The Serpents Shadow Read online

  Zia’s eyes flared orange. Her bonds started to smoke, but they held her fast. Her fire receded, and she slumped against the rocks.

  Setne laughed. “Nice try, doll. You guys sit tight. If you make it through the big shake-up, I’ll come back and get you. Maybe you can be my jesters or something. You two crack me up! But in the meantime, I’m afraid we’re done here. No miracle’s gonna drop from the sky and save you.”

  A rectangle of darkness appeared in the air just above the ghost’s head. Sadie dropped out of it.

  I’ll say this for my sister: she has great timing, and she’s quick on the draw. She crashed into the ghost and sent him sprawling. Then she noticed us wrapped up like presents, quickly realized what was going on, and turned toward Setne.

  “Tas!” she yelled.

  “Noooo!” Setne was wrapped in pink ribbons until he looked like a forkful of spaghetti.

  Sadie stood and stepped back from Setne. Her eyes were puffy like she’d been crying. Her clothes were covered in dried mud and leaves.

  Walt wasn’t with her. My heart sank. I was almost glad my mouth was covered, because I wouldn’t have known what to say.

  Sadie took in the scene—the Sea of Chaos, the serpent’s writhing shadow, the white obelisk. I could tell she felt the pull of Chaos. She braced her feet, leaning away from the sea like the anchorperson in a tug-of-war. I knew her well enough to tell she was steeling herself, pushing her emotions back inside and forcing her sorrow down.

  “Hullo, brother dear,” she said in a shaky voice. “Need some help?”

  She managed to dispel the glamor on us. She looked surprised to find me holding Ra’s crook and flail. “How in the world—?”

  Zia briefly explained what we’d been up to—from the fight with the giant hippo through Setne’s most recent betrayals.

  “All that,” Sadie marveled, “and you had to drag my brother along too? You poor girl. But how can we even survive here? The Chaos power…” She focused on Zia’s scarab pendant. “Oh. I really am thick. No wonder Tawaret looked at you strangely. You’re channeling the power of Ra.”

  “Ra chose me,” Zia said. “I didn’t want this.”

  Sadie got very quiet—which wasn’t like her.

  “Sis,” I said, as gently as possible, “what happened to Walt?”

  Her eyes were so full of pain that I wanted to apologize for even asking. I hadn’t seen her look like that since…well, since our mom died, when Sadie was little.

  “He’s not coming,” she said. “He’s…gone.”

  “Sadie, I’m so sorry,” I said. “Are you—?”

  “I’m fine!” she snapped.

  Translation: I’m most definitely not fine, but if you ask again I’ll stuff wax in your mouth.

  “We have to hurry,” she continued, trying to modulate her voice. “I know how to capture the shadow. Just give me the figurine.”

  I had a moment of panic. Did I still have the statue of Apophis that Walt had made? Coming all the way here and forgetting it would’ve been a major bonehead move.

  Fortunately, it was still at the bottom of my pack.

  I handed it to Sadie, who stared at the careful red carving of the coiled serpent, the hieroglyphs of binding around the name Apophis. I imagined she was thinking of Walt, and all the effort he’d put into making it.

  She knelt at the edge of the jetty, where the obelisk’s base met the shadow.

  “Sadie,” I said.

  She froze. “Yeah?”

  My mouth felt like it was full of glue. I wanted to tell her to forget the whole thing.

  Seeing her at the obelisk, with that massive shadow coiling toward the horizon…I just knew something would go wrong. The shadow would attack. The spell would backfire somehow.

  Sadie reminded me so much of our mom. I couldn’t shake the impression that we were repeating history. Our parents had tried to restrain Apophis once before, at Cleopatra’s Needle, and our mom had died. I’d spent years watching my dad deal with his guilt. If I stood by now while Sadie got hurt…

  Zia took my hand. Her fingers were trembling, but I was grateful for her presence. “This will work,” she promised.

  Sadie blew a strand of hair from her face. “Listen to your girlfriend, Carter. And stop distracting me.”

  She sounded exasperated, but there was no irritation in her eyes. Sadie understood my concerns as clearly as she knew my secret name. She was just as scared as I was, but in her own annoying way, she was trying to reassure me.

  “May I continue?” she asked.

  “Good luck,” I managed.

  Sadie nodded.

  She touched the figurine to the shadow and began to chant.

  I was afraid the waves of Chaos might dissolve the figurine, or, worse, pull Sadie in. Instead, the serpent’s shadow began to thrash. Slowly it shrank, writhing and snapping its mouth as if it were being hit with a cattle prod. The figurine absorbed the darkness. Soon the shadow was completely gone, and the statue was midnight black. Sadie spoke a simple binding spell on the figurine: “Hi-nehm.”

  A long hiss escaped from the sea—almost like a sigh of relief—and the sound echoed across the hills. The churning waves turned a lighter shade of red, as if some murky sediment had been dredged away. The pull of Chaos seemed to lessen just slightly.

  Sadie stood. “Right. We’re ready.”

  I stared at my sister. Sometimes she teased me that she’d eventually catch up to me in age and be my older sibling. Looking at her now, with that determined glint in her eyes and the confidence in her voice, I could almost believe her. “That was amazing,” I said. “How did you know the spell?”

  She scowled. Of course, the answer was obvious: she’d watched Walt do the same spell on Bes’s shadow…before whatever happened to Walt.

  “The execration will be easy,” she said. “We have to be facing Apophis, but otherwise it’s the same spell we’ve been practicing.”

  Zia prodded Setne with her foot. “That’s another thing this maggot lied about. What should we do with him? We’ll have to get the Book of Thoth out of those bindings, obviously, but after that should we shove him into the drink?”

  “MMM!” Setne protested.

  Sadie and I exchanged looks. We silently agreed that we couldn’t dissolve Setne—even as horrible as he was. Maybe we’d seen too many awful things over the past few days, and we didn’t need to see any more. Or maybe we knew that Osiris had to be the one to decide Setne’s punishment, since we had promised to bring the ghost back to the Hall of Judgment.

  Maybe, standing next to the obelisk of Ma’at, surrounded by the Sea of Chaos, we both realized that restraining ourselves from vengeance is what made us different from Apophis. Rules had their place. They kept us from unraveling.

  “Drag him along,” Sadie said. “He’s a ghost. Can’t be that heavy.”

  I grabbed his feet, and we made our way back down the jetty. Setne’s head bonked against the rocks, but that didn’t concern me. It took all my concentration to keep putting one foot in front of the other. Moving away from the Sea of Chaos was even harder than moving toward it.

  By the time we reached the beach, I was exhausted. My clothes were drenched in sweat. We trudged across the sand and finally crested the hill.

  “Oh…” I uttered some words that were definitely not divine.

  In the cratered field below us, demons had gathered—hundreds of them, all marching in our direction. As Setne had guessed, the shadow had sent a distress signal to the forces of Apophis, and the call had been answered. We were trapped between the Sea of Chaos and a hostile army.

  At this point, I was starting to wonder, Why me?

  All I wanted was to infiltrate the most dangerous part of the Duat, steal the shadow of the primordial Lord of Chaos, and save the world. Was that too much to ask?

  The demons were maybe two football fields away, closing rapidly. I estimated that there were at least three or four hundred of them, and more kept pouring onto the field.
Several dozen winged monsters were even closer, spiraling lower and lower overhead. Against this army, we had two Kanes, Zia, and a gift-wrapped ghost. I didn’t like those odds.

  “Sadie, can you make a gate to the surface?” I asked.

  She closed her eyes and concentrated. She shook her head. “No signal from Isis. Possibly we’re too close to the Sea of Chaos.”

  That was a scary thought. I tried to summon the avatar of Horus. Nothing happened. I guess I should have known it would be hard to channel his powers down here, especially after I had asked him for a weapon back on the ship, and the best he could do was an ostrich feather.

  “Zia?” I said. “Your powers from Khepri are still working. Can you get us out of here?”

  She clutched her scarab amulet. “I don’t think so. All Khepri’s energy is being spent shielding us from Chaos. He can’t do any more.”

  I considered running back to the white obelisk. Maybe we could use it to open a portal. But I quickly dismissed the idea. The demons would be on us before we ever got there.

  “We’re not going to get out of this,” I decided. “Can we cast the execration on Apophis right now?”

  Zia and Sadie spoke in unison: “No.”

  I knew they were right. We had to stand face-to-face with Apophis for the spell to work. But I couldn’t believe we’d come all this way, just to be stopped now.

  “At least we can go out fighting.” I unhooked the crook and flail from my belt.

  Sadie and Zia readied their staffs and wands.

  Then, at the other end of the field, a wave of confusion spread through the demons’ ranks. They slowly began turning away from us, running in different directions. Behind the demon army, fireballs lit the sky. Plumes of smoke rose from newly opened craters in the ground. A battle seemed to be breaking out at the wrong end of the field.

  “Who are they fighting?” I asked. “Each other?”

  “No.” Zia pointed, a smile spreading across her face. “Look.”

  It was hard to see through the hazy air, but a wedge of combatants was slowly forcing its way through the back ranks of the demons. Their numbers were smaller—maybe a hundred or so—but the demons gave way to them. Those that didn’t were cut down, trampled, or blown up like fireworks.

  “It’s the gods!” Sadie said.

  “That’s impossible,” I said. “The gods wouldn’t march into the Duat to rescue us!”

  “Not the big gods, no.” She grinned at me. “But the old forgotten ones from the House of Rest would! Anubis said he was calling for reinforcements.”

  “Anubis?” I was really confused now. When had she seen Anubis?

  “There!” Sadie shouted. “Oh—!”

  She seemed to forget how to speak. She just waved her finger toward our new friends. The battle lines opened momentarily. A sleek black car barreled into combat. The driver had to be a maniac. He plowed down demons, going out of his way to hit them. He jumped over fiery crevices and spun in circles, flashing his lights and honking his horn. Then he came straight at us, until the front ranks of demons started to scatter. Only a few brave winged demons had the nerve to chase him.

  As the car got closer, I could see it was a Mercedes limo. It climbed the hill, trailed by bat demons, and screeched to a stop in a cloud of red dust. The driver’s door opened, and a small hairy man in a blue Speedo stepped out.

  I had never been so happy to see someone so ugly.

  Bes, in all his horrible warty glory, climbed onto the roof of his car. He turned to face the bat demons. His eyes bulged. His mouth opened impossibly wide. His hair stood out like porcupine quills, and he yelled, “BOO!”

  The winged demons screamed and disintegrated.

  “Bes!” Sadie ran toward him.

  The dwarf god broke into a grin. He slid down to the hood, so he was almost Sadie’s height when she hugged him.

  “There’s my girl!” he said. “And, Carter, get your sorry hide over here!”

  He hugged me, too. I didn’t even mind him rubbing his knuckles on my head.

  “And, Zia Rashid!” Bes cried generously. “I got a hug for you too—”

  “I’m good,” Zia said, stepping back. “Thanks.”

  Bes bellowed with laughter. “You’re right. Time for warm and fuzzy later. We gotta get you guys out of here!”

  “The—the shadow spell?” Sadie stammered. “It actually worked?”

  “Of course it worked, you crazy kid!” Bes thumped his hairy chest, and suddenly he was wearing a chauffeur’s uniform. “Now, get in the car!”

  I turned to grab Setne…and my heart nearly stopped. “Oh, holy Horus…” The magician was gone. I scanned the terrain in every direction, hoping he’d just inchwormed away. There was no sign of him.

  Zia blasted fire at the spot where he’d been lying. Apparently, the ghost hadn’t merely become invisible, because there was no scream.

  “Setne was right there!” Zia protested. “Tied up in the Ribbons of Hathor! How could he just disappear?”

  Bes frowned. “Setne, eh? I hate that weasel. Have you got the serpent’s shadow?”

  “Yeah,” I said, “but Setne has the Book of Thoth.”

  “Can you cast the execration without it?” Bes asked.

  Sadie and I exchanged looks.

  “Yes,” we both said.

  “Then we’ll have to worry about Setne later,” Bes said. “We don’t have much time!”

  I guess if you have to travel through the Land of Demons, a limo is the way to go. Unfortunately, Bes’s new sedan was no cleaner than the one we’d left at the bottom of the Mediterranean last spring. I wondered if he pre-ordered them already littered with old Chinese-food containers, stomped-on magazines, and dirty laundry.

  Sadie rode shotgun. Zia and I climbed in back. Bes slammed the accelerator and played a game of hit-the-demon.

  “Five points if you can hit that bloke with the cleaver head!” Sadie screamed.

  Boom! Cleaver-head went flying over the hood.

  Sadie applauded. “Ten points if you can hit those two dragonfly things at once.”

  Boom, boom! Two very large bugs hit the windshield.

  Sadie and Bes laughed like crazy. Me, I was too busy yelling, “Crevice! Look out! Flaming geyser! Go left!”

  Call me practical. I wanted to live. I grabbed Zia’s hand and tried to hang on.

  As we approached the heart of the battle, I could see the gods pushing back the demons. It looked like the entire Sunny Acres Godly Retirement Community had unleashed their geriatric wrath on the forces of darkness. Tawaret the hippo goddess was in the lead, wearing her nurse’s outfit and high heels, swinging a flaming torch in one hand and a hypodermic needle in the other. She bonked one demon on the head, then injected another in the rump, causing him to pass out immediately.

  Two old guys in loincloths were hobbling around, throwing fireballs into the sky and incinerating flying demons. One of the old dudes kept screaming, “My pudding!” for no apparent reason.

  Heket the frog goddess leaped around the battlefield, knocking out monsters with her tongue. She seemed to have a special fondness for the demons with insect heads. A few yards away, the senile cat goddess Mekhit was smashing demons with her walker, yelling, “Meow!” and hissing.

  “Should we help them?” Zia asked.

  Bes chuckled. “They don’t need help. This is the most fun they’ve had in centuries. They have a purpose again! They’re going to cover our retreat while I get you to the river.”

  “But we don’t have a ship anymore!” I protested.

  Bes raised a furry eyebrow. “You sure about that?” He slowed the Mercedes and rolled down the window. “Hey, sweetie! You okay here?”

  Tawaret turned and gave him a huge hippo smile. “We’re fine, honeycakes! Good luck!”

  “I’ll be back!” he promised. He blew her a kiss, and I thought Tawaret was going to faint from happiness.

  The Mercedes peeled out.

  “Honeycakes?” I asked.r />
  “Hey, kid,” Bes growled, “do I criticize your relationships?”

  I didn’t have the guts to look at Zia, but she squeezed my hand. Sadie stayed quiet. Maybe she was thinking about Walt.

  The Mercedes leaped one last flaming chasm and slammed to a stop on the beach of bones.

  I pointed to the wreckage of the Egyptian Queen. “See? No boat.”

  “Oh, yeah?” Bes asked. “Then what’s that?”

  Upriver, light blazed in the darkness.

  Zia inhaled sharply. “Ra,” she said. “The sun boat approaches.”

  As the light got closer, I saw she was right. The gold-and-white sail gleamed. Glowing orbs flitted around the deck of a boat. The crocodile-headed god Sobek stood at the bow, knocking aside random river monsters with a big pole. And sitting in a fiery throne in the middle of the sun barque was the old god Ra.

  “Halllloooooo!” he yelled across the water. “We have cooooookies!”

  Sadie kissed Bes on the cheek. “You’re brilliant!”

  “Hey, now,” the dwarf mumbled. “You’re gonna make Tawaret jealous. It just so happened the timing was right. If we’d missed the sun boat, we’d have been out of luck.”

  That thought made me shudder.

  For millennia, Ra had followed this cycle—sailing into the Duat at sunset, traveling along the River of Night until he emerged into the mortal world again at sunrise. But it was a one-way trip, and the boat kept to a tight schedule. As Ra passed through the various Houses of the Night, their gates closed until the next evening, making it easy for mortal travelers like us to get stranded. Sadie and I had experienced that once before, and it hadn’t been fun.

  As the sun boat drifted toward the shore, Bes gave us a lopsided grin. “Ready, kids? I got a feeling things up in the mortal world aren’t going to be pretty.”

  That was the first unsurprising thing I’d heard all day.