Early the next morning, Machaela woke to the strangest greeting she never expected to hear.
"Ha-llloooooooo!"
She covered her head with a pillow. Today was her late day: her only day to sleep in. Who in this house was making noise?
"Weasels, weasels, weasels!"
She groaned into her pillow, recognizing the voice. The last time the owner of that voice had been there was the previous March, and she doubted they would be quiet any time soon. She may as well get up.
"Lord Ra!" came Bast's voice. "Lord Ra, come back downstairs!"
Ugh. Bast was on babysitting (or was it godsitting?) duty. Something must be up if he wasn't with Zia again.
Growling about having to get up early, she got dressed and wandered downstairs.
Jesse bustled about the Great Room, gathering school materials for his earliest morning of the week. He chuckled at her bedhead but didn't speak after seeing her mood. Jesse didn't like mornings any more than she did, but he had planned to be up early. Machaela, on the other hand, had planned to be able to sleep in. Her half-hearted growl at Jesse when he got between her and the fridge said it all, and he backed off until she had something to munch on.
Ten minutes later, with Machaela starting to wake up, Jesse meandered over, having finished getting ready to leave.
"Why is Ra here?" Machaela mumbled, barely awake enough to talk.
Jesse shrugged. "Bast hissed her way downstairs this morning, grumbling. Apparently, Amos called asking her for a favor. Zia's unavailable and everyone else was otherwise occupied, so Ra came here."
She didn't reply, taking another bite of her morning snack and watching everyone hustle around. Ra, dressed only in a loincloth, bounced from one room to another like a six-year-old high on sugar, and Bast followed to keep him out of various things. She eventually gave him some cookies, maybe hoping he would sit down to eat them. No such luck, though. He stored them in his loincloth for later (gross) and continued bouncing like a rabbit.
As annoyed as she was at his racket, Machaela had to admit Bast's frustration was rather funny. Usually, the cat goddess avoided anything resembling work, but the eccentric sun god proved to be a handful—a very noisy handful. Machaela even considered going to school early just to get away from the incessant noise. At least there, she could hang out with a few of her friends.
She was pondering the pros and cons of this idea when a jumble of flowerpots in the corner came to life.
Red clay flowerpots had been glued together with string, duct tape, and a hefty bit of magic. The jumble of pots had been laying in the corner for days, but now the pots stood in a vaguely humanoid manner, shook itself off, and started moving around. After eyeing the rest of the initiates bustling about, the flower-pot-shabti turned around to see Jesse and Machaela staring at it.
"Ah!" Sadie's voice echoed inside the top pot, one turned upside down with a smiley face drawn in permanent marker. "Is Carter back yet?"
Machaela had trouble controlling her expression and didn't answer immediately. Sadie had no talent with shabtis, but at some point, she had decided she could create the perfect shabti that would do all her chores like a remote-controlled robot.
Her first attempt had actually exploded, but her second attempt had been a googly-eyed Thermos. While it hadn't exploded, it had still backfired—majorly. The Thermos levitated around the room, chasing people and yelling, "Exterminate!" and Machaela hadn't been able to catch it yet to deactivate it.
After the levitating Thermos, Machaela had offered to help Sadie make a shabti, but no, Sadie wanted to do it herself. She had crafted the flower-pot-contraption a few days before, naming it Sadie Junior, but hadn't activated it yet.
"No, he's not here," Jesse answered.
"How about you go wait in Carter's room?" Machaela asked. "We'll send him up as soon as he gets here."
Sadie Junior clomped her way up the stairs, and Jesse chased down Bast to tell her the news.
After her harried acknowledgement while trying to prevent the sun god from jumping off the terrace, Jesse wandered back inside to search for his sister. She stepped out of a room on the third floor to get his attention, and he went up to see what she was doing.
"What are you doing?" he asked. She looked more awake, but he hadn't expected to find her in Felix's room.
"Has Felix not been pranking you recently?" she asked as she ran wires around. "He's been booby-trapping my room all week! If I can't go back to bed, I may as well get some payback."
Jesse shrugged. "Of course he's pranked me. I just haven't figured out a good payback prank."
She grinned at him. "Then help me with this. Here, set this up on his closet door."
She handed him one of their simpler pranks: one door opens and another door closes. He started running the wire from a hidden part of the closet door over to the back of a light switch, rigging it so that turning on the closet light would close the door. She went back to rigging his lamp.
They were nearly done when they heard footsteps outside. The footsteps went into the neighboring room, and they heard Carter and Sadie Junior start talking, though they couldn't understand what was discussed.
A few minutes later, they clearly heard Sadie's sign off, and Carter, Walt, and Bast started talking on the balcony outside Carter's room. The siblings could hear them clearly.
Carter outlined a plan to visit the Hall of Judgement that night and collect Setne, but Bast immediately protested.
She had a good point. Setne was easily one of the most evil magicians in Egypt's history. He was a pathological liar, a scoundrel, a traitor, a thief, and (unfortunately) a brilliant magician. He had created irreversible curses and unearthed secrets that should have stayed hidden. Towards the end of his life, he had even stolen the Book of Thoth, with the intent to make himself immortal. Fortunately, he died before he could blackmail the gods with his knowledge, but had escaped judgement over and over through the millennia. Setne would, in all probability, betray Carter and Sadie and leave them for dead.
However, according to Carter, he was their only shot. Only he now had the knowledge they had lost to Apophis' attack in Dallas.
Bast promised to guard the entrance to the First Nome, but Carter pointed out the rebel attack.
"Amos needs magicians who know the path of the gods," he said. "He needs us. All of us."
"You mean, abandon Brooklyn House," Walt said, digesting the idea.
"Carter," Bast told him, "they're not ready."
"They have to be," Carter stressed. "If the First Nome falls, it's all over. Apophis will attack us in Egypt, at the source of our power. We have to stand together with the Chief Lector."
"One last battle." Walt sounded crestfallen. "Should we break the news to the others?"
"Not yet." Carter paused, maybe thinking. "The rebel magicians' attack on the First Nome won't happen until tomorrow. Let the kids have one last day at school. Bast, when they come home this afternoon, I want you to lead them to Egypt. Use Freak, use whatever magic you have to. If all goes well in the Underworld, Sadie and I will join you before the attack."
Machaela suppressed a snort. If all goes well… Yeah, that happens a lot.
Bast agreed. "What about Ra?" she asked next. "If Apophis is going to attack in two days…"
Jesse glanced at his sister. Ra would have to keep making his nightly journey, of course, but nobody was really sure how Ra was supposed to beat Apophis while dressed in a loincloth and talking about weasel cookies. Would he become himself again upon facing Apophis? Or would Apophis face no challenge in swallowing the sun? There was no way to know. They could only fight for what they believed in.
"Use today to organize," they heard Carter tell the others. "Gather up the most valuable scrolls, amulets, weapons—anything we can use to help the First Nome. Let Amos know you're coming. Walt and I will head to the Underworld and meet Sadie. We'll rendezvous with you in Cairo."
As Carter finished his discussion on the balcony, Machaela held her brother's gaze, communicating in a way only siblings can.
Do you have anything important today?
Nothing I can't make up later. You?
Nope.
He glanced around the booby-trapped room. We should probably take this down…
Machaela pouted, but agreed. If they were going to war that night, it wouldn't do to play a prank right before leaving. Besides, if they weren't going to school that day, they would need to focus on preparing instead of anticipating a prank. They could (and would) get their revenge after Doomsday was exterminated.
Heh, Doomsday exterminated. Machaela allowed a half-hearted chuckle at the pun.
Taking the pranks apart was much faster than putting them up, and they had the room back to normal before Carter and Walt left. They stepped outside Felix's room to find Bast trying to corral Ra back downstairs.
She froze a moment upon noticing them. "What were you doing in there?" she asked suspiciously.
Machaela shrugged. "We were going to play a payback prank on Felix, but we accidentally heard that whole conference."
"We'll stay home from school today," Jesse continued. "You're going to need help gathering stuff for tonight."
Bast tried to protest, saying she'd be fine, but Machaela shook her head, eyeing the old god gumming a doorknob with intent to kill. "You're watching Ra all day. Let us help. You'll need to have weapons, amulets, and other magic implements gathered, expand Freak's boat, and have a bunch of other stuff ready for when the others get home from school tonight. We don't have anything at school that we can't make up later, and tomorrow's the weekend. Don't worry about it."
She stared at them for a moment, deciding whether to argue more. Then Ra switched focus from gumming the doorknob to trying to climb the railing.
"Lord Ra!" Bast cried, almost physically pulling the senile god back to solid floor. "Lord Ra, stay on the floor!" With Ra safely off the third story railing, she directed her attention back to the siblings. "Fine. Jesse? Start going through the library for spells and amulets. Machaela? Freak's boat dissolved this morning. Try to figure out a way to get all the trainees to Egypt."
"On it," they said in unison, and split up to do their jobs.
And here's the newest chapter! Hope everyone enjoyed it. Don't forget to review!
Thanks to Shadowdragon9802 for your review of last chapter