CARTER

Some minutes after my sister left the room pulling her boyfriend to her room with the excuse of trying to enjoy what was left of Christmas, it would begin the attack on our house. This attack would lead to another destruction of the house and, or I hope at least, another renewal of it. However, before the monsters attack started, before I knew that our attempt to have a quiet day was not going to work, I kept looking at Zia. She was visibly irritated, even worried. I wondered what could be safe to say to her at that moment.

- I.. ahm ... - I started to talk in an insecure way - I noticed that you two walk a little ... angry with each other ... Lately?

"I know ..." Zia sighed and laid onto my shoulder with a slightly sad expression. "I do not want to be bickering with Sadie like that."

I tried to relax the situation a little by letting her lie on my shoulder. I took one of her hands delicately and brought it to my lips giving a light kiss on it. It made her smile slightly at me. However, I could see from her eyes that the situation still worried her a lot, but I think that just by having a smile on her face I can already consider myself a bit victorious.

"Why are you fighting so much lately?" I asked curiously.

"I think she's mad at me for some of the things I said yesterday when she came to dinner ..."

Oh yes, yesterday's dinner. I remember it was one of the few times that Sadie had left the room since Walt had died. I think it was the third or fourth time or something. At the time I was not there, I was in the middle of a little training with Julien who had insisted that he needed to be distracted with something. As a distraction was something that many of us were needing lately, I ended up agreeing. When we stopped for a drink, I remember hearing Sadie screaming at Zia telling her that she knew nothing and that she was judging everything without knowing all the details. Zia had yelled to Sadie saying that Sadie shouldn't say later that she had not warned.

I had tried to ask the two of them exactly what the quarrel had been about, but they both refused to respond. This time I was not going to miss the oportunity, I was going to ask her exactly what had happened between them at dinner yesterday, and that's when I heard the glass from the upstairs windows break.

"It came from Sadie's room!" - it was all I had time to say before one of the windows of the living room also broke and from it jumped on me a snake with horns, front paws and wings.

The surprise apparition of the horned snake took me by surprise, so it was up to Zia to save my life this time.

"Ha-Di!" She shouted using the Egyptian spell of explosion, but that only made the snake deviate from its previous path (which was straight to my neck).

When I was able to take my Kopesh, the Egyptian curved sword, I saw that a second horned snake came from the same window. Also, to make matters worse, a second and third window were broken as well. From each of them came a strange creature that seemed to complete each other. Those two were those creatures common in mythology in which the body was made up of parts of different animals. I could notice that the predominant animal of one would be a dog (but not the cute ones, it was more like the hellish type). While the body was predominantly a dog , it had a human head. The others body was predominantly human and had a dogs head. Both still, to make matters worse, held weapons and seemed eager to test the blade's wire.

That's how the chaos broke out in the Brooklyn house. I was worried about my sister and the apprentices, but those two snakes and two strange monsters were occupying me and Zia. Even because other monsters were quickly appearing but the strongest still seemed to be the first four since we could not get rid of them. Zia and I tried to execute sequences of attacks, she with the spells and me with my sword. But everything we did seemed to be not enough as the number of monsters only increased.

At some point in the confusion, I could see Cleo and Sean running down stairs from a very ugly monster without mouths, ears or lips and followed by threatening-looking shadows. Cleo was casting various fire spells on the monster and its follower shadows, but all it could do was to spread the shadows a little and set the house on fire. After they had finished down the stairs, Sean managed to concentrate enough to try to fight his sword.

I thought for a brief hundredth of a second that I had seen Julien appear from one of the doors holding his sword and being followed by a third horned snake but the ground beneath his feet crumbed. I'm not sure where he fell. I could not see where he fell because at the same time everything collapsed when a strong dragon's tail entered my field of vision. The dragon's tail, which I recognized as being that of Illuyanka, had broken the walls by strongly beating a black thing. This black thing, when it fell over the rubbles filthy with dust, I could see that it was Anubis.

"Nek," he cursed in ancient Egyptian. Note it if you like to learn how to curse in dead languages. I think it's the equivalent of "shit" or something.

"Get away from him! Ha-Di!" Shouted Sadie, sneaking through what was left of the ladder, attacking with the blast spell the great dragon Illuyanka, who had already destroyed almost our entire house.

The dragon apparently did not like that and then decided that Sadie would be an interesting target. I cried out as I saw the dragon's mouth go towards my sister. I wanted to do something but it was a little far away and the brief distraction made a nasty claw monster grab me by the neck. The monster threw me against the wall as I tried to get rid of it to save my sister. I managed to cut off the monster's arm and get rid of it, but I saw it took too long. However, to my delight, Anubis did not take too long. He dissolved into a black smoke that quickly went to Sadie before the dragon made her a toothpick. In a blink of an eye she was there in front of the dragon surrounded by a black smoke and in the other she was a few meters from me in a safer place.

"Thank you," I heard Sadie said. Anubis did not answer back, just nodded and wiped the ... Blood? ... That dripped from his head from where he'd probably gotten beaten by Illuyanka. Well ... I suppose it was blood because it was kind of different. Not "kind of", very much different. Sadie also noticed and asked what I thought. "What's that running out of your head?"

"Ahm ... I think it's the closest to being called blood." Anubis answered. "A few more seconds, and the cut must close."

"Wait, your blood is silver?" Asked Sadie.

" I DO NOT REALLY THINK IT'S TIME FOR THAT!" Zia shouted nervously as she beheaded a monster. I have to admit that I agreed with her.

"And the Greeks are golden. You get used to it, "answered Anubis as he held the face of one of those partially dog monsters I mentioned earlier and pulverized it.

Zia and I got rid of some of the monsters around us, I thought about how we needed to organize better, think of some strategy, anything that would control that mess. I could no longer see where Cleo, Julien, and Sean were, and that worried me. I think Zia thought the same as I did because she used her great affinity with fire spells to suck out the fire that Cleo had scattered around the house and then used it to attack as many monsters as possible. With this, we managed to get rid of the weak ones and I could see that our three apprentices were fighting against some monsters while protecting themselves with Cleo's magic shield. They looked tired and bruised, but they were alive.

Since our true and biggest problem still seemed to be that stupid dragon, Illuyanka, I think Anubis took as his charge defeating him since he was immortal and all. He dissolved into black smoke and took advantage of the distraction that the fire made to run towards him. Linen strips used to curl mummies tried to limit the reach of the dragon's attacks and I'm not sure if it was the linen strips or Anubis fighting with the dragon, but parts of the it's body seemed to begin to age and then to putrefy. The tip of the tail for example, was just bone and dead flesh. Meanwhile, despite all this, the dragon still seemed well enough to fight. It was then that Illuyanka managed to snatch Anubis and threw him up high. I heard Sadie's scream of concern echo as I was busy cutting in half, from head to tail, one of those horned snakes.

"Relax, he's immortal. Remember?" Zia said as she formed a barrier of fire burning any monster that tried to reach behind my back. Though she had said that, Zia did not seem to be hoping for Anubis's safety. It may be my imagination, but when he was high up, I think I saw the image of Anubis fail like an old television. But it can be just imagination, since I was very busy.

Following the example of our apprentices who were fighting the three together, Zia and I joined, but Sadie seemed lost and she was still alone among the monsters since Anubis was in a very complicated situation and she did not seem to be concentrating enough to get rid of the monsters with their spells because of it. My heart stopped as one of the walls shadows literally turned into a monster and grabbed my sister ready to break her neck.

"SADIE!" Was all I could scream as I noticed, for the second time in a day, my inefficiency as older brother when I saw my sister in distress again and I was, again, too far away and too busy to help her.

To my delight, again, someone else has decided to do the honors of saving my sister. An arrow cut the air from afar and hit the monster on the head. I think that the arrow even had a little light of its own. I wondered at the existence of the arrow and followed with my eyes the place from which it seemed to have come from and I saw a boy with black hair holding a sword that gave me shivers and a blond boy who was probably the savior of my sister since he held a bow and was preparing to shoot a second arrow.

We did not have exactly a lot of time to talk, but it was nice to have two people joining the fight on our side for a change as it seemed that monsters and more monsters did not stop appearing. I'm not sure who they were, introductions would come later.

The fight was unfolding and we were not on the winning side. I saw that Cleo was already on her knees, unable to hold the shield for long, and that Sean and Julien were badly hurt. Zia seemed to be holding herself so she would not faint after using so much magic. I was not much better while I almost gave in to exhaustion. Sadie was with the two surprise-help-boys, and the three of them, especially Sadie, looked very tired as well.

"What did I say about invoking the undead, Nico ?!" I heard the blond boy complain. As I looked, I noticed that the black-haired boy, who I now imagine is Nico, had actually invoked the undead. I thought about how strange it was, I had not seen anyone do it unless one followed the path of Anubis. Path that only Walt had followed. Anubis, who was now fighting a half-necked dragon. Invoking the living dead, Nico looked even more tired than before.

I do not quite know how it happened, but at one point in the fight there was me, Zia, Sadie, Cleo, Sean, Julien, Nico and the blond boy together in the center of what used to be our living room. Anubis continued to prevent Illuyanka from crushing ugly ants and the living dead soldiers invoked by Nico were scattered around.

"That is not working very well, there are too many monsters!" Cleo said as, with her legs wobbly, conjuring a small magic shield that prevented a monster from hitting the ax on Nico's head, who soon took the chance to behead the monster.

"We have to think of something," said the blond boy.

"I think I have an idea," Sadie said, looking at Anubis in the distance. "HEY! ANUBIS, I HAVE AN IDEA AND I NEED YOUR HELP!" She shouted at him.

"I ACCEPT ANYTHING!" He shouted back.

"WHAT HAPPENS WHEN A PORTAL CLOSED WITH SOMETHING IN THE MIDDLE OF IT?" Sadie shouted back.

"What?" Julien asked, expressing what I thought too.

Anubis, however, did not seem to need anything more to know what Sadie wanted. He pointed in our direction and a portal appeared behind us. At the time I wondered if Sadie's plan was to just run away, but then I understood the meaning of her words. Besides, I'd bet the monsters would chase us even if we ran away.

"Fast! Go through the portal!" I screamed as I kept the strange mouth-less monster out of the way.

Sean and Cleo were practically carrying each other through the portal as Zia and me were guaranteeing their safety. It was then that a female monster attacked me. It was not a physical strike like a punch. I don't know how to describe it. I felt weak, very weak, with my body burning and the force abandoning me completely.

"Hold it, hold it!" It was the last thing I heard Nico say when he grabbed me before I fainted.