The Complete Kane Chronicles (87 page)

I’d expected to see Amos sitting at the foot of the pharaoh’s throne. That was the traditional place for the Chief Lector, symbolizing his role as the pharaoh’s main advisor. Of course, the pharaohs rarely needed advising these days, as they’d all been dead for several thousand years.

The dais was empty.

That stumped me. I’d never considered where the Chief Lector hung out when he wasn’t on display. Did he have a dressing room, possibly with his name and a little star on the door?

“There.” Leonid pointed.

Once again, my clever Russian friend was right. On the back wall, behind the throne, a faint line of light shone along the floor—the bottom edge of a door.

“A creepy secret entrance,” I said. “Well done, Leonid.”

On the other side, we found a sort of war room. Amos and a young woman in camouflage clothes stood at opposite ends of a large table inlaid with a full-color world map. The table’s surface was crowded with tiny figurines—painted ships, monsters, magicians, cars, and markers with hieroglyphs.

Amos and the camouflage girl were so engrossed in their work, moving figurines across the map, they didn’t notice us at first.

Amos wore traditional linen robes. With his barrel-shaped figure, they made him look a bit like Friar Tuck, except with darker skin and cooler hair. His braided locks were decorated with gold beads. His round glasses flashed as he studied the map. Draped around his shoulders was the leopard-skin cape of the Chief Lector.

As for the young woman…oh, gods of Egypt. It was
Zia.

I’d never seen her in modern clothes before. She wore camouflage cargo pants, hiking boots, and an olive-colored tank top that flattered her coppery skin. Her black hair was longer than I remembered. She looked so much more grown-up and gorgeous than she’d been six months ago, I was glad Carter hadn’t come along. He would’ve had difficulty picking up his jaw from the floor.

[Yes, you would have, Carter. She looked quite stunning, in a Commando Girl sort of way.]

Amos moved one of the figurines across the map. “Here,” he told Zia.

“All right,” she said. “But that leaves Paris undefended.”

I cleared my throat. “Are we interrupting?”

Amos turned and broke into a grin. “Sadie!”

He crushed me in a hug, then rubbed my head affectionately.

“Ow,” I said.

He chuckled. “I’m sorry. It’s just so good to see you.” He glanced at Leonid. “And this is—”

Zia cursed. She wedged herself between Amos and Leonid. “He’s one of the Russians! Why is
he
here?”

“Calm down,” I told her. “He’s a friend.”

I explained about Leonid’s appearance at the dance. Leonid tried to help, but he kept slipping into Russian.

“Wait,” Amos said. “Let’s make this easier.”

He touched Leonid’s forehead.
“Med-wah.”

In the air above us, the hieroglyph for
Speak
burned red:

“There,” Amos said. “That should help.”

Leonid’s eyebrows shot up. “You speak Russian?”

Amos smiled. “Actually for the next few minutes, we’ll all be speaking Ancient Egyptian, but it will sound to each of us like our native tongue.”

“Brilliant,” I said. “Leonid, you’d best make the most of your time.”

Leonid took off his army cap and fidgeted with the brim. “Sarah Jacobi and her lieutenant, Kwai…they mean to attack you.”

“We know that,” Amos said dryly.

“No, you don’t understand!” Leonid’s voice trembled with fear. “They are evil! They are working with Apophis!”

Perhaps it was a coincidence, but when he said that name, several figurines on the world map sparked and melted. My heart felt much the same way.

“Hold on,” I said. “Leonid, how do you know this?”

His ears turned pink. “After the death of Menshikov, Jacobi and Kwai came to our nome. We gave them refuge. Soon Jacobi took over, but my comrades did not object. They, ah, hate the Kanes very much.” He looked at me guiltily. “After you broke into our headquarters last spring…well, the other Russians blame you for Menshikov’s death and the rise of Apophis. They blame you for everything.”

“Quite used to that,” I said. “You didn’t feel the same?”

He pinched his oversized cap. “I saw your power. You defeated the
tjesu-heru
monster. You could have destroyed me, but you didn’t. You did not seem evil.”

“Thanks for that.”

“After we met, I became curious. I began reading old scrolls, learning to channel the power of the god Shu. I have always been a good air elementalist.”

Amos grunted. “That took courage, Leonid. Exploring the path of the gods on your own in the middle of the Russian nome? You were brave.”

“I was foolhardy.” Leonid’s forehead was damp with sweat. “Jacobi has killed magicians for lesser crimes. One of my friends, an old man named Mikhail, he once made the mistake of saying all Kanes might not be bad. Jacobi arrested him for treason. She gave him to Kwai, who does magic with—with lightning…terrible things. I heard Mikhail screaming in the dungeon for three nights before he died.”

Amos and Zia exchanged grave looks. I had a feeling this wasn’t the first time they’d heard about Kwai’s torture methods.

“I’m so sorry,” Amos said. “But how can you be sure Jacobi and Kwai are working for Apophis?”

The young Russian glanced at me for reassurance.

“You can trust Amos,” I promised. “He’ll protect you.”

Leonid chewed his lip. “Yesterday I was in one of the chambers deep under the Hermitage, a place I thought was secret. I was studying a scroll to summon Shu—very forbidden magic. I heard Jacobi and Kwai approaching, so I hid. I overheard the two of them speaking, but their voices were…splintered. I don’t know how to explain.”

“They were possessed?” Zia asked.

“Worse,” Leonid said. “They were each channeling dozens of voices. It was like a war council. I heard many monsters and demons. And presiding over the meeting was one voice, deeper and more powerful than the rest. I’d never heard anything like it, as if darkness could speak.”

“Apophis,” Amos said.

Leonid had gone very pale. “Please understand, most magicians in St. Petersburg, they are not evil. They are only scared and desperate to survive. Jacobi has convinced them she will save them. She has misled them with lies. She says the Kanes are demons. But she and Kwai…
they
are the monsters. They are no longer human. They have set up a camp at Abu Simbel. From there, they will lead the rebels against the First Nome.”

Amos turned to his map. He traced his finger south along the River Nile to a small lake. “I sense nothing at Abu Simbel. If they are there, they’ve managed to hide themselves completely from my magic.”

“They are there,” Leonid promised.

Zia scowled. “Under our very noses, within easy striking distance. We should’ve killed the rebels at Brooklyn House when we had the chance.”

Amos shook his head. “We are servants of Ma’at—order and justice. We don’t kill our enemies for things they might do in the future.”

“And now our enemies will kill us,” Zia said.

On the table map, two more figurines sparked and melted in Spain. A miniature ship broke into pieces off the coast of Japan.

Amos grimaced. “More losses.”

He chose a cobra figurine from Korea and pushed it toward the shipwreck. He swept away the melted magicians from Spain.

“What
is
that map?” I asked.

Zia moved a hieroglyph token from Germany to France. “Iskandar’s war map. As I once told you, he was an expert at statuary magic.”

I remembered. The old Chief Lector had been so good, he’d made a replica of Zia herself…but I decided not to bring that up.

“Those tokens stand for actual forces,” I guessed.

“Yes,” Amos said. “The map shows us our enemy’s movements, at least most of them. It also allows us to send our forces by magic to where they are needed.”

“And, uh, how are we doing?”

His expression told me all I needed to know.

“We are spread too thin,” Amos said. “Jacobi’s followers strike wherever we are weakest. Apophis sends his demons to terrorize our allies. The attacks seem coordinated.”

“Because they are,” Leonid said. “Kwai and Jacobi are under the serpent’s control.”

I shook my head in disbelief. “How could Kwai and Jacobi be so stupid? Don’t they understand Apophis is going to destroy the world?”

“Chaos is seductive,” Amos said. “No doubt Apophis has made them promises of power. He whispers in their ears, convincing them they are too important to be destroyed. They believe they can make a new world better than the old, and the change is worth any price—even mass annihilation.”

I couldn’t grasp how anyone could be so deluded, but Amos spoke as if he understood. Of course, Amos had been through this. He’d been possessed by Set, god of evil and Chaos. Compared to Apophis, Set was a minor nuisance, but he’d still been able to turn my uncle—one of the most powerful magicians in the world—into a helpless puppet. If Carter and I hadn’t defeated Set and forced him to return to the Duat…well, the consequences wouldn’t have been pretty.

Zia picked up a falcon figurine. She moved it toward Abu Simbel, but the little statue began to steam. She was forced to drop it.

“They’ve put up powerful wards,” she said. “We won’t be able to eavesdrop.”

“They will attack in three days,” Leonid said. “At the same time, Apophis will rise—at dawn on the autumn equinox.”

“
Another
equinox?” I grumbled. “Didn’t that
last
bit of nastiness happen on one of those? You Egyptians have an unhealthy obsession with equinoxes.”

Amos gave me a stern look. “Sadie, as I’m sure you’re aware, the equinox is a time of great magic significance, when day and night are equal. Besides, the autumn equinox marks the last day before darkness overtakes the light. It is the anniversary of Ra’s retreat into the heavens. I feared that Apophis might make his move at that time. It’s a most inauspicious day.”

“Inauspicious?” I frowned. “But inauspicious is bad. Why would they…oh.”

I realized for the forces of Chaos, our bad days must’ve been their good days. That meant they probably had a lot of good days.

Amos leaned on his staff. His hair seemed to be turning gray before my eyes. I remembered Michel Desjardins, the last Chief Lector, and how quickly he had aged. I couldn’t bear the idea of that happening to Amos.

“We don’t have the strength to defeat our enemies,” he said. “I will have to use other means.”

“Amos, no,” Zia said. “Please.”

I wasn’t sure what they were talking about. Zia sounded horrified, and anything that scared her, I didn’t want to know about.

“Actually,” I said, “Carter and I have a plan.”

I told them about our idea of using Apophis’s own shadow against him. Perhaps saying this in front of Leonid was reckless, but he had risked his life to warn us about Sarah Jacobi’s plans. He had trusted me. The least I could do was return the favor.

When I finished explaining, Amos gazed at his map. “I’ve never heard of such magic. Even if it’s possible—”

“It
is
,” I insisted. “Why else would Apophis delay his Doomsday attack so he could track down and destroy every scroll by this fellow Setne? Apophis is afraid we’ll figure out the spell and stop him.”

Zia crossed her arms. “But you can’t. You just said all copies were destroyed.”

“We’ll ask Thoth for help,” I said. “Carter’s on his way there now. And in the meantime…I have an errand to run. I may be able to test our theory about shadows.”

“How?” Amos asked.

I told him what I had in mind.

He looked as if he wanted to object, but he must’ve seen the defiance in my eyes. We’re related, after all. He knows how stubborn Kanes can be when they set their minds to something.

“Very well,” he said. “First you must eat and rest. You can leave at dawn. Zia, I want you to go with her.”

Zia looked startled. “Me? But I might…I mean, is it wise?”

Again I got the feeling I’d missed an important conversation. What had Amos and Zia been discussing?

“You’ll be fine,” Amos assured her. “Sadie will need your help. And I will arrange for someone else to watch Ra during the day.”

She looked quite nervous, which wasn’t like her. Zia and I had had our differences in the past, but she’d never been short of confidence. Now I almost felt worried for her.

“Cheer up,” I told her. “It’ll be a laugh. Quick trip to the Netherworld, fiery lake of doom. What could go wrong?”

C A R T E R

S
O, YEAH
.

Sadie goes off on a side adventure with some guy, leaving me to do the boring work of figuring out how to save the world. Why does this sound familiar? Oh, right. That’s the way Sadie always is. If it’s time to move forward, you can count on her to veer sideways on some ADHD tangent of her own.

[Why are you thanking me, Sadie? That wasn’t a compliment.]

After the Brooklyn Academy dance, I was pretty miffed. Bad enough being forced to slow-dance with Sadie’s friend Lacy. But passing out on the dance floor, waking up with Lacy snoring in my armpit, and then finding out I’d missed visits from two gods—that was just embarrassing.

After Sadie and the Russian guy left, I got our crew back to Brooklyn House. Walt was confused to see us so soon. I pulled him and Bast aside for a quick conference on the terrace. I explained what Sadie had told me about Shu, Anubis, and the Russian dude Leonid.

“I’ll take Freak to Memphis,” I said. “Be back as soon as I talk to Thoth.”

“I’m going with you,” Walt said.

Sadie had told me to take him along, of course, but looking at him now, I had second thoughts. Walt’s cheeks were sunken. His eyes were glassy. I was alarmed by how much worse he looked since just yesterday. I know this is horrible, but I couldn’t help thinking about Egyptian burial practices—how they’d pack a body with embalming salts to slowly dry it up from the inside. Walt looked like he’d been started on that process.

“Look, man,” I said, “Sadie asked me to keep you safe. She’s worried about you. So am I.”

He clenched his jaw. “If you plan on using a shadow for your spell, you’ll have to capture it with that figurine. You’ll need a
sau
, and I’m the best you’ve got.”

Unfortunately, Walt was right. Neither Sadie nor I had the skill to capture a shadow, if that was even possible. Only Walt had that kind of charm-making talent.

“All right,” I muttered. “Just…keep your head down. I don’t want my sister going nuclear on me.”

Bast poked Walt’s arm, the way a cat might nudge a bug to see if it was still alive. She sniffed his hair.

“Your aura is weak,” Bast said, “but you should be all right to travel. Try not to exert yourself. No magic unless absolutely necessary.”

Walt rolled his eyes. “Yes, Mother.”

Bast seemed to like that.

“I’ll watch the other kittens,” she promised. “Er, I mean initiates. You two be careful. I don’t have much love for Thoth, but I don’t want you caught up in his problems.”

“What problems?” I asked.

“You’ll see. Just come back to me. All this guard duty is cutting into my nap schedule!”

She shooed us toward Freak’s stable and headed back downstairs, muttering something about catnip.

We hitched up the boat. Freak squawked and buzzed his wings, anxious to go. He looked like he’d gotten a good rest. Besides, he knew that a journey meant more frozen turkeys for him.

Soon we were flying over the East River.

Our ride through the Duat seemed bumpier than usual, like airplane turbulence, except with ghostly wailing and heavy fog. I was glad I’d had a light dinner. My stomach churned.

The boat shuddered as Freak brought us out of the Duat. Below us spread a different nighttime landscape—the lights of Memphis, Tennessee, curving along the banks of the Mississippi River.

On the shoreline rose a glassy black pyramid—an abandoned sports arena that Thoth had appropriated for his home. Bursts of multicolored light peppered the air, reflections rippling across the pyramid. At first I thought Thoth was hosting a fireworks exhibition. Then I realized his pyramid was under attack.

Clambering up the sides was a gruesome assortment of demons—humanoid figures with chicken feet or paws or insect legs. Some had fur. Some had scales or shells like tortoises. Instead of heads, many had weapons or tools sprouting from their necks—hammers, swords, axes, chain saws, even a few screwdrivers.

At least a hundred demons were climbing toward the top, digging their claws into the seams of the glass. Some tried to smash their way through, but wherever they struck, the pyramid flickered with blue light, repelling their attacks. Winged demons swirled through the air, screeching and diving at a small group of defenders.

Thoth stood at the peak. He looked like a scruffy college lab assistant in a white medical coat, jeans, and T-shirt, a day-old beard, and wild Einstein hair—which doesn’t sound very intimidating, but you should see him in combat. He threw glowing hieroglyphs like grenades, causing iridescent explosions all around him. Meanwhile his assistants, a troop of baboons and long-beaked birds called ibises, engaged the enemy. The baboons slammed basketballs into the demons, sending them toppling back down the pyramid. The ibises ran between the monsters’ legs, jabbing their beaks in the most sensitive places they could find.

As we flew closer, I lowered my vision into the Duat. The scene there was even scarier. The demons were connected by red coils of energy that formed one massive translucent serpent. The monster encircled the entire pyramid. At the top, Thoth shone in his ancient form—a giant, white-kilted man with the head of an ibis, hurling bolts of energy at his enemies.

Walt whistled. “How can the mortals not notice a battle like that?”

I wasn’t sure, but I remembered some of the recent disaster news. Huge storms had been causing floods all along the Mississippi River, including here in Memphis. Hundreds of people had been displaced. Magicians might be able to see what was really happening, but any regular mortals still in the city probably thought this was just a major thunderstorm.

“I’ll help Thoth,” I said. “You stay in the boat.”

“No,” Walt said. “Bast said I should use magic only in an emergency. This qualifies.”

I knew Sadie would kill me if I let Walt get hurt. On the other hand, Walt’s tone told me he wasn’t going to back down. He can be almost as stubborn as my sister when he wants to be.

“Fine,” I said. “Hold on.”

A year ago, if I’d faced a fight like this, I would have curled into a ball and tried to hide. Even our battle at the Red Pyramid last Christmas seemed minor compared to dive-bombing an army of demons with no backup except one sick guy and a slightly dysfunctional griffin.

But a lot had happened in the past year. Now this was just another bad day in the life of the Kane family.

Freak came screaming down out of the night sky and banked hard to the right, shooting across the side of the pyramid. He gulped down smaller demons and shredded the larger ones with his buzz-saw wings. Some that survived got run over by our boat.

As Freak began to climb again, Walt and I jumped out, scrambling for footing on the glassy slope. Walt threw an amulet. In a flash of light, a golden sphinx appeared, with a lion’s body and the head of a woman. After our experience at the Dallas Museum, I didn’t much care for sphinxes, but thankfully this one was on our side.

Walt jumped on its back and rode into battle. The sphinx snarled and pounced on a reptilian demon, tearing it to pieces. Other monsters scattered. I couldn’t blame them. A massive gold lion would have been scary enough, but the growling woman’s head made it even more horrifying, with merciless emerald eyes, a shining Egyptian crown, and a fanged mouth with way too much lipstick.

As for me, I summoned my
khopesh
from the Duat. I called on the power of Horus, and the glowing blue avatar of the war god formed around me. Soon I was encased in a twenty-foot-tall hawk-headed apparition.

I stepped forward. The avatar mirrored my movements. I swiped my sword at the nearest demons, and the avatar’s massive glowing blade plowed them down like bowling pins. Two of the monsters actually had bowling pins for heads, so I guess that was appropriate.

The baboons and ibises were slowly making headway against the surge of demons. Freak flew around the pyramid, snapping up winged demons or smacking them out of the air with his boat.

Thoth kept flinging hieroglyphic grenades.

“Bloated!” he cried. The corresponding hieroglyph flew through the air, bursting against a demon’s chest in a spray of light. Instantly, the demon swelled like a water balloon and rolled screaming down the pyramid.

“Flat!” Thoth blasted another demon, who collapsed and shriveled into a monster-shaped doormat.

“Intestinal problems!” Thoth yelled. The poor demon who got zapped with that one turned green and doubled over.

I waded through monsters, tossing them aside and slicing them to dust. Everything was going great until a winged demon did a kamikaze dive into my chest. I toppled backward, slamming against the pyramid with such force that I lost my concentration. My magical armor dissolved. I would’ve skidded all the way down the pyramid if the demon hadn’t grabbed my throat and held me in place.

“Carter Kane,” he hissed. “You are stupidly persistent.”

I recognized that face—like an anatomy-class cadaver with muscle and sinew but no skin. His lidless eyes glowed red. His fangs were bared in a murderous grin.

“You,” I grunted.

“Yes,” the demon chuckled, his claws tightening around my neck. “Me.”

Face of Horror—Set’s lieutenant from the Red Pyramid, and the secret mouthpiece of Apophis. We’d killed him in the shadow of the Washington Monument, but I guess that didn’t mean anything. Now he was back, and, judging by his rasping voice and glowing red eyes, he was still possessed by my least favorite snake.

I didn’t remember his being able to fly, but now leathery bat wings sprouted from his shoulders. He straddled me with his chicken legs, his hands digging into my windpipe. His breath smelled like fermented juice and skunk spray.

“I could have killed you many times,” the demon said. “But you interest me, Carter.”

I tried to fight him off. My arms had turned to lead. I could barely hold my sword.

Around us, the sounds of battle became muted. Freak flew overhead, but his wings beat so sluggishly, I could actually see them. A hieroglyph exploded in slow motion like dye in water. Apophis was dragging me deeper into the Duat.

“I can feel your turmoil,” said the demon. “Why do you fight this hopeless battle? Don’t you realize what will happen?”

Images raced through my mind.

I saw a landscape of shifting hills and fiery geysers. Winged demons turned in the sulfurous sky. Spirits of the dead skittered across the hills, wailing in desperation and clawing for handholds. They were all being pulled in the same direction—toward a blot of darkness on the horizon. Whatever it was, its gravity was as powerful as a black hole. It sucked in the spirits, bending the hills and plumes of fire toward it. Even the demons in the air struggled.

Huddled in the shelter of a cliff, the glowing white form of a woman tried to anchor herself against the dark current. I wanted to cry. The woman was my mother. Other ghosts flew past her, wailing helplessly. My mom tried to reach out, but she couldn’t save them.

The scene shifted. I saw the Egyptian desert at the edge of Cairo under a blazing sun. Suddenly the sands erupted. A giant red serpent rose from the Underworld. He lunged at the sky and somehow, impossibly, swallowed the sun in a single gulp. The world darkened. Frost spread across the dunes. Cracks appeared in the ground. The landscape crumbled. Whole neighborhoods of Cairo sank into chasms. A red ocean of Chaos swelled up from the Nile, dissolving the city and desert, washing away pyramids that had stood for millennia. Soon there was nothing left but a boiling sea under a starless black sky.

“No gods can save you, Carter.” Apophis sounded almost sympathetic. “This fate has been decreed since the beginning of time. Yield to me, and I will spare you and those you love. You will ride the Sea of Chaos. You will be master of your own destiny.”

I saw an island floating across the boiling ocean—a small patch of green earth like an oasis. My family and I could be together on that island. We could survive. We could have anything we wanted just by imagining it. Death would mean nothing.

“All I ask is a token of goodwill,” Apophis urged. “Give me Ra. I know you hate him. He represents everything that is wrong with your mortal world. He has grown senile, rotten, weak, and useless. Surrender him to me. I will spare you. Think on this, Carter Kane. Have the gods promised you anything as fair?”

The visions faded. Face of Horror grinned down at me, but suddenly his features contorted in pain. A fiery hieroglyph burned across his forehead—the symbol for
desiccate
—and the demon crumbled to dust.

I gasped for breath. My throat felt like it was packed with hot coals.

Thoth stood over me, looking grim and tired. His eyes swirled with kaleidoscopic colors, like portals to another world.

“Carter Kane.” He offered me a hand and helped me up.

All the other demons were gone. Walt stood at the peak of the pyramid with the baboons and ibises, who were climbing over the golden sphinx lady like she was a merry-go-round animal. Freak hovered nearby, looking full and happy from eating so many demons.

“You shouldn’t have come,” Thoth chided. He brushed demon dust off his T-shirt, which had a flaming heart logo and the words
HOUSE OF BLUES
. “It was much too dangerous, especially for Walt.”