Carter
Percy lead us past the camp's borders to the farm road where a white van was waiting. "Delphi Strawberry Service?" I asked.
"Cover name." Percy supplied as we met the van and its driver
"This is Argus, our head of security. He will be driving us to your camp. Argus, this is Carter Kane. He is an Egyptian Demigod." Annabeth said.
"Godling. Egyptian Demigods don't exist." I spoke up stupidly. (") Sorry, it bugs me when people get facts wrong. I also tend to ramble when I met people that are covered in eyeballs.(")
Horus kept going on and on with his warnings. "Don't trust them. Tell them nothing. Guard our secrets."
What secrets haven't they already uncovered? Setne forced our hand about the existence of our gods. They already knew about the queen and I had just spilled my guts about Sadie and my adventures. Plus, we were on our way to Brooklyn house. Gods make no sense sometimes.
I kept glancing at my new companions trailing behind me and we climbed into the van. "Carter, you will have to give Argus some directions to your camp. The Mist will likely obscure the view of your camp from the road so he'll need precise directions." Annabeth said.
I shook my head. " Take us to the Metropolitan Museum of Art please."
Percy frowned. "Your camp is in Brooklyn. Why are we going to the Upper East side of Manhattan?"
"You have to fly into Brooklyn house, you can't drive there. "
"So we should have used the Pegasi instead?" Percy asked.
"No, we have portals to Brooklyn house. Nearest one is in the Met."
He nodded and took Annabeth's hand.
Argus dropped us off at the museum and winked goodbye.
We walked past the ticket office and made our way inside. Thankfully, no one paid us much mind and we made our way to the Egyptian gallery. I admit, we were trying to be in a hurry but I kept stopping every few feet to look at the art. Thousands of years worth of history and art decorated the walls. Every so often Annabeth and Percy looked around.
"Beautiful." Annabeth murmured.
I smirked. "And I thought the Greeks were the artists of the ancient world."
She looked at me.
(")Awkward.(")
I lead them down to Gallery room 123. One of my personal favorites. The entire room was dedicated to Ramesses The Great. Mom's great times a million grandfather. He was one of dad's favorite pharaohs too. Even the Christians knew his name from the story of Moses and the Exodus. Unfortunately, he was well known by both friend and foe.
Percy eyed a statue of the pharaoh. "Nice hat."
I rolled my eyes. "It's a double crown. A Pschent. The crown of united Egypt. The red part is a Deshret, crown of lower Egypt. The white part is a Hedjet, crown of Upper Egypt."
Annabeth nodded. "Narmer united the two parts of Egypt. Commemorated in the Narmer Palette. "
Percy looked between us. "Riiight. So, why do we care about some dead pharaoh?"
I scowled. "I'm blood related to Narmer. He matters to me. The Pschent is important. Serapis mentioned a crown. What other crown would he care about?"
Annabeth smirked at Percy.
"Fine." Percy relented. "Why are we in this room?"
I pointed to the obelisk near the pharaoh's statue. "My dad is a descendant of Narmer, my mom is a descendant of Ramesses The Great here. We can use any object from Ancient Egypt to make a portal but Setne is very good at chaos. He could mess with portals and we would end up as bits of sand in the Duat. This is a statue of a friendly pharaoh I guess you'd say. He hosted the god Ra. Using his stuff to make a portal should help prevent anything bad from happening."
"So, good Juju?" Percy asked.
Annabeth nudged him. "So how do we open the portal?"
I put my hands on the obelisk and closed my eyes to concentrate. "They can be opened during auspicious times like high noon in a 3 minutes. Sadie is much better at this than me."
(") Yeah, yeah, sis. Don't gloat.(")
I focused in on my memories of the swirling sands.
(") Horus?(")
"Hello, Carter."
(") Need some help with a portal.(")
"And you called me?"
(") Dude, I'm not good at this.(")
"And yet, you are a teacher, Carter."
(") Zia teaches the section on portals.(")
"Use your powers and your mind, Carter. A General does not face battle imagining his defeat. He sees victory in his mind's eye and the victory comes to life."
I snorted. (") Thank you, Caesar.(")
"Don't call me by that stulte's name. The fatue destroyed our empire. He and that pathetic excuse for a queen."
(") Cleopatra?(")
The voice faded and my senses tingled, telling me that it was high noon. I concentrated and tried to imagine the portal that I wanted to open. Immediately, the obelisk spewed swirling sands and darkened.
Percy made a sound like someone pulling a cat's tail and took a step back. "What the creeping crud is that?"
"That is our portal, Percy."
Annabeth frowned. "Did you just pull one up?"
I shook my head. "Horus made the connection for me in the Duat. Kind of like an ancient phone line. He was acting as the operator and switching the phone lines around." I gestured to the swirling sands. "I'll go first." And I jumped in.
My sight went black and then opened up in the middle of the great room. I got up quickly and waited for Annabeth and Percy to arrive... Within moments, Percy and Annabeth tumbled out of the base of the statue behind me. They took a moment to get their bearings and looked around.
Annabeth gasped and Percy looked around impressed. "Wow."
I smirked. "Yeah, Sadie and I felt the same way when we first arrived. Took some getting used to."
"Yeah, you should have seen him. His jaw was on the floor. He couldn't form words to talk so he just kept making squeaky sounds like a mouse being stepped on. It was really cute." A voice echoed.
"Sadie." I called.
"And after that, Khufu showed us to our rooms, and the poor boy fell flat on his face on the way down the hall. It was so funny."
"Sadie!"
Soft giggling came from the middle couch and I strode over, took a pillow from the nearest couch and whacked her gently over her head.
"Hey!" She yelled.
I pulled her from the couch and hugged her tightly. "I was worried about you."
"Can't breathe." She mumbled.
"Sorry."
I noticed the room was quiet and looked up. Percy was holding back a smirk and Annabeth just smiled.
"Um, right." I said. " Think I should get the⦠others."
I looked around and saw various people. Walt was hanging by the door to the kitchen. Alyssa, Cleo, Jullian, Jaz and our older initiates were hovering on the stairs. The younger kids like Shelby were hiding behind the statues.
"You can come out, guys. I don't think they'll bite."
Shelby peaked out from behind the statue of Thoth and grinned, showing off her missing front teeth. "Hi."
Annabeth smiled. "Hi, Cutie."
A thumping sound proceeded down the steps and Sadie's cat Muffin padded over to Annabeth and Percy. Muffin ran over and began sniffing their feet.
I shrugged. "Safety inspection."
Annabeth bent down and petted Muffin who in return brushed against her leg, purring contently. "Pretty cat. Egyptian?"
"Bronze Egyptian Mau. She's Sadie's." I answered.
"She's pretty." Annabeth said.
"Mew?" Muffin responded and head-butted Annabeth's leg.
Percy laughed. "Someone likes you, Annabeth."
"I like cats." She said.
Sadie and I looked at each other. "That's good." We said simultaneously.
Percy frowned confused and Annabeth explained. "The Egyptians had a cat goddess. Bastet I believe."
Muffin yawned. "You're a clever one, dear. Bastet was from the old kingdom. Bast is much more easier to say."
They froze and I stifled a laugh.
Annabeth looked down at Muffin. "Kitty?"
Percy blinked. "The cat talked."
(") Oh, he's brilliant.(")
Muffin inclined her head and winked. "Hello, dear."
Muffin looked back at me and nodded. "Safety inspection finished."
She then backed away and changed into human form. A tall, lithe woman wearing a leopard cat suit. She smirked at the Greeks and wandered off into the kitchen.
Walt spoke up. "So, uh, lunch is ready."
We sat around the dining table on the balcony and stared in amazement. Percy was working on third chicken wing and showed no signs of slowing down. He had already inhaled a large pizza, an apple pie and was single handily destroying the bucket of KFC. Where he put it all, I don't know. Maybe his stomach was partly in the Duat, ever expanding to compensate. Shelby was giggling about it and Felix was back to making mashed potato penguins again and making them come to life in order to secure some cherry pie before he had finished his snow peas.
"Felix, the stealth penguins are not working, finish your dinner first then we'll see about dessert." Walt explained.
"Awww, no far." Felix moaned.
Annabeth concentrated. "So let me see if I have this all straight. Alyssa is connected to Geb, the Egyptian personification of the earth. Geb is a he and he is friendly towards gods and mortals. Felix draws power from some ice god and likes magic penguins. Jaz is a healer and is connected to Sekhmet, the goddess of famine. Cleo is the librarian and is connected to Thoth, god of knowledge. Sean has not decided on a path yet, neither has Shelby, Liliana, Talibah or Adom. Walt is hosting Anubis, god of funerals. Um, Julian follows Horus, Carter is hosting Horus, god of the sky. Sadie is hosting Isis, goddess of magic and Zia is hosting Ra's aspect of rebirth." She took a breath. "Think I've got it all figured out."
"And the two of you are what exactly?" Cleo asked.
Percy put down the chicken wing. (")About time, am I right?(")
"We are demigods. One parent is mortal and one isn't. Uh, my mom works in a candy story and my dad is Poseidon, god of the sea. "
Annabeth took his hand. "My dad is a history professor and my mom is Athena, goddess of wisdom and battle strategy. Demigods are mortal but we have powers related to our parents. Like, I'm good at planning things and fighting. Percy can breathe underwater and control water."
The hair on the back of my neck stood up as I thought back to our fight against the petsuchos. Percy walked through the swamp with ease whereas I fell. He summoned the wave that hit me, and he created that monster of a hurricane. He was no water elementist at all. He wasn't hosting a god. He was born that way.
There was a moment of silence before Felix piped. "Cool!"
"So, uh, I think we should discuss what to do with Setne and Serapis seeing as how they involve both of our mythologies." I said.
They both nodded.
"The, uh, prophecy that our oracle gave us mentioned Egypt and Setne's plan to become a god. It also mentioned waking the queen and finding the crown.. Do you know where they are?"
I looked at Walt and Sadie, searching their faces for some kind of answer. Sadie always said she didn't want to be the leader but at the same time, I didn't want to make every decision for Brooklyn house on my own. Walt was someone I could count on to help with the hard decisions. He looked at me and nodded before he said. "The queen is upstairs in our infirmary. We are not sure how to wake her yet. The crown... We have not seen it since Alexander the Great invaded Egypt. He stole the crown and passed it on to his general at the time of his death. It passed through his bloodline until Cleopatra the seventh gave everything over to the Romans. It has not been seen since."
"So the Romans have it." Percy suggested.
"We assume so but we can't prove it. Though they stole everything else, why not that?" Liliana asked.
Annabeth shrugged. "They took the Athena Parthenos and burned the Library of Alexandria. It would make sense. Maybe the queen knows where it is. She's old enough to live through that time period, maybe she has the answers. I mean, she's been sleeping but even demigods have visions when we dream."
I glanced at the New York skyline.
(")Speaking of dreams, that night I had one of the worst since Dad disappeared and Set tried to take over.
I felt myself rise out of my body and float through the ceiling and into the Duat. Normally, the enchanted headrest keeps our Ba attached to the body but sometimes when it felt urgent, I allowed myself to flow with the current. After doing it a few times before, it wasn't scary anymore. I felt myself being pulled around in the Duat and spit out again. I looked around and tried to process what I was seeing. Black sky, dotted with stars. The ground covered with sand. A hot gust of wind hit my face and ruffled the feathers on my wings. I was in Egypt. The Trajan's Kiosk lit up in the background and I knew I was at the island of Philae. Something else I noticed. My body burned with power and I realized I was again, a guest in the body of Horus.
(") Hello, Horus.(")
"Carter."
(") What am I doing here?(")
"Setne seeks the tomb of my father for the spell to become living. The book of Thoth can give him the spell to become a god, but the dead may not cast that spell. It has to be done by the living. He plans to use you to find the tomb."
(") But I don't know where the tomb of Osiris is! No one does, it is a legend! It's just some... myth.(") The realization hit in the face like a ton of bricks.
"There is truth in legend, Carter. Only mother knows its true location. It is her most treasured secret. She will never lead you to the tomb if you work alongside the foreigners. The Greeks however, can lead you to the crown. You will not have the time needed to stop Setne and Serapis. Choose wisely."
Author's Note: Oh come on, I had to throw some type of monkey wrench in there somewhere. It's not fun if it isn't challenging. Next week is Percy's POV. More Sass and snarky-ness.
To the new followers, welcome. Thanks you all who reviewed chapter 8.
Um, If at any time, you want to see something in a later chapter, pm me or leave the comment as a review. So far, I've been able to add in every request.
So the latin translations from earlier are. : Stulte= idiot. Fatue=fool.
Howtobook101: Thanks. He's a history dork and so am I so, It's pretty easy to geek out.
Lastly, I don't know if you guys know but since most readers seem to be PJ fans, thought you should know that Rick has an app out called Demigods of Olympus for iphone/ipad. Bunch of cool short stories where you get to be the demigod and you control the story through various choices you make. I'm addicted to it.
