Isis

"Where are we?" Sadie asks.

Let me answer: on a deserted avenue outside the gates of a large estate. We still seem to be in Memphis – at least the trees, the weather, the afternoon light are all the same. The estate must be several acres at least. The white metal gates are decorated with fancy designs of silhouetted guitar players and musical notes. Beyond them, the driveway curves through the trees up to a two story house with a white-columned portico.

"Oh, no," Carter says. "I recognize those gates."

"What? Why?"

"Dad brought me here once. A great magician's tomb...Thoth has got to be kidding."

"Carter, what are you talking about? Is someone buried here?"

He nods. "This is Graceland. Home to the most famous musician in the world."

"Michael Jackson lived here?"

"No, dummy. Elvis Presley."

"Elvis Presley. You mean white suits with rhinestones, big slick hair, Gran's record collection—that Elvis?"

Carter looks around nervously and draws his sword. "This is where he lived and died. He's buried in back of the mansion."

Sadie stares up at the house. "You're telling me Elvis was a magician?"

"Don't know." Carter grips his sword. "Thoth did say something about music being a kind of magic. But something's not right. Why are we the only ones here? There's usually a mob of tourists."

"Christmas holidays?"

"But no security?"

Sadie shrugs. "Maybe it's like what Zia did at Luxor. Maybe Thoth cleared everyone out."

"Maybe." Carter pushes the gates. They open easily. "Not right." He mutters.

"No," Sadie agrees. "But let's go pay our respects."

As we're walking up the drive, Sadie observes the house unimpressed.

Compared to some rich and famous homes I've seen on T.V., this place looks awfully small.

She's right. The mansion is two story high, with white-columned portico and brick walls. Ridiculous plaster lions flank the steps.

"Sadie, things were simpler back in the day."

Maybe. Or maybe he spent all his money on rhinestone suits.

We stop at the foot of the steps.

"So Dad brought you here?" Sadie asks Carter.

"Yeah." Carter eyes the lions as if expecting them to attack. "Dad loves blues and jazz, mostly, but he said Elvis was important because he took African American music and made it popular for white people. He helped invent rock and roll. Anyway, Dad and I were in town for a symposium or something. I don't remember. Dad insisted I come here."

"Lucky you." A bit of jealousy slips in Sadie's words.

Dad never insisted on taking me anywhere.

We walk up the steps. The front door swings open all by itself. I don't like the idea of dying in a horror movie if we fail.

"I don't like that," Carter says.

Sadie turns to look behind her and her blood goes ice cold. She grabs her brother's arm.

"Um, Carter, speaking of things we don't like..."

Two magicians are coming up the driveway, staff and wands at the ready.

"Inside," Carter says. "Quick!"

We sprint through the house.

"Item of power," Sadie says. "Where?"

"I don't know," Carter snaps. "They didn't have 'items of power' listed on the tour!"

Sadie glances out the window. Our enemies are getting close. The bloke in front wears jeans, a black sleeveless shirt, boots, and a battered cowboy hat. He looks more like an outlaw then a magician. His friend is similarly dresses, but much heftier, with tattooed arms, a bald head, and a scraggly beard. As we watch, the man with the cowboy hat lowers his staff, which morphs into a shotgun.

"Oh, please!" Sadie yells, and pushes Carter into the living room.

The blast shatters Elvis's front door. Sadie's ear are ringing. We get up and run deeper into the house. We pass through an old-fashioned kitchen, then into some strange den. The back wall is made of vine-covered bricks, with a waterfall trickling down the side. The carpet is green shag and it coveres both the floor and the ceiling. The furniture is covered with animal shapes and plaster monkeys and stuffed lions have been strategically placed around the room.

Sadie stops for a second to take in the room.

"God," Sadie says. "Did Elvis have no taste?"

"The Jungle Room," Carter says. "He decorated it like this to annoy his dad."

Another shotgun blast roars through the house.

"Split up." Carter says.

"Bad idea!"

The magicians are tromping through the rooms and smashing things as they come closer.

"I'll distract them." Carter says. "You search. The trophy room is through there."

"Carter!"

But he runs off.

And the fool is off to protect me.

Yeah. I hate it when Horus does that. I get it, he's the hero. But I'm his mother. We should be protecting them, for Ma'at's sake!

We should move. Either follow them or run the other way. But Sadie stands frozen in shock as Carter turns the corner wit his sword raised. His body begins to glow with a golden light…. And everything goes wrong.

An emerald flash brings Carter to his knees. Did they shoot him? Sadie stifles a scream. But, thankfully, Carter collapses and begins to shrink, clothes, sword and all – melting into a tiny silver of green.

The lizard that sued to be him races towards us. He climbs up Sadie's leg and into her palm, where he looks at her desperately.

From around the corner, a gruff voice says, "Split up and find the sister. She'll be somewhere close."

"Oh, Carter," Sadie whispers fondly to the lizard. "I will so kill you for this."

She stuffs him in her pocket and runs.

The two magicians continue to smash and crash their way through Graceland, knocking over furniture and blasting things to bits.

Sadie ducks under some ropes, creeps through a hallway, and finds the trophy room. Amazingly, it's full of trophies. Gold records crowd the walls. Rhinestone Elvis jumpsuits glitter in four glass cases. The room is dimly lit, probably to keep the jumpsuits from blinding visitors, and music plays softly from overhead speakers: Elvis warning everyone not to step on his blue suede shoes.

Sadie scans the room but finds nothing that looks magical. The suits? I hope Thoth doesn't expect me to wear one. The gold records? Lovely Frisbees, but no.

"Jerrod!" a voice calls to our right. A magician is coming down the hallway. We dart toward the other exit, but a voice just outside it calls back, "Yeah, I'm over here."

We're surrounded.

"Carter," Sadie whispers. "Curse your lizard brain."

He flutters nervously in her pocket.

Sadie fumbles through her magician's bag and grasps her wand.

Should I try drawing a magic circle?

"No time."

Yeah, and I don't want to duel toe-to-toe with two older magicians. I have to stay mobile.

She takes out her rod and wills it into a full-length staff. Her hands start to tremble. Damn Thoth and his stupid minions!

Can't we just crawl into a ball and hide beneath Elvis's gold record collection.

"Let me take over." I offer. "I can turn our enemies to dust."

No.

"You will get us both killed."

I let my magic pules through her veins, let it dance around hers, let it fuel her anger. How dare those magicians challenge us? With a word, we can destroy them!

No. She thinks again.

Well, it was worth the try. I'll get to her someday.

Sadie remembers something Zia had said: Use whatever you have available.

The room is dimly lit… perhaps if I can make it darker…

"Darkness," Sadie whispers. She feels a pull in her stomach as her magic breaks free. The lights flicker off. The music stops. The light continues to dim—even the sunlight fades from the windows until the entire room is consumed by darkness.

Somewhere to our left, the first magician sighs in exasperation. "Jerrod!"

"Wasn't me, Wayne!" Jerrod insists. "You always blame me!"

Wayne mutters something in Egyptian, still moving towards us. We needed a distraction.

Sadie closes her eyes and imagines her surroundings. We sense Jerrod in the hallway to our left, stumbling through the darkness. Wayne is on the other side of the wall to the right, only a few steps from the doorway. Sadie visualizes the four glass display cases with Elvis's suits.

A stronger pull in her gut. She's guiding not only hers, but my magic, too, bending them to her will. The displays blow open. We hear the shuffling of stiff cloth, like sails in the wind. Four white shapes move through the room, two heading for either door.

Wayne yells first as the empty Elvis suits tackle him. His shotgun lights up the dark. Then to our left, Jerrod shouts in surprise. A heavy clump! Tells us he's been knocked over. Sadie decides to go in Jerrod's direction - better an off-balance bloke than one with a shotgun. We slip through the doorway and down a hall, leaving Jerrod scuffling behind us, week and vulnerable and yelling, "Get off! Get off!"

"Take him while he's down," I urge her. "Burn him to ashes!"

Sadie knows I'm right. She knows if we leave Jerrod here, he will be up in no time and after us again. But the foolish girl doesn't want to hurt him.

It doesn't seem right.

It doesn't seem right! What kind of survival instinct is: 'It doesn't seem right'?!

Sadie finds a door and bursts outside into the afternoon sunlight.

We're in the backyard of Graceland. A large fountain gurgles nearby, ringed by grave markers. One has a glass-encased flame at the top and is heaped with flowers. Sadie takes a wild guess: it must be Elvis's.

A magician's tomb.

Of course. We've been searching the house, but the item of power will be at his gravesite. But what exactly is the item?

Before we can approach the grave, the door bursts open. The big bald man with the straggly beard stumbles out. A tattered Elvis suit has its sleeves wrapped around his neck like it's getting a piggyback ride.

"Well, well." The magician throws off the jumpsuit. His voice is that of the one called Jerrod. "You're just a little girl. You've caused us a lot of trouble, missy."

He lowers his staff and fires a shot of green light. Sadie raises her wand and deflects the bolt of energy straight up. We hear a surprised coo—the cry of a pigeon—and a newly made lizard falls out of the sky at Sadie's feet.

"Sorry," Sadie tells it.

Jerrod snarls and throws down his staff. Apparently, he specializes in lizards, because the staff morphs into a komodo dragon the size of a London taxicab. The monster charges at us with unnatural speed. It opens its jaws and would've bitten us in half, but Sadie finds the time to wedge her staff in its mouth.

Jerrod laughs. "Nice try, girl!"

The dragon's jaws are pressing on the staff. It's only a matter of time before the wood snaps and then we'll be a komodo dragon's snack.

A little help? She thinks.

This wouldn't be happening if we killed him back in the house, but I bite my tongue. Ver carefully, almost hesitantly, Sadie taps in to my strength. Five thousand years of experience, knowledge and power course through her as I offer different options. She selects the simplest.

Sadie channels power through her staff. It grows hot in her hands, glowing white. The dragon hisses and gurgles as the staff elongates, forcing the creature's jaws open wide, wider, until it explodes.

The dragon shatters into kindling and sends the splintered remains of Jerrod's staff raining down around us. Jerrod has only a moment to look stunned before Sadie throws her wand and whaps him solidly on the forehead. His eyes cross, and he collapses on the pavement. The wand returns to her hand.

One down, one left. Wayne stumbles out the door, almost tripping over his friend, but he recovers with lightning speed.

He shouts, "Wind!" and Sadie's staff flies out of her hands and into his.

He smiles cruelly. "Well fought, darlin'. But elemental magic is always quickest."

Wayne strikes both staffs against the pavement. A wave ripples over the dirt and pavement as if the ground has become liquid, knocking Sadie off her feet and sending her wand flying. Sadie scrambles backwards on hands and knees. Wayne is chanting, summoning fire from the staffs.

"Rope," I say. "Every magician carries rope."

Sadie reaches for her magic bag and pulls out a small bit of twine.

That's hardly a rope.

Then she remembers what Zia had done in the New York museum. Sadie throws the twine at Wayne and yells one of the words I suggest her. "Tas!"

A golden hieroglyph burned in the air over Wayne's head. The twine whips toward him like an angry snake, growing longer and thicker as it flies. Wayne's eyes widen. He stumbles back and sends jets of flame shooting from both staffs, but the rope is too quick. It lashes around his ankles and topples him sideways, wrapping round his whole body until he is encased in a twine cocoon from chin to toes. He struggles and screams and calls Sadie quite a few disgraceful names.

Sadie gets up unsteadily. Jerrod is still out cold. Sadie retrieves her staff, which has fallen next to Wayne. He continues straining against the twine and cursing in Egyptian, which sounds strange with an American Southern accent.

"Finish him. He can still speak. He will not rest until he destroys you." I warn her.

"Fire!" Wayne screams. "Water! Cheese!"

Soon, one of his commands might work.

"Silence," Sadie says.

Wayne's voice abruptly stops working. He keeps screaming, but no sound comes out. How lovely.

"I'm not your enemy," Sadie tells him. Is she being serious right now? "But I can't have you killing me, either."

Something wriggles in her pocket. Carter. She takes him out. He looks okay, except of course for the fact he is still a lizard.

"I'll try to change you back," Sadie tells him. "Hopefully I don't make things worse."

He makes a little croak that doesn't convey much confidence.

Sadie closes her eyes and imagines Carter as he should be:

A tall boy of fourteen, badly dressed, very human, very annoying.

Carter begins to feel heavy in her hands. She puts him down and we watch the lizard grow into a vaguely human blob. By the count of three, Sadie's brother is lying on his stomach, his sword and pack next to him on the lawn.

He spits grass out of his mouth. "How'd you do that?"

"I don't know," Sadie admits. "You just seemed...wrong."

"Thanks a lot." He gets up and checks to make sure he has all his fingers. Then he sees the two magicians and his mouth falls open. "What did you do to them?"

"Just tied one up. Knocked one out. Magic."

"No, I mean..." He falters, searching for words, then gives up and points.

Sadie looks at the magicians and yelps. Wayne isn't moving. His eyes and mouth are open, but he isn't blinking or breathing. Next to him, Jerrod looks just as frozen. As we watch, their mouths begin to glow as if they've swallowed matches. Two tiny yellow orbs of fire pop out from between their lips and shoot into the air, disappearing in the sunlight. Thoth, that little…. Ugh!

"What—what was that?" Sadie asks. "Are they dead?"

Carter approaches them cautiously and puts his hand on Wayne's neck. "It doesn't even feel like skin. More like rock."

"No, they were human! I didn't turn them to rock!"

Carter feels Jerrod's forehead where he'd been whacked with the wand. "It's cracked."

"What?"

With a terrifyingly determined expression, Carter picks up his sword and brings down the hilt on Jerrod's face. The magician's head cracks into shards like a pot.

"They're made of clay," Carter says. "They're both shabti."

He kicks Wayne's arm. There is a crunch from under the twine.

"But they were casting spells," Sadie says. "And talking. They were real."

As we watch, the shabti crumble to dust, leaving nothing behind but a bit of twine, two staffs, and some grungy clothes.

"Thoth was testing us," Carter says. "Those balls of fire, though..." He frowns as if trying to recall something important.

"Probably the magic that animated them," Sadie guesses. "Flying back to their master—like a recording of what they did?"

She's right, of course. Still, Carter looks troubled. He points to the blasted back door of Graceland. "Is the whole house like that?"

"Worse."

Sadie looks at the ground. Elvis's ruined jumpsuit pokes from under Jerrod's clothes and scattered rhinestones.

Maybe Elvis had no taste, but I still feel bad about trashing the King's palace. If the place has been important to Dad...

"What was it Amos said, when he repaired that saucer?" Sadie asks.

Carter frowns. "This is a whole house, Sadie. Not a saucer."

"Got it," she says. "Hi-nehm!"

A gold hieroglyphic symbol flickers to life in my palm. Sadie holds it up and blows it towards the house. The entire outline of Graceland begins to glow. The pieces of the door fly back into place and mend themselves. The tattered bits of Elvis's clothes disappear.

"Wow," Carter says. "Do you think the inside is fixed too?"

"I—" Sadie's vision blurs, and her knees buckled. She would've knocked her head on the pavement if Carter hadn't caught her.

"It's okay," he says. "You did a lot of magic, Sadie. That was amazing."

"But we haven't even found the item Thoth sent us for."

"Yeah," Carter says. "Maybe we have."

He pointed to Elvis's grave. A silver ankh necklace, placed atop the dirt.

"An ankh," Sadie says. "The Egyptian symbol for eternal life."

Carter picks it up. There is a small papyrus scroll attached to the chain.

"What's this?" he murmurs, and unrolled the sheet. He stares at it intensely, as if trying to burn a hole in it with his eyes.

"What?" Sadie looks over his shoulder.

The painting looks quite ancient. It shows a golden, spotted cat holding a knife in one paw and chopping the head off a snake. Beneath it, in black marker, someone has written: Keep up the fight!

"That's vandalism, isn't it?" Sadie asks. "Marking up an ancient drawing like that? Rather an odd thing to leave for Elvis."

Carter doesn't seem to hear. "I've seen this picture before. It's in a lot of tombs. Don't know why it never occurred to me..."

Sadie studies the picture more closely. Something about it does seem rather familiar.

I sigh. Guess it's time for some of the puzzle pieces to fall together. It's not time for them to know yet, if you ask me. But it's not my decision. Thoth really is such a-

"You know what it means?" Sadie asks.

"It's the Cat of Ra, fighting the sun god's main enemy, Apophis."

"The snake."

"Yeah, Apophis was—"

"The embodiment of chaos," Sadie says, remembering her conversation with mum.

Carter looks impressed. As well he should be. "Exactly. Apophis was even worse than Set. The Egyptians thought Doomsday would come when Apophis ate the sun and destroyed all of Creation."

"But...the cat killed it," Sadie says hopefully.

"The cat had to kill it over and over again," Carter says. "Like what Thoth said about repeating patterns. The thing is...I asked Dad one time if the cat had a name. And he said nobody knows for sure, but most people assume it's Sekhmet, this fierce lion goddess. She was called the Eye of Ra because she did his dirty work. He saw an enemy; she killed it."

"Fine. So?"

"So the cat doesn't look like Sekhmet. It just occurred to me..."

Sadie finally sees it. A shiver goes down her back. "The Cat of Ra looks exactly like Muffin. It's Bast."

Just then the ground rumbles. The memorial fountain begins to glow and a dark doorway opens. Guess they're realization was enough to finally pass Thoth's stupid test.

"Come on," Sadie says. "I've got some questions for Thoth. And then I'm going to punch him in the beak."