CHAPTER
38. The House Is in the House
IT WAS A FIGHT TO THE DEATH, and I felt great.
Every move was perfect. Every strike was so much fun I wanted to laugh out loud. Set grew in size until he was larger than me, and his iron staff the size of a boat’s mast. His face would flicker, sometimes human, sometimes the feral maw of the Set animal.
We clashed sword against staff and sparks flew. He pushed me off balance, and I smashed into one of his animal statues, which toppled to the floor and broke. I regained my balance and charged, my blade biting into a chink of Set’s shoulder guard. He howled as black blood seeped from the wound.
He swung his staff, and I rolled before the strike could split my head. His staff cracked the floor instead. We fought back and forth, smashing pillars and walls, with chunks of the ceiling falling around us, until I realized Sadie was yelling to get my attention.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw her trying to shield Zia and Amos from the destruction. She’d drawn a hasty protective circle on the floor, and her shields were deflecting the falling debris, but I understood why she was worried: much more of this, and the entire throne room would collapse, crushing all of us. I doubted it would hurt Set much. He was probably counting on that. He wanted to entomb us here.
I had to get him into the open. Maybe if I gave Sadie time, she could free Dad’s coffin from that throne.
Then I remembered how Bast had described her fight with Apophis: grappling with the enemy for eternity.
Yes, Horus agreed.
I raised my fist and channeled a burst of energy toward the air vent above us, blasting it open until red light once again poured through. Then I dropped my sword and launched myself at Set. I grabbed his shoulders with my bare hands, trying to get him in a wrestler’s hold. He attempted to pummel me, but his staff was useless at close range. He growled and dropped the weapon, then grabbed my arms. He was much stronger than I was, but Horus knew some good moves. I twisted and got behind Set, my forearm slipping under his arm and grabbing his neck in a vise. We stumbled forward, almost stepping on Sadie’s protective shields.
Now we’ve got him, I thought. What do we do with him?
Ironically, it was Amos who gave me the answer. I remembered how he’d turned me into a storm, overcoming my sense of self by sheer mental force. Our minds had had a brief battle, but he had imposed his will with absolute confidence, imagining me as a storm cloud, and that’s what I’d become.
You’re a fruit bat, I told Set.
No! his mind yelled, but I had surprised him. I could feel his confusion, and I used it against him. It was easy to imagine him as a bat, since I’d seen Amos become one when he was possessed by Set. I pictured my enemy shrinking, growing leathery wings and an even uglier face. I shrank too, until I was a falcon with a fruit bat in my claws. No time to waste; I shot toward the air vent, wrestling with the bat as we spun in circles up the shaft, slashing and biting. Finally we burst into the open, reverting to our warrior forms on the side of the red pyramid.
I stood uneasily on the slope. My avatar shimmered with damage along the right arm, and my own arm was cut and bleeding in the same spot. Set rose, wiping black blood from his mouth.
He grinned at me, and his face flickered with the snarl of a predator. “You can die knowing you made a good effort, Horus. But it’s much too late. Look.”
I gazed out over the cavern, and my heart crawled into my throat. The army of demons had engaged a new enemy in battle. Magicians—dozens of them—had appeared in a loose circle around the pyramid and were fighting their way forward. The House of Life must have gathered all its available forces, but they were pathetically few against Set’s legions. Each magician stood inside a moving protective circle, like a spotlight beam, wading through the enemy with staff and wand glowing. Flames, lightning, and tornadoes ripped through the demon host. I spotted all kinds of summoned beasts—lions, serpents, sphinxes, and even some hippos charging through the enemy like tanks. Here and there, hieroglyphs glowed in the air, causing explosions and earthquakes that destroyed Set’s forces. But more demons just kept coming, surrounding the magicians in deeper and deeper ranks. I watched as one magician was completely overwhelmed, his circle broken in a flash of green light, and he went down under the enemy wave.
“This is the end of the House,” Set said with satisfaction. “They cannot prevail as long as my pyramid stands.”
The magicians seemed to know this. As they got closer, they sent fiery comets and bolts of lightning toward the pyramid; but each blast dissipated harmlessly against its stone slopes, consumed in the red haze of Set’s power.
Then I spotted the golden capstone. Four snake-headed giants had retrieved it and were carrying it slowly but steadily through the melee. Set’s lieutenant Face of Horror shouted orders to them, lashing them with a whip to keep them moving. They pressed forward until they reached the pyramid’s base and began to climb.
I charged toward them, but Set intervened in an instant, placing himself in my path.
“I don’t think so, Horus,” he laughed. “You won’t ruin this party.”
We both summoned our weapons to our hands and fought with renewed ferocity, slicing and dodging. I brought my sword down in a deadly arc, but Set ducked aside and my blade hit stone, sending a shock wave through my whole body. Before I could recover, Set spoke a word: “Ha-wi!”
Strike.The hieroglyphs exploded in my face and sent me tumbling down the side of the pyramid.
When my vision cleared, I saw Face of Horror and the snake-headed giants far above me, lugging their golden load up the side of the monument, only a few steps from the top.
“No,” I muttered. I tried to rise, but my avatar form was sluggish.
Then out of nowhere a magician catapulted into the midst of the demons and unleashed a gale of wind. Demons went flying, dropping the capstone, and the magician struck it with his staff, stopping it from sliding. The magician was Desjardins. His forked beard and robes and leopard-skin cape were singed with fire, and his eyes were full of rage. He pressed his staff against the capstone, and its golden shape began to glow; but before Desjardins could destroy it, Set rose up behind him and swung his iron rod like a baseball bat.
Desjardins tumbled, broken and unconscious, all the way down the pyramid, disappearing into the mob of demons. My heart twisted. I’d never liked Desjardins, but no one deserved a fate like that.
“Annoying,” Set said. “But not effective. This is what the House of Life has reduced itself to, eh, Horus?”
I charged up the slope, and again our weapons clanged together. We fought back and forth as gray light began to seep through the cracks in the mountain above us.
Horus’s keen senses told me we had about two minutes until sunrise, maybe less.
Horus’s energy kept surging through me. My avatar was only mildly damaged, my attacks still swift and strong. But it wasn’t enough to defeat Set, and Set knew it. He was in no hurry. With every minute, another magician went down on the battlefield, and chaos got closer to winning.
Patience, Horus urged. We fought him for seven years the first time.
But I knew we didn’t have seven minutes, much less seven years. I wished Sadie were here, but I could only hope she’d managed to free Dad and keep Zia and Amos safe.
That thought distracted me. Set swept his staff at my feet, and instead of jumping, I tried to back up. The blow cracked against my right ankle, knocking me off balance and sending me somersaulting down the pyramid’s side.
Set laughed. “Have a nice trip!” Then he picked up the capstone.
I rose, groaning, but my feet were like lead. I staggered up the slope, but before I’d closed even half the distance, Set placed the capstone and completed the structure. Red light flowed down the sides of the pyramid with a sound like the world’s largest bass guitar, shaking the entire mountain and making my whole body go numb.
“Thirty seconds to sunrise!” Set yelled with glee. “And this land will be mine forever. You can’t stop me alone, Horus—especially not in the desert, the source of my strength!”
“You’re right,” said a nearby voice.
I glanced over and saw Sadie rising from the air vent—radiant with multicolored light, her staff and wand glowing.
“Except Horus is not alone,” she said. “And we’re not going to fight you in the desert.”
She struck her staff against the pyramid and shouted a name: the last words I’d ever expect her to utter as a battle cry.
SADIE
39. Zia Tells Me a Secret
CHEERS, CARTER, FOR MAKING ME LOOK dramatic and all that.
The truth was a bit less glamorous.
Back up, shall we? When my brother, the crazy chicken warrior, turned into a falcon and went up the pyramid’s chimney with his new friend, the fruit bat, he left me playing nurse to two very wounded people—which I didn’t appreciate, and which I wasn’t particularly good at.
Poor Amos’s wounds seemed more magical than physical. He didn’t have a mark on him, but his eyes were rolled up in his head, and he was barely breathing. Steam curled from his skin when I touched his forehead, so I decided I’d best leave him for the moment.
Zia was another story. Her face was deathly pale, and she was bleeding from several nasty cuts on her leg. One of her arms was twisted at a bad angle. Her breath rattled with a sound like wet sand.
“Hold still.” I ripped some cloth from the hem of my pants and tried to bind her leg. “Maybe there’s some healing magic or—”
“Sadie.” She gripped my wrist feebly. “No time. Listen.”
“If we can stop the bleeding—”
“His name. You need his name.”
“But you’re not Nephthys! Set said so.”
She shook her head. “A message…I speak with her voice. The name—Evil Day. Set was born, and it was an Evil Day.”
True enough, I thought, but could that really be Set’s secret name? What Zia was talking about, not being Nephthys but speaking with her voice—it made no sense. Then I remembered the voice at the river. Nephthys had said she would send a message. And Anubis had made me promise I would listen to Nephthys.
I shifted uncomfortably. “Look, Zia—”
Then the truth hit me in face. Some things Iskandar had said, some things Thoth had said—they all clicked together. Iskandar had wanted to protect Zia. He’d told me if he’d realized Carter and I were godlings sooner, he could’ve protected us as well as…someone. As well as Zia. Now I understood how he’d tried to protect her.
“Oh, god.” I stared at her. “That’s it, isn’t it?”
She seemed to understand, and she nodded. Her face contorted with pain, but her eyes remained as fierce and insistent as ever. “Use the name. Bend Set to your will. Make him help.”
“Help? He just tried to kill you, Zia. He’s not the helping type.”
“Go.” She tried to push me away. Flames sputtered weakly from her fingers. “Carter needs you.”
That was the one thing she might’ve said to spur me on. Carter was in trouble.
“I’ll be back, then,” I promised. “Don’t…um, go anywhere.”
I stood and stared at the hole in the ceiling, dreading the idea of turning into a kite again. Then my eyes fixed on Dad’s coffin, buried in the red throne. The sarcophagus was glowing like something radioactive, heading for meltdown. If I could only break the throne…
Set must be dealt with first, Isis warned.
But if I can free Dad…I stepped towards the throne.
No, Isis warned. What you might see is too dangerous.
What are you talking about? I thought irritably. I put my hand on the golden coffin. Instantly I was ripped from the throne room and into a vision.
I was back in the Land of the Dead, in the Hall of Judgment. The crumbling monuments of a New Orleans graveyard shimmered around me. Spirits of the dead stirred restlessly in the mist. At the base of the broken scales, a tiny monster slept—Ammit the Devourer. He opened one glowing yellow eye to study me, then went back to sleep.
Anubis stepped out of the shadows. He was dressed in a black silk suit with his tie unknotted, like he’d just come back from a funeral or possibly a convention for really gorgeous undertakers. “Sadie, you shouldn’t be here.”
“Tell me about it,” I said, but I was so glad to see him, I wanted to sob with relief.
He took my hand and led me towards the empty black throne. “We have lost all balance. The throne cannot be empty. The restoration of Ma’at must begin here, in this hall.”
He sounded sad, as if he were asking me to accept something terrible. I didn’t understand, but a profound sense of loss crept over me.
“It’s not fair,” I said.
“No, it’s not.” He squeezed my hand. “I’ll be here, waiting. I’m sorry, Sadie. I truly am…”
He started to fade.
“Wait!” I tried to hold on to his hand, but he melted into mist along with the graveyard.
I found myself back in the throne room of the gods, except it looked like it had been abandoned for centuries. The roof had fallen in, along with half of the columns. The braziers were cold and rusty. The beautiful marble floor was as cracked as a dry lakebed.
Bast stood alone next to the empty throne of Osiris. She gave me a mischievous smile, but seeing her again was almost too painful to bear.
“Oh, don’t be sad,” she chided. “Cats don’t do regret.”
“But aren’t you—aren’t you dead?”
“That all depends.” She gestured around her. “The Duat is in turmoil. The gods have gone too long without a king. If Set doesn’t take over, someone else must. The enemy is coming. Don’t let me die in vain.”
“But will you come back?” I asked, my voice breaking. “Please, I never even got to say good-bye to you. I can’t—”
“Good luck, Sadie. Keep your claws sharp.” Bast vanished, and the scenery changed again.
I stood in the Hall of Ages, in the First Nome—another empty throne—and Iskandar sat at its feet, waiting for a pharaoh who hadn’t existed for two thousand years.
“A leader, my dear,” he said. “Ma’at demands a leader.”
“It’s too much,” I said. “Too many thrones. You can’t expect Carter—”
“Not alone,” Iskandar agreed. “But this is your family’s burden. You started the process. The Kanes alone will heal us or destroy us.”
“I don’t know what you mean!”
Iskandar opened his hand, and in a flash of light, the scene changed one more time.
I was back at the Thames. It must’ve been the dead of the night, three o’clock in the morning, because the Embankment was empty. Mist obscured the lights of the city, and the air was wintry.
Two people, a man and a woman, stood bundled against the cold, holding hands in front of Cleopatra’s Needle. At first I thought they were a random couple on a date. Then, with a shock, I realized I was looking at my parents.
My dad lifted his face and scowled at the obelisk. In the dim glow of the streetlamps, his features looked like chiseled marble—like the pharaoh statues he loved to study. He did have the face of a king, I thought—proud and handsome.
“You’re sure?” he asked my mother. “Absolutely sure?”
Mum brushed her blond hair out of her face. She was even more beautiful than her pictures, but she looked worried—eyebrows furrowed, lips pressed together. Like me when I was upset, when I looked in the mirror and tried to convince myself things weren’t so bad. I wanted to call to her, to let her know I was there, but my voice wouldn’t work.
“She told me this is where it begins,” my mother said. She pulled her black coat around her, and I caught a glimpse of her necklace—the amulet of Isis, my amulet. I stared at it, stunned, but then she pulled her collar closed, and the amulet disappeared. “If we want to defeat the enemy, we must start with the obelisk. We must find out the truth.”
My father frowned uneasily. He’d drawn a protective circle around them—blue chalk lines on the pavement. When he touched the base of the obelisk, the circle began to glow.
“I don’t like it,” he said. “Won’t you call on her help?”
“No,” my mother insisted. “I know my limits, Julius. If I tried it again…”
My heart skipped a beat. Iskandar’s words came back to me: She saw things that made her seek advice from unconventional places. I recognized the look in my mother’s eyes, and I knew: my mother had communed with Isis.
Why didn’t you tell me? I wanted to scream.
My father summoned his staff and wand. “Ruby, if we fail—”
“We can’t fail,” she insisted. “The world depends on it.”
They kissed one last time, as if they sensed they were saying good-bye. Then they raised their staffs and wands and began to chant. Cleopatra’s Needle glowed with power.
I yanked my hand away from the sarcophagus. My eyes stung with tears.
You knew my mother, I shouted at Isis. You encouraged her to open that obelisk. You got her killed!
I waited for her to answer. Instead, a ghostly image appeared in front of me—a projection of my father, shimmering in the light of the golden coffin.
“Sadie.” He smiled. His voice sounded tinny and hollow, the way it used to on the phone when he’d call me from far away—from Egypt or Australia or god knows where. “Don’t blame Isis for your mother’s fate. None of us understood exactly what would happen. Even your mother could only see bits and pieces of the future. But when the time came, your mother accepted her role. It was her decision.”
“To die?” I demanded. “Isis should’ve helped her. You should’ve helped her. I hate you!”
As soon as I said it, something broke inside me. I started to cry. I realized I’d wanted to say that to my dad for years. I blamed him for Mum’s death, blamed him for leaving me. But now that I’d said it, all the anger drained out me, leaving me nothing but guilt.
“I’m sorry,” I sputtered. “I didn’t—”
“Don’t apologize, my brave girl. You have every right to feel that way. You had to get it out. What you’re about to do—you have to believe it’s for the right reasons, not because you resent me.”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
He reached out to brush a tear from my cheek, but his hand was just a shimmer of light. “Your mother was the first in many centuries to commune with Isis. It was dangerous, against the teachings of the House, but your mother was a diviner. She had a premonition that chaos was rising. The House was failing. We needed the gods. Isis could not cross the Duat. She could barely manage a whisper, but she told us what she could about their imprisonment. She counseled Ruby on what must be done. The gods could rise again, she said, but it would take many hard sacrifices. We thought the obelisk would release all the gods, but that was only the beginning.”
“Isis could’ve given Mum more power. Or at least Bast! Bast offered—”
“No, Sadie. Your mother knew her limits. If she had tried to host a god, fully use divine power, she would have been consumed or worse. She freed Bast, and used her own power to seal the breach. With her life, she bought you some time.”
“Me? But…”
“You and your brother have the strongest blood of any Kane in three thousand years. Your mother studied the lineage of the pharaohs—she knew this to be true. You have the best chance at relearning the old ways, and healing the breach between magicians and gods. Your mother began the stirring. I unleashed the gods from the Rosetta Stone. But it will be your job to restore Ma’at.”
“You can help,” I insisted. “Once we free you.”
“Sadie,” he said forlornly, “when you become a parent, you may understand this. One of my hardest jobs as a father, one of my greatest duties, was to realize that my own dreams, my own goals and wishes, are secondary to my children’s. Your mother and I have set the stage. But it is your stage. This pyramid is designed to feed chaos. It consumes the power of other gods and makes Set stronger.”
“I know. If I break the throne, maybe open the coffin…”
“You might save me,” Dad conceded. “But the power of Osiris, the power inside me, would be consumed by the pyramid. It would only hasten the destruction and make Set stronger. The pyramid must be destroyed, all of it. And you know how that must be done.”
I was about to protest that I didn’t know, but the feather of truth kept me honest. The way was inside me—I’d seen it in Isis’s thoughts. I’d known what was coming ever since Anubis asked me that impossible question: “To save the world, would you sacrifice your father?”
“I don’t want to,” I said. “Please.”
“Osiris must take his throne,” my father said. “Through death, life. It is the only way. May Ma’at guide you, Sadie. I love you.”
And with that, his image dissipated.
Someone was calling my name.
I looked back and saw Zia trying to sit up, clutching weakly at her wand. “Sadie, what are you doing?”
All around us, the room was shaking. Cracks split the walls, as if a giant were using the pyramid as a punching bag.
How long had I been in a trance? I wasn’t sure, but I was out of time.
I closed my eyes and concentrated. The voice of Isis spoke almost immediately: Do you see now? Do you understand why I could not say more?
Anger built inside me, but I forced it down. We’ll talk about that later. Right now, we have a god to defeat.
I pictured myself stepping forward, merging with the soul of the goddess.
I’d shared power with Isis before, but this was different. My resolve, my anger, even my grief gave me confidence. I looked Isis straight in the eye (spiritually speaking), and we understood one another.
I saw her entire history—her early days grasping for power, using tricks and schemes to find the name of Ra. I saw her wedding with Osiris, her hopes and dreams for a new empire. Then I saw those dreams shattered by Set. I felt her anger and bitterness, her fierce pride and protectiveness for her young son, Horus. And I saw the pattern of her life repeating itself over and over again through the ages, through a thousand different hosts.
Gods have great power, Iskandar had said. But only humans have creativity, the power to change history.
I also felt my mother’s thoughts, like an imprint on the goddess’s memory: Ruby’s final moments and the choice she’d made. She’d given her life to start a chain of events. And the next move was mine.
“Sadie!” Zia called again, her voice weakening.
“I’m fine,” I said. “I’m going now.”
Zia studied my face, and obviously didn’t like what she saw. “You’re not fine. You’ve been badly shaken. Fighting Set in your condition would be suicide.”
“Don’t worry,” I said. “We have a plan.”
With that, I turned into a kite and flew up the airshaft towards the top of the pyramid.
SADIE
40. I Ruin a Rather Important Spell
I FOUND THAT THINGS WEREN’T GOING WELL UPSTAIRS.
Carter was a crumpled heap of chicken warrior on the slope of the pyramid. Set had just placed the capstone and was shouting, “Thirty seconds to sunrise!” In the cavern below, magicians from the House of Life waded through an army of demons, fighting a hopeless fight.
The scene would’ve been frightening enough, but now I saw it as Isis did. Like a crocodile with eyes at water level—seeing both below and above the surface—I saw the Duat entwined with the regular world. The demons had fiery souls in the Duat that made them look like an army of birthday candles. Where Carter stood in the mortal world, a falcon warrior stood in the Duat—not an avatar, but the real thing, with feathered head, sharp bloodstained beak, and gleaming black eyes. His sword rippled with golden light. As for Set—imagine a mountain of sand, doused with petrol, set on fire, spinning in the world’s largest blender. That’s what he looked like in the Duat—a column of destructive force so powerful that the stones at his feet bubbled and blistered.
I’m not sure what I looked like, but I felt powerful. The force of Ma’at coursed through me; the Divine Words were at my command. I was Sadie Kane, blood of the pharaohs. And I was Isis, goddess of magic, holder of the secret names.
As Carter struggled his way up the pyramid, Set gloated: “You can’t stop me by yourself, Horus—especially not in the desert, the source of my strength!”
“You’re right!” I called.
Set turned, and the look on his face was priceless. I raised my staff and wand, gathering my magic.
“Except that Horus is not alone,” I said. “And we’re not going to fight you in the desert.”
I slammed my staff against the stones and shouted, “Washington, D.C.!”
The pyramid shook. For a moment, nothing else happened.
Set seemed to realize what I was doing. He let out a nervous laugh. “Magic one-oh-one, Sadie Kane. You can’t open a portal during the Demon Days!”
“A mortal can’t,” I agreed. “But a goddess of magic can.”
Above us, the air crackled with lightning. The top of the cavern dissolved into a churning vortex of sand as large as the pyramid.
Demons stopped fighting and looked up in horror. Magicians stammered midspell, their faces slack with awe.
The vortex was so powerful that it ripped blocks off the pyramid and sucked them into the sand. And then, like a giant lid, the portal began to descend.
“No!” Set roared. He blasted the portal with flames, then turned on me and hurled stones and lightning, but it was too late. The portal swallowed us all.
The world seemed to flip upside down. For a heartbeat, I wondered if I’d made a terrible miscalculation—if Set’s pyramid would explode in the portal, and I’d spend eternity floating through the Duat as a billion little particles of Sadie sand. Then, with a sonic boom, we appeared in the cold morning air with a brilliant blue sky above us. Spread out below us were the snow-covered fields of the National Mall in Washington, D.C.
The red pyramid was still intact, but cracks had appeared on its surface. The gold capstone glowed, trying to maintain its magic, but we weren’t in Phoenix anymore. The pyramid had been ripped from its source of power, the desert, and in front us loomed the default gateway for North America, the tall white obelisk that was the most powerful focal point of Ma’at on the continent: the Washington Monument.
Set screamed something at me in Ancient Egyptian. I was fairly sure it wasn’t a compliment.
“I will rend your limbs from their sockets!” he shouted. “I will—”
“Die?” Carter suggested. He rose behind Set and swung his sword. The blade cut into Set’s armor at the ribs—not a killing blow, but enough to knock the Red God off balance and send him tumbling down the side of his pyramid. Carter bounded after him, and in the Duat I could see arcs of white energy pulsing from the Washington Monument to the Horus avatar, charging it with new power.
“The book, Sadie!” Carter shouted as he ran. “Do it now!”
I must’ve been dazed from summoning the portal, because Set understood what Carter was saying a lot faster than I did.
“No!” the Red God shouted. He charged towards me, but Carter intercepted him halfway up the slope.
He grappled with Set, holding him back. The stones of the pyramid cracked and crumbled under the weight of their godly forms. All around the base of the pyramid, demons and magicians who’d been pulled through the portal and knocked momentarily unconscious were starting to stir.
The book, Sadie… Sometimes it’s helpful to have someone other than yourself inside your head, because one can slap the other. Duh, the book!
I held out my hand and summoned the little blue tome we’d stolen from Paris: The Book of Overcoming Set. I unfolded the papyrus; the hieroglyphs were as clear as a nursery school primer. I called for the feather of truth, and instantly it appeared, glowing above the pages.
I began the spell, speaking the Divine Words, and my body rose into the air, hovering a few centimeters above the pyramid. I chanted the story of creation: the first mountain rising above the waters of chaos, the birth of the gods Ra, Geb, and Nut, the rise of Ma’at, and the first great empire of men, Egypt.
The Washington Monument began to glow as hieroglyphs appeared along its sides. The capstone gleamed silver.
Set tried to lash out at me, but Carter intercepted him. And the red pyramid began to break apart.
I thought about Amos and Zia, trapped inside under tons of stone, and I almost faltered, but my mother’s voice spoke in my mind: Stay focused, dearest. Watch for your enemy.
Yes, Isis said. Destroy him!
But somehow I knew that wasn’t what my mother meant. She was telling me to watch. Something important was about to happen.
Through the Duat, I saw magic forming around me, weaving a white sheen over the world, reinforcing Ma’at and expelling chaos. Carter and Set wrestled back and forth as huge chunks of the pyramid collapsed.
The feather of truth glowed, shining like a spotlight on the Red God. As I neared the end of the spell, my words began tearing Set’s form to shreds.
In the Duat, his fiery whirlwind was being stripped away, revealing a black-skinned, slimy thing like an emaciated Set animal—the evil essence of the god. But in the mortal world, occupying the same space, there stood a proud warrior in red armor, blazing with power and determined to fight to the death.
“I name you Set,” I chanted. “I name you Evil Day.”
With a thunderous roar, the pyramid imploded. Set fell crashing into the ruins. He tried to rise, but Carter swung his sword. Set barely had time to raise his staff. Their weapons crossed, and Horus slowly forced Set to one knee.
“Now, Sadie!” Carter yelled.
“You have been my enemy,” I chanted, “and a curse on the land.”
A line of white light shot down the length of the Washington Monument. It widened into a rift—a doorway between this world and the brilliant white abyss that would lock Set away, trapping his life force. Maybe not forever, but for a long, long time.
To complete the spell, I only had to speak one more line: “Deserving no mercy, an enemy of Ma’at, you are exiled beyond the earth.”
The line had to be spoken with absolute conviction. The feather of truth required it. And why shouldn’t I believe it? It was the truth. Set deserved no mercy. He was an enemy of Ma’at.
But I hesitated.
“Watch for your enemy,” my mother had said.
I looked towards the top of the monument, and in the Duat I saw chunks of pyramid flying skyward and the souls of demons lifting off like fireworks. As Set’s chaos magic dispersed, all the force that had been charging up, ready to destroy a continent, was being sucked into the clouds. And as I watched, the chaos tried to form a shape. It was like a red reflection of the Potomac—an enormous crimson river at least a mile long and a hundred meters wide. It writhed in the air, trying to become solid, and I felt its rage and bitterness. This was not what it had wanted. There was not enough power or chaos for its purpose. To form properly, it needed the death of millions, the wasting of an entire continent.
It was not a river. It was a snake.
“Sadie!” Carter yelled. “What are you waiting for?”
He couldn’t see it, I realized. No one could but me.
Set was on his knees, writhing and cursing as white energy encircled him, pulling him towards the rift. “Lost your stomach, witch?” he bellowed. Then he glared at Carter. “You see, Horus? Isis was always a coward. She could never complete the deed!”
Carter looked at me, and for a moment I saw the doubt on his face. Horus would be urging him towards bloody vengeance. I was hesitating. This is what had turned Isis and Horus against each other before. I couldn’t let it happen now.
But more than that, in Carter’s wary expression I saw the way he used to look at me on our visiting days—when we were practically strangers, forced to spend time together, pretending we were a happy family because Dad expected it of us. I didn’t want to go back to that. I wasn’t pretending anymore. We were a family, and we had to work together.
“Carter, look.” I threw the feather of truth into the sky, breaking the spell.
“No!” Carter screamed.
But the feather exploded into silver dust that clung to the form of the serpent, forcing it to become visible, just for an instant.
Carter’s mouth fell open as the serpent writhed in the air above Washington, slowly losing power.
Next to me, a voice screamed: “Wretched gods!”
I turned to see Set’s minion, Face of Horror, with his fangs bared and his grotesque face only inches from mine, a jagged knife raised above my head. I only had time to think: I’m dead, before a flash of metal registered in the corner of my eye. There was a sickening thud, and the demon froze.
Carter had thrown his sword with deadly accuracy. The demon dropped his knife, fell to his knees, and stared down at the blade that was now sheathed in his side.
He crumpled to his back, exhaling with an angry hiss. His black eyes fixed on me, and he spoke in a completely different voice—a rasping, dry sound, like a reptile’s belly scraping over sand. “This is not over, godling. All this I have wrought with a wisp of my voice, the merest bit of my essence wriggling from my weakened cage. Imagine what I shall do when fully formed.”
He gave me a ghastly smile, and then his face went slack. A tiny line of red mist curled from his mouth—like a worm or a fresh-hatched snake—and writhed upward into the sky to join its source. The demon’s body disintegrated into sand.
I looked up once more at the giant red serpent slowly dissolving in the sky. Then I summoned a good strong wind and dispersed it completely.
The Washington Monument stopped glowing. The rift closed, and the little spellbook disappeared from my hand.
I moved towards Set, who was still ensnared in ropes of white energy. I’d spoken his true name. He wasn’t going anywhere just yet.
“You both saw the serpent in the clouds,” I said. “Apophis.”
Carter nodded, stunned. “He was trying to break into the mortal world, using the Red Pyramid as a gateway. If its power had been unleashed…” He looked down in revulsion at the pile of sand that had once been a demon. “Set’s lieutenant—Face of Horror—he was possessed by Apophis all along, using Set to get what he wanted.”
“Ridiculous!” Set glared at me and struggled against his bonds. “The snake in the clouds was one of your tricks, Isis. An illusion.”
“You know it wasn’t,” I said. “I could’ve sent you into the abyss, Set, but you saw the real enemy. Apophis was trying to break out of his prison in the Duat. His voice possessed Face of Horror. He was using you.”
“No one uses me!”
Carter let his warrior form disperse. He floated to the ground and summoned his sword back to his hand. “Apophis wanted your explosion to feed his power, Set. As soon as he came through the Duat and found us dead, I’m betting you would’ve been his first meal. Chaos would’ve won.”
“I am chaos!” Set insisted.
“Partially,” I said. “But you’re still one of the gods. True, you’re evil, faithless, ruthless, vile—”
“You make me blush, sister.”
“But you’re also the strongest god. In the ancient times, you were Ra’s faithful lieutenant, defending his boat against Apophis. Ra couldn’t have defeated the Serpent without you.”
“I am pretty great,” Set admitted. “But Ra is gone forever, thanks to you.”
“Maybe not forever,” I said. “We’ll have to find him. Apophis is rising, which means we’ll need all the gods to battle him. Even you.”
Set tested his bonds of white energy. When he found he couldn’t break them, he gave me a crooked smile. “You suggest an alliance? You’d trust me?”
Carter laughed. “You’ve got to be kidding. But we’ve got your number, now. Your secret name. Right, Sadie?”
I closed my fingers, and the bonds tightened around Set. He cried out in pain. It took a great deal of energy, and I knew I couldn’t hold him like this for long, but there was no point telling that to Set.
“The House of Life tried banishing the gods,” I said. “It didn’t work. If we lock you away, we’re no better than they are. It doesn’t solve anything.”
“I couldn’t agree more,” Set groaned. “So if you’ll just loosen these bonds—”
“You’re still a villainous piece of scum,” I said. “But you have a role to play, and you’ll need controlling. I’ll agree to release you—if you swear to behave, to return to the Duat, and not cause trouble until we call you. And then you’ll make trouble only for us, fighting against Apophis.”
“Or I could chop off your head,” Carter suggested. “That would probably exile you for a good long while.”
Set glanced back and forth between us. “Make trouble for you, eh? That is my specialty.”
“Swear by your own name and the throne of Ra,” I said. “You will leave now and not reappear until you are called.”
“Oh, I swear,” he said, much too quickly. “By my name and Ra’s throne and our mother’s starry elbows.”
“If you betray us,” I warned, “I have your name. I won’t show you mercy a second time.”
“You always were my favorite sister.”
I gave him one last shock, just to remind him of my power, and then let the bindings dissolve.
Set stood up and flexed his arms. He appeared as a warrior with red armor and red skin, a black, forked beard, and twinkling, cruel eyes; but in the Duat, I saw his other side, a raging inferno just barely contained, waiting to be unleashed and burn everything in its path. He winked at Horus, then pretended to shoot me with a finger gun. “Oh, this will be good. We’re going to have so much fun.”
“Begone, Evil Day,” I said.
He turned into a pillar of salt and dissolved.
The snow in the National Mall had melted in a perfect square, the exact size of Set’s pyramid. Around the edges, a dozen magicians still lay passed out. The poor dears had started to stir when our portal closed, but the explosion of the pyramid had knocked them all out again. Other mortals in the area had also been affected. An early-morning jogger was slumped on the sidewalk. On nearby streets, cars idled while the drivers took naps over the steering wheels.
Not everyone was asleep, though. Police sirens wailed in the distance, and seeing as how we’d teleported practically into the president’s backyard, I knew it wouldn’t be long before we had a great deal of heavily armed company.
Carter and I ran to the center of the melted square, where Amos and Zia lay crumpled in the grass. There was no sign of Set’s throne or the golden coffin, but I tried to push those thoughts out of my mind.
Amos groaned. “What…” His eyes clouded over with terror. “Set…he…he…”
“Rest.” I put my hand on his forehead. He was burning with fever. The pain in his mind was so sharp, it cut me like a razor. I remembered a spell Isis had taught me in New Mexico.
“Quiet,” I whispered. “Hah-ri.”
Faint hieroglyphs glowed over his face:Amos drifted back to sleep, but I knew it was only a temporary fix.
Zia was even worse off. Carter cradled her head and spoke reassuringly about how she would be fine, but she looked bad. Her skin was a strange reddish color, dry and brittle, as if she’d suffered a horrible sunburn. In the grass around her, hieroglyphs were fading—the remains of a protective circle—and I thought I understood what had happened. She’d used her last bit of energy to shield herself and Amos when the pyramid imploded.
“Set?” she asked weakly. “Is he gone?”
“Yes.” Carter glanced at me, and I knew we’d be keeping the details to ourselves. “Everything’s fine, thanks to you. The secret name worked.”
She nodded, satisfied, and her eyes began to close.
“Hey.” Carter’s voice quavered. “Stay awake. You’re not going to leave me alone with Sadie, are you? She’s bad company.”
Zia tried to smile, but the effort made her wince. “I was…never here, Carter. Just a message—a placeholder.”
“Come on. No. That’s no way to talk.”
“Find her, will you?” Zia said. A tear traced its way down her nose. “She’d…like that…a date at the mall.” Her eyes drifted away from him and stared blankly into the sky.
“Zia!” Carter clutched her hand. “Stop that. You can’t…You can’t just…”
I knelt next to him and touched Zia’s face. It was cold as stone. And even though I understood what had happened, I couldn’t think of anything to say, or any way to console my brother. He shut his eyes tight and lowered his head.
Then it happened. Along the path of Zia’s tear, from the corner of her eye to the base of her nose, Zia’s face cracked. Smaller fractures appeared, webbing her skin. Her flesh dried out, hardening…turning to clay.
“Carter,” I said.
“What?” he said miserably.
He looked up just as a small blue light drifted out of Zia’s mouth and flew into the sky. Carter backed away in shock. “What—what did you do?”
“Nothing,” I said. “She’s a shabti. She said she wasn’t really here. She was just a placeholder.”
Carter looked bewildered. But then a small light started to burn in his eyes—a tiny bit of hope. “Then…the real Zia is alive?”
“Iskandar was protecting her,” I said. “When the spirit of Nephthys joined with the real Zia in London, Iskandar knew she was in danger. Iskandar hid her away and replaced her with a shabti. Remember what Thoth said: ‘shabti make excellent stunt doubles?’ That’s what she was. And Nephthys told me she was sheltered somewhere, inside a sleeping host.”
“But where—”
“I don’t know,” I said. And in Carter’s present state, I was too afraid to raise the real question: If Zia had been a shabti all this time, had we ever known her at all? The real Zia had never gotten close to us. She’d never discovered what an incredibly amazing person I was. God forbid, she might not even like Carter.
Carter touched her face and it crumbled to dust. He picked up her wand, which remained solid ivory, but he held it gingerly as if he were afraid it too would dissolve. “That blue light,” he began to ramble, “I saw Zia release one in the First Nome, too. Just like the shabti in Memphis—they sent their thoughts back to Thoth. So Zia must’ve been in contact with her shabti. That’s what the light was. They must’ve been, like, sharing memories, right? She must know what the shabti’s been through. If the real Zia is alive somewhere, she might be locked up or in some kind of magic sleep or— We have to find her!”
I wasn’t sure it would be so simple, but I didn’t want to argue. I could see the desperation on his face.
Then a familiar voice sent a cold shiver down my back: “What have you done?”
Desjardins was literally fuming. His tattered robes still smoked from battle. (Carter says I shouldn’t mention that his pink boxer shorts were showing, but they were!) His staff was aglow, and the whiskers in his beard smoldered. Behind him stood three equally battered magicians, who all looked as if they’d just regained consciousness.
“Oh, good,” I muttered. “You’re alive.”
“You bargained with Set?” Desjardins demanded. “You let him go?”
“We don’t answer to you,” Carter growled. He stepped forward, hand on his sword, but I put out my arm to hold him back.
“Desjardins,” I said as calmly as I could, “Apophis is rising, in case you missed that part. We need the gods. The House of Life has to relearn the old ways.”
“The old ways destroyed us!” he yelled.
A week ago, the look in his eyes would’ve made me tremble. He fairly glowed with rage, and hieroglyphs blazed in the air around him. He was the Chief Lector, and I’d just undone everything the House had worked for since the fall of Egypt. Desjardins was a heartbeat away from turning me into an insect, and the thought should’ve terrified me.
Instead, I looked him in the eye. Right now, I was more powerful than he was. Much more powerful. And I let him know it.
“Pride destroyed you,” I said. “Greed and selfishness and all of that. It’s hard to follow the path of the gods. But it is part of magic. You can’t just shut it down.”
“You are drunk with power,” he snarled. “The gods have possessed you, as they always do. Soon you will forget you are even human. We will fight you and destroy you.” Then he glared at Carter. “And you—I know what Horus would demand. You will never reclaim the throne. With my last breath—”
“Save it,” I said. Then I faced my brother. “You know what we have to do?”
Understanding passed between us. I was surprised how easily I could read him. I thought it might be the influence of the gods, but then I realized it was because we were both Kanes, brother and sister. And Carter, god help me, was also my friend.
“Are you sure?” he asked. “We’re leaving ourselves open.” He glared at Desjardins. “Just one more good smack with the sword?”
“I’m sure, Carter.”
I closed my eyes and focused.
Consider carefully, Isis said. What we’ve done so far is only the beginning of the power we could wield together.
That’s the problem, I said. I’m not ready for that. I’ve got to get there on my own, the hard way.
You are wise for a mortal, Isis said. Very well.
Imagine giving up a fortune in cash. Imagine throwing away the most beautiful diamond necklace in the world. Separating myself from Isis was harder than that, much harder.
But it wasn’t impossible. I know my limits, my mother had said, and now I understood how wise she’d been.
I felt the spirit of the goddess leave me. Part of her flowed into my necklace, but most of her streamed into the Washington Monument, back into the Duat, where Isis would go…somewhere else. Another host? I wasn’t sure.
When I opened my eyes, Carter stood next to me looking grief-stricken, holding his Eye of Horus amulet.
Desjardins was so stunned, he momentarily forgot how to speak English. “Ce n’est pas possible. On ne pourrait pas—”
“Yes, we could,” I said. “We’ve given up the gods of our own free will. And you’ve got a lot to learn about what’s possible.”
Carter threw down his sword. “Desjardins, I’m not after the throne. Not unless I earn it by myself, and that’s going to take time. We’re going to learn the path of the gods. We’re going to teach others. You can waste time trying to destroy us, or you can help.”
The sirens were much closer now. I could see the lights of emergency vehicles coming from several directions, slowly cordoning off the National Mall. We had only minutes before we were surrounded.
Desjardins looked at the magicians behind him, probably gauging how much support he could rally. His brethren looked in awe. One even started to bow to me, then caught himself.
Alone, Desjardins might’ve been able to destroy us. We were just magicians now—very tired magicians, with hardly any formal training.
Desjardins’ nostrils flared. Then he surprised me by lowering his staff. “There has been too much destruction today. But the path of the gods shall remain closed. If you cross the House of Life again…”
He let the threat hang in the air. He slammed his staff down, and with a final burst of energy, the four magicians dissolved into wind and gusted away.
Suddenly I felt exhausted. The terror of what I’d been through began to sink in. We’d survived, but that was little consolation. I missed my parents. I missed them terribly. I wasn’t a goddess anymore. I was just a regular girl, alone with only my brother.
Then Amos groaned and started sitting up. Police cars and sinister-looking black vans blocked the curbs all around us. Sirens blared. A helicopter sliced through the air over the Potomac, closing fast. God only knew what the mortals thought had happened at the Washington Monument, but I didn’t want my face on the nightly news.
“Carter, we have to get out of here,” I said. “Can you summon enough magic to change Amos into something small—a mouse maybe? We can fly him out.”
He nodded, still in a daze. “But Dad…we didn’t…”
He looked around helplessly. I knew how he felt. The pyramid, the throne, the golden coffin—all of it was gone. We’d come so far to rescue our father, only to lose him. And Carter’s first girlfriend lay at his feet in a pile of pottery shards. That probably didn’t help either. (Carter protests that she wasn’t really his girlfriend. Oh, please!)
I couldn’t dwell on it, though. I had to be strong for both of us or we’d end up in prison.
“First things first,” I said. “We have to get Amos to safety.”
“Where?” Carter asked.
There was only one place I could think of.