Greetings my loyal readers. Here it is, the next chapter for you all. I hope you enjoy. Also just to note. I own nothing of this.

Chapter 5 A Wax man is better than Librarian

As I towards the library Sadie followed without a problem. However Carter was being a the pain in ass.

"Stop" Carter cried. "You can't just—"

"Brother dear," Sadie said, "did your soul leave your body again while Amos was talking, or did you actually hear him?"

"She's right kid." I said with a stern face. "Gods I'm turning into Artemis." I thought, and that kinda scared me. "The Egyptian gods are being released. The Red Lord is rising. And with his birthday close by it is worse. The House of Life is a bunch of foolish magicians who hate your family because pain in the ass father was a bit of a rebel."

"Whom by the way you could take a lesson from." Sadie add. And I had to agree with her.

"Speaking of him have you forgotten that, he is missing? Also an evil god is wanting to destroy the world. Am I missing anything?" I asked.

"Yeah, I also have a brother who is supposedly quite powerful from an ancient bloodline, but he's too afraid to visit a library." Sadie said.

"So you coming or not?" I asked arms crossed. Carter blinked as if I bitch slapped him.

"I just…" He faltered. "I just think we should be careful." It was clear the poor boy was quite scared, which I couldn't blame him. I was a stranger who they met yesterday. And to be honest all this was new to me but after the hell I had seen and done I wasn't too afraid.

"Look," I said. "There's got to be something in that library that can help. You do want to help your father?" Carter shifted uncomfortably under my gaze.

"Yeah…of course."

"Good." I said. As we headed for the library, Khufu saw what we were up to, he scrambled off the sofa with his basketball and jumped in front of the library doors. Gotta say the baboon was fast. He barked at us, and gave me a headache. Carter tried to reason with him.

"Khufu, we're not going to steal anything. We just want—"

"Agh!" Khufu dribbled his basketball angrily.

"Stand aside I command it." I was surprised by this as it sounded like Ra and I had said it together. But Khufu moved out-of-the-way. He clearly didn't know why he moved and that caused him and the rest to look at me for an explanation, but I had none. Opening the doors to the library was a pain. They were made of thick wood laced with giant steel chains and padlocked. Complete overkill. Carter stepped forward. He tried to raise the doors by lifting his hand, which had been quite impressive the night before, only now accomplished nothing. He then shook the chains the old-fashioned way, then yanked on the padlocks.

"No good," he said.

"Give a Pharaoh's command."

"Okay" I thought.

"Open. The Pharaoh commands it." I ordered. Carter stared at me as the doors unlocked and opened for me.

"How exactly—"

"Don't know," I lied. "Now let's explore the library, shall we?"As soon as Sadie stepped forward, she almost collapsed. I caught her as she stumbled. "You okay?"

"Fine," She lied. "I'm tired and famished."

"You just ate a huge breakfast." I stated.

"I'll manage." She told me. I felt Carter over my shoulder, he clearly didn't like me this close to his sister. I didn't care, her health was more important at the moment. I let her hold onto me as we entered the library. It was so amazing, it was bigger than I had thought it would have been. It was a round chamber sunk deep into solid rock, like a giant well. From the platform where we stood, a staircase descended three stories to the bottom floor. The walls, floor, and domed ceiling were all decorated with multicolored pictures of people, gods, and monsters. These in the library looked newly painted, making the entire room a work of art.

"Strangely I feel right at home." I said.

"Really?" Carter asked.

"Shut up." Sadie said. On the ceiling a blue starry sky glittered, only it wasn't a solid field of blue. Rather, the sky was painted in a strange swirling pattern shaped like a woman. She lay curled on her side—her body, arms, and legs dark blue and dotted with stars. Below, the library floor was done in a similar way, the green-and-brown earth shaped into a man's body, dotted with forests and hills and cities. A river snaked across his chest. The library had no books. Not even bookshelves. Instead, the walls were honeycombed with round cubbyholes, each one holding a sort of plastic cylinder.

At the four compass points, a ceramic statue stood on a pedestal. The statues were half-size humans wearing kilts and sandals, with glossy black wedge-shaped haircuts and black eyeliner around their eyes. At any rate, one statue held a stylus and scroll. Another held a box. Another held a short, hooked staff. The last was empty-handed.

"Sadie." Carter pointed to the center of the room. Sitting on a long stone table was their dad's workbag.

"Hang on. It's too easy." I said blocking his path. He frowned.

"What like traps?"

"Didn't Egyptian tombs have traps?" Sadie asked.

"Well…sometimes. But this isn't a tomb. Besides, more often they had curses, like the burning curse, the donkey curse—"

"Oh that was a good one."

"Just watch your step." I ordered. He ran down the steps, which made me feel uneasy. But I was more focused on Sadie as she didn't seem any better. We made it to the middle of the room with no excitement. Carter opened the bag. Still no traps or curses. He brought out a strange decorative wooden box.

"Just open the bloody box." Sadie ordered .The first thing he pulled out was a lump of white gunk.

"Wax," Carter pronounced.

"Fascinating. A prehistoric painting set." Sadie said. As I set her on a chair. Carter pulled out several lengths of brown twine, a small ebony cat statue, and a thick roll of Papyrus, and finally a wax figurine. "Ew." He was a tiny man, crudely fashioned, as if the maker had been in a hurry. His arms were crossed over his chest, his mouth was open, and his legs were cut off at the knees. A lock of human hair was wrapped round his waist. The cat jumped on the table and sniffed the little man. She seemed to think him quite interesting.

"There's nothing here," Carter said.

"Look not with your eyes but your mind." I said.

"Thank you Yoda." Sadie rolled her eyes.

"Still there's nothing to explain what happened to Dad. How do we get him back? Who was that fiery man he summoned?" Carter cried. Sadie held up the wax man.

"You heard him, warty little troll. Tell us what you know." I could tell she messing around. But the wax man came to life. He said,

"I answer the call."She screamed and dropped him on his tiny head. I can't you blame her it was freaky.

"Ow!" he said. Muffin came over to have a sniff, and the little man started cursing in Ancient Egyptian. But he then changed to English:

"Go away! I'm not a mouse!" Sadie scooped up Muffin and put her on the floor. Carter's face had gone as soft and waxy as the little man's.

"What are you?" he asked.

"I'm a shabti, of course!" The figurine rubbed his dented head. He still looked quite lumpish. "Master calls me Doughboy, though I find the name insulting. You may call me Supreme-Force-Who-Crushes-His-Enemies!"

"Shut up wax face" I said. He scowled at me.

"The master, meaning Dad," Carter guessed. "Er, Julius Kane?"

"That's him," wax face grumbled. "Are we done yet? Have I fulfilled my service?" Carter stared at Sadie and me blankly, but I was beginning to understand.

"Alright wax face" I told the guy. "You were triggered when Sadie picked you up and gave you a direct order: Tell us what you know. Is that correct?" Wax face crossed his stubby arms.

"You're just toying with me now. Of course that's correct. Only the master is supposed to be able to trigger me, by the way. I don't know how you did it, but he'll blast you to pieces when he finds out." Carter cleared his throat.

"Wax face, the master is our dad, and he's missing. He's been magically sent away somehow and we need your help—"

"Master is gone?" Wax face smiled so widely. "Free at last! See you, suckers!" He lunged for the end of the table but forgot he had no feet. He landed on his face, then began crawling toward the edge, dragging himself with his hands. "Free! Free!" He fell off the table and onto the floor with a thud, but that didn't seem to discourage him. "Free! Free!"

Is it wrong I found this very funny? Maybe but it was too funny. He made it another centimeter or two before I picked him up and threw him in the magic box. Wax face tried to get out, but the box was just tall enough that he couldn't reach the rim. I wondered if it had been designed that way.

"Trapped!" he wailed. "Trapped!"

"Oh, shut up," Sadie said towering over him. I smirked in my new chair. "I'm the mistress now. And you'll answer my questions." Carter raised his eyebrow.

"How come you get to be in charge?"

"Because I was smart enough to activate him." Sadie told him.

"You were just joking around!" Carter countered.

"Now, wax face, first off, what's a shabti?"

"Will you let me out of the box if I tell you?" he asked.

"You will tell her," I said sternly. "And no, they won't." He sighed.

"Shabti means answerer, as even the stupidest slave could tell you." Carter snapped his fingers. "I remember now! The Egyptians made models out of wax or clay—servants to do every kind of job they could imagine in the afterlife. They were supposed to come to life when their master called, so the deceased person could, like, kick back and relax and let the shabti do all his work for eternity."

"First," Wax face snipped, "that is typical of humans! Lazing around while we do all the work. Second, afterlife work is only one function of shabti. We are also used by magicians for a great number of things in this life, because magicians would be total incompetents without us. Third, if you know so much, why are you asking me?"

"Why did Dad cut off your legs," I wondered, "and leave you with a mouth?"

"I—" Wax face clapped his little hands over his mouth. "Oh, very funny. Threaten the wax statue. Big bully! He cut my legs off so I wouldn't run away or come to life in perfect form and try to kill him, naturally. Magicians are very mean. They maim statues to control them. They are afraid of us!"

"Would you come to life and try to kill him, had he made you perfectly?" Carter asked.

"Probably," Wax face admitted. "Are we done?"

"Not by half," Sadie said. "What happened to our dad?" Wax face shrugged.

"How should I know? But I see his wand and staff aren't in the box."

"No," Carter said. "The staff got incinerated. And the wand…is that the boomerang thing?" I had to roll my eyes at that.

"The boomerang thing?" Wax face said. "Gods of Eternal Egypt, you're dense. Of course that's his wand."

"It shattered," Sadie said.

"Tell me how," Wax Face demanded. Carter told him the story. I wasn't sure that was the best idea,but a ten-centimeter-tall statue couldn't do anything that I couldn't a hundred times worse.

"This is wonderful!" Wax face cried.

"Why?" Sadie asked. "Is Dad still alive?"

"No!" Wax face said. "He's almost certainly dead. The five gods of the Demon Days released? Wonderful! And anyone who duels with the Red Lord—"

"Wait," Sadie cried. "I order you to tell me what happened."

"Ha!" Wax face said. "I only have to tell you what I know. Making educated guesses is a completely different task. I declare my service fulfilled!" I pushed my way to the box and showed him my hand. He looked at it in horror.

"What happened. I command it." I ordered/roared.

"I would recommend asking him as he would know better than I." Wax face said.

"I could you know."

"Very well you have fulfilled your service." I said. With that, he turned back to lifeless wax.

"Wait!" Sadie picked him up again and shook him. "Tell me!" Nothing happened. So she looked at me. "Well?"

"I will try to contact Lord Chaos." I lied, well kinda lied as I was trying to contact him. However I decided to check the cubbyholes round the walls. The plastic cylinders were the kind you might find at a drive-through bank—the kind that shoot up and down the pneumatic tubes. Inside each case was a papyrus scroll. Some looked new. Some looked thousands of years old. Each canister was labeled in hieroglyphs and (fortunately) in English.

"The Book of the Heavenly Cow," Carter read on one. "What kind of name is that? What've you got, The Heavenly Badger?"

"No," Sadie said. "The Book of Slaying Apophis." Muffin meowed in the corner. When I looked over, her tail was puffed up.

"What's wrong with her?" I asked.

"Apophis was a giant snake monster," Carter muttered. "He was bad news."

"What did I say about using name." I asked almost sounding mad.

"Keep that one close. Just to be safe." I took it from sadie and put it in one of my pockets knowing it would be safe there. Muffin turned and raced up the stairs, back into the Great Room. Cats. I found some scrolls that would be good for later but I found nothing that could help us. However it was Carter who found something.

"Sadie, Percy look at this."He'd found a papyrus, rather long, and most of the text lines were hieroglyphs."Can you read any of this?" Carter asked.

"No." I said

"You aren't trying."

"Shut up. Gods why do I have to suffer Ra?" I thought.

"You freed me from my useless body and fixed my mind."

"I didn't do nothing." I roared.

"So...could you get me some games in here? I mean I am bored to death."

"You really want me to kill you." I thought. "Besides you're in my head you pain in my ass."

"You're no fun like this."

"Whatever."

"Percy." I shook out of my trance to see Sadie calling me.

"Sorry what?" i asked.

"Well it turns out this thing is a family record." Sadie said.

"Dang." I said because that was a long record. Heck I didn't even know mine except on my dad's side since it was short and I fought most of them.

"Let's keep looking," I said. After a few more minutes, we found a picture of five animal-headed gods, with a starry woman figure arching over them protectively like an umbrella.

"Carter," Sadie called. "What's this, then?" He came to have a look and his eyes lit up.

"That's it!" he announced. "These five…and up here, their mother, Nut."

"A goddess named Nut? Is her last name Case?" Sadie laughed.

"Very funny," Carter said. "She was the goddess of the sky." He pointed to the painted ceiling—the lady with the blue star-spangled skin, same as in the scroll.

"So what about her?" I asked.

"I wish I could find the story in English," Carter said. Suddenly there was a cracking noise behind us. The empty-handed clay statue hopped off his pedestal and marched towards us. I pushed the kids behind me getting ready for an attack, but he walked straight past us, grabbed a cylinder from its cubbyhole and brought it to Carter.

"It's a retrieval shabti," I said.

"A clay librarian!" Sadie shaking her head. Carter swallowed nervously and took the cylinder.

"Um…thanks." The statue marched back to his pedestal, jumped on, and hardened again into regular clay.

"I wonder…" Sadie faced the shabti. "Sandwich and chips, please!" Sadly, none of the statues jumped down to serve her.

"No food in the library." I smirked. Carter uncapped the cylinder and unrolled the papyrus. He sighed with relief.

"This version is in English."

"Good because Percy sucks reading in Egyptian." Sadie smirked.

"Hey."I roared getting embarrassed. As he scanned the text, his frown got deeper.

"You know this?" I asked.

"I remember the story. The five gods…if Dad really released them, it isn't good news."

"I told you that from the beginning." I said sitting down.

"Start from the beginning." Sadie said. Carter took a shaky breath.

"Okay. So the sky goddess, Nut, was married to the earth god, Geb."

"Wonder if Geb knows Gaia?"I asked myself. "But then who really controls the earth?"

"Anyway, Geb and Nut wanted to have kids, but the king of the gods, Ra—he was the sun god—heard this bad prophecy that a child of Nut a child of Geb and Nut would one day replace Ra as king. So when Ra learned that Nut was pregnant, Ra freaked out. He forbade Nut to give birth to her children on any day or night of the year."

"You sound like Zeus." I thought. "Oh you finally shut up."

"Oh shut up. At least I didn't eat her."

"Touchy." I smirked.

"So what, she had to stay pregnant forever?" Sadie asked arms crossed. "That's awfully mean." Carter shook his head.

"Nut figured out a way. She set up a game of dice with the moon-god, Khons. Every time Khons lost, he had to give Nut some of his moonlight. He lost so many times, Nut won enough moonlight to create five new days and tag them on to the end of the year."

"Sneaky girl."

"How can you gamble moonlight? And if you did, how could you make extra days out of it?" Sadie asked and I wanted to know this.

"After day there is night. With enough you can make a night and that forces a day to be created."

"Dang." I thought learning something interesting.

"It's a story!" Carter protested. "Anyway, the Egyptian calendar had three hundred and sixty days in the year, just like the three hundred and sixty degrees in a circle. Nut created five days and added them to the end of the year—days that were not part of the regular year."

"The Demon Days," Sadie guessed. "So the myth explains why a year has three hundred and sixty-five days. And I suppose she had her children—"

"During those five days," Carter agreed. "One kid per day."

"Again, how do you have five children in a row, each on a different day?"

"They're gods," Carter said. "They can do stuff like that."

"One goddess has a children born from her head." I said. "So five in five days is really nothing."

"Say what?" Carter looked at me.

"Once you clear Egyptian. I'll teach you more on the other things." I stated. "So what happened next."

"When Ra found out, he was furious, but it was too late. The children were already born. Their names were Osiris—"

"Aka pain in my tut."

"Don't you mean butt?"

"I know what I said. I am Ra." I rolled my eye.

"Pain in my Tut."

"The one Dad was after." Sadie said.

"Then Horus, Set, Isis, and, um…" Carter consulted his scroll. "Nephthys. I always forget that one."

"So that's the five the fiery man in the museum said. But who was the Sixth?" Sadie asked.

"I don't know Geb, Nut, I'm not sure." Carter said.

"So is it possible the they were imprisoned together and Dad didn't realize it? They were born together, so maybe they had to be summoned back into the world together." Sadie questioned.

"Smart girl."

"I think it was." I said.

"But the thing is, one of these guys, Set, was a really bad dude. Like, the villain of Egyptian mythology. The god of evil and chaos and desert storms." Carter said.

"Did he perhaps have something to do with fire?" Sadie asked. Carter pointed to one of the figures in the picture. The god had an animal head, but I couldn't make out which sort of animal. Whichever it was, his hair and his clothes were bright red.

"The Red Lord," I said serious.

"Guys, there's more," Carter said. "Those five days—the Demon Days—were bad luck in Ancient Egypt. You had to be careful, wear good luck charms, and not do anything important or dangerous on those days. And in the British Museum, Dad told Set: They'll stop you before the Demon Days are over."

"Surely you don't think he meant us," Sadie said. "We're supposed to stop this Set character?"

"I will." I said. "What is it with fathers making their kids save the world on this planet?" I thought.

"Percy you can't be serious." Carter said fear clear in his voice.

"I have battled beings stronger than him."

"You know you need help. Even a wolf knows that a hunt has better success in a pack."

"I'm starting to think you like to mess with me." I thought.

"Only sometimes."

"Percy if the last five days of our calendar year still count as the Egyptian Demon Days—they'd start on December 27, the day after tomorrow."

"So five days to save the world." I said i've done in less." I said but still didn't like it. Suddenly there was a loud crash, as if something had broken in the Great Room. Khufu began barking in alarm. I ran out the library with the kids following me. but if I knew what was going to happen I might have thought about leaving them in the library.

Okay I hope you enjoyed. please review and I will continue to write more.