All Wrapped Up: An Urban Fantasy Adventure (Werewolves vs. Mummies Book 2) Read online

  “No, you won’t,” I replied, throwing him off and sprinting toward the hole in the wall.

  “You’re right,” he said with a laugh as something I was pretty sure was Horus landed above us with enough force to shake the entire pyramid. I growled in frustration, tossing one last glance at Apep who waved at me with his foot, a sly grin on his face.

  “Toodles,” he said as I leapt outside and made my way up the side of Giza for like the fiftieth time that day. Seriously, had these people never heard of an elevator? The next time we had a giant battle, I sort of hoped it took place on a flat plane. I reached the top just as Horus strode up to Set and grinned like a maniac.

  “What are you doing?” Set asked, confusion lacing his words. His body was nearly black beneath the oil so only the sparks of his eyes had any color left. I wasn’t sure what the cure for horrible darkness eating bacteria was exactly, but I was pretty sure Horus wasn’t about to offer it to the God of Chaos and Destruction.

  “Defeating you,” Horus replied, driving the staff of Ra through Set’s chest in a spray of golden blood. The sky above thundered. The rain fell even harder, turning the roof of the pyramid into a pool of water. Set fell backward, the Was-staff slipping from his hand and falling into the puddle at his feet.

  The wind howled, and the moon turned black as pitch as Horus knelt down next to the fallen god, seizing him by the throat. Blood gushed from Set’s torn stomach as Horus ripped Ra’s staff free, leaving it glistening with gold fluid. He dropped the God of Chaos as the storm ceased, dying out in the space of a breath. Set hit the ground with an empty thunk, his eyes glassy and empty.

  “Well, that was easy,” Horus replied as the ground beneath us shook. The snake above snapped back into reality, large and looming. Horus tossed it a casual glance and shrugged.

  “What the hell is wrong with you?” I cried, looking from Set’s crumpled form to Horus and back again.

  “You forget about balance, wolf,” Horus sneered, walking toward me, and as he did so, the water on the platform evaporated into fog before burning off completely. “If Apep gets stronger, the universe will seek balance and more power will flow into me.” He raised his hand and clenched it into a fist, skin glowing like it was lit from the inside by the sun itself. “With Ra deposed and Set thwarted, I will finally rule!”

  “If you can keep Apep from devouring us all,” I replied, not believing how stupid this guy was.

  “We’re equals, Thes. He cannot beat me.” Horus held the staff above his head and sunlight broke through the darkness, splintering it into atoms. “Don’t you see that? I am the hero now. I will save us!”

  “There’s just one problem with that,” I said, moving past him and kneeling down beside Set. I put my hand on his face but he was so cold, I wasn’t sure he was still alive.

  “What’s that, wolf?” Horus asked, the disdain evident in his voice.

  “Heroes don’t proclaim themselves as such, Horus.” I gestured at the surroundings as Set’s forces faltered to the Apepians as a thousand more snake-headed creatures rose from the shadows, more numerous than ever before. “Do you see anyone proclaiming you?”

  He grabbed me by the back of the head and slammed me face first into the rock. My teeth rattled in my head as he held me down, his hand like a steel vice. “You shall proclaim me, Thes.”

  “No,” I grunted, and as the word left me, he smashed my skull into the rock so hard, everything went woozy.

  “You’re only brave because of your wolf,” he replied, lifting me from the rock and holding me up with one hand. Golden light flickered across his body before coalescing on his staff. “Let’s see how brave you are without it.” He tapped me between the eyes with the staff of Ra, and my brain exploded in agony. Wepwawet howled within me as a chasm of flame opened between us, sealing him away behind a million miles of fire.

  I felt my power fade away, leaving me human and vulnerable before one of the most powerful Egyptian deities. The silly smirk on his face infuriated me beyond words. I wanted to reach out and throttle the life from him, but as I raised my hands to try it, he flung me across the roof. I hit the ground and skidded across it like a stone on a lake before coming to rest inches from the edge.

  Agony spread through my body, no longer kept at bay by Wepwawet, and as I tried to crawl to my feet, Horus knelt next to me and shoved me onto my back.

  “I wonder,” he asked, glancing past me into the darkness below as the last of Set’s forces were overwhelmed. “Will you survive the fall like that?” He smirked. “I don’t think so, but I’m inclined to find that out too. I’m a regular scholar.”

  He shoved me backward, and I fell to my certain doom. I scrabbled against the bricks of the pyramid, fighting to slow my descent but succeeding only in shredding my flesh to ribbons. Blood flowed from my hands. I struck something beneath the crook of my shoulder. My arm popped from the joint and stars flashed across my eyes. Previously unknown levels of misery ripped through me, drowning everything as I hung there, unable to even breathe.

  Below me, Apepians were beginning to scale the pyramid, reminding me of scenes from zombie movies. There were so many it was like trying to count all the salt in the sea or the sands in the desert. I gritted my teeth, ignoring the coppery taste of blood in my mouth and forced my eyes open.

  I hadn’t hit the ground, something had stopped me. The only question was what? I reached out, grabbing it with my good arm, and as I touched it, electricity zipped through me. My eyes opened wide as I realized I was being held aloft by the Was-staff. It must have tumbled off the edge of the pyramid and gotten stuck in between the bricks somehow.

  Holding the weapon filled me with hope as a surge of strength filled me. While it didn’t heal me, it sure made me feel like it had. Still, I had a problem. If I pulled it free, I’d fall to my doom.

  Chapter 24

  Wepwawet burst through the flames Horus had shoved into my mind and slammed down next to me, coat ablaze with golden fire. It rippled out along his coat, charring it to ash as he nuzzled me with his nose. Blisters covered his flesh as he smirked wolfishly at me and cocked his head to the side.

  “Well, Thes, what are you waiting for?” he growled, the sound low and guttural, but strangely confident even as flames licked outward along his body. Pain filled his eyes as I reached out, scratching him behind the ears.

  “You should retreat,” I said, not quite sure what would happen if Horus’s mental fires consumed my wolf. I was pretty sure it wouldn’t be good though.

  “Or you can man up and shift,” Wepwawet snarled, his huge teeth flashing in the moonlit canvas of my mind. “We have a falcon’s ass to kick.”

  I took a deep breath and nodded. My eyes snapped open, and my body shifted. Agony exploded through my limbs as golden flames dancing along my skin, charring me, burning me.

  Wepwawet collapsed onto the ground in my mind, tongue hanging out, eyes half-shut. Whatever this was, it wasn’t going to last long. I gripped the Was-Staff as Apep burst from the stone beneath me. He careened downward and slammed into the sand far below. The Apepians parted around him as he approached a lone figure on the ground.

  Ra! Ra was back on his feet, swinging what looked like flaming nunchucks at the Apepians, forcing them backward so they formed a huge circle around him. Still, even from here, I could tell he didn’t have much left. If only there was a falcon-shaped battery lying around, just begging to have someone use it to power up Ra.

  I looked up and spied Horus standing atop the pyramid, Ra’s staff in his hand as he gestured like a crazy person at the night sky. The moon high above beamed down on him, and I got the impression it was laughing at the sun god.

  I drove my free claw into the side of the wall with all the strength I could muster. The stone crumbled beneath my attack like it was made of Styrofoam. I dug my feet into the cracks of the block below me and jerked the Was-staff free of the pyramid. It came free with the crash of thunder. Scarlet lightning exploded from its tip, snaking outwar
d along the pyramid’s surface so the structure looked like it was bleeding.

  Horus turned toward me, his falcon eyes going wide as he saw me perched there on the side. He screamed a wordless cry of rage and leapt from the side of the pyramid. He caught my burning body in the chest and knocked me free of Giza. We tumbled downward in an avalanche of stone as he pounded me with one huge fist, each blow breaking things inside me.

  I struggled, trying to bring the Was-staff to bear, but no matter what I did, he was too fast to hit. It probably would have been easier if my body wasn’t on fire, and as I thought about that, I shut my eyes and reached out toward my wolf, which was stupid because I was in the middle of a fight.

  Wepwawet lay on the ground, fire having already reduced his pristine golden coat to ash and was in the process of turning his skin into charred meat. The wolf stared at me, confused as to why I was there.

  “Yo,” I said, and the Was-staff popped into my mental hand. “Need some juice?” I tossed the weapon to my wolf.

  Wepwawet caught it in his mouth, and for a moment, nothing happened. Then his eyes went completely red, and the fire blazing along his body went out. He stood there, scarlet light shooting from his body as his fur grew back, only instead of being gilded like normal, it was the color of freshly spilled blood. My wolf threw his head back and howled. Above us, thunder crashed.

  I opened my eyes just in time to catch a knee to the crotch. My world sort of spun sideways as my hands went downward to my most private parts. Pain so deep and intense, I couldn’t ignore it shot through me as the urge to vomit drowned out every thought I had.

  Horus grinned, wrapping his huge hand around my waist and hoisting me toward him. His beak glinted in the moonlight before he drove it into my neck, slicing through my flesh like a stiletto and spraying my blood across his chest. He tore meat free from my body and flung it sideways where it disappeared into the distance.

  That was when I realized we were high in the air. We were so high up, I couldn’t even see the ground. I screamed in terror as the bird god laughed, spraying blood and spittle across my face.

  “I’d heard you didn’t like heights, Thes. It’s good to see the rumors were true.” He grinned at me, which was weird to say the least because I didn’t know birds could grin. “Don’t worry. You won’t have much longer to be scared. There won’t be any air for you to breathe soon, and then, just as you’re about to pass out, I’ll drop you. It’ll be fun.”

  I smashed him across the back of the head with the Was-staff, my hand clutching the weapon hard enough to make my knuckles hurt from the effort. The blow knocked the stupid grin right off his face. His eyes went glassy. His grip on me loosened and panic exploded within me like a firecracker. I reached out with my other hand, frantically trying to grab hold of something, anything to stop myself from falling.

  I seized the staff of Ra in Horus’s other hand. White hot fire licked out across my flesh as I touched the glowing gold. Horus finally lost his hold on me, and I tumbled downward, jerking to a stop as I gripped metal so hot it was actually melting through my hand. My legs shot out, bicycling in the air as my fall yanked Horus sideways. His body tilted, wings buckling under the sudden strain.

  My heart pounded in my chest, trying to escape my body as I tried to climb up the stunned bird god. My clawed feet found purchase in his leg, and as I tried to scramble up his body and away from the horrible falling, the god screamed and let of go the staff of Ra.

  I fell.

  I fell, clutching a weapon in one hand that burned like the heart of the sun, and somehow that didn’t bother me nearly as much as the wind whistling through my ears. I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t force myself to take a single breath, couldn’t even think.

  The ground loomed before me like an inevitability. There was no way I could survive a fall like this. It was too high for me, and while I’d tried to tell myself over and over again I wasn’t scared of heights, well, I knew that was a lie.

  I was going to die. Right here, right now, and there wasn’t anything I could do about it. The last sounds of Wepwawet screaming for me to listen to him faded away, leaving me human and… and… I realized something. I wasn’t scared of dying anymore or of heights. I was going to die, and I knew that, and because I knew I was as good as dead, I ceased to be scared.

  The staves in my hands exploded. Each one bursting into scintillating sprays of light that swarmed around me like flitting effervescent bugs. My body slowed and stopped, suspending me over a thousand feet above the ground. Energy swirled around me. My armor disintegrated, leaving me naked in midair as the light coalesced over my flesh. Where it touched my flesh, the spot glowed either crimson or golden.

  I began to float downward, so slowly, that by the time the last of the light faded away, I was standing on the ground completely unscathed. I curled my hands into fists and was surprised to realize I was back in wolf form even though I didn’t recall shifting. I must have shifted because my fur was a mix of red and gold. I looked around and realized the Apepians had given me a wide berth.

  I took a step toward the creatures, and as I did so, red and gold armor covered my body, making me look like I’d just stepped out of King Arthur’s court. My mace reappeared in my hand, and as I hefted it before me, lightning flashed through the sky. It hit the ground in front of me and spread out in a rolling wave of all-consuming golden fire.

  Apepians fell with every step I took. Was this what it felt like to be a god upon a battlefield of mortal men? If it did, well, I could get used to it. What’s that say about me? Nothing good, I was pretty sure because I enjoyed destroying the Apepians like they were nothing, and they couldn’t even defend themselves.

  “Get Ra!” Apep screamed, and I craned my head toward the sound to see Ra on one knee, flames dying all around him. Sekhmet stood in front of him, one arm twisted unnaturally, golden blood dripping down her body as she fought off Apepians one-handed with a spear of hewn obsidian.

  Apep stood out of her reach, one hand clutching a wound at his side as golden blood seeped from between his fingers. Had Sekhmet been holding him off this whole time while I’d been what? Bird watching?

  I cursed myself and sprinted toward them, plowing through the Apepians like they were kindling and I was a raging wildfire. I leapt, clearing a huge distance in a single bound and crashed into the ground as Apep flung Sekhmet fifty feet away. Her body slammed into the pyramid hard enough to puncture the stone. She disappeared inside as the pyramid listed and partially collapsed in on her.

  “No!” I screamed, turning toward the wrecked structure as Apep seized Ra by the throat, hoisting the god-king into the air.

  “Idiot,” Apep said, and as I spun back toward him, the snake god thrust Ra into the swirling black whirlpool on his chest. I reached out, trying to seize Ra, but it was too late. My fingers passed through him as his body disintegrated into ash. Apep smirked, his muscles bulging outward and his wounds disappearing as he grinned at me.

  “So you’re coming into your own, Thes,” Apep said, holding his hands out to me palms up. “Took long enough. But I’m not quite sure you’re ready to hold onto all that godly power.”

  “We’ll see,” I said and lunged at him. He didn’t even move, just stood there smiling at me as I attacked. Just as my claws were about to tear into him, Horus slammed into me, knocking me to the ground.

  “What have you done with my staff, wolf?” the falcon god screamed, and Apep laughed so loudly, I couldn’t hear anything over the sound of it.

  “Seriously?” I screamed as Horus lashed out with his khopesh. I caught the blade barehanded which was stupid because it cut through my red and gold gauntlet and sliced half the flesh off my hand and arm. I screamed in agony as Horus kicked me in the chest, tossing me backward across the sand.

  “I guess I’ll just have to cut it out of you,” Horus said as Apep slinked off behind him. I didn’t have time to figure out the snake’s intentions as Horus drove his khopesh into my gut, splitting my armor l
ike it was made of tinfoil and spilling my blood across the sand.

  I swung my flail at him as he tore the curved saber out of me, but I must have missed because the head of the weapon sailed off into the distance.

  Chapter 25

  I’ll admit, I was all sorts of surprised when Horus’s head fell off of his shoulders and landed on the sand next to me. His body slowly slumped forward onto his knees before toppling over in a spray of golden fluid that left me covered in the gunk.

  Khufu stood behind the god, his soul-infused khopesh in hand. He reached out to me with his other hand, offering it to me.

  “Birds.” He spat a loogey that hit the decapitated head of Horus on the eye and dribbled down his finely-feathered cheek. “Did you know they are really demons put on this world to suck out a man’s soul?”

  “Is that true?” I asked, waving him off because even though my body was fast healing, it wasn’t that fast. I’d need to lay here a little while longer, filled with godly juju or not. I mean come on, I had just been eviscerated. Still, I was glad to see him again.

  Khufu nodded, kneeling down next to Horus and snapping a pair of gilded handcuffs onto the god’s wrists. When he saw me looking, he grinned his signature toothy smile and pumped his bushy eyebrows into the air a couple of times.

  “Those should keep him incapacitated for a good long while.” He reached out, snatching Horus’s head and placing it daintily on top of the bird god’s butt. “At least that’s what Nephthys said. Remind me to never, ever piss her off.” He shivered like he’d seen something horrible.

  So Nephthys was back and had evidently given Khufu the means to subdue Horus. That meant we could finally stop Apep… if only I could get up.