Unwrapped: An Urban Fantasy Adventure (Werewolves vs. Mummies Book 3) (16 page)

My footsteps crackled along the brittle steel beneath my feet as the surrounding air solidified and fell to the ground as hail. I licked my lips. The air tasted of life. It was like rich candy on my tongue, sweet and melty. I sucked in another breath, and the fire dimmed and sputtered. Its heat filled me, extinguishing upon my tongue as I swallowed it all.

There was a flicker of movement to my left. I spun toward it. Nephthys raced toward me. Her hands were curled into fists. Her lithe body was encased in crystalline armor the color of freshly dried blood. Her eyes were set in determination, but within them, I could see something more, could see recognition scurry across their depths.

“Why have you come here?” she asked, and I got the feeling her words were not directed at me.

I cocked my head toward her and raised my other hand into the air, offering it to her. “Why not?” I replied, and my voice was like the wind howling across snowcapped peaks.

“You should not interfere in the business of gods,” Nephthys said, and I got the distinct impression she wasn’t talking to me, but to Frost himself. She didn’t bother to take my hand as she stepped up to me and poked me hard in the chest with one slender finger.

I gripped her wrist and frost spread out along her skin. The dragon’s anger filled me as I spoke. “You should not be so arrogant as to tell me what to do, Nephthys.” I tapped my chest with my other hand. “
I
do what
I
want.”

The sound of her wrist snapping as I threw her across the room was strangely satisfying. She crashed into the wall across the arena with a splat that reminded me of a bug smacking into the windshield of a big rig on the freeway. Ignoring her as she collapsed to the ground, I strode toward Horus’s cage.

The heat grew with every step I took, but it didn’t bother me. I sucked in another breath that tasted like cinnamon and candy canes. Then I exhaled. A gust of wind burst from my lungs, licking across the ground and leaving snow and sleet in its wake. It hit the cage, and for a moment, the flames dimmed enough for me to see the glowing embers beneath. Then the fire roared back to life, flowing hungrily over the blackened wooden bars of the cage.

The flame might be strong, but the insatiable need of hungering winter was forever. I gripped one of the bars with my bare hand, and the fire died. Ice spread along charred wood in my grip, turning it white blue before the whole of it shattered into powder.

A horrific scream pierced my ears, but I ignored it as I grabbed another bar. My power flowed outward just before something slammed into me like a freight train. My body cartwheeled brokenly as things inside me snapped. When I finally crashed into the metallic wall of the room, my vision was hazy and lopsided like I’d just ridden on a high speed merry-go-round.

Nephthys stood before the cage, her body broken and battered. Her once pristine armor was cracked and broken. She had the head of an ape now, but the rest of her was still that of a beautiful woman. Her eyes were angry as she reached out toward the cage. Flame leapt from her fingertips, filling the space where the bars had been. The entire cage shuddered, and a scream exploded from within as the fire rose higher and higher, filling in even the spaces between the bars.

Heat poured off of the prison as I got slowly to my feet. My head was woozy, but as I stumbled toward her, the heat hit my flesh and vanished, and as it did so, I felt better.

“Stop Nephthys. If you do, I won’t hurt you.” As I said the words, wind whipped across the space between us and struck the goddess, throwing her backward.

She hit the ground covered in ice. Thin frozen crystals clung to her hair and eyelashes as she lay in a pool of frosty water. The fiery bars she’d created winked out with a tragic gasp of smoke. Horus surged toward the opening, but it wasn’t yet wide enough for the falcon god to escape. I’d have to break a few more bars to release him completely.

I sprinted toward the cage, but before I’d made it a few steps, Nephthys was back on her feet. Her head had changed back to normal, but her human mouth was opened impossibly wide. I threw my arms up to protect myself as a gout of flame leapt from her throat and slammed into me. I didn’t feel the heat of it even as the ground beneath my feet melted into a molten puddle. Still, I could feel my power ebbing, weakening under her onslaught of godly might.

Winter stretched out around me, protecting me from her fiery breath as I stepped forward, pushing through her assault. I reached down with one arm and gripped Khufu’s khopesh in my hand. She took a step toward me, and the torrent of flame doubled in size, sending me sliding backward across the molten floor.

I don’t know how I managed to do it, but I stepped sideways, whirling to gain momentum as I hurled Khufu’s khopesh in a deadly arc. The sword flew from my hand as Nephthys adjusted to douse me in still more flame. The weapon sailed through the air and caught her in the side. It tore through her armor like it was made of warm butter and sliced into her flesh, spilling her golden blood.

Her fiery breath winked out as she stared at the wound, mouth opening and closing in shock. Before she could recover, I leapt through the air and landed on top of her chest with my feet, driving her to the ground with my weight. Her head smacked into the metal, and her eyes went glassy as I reared back and slammed one icy fist into her face. Bones broke in both my hand and her head, but when I pulled back to swing again, I realized she was unconscious.

Not wanting to miss my opportunity to free Horus, I bounded to my feet and sprinted for the cage. A bolt of scarlet lightning struck the ground in front of me, and as I tried to veer around it while simultaneously throwing my arm up to block the sudden glare, Set drove both of his flaming khopeshes into my torso before ripping them outward and spilling my entrails across the cold metal floor. Then he kicked me in the chest hard enough to crack my ribs and drive the breath from my lungs. I toppled onto my back as blinding agony swept through me.

The storm god’s nostrils flared as he leaned toward me and sniffed the steam slowly rising from my gut wound. His crimson eyes narrowed as he drove one of his khopeshes through my left shoulder and into the metal below, pinning me to the ground.

“So you’ve enlisted help, Thes, but that is no matter. Frost cannot save you from me.” Set gestured at his wife with his empty hand as red sparks arced across the blackened blade of his remaining khopesh. “The power you have borrowed may hurt the fire within my wife and even the fire within this prison, but it will not stop me. Even winter cannot silence a storm.” His lips curled into a cruel smile as he poked my chest with his khopesh. “I bring the lightning.”

With those words, another crimson bolt exploded from above me and slammed into the spot he’d touched. My teeth snapped together as I spasmed and jerked. Electricity coursed through me, filling the air with the smell of burning flesh and hair.

“What’s the matter, Thes? Wolf got your tongue?” he asked before driving his khopesh through my stomach, reopening my slowly closing wound. The blade glanced off my spine and the lower half of my body went numb and unresponsive. “I know you’ll heal from this, wolf.” He knelt down next to me and traced one finger along the ragged edge of the wound. “I’ll try to make this as fun as possible for the both of us.” He clapped his hands together. “It’s been ever so long since I’ve had such a durable playmate.”

A shudder ran through me, somehow blocking the pain erupting from every nerve I could still feel. My hands tightened into fists as I tried to slug the storm god in his stupid face. Unfortunately, he caught my fist in his hand and looked at me like I was a particularly loathsome insect.

“You don’t seem to know the rules, Thes,” he said, twisting my hand hard enough for the bones in my wrist to snap like twigs. “I can touch you, but you can’t touch me.” He leaned in close, so his breath was moist on my cheek. “Unless of course you pay extra. Do you want to pay extra, Thes?”

That was when an ape-sized fist crashed into the side of his skull. The blow sent him tumbling across the icy ground. He lay there for a moment as Nephthys stared down at me, eyes filled with relief. Her head had reverted to normal, but her arms had changed into those of a black-furred gorilla. Only unlike normal gorilla arms, they were translucent. Even now, I could see her normal arms within them. The sight made me wonder if she was running out of steam. That must have been why she hadn’t fully transformed during our fight earlier.

“Thes, we have to hurry. I’ll hold off my husband as best I can while you take care of the cage,” she ordered as she grabbed both of Set’s khopeshes and jerked them free of my body in a spray of blood and thicker bits. “And thanks for knocking some sense into me, but next time, try not to damage my armor so much. Just go for the face, it heals quicker.”

She stepped in front of me, crossing the twin blades in front of her as flames leapt across the edges. Her form blocked Set from view as he got slowly to his feet. The next thing I heard sounded like a storm smashing into a wildfire raging through a dry forest.

I stared down at my own body, willing it to heal faster as I stuffed my own intestines back inside my ruined abdomen. Another titanic crash echoed across the space, and even though my legs still didn’t work, I realized I couldn’t wait for them to recover. I began crawling forward with my hands, dragging my legs behind me. As I moved toward Horus’s prison inch by bloody inch, I left a gooey red smear on the ground behind me like I was a half-dead slug.

“You should not interfere, wife,” Set’s voice echoed before lightning exploded through the air, leaping across the all metal floor beneath me. Electricity jumped through my body, locking my muscles together. I hit the ground, teeth mashed together under the strain. A few feet away, Nephthys spasmed as a torrent of electricity rampaged through her.

Before the goddess could recover, Set stepped forward and with one flick of his wrist, sliced through her neck with his bare hands. Her head fell from her shoulders in a geyser of golden blood as he stepped past her falling body and narrowed his eyes at me.

“Now where were we, Thes?” he asked as my muscles finally relaxed, and I slumped to the ground unable to move. “Oh yes, that’s right. I was going to torture you to death. Well, time’s a wasting.”

He took a step forward, and I shut my eyes, reaching out toward my wolf. In the plane of my mind, Wepwawet lay on his side in the midst of a huge field of snow. His chest heaved as one half-lidded amber eye stared at me. Gray smoke rose off his body in coils as his tongue lolled out of his mouth.

“What can we do?” I asked my wolf. “How can we stop Set?”

Wepwawet swallowed hard enough for his entire body to shake with the effort. “We must call upon Frost harder.” My wolf nodded toward me, and I realized I was clutching the string of a blue balloon in my hand. I stared at it in disbelief because I hadn’t even known I was holding it. “We must release everything he has given us at once.”

“How do I do that?” I asked, watching a winter storm rage within the blue rubber of the balloon.

“Let it go,” my wolf said, and as I tried to comply, my fingers froze around the string. Frost covered my flesh, trailing off in icicles that hung nearly to the ground. My nails were corpse blue, and as I tried to move my hand, I couldn’t feel anything beyond my wrist.

“How?” I asked, my eyes widening as I stared at my hand in disbelief. “I can’t even feel my fingers.”

“I don’t know, Thes.” My wolf shook his head and shuddered in the snow. “But you better figure it out quickly.”

Before I could reply, a surge of pain ripped through my body, making my heart slam erratically in my chest. Storm clouds filled the horizon of my inner world and blasts of scarlet lightning struck the snowy landscape. The ground beneath my feet rumbled, and I fell to my knees in the ankle-deep snow as freezing rain began to fall from the sky, chilling me to the core.

The balloon began to steam in my hand as water ran down it, thawing my flesh. A sudden burst of inspiration filled me as I forced myself to my feet and half-ran, half-stumbled toward the incoming storm clouds. I raised my frozen fist above my head, flailing like a madman.

“Come on Set, show me what you have!” I cried at the top of my lungs. “Your mother’s a whore and your wife smells like sodden monkey!”

No sooner had the words left my lips when a bolt of lightning shattered the sky and crashed into my outstretched fist. The ice encasing my hand exploded, and as I slumped backward in the snow. My body twitched and jerked uncontrollably. The balloon slipped from my grip.

It floated toward the stormy sky without a care in the world until it hit the storm clouds and disappeared into them. Thunder rumbled. Lightning crashed. The entire sky exploded. Ice rippled outward across the horizon like someone had doused the whole of the world in liquid nitrogen.

My eyes flew open as Set was flung backward across the prison of the gods in an avalanche of blue energy that swept out around me like a tidal wave, turning the ground around me into a thick sheet of ice. The storm god hit the wall and hung there, frozen in place as Frost’s power leapt from my fallen body and smashed into Horus’s prison.

The fire winked out in an instant, extinguishing like it’d never been there at all as rime covered the bars and hail fell from the sky. The cage shattered in a crystalline explosion of sleet and snow. The form within the prison stirred, crawling slowly to its feet as the entire world succumbed to the endless hunger of winter.

Chapter 18

The world around me was a winter wonderland. Foot deep snow covered the ground and glittering icicles hung from the ceiling. It would have been beautiful if it wasn’t so damn cold.

Set had been turned to a popsicle, and Nephthys’s headless corpse lay frozen into an icy statue. Flecks of silver metal were sprinkled around me, although I wasn’t quite sure what it was from. As I crawled slowly to my feet, my body felt strangely whole despite the injuries I’d sustained at the storm god’s hand. I took a step toward the cage, toward the figure half-buried in the snow next to it and was surprised to find myself unencumbered by the ice. It melted around me, giving me a wide berth as I approached. Well, that was lucky. As I knew from experience, it takes forever to tromp through the snow.