“Yeah… it does. That’s a style from the 1900s,” I replied, stepping up behind him because the corridor wasn’t wide enough for us to stand abreast. Man, what was it with these barely wide enough for a single linebacker tunnels anyway?
“That’s probably not good.” Khufu shook his head. “It makes me worried the timelines are starting to merge.”
“What the hell do you mean by that?” I asked, alarm rising inside me as I stared at him.
“I mean because you, and I guess technically me as well, are from the future. It could be causing your timeline to converge with this one. I was worried it would happen, but I’d sort of laughed it off because it was one of those million to one things.”
“Do you mean to tell me that just by staying here we could cause time to implode?” I asked, barely keeping the hysteria from my voice.
“That is what he is saying, but he’s not correct,” the low, thick voice of Thoth said from behind me. I whirled, and as I did so, I realized the torches lining the tunnel walls had stopped flickering. So Thoth had stopped time again to talk to me, which while it was his right since he was a god of space and time, was a little disconcerting.
“Well, I’m glad he’s not correct,” I replied, feeling the tension ease out of me. “Because if time was about to go all wonky, I’m not sure what I’d do.”
“Time is about to go all wonky, but not because of you being here. Apep has stumbled upon a scenario I hadn’t thought of, which I’ll admit is a might embarrassing,” he said, pulling off his spectacles and rubbing his eyes with his other hand. “He’s stumbled on a way to exponentially increase his power by converging all the versions of himself throughout time. If he does this, it will throw off the balance of power even more so because he’ll still technically be just as strong as he ever was, only not.”
“I’m not sure I follow,” I said as my brain started to hurt.
“Think of it like this. If you have five one pound pumpkins on one side of a scale and one five pound pumpkin on the other side, which side weighs more?” Thoth asked, putting his glasses back on and rubbing his knuckles on his gilded armor.
“Um… they weigh the same.”
“Exactly,” he said, waving his hand at me. “Right now, the universe is viewing them the same too. But the five pound pumpkin is demonstrably bigger than the one pound pumpkin. Right now, the good guys are one pound pumpkins and Apep is the five pound pumpkin. We need to find a way to split his power back up into smaller pumpkins so he doesn’t completely overwhelm you.”
“So how do we do that?” I asked, searching Thoth’s blank face for clues but finding none.
“You need to find a way to siphon off some of his power. I know that sounds difficult, but it isn’t if you think about it. All you need to do is find someone capable of absorbing some of Apep’s power. If you do that, well, Apep will be weaker because there will still only be the same amount of power available.” Thoth stared at me in a way that made me shift from foot to foot uncomfortably. “Do you understand?”
“Yeah,” I replied, pretty sure I actually did. “If Apep’s power is like a gallon of water, and I pour half of it into another cup, Apep will only be half as strong because there’s only a gallon of power available.”
“Bingo.”
“But if we do that, won’t someone absorb half of Ra’s power as well? Isn’t that how it works?” I asked, pretty sure we’d just cause another problem.
“See, I knew you were smart,” Thoth replied, smacking me on the back with one hand. I stumbled forward with the force of it as he waved to me, and a silly thought suddenly occurred to me.
“Um… can I ask you a personal question?” I said, reaching out toward him though I wasn’t sure why.
“Yes?” he asked, glancing back at me and raising one eyebrow.
“Why do you wear glasses when they haven’t been invented yet?” even as I asked the words, my cheeks started to flush.
He tapped himself in the chest with one delicate finger. “God of space and time who knows all things.”
Before I could say anything else, he was gone, leaving me to stare at the empty space where he’d once been.
“So as I was saying,” Khufu continued like he’d never stopped talking. “You’re the problem.”
“Actually, not so much,” I replied, turning toward him to fill him in on what Thoth had just told me.
Chapter 7
“Well that makes this easy then,” Khufu said when I was finished. He had a look on his face that reminded me of a kid staring at the cookie jar while his mother had her back turned.
“How so?” I asked, narrowing my eyes at him.
“Well, think about it. If we can get Apep to half power and someone else gains half of Ra’s power, that person will be able to fight Apep on a level playing field.” Khufu nodded to himself like he was the smartest man alive, which was silly because he wasn’t even alive.
“Except someone on Apep’s side will gain power too. They could just gang up on us and destroy us.” I made a smashing motion with my hands.
“I’m not so sure of that,” Khufu replied, turning away from me and making his way down the hallway without another word. I stared at his slowly retreating back for a moment before moving after him.
“Because why?” I asked, feeling like a petulant three-year-old.
“Because I’m pretty sure I know who we can get to absorb Apep’s power, and while he’s a jerk, he doesn’t exactly like Apep either. In fact, he’s the one who usually puts the beat down on that snake-headed bastard.”
“Oh?” I said, relief spreading across my face for the first time in a long time. “Perfect, how do we find him?”
“Well, that’s the thing… He’s sort of imprisoned,” Khufu said, whirling to face me before I could so much as groan. “But I have a plan, and it’s only twenty percent bad.”
I groaned. Khufu’s twenty percent bad was likely to be my ninety-nine percent bad.
“Don’t groan. It’s unbecoming,” Khufu said as he patted me on the shoulder. He spun back around as we reached the end of the hallway and stood face to face with a solid block wall covered in hieroglyphics. They reminded me of the ones from Saqqara, following the tale of Ra and Apep fighting on a barge as the sun and moon moved through the sky. And, as I stared at it, I suddenly was pretty sure I knew exactly who Khufu was thinking of empowering.
“No freaking way,” I said as Khufu touched several of the hieroglyphics in a seemingly random order, but which probably wasn’t random at all.
“No freaking way, what?” Khufu asked as the wall opened up, the stone sliding away in all directions like a disassembling jigsaw puzzle to reveal a staircase that traveled up into the distance. It was a little weird because I didn’t remember the pyramid being that tall. Then again, we had traveled here through the bowels of a giant creature so I was pretty sure we were in some kind of magical realm.
“Are you thinking of empowering Set?” I asked, pointing at the spot where the depiction of Set ramming his spear through Apep’s head and driving the giant serpent below the edge of the solar barge had been.
“Wow, you do know something,” Khufu said, walking onto the stairs and beginning his ascent. “I’ll have to remember that the next time I try to purposely be vague.” He sighed, and I barely resisted the urge to smack him upside the head.
“If my memory serves me, Set is one of the worst gods in all of Egypt,” I growled, following him up the stairs, and as I did so, Khufu stepped off onto some platform and disappeared from sight. With the horrible feeling of being left behind in an Egyptian tomb filling me, and I sprinted up the last few steps to find Khufu striding across a long platform. The surface reminded me of a mirror, and as I moved across it, my reflection stared back at me from beneath my feet. Wow, I looked pretty beat up. I was covered in gore and my eyes looked wild and haunted.
“Set is a bad guy, but that doesn’t mean he won’t help us. His job, after all, is to keep chaos at bay. He’s
the God of Chaos for the simple reason that he can keep chaos from overwhelming everything.” Khufu shook his head. “He wouldn’t have that job if he wasn’t willing to thwart Apep at every turn.” Khufu shrugged. “That’s probably why he’s been imprisoned.”
That made a certain amount of sense. If you had to appoint someone to absorb the darkness, you’d definitely want that person to be strong enough to resist its pull, wouldn’t you? Still, I couldn’t imagine what it’d be like to have darkness inside you, knowing if you ever slipped up, you could do something horrible. It was enough to make my blood run cold.
“You know, this would be a good time for you to turn into a werewolf,” Khufu said, glancing over his shoulder at me as he knelt down in the center of the platform and pressed his hands to the surface. The ground beneath him rippled outward from him like it was made from water and he had just dropped a stone into it.
“I haven’t been able to shift since we got here.” I gestured to our surroundings. “For whatever reason, I can’t call on my wolf.”
Khufu sighed, letting loose an explosion of breath from his nose. “Damn. I’d hoped that wouldn’t be the case, but then again, I guess if wishes were kittens…”
“Wait, you knew this could happen and you didn’t tell me?” I asked, suddenly incredulous. Being without my wolf was like being without my arm. Suddenly not having it was something I should have been aware from, you know, before things started trying to kill me.
“Um… I don’t understand why you think I’d tell you things I don’t want to tell you.” Khufu turned away from me as though that solved everything.
“So will I get my wolf back then when we leave?” I asked, stepping up next to him as the ground shook and shifted beneath our feet. I threw my arms out, struggling for balance to no avail and fell flat on my back. Pain shot through my limbs as I lay there staring up at the sky. It was, somehow, littered with crimson stars. They winked brightly in the absolute blackness of the space above.
“Presumably,” Khufu replied and his voice was strangely reassuring. “I can’t say for certain, and even if I could… well, that’s no fun. It’s better to keep you guessing, after all.”
I was about to reply when the sound of a million trees falling in a forest all at once filled my ears from every direction, and the sky tore itself asunder, ripping down the center and spilling scarlet light across the platform.
“Here we go,” said Khufu, and I felt him reach out and seize me by the wrist moments before we were sucked into the rent in space and time.
We were spit out into what looked like a bedchamber made from solid silver, only it couldn’t have been because silver hurt me like the dickens. Even in my human form, it was like being rubbed with poison ivy. This didn’t feel like that.
I pulled myself slowly to my feet and realized the only thing in the giant shiny room was an immense four-poster bed covered in red satin sheets. Lying across the bed with her limbs tied together was a girl who looked remarkably like Sekhmet. I couldn’t be sure since I couldn’t make out her face beneath the wave of sapphire hair hiding her features, but I was willing to bet a bowl full of kibble it was her. My heart leapt into my throat as I stared at her. Time seemed to slow down as I tried to swallow, tried to find words. I’d found her. After everything, I’d found her, and now? Now I could get her to safety.
“Sekhmet!” I cried, leaping to my feet and sprinting toward her as Khufu reached out and grabbed me by the collar. I jerked to a stop so suddenly, I nearly flew off my feet and fell back to the ground. I turned to glare at him as he put one finger to his mouth and made a shushing motion.
He pointed toward the bed, and I followed the direction of his finger to see a large purple viper sitting in the blankets beside Sekhmet’s feet. It looked like it was ten feet long and was as thick around as my thigh.
My breath caught in my throat as it regarded me with the flat empty eyes of a soulless predator. It slowly raised up, unfurling the flap on the back of his head as its tongue shot out, tasting the air.
“That would have killed you, even if you were in werewolf form,” Khufu said, edging around me, his khopesh gripped in one hand. “So be very, very careful.”
“I’ll be careful,” I growled. It felt like I was so close to Sekhmet but still so very far. I wasn’t sure if the giant snake had been left to guard her or not, but one thing was perfectly clear. She hadn’t even moved so much as a muscle. Which she should have, right? I mean, I’d yelled her name at the top of my lungs…
“You go that way,” Khufu said, motioning to the opposite side of the bed. “Then when it leaps at one of us, the other can free Sekhmet.”
I nodded, hoping the snake decided it liked mummified pharaohs better than unshifted werewolves. I glanced around, looking for more snakes, but finding none as I edged toward the other side of the bed. The snake swiveled back and forth, trying to watch both of us as we got farther apart.
It turned toward me and opened its mouth, revealing fangs that looked more like daggers than not. Its tongue flickered out toward me, long and black. The muscles in its immense body coiled like it was about to spring. Not good.
I took a hesitant step backward, my hands raised out in front of me to… I’m not sure. And its head fell off in a fountain of black ichor, hitting the bed with a wet smack as blood spewed from its body. Khufu stood behind it, dripping khopesh in hand.
“Well, I’m glad using you as a distraction worked.” And, as he said the words, the snake exploded into a cloud of black smoke that whirled around the room before disappearing into the ether. I stared at the spot for a long time, unable to shake the feeling something very bad had just happened. Thankfully, Khufu was more on top of things because by the time I shook myself back into action, Khufu had untied Sekhmet and thrown the goddess over his shoulder.
Her ebony face resembled one huge bruise as she sucked in tiny, shallow breaths, which was odd because I was pretty sure gods shouldn’t need to breathe. I reached out and touched her face with my free hand, and as my fingers met the soft skin of her cheek, my heart did a happy dance in my chest and tears tugged at the corners of my eyes.
I wasn’t sure why exactly, but until this moment I hadn’t realized how relieved I was to have found her, hadn’t realized some not so small part of me was worried she’d been lost for good. Finding her now was like Christmas morning.
Her eyes shot open, and she stared at me as tears gathered in her eyes. “Thes,” she mouthed in a voice so faint I almost couldn’t hear her. “You came for me.”
Chapter 8
I had my arms around Sekhmet, and the feel of her body against mine was so all encompassing I could barely think past it. I’d found her, after everything. She nuzzled her cheek against my chest, arms snaking out around my waist and pulling me into her. She looked up at me, eyes glistening and lips half-parts. My heart leapt into my throat as she craned her head up toward me, hands pulling me down toward her.
“Well, let’s get this show on the road,” Khufu said, reaching into his tunic and rummaging around with his free hand before whipping out a solid red key the size of a large apple. “That is, if you two lovers don’t need another minute to make googly eyes at each other in the hideout of one of Egypt’s most notorious bad guys.” He put one hand on his hip and stared at me. “If you do, by all means, I’ll wait.”
I was about to say something when Sekhmet’s face fell, and she shook her head. “Put me down,” she wheezed, her voice harsh and worn like she’d been screaming for hours. Khufu cocked his head toward me and gave me a questioning look. I nodded, and he set the goddess down. She wobbled for a moment, reaching out and using Khufu’s arm to steady herself.
“Okay, let’s get out of here,” I said, taking her free hand in mine and squeezing it. Her flesh was colder than ice, and for a moment, I thought about asking what had happened to her because even though she was shaking, I was pretty sure it wasn’t from the temperature. Something was very wrong with her. I just didn’t know wha
t. Cold fear turned my blood into ice. What had Imhotep done to her?
Sekhmet shook her head, and her sapphire hair flew around her face, revealing a golden collar around her neck. A large emerald sat square in the center of the band with green veins rippling out along the metal. “Now you see,” she whispered, pulling her hand free from mine and moving back toward the bed. She sat down with a huff and leaned against one of the bed’s posts, resting her cheek against the metal. “I cannot leave.”
“What do you mean?” I cried, and as I took a step toward her, Khufu grabbed my shoulder.
“She can’t come with us,” he growled through gritted teeth. “As much as I hate to say it, she has to stay here, Thes.”
“No!” I yelled, whirling around and glaring at him as rage boiled inside me. I threw his arm off of my shoulder and shoved him hard. “She’s coming with us goddammit!”
“You don’t understand, Thes,” Sekhmet whispered, and as I turned back toward her, I watched tears drip down her cheeks and pool on her chin before spattering on the bedsheets. She raised her hand and tapped the collar with one delicate finger. “As much as I want to leave with you, Thes, as long as I am wearing this band, I can’t leave this room. The magic will prevent my escape. Even if I somehow did get past the barrier, I’d fade away as it drew my essence back here bit by bit.”
“Okay, okay,” I said, willing myself to see past my rage and almost succeeding as I stared at the metallic choker around her neck. “Just take it off.”
“She can’t, Thes. The only person who can take it off is Imhotep himself, and I somehow doubt he is just going to let her go.” Khufu’s words beat on my brain like a drum beat, and it took me a minute to fully process what he had said. When I did, I stared at him, narrowing my eyes and setting my jaw into a hard line.
“Then we need to find Imhotep and make him release her.” I took a step toward the pharaoh so I was looming over him.
“Look, Thes, you aren’t seeing clearly.” He tried to smile at me, and I shoved him. He stumbled backward and fell on the ground. I moved toward him, my feet slapping on the silver floor as I knelt down next to him and grabbed him by his stupid gilded armor.
All Wrapped Up: An Urban Fantasy Adventure (Werewolves vs. Mummies Book 2) Page 5
