Khufu pointed toward the open door, and I could have sworn the tip of his finger was made of stone. “Hopefully, through that door because I doubt I’m going to be doing much more than lying down for a while.” He took a wobbly step away from me and lost his balance. Thankfully, I caught him before he collapsed completely, but it was a near thing, especially since he was so heavy.
“Let’s just take this slow,” I whispered, hoping I sounded more confident than I felt. I was terrified by what that thing had done to Khufu. Sure he’d betrayed me, made fun of me, and been mostly a jerk, but he’d always been sort of open about it, and besides, I sort of liked him. There, I admitted it.
“Okay.” Khufu nodded, hobbling along like his joints were as stiff as boards. “That’s a good idea.”
It took a while, but we eventually made our way inside, and I almost wished we hadn’t. The place was trashed. It reminded me of those crime scene photos you see of houses that had been ransacked. Every single statue and all of the furniture had all been toppled over and smashed. The once plush green carpet was marred and stained with a variety of foul smelling goop. Even the torches lining the walls were broken, and the ones that were lit, seemed to have seen far better days.
“Um…” I swallowed. “What the hell happened here?”
“Seems like someone was looking for something they didn’t find.” Khufu tried to smile at me but wound up looking like he was going to hurl. “Or did find. I have no idea.”
“You’re not being very helpful,” I replied as I sat him down on a relatively clean patch of carpet and turned a relatively stain-free couch right side up. “Now get on there and lie down. I’ll look around more.”
“What if something tries to eat me?” Khufu asked, an uncharacteristic look of fear flashing across his face as he climbed onto the couch and flopping into its soft pink cushions like a half-dead fish.
“I don’t think you really have to worry about things like that, but if something does eat you, try to give it indigestion.” I smirked and turned away from him so he wouldn’t see how worried I was. If there was truly something dark and horrible here, well, it’d probably kill Khufu before his curse could do its job.
I made my way toward the only other door in the room. It was made of dark wood and bound in gold. It was also slightly ajar. I pushed it open and peered into the surprisingly well-lit hallway beyond.
The ground was covered with glowing blue stones and as I padded forward inside, warm, moist air clung to my skin like a wet breath. I moved forward anyway, my hand reaching down to pat the khopesh on my leg. Which was when I realized I no longer had it.
I cursed. I must have lost it during my battle with the skeletons. Speaking of which, that was a little weird, right? I mean, okay we were in ancient Egypt and in the land of the dead, I think, but still, those soldiers looked like they could have come from the civil war. They shouldn’t exist yet, and that said nothing about the knights. Something weird was definitely going on.
And what was with Khufu suddenly making pop culture references? He’d never done that before, and now he was quoting Star Wars at me? Had I entered loonyville? Was I going to wake up and find myself in a mental hospital? I sure hoped not. If I was delusional, I hoped my delusions had way more naked women in them. Just saying. Besides, if I’d dreamed up my girlfriend getting decapitated by Isis, I had real psychological problems.
A smirk crossed my lips as I approached the end of the hallway. Three doors stood around me in a semi-circle, each sparkling like polished glass. The one to the left of me was dark indigo, and the colors of the entire space changed in a rainbow-colored gradient so the door to my right was completely filled with oranges and reds.
I sighed, not sure what one to pick, and decided to just go with orange because it was the new black and would therefore be where I’d hold a captured death god. Besides, nothing bad was ever orange, right? You know, except fire.
The sight of a thousand white kittens all sitting in the middle of a red rug, lapping cream from golden saucers greeted me when I pushed the orange door open. Bast sat just beyond them, her chin in her hands as she stared at them. She looked up at me and smiled.
“Oh, hello, Thes. How are things?” She stood and stretched, her mouth opening in a wide yawn to reveal her tongue amidst rows of teeth, thousands of teeth. Only I barely noticed because I was instantly very aware of how confined her ample curves were by her tight black cat suit. “Did you miss me?”
Chapter 9
“Um, hi, Bast,” I sputtered, my voice catching in my throat as she sauntered toward me, every movement slow and sensual. She met my gaze, and there was very real heat within her sparkling eyes.
“You didn’t answer my question.” She pressed one black fingernail against my chest and trailed it down my body.
“Oh?” I squeaked, looking around for somewhere to hide, but the sparsely furnished room didn’t exactly offer anywhere to go. Rats.
“I asked if you missed me.” She licked her lips, slowly tracing the outline of her mouth with her tongue. “I heard you found another cat to replace me.” She pouted, pressing her body against mine as she sidled around me. “Haven’t you learned there’s no kitty quite like me?”
Her hands snaked around me from behind, wrapping around my stomach. She raised them slowly, her nails scratching at my flesh through my clothing and making a small sound escape my lips. “Um…” I managed to say before she released me and took a step back.
I turned as she reached out and pulled the door closed behind her. Dread swept through me as it clicked shut, and I realized, to my horror, she stood between me and the only exit. I must have had a worried look on my face because she raised one eyebrow and made a tsking sound.
“What’s wrong? Don’t want to be all alone with me?” she asked, a hint of sadness tingeing her voice as she stepped close to me and wrapped herself around me. She was so warm, I could barely think past it. Somehow, I managed to reach out and grip her shoulders. She leaned down, pressing her lips to my neck. I pushed her away.
“We’re not alone,” I whispered and motioned toward the kittens who were all watching us with unblinking eyes. It was really creepy.
“They don’t count, Thes,” she said, leaning close so her words were hot on my neck before she nuzzled my shoulder with the top of her head. “I’m starting to think you’re making excuses.” Her fingernails trailed down the nape of my neck as she spoke. “Is there something else you’re interested in?”
“Where’s Anubis?” I asked, trying to pull the conversation back toward where I wanted it to go. Bast was throwing me off, and not in a good way. She’d always been, well, aggressive, but not quite like this. No, she was like Bast gone wild, and I was reasonably sure I didn’t want to participate in whatever that was.
She scowled at me before taking two quick steps back so her back was pressed against the orange door. “He’s gone. Vanished. Disappeared.” She dropped her hands to her sides, and a breath shuddered out of her. “I woke up, and he’d left without a trace. That was so long ago, I can barely remember it.” She looked up at me, eyes filled with unspent tears. “I’ve been taking care of the underworld all on my own. Cats aren’t meant for that kind of responsibility. We’re meant to roam free, not attend meetings on rigid schedules.”
“Anubis is gone? Like Osiris?” I asked, feeling a cold sweat start to form on my skin. How could both gods of death be gone? Who could pull off something like that? Not the destroyer, he supposedly wasn’t in his body yet. So who?
“Yes. They’re both gone. I’ve tried to keep it under wraps, but it gets harder by the day. Weird things are starting to happen.” She gestured pathetically at the kittens. “I don’t even know where they came from. They just showed up one day all mewling and needing food.” She leaned close to me, covering her mouth with her hands conspiratorially. “I don’t even really like other cats. They get hair everywhere.” She shuddered in disgust, and I had to hide my smirk. The irony was palpable.
> I turned to look at the cats, and as I did so, Bast lunged at me, claws outstretched. I stumbled sideways, trying to dodge, but wound up losing my footing on the red rug and crashing to the ground like an idiot. The pain of the impact rattled up my tailbone as Bast advanced upon me, head like a black jaguar, mouth twisted into a snarl. I’d never actually seen a werecat before and was suddenly very glad because I instantly had a new appreciation for someone who could transform into a hundred and fifty pound feline.
“What are you doing?” I cried as her claws raked across the space between my legs, tearing through the red fabric and gouging lines in the stone beneath.
“Stopping you as per my orders.” She shrugged like that made perfect sense which it didn’t.
“Who’s orders?” I asked, leaping to my feet and transforming at the same time. I caught her next swipe, wrapping my hand around her wrist and tugging her toward me. The distance between us vanished. I shifted my weight and slammed her downward into the floor. The sound of cracking bone and shattering stone filled my ears as the gaze of a couple thousand eyes burned holes in my back.
I spun toward the kittens, only they weren’t kittens anymore. They were creatures hewn from darkness and flame with wings like bats and fangs the size of machetes. They leapt as one, taking to the air like a well-trained pack of falcons and zeroing in on me. Flame spat from their mouths as they converged like a single, horrible mass of hell-kitty death.
My fist lashed out, smacking the first kitten in the face as I danced backward like a butterfly on the balls of my feet. I admit, I probably looked ridiculous. There I was, an eight-foot-tall werewolf bobbing and weaving as fire-breathing kittens circled like hawks. I popped another one in the nose, knocking its dragon breath to the left. The white-hot flame sizzled through the air, singeing my arm hair. The blast ignited the red rug beneath my feet and licked across the stone like someone had spilled gasoline.
The kittens howled, and the cacophony generated by a thousand throats reverberated in my ear drums. Under the onslaught of claws and hatred, the creatures pressed me further back into the corner as they darted in several hundred at a time.
“What’s going on?” Bast asked, watching me with a dazed look in her eyes. Her gaze swiveled from me to the kittens and back again as she shook her head like she was trying to get the cobwebs out. The strange heat in her eyes had faded away, leaving only fear and confusion behind in its wake. My throw had definitely knocked the crazy out of the cat goddess, but that left me with two other questions. Why had she been crazy and why had hitting her really hard solved my problem? I didn’t have the answer at the moment, but I was sure going to investigate further once our situation became less dire.
“Your dragon-kittens are attacking me!” I screamed, stepping to the side and grabbing one particularly aggressive cat by its hummingbird fast wings. Their sharpened edges sliced into my flesh as I whirled and flung it into another creature. Several more went down in a heap as I threw myself at the sudden gap, using my size to burst through the cloud of frenzied flying felines.
“My kittens?” she asked as I bounded across the room and grabbed the gilded door knob. It was locked. Damn.
“We have to get out of here!” I cried before another blast of flame hit me in the back. The pain was indescribable. Agony leapt through my nerves as I slumped to my knees, trying to keep myself from screaming.
“How?” she asked as some of the kittens turned toward her and began advancing on the goddess.
I cried out, rage tingeing my vision red as I jerked on the knob with all my might. The room shook, gravel and dust shaking loose from the stone ceiling above as I tore the metal door from its frame.
“Get behind me!” I whirled around, muscles bulging with strain, and swung the golden door like a baseball bat. It smashed through a horde of kittens, clearing enough space for Bast to reach me. The look of fear in her eyes as the swath of beasts went down let me know one thing. She was terrified of the creatures. That thought chilled me. How could a cat deity be afraid of furious demon cats? Shouldn’t that be her thing?
“I’m through,” she huffed breathlessly, sliding past me and moving into the hallway.
I gritted my teeth together and got ready to attack again as more of the kittens advanced, undeterred by their smashed comrades. Already the ones I’d hit were starting to get up, their kitten bodies popping back into place in a way that reminded me of how I healed. Awesome.
Something seized me by the back of my collar and pulled. My feet went out from under me, and the door slipped from my grasp. I fell backward into the hallway just as kitten fire melted the spot where I’d been standing to slag.
Bast grabbed the fallen door, her claws plunging into the gold like it was little stronger than Styrofoam. She hefted it easily, slamming it back into place just as the thunk of kitten flesh against metal filled my ears. Bulges began to show in the door as she glanced at me, cat eyes wide in horror.
“I don’t think that will hold them,” she said, swallowing hard as I got slowly to my feet. My body felt raw and burned, but otherwise okay.
“What kind of milk did you feed them? Don’t you know you’re supposed to use the kind without rbST?” I asked, looking at the other two doors and trying to decide if I wanted to see what was behind either of them. I didn’t really want to check, but the other alternative was to leave empty handed. Somehow, that didn’t seem like the best plan. Still, demon kitties.
“There is no significant difference between milk from rbST treated and non-rbST treated cows,” Bast replied, a strange look crossing her face as I stared at her, surprised she’d gotten the joke. “Why do I know that?”
“I was wondering the same thing,” I said, taking my chances with the blue door. With any luck, all we’d find was a blue man in a blue house. “What happened to you?”
“I’m not sure. The moment I saw you, something clouded over my mind. It wasn’t controlling me per se, more like suggesting I do things, and those suggestions sounded really good.” She shrugged but had the decency to blush at the same time. Either way, her words shook me. If there was something whispering in the deities’ collective ears and urging them to kill, we were screwed.
“Well, that sounds awesome,” I muttered, pulling on the blue door’s handle. It’d barely inched open when a blue goose darted through the space and ran past me, honking like crazy and making a beeline down the hallway. I was about to ignore it when I realized Khufu was that way, and while a goose didn’t seem that dangerous, I wasn’t taking chances following armagekitten.
Bast leapt at the bird, pouncing like the cat goddess she was, but the goose dodged, honked aggressively, and bit her nose. The cat goddess cried out as the fowl whirled in a flurry of sapphire feathers and ran.
I sprinted after the creature, tearing up the carpet as I did so, and while I hadn’t been very far behind it, the creature was already sitting on Khufu’s chest when I burst back into the first room. Khufu lay on his back, eyes closed as black slime dripped from the corner of his mouth and pooled on the pillow beneath his head. His skin was a motley green color except where it was covered in angry black splotches, which didn’t seem particularly great. Then again, I was no doctor. Maybe this was a good sign.
Before I could take another step, the goose grabbed Khufu’s khopesh in its beak and jerked it free of the unconscious pharaoh’s belt. The creature grinned at me before waggling its head in a slashing motion. Somehow, the air in front of it cut apart like torn wrapping paper. Sky blue light spilled forth from the rent in space as the goose extended its wings and bobbed in a strange curtsy before leaping through the hole.
A whirlwind exploded from the portal, making me stagger backward and grab onto the wall to keep from getting flung about like a ragdoll. Bast appeared next to me as the winds died down, took one look at Khufu, and turned her gaze upon the hole in space and time.
“You get the goose. I’ll try to keep Khufu from turning to stone.” Bast didn’t wait for a response as
she strode past me and pressed one hand against the mummy’s forehead. Gilded light spilled from between her splayed fingers as I swallowed hard.
“What do you mean he’s turning to stone?” I cried, rushing toward her as she whirled around me and fixed me with a glare that clearly told me she didn’t understand how I was still breathing, but that if I wanted to keep doing so, I’d do as she said.
“Yes. He’s been infected by Smokey,” Bast replied, shaking her head angrily. “Anubis was supposed to have kept him at bay, but apparently that hasn’t happened either. Figures.”
“What the hell is Smokey, and why is it turning Khufu to stone?” I asked, my pulse rising as fear gripped me. Khufu had been my friend. I didn’t want to think about him turning to stone, even if he was a mummy.
“It’s a smoke monster that turns people into stone.” Bast shot me a glare. “Now get out of here. I’ll take care of this, but if you don’t capture that goose, Khufu’s khopesh will be lost.”
She had a point. If Khufu’s khopesh got lost or worse, broken, Khufu would be in even more trouble than he was now. If that happened he would turn from an animate mummy into a lifeless corpse. It was imperative that I stopped the goose and got the khopesh back. It was my only choice, but that didn’t mean I liked leaving Khufu here with her.
“What if the kitties get free?” I asked, throwing a glance over my shoulder as I made my way to the rip in space and time.
“I’m a goddess. I’ll stop them.” She didn’t even look at me as she spoke. “Now, go get the fowl before the portal closes.”
So I followed her advice and leapt into the tear in the fabric of reality.
Chapter 10
I stood upon the brown, fertile earth and curled my toes in the soft dirt. Grass spread out endlessly in every direction. In the distance, huge forests covered the landscape. I drew in a breath that tasted of life and energy. The only problem was, well, I didn’t see the goose anywhere. In fact, I didn’t see any kind of creature here whatsoever. There were no bugs, no birds, no lizards. Nothing, nada, zilch, zippo.
Unwrapped: An Urban Fantasy Adventure (Werewolves vs. Mummies Book 3) Page 6