Isis
I'm impressed with Sadie. In a moment like this, every other human would be terrified. Instead, she chooses to be angry with Carter.
I can't believe the way he treated my bird problem! Honestly, I thought I will be a kite forever, suffocating inside a little feathery prison. And he had the nerve to make fun!
We race along in the cold rain. Trying not on to slip om the wet pavement, Sadie glances back. Two man with shaved heads and black raincoats are chasing after us. As if the swarm of bats on our heels isn't enough. Each magician carries a glowing staff.
Not a good sign.
It's a torture to keep running. Sadie's stomach still feels queasy from eating one of the bats.
Not my idea! Totally a defensive instinct!
"Sadie," Bast calls as we ran. "You'll have only seconds to open the portal."
"Where is it?" Sadie yells back.
We dash cross rue de Rivoli int a wide plaza. Bast heads straight for the glass pyramid at the entrance.
"You can't be serious," Sadie says. "That isn't a real pyramid."
"Of course it's real," Bast tells her. "The shape gives a pyramid its power. It is a ramp to the heavens."
The bats have officially caught up to us. They bite and scratch at any exposed skin they can find. The more of the creatures come, the harder it gets to see or move.
Carter reaches for his sword, then swears when it's not there. He'd lost it at Luxor. He reaches inside the workbag.
"Don't slow down!" Bast warns.
Carter pulls out his wand. I don't see what he can do with it. In his frustration, Carter decides to throw the wand at a bat. The wand glows white-hot and hits the bat on the head, knocking it out of the air. I raise an eyebrow as the wand ricochets through the swarm, killing at least ten of the bats, before returning to Carter's hand. No wonder Horus chose him. That's exactly the type of thing my son would come up with.
"Not bad," Sadie says. "Keep it up!"
We reach the base of the pyramid.
Thank god the plaza is empty. The last thing I want is my embarrassing death by fruit bats posted on YouTube.
"One minute until sundown," Bast warns. "Our last chance for summoning is now."
Better hurry then. Bast unsheathes her knives and starts slicing the bats, keeping them at a distance. Carter's wand-throwing technique seems to be working rather well, too. Sadie faces the pyramid. She tries to concentrate on the portal, but it's hard with all those bats around. Our time is running out.
"Where do you wish to go?" I ask her.
God, I don't care! America!
My question punches through her walls, let's her finally feel those past two days. She's crying. Where does she want to go? Home, of course. Back to her life. Back to everything she had wished so many times to escape from. But then she thinks about her father, about defeating Set.
America! She thinks. Now!
Her burst of emotions does the job. It fuels her magic and directs it towards a single goal. The pyramid begins to tremble. The top of the structure begins to glow.
The good news: A portal opens, all right.
The bad news? It's hovering above the very top of the pyramid.
"Climb!" Bast says.
"The side is too steep!" Carter objects.
The magicians are closing in now, unbothered by the raging bats.
"I'll toss you," Bast says.
"Excuse me?" Carter protests, but Bast picks him up and tosses him up the side of the pyramid. He skitters to the top and slips straight through the portal.
"Now you, Sadie," Bast says. "Come on!"
Before she could move, one of the magicians yells "Stop!".
Sadie freezes. The men are approaching.
"Surrender, Miss Kane," says the taller one, "And return our master's property."
"Sadie, don't listen," Bast warns. "Come here."
"The cat goddess deceives you," the magician continues. "She abandoned her post. She endangered us all. She will lead you to ruin."
For Ma'at's sake, we don't have the time for that! Sadie hesitates. She turns to Bast. The goddess looks wounded, even grief-stricken.
"What does he mean?" Sadie asks her. "What did you do wrong?"
"We have to leave," Bast warns again. "Or they will kill us."
Sadie looks at the portal, still hesitant. But her brother had already gone through. That decides it.
"Toss me."
Bast grabs Sadie. "See you in America."
Then she chucks her up the side of the pyramid.
A magician roars "Surrender!". An explosion rattles the glass next to us. Then we plunge into the hot vortex of sand.
We wake up in a small room with industrial carpeting, boring gray walls and metal-framed windows. Sadie sits up groggily.
"Ugh," Sadie says. "Where are we?"
Carter and Bast stand by the window.
"You've got to see this view," Carter says.
Sadie gets up shakily and nearly falls down again when she realises how high we are.
There is an entire city spread out below us. A river flows lazily to our left. There are white government buildings clustered around networks of parks and streets. The sun is shining above us. It's still afternoon here, so we must've travelled west. While looking around, Sadie spots an oddly familiar building.
"Is that...the White House?"
Carter nods. "You got us to America, all right. Washington, D.C."
"But we're sky high!"
Bast chuckles. "You didn't specify any particular American city, did you?"
"Well...no."
"So you got the default portal for the U.S.—the largest single source of Egyptian power in North America."
Sadie stares at her uncomprehendingly.
"The biggest obelisk ever constructed," Bast explains. "The Washington Monument."
The world spins again. Sadie steps away from the window. Carter grabs her shoulder and helps her sit down.
"You should rest," he says. "You passed out for...how long, Bast?"
"Two hours and thirty-two minutes," she says. "I'm sorry, Sadie. Opening more than one portal a day is extremely taxing, even with Isis helping."
Carter frowns. "But we need her to do it again, right? It's not sunset here yet. We can still use portals. Let's open one and get to Arizona. That's where Set is."
Bast purses her lips. "Sadie can't summon another portal. It would overextend her powers. I don't have the talent. And you, Carter...well, your abilities lie elsewhere. No offense."
"Oh, no," he grumbles. "I'm sure you'll call me next time you need to boomerang some fruit bats."
"Besides," Bast says, "when a portal is used, it needs time to cool down. No one will be able to use the Washington Monument—"
"For another twelve hours." Carter curses. "I forgot about that."
Bast nods. "And by then, the Demon Days will have begun."
"So we need another way to Arizona."
Sadie glances at Bast. She's afraid to ask what the men at the Louvre were talking about, but it seems to important to write off.
Maybe she'll tell us on her own?
"At least those magicians can't follow us," Sadie prompts.
Bast hesitates. "Not through the portal, no. But there are other magicians in America. And worse...Set's minions."
Yeah, that's not good.
"What about Thoth's spellbook?" Sadie asks. "Did we at least find a way to fight Set?"
Carter points to the corner of the room. Julius's magic toolbox is spread out on Bast's raincoat. Next to it, is the blue book we stole from Desjardins.
"Maybe you can make sense of it," Carter says. "Bast and I couldn't read it. Even Doughboy was stumped."
Sadie picks up the book. It's a scroll, folded into three sections. The papyrus is so old it looks like it's about to crumble to dust. The hieroglyphs are protected by one of Thoth's favourite spells – until we're in front of Set, no one will be able to read it.
Isis? Sadie asks. A little help?
I try to answer, but my own power is wearing thin. Sadie closes the book in frustration.
"All that work for nothing."
"Now, now," Bast says. "It's not so bad."
"Right," Sadie says. "We're stuck in Washington, D.C. We have two days to make it to Arizona and stop a god we don't know how to stop. And if we can't, we'll never see our dad or Amos again, and the world might end."
"That's the spirit!" Bast says brightly. "Now, let's have a picnic."
She snaps her fingers. The air shimmers, and a pile of Friskies cans and two jugs of milk appear on the carpet.
"Um," Carter says, "can you conjure any people food?"
Bast blinks. "Well, no accounting for taste."
The air shimmers again. A plate of grilled cheese sandwiches and crisps appear, along with a six-pack of Coke.
"Yum," Sadie says.
Carter mutters something under his breath and picks up a sandwich.
"We should leave soon," he says between bites. "I mean...tourists and all."
Bast shakes her head. "The Washington Monument closes at six o'clock. The tourists are gone now. We might as well stay the night. If we must travel during the Demon Days, best to do it in daylight hours."
No one talks anymore during dinner. Bast makes the whole place smell like fish Friskies. As if that's not enough, she then proceeds to lick her hand.
"Could you not do that?" Sadie asks. "It's disturbing."
"Oh." Bast smiles. "Sorry."
Sadie closes her eyes and leans against the wall. She tries to rest, but the room sends a tremble through her scull. It's so strong, that it takes me a second to remember where we are.
Sadie opens her eyes and sits up. "What is that? The wind?"
"Magic energy," Bast says. "I told you, this is a powerful monument."
"But it's modern. Like the Louvre pyramid. Why is it magic?"
"The Ancient Egyptians were excellent builders, Sadie. They picked shapes—obelisks, pyramids—that were charged with symbolic magic. An obelisk represents a sunbeam frozen in stone—a life-giving ray from the original king of the gods, Ra. It doesn't matter when the structure was built: it is still Egyptian. That's why any obelisk can be used for opening gates to the Duat, or releasing great beings of power—"
"Or trapping them," Sadie says. "The way you were trapped in Cleopatra's Needle."
Bast's expression darkens. "I wasn't actually trapped in the obelisk. My prison was a magically created abyss deep in the Duat, and the obelisk was the door your parents used to release me. But, yes. All symbols of Egypt are concentrated nodes of magic power. So an obelisk can definitely be used to imprison gods."
A though starts forming in Sadie's head. Something about Ruby and Cleopatra's Needle and her father promising he'd make things right. Something about what the French magician had said. Even though she'll need to learn everything eventually, a part of me wishes Sadie will just let it be, Alas, she asks:
"The magician said you abandoned your post. What did he mean?"
Carter frowns. "When was this?"
Sadie tells him what happened after Bast chucked him through the portal. When Sadie's done, Bast is stacking her empty Friskies cans. She doesn't look eager to reply.
"When I was imprisoned," she says at last, "I—I wasn't alone. I was locked inside with a...creature of chaos."
"Is that bad?" Sadie asks.
Oh, dear, you have no idea.
"Magicians often do this," Bast continues. But it wasn't a magician who locked her there, was it? "Lock a god up together with a monster so we have no time to try escaping our prison. For eons, I fought this monster. When your parents released me—"
"The monster got out?"
Bast hesitates.
"No. My enemy couldn't have escaped." She takes a deep breath. I wonder if that's what she tells herself when it gets hard to sleep. "Your mother's final act of magic sealed that gate. The enemy was still inside. But that's what the magician meant. As far as he was concerned, my 'post' was battling that monster forever."
Was it not? Sadie is about to ask what the monster was when, thankfully, Bast stands up.
"I should go scout," Bast says abruptly. "I'll be back."
Her footsteps echo down the stairwell.
"She's hiding something," Carter says.
"Work that out yourself, did you?"
He looks away.
"I'm sorry," Sadie says. "It's just...what are we going to do?"
"Rescue Dad. What else can we do?" He picks up his wand and turns it in his fingers. "Do you think he really meant to...you know, bring Mom back?"
Two days ago, Sadie would've said yes without hesitation. But all the details don't fit together anymore. She shakes her head.
"Iskandar told me something about Mum," I said. "She was a diviner. She could see the future. He said she made him rethink some old ideas."
Realizing she hasn't told Carter yet about last night, Sadie gives him the details.
Carter knits his eyebrows. "You think that has something to do with why Mom died—she saw something in the future?"
"I don't know." She tries to unlock her memories, but they feel fuzzy. "When they took us to England the last time, did she and Dad seemed like they were in a hurry—like they were doing something really important?"
"Definitely."
"Would you say freeing Bast was really important? I mean—I love her, of course—but worth dying for important?"
Carter hesitates. "Probably not."
Knowing where this conversation is going, I stop myself from trying to interfere. Even if I had the energy to talk to Sadie, there are things she has to figure out herself.
"Well, there you are. I think Dad and Mum were up to something bigger, something they didn't complete. Possibly that's what Dad was after at the British Museum—completing the task, whatever it was. Making things right. And this whole business about our family going back a billion years to some god-hosting pharaohs—why didn't anyone tell us? Why didn't Dad?"
Carter doesn't answer for a long time.
"Maybe Dad was protecting us," he says. "The House of Life doesn't trust our family, especially after what Dad and Mom did. Amos said we were raised apart for a reason, so we wouldn't, like, trigger each other's magic."
"Bloody awful reason to keep us apart," Sadie mutters.
Carter looks at her strangely, and she realized that sounds like a compliment.
"I just mean they should've been honest," Sadie rushes on. "Not that I wanted more time with my annoying brother, of course."
He nods seriously. "Of course."
They sit there, listening to the magic hum of the obelisk.
"Is your, um..." Sadie taps the side of her head. "Your friend being any help?"
"Not much," he admits. "Yours?"
Sadie shakes her head. Excuse me? I'm trying my best in here!
"Carter, are you scared?"
"A little." He dugs his wand into the carpet. "No, a lot."
Sadie looks at the blue book. "What if we can't do it?"
"I don't know," Carter says. "That book about mastering the element of cheese would've been more helpful."
"Or summoning fruit bats."
"Please, not the fruit bats."
They share a weary smile.
"Why don't you sleep on it?" he suggests, sounding genuinely concerned. "You used a lot of energy today. I'll keep watch until Bast gets back."
Sadie is about to protest, when her eyes start closing.
"All right, then," She says. "Don't let the bedbugs bite."
She lays down to sleep, but someone out there has another idea.