Under Wraps: An Urban Fantasy Adventure (Werewolves vs. Mummies Book 1) (21 page)

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 somehow, 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.”

“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.