The Serpent's Shadow kc-3 Page 8

  He pointed to a pair of nearby specters. The woman danced barefoot in a simple white linen dress. The man wore breeches and a frock coat like a Colonial farmer, but his neck was canted at a funny angle, as if he’d been hanged. Black mist coiled around the man’s legs like ivy. Another three waltz steps, and he was completely engulfed. The murky tendrils pulled him into the ground, and he disappeared. The woman in white kept dancing by herself, apparently unaware that her partner had been consumed by evil fingers of smog.

  “What—what was that?” I asked.

  “We don’t know,” Anubis said. “As Apophis grows stronger, it’s happening more frequently. Souls of the dead are disappearing, being drawn farther down into the Duat. We don’t know where they’re going.”

  I almost stumbled. “My mother. Is she all right?”

  Anubis gave me a pained look, and I knew the answer. Mum had warned me—we might never see her again unless we discovered a way to defeat Apophis. She’d sent me that message urging me to find the serpent’s shadow. It had to be connected to her dilemma somehow.

  “She’s missing,” I guessed. My heart pounded against my ribs. “It’s got something to do with this business about shadows, hasn’t it?”

  “Sadie, I wish I knew. Your father is—he’s trying his best to find her, but—”

  The wind interrupted him.

  Have you ever stuck your hand out of a moving car and felt the air push against you? It was a bit like that, but ten times more powerful. A wedge of force pushed Anubis and me apart. I staggered backward, my feet no longer levitating.

  “Sadie…” Anubis reached out, but the wind pushed him farther away.

  “Stop that!” said a squeaky voice between us. “No public displays of affection on my watch!”

  The air took on human form. At first it was just a faint silhouette. Then it became more solid and colorful. Before me stood a man in an old-fashioned aviator’s outfit—leather helmet, goggles, scarf, and a bomber’s jacket, like photos I’d seen of the Royal Air Force pilots during World War II. He wasn’t flesh and blood, though. His form swirled and shifted. I realized he was put together from blown rubbish: specks of dirt, scraps of paper, bits of dandelion fuzz, dried leaves—all churning about, but held together in such a tight collage by the wind that from a distance he might have passed for a normal mortal.

  He wagged his finger at Anubis. “This is the final insult, boy!” His voice hissed like air from a balloon. “You have been warned numerous times.”

  “Hold on!” I said. “Who are you? And Anubis is hardly a boy. He’s five thousand years old.”

  “Exactly,” the aviator snapped. “A mere child. And I didn’t give you permission to speak, girl!”

  The aviator exploded. The blast was so powerful, my ears popped and I fell on my bum. Around me, the other mortals—my friends, teachers, and all the students—simply collapsed. Anubis and the ghosts seemed unaffected. The aviator formed again, glaring down at me.

  I struggled to my feet and tried to summon my staff from the Duat. No such luck.

  “What have you done?” I demanded.

  “Sadie, it’s all right,” Anubis said. “Your friends are only unconscious. Shu just lowered the air pressure.”

  “Shoe?” I demanded. “Shoe who?”

  Anubis pressed his fingers to his temples. “Sadie…this is Shu, my great-grandfather.”

  Then it struck me: Shu was one of those ridiculous godly names I’d heard before. I tried to place it. “Ah. The god of…flip-flops. No, wait. Leaky balloons. No—”

  “Air!” Shu hissed. “God of the air!”

  His body dissolved into a tornado of debris. When he formed again, he was in Ancient Egyptian costume—bare-chested with a white loincloth and a giant ostrich feather sprouting from his braided headband.

  He changed back into RAF clothes.

  “Stick with the pilot’s outfit,” I said. “The ostrich feather really doesn’t work for you.”

  Shu made an unfriendly whooshing sound. “I’d prefer to be invisible, thank you very much. But you mortals have polluted the air so badly, it’s getting harder and harder. It’s dreadful what you’ve done, the last few millennia! Haven’t you people heard of ‘Spare the Air’ days? Carpooling? Hybrid engines? And don’t get me started on cows. Did you know that every cow belches and farts over a hundred gallons of methane a day? There are one and a half billion cows in the world. Do you have any idea what that does to my respiratory system?”

  “Uh…”

  From his jacket pocket, Shu produced an inhaler and puffed on it. “Shocking!”

  I raised an eyebrow at Anubis, who looked mortally embarrassed (or perhaps immortally embarrassed).

  “Shu,” he said. “We were just talking. If you’ll let us finish—”

  “Oh, talking!” Shu bellowed, no doubt releasing his own share of methane. “While holding hands, and dancing, and other degenerate behavior. Don’t play innocent, boy. I’ve been a chaperone before, you know. I kept your grandparents apart for eons.”

  Suddenly I remembered the story of Nut and Geb, the sky and earth. Ra had commanded Nut’s father, Shu, to keep the two lovers apart so they would never have children who might someday usurp Ra’s throne. That strategy hadn’t worked, but apparently Shu was still trying.

  The air god waved his hand in disgust at the unconscious mortals, some of whom were just starting to groan and stir. “And now, Anubis, I find you in this den of iniquity, this morass of questionable behavior, this…this—”

  “School?” I suggested.

  “Yes!” Shu nodded so vigorously, his head disintegrated into a cloud of leaves. “You heard the decree of the gods, boy. You’ve become entirely too close to this mortal. You are hereby banned from further contact!”

  “What?” I shouted. “That’s ridiculous! Who decreed this?”

  Shu made a sound like a blown-out tire. Either he was laughing or giving me a windy raspberry. “The entire council, girl! Led by Lord Horus and Lady Isis!”

  I felt as if I were dissolving into scraps of rubbish myself.

  Isis and Horus? I couldn’t believe it. Stabbed in the back by my two supposed friends. Isis and I were going to have words about this.

  I turned to Anubis, hoping he’d tell me it was a lie.

  He raised his hands miserably. “Sadie, I was trying to tell you. Gods are not allowed to become directly…um, involved with mortals. That’s only possible when a god inhabits a human form, and…and as you know, I’ve never worked that way.”

  I gritted my teeth. I wanted to argue that Anubis had quite a nice form, but he’d told me often that he could only manifest in dreams, or in places of death. Unlike other gods, he’d never taken a human host.

  It was so bloody unfair. We hadn’t even dated properly. One kiss six months ago, and Anubis was grounded from seeing me forever?

  “You can’t be serious.” I’m not sure who made me angrier—the fussy air god chaperone or Anubis himself. “You’re not really going to let them rule you like this?”

  “He has no choice!” Shu cried. The effort made him cough so badly, his chest exploded into dandelion fluff. He took another blast from his inhaler. “Brooklyn ozone levels—deplorable! Now, off with you, Anubis. No more contact with this mortal. It is not proper. And as for you, girl, stay away from him! You have more important things to do.”

  “Oh, yes?” I said. “And what about you, Mr. Trash Tornado? We’re preparing for war, and the most important thing you can do is keep people from waltzing?”

  The air pressure rose suddenly. Blood roared in my head.

  “See here, girl,” Shu growled. “I’ve already helped you more than you deserve. I heeded that Russian boy’s prayer. I brought him here all the way from St. Petersburg to speak with you. So, shoo!”

  The wind blasted me backward. The ghosts blew away like smoke. The unconscious mortals began to stir, shielding their faces from the debris.

  “Russian boy?” I shouted over the gal
e. “What on earth are you talking about?”

  Shu disbanded into rubbish and swirled around Anubis, lifting him off his feet.

  “Sadie!” Anubis tried to fight his way toward me, but the storm was too strong. “Shu, at least let me tell her about Walt! She has a right to know!”

  I could barely hear him above the wind. “Did you say, Walt?” I shouted. “What about him?”

  Anubis said something I couldn’t make out. Then the flurry of debris completely obscured him.

  When the wind died, both gods were gone. I stood alone on the dance floor, surrounded by dozens of kids and adults who were starting to wake up.

  I was about to run to Carter to make sure he was all right. [Yes, Carter, honestly I was.]

  Then, at the edge of the pavilion, a young man stepped into the light.

  He wore a gray military outfit with a wool coat too heavy for the warm September night. His enormous ears seemed to be the only things holding up his oversized hat. A rifle was slung across his shoulder. He couldn’t have been more than seventeen; and though he was definitely not from any of the schools at the dance, he looked vaguely familiar.

  St. Petersburg, Shu had said.

  Yes. I’d met this boy briefly last spring. Carter and I had been running from the Hermitage Museum. This boy had tried to stop us. He’d been disguised as a guard, but revealed himself as a magician from the Russian Nome—one of the servants of the evil Vlad Menshikov.

  I grabbed my staff from the Duat—successfully this time.

  The boy raised his hands in surrender.

  “Nyet!” he pleaded. Then, in halting English, he said: “Sadie Kane. We…need…to talk.”

  S A D I E

  6. Amos Plays with Action Figures

  HIS NAME WAS LEONID, and we agreed not to kill each other.

  We sat on the steps of the gazebo and talked while the students and teachers struggled to wake up around us.

  Leonid’s English was not good. My Russian was nonexistent, but I understood enough of his story to be alarmed. He’d escaped the Russian nome and somehow convinced Shu to whisk him here to find me. Leonid remembered me from our invasion of the Hermitage. Apparently I’d made a strong impression on the young man. No surprise. I am rather memorable.

  [Oh, stop laughing, Carter.]

  Using words, hand gestures, and sound effects, Leonid tried to explain what had happened in St. Petersburg since the death of Vlad Menshikov. I couldn’t follow it all, but this much I understood: Kwai, Jacobi, Apophis, First Nome, many deaths, soon, very soon.

  Teachers began corralling students and calling parents. Apparently they feared the mass blackout might have been caused by bad punch or hazardous gas (Drew’s perfume, perhaps) and they’d decided to evacuate the area. I suspected we’d have police and paramedics on the scene shortly. I wanted to be gone before then.

  I dragged Leonid over to meet my brother, who was stumbling around, rubbing his eyes.

  “What happened?” Carter asked. He scowled at Leonid. “Who—?”

  I gave him the one-minute version: Anubis’s visit, Shu’s intervention, the Russian’s appearance. “Leonid has information about an impending attack on the First Nome,” I said. “The rebels will be after him.”

  Carter scratched his head. “You want to hide him at Brooklyn House?”

  “No,” I said. “I’ve got to take him to Amos straightaway.”

  Leonid choked. “Amos? He turn into Set—eat face?”

  “Amos will not eat your face,” I assured him. “Jacobi’s been telling you stories.”

  Leonid still looked uneasy. “Amos not become Set?”

  How to explain without making it sound worse? I didn’t know the correct Russian for: He was possessed by Set but it wasn’t his fault, and he’s much better now.

  “No Set,” I said. “Good Amos.”

  Carter studied the Russian. He looked at me with concern. “Sadie, what if this is a trap? You trust this guy?”

  “Oh, I can handle Leonid. He doesn’t want me to morph him into a banana slug, do you, Leonid?”

  “Nyet,” Leonid said solemnly. “No banana slug.”

  “There, you see?”

  “What about visiting Thoth?” Carter asked. “That can’t wait.”

  I saw the worry in his eyes. I imagined he was thinking the same thing I was: our mum was in trouble. The spirits of the dead were disappearing, and it had something to do with the shadow of Apophis. We had to find the connection.

  “You visit Thoth,” I said. “Take Walt. And, uh, keep an eye on him, all right? Anubis wanted to tell me something about him, but there wasn’t time. And in Dallas, when I looked at Walt in the Duat…”

  I couldn’t make myself finish. Just thinking about Walt wrapped in mummy linen brought tears to my eyes.

  Fortunately, Carter seemed to get the general idea. “I’ll keep him safe,” he promised. “How will you get to Egypt?”

  I pondered that. Leonid had apparently flown here via Shu Airways, but I doubted that fussy aviator god would be willing to help me, and I didn’t want to ask.

  “We’ll risk a portal,” I said. “I know they’ve been a bit wonky, but it’s just one quick jump. What could go wrong?”

  “You could materialize inside a wall,” Carter said. “Or wind up scattered through the Duat in a million pieces.”

  “Why, Carter, you care! But really, we’ll be fine. And we haven’t got much choice.”

  I gave him a quick hug—I know, horribly sentimental, but I wanted to show solidarity. Then, before I could change my mind, I took Leonid’s hand and raced across campus.

  My head was still spinning from my talk with Anubis. How dare Isis and Horus keep us apart when we weren’t even together! And what had Anubis wanted to tell me about Walt? Perhaps he’d wanted to end our ill-fated relationship and give his blessing for me to date Walt. (Lame.) Or perhaps he wanted to declare his undying love and fight Walt for my affections. (Highly unlikely, nor would I appreciate being fought over like a basketball.) Or perhaps—most probable—he’d wanted to break some bad news.

  Anubis had visited Walt on several occasions that I knew of. They’d both been rather tight-lipped about what was discussed, but since Anubis was the guide of the dead, I assumed he’d been preparing Walt for death. Anubis might have wanted to warn me that the time was nigh—as if I needed another reminder.

  Anubis: off-limits. Walt: at death’s door. If I lost both of the guys I liked, well…there wasn’t much point in saving the world.

  All right, that was a slight exaggeration. But only slight.

  On top of that, my mum was in trouble, and Sarah Jacobi’s rebels were planning some horrible attack on my uncle’s headquarters.

  Why, then, did I feel so…hopeful?

  An idea started to tug at me—a tiny glimmer of possibility. It wasn’t just the prospect that we might find a way to defeat the serpent. Anubis’s words kept playing in my mind: The shadow lingers. There must be a way to retrieve a soul from oblivion.

  If a shadow could be used to bring back a mortal soul that had been destroyed, could it do the same for a god?

  I was so lost in thought, I barely noticed when we reached the fine arts building. Leonid stopped me.

  “This for portal?” He pointed to a block of carved limestone in the courtyard.

  “Yes,” I said. “Thanks.”

  Long story short: when I started at BAG, I reckoned it would be good to have an Egyptian relic close by for emergencies. So I did the logical thing: I borrowed a chunk of limestone frieze from the nearby Brooklyn Museum. Honestly, the museum had enough rocks. I didn’t think they’d miss this one.

  I’d left a facsimile in its place and asked Alyssa to present the actual Egyptian frieze to her art teacher as her class project—an attempt to simulate an ancient art form. The teacher had been duly impressed. He’d installed “Alyssa’s” artwork in the courtyard outside his classroom. The carving showed mourners at a funeral, which I thought appropriate f
or a school setting.

  It wasn’t a powerful or important piece of art, but all relics of Ancient Egypt have some amount of power, like magical batteries. With the right training, a magician can use them to jump-start spells that would otherwise be impossible, such as opening portals.

  I’d got rather good at this particular magic. Leonid watched my back as I began to chant.

  Most magicians wait for “auspicious moments” to open gates. They spend years memorizing a timetable of important anniversaries like the time of day each god was born, the alignment of the stars, and whatnot. I suppose I should have worried about such things, but I didn’t. Given the thousands of years of Egyptian history, there were so many auspicious moments that I simply chanted until I hit one. Of course, I had to hope my portal didn’t open during an inauspicious moment. That could have caused all sorts of nasty side effects—but what’s life without taking a few risks?

  (Carter is shaking his head and muttering. I have no idea why.)

  The air rippled in front of us. A circular doorway appeared—a swirling vortex of golden sand—and Leonid and I jumped through.

  I’d like to say my spell worked perfectly and we ended up in the First Nome. Sadly, I was a bit off the mark.

  The portal spit us out roughly a hundred meters above Cairo. I found myself free-falling through the cool night air toward the city lights below.

  I didn’t panic. I could have cast any number of spells to get out of this situation. I could have even assumed the form of a kite (the bird of prey, not the kind with a string), although that wasn’t my favorite way to travel. Before I could decide on a plan of action, Leonid grabbed my hand.

  The direction of the wind changed. Suddenly we were gliding over the city in a controlled descent. We set down softly in the desert just outside the city limits near a cluster of ruins that I knew from experience hid an entrance to the First Nome.

  I looked at Leonid in amazement. “You summoned the power of Shu!”

  “Shu,” he said grimly. “Yes. Necessary. I do…forbidden.”

  I smiled with delight. “You clever boy! You learned the path of the gods on your own? I knew there was a reason I didn’t turn you into a banana slug.”