King of the Gods

by J. A. Cipriano

  In fact, the only thing left behind was one of the rings Nas had been wearing. It wasn’t particularly shiny or anything, but it was still neat.

  “Do they always drop loot?” I said, picking up the ring and fingering it. “This seems cool.”

  “It is cool,” she said, moving next to me and peering at it. “That’s a Ring of Endless Hunger. You should wear it.”

  “A ring of Endless Hunger?” I quirked an eyebrow at her. “That seems bad.”

  “It isn’t. If you wear it and activate it with your magic, it will drastically reduce your need for food, water, sleep, basically all those things.”

  “Why isn’t it called the ring of Endless Nourishment then?” I asked as I slipped it on my finger and reached out to it with my power. As I did, I felt a wave of calm settle over me, and not only did I feel like I’d just had a huge meal and drank my fill, I wasn’t tired either. Damn. This thing was great.

  “You’re better than I expected,” Aziza said, staring at me, cheeks flushed. “You activated it without even asking it how.”

  “What?” I replied, fire spreading along my own cheeks. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “It’s supposed to mean that while I knew you would be a fast learner, you’re learning even faster than I hoped. You took to being a werewolf surprisingly easy.” Aziza gestured at me, amusement in her eyes. “Though you probably need new clothes now.” She paused, rubbing her chin as she looked at me. “Why don’t we find another slave camp? I bet you can enchant your clothing so it doesn’t explode every time you transform. It’s mostly a visualization exercise, but it might take a few tries.”

  “Right,” I said, looking down at myself as I reverted back to human form. I was still clothed, but barely. Only, her words had given me an idea. Taking a deep breath, I looked down at myself and concentrated on visualizing what I wanted.

  Power began to flow off of me, infusing into the fabric, and as it did, I focused on knitting it back together. The edges began to glow before fusing back together with threads of magic in a way that made me think of a wound stitching itself back together.

  “Wow,” Aziza said as I finished, her mouth open. “Um, I guess just do the enchantment then.” She took a deep breath. “Infuse it with some magic and bind it to your wolf, that way it will shift along with you.”

  Doing that was even easier than repairing it, and I’d completed it by the time we’d made our way out of the cave.

  “So, what’s next?” I asked as we stared at the dunes.

  “Find more mummies and stop them.” Aziza looked me over. “You did so well at this one, I can’t even imagine how well you’ll do after some practice.” She paused a second before throwing her arms around me. “I’m really glad I found you, Luke. You’re going to do great things. I just know it.”

  13

  Aziza was right, but don’t tell her I said that … ever. I had gotten pretty good at fighting mummies once I learned a couple things. They didn’t need to breathe, and they didn’t feel pain, not in the traditional sense. Unfortunately, that was where the similarities between them ended. Depending on how they had been mummified, they might have vastly different strengths and weaknesses. It made fighting the last twenty mummies a unique experience I didn’t particularly enjoy.

  Still, I felt a strange sense of satisfaction as I smashed my fist down on the mummy’s face, shattering his snapping teeth into fragments. The mummy’s head snapped backward, bouncing off the stone entrance to the pyramid with a sharp crack.

  “Stop struggling,” I growled, my voice low and feral as I thrust my hand into his mouth, trying to grab onto the pendant he had swallowed a moment before. Thankfully, I could still see the chain dangling from the corner of his mouth. I wasn’t going to have to do a mummy-sectomy … this time. If I had a nickel for every time a mummy tried to swallow his pendant, I’d have an ass load of nickels.

  He sputtered, spraying blood and saliva across my face. My stomach revolted as I resisted the urge to wipe myself. He bit me. Pain exploded in my fingers. I howled in frustration, my hand transforming into a mass of muscle, fur, and sinew without me realizing it.

  “Look out!” Aziza cried from behind me as I grabbed hold of the pendant’s chain and tore my hand sideways out of the mummy’s jaws, ripping apart his face in a cloud of blood and flesh.

  “What?” I asked, glancing over at her as a curved Egyptian sword tore into my back and burst through my chest in a spray of blood and thicker bits. I toppled forward, my body forgetting to breathe as the beast inside me raged.

  I turned my head, trying to see my attacker as the world went sideways. A fist hit me in the side of the head, and I flopped uselessly onto my side, still in too much shock to really feel the pain. Instead, it felt more like a foreign object had been wedged into me. The pendant slipped from my grip and hit the sticky sand with a plop.

  The mummy released his hold on the khopesh still embedded in my back and seized his pendant. Metallic silver light spilled through his fingers. His flesh flowed back together like watery clay, forming back into his normally ugly features. He stood, brushing my bleeding body aside like I was a gnat. He looked down at me, his huge pink lips curled into a hideous smile. Then he spat on me, and a warm gooey glob of saliva smacked into my cheek.

  “Aziza, did you think it would be so easy to take me down? I am Amon, first guard to the great pharaoh Imhotep. I am not some peasant for you to extinguish. Not some whelp to be locked in a cage.” He bent down and tore his curved khopesh from my body, and I screamed, agony shooting through me like molten lead.

  He flicked his blade outward, spattering my blood on the sand beside him. “Nothing to say for yourself, girl?”

  “Watch out,” Aziza said, not even raising her hands to defend herself.

  “Watch out?” the mummy said, confusion filling his voice. “For what?”

  “Him,” she replied, pointing her gleaming golden staff at me.

  Amon glanced at me and snorted. “What is he going to do, jailer? Bleed on me to death?”

  I gritted my teeth as the beast inside me raged, and thrashed, and screamed. I pushed one hand into the sand, gripping it as hard as I could. The smell of the forest hit me like I was standing in the middle of a Smokey the Bear commercial. The wolf within me growled, and my own mouth elicited the same sound.

  The mummy’s eyes widened as my flesh rippled. Things beneath my skin shifted and squirmed. It wasn’t painful, I know it always looked like it was, but it was quite the opposite. A strange sense of euphoria overtook me as fur cascaded down over my body, my skin filling out with the hard, lithe muscle of a predator. I craned my head up and howled at the blue sky above. Already, the wounds had stopped bleeding. In another moment, they would be gone.

  I stood, flexing my claws, adrenaline coursing through my body, filling me up, making me feel invincible. I snarled, and my lips curled back to reveal my fangs. I took a step forward, my claws sinking into the sand.

  The mummy backed up so quickly he fell on his butt in the sand. I licked my lips, the smell of his fear pungent and sweet. I tore forward, closing the distance in a single bound. I seized the mummy by the throat, tearing into his flesh with my teeth. Hot, warm blood filled my mouth.

  I bit down and shook, the sound of tearing meat filling my ears like sweet music. A huge chunk of flesh came free in my jaws, and the mummy collapsed to the ground. He scrambled backward in a pool of blood and gore, one arm hanging uselessly at his side.

  The taste of tin and sour rot filled my mouth. My vision went red around the edges as I spat out the vile, disgusting meat. The stench of foul death filled my nostrils. This thing wasn’t alive. He was unclean. He was not food.

  “You are unclean!” I bellowed.

  The creature beneath me scurried backward into a corner, trying to wedge himself between the stones like a disgusting, bleeding insect. I lashed out, my claws ripping him open. Only there were no gooey, tasty inside bits. They weren’t there. Why weren’t
they there?

  I howled in frustration as I lifted his bleeding, torn carcass into the air, and the fear in his eyes was a small consolation. He screamed, swinging his blade at me, but it did not matter. Too quick for him to stop me, I grabbed the pendant from his hand.

  It shattered beneath my strength, exploding into a million sparks of pink flame. “Begone!” I cried as his blade slipped from his hand and hit the sand with an empty thunk.

  The creature wailed, screamed, and thrashed. The sound was like music to my ears. Strips of fabric burst forth from his torn garments and wrapped around his body, burying him beneath a blanket of linen. I dropped him, still struggling, to the sand and turned away.

  “Please, Aziza, I can tell you where Khufu is. I can tell you more …” he trailed off as Aziza’s eyes flashed in interest.

  She rushed past me, grabbing the mummy by the shoulders and shaking him. His eyes began to dim, fading into little pinpricks as whirling shards of metal filled the air between us like a swarm of angry hornets.

  “Where? Tell me where, and I will,” she lied. I knew because I could taste her lie in the air like sour candy, smell it on her skin like old milk.

  “He’s after the Staff of Ra in the hidden city,” Amon said, his body stiffening.

  “But only the priests of Ra …” she trailed off, thoughts blanketing her face as she stood up. The swarm of metal descended upon the mummy like a cloud of angry crows in a whoosh that hurt my ears.

  “Change back, Luke,” Aziza said, staring past me and into the distance. “We need to get to the temple of Ra before Khufu does something stupid. Maybe they can help us get to the staff ...”

  I shook my head. I did not want to go back to the soft, puny cage. I did not. I was strong. I wanted to hunt. To bite, to kill, to feed.

  Aziza slapped me, hard enough to rattle my brain. “We don’t have time for this, Luke.”

  I looked at her, and her face told me it was not the time, but that there would be a time … soon. My body melted back into its normal shape, all traces of my wounds gone.

  Wepwawet, the wolf within me, receded. It lay down in the back of my mind and licked its lips, ruby eyes burning into me as it buried its snout in its paws to wait.

  “It’s getting harder to control,” I said, not to her or myself, just out loud.

  “You will take greater control soon, Luke,” she said, putting a hand on my shoulder as the last of my flesh shifted into place like it was made of flowing sand. “Then it will not matter how often you change.”

  “Or, it could be that being half-guardian is still too much.” I shrugged, my temples throbbing. “Maybe I just need to relax a bit. We’ve been going at this pretty hard.”

  “I don’t think it’s the half-guardian thing.” She touched my arm. “I think you like getting hurt, like the feel of shaking off the damage.”

  “Well, if that’s what you think, how about next time you attack the guy with the sword, and I’ll stand back looking pretty?” I grinned at her. She was right. I loved transforming into my wolf form. The feeling of power, of being able to shake off anything. It was indescribable.

  “You think I’m pretty?” Aziza asked, quirking a slender black eyebrow at me.

  “Of course, I think you’re pretty.” I smiled at her. “You’re basically the most beautiful girl I’ve seen before.” I nodded at her.

  “Well, thank you.” She flushed and looked me over appraisingly. “You’re pretty nice yourself.”

  I was about to respond when she turned suddenly and stared off into the distance. The movement caught me so off-guard, I just stood there staring at her because I could have sworn she seemed embarrassed though I wasn’t sure why.

  “Aziza, is everything okay?” I asked, taking a step toward her, and as I put my hands on her shoulders, she shivered.

  “Yes, just trying to remember my priorities.” She glanced at me over her shoulder and smiled. “Anyway, the Staff of Ra is the most powerful weapon in all of Egypt. I should have known Khufu would go after it.”

  “Hmm …” I bent down and picked up the khopesh, still slick with my blood and stared at it, mulling over what she’d said. Khufu was already immensely powerful, but you could always have more power. Was that why he was going after it? For power? It seemed reasonable, but also … off because nothing Khufu seemed to be doing made a lot of sense.

  I’d tried to ask Set about it, but so far, the god had been stubbornly silent. I turned my attention back to Aziza who was clearly lost in thought.

  “Why didn’t you think Khufu would go after the staff?” I asked.

  “I just didn’t think he would do it …” she said, but I wasn’t sure she was actually responding to me. She had a look in her eye that made me think she was talking to herself.

  “Why?”

  “Because you need the book of Thoth to recite the prayer to enter the hidden city of Ra. Then you have to ascend the steps of the great pyramid, fight through all of its denizens, and seize the staff. Then it must find you worthy.” Aziza spread her hands wide. “It’s like saying you’re going to go steal Thor’s hammer, except that might actually be easier. And yes, I know I shouldn’t even know what that is.”

  I smirked and shoved the khopesh into my sash. I had debated wiping it off first, but why bother? My clothes were covered in blood. What was a little more? I was just thankful I’d enchanted my tunic so that it didn’t rip into a million tiny pieces when I changed. That got old like six seconds after it had happened.

  “It’s okay. I’ll forgive you, just this one time.” I smiled at her, but I don’t think she saw. “But if you start making Star Wars references, we’re going to have a chat.”

  “With as much as you talk about those movies, I feel like I should see them,” she said and began walking away, kicking up little clouds of golden dust. “Let’s go check. Maybe it will make more sense when we get there.”

  “Sure thing. Also, they’re great. The movies, I mean. You’ll love them.” I shrugged, catching up with her as we meandered down the road toward a distant speck in the distance. “So, what’s the plan?”

  “Same plan. Catch mummies, stop Khufu, save the world. You know, the usual.” She smiled at me, and when she noticed the khopesh, the faintest hint of amusement filled her eyes. “Do you know how to use that?”

  “Hit the bad guy with the slashing part,” I replied, resisting the urge to change forms and show her just how tough I really was. “It’s not rocket science.”

  “Sometimes I can’t tell when you’re joking, Luke. Half the time I think you can’t possibly be as good as you seem to be, and then you surprise me by doing something even better.” She looked me up and down. “Makes me wonder how good you are at other things.”

  “Other things?” I asked, confused. “I mean, I was trained in a lot of forms of martial arts, and while I don’t particularly know how to use this type of weapon, I’ve used lots of similar ones.”

  “Right. I know, I just find it hard to believe sometimes that someone like you exists.” She frowned then. “That won’t help us with the priests though. They aren’t the type to be impressed by how well you punch someone’s teeth in or how nice your muscles are.” She took a deep breath then, eyes sweeping over me. “If they were, this would be a lot easier.

  14

  The seminary, for lack of a better term, was huge. Like how football stadiums were huge. Only, instead of lights and ads for soda and televisions, the walls were filled with paintings and hieroglyphics depicting Ra and his fellow gods fighting a huge black snake.

  Aziza strode between a pair of sixty-foot-tall daffodil-yellow stone pharaohs toward the center of the room, ignoring the guards scattered around. It was like they were trying to let you know they were there, ready to pounce at a moment’s notice, but at the same time, were trying to blend into the scenery so you forgot about them. It probably would have worked if they weren’t so obviously dangerous. I mean were the staves and swords necessary?

  A man s
o old he had to have been a thousand sat on a white marble throne raised several feet in the air. His hair was the color of that perfect snow that fell from the sky at the start of snowboard season. It cascaded off his head and cheeks, falling all the way to the middle of his stomach. Part of me wasn’t sure if he had a beard or if all of it was from the top of his head.

  A golden staircase glittered in front of him and upon each step sat several other priests, though surprisingly, the bottom stairs held the most decorated-looking priests. Was it some kind of ranking system? Did they give up their riches as they moved up?

  “Oh, great and wise High Priest of Ra, we have a most urgent and important question to lay before you. Please bless us with your bountiful wisdom.” Aziza smiled at the old bat on the top step.

  “How, exactly, did you get in here, mummy?” asked a priest on the lowest step. His wrinkled face twisted into a sneer as he lifted one jewel-encrusted hand and pointed his wobbly finger at Aziza.

  Aziza looked like she would punch him in his stupid face for a second. Instead, she shut her eyes and visibly calmed herself. “I have been tasked by Osiris himself to keep charge over the vilest mummies from Ancient Egypt—”

  “Well, you failed that task,” the priest said, interrupting her in mid-sentence. “Now, you seek our help? Are we to do your job for you, girl?”

  “Um … no. But it’d be nice if you guys, you know, helped,” I said, and when I spoke he gave me the ‘go play by yourself in the corner and let the grownups talk’ look. It pissed me off.

  I gritted my teeth and looked up toward the old priest at the top. He was watching us, blue eyes filled with interest. Not the ‘I will help you’ interest, though. It was the ‘oh, this is way more interesting than what’s normally on daytime television’ interested. Which, while better than indifference or outright loathing, wasn’t exactly helpful. Why? It meant that he’d probably let his priest badmouth Aziza because he found it entertaining.