CHAPTER
2. We Tame a Seven-Thousand-Pound Hummingbird
A FEW MONTHS AGO, things would’ve been different. Sadie could’ve spoken a single word and caused a military-grade explosion. I could’ve encased myself in a magical combat avatar, and almost nothing would’ve been able to defeat me.
But that was when we were fully merged with the gods—Horus for me, Isis for Sadie. We’d given up that power because it was simply too dangerous. Until we had better control of our own abilities, embodying Egyptian gods could make us go crazy or literally burn us up.
Now all we had was our own limited magic. That made it harder to do important stuff—like survive when a monster came to life and wanted to kill us.
The griffin stepped into full view. It was twice the size of a regular lion, its reddish-gold fur coated with limestone dust. Its tail was studded with spiky feathers that looked as hard and sharp as daggers. With a single flick, it pulverized the stone slab it had come from. Its bristly wings were now straight up on its back. When the griffin moved, they fluttered so fast, they blurred and buzzed like the wings of the world’s largest, most vicious hummingbird.
The griffin fixed its hungry eyes on Sadie. White flames still engulfed her hand and the scroll, and the griffin seemed to take that as some kind of challenge. I’d heard a lot of falcon cries—hey, I’d been a falcon once or twice—but when this thing opened its beak, it let loose a screech that rattled the windows and set my hair on end.
“Sadie,” I said, “drop the scroll.”
“Hello? It’s stuck to my hand!” she protested. “And I’m on fire! Did I mention that?”
Patches of ghost fire were burning across all the windows and artifacts now. The scroll seemed to have triggered every reservoir of Egyptian magic in the room, and I was pretty sure that was bad. Walt and Jaz stood frozen in shock. I suppose I couldn’t blame them. This was their first real monster.
The griffin took a step toward my sister.
I stood shoulder to shoulder with her and did the one magic trick I still had down. I reached into the Duat and pulled my sword out of thin air—an Egyptian khopesh with a wickedly sharp, hook-shaped blade.
Sadie looked pretty silly with her hand and scroll on fire, like an overenthusiastic Statue of Liberty, but with her free hand she managed to summon her main offensive weapon—a five-foot-long staff carved with hieroglyphs.
Sadie asked, “Any hints on fighting griffins?”
“Avoid the sharp parts?” I guessed.
“Brilliant. Thanks for that.”
“Walt,” I called. “Check those windows. See if you can open them.”
“B-but they’re cursed.”
“Yes,” I said. “And if we try to exit through the ballroom, the griffin will eat us before we get there.”
“I’ll check the windows.”
“Jaz,” I said, “help Walt.”
“Those markings on the glass,” Jaz muttered. “I—I’ve seen them before—”
“Just do it!” I said.
The griffin lunged, its wings buzzing like chain saws. Sadie threw her staff, and it morphed into a tiger in midair, slamming into the griffin with its claws unsheathed.
The griffin was not impressed. It knocked the tiger aside, then lashed out with unnatural speed, opening its beak impossibly wide. SNAP. The griffin gulped and burped, and the tiger was gone.
“That was my favorite staff!” Sadie cried.
The griffin turned its eyes on me.
I gripped my sword tight. The blade began to glow. I wished I still had Horus’s voice inside my head, egging me on. Having a personal war god makes it easier to do stupidly brave things.
“Walt!” I called. “How’s it coming with that window?”
“Trying it now,” he said.
“H-hold on,” Jaz said nervously. “Those are symbols of Sekhmet. Walt, stop!”
Then a lot of things happened at once. Walt opened the window, and a wave of white fire roared over him, knocking him to the floor.
Jaz ran to his side. The griffin immediately lost interest in me. Like any good predator, it focused on the moving target —Jaz—and lunged at her.
I charged after it. But instead of snapping up our friends, the griffin soared straight over Walt and Jaz and slammed into the window. Jaz pulled Walt out of the way while the griffin went crazy, thrashing and biting at the white flames.
It was trying to attack the fire. The griffin snapped at the air. It spun, knocking over a display case of shabti. Its tail smashed a sarcophagus to pieces.
I’m not sure what possessed me, but I yelled, “Stop it!”
The griffin froze. It turned toward me, cawing in irritation. A curtain of white fire raced away and burned in the corner of the room, almost like it was regrouping. Then I noticed other fires coming together, forming burning shapes that were vaguely human. One looked right at me, and I sensed an unmistakable aura of malice.
“Carter, keep its attention.” Sadie apparently hadn’t noticed the fiery shapes. Her eyes were still fixed on the griffin as she pulled a length of magic twine from her pocket. “If I can just get close enough—”
“Sadie, wait.” I tried to process what was going on. Walt was flat on his back, shivering. His eyes were glowing white, as if the fire had gotten inside him. Jaz knelt over him, muttering a healing spell.
“RAAAWK!” The griffin croaked plaintively as if asking permission—as if it was obeying my order to stop, but didn’t like it.
The fiery shapes were getting brighter, more solid. I counted seven blazing figures, slowly forming legs and arms.
Seven figures…Jaz had said something about the symbols of Sekhmet. Dread settled over me as I realized what kind of curse was really protecting the museum. The griffin’s release had just been accidental. It wasn’t the real problem.
Sadie threw her twine.
“Wait!” I yelled, but it was too late. The magic twine whipped through the air, elongating into a rope as it raced toward the griffin.
The griffin squawked indignantly and leaped after the fiery shapes. The fire creatures scattered, and a game of total annihilation tag was on.
The griffin buzzed around the room, its wings humming. Display cases shattered. Mortal alarms blared. I yelled at the griffin to stop, but this time it did no good.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Jaz collapse, maybe from the strain of her healing spell.
“Sadie!” I yelled. “Help her!”
Sadie ran to Jaz’s side. I chased the griffin. I probably looked like a total fool in my black pajamas with my glowing sword, tripping over broken artifacts and screaming orders at a giant hummingbird-cat.
Just when I thought things couldn’t get any worse, half a dozen party guests came around the corner to see what the noise was about. Their mouths fell open. A lady in a peach-colored dress screamed.
The seven white fire creatures shot straight through the wedding guests, who instantly collapsed. The fires kept going, whipping around the corner toward the ballroom. The griffin flew after them.
I glanced back at Sadie, who was kneeling over Jaz and Walt. “How are they?”
“Walt is coming around,” she said, “but Jaz is out cold.”
“Follow me when you can. I think I can control the griffin.”
“Carter, are you mad? Our friends are hurt and I’ve got a flaming scroll stuck to my hand. The window’s open. Help me get Jaz and Walt out of here!”
She had a point. This might be our only chance to get our friends out alive. But I also knew what those seven fires were now, and I knew that if I didn’t go after them, a lot of innocent people were going to get hurt.
I muttered an Egyptian curse—the cussing kind, not the magic kind—and ran to join the wedding party.
The main ballroom was in chaos. Guests were running everywhere, screaming and knocking over tables. A guy in a tuxedo had fallen into the wedding cake and was crawling around with a plastic bride-and-groom decoration stuck to his rear. A musician was trying to run away with a snare drum on his foot.
The white fires had solidified enough so that I could make out their forms—somewhere between canine and human, with elongated arms and crooked legs. They glowed like superheated gas as they raced through the ballroom, circling the pillars that surrounded the dance floor. One passed straight through a bridesmaid. The lady’s eyes turned milky white, and she crumpled to the floor, shivering and coughing.
I felt like curling into a ball myself. I didn’t know any spells that could fight these things, and if one of them touched me…
Suddenly the griffin swooped down out of nowhere, followed closely by Sadie’s magic rope, which was still trying to bind it. The griffin snapped up one of the fire creatures in a single gulp and kept flying. Wisps of smoke came out of its nostrils, but otherwise, eating the white fire didn’t seem to bother it.
“Hey!” I yelled.
Too late, I realized my mistake.
The griffin turned toward me, which slowed it down just enough for Sadie’s magic rope to wrap around its back legs.
“SQUAWWWWK!” The griffin crashed into a buffet table. The rope grew longer, winding around the monster’s body while its high-speed wings shredded the table, the floor, and plates of sandwiches like an out-of-control wood chipper.
Wedding guests began clearing the ballroom. Most ran for the elevators, but dozens were unconscious or shaking in fits, their eyes glowing white. Others were stuck under piles of debris. Alarms were blaring, and the white fires—six of them now—were still completely out of control.
I ran toward the griffin, which was rolling around, trying in vain to bite at the rope. “Calm down!” I yelled. “Let me help you, stupid!”
“FREEEEK!” The griffin’s tail swept over my head and just missed decapitating me.
I took a deep breath. I was mostly a combat magician. I’d never been good at hieroglyph spells, but I pointed my sword at the monster and said: “Ha-tep.”
A green hieroglyph—the symbol for Be at peace—burned in the air, right at the tip of my blade:The griffin stopped thrashing. The buzzing of its wings slowed. Chaos and screaming still filled the ballroom, but I tried to stay calm as I approached the monster.
“You recognize me, don’t you?” I held out my hand, and another symbol blazed above my palm—a symbol I could always summon, the Eye of Horus:“You’re a sacred animal of Horus, aren’t you? That’s why you obey me.”
The griffin blinked at the war god’s mark. It ruffled its neck feathers and squawked in complaint, squirming under the rope that was slowly wrapping around its body.
“Yeah, I know,” I said. “My sister’s a loser. Just hang on. I’ll untie you.”
Somewhere behind me, Sadie yelled, “Carter!”
I turned and saw her and Walt stumbling toward me, half-carrying Jaz between them. Sadie was still doing her Statue of Liberty impression, holding the flaming scroll in one hand. Walt was on his feet and his eyes weren’t glowing anymore, but Jaz was slumped over like all the bones in her body had turned to jelly.
They dodged a fiery spirit and a few crazy wedding guests and somehow made it across the ballroom.
Walt stared the griffin. “How did you calm it down?”
“Griffins are servants of Horus,” I said. “They pulled his chariot in battle. I think it recognized my connection to him.”
The griffin shrieked impatiently and thrashed its tail, knocking over a stone column.
“Not very calm,” Sadie noticed. She glanced up at the glass dome, forty feet above, where the tiny figure of Khufu was waving at us frantically. “We need to get Jaz out of here now,” she said.
“I’m fine,” Jaz muttered.
“No, you’re not,” Walt said. “Carter, she got that spirit out of me, but it almost killed her. It’s some kind of sickness demon—”
“A bau,” I said. “An evil spirit. These seven are called—”
“The Arrows of Sekhmet,” Jaz said, confirming my fears. “They’re plague spirits, born from the goddess. I can stop them.”
“You can rest,” Sadie said.
“Right,” I said. “Sadie, get this rope off the griffin and—”
“There’s no time.” Jaz pointed. The bau were getting larger and brighter. More wedding guests were falling as the spirits whipped around the room unchallenged.
“They’ll die if I don’t stop the bau,” Jaz said. “I can channel the power of Sekhmet and force them back to the Duat. It’s what I’ve been training for.”
I hesitated. Jaz had never tried such a large spell. She was already weak from healing Walt. But she was trained for this. It might seem strange that healers studied the path of Sekhmet, but since Sekhmet was the goddess of destruction, plagues, and famine, it made sense that healers would learn how to control her forces—including bau.
Besides, even if I freed the griffin, I wasn’t one hundred percent sure I could control it. There was a decent chance it would get excited and gobble us up rather than the spirits.
Outside, police sirens were getting louder. We were running out of time.
“We’ve got no choice,” Jaz insisted.
She pulled her wand and then—much to my sister’s shock —gave Walt a kiss on the cheek. “It’ll be okay, Walt. Don’t give up.”
Jaz took something else from her magician’s bag—a wax figurine—and pressed it into my sister’s free hand. “You’ll need this soon, Sadie. I’m sorry I can’t help you more. You’ll know what to do when the time comes.”
I don’t think I’d ever seen Sadie at such a loss for words.
Jaz ran to the center of the ballroom and touched her wand to the floor, drawing a circle of protection around her feet. From her bag she produced a small statue of Sekhmet, her patron goddess, and held it aloft.
She began to chant. Red light glowed around her. Tendrils of energy spread out from the circle, filling the room like the branches of a tree. The tendrils began to swirl, slowly at first, then picking up speed until the magic current tugged at the bau, forcing them to fly in the same direction, drawing them toward the center. The spirits howled, trying to fight the spell. Jaz staggered, but she kept chanting, her face beaded with sweat.
“Can’t we help her?” Walt asked.
“RAWWWWK!” the griffin cried, which probably meant, Helloooo! I’m still here!
The sirens sounded like they were right outside the building now. Down the hall near the elevators, someone was shouting into a megaphone, ordering the last wave of wedding guests to exit the building—like they needed encouragement. The police had arrived, and if we got arrested, this situation was going to be difficult to explain.
“Sadie,” I said, “get ready to dispel the rope on the griffin. Walt, you still got your boat amulet?”
“My—? Yeah. But there’s no water.”
“Just summon the boat!” I dug through my pockets and found my own magic twine. I spoke a charm and was suddenly holding a rope about twenty feet long. I made a loose slipknot in the middle, like a huge necktie, and carefully approached the griffin.
“I’m just going to put this around your neck,” I said. “Don’t freak.”
“FREEEEK!” the griffin said.
I stepped closer, conscious of how fast that beak could snap me up if it wanted to, but I managed to loop the rope around the griffin’s neck.
Then something went wrong. Time slowed down. The red swirling tendrils of Jaz’s spell moved sluggishly, like the air had turned to syrup. The screams and sirens faded to a distant roar.
You won’t succeed, a voice hissed.
I turned and found myself face-to-face with a bau.
It hovered in the air a few inches away, its fiery white features almost coming into focus. It seemed to smile, and I could swear I’d seen its face before.
Chaos is too powerful, boy, it said. The world spins beyond your control. Give up your quest!
“Shut up,” I murmured, but my heart was pounding.
You’ll never find her, the spirit taunted. She sleeps in the Place of Red Sand, but she will die there if you follow your pointless quest.
I felt like a tarantula was crawling down my back. The spirit was talking about Zia Rashid—the real Zia, who I’d been searching for since Christmas.
“No,” I said. “You’re a demon, a deceiver.”
You know better, boy. We’ve met before.
“Shut up!” I summoned the Eye of Horus, and the spirit hissed. Time sped up again. The red tendrils of Jaz’s spell wrapped around the bau and pulled it screaming into the vortex.
No one else seemed to have noticed what just happened.
Sadie was playing defense, swatting at bau with her flaming scroll whenever they got close. Walt set his boat amulet on the ground and spoke the command word. In a matter of seconds, like one of those crazy expand-in-water sponge toys, the amulet grew into a full-size Egyptian reed boat, lying across the ruins of the buffet table.
With shaking hands, I took the two ends of the griffin’s new necktie and tied one end to the boat’s prow and one to the stern.
“Carter, look!” Sadie called.
I turned in time to see a flash of blinding red light. The entire vortex collapsed inward, sucking all six bau into Jaz’s circle. The light died. Jaz fainted, her wand and the Sekhmet statue both crumbling to dust in her hands.
We ran to her. Her clothes were steaming. I couldn’t tell if she was breathing.
“Get her into the boat,” I said. “We have to get out of here.”
I heard a tiny grunt from far above. Khufu had opened the dome. He gestured urgently as searchlights swept the sky above him. The museum was probably surrounded by emergency vehicles.
All around the ballroom, afflicted guests were starting to regain consciousness. Jaz had saved them, but at what cost? We carried her to the boat and climbed in.
“Hold on tight,” I warned. “This thing is not balanced. If it flips—”
“Hey!” a deep male voice yelled behind us. “What are you—Hey! Stop!”
“Sadie, rope, now!” I said.
She snapped her fingers, and the rope entangling the griffin dissolved.
“GO!” I shouted. “UP!”
“FREEEEK!” The griffin revved its wings. We lurched into the air, the boat rocking crazily, and shot straight for the open dome. The griffin barely seemed to notice our extra weight. It ascended so fast, Khufu had to make a flying leap to get on board. I pulled him into the boat, and we held on desperately, trying not to capsize.
“Agh!” Khufu complained.
“Yeah,” I agreed. “So much for an easy job.”
Then again, we were the Kane family. This was the easiest day we were going to have for quite a while.
Somehow, our griffin knew the right way to go. He screamed in triumph and soared into the cold rainy night. As we flew toward home, Sadie’s scroll burned brighter. When I looked down, ghostly white fires were blazing across every rooftop in Brooklyn.
I began to wonder exactly what we’d stolen—if it was even the right object, or if it would make our problems worse. Either way, I had a feeling we’d finally pushed our luck too far.
SADIE
3. The Ice Cream Man Plots Our Death
ODD HOW EASILY YOU CAN FORGET your hand is on fire.
Oh, sorry. Sadie, here. You didn’t think I’d let my brother prattle on forever, did you? Please, no one deserves a curse that horrible.
We arrived back at Brooklyn House, and everyone swarmed me because my hand was stuck to a flaming scroll.
“I’m fine!” I insisted. “Take care of Jaz!”
Honestly, I appreciate a bit of attention now and then, but I was hardly the most interesting thing happening. We’d landed on the roof of the mansion, which itself is an odd attraction—a five-story limestone-and-steel cube, like a cross between an Egyptian temple and an art museum, perched atop an abandoned warehouse on the Brooklyn waterfront. Not to mention that the mansion shimmers with magic and is invisible to regular mortals.
Below us, the whole of Brooklyn was on fire. My annoying magic scroll had painted a wide swath of ghostly flames over the borough as we’d flown from the museum. Nothing was actually burning, and the flames weren’t hot; but we’d still caused quite a panic. Sirens wailed. People clogged the streets, gawking up at the blazing rooftops. Helicopters circled with searchlights.
If that wasn’t exciting enough, my brother was wrangling a griffin, trying to untie a fishing boat from around its neck and keep the beast from eating our trainees.
Then there was Jaz, our real cause for concern. We’d determined she was still breathing, but she seemed to be in some sort of coma. When we opened her eyes, they were glowing white—typically not a good sign.
During the boat ride, Khufu had attempted some of his famous baboon magic on her—patting her forehead, making rude noises, and trying to insert jelly beans into her mouth. I’m sure he thought he was being helpful, but it hadn’t done much to improve her condition.
Now Walt was taking care of her. He picked her up gently and put her on a stretcher, covering her with blankets and stroking her hair as our other trainees gathered round. And that was fine. Completely fine.
I wasn’t at all interested in how handsome his face looked in the moonlight, or his muscular arms in that sleeveless tee, or the fact that he’d been holding hands with Jaz, or…
Sorry. Lost my train of thought.
I plopped down at the far corner of the roof, feeling absolutely knackered. My right hand itched from holding the papyrus scroll so long. The magic flames tickled my fingers.
I felt around in my left pocket and brought out the little wax figure Jaz had given me. It was one of her healing statues, used to expel sickness or curses. Generally speaking, wax figures don’t look like anyone in particular, but Jaz had taken her time with this one. It was clearly meant to heal one specific person, which meant it would have more power and would most likely be saved for a life-and-death situation. I recognized the figurine’s curly hair, its facial features, the sword pressed into its hands. Jaz had even written its name in hieroglyphs on its chest: CARTER.
You’ll need this soon, she’d told me.
As far as I knew, Jaz was not a diviner. She couldn’t tell the future. So what had she meant? How was I supposed to I know when to use the figurine? Staring at the mini-Carter, I had a horrible feeling that my brother’s life had been quite literally placed in my hands.
“Are you all right?” asked a woman’s voice.
I quickly put away the figurine.
My old friend Bast stood over me. With her slight smile and glinting yellow eyes, she might’ve been concerned or amused. It’s hard to tell with a cat goddess. Her black hair was pulled back in a ponytail. She wore her usual leopard-skin leotard, as if she were about to perform a backflip. For all I knew, she might. As I said, you never can tell with cats.
“I’m fine,” I lied. “Just…” I waved my flaming hand about helplessly.
“Mmm.” The scroll seemed to make Bast uncomfortable. “Let me see what I can do.”
She knelt next to me and began to chant.
I pondered how odd it was having my former pet cast a spell on me. For years, Bast had posed as my cat, Muffin. I hadn’t even realized I had a goddess sleeping on my pillow at night. Then, after our dad unleashed a slew of gods at the British Museum, Bast had made herself known.
She’d been watching over me for six years, she’d told us, ever since our parents released her from a cell in the Duat, where she’d been sent to fight the chaos snake Apophis forever.
Long story, but my mum had foreseen that Apophis would eventually escape his prison, which would basically amount to Doomsday. If Bast continued to fight him alone, she’d be destroyed. However, if Bast were freed, my mum believed she could play an important role in the coming battle with Chaos. So my parents freed her before Apophis could overwhelm her. My mother had died opening, then quickly closing, Apophis’s prison; so naturally Bast felt indebted to our parents. Bast had become my guardian.
Now she was also Carter and my chaperone, travel companion, and sometime personal chef (Hint: if she offers you the Friskies du Jour, say no).
But I still missed Muffin. At times I had to resist the urge to scratch Bast behind the ears and feed her crunchy treats, although I was glad she no longer tried to sleep on my pillow at night. That would’ve been a bit strange.
She finished her chant, and the scroll’s flames sputtered out. My hand unclenched. The papyrus dropped into my lap.
“God, thank you,” I said.
“Goddess,” Bast corrected. “You’re quite welcome. We can’t have the power of Ra lighting up the city, can we?”
I looked out across the borough. The fires were gone. The Brooklyn night skyline was back to normal, except for the emergency lights and crowds of screaming mortals in the streets. Come to think of it, I suppose that was fairly normal.
“The power of Ra?” I asked. “I thought the scroll was a clue. Is this the actual Book of Ra?”
Bast’s ponytail puffed up as it does when she’s nervous. I’d come to realize she kept her hair in a ponytail so that her entire head wouldn’t explode into a sea urchin shape each time she got startled.
“The scroll is…part of the book,” she said. “And I did warn you. Ra’s power is almost impossible to control. If you insist on trying to wake him, the next fires you set off might not be so harmless.”
“But isn’t he your pharaoh?” I asked. “Don’t you want him awakened?”
She dropped her gaze. I realized how foolish my comment was. Ra was Bast’s lord and master. Eons ago, he’d chosen her to be his champion. But he was also the one who’d sent her into that prison to keep his archenemy Apophis occupied for eternity, so Ra could retire with a clear conscience. Quite selfish, if you ask me.
Thanks to my parents, Bast had escaped her imprisonment; but that also meant she’d abandoned her post fighting Apophis. No wonder she had mixed feelings about seeing her old boss again.
“It’s best we talk in the morning,” Bast said. “You need rest, and that scroll should only be opened in the daylight, when the power of Ra is easier to control.”
I stared at my lap. The papyrus was still steaming. “Easier to control…as in, it won’t set me on fire?”
“It’s safe to touch now,” Bast assured me. “After being trapped in darkness for a few millennia, it was just very sensitive, reacting to any sort of energy—magical, electrical, emotional. I’ve, ah, dialed down the sensitivity so it won’t burst into flames again.”
I took the scroll. Thankfully, Bast was right. It didn’t stick to my hand or light the city on fire.
Bast helped me to my feet. “Get some sleep. I’ll let Carter know you’re all right. Besides…” She managed a smile. “You’ve got a big day tomorrow.”
Right, I thought miserably. One person remembers, and it’s my cat.
I looked over at my brother, who was still trying to control the griffin. It had Carter’s shoelaces in its beak and didn’t seem inclined to let go.
Most of our twenty trainees were surrounding Jaz, trying to wake her up. Walt hadn’t left her side. He glanced up at me briefly, uneasily, then turned his attention back to Jaz.
“Maybe you’re right,” I grumbled to Bast. “I’m not needed up here.”
My room was a lovely place to sulk. The last six years I’d lived in an attic in Gran and Gramps’s flat in London, and although I missed my old life, my mates Liz and Emma, and most everything about England, I couldn’t deny that my room in Brooklyn was much more posh.
My private balcony overlooked the East River. I had an enormous comfy bed, my own bathroom, and a walk-in closet with endless new outfits that magically appeared and cleaned themselves as needed. The chest of drawers featured a built-in refrigerator with my favorite Ribena drinks, imported from the UK, and chilled chocolates (well, a girl does have to treat herself). The sound system was absolutely bleeding edge, and the walls were magically soundproofed so I could play my music as loud as I wanted without worrying about my stick-in-the-mud brother next door. Sitting on the dresser was one of the only things I’d brought from my room in London: a beat-up cassette recorder my grandparents had given me ages ago. It was hopelessly old-fashioned, yes, but I kept it around for sentimental reasons. Carter and I had recorded our adventures at the Red Pyramid on it, after all.
I docked my iPod and scrolled through my playlists. I chose an older mix labeled sad, as that’s how I felt.
Adele’s 19 began playing. God, I hadn’t heard that album since…
Quite unexpectedly I began to tear up. I’d been listening to this mix on Christmas Eve when Dad and Carter picked me up for our trip to the British Museum—the night our lives changed forever.
Adele sang as if someone were ripping her heart out. She went on about the boy she fancied, wondering what she must do to make him want her properly. I could relate to that. But last Christmas, the song had made me think of my family as well: my mum, who’d died when I was quite small, and my father and Carter, who traveled the world together, left me in London with my grandparents, and didn’t seem to need me in their lives.
Of course I knew it was more complicated than that. There’d been a nasty custody battle involving lawyers and spatula attacks, and Dad had wanted to keep Carter and me apart so we didn’t agitate each other’s magic before we could handle the power. And yes, we’d all grown closer since then. My father was back in my life a bit more, even if he was the god of the underworld now. As for my mother…well, I’d met her ghost. I suppose that counted for something.
Still, the music brought back all the pain and anger I’d felt at Christmas. I suppose I hadn’t gotten rid of it as completely as I’d thought.
My finger hovered over the fast-forward icon, but I decided to let the song play. I tossed my stuff on the dresser—the papyrus scroll, the wax mini-Carter, my magic bag, my wand. I reached for my staff, then remembered I didn’t have it anymore. The griffin had eaten it.
“Manky birdbrain,” I muttered.
I started changing for bed. I’d plastered the inside of my closet door with photos, mostly of my mates and me from school last year. There was one of Liz, Emma, and me making faces in a photo booth in Piccadilly. We looked so young and ridiculous.
I couldn’t believe I might be seeing them tomorrow for the first time in months. Gran and Gramps had invited me to visit, and I had plans to go out with just my mates—at least, that had been the plan before Carter dropped his “five-days-to-save-the-world” bombshell. Now, who knew what would happen?
Only two non–Liz-and-Emma pictures decorated my closet door. One showed Carter and me with Uncle Amos the day Amos left for Egypt on his…hmm, what do you call it when someone goes for healing after being possessed by an evil god? Not a holiday, I suppose.
The last picture was a painting of Anubis. Perhaps you’ve seen him: the fellow with the jackal’s head, god of funerals, death, and so on. He’s everywhere in Egyptian art—leading deceased souls into the Hall of Judgment, kneeling at the cosmic scales, weighing a heart against the feather of truth.
Why did I have his picture?
[Fine, Carter. I’ll admit it, if only to shut you up.]
I had a bit of a crush on Anubis. I know how ridiculous that sounds, a modern girl getting moony-eyed over a five-thousand-year-old dog-headed boy, but that’s not what I saw when I looked at his picture. I remembered Anubis as he’d appeared in New Orleans when we’d met face-to-face—a boy of about sixteen, in black leather and denim, with tousled dark hair and gorgeous sad, melted-chocolate eyes. Very much not a dog-headed boy.
Still ridiculous, I know. He was a god. We had absolutely nothing in common. I hadn’t heard from him once since our adventure with the Red Pyramid, and that shouldn’t have surprised me. Even though he’d seemed interested in me at the time and possibly even dropped some hints…. No, surely I’d been imagining it.
The past seven weeks, since Walt Stone had arrived at Brooklyn House, I’d thought I might be able to get over Anubis. Of course, Walt was my trainee, and I wasn’t supposed to think of him as a possible boyfriend, but I was fairly sure there’d been a spark between us the first time we saw each other. Now, though, Walt seemed to be pulling away. He was acting so secretive, always looking so guilty and talking to Jaz.
My life was rubbish.
I pulled on my nightclothes while Adele kept singing. Were all her songs about not being noticed by boys? Suddenly I found that quite annoying.
I turned off the music and flopped into bed.
Sadly, once I fell asleep my night only got worse.
At Brooklyn House, we sleep with all sorts of magic charms to protect us against malicious dreams, invading spirits, and the occasional urge our souls might get to wander off. I even have a magic pillow to make sure my soul—or ba, if you want to get Egyptian about it—stays anchored to my body.
It isn’t a perfect system, though. Every so often I can sense some outside force tugging on my mind, trying to get my attention. Or my soul will let me know it has some other place to go, some important scene it needs to show me.
I got one of those sensations immediately when I fell asleep. Think of it as an incoming call, with my brain giving me the option to accept or decline. Most of the time, it’s best to decline, especially when my brain is reporting an unknown number.
But sometimes those calls are important. And my birthday was tomorrow. Perhaps Dad and Mum were trying to reach me from the underworld. I imagined them in the Hall of Judgment, my father sitting on his throne as the blue-skinned god Osiris, my mum in her ghostly white robes. They might be wearing paper party hats and singing “Happy Birthday” while Ammit the Devourer, their extremely tiny pet monster, jumped up and down, yapping.
Or it could be, just maybe, Anubis calling. Hi, um, thought you might want to go to a funeral or something?
Well…it was possible.
So I accepted the call. I let my spirit go where it wanted to take me, and my ba floated above my body.
If you’ve never tried ba travel, I wouldn’t recommend it—unless of course you fancy turning into a phantom chicken and rafting uncontrollably through the currents of the Duat.
The ba is usually invisible to others, which is good, as it takes the form of a giant bird with your normal head attached. Once upon a time, I’d been able to manipulate my ba’s form into something less embarrassing, but since Isis vacated my head, I didn’t have that ability. Now when I lifted off, I was stuck in default poultry mode.
The doors of the balcony swung open. A magical breeze swept me into the night. The lights of New York blurred and faded, and I found myself in a familiar underground chamber: the Hall of Ages, in the House of Life’s main headquarters under Cairo.
The room was so long, it could’ve hosted a marathon. Down the middle was a blue carpet that glittered like a river. Between the columns on either side, curtains of light shimmered—holographic images from Egypt’s long history. The light changed color to reflect different eras, from the white glow of the Age of the Gods all the way to the crimson light of modern times.
The roof was even higher than the ballroom at the Brooklyn Museum, the vast space lit by glowing orbs of energy and floating hieroglyphic symbols. It looked as if someone had detonated a few kilos of children’s cereal in zero gravity, all the colorful sugary bits drifting and colliding in slow motion.
I floated to the end of the room, just above the dais with the pharaoh’s throne. It was an honorary seat, empty since the fall of Egypt, but on the step below it sat the Chief Lector, master of the First Nome, leader of the House of Life, and my least favorite magician: Michel Desjardins.
I hadn’t seen Monsieur Delightful since our attack on the Red Pyramid, and I was surprised how much he’d aged. He’d only become Chief Lector a few months ago, but his slick black hair and forked beard were now streaked with gray. He leaned wearily on his staff, as if the Chief Lector’s leopard-skin cape across his shoulders was as heavy as lead.
I can’t say I felt sorry for him. We hadn’t parted as friends. We’d combined forces (more or less) to defeat the god Set, but he still considered us dangerous rogue magicians. He’d warned us that if we continued studying the path of the gods (which we had) he would destroy us the next time we met. That hadn’t given us much incentive to invite him over for tea.
His face was gaunt, but his eyes still glittered evilly. He studied the bloodred images in the curtains of light as if he were waiting for something.
“Est-il allé?” he asked, which my grammar school French led me to believe meant either “Is he gone?” or possibly “Have you repaired the island?”
Fine…it was probably the first one.
For a moment I was afraid he was talking to me. Then from behind the throne, a raspy voice answered, “Yes, my lord.”
A man stepped out of the shadows. He was dressed completely in white—suit, scarf, even white reflective sunglasses. My first thought was: My god, he’s an evil ice cream vendor.
He had a pleasant smile and chubby face framed in curly gray hair. I might’ve mistaken him as harmless, even friendly —until he took off his glasses.
His eyes were ruined.
I’ll admit I’m squeamish about eyes. A video of retinal surgery? I’ll run out of the room. Even the idea of contact lenses makes me cringe.
But the man in white looked as if his eyes had been splashed with acid, then repeatedly clawed by cats. His eyelids were masses of scar tissue that didn’t close properly. His eyebrows were burned away and raked with deep grooves. The skin above his cheekbones was a mask of red welts, and the eyes themselves were such a horrible combination of blood red and milky white that I couldn’t believe he was able to see.
He inhaled, wheezing so badly, the sound made my chest hurt. Glittering against his shirt was a silver pendant with a snake-shaped amulet.
“He used the portal moments ago, my lord,” the man rasped. “Finally, he has gone.”
That voice was as horrible as his eyes. If he had been splashed with acid, some of it must have gotten into his lungs. Yet the man kept smiling, looking calm and happy in his crisp white suit as if he couldn’t wait to sell ice cream to the good little children.
He approached Desjardins, who was still staring at the curtains of light. The ice cream man followed his gaze. I did the same and realized what the Chief Lector was looking at. At the last pillar, just next to the throne, the light was changing. The reddish tint of the modern age was darkening to a deep purple, the color of bruises. On my first visit to the Hall of Ages, I’d been told that the room grew longer as the years passed, and now I could actually see it happening. The floor and walls rippled like a mirage, expanding ever so slowly, and the sliver of purple light widened.
“Ah,” said the ice cream man. “It’s much clearer now.”
“A new age,” Desjardins murmured. “A darker age. The color of the light has not changed for a thousand years, Vladimir.”
An evil ice cream man named Vladimir? All right, then.
“It is the Kanes, of course,” said Vladimir. “You should’ve killed the elder one while he was in our power.”
My ba feathers ruffled. I realized he was talking about Uncle Amos.
“No,” Desjardins said. “He was under our protection. All who seek healing must be given sanctuary—even Kane.”
Vladimir took a deep breath, which sounded like a clogged vacuum cleaner. “But surely now that he has left, we must act. You heard the news from Brooklyn, my lord. The children have found the first scroll. If they find the other two—”
“I know, Vladimir.”
“They humiliated the House of Life in Arizona. They made peace with Set rather than destroy him. And now they seek the Book of Ra. If you would allow me to deal with them—”
The top of Desjardins’ staff erupted in purple fire. “Who is Chief Lector?” he demanded.
Vladimir’s pleasant expression faltered. “You are, my lord.”
“And I will deal with the Kanes in due time, but Apophis is our greatest threat. We must divert all our power to keeping down the Serpent. If there is any chance the Kanes can help us restore order—”
“But, Chief Lector,” Vladimir interrupted. His tone had a new intensity—an almost magical force to it. “The Kanes are part of the problem. They have upset the balance of Ma’at by awakening the gods. They are teaching forbidden magic. Now they would restore Ra, who has not ruled since the beginning of Egypt! They will throw the world into disarray. This will only help Chaos.”
Desjardins blinked, as if confused. “Perhaps you’re right.
I…I must think on this.”
Vladimir bowed. “As you wish, my lord. I will gather our forces and await your orders to destroy Brooklyn House.”
“Destroy…” Desjardins frowned. “Yes, you will await my orders. I will choose the time to attack, Vladimir.”
“Very good, my lord. And if the Kane children seek the other two scrolls to awaken Ra? One is beyond their reach, of course, but the other—”
“I will leave that to you. Guard it as you think best.”
Vladimir’s eyes were even more horrible when he got excited—slimy and glistening behind those ruined eyelids. They reminded me of Gramps’s favorite breakfast: soft-boiled eggs with Tabasco sauce.
[Well, I’m sorry if it’s disgusting, Carter. You shouldn’t try to eat while I’m narrating, anyway!]
“My lord is wise,” Vladimir said. “The children will seek the scrolls, my lord. They have no choice. If they leave their stronghold and come into my territory—”
“Didn’t I just say we will dispose of them?” Desjardins said flatly. “Now, leave me. I must think.”
Vladimir retreated into the shadows. For someone dressed in white, he managed to disappear quite well.
Desjardins returned his attention to the shimmering curtain of light. “A new age…” he mused. “An age of darkness…”
My ba swirled into the currents of the Duat, racing back to my sleeping form.
“Sadie?” a voice said.
I sat up in bed, my heart pounding. Gray morning light filled the windows. Sitting at the foot of my bed was…
“Uncle Amos?” I stammered.
He smiled. “Happy birthday, my dear. I’m sorry if I scared you. You didn’t answer your door. I was concerned.”
He looked back to full health and as fashionably dressed as ever. He wore wire-rimmed glasses, a porkpie hat, and a black wool Italian suit that made him seem a bit less short and stout. His long hair was braided in cornrows decorated with pieces of glittering black stone—obsidian, perhaps. He might’ve passed for a jazz musician (which he was) or an African American Al Capone (which he wasn’t).
I started to ask, “How—?” Then my vision from the Hall of Ages—the implications of what I’d seen—sank in.
“It’s all right,” Amos said. “I’ve just returned from Egypt.”
I tried to swallow, my breath almost as labored as that ghastly man Vladimir’s. “So have I, Amos. And it’s not all right. They’re coming to destroy us.”
SADIE
4. A Birthday Invitation to Armageddon
AFTER EXPLAINING MY HORRIBLE VISION, only one thing would do: a proper breakfast.
Amos looked shaken, but he insisted we wait to discuss matters until we’d assembled the entire Twenty-first Nome (as our branch of the House of Life was called). He promised to meet me on the veranda in twenty minutes.
After he’d gone, I showered and considered what to wear. Normally, I would teach Sympathetic Magic on Mondays, which would require proper magician’s linen. However, my birthday was supposed to be a day off.
Given the circumstances, I doubted Amos, Carter, and Bast would let me go to London, but I decided to think positive. I put on some ripped jeans, my combat boots, a tank top, and my leather jacket—not good for magic, but I was feeling rebellious.
I stuffed my wand and the mini-Carter figure into my magic supply bag. I was about to sling it over my shoulder when I thought—No, I’ll not be lugging this about on my birthday.
I took a deep breath and concentrated on opening a space in the Duat. I hate to admit it, but I’m rubbish at this trick. It’s simply not fair that Carter can pull things out of thin air at a moment’s notice, but I normally need five or ten minutes of absolute focus, and even then the effort makes me nauseous. Most of the time, it’s simpler just to keep my bag over my shoulder. If I went out with my mates, however, I didn’t want to be burdened with it, and I didn’t want to leave it behind completely.
At last the air shimmered as the Duat bent to my will. I tossed my bag in front of me, and it disappeared. Excellent —assuming I could figure out how to get it back again later.
I picked up the scroll we’d stolen from Bullwinkle the night before and headed downstairs.
With everyone at breakfast, the mansion was strangely silent. Five levels of balconies faced the Great Room, so normally the place was bustling with noise and activity; but I remembered how empty it had felt when Carter and I first arrived last Christmas.
The Great Room still had many of the same touches: the massive statue of Thoth in the middle, Amos’s collection of weapons and jazz instruments along the wall, the snakeskin rug in front of the garage-size fireplace. But you could tell that twenty young magicians lived here now as well. An assortment of remote controls, wands, iPads, snack food wrappers, and shabti figurines littered the coffee table. Someone with big feet —probably Julian—had left his muddy trainers on the stairs. And one of our hoodlums—I assumed Felix—had magically converted the fireplace into an Antarctic wonderland, complete with snow and a live penguin. Felix does love penguins.
Magical mops and brooms sped about the house, trying to clean up. I had to duck to avoid getting dusted. For some reason, the dusters think my hair is a maintenance issue.
[No comments from you, Carter.]
As I expected, everyone was gathered on the veranda, which served as our dining area and albino crocodile habitat. Philip of Macedonia splashed around happily in his pool, jumping for bacon strips whenever a trainee tossed him one. The morning was cold and rainy, but the fire in the terrace’s magic braziers kept us toasty.
I grabbed a pain au chocolat and a cup of tea from the buffet table and sat down. Then I realized the others weren’t eating. They were staring at me.
At the head of the table, Amos and Bast both looked grim. Across from me, Carter hadn’t touched his plate of waffles, which was very unlike him. To my right, Jaz’s chair was empty. (Amos had told me she was still in the infirmary, no change.) To my left sat Walt, looking quite good as usual, but I did my best to ignore him.
The other trainees seemed to be in various states of shock. They were a motley assortment of all ages from all over the world. A handful were older than Carter and me—old enough for university, in fact—which was nice for chaperoning the younger ones, but always made me feel a bit uncomfortable when I tried to act as their teacher. The others were mostly between ten and fifteen. Felix was just nine. There was Julian from Boston, Alyssa from Carolina, Sean from Dublin, and Cleo from Rio de Janeiro (yes, I know, Cleo from Rio, but I’m not making it up!). The thing we all had in common: the blood of the pharaohs. All of us were descended from Egypt’s royal lines, which gave us a natural capacity for magic and hosting the power of the gods.
The only one who didn’t seem affected by the grim mood was Khufu. For reasons we never quite understood, our baboon eats only foods that end in -o. Recently he had discovered Jell-O, which he regarded as a miracle substance. I suppose the capital O made everything taste better. Now he would eat almost anything encased in gelatin—fruit, nuts, bugs, small animals. At the moment he had his face buried in a quivering red mountain of breakfast and was making rude noises as he excavated for grapes.
Everyone else watched me, as if waiting for an explanation.
“Morning,” I muttered. “Lovely day. Penguin in the fireplace, if anyone’s interested.”
“Sadie,” Amos said gently, “tell everyone what you told me.”
I sipped some tea to settle my nerves. Then I tried not to sound terrified as I described my visit to the Hall of Ages.
When I was done, the only sounds were the fires crackling in the braziers and Philip of Macedonia splashing in his pool.
Finally nine-year-old Felix asked what was on everyone’s mind: “So we’re all going to die, then?”
“No.” Amos sat forward. “Absolutely not. Children, I know I’ve just arrived. I’ve hardly met most of you, but I promise we’ll do everything we can to keep you safe. This house is layered with magic protection. You have a major goddess on your side”—he gestured to Bast, who was opening a can of Fancy Feast Tuna Supreme with her fingernails—“and the Kane family to protect you. Carter and Sadie are more powerful than you might realize, and I’ve battled Michel Desjardins before, if it comes to that.”
Given all the trouble we’d had last Christmas, Amos’s speech seemed a tad optimistic, but the trainees looked relieved.
“If it comes to that?” Alyssa asked. “It sounds pretty certain they’ll attack us.”
Amos knitted his brow. “Perhaps, but it troubles me that Desjardins would agree to such a foolish move. Apophis is the real enemy, and Desjardins knows it. He should realize he needs all the help he can get. Unless…” He didn’t finish the sentence. Whatever he was thinking, it apparently troubled him greatly. “At any rate, if Desjardins decides to come after us, he will plan carefully. He knows this mansion will not fall easily. He can’t afford to be embarrassed by the Kane family again. He’ll study the problem, consider his options, and gather his forces. It would take several days for him to prepare —time he should be using to stop Apophis.”
Walt raised an index finger. I don’t know what it is about him, but he has a sort of gravity that draws the group’s attention when he’s about to speak. Even Khufu looked up from his Jell-O.
“If Desjardins does attack us,” Walt said, “he’ll be well prepared, with magicians who are a lot more experienced than we are. Can he get through our defenses?”
Amos gazed at the sliding glass doors, possibly remembering the last time our defenses had been breached. The results hadn’t been good.
“We must make sure it doesn’t come to that,” he said. “Desjardins knows what we’re attempting, and that we only have five days—well, four days, now. According to Sadie’s vision, Desjardins is aware of our plan and will try to prevent it out of some misguided belief that we are working for the forces of Chaos. But if we succeed, we’ll have bargaining power to make Desjardins back off. ”
Cleo raised her hand. “Um…We don’t know the plan. Four days to do what?”
Amos gestured at Carter, inviting him to explain. That was fine with me. Honestly, I found the plan a bit crazy.
My brother sat up. I must give him credit. Over the last few months, he’d made progress at resembling a normal teenager. After six years of homeschooling and traveling with Dad, Carter had been hopelessly out of touch. He’d dressed like a junior executive, in crisp white shirts and slacks. Now at least he’d learned to wear jeans and T-shirts and the occasional hoodie. He’d let his hair grow out in a curly mess—which looked much better. If he kept on improving, the boy might even get a date some day.
[What? Don’t poke me. It was a compliment!]
“We’re going to wake the god Ra,” Carter said, as if it was as easy as getting a snack from the fridge.
The trainees glanced at one another. Carter wasn’t known for his sense of humor, but they must’ve wondered if he was joking.
“You mean the sun god,” Felix said. “The old king of the gods.”
Carter nodded. “You all know the story. Thousands of years ago, Ra got senile and retreated into the heavens, leaving Osiris in charge. Then Osiris got overthrown by Set. Then Horus defeated Set and became pharaoh. Then—”
I coughed. “Short version, please.”
Carter gave me a cross look. “The point is, Ra was the first and most powerful king of the gods. We believe Ra is still alive. He’s just asleep somewhere deep in the Duat. If we can wake him—”
“But if he retired because he was senile,” Walt said, “wouldn’t that mean he’s really, really senile now?”
I’d asked the same thing when Carter first told me his idea. The last thing we needed was an all-powerful god who couldn’t remember his own name, smelled like old people, and drooled in his sleep. And how could an immortal being get senile in the first place? No one had given me a satisfactory answer.
Amos and Carter looked at Bast, which made sense, as she was the only Egyptian god present.
She frowned at her uneaten Fancy Feast. “Ra is the god of the sun. In olden times, he aged as the day aged, then sailed through the Duat on his boat each night and was reborn with the sunrise each morning.”
“But the sun isn’t reborn,” I put in. “It’s just the rotation of the earth—”
“Sadie,” Bast warned.
Right, right. Myth and science were both true—simply different versions of the same reality, blah, blah. I’d heard that lecture a hundred times, and I didn’t want to hear it again.
Bast pointed at the scroll, which I’d set next to my teacup. “When Ra stopped making his nightly journey, the cycle was broken, and Ra faded into permanent twilight—at least, so we think. He meant to sleep forever. But if you could find him in the Duat—and that’s a big if—it’s possible he might be brought back and reborn with the right magic. The Book of Ra describes how this might be done. Ra’s priests created the book in ancient times and kept it secret, dividing it into three parts, to be used only if the world was ending.”
“If…the world was ending?” Cleo asked. “You mean Apophis is really going to…to swallow the sun?”
Walt looked at me. “Is that possible? In your story about the Red Pyramid, you said Apophis was behind Set’s plan to destroy North America. He was trying to cause so much chaos that he could break out of his prison.”
I shivered, remembering the apparition that had appeared in the sky over Washington, D.C.—a writhing giant snake.
“Apophis is the real problem,” I agreed. “We stopped him once, but his prison is weakening. If he manages to escape—”
“He will,” Carter said. “In four days. Unless we stop him. And then he’ll destroy civilization—everything humans have built since the dawn of Egypt.”
That put a chill over breakfast table.
Carter and I had talked privately about the four-day deadline, of course. Horus and Isis had both discussed it with us. But it had seemed like a horrible possibility rather than absolute certainty. Now, Carter sounded sure. I studied his face and realized he’d seen something during the night—possibly a vision even worse than mine. His expression said, Not here. I’ll tell you later.
Bast was digging her claws into the dining table. Whatever the secret was, she must be in on it.
At the far end of the table, Felix counted on his fingers. “Why four days? What’s so special about…um, March twenty-first?”
“The spring equinox,” Bast explained. “A powerful time for magic. The hours of day and night are exactly balanced, meaning the forces of Chaos and Ma’at can be easily tipped one way or the other. It’s the perfect time to awaken Ra. In fact, it’s our only chance until the fall equinox, six months from now. But we can’t wait that long.”
“Because unfortunately,” Amos added, “the equinox is also the perfect time for Apophis to escape his prison and invade the mortal world. You can be sure he has minions working on that right now. According to our sources among the gods, Apophis will succeed, which is why we have to awaken Ra first.”
I’d heard all this before, but discussing it in the open, in front of all our trainees, and seeing the devastated looks on their faces, it all seemed much more frightening and real.
I cleared my throat. “Right…so when Apophis breaks out, he’ll try to destroy Ma’at, the order of the universe. He’ll swallow the sun, plunge the earth into eternal darkness, and otherwise make us have a very bad day.”
“Which is why we need Ra.” Amos modulated his tone, making it calm and reassuring for our trainees. He projected such composure, even I felt a little less terrified. I wondered if this was a kind of magic, or if he was just better at explaining Armageddon than I was.
“Ra was Apophis’s archenemy,” he continued. “Ra is the Lord of Order, whereas Apophis is the Lord of Chaos. Since the beginning of time, these two forces have been in a perpetual battle to destroy one another. If Apophis returns, we have to make sure we have Ra on our side to counteract him. Then we stand a chance.”
“A chance,” Walt said. “Assuming we can find Ra and wake him, and the rest of the House of Life doesn’t destroy us first.”
Amos nodded. “But if we can awaken Ra, that would be a feat more difficult than any magician has ever accomplished. It would make Desjardins think twice. The Chief Lector…well, it would seem he’s not thinking clearly, but he’s no fool. He recognizes the danger of Apophis rising. We must convince him that we’re on the same side, that the path of the gods is the only way to defeat Apophis. I would rather do this than fight him.”
Personally, I wanted to punch Desjardins in the face and set his beard on fire, but I supposed Amos had a point.
Cleo, poor thing, had gone as green as a frog. She’d come all the way from Brazil to Brooklyn to study the path of Thoth, god of knowledge, and we’d already pegged her as our future librarian; but when the dangers were real, and not just in the pages of books…well, she had a tender stomach. I hoped she could make it to the edge of the terrace if she needed to.
“The—the scroll,” she managed, “you said there are two other parts?”
I took the scroll. In the daylight it looked more fragile—brittle and yellow and likely to crumble. My fingers trembled. I could feel magic humming in the papyrus like a low-voltage current. I felt an overwhelming desire to open it.
I began to unroll the cylinder. Carter tensed.
Amos said, “Sadie…”
No doubt they expected Brooklyn to catch fire again, but nothing happened. I spread out the scroll and found it was written in gibberish—not hieroglyphics, not any language I could recognize. The end of the papyrus was a jagged line, as if it had been ripped.
“I imagine the pieces graft together,” I said. “It will be readable only when all three sections are combined.”
Carter looked impressed. But honestly, I do know some things. During our last adventure I’d read a scroll to banish Set, and it had worked much the same way.
Khufu looked up from his Jell-O. “Agh!” He put three slimy grapes on the table.
“Exactly,” Bast agreed. “As Khufu says, the three sections of the book represent the three aspects of Ra—morning, noon, and night. That scroll there is the spell of Khnum. You’ll need to find the other two now.”
How Khufu fit all of that into a single grunt, I didn’t know; but I wished I could take all my classes from baboon teachers. I’d have middle school and high school finished in a week.
“So the other two grapes,” I said, “I mean, scrolls…according to my vision last night, they won’t be easy to find.”
Amos nodded. “The first section was lost eons ago. The middle section is in the possession of the House of Life. It has been moved many times, and is always kept under tight security. Judging from your vision, I’d say the scroll is now in the hands of Vladimir Menshikov.”
“The ice cream man,” I guessed. “Who is he?”
Amos traced something on the table—perhaps a protective hieroglyph. “The third-most powerful magician in the world. He’s also one of Desjardins’ strongest supporters. He runs the Eighteenth Nome, in Russia.”
Bast hissed. Being a cat, she was quite good at that. “Vlad the Inhaler. He’s got an evil reputation.”
I remembered his ruined eyes and wheezing voice. “What happened to his face?”
Bast was about to answer, but Amos cut her off.
“Just realize that he’s quite dangerous,” he warned. “Vlad’s main talent is silencing rogue magicians.”
“You mean he’s an assassin?” I asked. “Wonderful. And Desjardins just gave him permission to hunt Carter and me if we leave Brooklyn.”
“Which you’ll have to do,” Bast said, “if you want to seek the other sections of the Book of Ra. You have only four days.”
“Yes,” I muttered, “you may have mentioned that. You’ll be coming with us, won’t you?”
Bast looked down at her Fancy Feast.
“Sadie…” She sounded miserable. “Carter and I were talking and…well, someone has to check on Apophis’s prison. We have to know what’s going on, how close it is to breaking, and if there’s a way to stop it. That requires a firsthand look.”
I couldn’t believe I was hearing this. “You’re going back there? After all my parents did to free you?”
“I’ll only approach the prison from the outside,” she promised. “I’ll be careful. I am a creature of stealth, after all. Besides, I’m the only one who knows how to find his cell, and that part of the Duat would be lethal to a mortal. I—I must do this.”
Her voice trembled. She’d once told me that cats weren’t brave, but going back to her old prison seemed like quite a courageous thing to do.
“I won’t leave you undefended,” she promised. “I have a…a friend. He should arrive from the Duat by tomorrow. I’ve asked him to find you and protect you.”
“A friend?” I asked.
Bast squirmed. “Well…sort of.”
That didn’t sound encouraging.
I looked down at my street clothes. A sour taste filled my mouth. Carter and I had a quest to undertake, and it was unlikely we would come back alive. Another responsibility on my shoulders, another unreasonable demand for me to sacrifice my life for the greater good. Happy birthday to me.
Khufu belched and pushed away his empty plate. He bared his Jell-O–stained fangs as if to say Well, that’s settled! Good breakfast!
“I’ll get packed,” Carter said. “We can leave in an hour.”
“No,” I said. I’m not sure who was more surprised—me or my brother.
“No?” Carter asked.
“It’s my birthday,” I said, which probably made me sound like a seven-year-old brat—but at the moment I didn’t care.
The trainees looked astonished. Several mumbled their good wishes. Khufu offered me his empty Jell-O bowl as a present. Felix halfheartedly started singing “Happy Birthday,” but no one joined him, so he gave up.
“Bast said her friend won’t arrive until tomorrow,” I continued. “Amos said it would take Desjardins some time to prepare any sort of attack. Besides, I’ve been planning my trip to London for ages. I think I have time for one bloody day off before the world ends.”
The others stared at me. Was I selfish? All right, yes. Irresponsible? Perhaps. So why did I feel so strongly about putting my foot down?
This may come as a shock to you, but I don’t like feeling controlled. Carter was dictating what we would do, but as usual he hadn’t told me everything. He’d obviously consulted Amos and Bast already and made a game plan. The three of them had decided what was best without bothering to ask me. My one constant companion, Bast, was leaving me to embark on a horribly dangerous mission. And I’d be stuck with my brother on my birthday, tracking down another magical scroll that might set me on fire or worse.
Sorry. No thanks. If I was going to die, then it could wait until tomorrow morning.
Carter’s expression was part anger, part disbelief. Normally, we tried to keep things civil in front of our trainees. Now I was embarrassing him. He’d always complained how I rushed into things without thinking. Last night he’d been irritated with me for grabbing that scroll, and I suspected in the back of his mind he blamed me for things going wrong—for Jaz’s getting hurt. No doubt he saw this as another example of my reckless nature.
I was quite prepared for a knockdown fight, but Amos interceded.
“Sadie, a visit to London is dangerous.” He held up his hand before I could protest. “However, if you must…” He took a deep breath, as if he didn’t like what he was about to say. “…then at least promise you’ll be careful. I doubt Vlad Menshikov will be ready to move against us so quickly. You should be all right as long as you use no magic, do nothing to attract attention.”
“Amos!” Carter protested.
Amos cut him off with a stern look. “While Sadie is gone, we can begin planning. Tomorrow morning, the two of you can begin your quest. I will take over your teaching duties with our trainees, and oversee the defense of Brooklyn House.”
I could see in Amos’s eyes he didn’t want me to go. It was foolish, dangerous, and rash—in other words, rather typical of me. But I could also sense his sympathy for my predicament. I remembered how fragile Amos had looked after Set took over his body last Christmas. When he’d gone to the First Nome for healing, I knew he’d felt guilty about leaving us alone. Still, it had been the right choice for his sanity. Amos, of all people, knew what it was like to need to get away. If I stayed here, if I left on a quest straightaway without even time to breathe, I felt I would explode.
Besides, I felt better knowing Amos would be covering for us at Brooklyn House. I was relieved to give up my teaching duties for a while. Truth be told, I’m a horrid teacher. I simply have no patience for it.
[Oh, be quiet, Carter. You weren’t supposed to agree with me.]
“Thank you, Amos,” I managed.
He stood, clearly indicating that the meeting was over.
“I think that’s enough for one morning,” he said. “The main thing is for all of you to continue your training, and don’t despair. We’ll need you in top shape to defend Brooklyn House. We will prevail. With the gods on our side, Ma’at will overcome Chaos, as it always has before.”
The trainees still looked uneasy, but they stood and began to clear their dishes. Carter gave me one more angry look, then stormed inside.
That was his problem. I was determined not to feel guilty. I would not have my birthday ruined. Still, as I stared down at my cold tea and uneaten pain au chocolat, I had a horrible feeling I might never sit at this table again.
An hour later I was ready for London.
I’d chosen a new staff from the arsenal and stowed it in the Duat along with my other supplies. I left the magic Bullwinkle scroll with Carter, who wouldn’t even talk to me, then checked on Jaz in the infirmary and found her still in a coma. An enchanted washcloth kept her forehead cool. Healing hieroglyphs floated around her bed, but she still looked so frail. Without her usual smile, she seemed like a different person.
I sat next to her and held her hand. My heart felt as heavy as a bowling ball. Jaz had risked her life to protect us. She’d gone up against a mob of bau with only a few weeks of training. She’d tapped into the energy of her patron goddess, Sekhmet, just as we’d taught her, and the effort had almost destroyed her.
What had I sacrificed lately? I’d thrown a tantrum because I might miss my birthday party.
“I’m so sorry, Jaz.” I knew she couldn’t hear me, but my voice quavered. “I just…I’ll go mad if I don’t get away. We’ve already had to save the bloody world once, and now I have to do it again….”
I imagined what Jaz would say—something reassuring, no doubt: It’s not your fault, Sadie. You deserve a few hours.
That just made me feel worse. I should never have allowed Jaz to put herself in danger. Six years ago, my mother had died channeling too much magic. She’d burned up closing the gate to Apophis’s prison. I’d known that, and yet I’d allowed Jaz, who had much less experience, to risk her life to save ours.
As I said…I’m a horrid teacher.
Finally I couldn’t stand it anymore. I squeezed Jaz’s hand, told her to get better soon, and left the infirmary. I climbed to the roof, where we kept our relic for opening portals—a stone sphinx from the ruins of Heliopolis.
I tensed when I noticed Carter at the other end of the roof, feeding a pile of roasted turkeys to the griffin. Since last night, he’d constructed quite a nice stable for the monster, so I guessed it would be staying with us. At least that would keep the pigeons off the roof.
I almost hoped Carter would ignore me. I wasn’t in the mood for another argument. But when he saw me, he scowled, wiped the turkey grease off his hands, and walked over.
I braced myself for a scolding.
Instead he grumbled, “Be careful. I got you a birthday gift, but I’ll wait until…you come back.”
He didn’t add the word alive, but I thought I heard it in his tone.
“Look, Carter—”
“Just go,” he said. “It’s not going to help us to argue.”
I wasn’t sure whether to feel guilty or angry, but I supposed he had a point. We didn’t have a very good history with birthdays. One of my earliest memories was fighting with Carter on my sixth birthday, and my cake exploding from the magical energy we stirred up. Perhaps, considering that, I should’ve left well enough alone. But I couldn’t quite do it.
“I’m sorry,” I blurted out. “I know you blame me for picking up the scroll last night, and for Jaz’s getting hurt, but I feel as if I’m falling apart—”
“You’re not the only one,” he said.
A lump formed in my throat. I’d been so worried about Carter’s being mad at me, I hadn’t paid attention to his tone. He sounded absolutely miserable.
“What is it?” I asked. “What happened?”
He wiped his greasy hands on his trousers. “Yesterday at the museum…one of those spirits—one of them talked to me.”
He told me about his odd encounter with the flaming bau, how time had seemed to slow down and the bau had warned Carter our quest would fail.
“He said…” Carter’s voice broke. “He said Zia was asleep at the Place of Red Sands, whatever that is. He said if I didn’t give up the quest and rescue her, she would die.”
“Carter,” I said carefully, “did this spirit mention Zia by name?”
“Well, no…”
“Could he have meant something else?”
“No, I’m sure. He meant Zia.”
I tried to bite my tongue. Honestly, I did. But the subject of Zia Rashid had become an unhealthy obsession for my brother.
“Carter, not to be unkind,” I said, “but the last few months you’ve been seeing messages about Zia everywhere. Two weeks ago, you thought she was sending you a distress call in your mashed potatoes.”
“It was a Z! Carved right in the potatoes!”
I held up my hands. “Fine. And your dream last night?”
His shoulders tensed. “What do you mean?”
“Oh, come on. At breakfast, you said Apophis would escape from his prison on the equinox. You sounded completely certain, as if you’d seen proof. You’d already talked to Bast and convinced her to check Apophis’s prison. Whatever you saw…it must’ve been bad.”
“I…I don’t know. I’m not sure.”
“I see.” My irritation rose. So Carter didn’t want to tell me. We were back to keeping secrets from each other? Fine.
“We’ll continue this later, then,” I said. “See you tonight.”
“You don’t believe me,” he said. “About Zia.”
“And you don’t trust me. So we’re even.”
We glared at each other. Then Carter turned and stomped off toward the griffin.
I almost called him back. I hadn’t meant to be so cross with him. On the other hand, apologizing is not my strong suit, and he was rather impossible.
I turned to the sphinx and summoned a gateway. I’d got rather good at it, if I do say so myself. Instantly a swirling funnel of sand appeared in front of me, and I jumped through.
A heartbeat later, I tumbled out at Cleopatra’s Needle on the bank of the River Thames.
Six years before, my mother had died here; it wasn’t my favorite Egyptian monument. But the Needle was the closest magic portal to Gran and Gramps’s flat.
Fortunately, the weather was miserable and there was no one about, so I brushed the sand off my clothes and headed for the Underground station.
Thirty minutes later, I stood on the steps of my grandparents’ flat. It seemed so odd to be…home? I wasn’t even sure I could call it that anymore. For months I’d been longing for London—the familiar city streets, my favorite shops, my mates, my old room. I’d even been homesick for the dreary weather. But now everything seemed so different, so foreign.
Nervously, I knocked on the door.
No answer. I was sure they were expecting me. I knocked again.
Perhaps they were hiding, waiting for me to come in. I imagined my grandparents, Liz, and Emma crouching behind the furniture, ready to jump out and yell “Surprise!”
Hmm…Gran and Gramps crouching and jumping. Not bloody likely.
I fished out my key and unlocked the door.
The living room was dark and empty. The stairwell light was off, which Gran would never allow. She was mortally afraid of falling down stairs. Even Gramps’s television was switched off, which wasn’t right. Gramps always kept the rugby matches on, even if he wasn’t watching.
I sniffed the air. Six in the evening London time, yet no smell of burning biscuits from the kitchen. Gran should’ve burned at least one tray of biscuits for teatime. It was a tradition.
I got out my phone to call Liz and Emma, but the phone was dead. I knew I’d charged the battery.
My mind was just beginning to process a thought—I am in danger—when the front door slammed shut behind me. I spun, grabbing for my wand, which I didn’t have.
Above me, at the top of the dark stairwell, a voice that was definitely not human hissed, “Welcome home, Sadie Kane.”