Under Wraps: An Urban Fantasy Adventure (Werewolves vs. Mummies Book 1) Read online

  Bast put one delicate hand against Anubis’ chest and stood up on her tippy toes to whisper in his ear. Whatever she said made a tremor run down his body, but before he could do anything, she dropped down and padded past him out the door. Anubis watched her, and well, so did I because as much as I hated to see her go, I liked watching her leave.

  “If you’ll excuse me,” Anubis said, voice half-strained as he turned and disappeared into the hallway.

  Aziza didn’t even look at him, didn’t even acknowledge his voice as she crossed the room and slapped me.

  “How could you?” she asked, eyes bright and shiny, and the tone in her voice made me feel very small. “How could you kiss Bast?”

  I was about to make a snide remark about the mechanics of a kiss, but decided to just shut up. See, and my sister says I never learn.

  Aziza put her hands on her hips and stared at me for a long time before throwing her arms up in the air. “You know what, I don’t even care.” She turned on her heel and stopped after half a step. “I hope the two of you have a whole mess of kittens.”

  “Say what?” I asked, getting to my feet. Why did she seem so jealous? I shook my head. No, I was just being silly. She was just mad about Bast for some reason I didn’t understand. Besides, even if there was something there, I wasn’t quite sure how much I could trust someone who gutted me like a fish… even if she was possessed at the time. “I don’t think it works like that.”

  “She’s a cat god. Of course it works that way.” She shook her head. “So I’m out there killing mummies and fighting while you’re in here playing smooch face with Bast. Typical.”

  “How is what you said typical?” I asked before I could stop myself.

  She whirled on me, face hard and angry. “You’re making me feel like a bitch. I’m not normally a bitch, and I don’t like it. You need to stop, Thes.”

  “I need to stop making you feel like a bitch?” I asked, quirking my eyebrow into the air. This seemed to make her angrier so I hastily added, “Aziza, I’m not trying to make you upset.”

  “You’re not trying to make me happy either,” she replied which was true. I hadn’t tried to make her happy. The only thing I could do was plead that I had done nothing, and somehow, I suspected saying I’d done nothing wouldn’t help the matter.

  I decided to go a different direction. “If you tell me why you’re upset, I’ll try and fix it.”

  “You can’t fix it,” she snapped. “And if I tell you why I’m upset and you do fix it, then it won’t be genuine.”

  “So I’m supposed to try and figure out what the hell is making you so upset and then fix it?”

  “God, you’re such an idiot!”

  “You know, that’s the second time you’ve called me names, but I haven’t said anything like that to you.”

  She was about to reply, but her cheeks flushed. She stared at me for a long time before looking at her sandaled feet. “You’re right, I’m sorry.”

  I swallowed. Had I heard that right? Was she apologizing? That… that didn’t seem good. “Um… okay?”

  “Look, let’s just forget this whole thing and get back up to the surface. Then we can find the staff, get your friend’s soul back, and send you home.” She sighed. “I’m sure you have someone waiting for you back home, anyway.”

  “Well, my sister is probably worried…” I trailed off, thinking. Had anyone even noticed I was gone? How much time had even passed back home? For all I knew, I’d show up three seconds after I left no matter how many years I spent here.

  “Your sister?” Aziza looked at me strangely, like she was weighing something in her mind.

  “Yeah, my sister is pretty protective. I suspect she’ll be worried about where I am, but she would have been worried before I got sent to Egypt.” I shrugged, not wanting to go into how I’d actually wound up in Hades.

  “Yeah… you should stay away from the Menhit.” Aziza swallowed as if just saying the word shook her. “They’re bad news.”

  “The Menhit?” I asked, quirking an eyebrow. “I’m not familiar with the term. It sort of sounds like Sekhmet.”

  “Sekhmet is one of the Menhit, yes. But your friend from the tomb was one of them too. Not as strong as Sekhmet, but still dangerous.” A small tremor ran through her, and I had to resist the urge to pull her close and whisper, “it will be alright.”

  “Are you talking about my friend, Lillim?” I asked. “She’s just a plain old Dioscuri. Okay, yeah she’s really powerful, and the Dioscuri are bad news, but as long as you keep your nose clean, they tend to leave you alone.”

  “Your friend Lillim’s power springs forth from Apep. Ignoring the fact that he’s the source of unending darkness and chaos, he’s one of the most powerful deities in Egypt.” She shook her head. “I want you to think about that for a while. Even if she’s the nicest person in the universe, the creatures the Menhit were created to fight are way out of your league. It’s why so many of them eventually became war deities. The Menhit are the arrows that strike down armies on the battlefield. They are the ravens that swoop from the sky and pick out those who die.” Aziza looked at me, her amethyst eyes flashing as they bored into me. “I don’t want you to get killed, Thes. Once you get back home, the best thing you could possibly do is stay away from her because there’s only one way the Menhit’s stories end. One day something big enough and bad enough comes along and kills them. You do not want to be next to her when that happens.”

  “Um… I wasn’t planning on getting involved with her.” I shrugged. It was true. The idea of following Lillim around was, well, dangerous. I mean, come on. I’d known her for exactly twelve minutes before getting zapped into an alternate dimension with a minotaur. That didn’t exactly make me think she was safe to be around. Sure, it could be coincidence, but somehow, I doubted it. Instead, I had the sneaking suspicion that if she’d just picked a different little town to inhabit, I’d have been left to play football and drink beer. I was the definition of collateral damage.

  “Good. Now enough stalling, we need to get you home.” She reached out, taking my hand in hers and pulling me through the walkway. I tried to pay attention to where we were going and what was happening, but honestly, the only thing I could pay attention to was how her hand felt in mine and the way it made my heart thump in my chest. It was a feeling completely unlike what I’d experienced with Bast… in a good way.

  Chapter 14

  “It’s really not a big deal,” Anubis said, one tanned hand sweeping out in front of him as he gestured at the walled gates of a huge city, at least I think it was a city. The margarine-colored walls surrounding it stretched up so high into the sky that I couldn’t see the top, much less over them. I wasn’t quite sure what awaited us inside, but as we approached the huge gilded gate, my wolf seemed strangely calm. Maybe it was because we were with Anubis and Bast, but I felt strangely invincible.

  “It’s a huge deal,” I said, swallowing. “Thanks for bringing us here.” When in doubt be polite. It was something my mother had drilled into me. Politeness costs you nothing, and sometimes, it gets you everything. Besides, he was a god, and he had found Connor’s soul, even though technically Aziza had helped him with the mummies instead of me. Still, how often do people tell stories about gods doing them a solid?

  “You don’t remember the name, do you?” Aziza asked, quirking her eyebrow at me. “That’s why you said ‘here’ isn’t it?”

  I nodded sheepishly. They’d told me the name, but because I couldn’t pronounce it, I’d quickly forgotten. Either way, we were here now, and that’s what counted. We were so close to Connor’s soul that I could feel it.

  And it was all thanks to Anubis. He had been waiting for us in a room just off the hallway we’d been in. Surprisingly, it was covered with paintings of swans. It was a little disconcerting. Still, Anubis had managed to locate Connor’s soul, and what was better? He had offered to take us to the location.

  “Don’t keep thanking him, or he’ll get a
big head,” Bast said, smirking her cat smirk at him, and laying a hand on his shoulder. Evidently, they had made up. Which was good I guess… still, it left me feeling a little used and wondering how often things like this happened between them.

  “Once you’re through the gate, we won’t be able to help you anymore. You’re on your own with the soul. Try not to mess up and lose it, or destroy it. I had to pull in a bunch of favors to learn the location.” Anubis stared up at the sky, eyes sweeping over the tops of the walls. “I’m not sure I’ll be able to do it again.”

  That worried me. This was Anubis. Who the hell would be strong enough to hide things from him? No one good, that’s for sure. And for him to have used favors? That seemed doubly ominous. Still, I wasn’t planning on letting Connor’s soul slip through my fingers now that we were so close.

  “We’ll be careful,” Aziza said, walking past us and placing her hand on a small stone dais that sat inauspiciously next to the gate. The moment she touched it, purple light exploded from her palm, throwing off sparks and shrouding us in shadow. “Besides, I know the guy who runs this place.”

  “Jailer, why have you come to Saqqara? This is a holy place, and none of your charge are here.” The voice boomed across the sands, whipping it into small dervishes all around us. I threw a look at Anubis, but neither he nor Bast were there. Both of them had vanished as though they had never been at our sides. Great. Just great.

  “Didn’t even say goodbye,” I mumbled, trying to ignore the sinking feeling in my gut. Had they just left, or had they fled. Or worse?

  “Anubis has told us that the soul of our friend is within your walls, Imhotep. We ask for passage within so that we might retrieve it,” Aziza said, blatantly name dropping. It reminded me of when my sister tried to get me to do something by saying our Alpha wanted me to do it.

  “Denied.” The light on the dais went out like someone had flipped the off switch.

  “Well, that was rude,” I said, staring at Aziza. Her mouth twitched for a split second before settling into a stony mask that could have sent small children fleeing to their mothers. I wasn’t sure what it meant, exactly, but her scent had changed subtly. I knew that scent. She was worried.

  “Yeah, and odd. He should have let us in. Imhotep is usually a pretty reasonable guy, so…” She rubbed her chin thoughtfully with one hand.

  “So something is wrong,” I said, and the wolf’s ears perked up. “I knew it couldn’t be this easy.”

  “Don’t go getting your panties in a bunch,” Aziza said, walking over to me and putting one arm around my waist. “There’s more than one way to skin a mummy.”

  “What are you doing?” I asked as she pulled me in close to her body and reached out toward the sky with her other hand. Her clothing shimmered, throwing off amethyst sparks moments before a linen cord exploded from her sleeve and shot off into the air like a rocket.

  “Hang on,” she said, throwing a grin at me that reminded me of whip-wielding action heroes.

  Our feet left the ground as I clung to Aziza like a damsel in distress. Our sudden role reversal was not lost on me. I was just thankful that no one could take a picture and post it for the rest of my pack to see.

  We shot up along the line of her mummy-cord, and my heart tried to escape through my chest by beating its way out. The edge of the wall came at us so fast that I was sure we were about to be splattered against it. Aziza’s feet shot out, smacking into the stone with a thwack. Pain flashed through her eyes for a split second. She bit her lip and turned to look at me, amusement chasing away whatever momentary discomfort she’d had.

  “Well, are you going to climb up, or are we just going to hand around all day?” she asked, the muscles in her arm cording with effort as she held us aloft.

  I stared out at the rim of the wall and didn’t release my death grip on her dress. I hung there, suspended so far above the ground I couldn’t even see it. The world lurched and darkness approached around the edges of my vision. I wouldn’t say I was afraid of heights, per se, but I was, well, okay— I was terrified of them.

  The scenery lurched again as Aziza moved, bending her legs so that all I had to do was reach out and grab the lip. The buttery stone was so close that it wouldn’t be hard to pull myself up. But what if I slipped? My hands were too clammy to risk it. I swallowed as blood thundered in my ears.

  Aziza shot me a worried look. “What’s wrong?” she asked, concern filling her eyes as she glanced from me to the wall and back again.

  “Scared,” I managed to get out through clenched teeth, and barely resisted the urge to wrap my legs around her. “I don’t like heights.”

  Aziza’s lips twitched around the edges like she was trying to suppress a smile. She nodded once and pushed off with her legs, using the balls of her feet to somehow launch us up vertically. As she did so, she jerked hard on the wrapping in her hand. A moment later, we were standing on the wall. Well, to be more accurate, she was standing on the wall holding me like a giant football-player-sized baby. I guess it was good that mummies seemed to have super-human strength.

  “Can you stand, or is it still too scary?” she asked, and while her tone didn’t contain any amusement, I still got the feeling she was making fun at me.

  I nodded, and she dropped me like a sack of potatoes. My head smacked into the rock and stars shot across my eyes for a moment. She turned, ignoring my plight, and stared out across the city.

  I slowly got to my hands and knees, careful not to approach the edge of the wall. It was over six feet wide, so honestly, it wasn’t hard to stay away from the edge. I moved into a sitting position and forced myself to look out into the complex below. The walls didn’t seem as high inside the place because I could see the sandy earth below. The compound was huge, filled with mini-pyramids and statues of what I assumed were gods.

  All around the courtyard, the animal-headed figures stood guard, brandishing all sorts of wicked-looking weaponry. The entire inside of the left wall was covered with a mural that depicted Ra on his sun-boat traveling down a river with a host of other gods at his side. It was done in a sort of pictograph so as it swept across the wall, the scenes changed to show them fighting off a massive black serpent with eyes like the void itself.

  As I stared into the snake’s eyes, a chill wriggled down my back, making me squirm. That was the creature my friend Lillim controlled. That was Apep, the deification of darkness and chaos. I swallowed. Seeing that picture on the wall made me very scared. How could someone think to control that?

  “Seems like you’re feeling better,” Aziza said, still not looking at me. “We better get down there before any sentries come.”

  “Sentries?”

  “Yeah, giant stone falcons that make sure people don’t scale the walls. If one sees us, it will sound the alarm, and all those statues will come to life and try to kill us. I’d like to avoid that.”

  I swallowed. “I would like to avoid that too,” I replied. “So how do we get down?”

  “The same way we got up here,” she said, smiling at me, and I swear to god she seemed amused by my plight.

  “Is there another way?” I asked, barely resisting the urge to roll into a ball and cry. Already my palms were starting to sweat and nausea was swirling in my gut.

  “I could throw you,” she offered with an evil glint in her eyes. “No?”

  I shut my eyes and focused on not hyperventilating as I fell from the top of the wall and splattered against the ground over and over in my mind’s eye.

  “I guess we could take the stairs,” Aziza said with a sigh. “But that’s way less fun.”

  I opened one eye and stared at her. Had she really just made fun of my fear of heights while we were standing a million stories above the ground? Seriously? Anger built inside me as she pointed to an alcove on my right. I turned and looked to see an entrance that was blocked by a simple wooden door with slats the color of old mud. It wasn’t even closed all the way. Through the partial opening, I could see stairs hea
ding downward.

  “I will kill you,” I muttered as she walked past me and threw the door open without a care in the world. Wasn’t she worried about drawing attention to herself?

  “What if someone sees us?” I asked, crawling toward her because I didn’t want to risk standing, losing my balance, and falling to my certain doom.

  “I’m pretty sure it’s more likely that someone will see us standing out here in the open.” She grinned at me as she pushed the door open to reveal a torch-lined stairwell that led down into the inky darkness below. “Unless you’d like to stay out here. By yourself. With the falcons. On top of a giant wall.” She shrugged at me and made her way inside.

  “Wait!” I called, scrambling toward her in a sort of half-crawl, half-shamble. She glanced at me over her shoulder, white teeth flashing in the dancing light of the torches. She quirked an amused eyebrow at me and put one hand on her hips.

  A hand that was more a mottled grey-green claw with glinting black nails grabbed her face, wrapping its fingers around her mouth and jerking her backward. Her feet flew out from under her as her eyes went wide with fright.

  I leapt forward, hitting the doorway a second later, my heart pounding in my chest as her feet disappeared from view down the dimly lit stairs. I took a step forward, and the door slammed shut behind me. A breath of cool, damp air rolled over the back of my neck. I whirled around as the torches went out, not one by one or anything, but all at once and completely, so that I was left in pitch black darkness.

  I swallowed, trying not to lose my cool as the scratch-scratch of claws on stone filled my ears. It was too dark to see much, but I scanned the area anyway, my wolf peering out my eyes and lending me his power. Even shifted into wolf form, it was so dark I couldn’t see very well.