Unwrapped: An Urban Fantasy Adventure (Werewolves vs. Mummies Book 3)

by J. A. Cipriano

  His words swirled around me like raspberry-scented vapor, and I found myself getting dizzier and dizzier as I breathed. I tried to hold my breath and back away from him, but he held me too tightly for me to move more than a couple inches. Silly me, I should have known better than to trust a god. I’d grown careless. Stupid, stupid.

  I opened my eyes even though I hadn’t realized I’d closed them. The prison of the gods was a few feet away. Osiris stood next to me, now clad in golden armor with a crook and sling attached to straps on his hips. He had a staff in one hand, and his beard was trimmed and braided with golden beads even though his hair still had that crazy professor look.

  Without a word, the god of the dead strode toward Narmer and Menes and waved his hand in greeting. “How goes it, old friends?” His voice swept outward, rolling over the two men like a visible thing. They stiffened at once and turned toward him, their conversation forgotten.

  They both regarded him in the same way I regarded my crazy uncle Lou. He was always a bit too wild and a bit too uncouth to actually be respectable, but damn was he fun, even if you didn’t want him to meet your date.

  “Hello,” Narmer said, his gaze shifting from Osiris to Menes and back again.

  “I need to come inside for…” Osiris tapped his chin in thought as he looked up toward the sky, thinking. “For reasons.”

  “Oh, well, of course then,” Narmer replied, moving to stand aside before stopping abruptly and moving back into position. “Wait no, that’s not how this works at all.” He pointed at Osiris with his golden spear. “You know that.”

  “I also know there are a couple fine young honey bunnies off that way.” He pointed off to the left. “They were looking for someone to oil them up before their big swimsuit contest.” He leaned in close to Narmer, shielding his mouth with his hands. “I bet a couple lucky guys could have some real fun.”

  “I need a snack,” Menes said abruptly and began walking in the opposite direction from where Osiris had pointed. “Narmer, make sure no one gets through my side in the next few minutes.”

  “Gotcha,” Narmer said, an annoyed look crossing his face.

  “I’m guessing he’s still mad at me about that thing a while back,” Osiris said as he watched the guard go. To say their exchange didn’t exactly fill me with confidence was an understatement of gigantic proportions. How the hell was Osiris going to get them to let us in if the guards disliked him that much?

  “You might say that,” Narmer replied, shaking his head.

  “He should hurry up and get over it.” Osiris grinned broadly. “It was just a joke.”

  “Putting superglue on a toilet seat is not funny for anyone,” Narmer said, shaking his head in disgust. “You’re lucky he didn’t gut you like a fish.”

  “That’s not true. It was funny for me and the fifteen women I had with me.” Osiris smirked. “Speaking of which…”

  Narmer glanced at Osiris and sighed. “I’m going to regret asking, but can you explain what a bikini is?” His words made me break out into a grin. Maybe Osiris was smarter than he looked. Besides, if Narmer had never seen a girl in a bikini, he was definitely in for a treat.

  “It’s a very thin, very tiny strip of cloth used by women to somewhat cover the interesting bits when swimming,” Osiris said as he actually drew the outline of a bikini-clad lady in the air and the outline took shape in silhouette before blowing away with his next words. “It’s a sight to be seen, truly.”

  “And these women need to be rubbed with oil while in such revealing garments?” Narmer asked, cheeks turning slightly red as he spoke, his gaze far off and distant. Let’s just say it didn’t exactly take a psychic to see the images running through his mind right then.

  “Yes, for the contest. It’s very important for them to look shiny.” Osiris shrugged his shoulders as if to say, “Hey, I don’t make the rules.”

  “I can’t leave my post.” Narmer glanced off in the direction one last time. “But you guys should go…”

  “I could watch the gate, if you’d like?” I offered, stepping forward and doing my best to act innocent. “I’m reasonably tough.” I pointed to my mouth. “And I still have all my teeth.”

  “He makes a good point,” Osiris agreed. “Teeth are important, and he does have all of them.” The god clapped the guard on the shoulder. “What do you say, you go rub some bikini-clad honey bunnies, and we’ll watch the gate. Besides, what are the chances someone shows up? How many people have been here in the last couple weeks?” Osiris poked Narmer in the ribs. “I’m going to go with not many.”

  “I’m going to regret this,” Narmer replied, chewing on his lip as he extricated himself from Osiris. “But, I can’t. What if someone gets past you? Besides, you were just trying to get in a moment ago. I’d be a fool to leave you in charge. You might sneak in while you were supposed to be keeping people out.”

  “No one will get past me,” I said, doing my best to look fierce while ignoring his concern that I would sneak in. That was exactly what I was going to do. “I once played goalie against a team of Brazilian soccer players with one hand tied behind my back and no one scored a single goal.”

  “Do you know what he’s talking about?” Narmer asked, glancing at me like I was a crazy person.

  “It’s a game of sport where people kick balls at a single man who must block them all from going past him.” Osiris smiled and clapped Narmer hard on the back. “And I’m Osiris, you can trust me.” His smile broadened.

  “I just don’t think—” Narmer’s words were cut off when Osiris smashed him on the back of the head with his flail. The guard stumbled forward, collapsing to his knees in the sand whereupon Osiris soccer kicked him in the face. Narmer flopped backward on the sand, staring dazedly off into the sky, and I could almost see the little tweety birds flapping around his skull like something out of a cartoon.

  “See, not a problem,” Osiris said, leaning down and jerking a keyring from the guard’s belt. He spun on his heel and walked toward the gate, whistling. “I’m not sure why people ever doubt me.”

  “I’m not sure either,” I replied, still half-amazed at what I’d seen. Osiris had taken down Narmer with two blows. Granted, the first was a sucker punch, but still. I hadn’t known that was possible. Maybe Menes was the stronger of the two? Yeah, I’m going to go with that.

  “I know, right?” Osiris pulled one of the keys off the ring and tossed it to me. “We’ll need to turn the keys in the locks at the same time to reveal the way inside.”

  “Okay,” I said, snatching the bronze key out of the air and moving toward the lock. It slid easily inside. I turned to watch the god.

  “One, two, three,” Osiris said, twisting the key on three before we could properly discuss what we were going to do. I turned my key only a fraction of a second after he did. The whole wall in front of us vibrated and wobbled, spilling dust and debris down on top of me. I sputtered, trying to wipe the dirt from my face as obsidian stairs burst from the sand between us and spiraled upward until they reached the apex of the wall.

  “Black stairs, Thes. Black stairs,” Osiris mumbled dejectedly as he pulled the key from the lock and hurled it into the distance. “I can’t believe you summoned the black stairs. Do you know what this means?”

  “Um, no?” I offered, hoping it wasn’t something horrible as I flung my own key into the distance. I wasn’t sure why I was doing it, but Osiris had done so, and I was following his lead. Besides, that’d make it difficult for Narmer to follow us. He’d have to wait for Menes to get back and then admit he’d gotten beaten up. Something told me, he might be inclined to assume we hadn’t gone inside.

  “It means you didn’t turn the key at the same time as me,” Osiris replied, moving toward the spiral staircase. He shot me a look of disappointment. “If you keep up this subpar teamwork, I’m going to have to find a new partner. Capiche?”

  “I see where you’re coming from,” I said, leaving the “from crazyville” part of my sentence un
said.

  “Excellent,” Osiris said as he scaled the stairway at near-inhuman speed. “I’m glad we had this talk. Maybe if we don’t die, we can try to get platinum. I’ve never done that before.”

  “Platinum?” I asked, following the guard up the stairs. “Is that like better than gold?”

  “Man, we’re in Egypt, virtually anything is better than gold. We have almost as much gold as we do sand.” He glanced toward me. “We have quite a lot of sand if you couldn’t tell.”

  “I could tell,” I replied as he stepped off the final stair and onto the wall itself.

  “Good, you seemed a little dull. I wasn’t sure if you caught my joke.” He waved his hand in dismissal. “You know, that gold was virtually worthless.”

  “Nope, I caught it,” I muttered, getting annoyed with Osiris’s antics because it was starting to seem like he enjoyed pestering me. It didn’t help that he was reminding me of Khufu who was in the process of turning to stone. I still had no way to save the mummy and being around Osiris was actually making me feel guilty for not doing more. Even though Bast had told me to leave, and I had no idea what to do anyway.

  I stepped off the final step, shaking my head. No sooner had I done so when the stairs dissolved into smoke. A second later, they were gone completely, leaving me standing atop the high wall next to the ancient god, looking down at the sand below and hoping I wouldn’t fall to my doom. When I’d started this adventure, I’d been deathly afraid of heights, but after going a few rounds scaling the pyramid of Giza, well, I was slightly less afraid of them.

  “Well good, I won’t explain my jokes in the future,” Osiris said, looking down into the pool below. It was only a few feet down, but it was filled with what smelled like acid. And that’s where I was totally going to describe the smell of acid as acidic but decided not to do so.

  “Is that acid?” I asked, watching the death god peer into the bubbling liquid.

  “Yes. Quite strong acid too. Able to burn through a person in moments. You know, if they don’t drink non-rbST milk.” He shot me a look that made me think he’d heard my conversation with Bast earlier, but that was impossible, right? “I kid, I kid. But seriously, we’ll need to go through the acid, but don’t worry, some of it is fake acid and won’t kill us.”

  “Um, okay,” I said, swallowing my fear. “How do we navigate through the less dangerous parts of the acid?”

  “Not sure.” He rubbed his chin with his fingers. “The safe spots are hidden.”

  “So is your big plan to wade through acid and hope we find a super-secret path to the tiny platform in the middle?” I asked, wanting to smack the god.

  “Well when you say it like that, it does sound a touch unrealistic.” Osiris sighed. “And the platform is a decoy. If you step upon its surface, it will explode.” He made a kerboom noise.

  “Awesome, so what do we do?” I asked, barely stopping myself from growling at him. We were so going to die because he was an idiot.

  “We have to swim down through the acid to the door in the floor, open it via the puzzle lock and get inside, once it opens.” And with those words, Osiris leapt into the acid like an Olympic diver. He didn’t splash much acid into the air, but what little acid did hit the stone began to sizzle. The odor, like burning plastic and ozone, turned my stomach as Osiris bobbed to the surface hollering and screaming while he flailed his limbs.

  “It burns!” he cried, raising one quickly dissolving hand into the air as his skin bubbled and smoked.

  I looked around for something to help him, my heart nearly shattering the inside of my ribcage in panic as adrenaline surged through me. There was only one way. I was going to have to go in after him. Hopefully, my werewolf healing would help. I leapt toward the Egyptian god, transforming in midair. I landed in the acid next to him with a splash that flung the fluid everywhere.

  And nothing happened to me. I stood there dumbfounded as Osiris’s stupid face twisted into a huge grin and laughter burst from his throat. His skin reformed instantly as he doubled over and slapped his knees. “I can’t believe you jumped into the acid after me.” He snorted loudly, trying to breathe, talk, and laugh at the same time. “You’re a real hero.”

  “This isn’t acid, is it?” I asked, my voice strangely even as I stood over the god in all my hulking werewolf glory.

  “Of course not,” Osiris replied, shaking his head. “Do you think I’d just jump into a vat of acid?”

  “And the platform doesn’t explode, does it?” My entire body tensed with my words as I took a deep breath, trying to not leap across the space between us and choke the life out of the god. He was so far past my last nerve it was insane.

  “It explodes downward like an elevator.” Osiris said, walking past me with tears in his eyes and clamoring onto the platform. “Which is sort of the same, but much more helpful since we need to go subterranean.” He cocked his eyebrow at me. “Subterranean means below the ground if you didn’t know.”

  “You know, I thought I couldn’t hate anyone more than Khufu, but after only a few minutes with you…” I made my way toward the tiny silver space jutting above the surface of the fake acid.

  “You know, the way I’m acting is all for you right? When I looked into your mind, I saw every person you’d ever talked to and did some quick mental math on which personality I should use to ensure the best possible chance of success. Evidently you like being annoyed incessantly,” Osiris replied, reaching out a hand to help me up.

  I ignored him because his answer pissed me off in more ways than one. For one, he’d definitely violated some memory related trust with his snooping. Then he had the nerve to say I liked having the crap annoyed out of me. That was really, really lame, and while I was partially sure he was just using it as an excuse to bother me, a smaller part of me hoped he wasn’t right.

  “Did you not grab my hand because you thought I’d pull it away and leave you to fall at the last moment?” he asked as I climbed onto the platform myself.

  “Yes,” I replied as he knelt down and pressed his palm into a spot on the stone that vaguely resembled a handprint. Blue light flashed from beneath his splayed fingers as the platform began to shake violently, throwing me from my feet.

  “Good, you’re learning.” He shot me a wry grin as we vanished completely off the face of the entire goddamned planet. “And, by the way, those fantasies you have in your head about Sekhmet? Those don’t even come close to the real thing.” He shot me a grin that made my entire face burn like the sun with embarrassment.

  “You weren’t supposed to see that,” I squeaked, looking around for a rock to hide beneath.

  He waved off my comment. “Let’s just say you’re in for a real treat, Mr. Mercer. A real treat.”

  Chapter 13

  Just when you think you’re down and out, you get sucked through a wormhole by an Egyptian deity. At least in my experience, which I’ll admit, might be uniquely singular.

  I sighed, wiping my face with my hands as I stared at our surroundings. We stood in a gleaming silver box. Every surface was cold and unforgiving and made me feel like I was inside of a very sterile, very chrome-plated amphitheater. A cage with bars made of blue fire stood on a raised platform in the center of the arena, and even though I was as far away as I could get from the flaming prison since my back was pressed against one of the immense stainless steel walls, I could feel the heat coming off of them like I was standing next to a blast furnace.

  From where I stood, I couldn’t make out any occupant inside the monstrous jail, but based on the shrieks of agony filling the air like gnats in a swamp at dusk, I was relatively sure it was Horus. I’d heard his screams before, after all.

  Osiris leaned heavily on his staff and glanced at me, his eyes sparkling. “I’ll just wait here for you.” He gestured toward the cage. “You know, keeping a lookout.”

  “Why does part of me think that even if something happens you won’t warn me?” I let out a small sigh as I searched deep inside myself fo
r the will to approach the prison. It was too bad I couldn’t just roll for willpower and make myself go over there.

  “I give you fifty-fifty odds on the helping thing,” Osiris replied, shooting me a grin much too wide for his face. I scowled in response. I’d be really super-duper happy when I was out of Egypt and away from these damned deities and their assorted brand of crazy.

  The steel ground beneath my feet wobbled as I moved toward the cage. It was like walking on a very thin piece of sheet metal, and I wondered what would happen if I fell through the floor. Would I be eaten by crocodiles? I pushed the thought away before it could latch onto me. I wiped the sweat from my brow and flung it on the ground. It was hotter than hell, and since I was still in werewolf form, I got the added bonus of having my fur smolder and burn away, filling my nostrils with the delightful aroma of burnt hair. It was less than fun.

  I’d made it no more than a third of the way across the football-field-sized box when a screech made me stop in my tracks, my right foot still raised above the floor. I slowly turned toward the sound, my heart hammering in my chest as a combination of panic, and more panic surged through me. A massive in the way dump trucks are massive baboon sprinted toward me, loping across the metal ground with such speed my breath caught in my throat.

  I turned and raced toward the flaming cage as another ear-splitting howl ripped from the creature’s throat. I hoped with everything in me this wasn’t Nephthys even though I knew deep down it was the goddess. The last time I’d fought her in full on baboon form she’d punched me so hard I’d broken a ceiling. If possible, I wanted to avoid a reoccurrence.

  “Thes, watch out!” Osiris called just as a bolt of lightning hit the space in front of me, melting the steel into slag and splattering me with bits of molten metal. I cried out in pain as I covered my face and tried to veer around the puddle of super-heated death. That hesitation cost me dearly. The ape grabbed me by the left arm and flung me sideways like I weighed all of six ounces. My arm jerked free from its socket with an audible pop that would have turned my stomach if I could have focused on anything besides blinding agony.