his words. “Would I do a thing like that?”
“I’m this close to losing my ability to even,” I said, turning on him and narrowing my eyes.
“To even what?” he asked, one dark eyebrow quirking up on his forehead. His face went pale, and he jerked the khopesh free of his belt.
“Um… Thes…” Khufu swallowed, pointing back toward the river. “Get ready for trouble.”
“Oh no, I’m not falling for that one again,” I replied, putting my hands on my hips and leveling my best ‘I will totally eat you because I’m a werewolf and we do stuff like that’ stare at him.
“I’m serious,” he replied and his voice sounded, well, serious.
“I swear if you’re lying to me…” I trailed off, glancing off toward where he pointed. Off in the distance, a platoon of snake-headed men with skin the color of molasses advanced on our position in their gleaming ruby armor. So they had found us already.
“Apepians…” Khufu murmured, whirling back around and jogging away from the river, not even bothering to look back to see if I was following him. Which I was because our last encounter with the snake-faced minions of evil hadn’t exactly gone well. For whatever reason, when they died, they turned into whirlwinds of razor-sharp black dust. And let me tell you, that stuff gets into crevices I didn’t even know I had.
“Great,” I muttered as I sprinted after him. “Just great.”
Ever since Apep, the Egyptian deification of darkness and chaos, had risen and locked his adversary, the Sun God Ra, away in God knows where, he had been systematically taking over Egypt quarter by quarter. We’d tried to slow the process down by interfering whenever we could, but our resistance never seemed to matter very much in the end. Darkness was sweeping over Egypt, and thus far, we’d had little luck staving it off.
To make matters worse, his goons had been hounding us left and right while we tried to find whatever sacred object Khufu was convinced would help us. We were now on magical artifact number thirty-seven, and every single time we found one, well let’s just say the results had been less than spectacular.
Honestly, I wasn’t surprised since Apep had more than enough juice to squash us like bugs if he wanted to do so. Why he hadn’t yet was still a mystery to me. Still, his minions, huge eight foot tall men with rippling biceps and heads like cobras, were more than a little annoying.
“So uh what’s the plan?” I asked as a trumpet call exploded through the air, shattering my hearing and making the resulting silence of the desert overwhelming and oppressive.
“We get the hell out of here, regroup, and come up with a new plan,” Khufu called over his shoulder.
“That’s the same plan we’ve been using for the last three weeks.” I exhaled sharply through my teeth. “I think it’s time we found a new plan, don’t you think?”
“Um… if you want to fight all those snakes for no apparent reason, be my guest,” Khufu snapped, glancing back at me over his shoulder.
“That’s not what I’m saying,” I replied as he ducked into a little hut and paused just inside the doorway. Why he had picked the only hut in the vicinity to hide inside was beyond me. It’d be the first place the snake creatures would probably look for us. Even still, I ducked in behind him and found him fiddling with a secret hatch in the floor. He had the big iron ring in his massive hands and was pulling on it so hard, his muscles corded with the effort.
Next to him, an old threadbare rug lay bunched in the corner, but there wasn’t much else inside. Was the whole purpose of this shack to cover the trapdoor? And why was there a trapdoor in a hut in the middle of nowhere?
“Can you help me?” Khufu asked, releasing the ring, and the solid stone trapdoor crashed back down the couple inches he had managed to lift. I swallowed and took a deep breath. Most mummies were strong enough to bench press a tractor, and Khufu was no exception. I wasn’t exactly sure what he expected me to do to help him. Offer moral support?
“Yeah, sure,” I mumbled, throwing one last look outside. The snake-men were only a few yards away, and from what I could tell, there were over a dozen of the oil-slick creatures coming after us. I jogged over to Khufu and grabbed the ring along with him and tugged.
It was like trying to lift the planet, and honestly, I’m not sure how we managed it, but we did. Maybe it was the black as the pit of hell arrows zinging through the air that pushed us to raise it the last few inches, though I’m not going to swear to that.
Either way, we were inside the secret passage just as the first Apepian breeched the door, blackened spear in hand. The trapdoor slammed shut as we flung ourselves inside, sealing us beneath a thousand pounds of stone and pitching us into near darkness.
I
took a deep breath, calling upon my inner wolf to help me see in the dark, but I needn’t have bothered. There was nothing in the long dark passage as Khufu began moving forward, his khopesh in hand. Then again, being able to see never hurt anyone.
Above us, I heard the creatures struggling with the trapdoor. I wasn’t sure how strong they were, but with so many of them present, I wasn’t exactly confident they wouldn’t breach the hatch above our heads.
“All I’m saying is maybe we need to come up with a slightly better plan,” I said as I stepped up behind Khufu and tossed one last look at the trapdoor, straining my ears and listening for the sounds of the Apepians breaking through. Fortunately, I heard nothing. “One that doesn’t involve constantly running away from snake monsters.”
I turned back around and glared at the back of Khufu’s bald head. The hallway wasn’t wide enough for us to walk next to each other, though that was more to do with the mummified pharaoh being built like a professional linebacker than the passage being abnormally small.
“We have a plan, find a sacred object that actually works and use it to stop Apep’s reign of terror.” Khufu snorted, his gilded armor jangling with the movement. “I like the plan. It’s my plan and, therefore, a good one.”
“Look, I’m not trying to dismiss your plan because it hasn’t worked the last thirty times we’ve tried to use some kind of magic doohickey to stop the snake god, nor will I bring up how the definition of insanity is trying the same thing over and over and expecting different results.” I let out a slow breath as he bristled in front of me, the muscles of his huge back tensing as he gripped his khopesh even tighter. “I’m just saying while we’ve been frolicking in the mud for the last couple weeks, my friend Connor has been stuck without his soul, and Sekhmet has been captured by Imhotep. He’s probably doing all sorts of horrible things to her.”
Under Wraps: An Urban Fantasy Adventure (Werewolves vs. Mummies Book 1) Page 17
