Chapter IV

Sadie

So, I'd been to the Louvre once before on holiday, but I hadn't been chased by vicious French-magicians. I would've been terrified, except I was too busy being angry with Carter. I couldn't believe the way he'd treated my bird problem. Honestly, I thought I would be a kite forever, suffocating inside a little feathery prison. And he had the nerve to make fun!

I promised myself I'd get revenge, but for the time being we had enough worries staying alive. And Katya was laughing like a madwoman. She threw her head back and laughed, like this was a thrill ride. That girl was mad I tell you.

We raced along in the cold rain. It was all I could do to avoid slipping on the slick pavements. I glanced back and saw two figures chasing us—men with shaved heads and goatees and black raincoats. They might've passed for normal mortals except they carried a glowing staff. Not a good sign.

My stomach still felt queasy from eating one of the little pests when I was a kite—and no, that had not been my idea. Totally a defensive instinct!

"Sadie," Bast called as we ran. "You have only seconds to open the portal."

"Where is it?" I yelled.

We dashed across the rue de Rivoli into a wide plaza surrounded by the wings of the Louvre. Bast made straight for the glass pyramid at the entrance, glowing in the dusk.

"You can't be serious," I said. "That isn't a real pyramid."

"Of course it's real," Bast said. "The shape gives a pyramid its power. It's a ramp to the heavens."

We arrived at the base of the pyramid. The plaza was thankfully empty. The last thing I wanted was my embarrassing death by fruit bats posted on Youtube.

"One minute till sundown," Katya warned. All the laughter gone from her face. "Our last chance for summoning is now."

Where do you wish to go? Isis said in my mind.

God, I don't care! America!

I realized I was crying. Katya wouldn't cry. I realized that I kind of looked up to my older cousin. She was always so calm and collected, to many times I let my emotions get away from me.

America, I thought. Now!

My burst of energy must've had some effect. The pyramid trembled. Its glass walls shimmered and the top of the structure began to glow.

A swirling vortex appeared, all right. Only problem: it was hovering above the very top of the pyramid.

"Climb!" Bast said. Easy for her—she was a cat.

"The side is too steep!" Carter objected.

"I'll toss you," Bast said.

"Excuse me?" Carter protested, but she picked him up by his collar and pants and tossed him up the side of the pyramid. He skittered to the top in a very undignified manner and slipped straight through the portal. Katya just jumped half way up the top of the pyramid then ran up the rest of the way.

"Now you, Sadie," Bast said. "Come one!"

Before I could move, a man's voice yelled, "Stop!"

Stupidly, I froze. The voice was so powerful, it was hard not to.

The two magicians were approaching. The taller one spoke in perfect English: "Surrender, Miss Kane, and return our master's property."

"Sadie don't listen," Bast warned. "Come here."

"The cat goddess deceives you," the magician said. "She abandoned her post. She endangered us all. She will lead you to your ruin."

I could tell he meant it. He was absolutely convinced of what he said.

I turned to Bast. Her expression had changed. She looked wounded, even grief-stricken.

"What does he mean?" I said. "What did you do wrong?"

"We have to leave," she warned. "Or they will kill us."

I looked at the portal. Carter and Katya were already through. That decided it. I wasn't going to be separated from them. As annoying as he was, Carter was one of the only people I had left. And Katya couldn't keep Carter from being killed all by herself.

"Toss me," I said.

Bast grabbed me. "See you in America." Then she chucked me up the side of her pyramid.

I heard the magician roar, "Surrender!" And an explosion rattled the glass next to my head. Then I plunged into the hot vortex of sand.

Katya

I woke up in a small with industrial carpeting, gray walls, and metal-framed windows. I felt as if I were inside a high-tech refrigerator. I sat up groggily and discovered I was coated in cold, wet sand.

"Ugh," I heard. "Where are we?" That was Sadie.

Carter and Bast stood by the window. Apparently they'd been conscious for a while, because they'd both brushed themselves off.

"You've got to see this view," Carter said. I got up shakily, but soon I was able to walk fine.

An entire city spread out below us—I mean far below, well over a hundred meters. I could almost believe we were still in Paris, because a river curved off to our left, and the land was mostly flat. There were white government buildings clustered around networks of parks and circular roads, all spread out under a winter sky. But the light was wrong. It was still afternoon here, so we must've traveled west. And as my eyes made their way to the other end of a long rectangular green space, I found myself staring at the White House.

"Is that… the White House?" Sadie asked.

Carter nodded. "You got us to America, all right. Washington D.C"

"But we're sky high!"

Bast chuckled. "You didn't specify any particular American city, did you?"

"Well… no."

"You got the default portal for the U.S.—the largest single source of Egyptian power in North America," I said.

Sadie stared at me uncomprehendingly.

"The largest obelisk ever constructed," Bast said. "The Washington Monument."

Sadie moved away from the window. Carter grabbed her shoulder and helped her sit down.

"You should rest," I said. "You were out for two hours."

"And thirty-two minutes," Bast finished. "I'm sorry, Sadie. Opening more than one portal a day is extremely taxing, even with Isis helping."

Carter frowned, "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."

I shook my head. "Sadie can't open another portal. It would overextend her powers. And that's not a good idea if you plan to go to battle Set right after. And none of us have the talent to do so, we'll have to use mortal transportation."

"Now, let's have a picnic!" She snapped her fingers the air shimmered, and a pile of Friskies cans and two jugs of milk appeared on the carpet.

"Um," Carter said, "can you conjure any people food?"

Bast blinked. "Well, no accounting for taste."

The air shimmered again. A plate of grilled cheese sandwiches and chips appeared, along with a six-pack of coke.

"Yum," Sadie said.

Carter muttered something under his breath as I pulled some ambrosia out of my pack. I took a nibble off the corner, savoring the taste of my father's hot chocolate then putting it into my knapsack. I picked up the grilled cheese and wished we had plates from Camp Half-Blood. Grilled cheese was not my favorite. But I ate it, it might be the last meal I ever had, so I stuffed my face.

"We should leave soon," he said in between bites. "I mean tourists and all."

Bast shook 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."

We were all exhausted, we didn't talk again until we finished our food. And even then all Carter did was ask for Bast to stop licking her hands. I fell asleep against the gray walls.

Sadie

"What are we going to do?" I asked Carter.

"Rescue Dad. What else can we do?" He picked up his wand and turned it in his fingers. "Do you think he really meant to… you know, bring Mom back?"

I wanted to say yes. More than anything, I wanted to believe that was possible. But I found myself shaking my head. Something about it didn't seem right. "Iskandar told me something about Mum," I said. "She was a diviner. She could see the future. He said she made him think about some old ideas."

It was my first chance to tell Carter about my conversation with the old magician, so I gave him the details.

Carter knit his eyebrows. "You think that has something to do with why Mom died—she saw something in the future?"

"I don't know." I tried to think back to when I was six, but my memory was frustratingly fuzzy. "When they took us to England the last time, did she and Dad seem 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 hesitated. "Probably not."

"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 didn't answer for a long time.

"Maybe Dad was protecting us," he said. "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," I muttered.

Carter looked at me strangely, and I realized I'd said might have been construed as a compliment.

"I just mean they should've been honest," I rushed on. "Not that I wanted more time with my annoying brother, of course."

He nodded seriously. "Of course."

We sat listening to the magic hum of the obelisk. I tried to remember the last time Carter and I had simply spent time like this together, talking.

"Do you remember Katya, if she was our cousin shouldn't we have known her?" I asked since I couldn't remember anything from before we were separated.

Carter furrowed his eyebrows. "Yeah, I think so, she froze our Thanksgiving dinner." I laughed, it felt good to laugh again.

"I your, um…" I tapped the side of my head. "Your friend being much help?"

"Not much," he admitted. "Yours?"

I shook my head. "Carter, are you scared?"

"A little." He dug his wand into the carpet. "No, a lot."

I looked at the blue book we'd stolen—pages full of wonderful secrets I couldn't read. "What if we can't do it?"

"I don't know," he said. "That book about mastering the element of cheese would've been more helpful."

"Or summoning fruit bats."

"Please, not the fruit bats."

We shared a weary smile, and it felt rather good. But it changed nothing. We were still in deep trouble with no clear plan.

"Why don't you sleep on it?" He suggested. "You used a lot of energy today. I'll keep watch until Bast gets back."

He actually sounded concerned for me. How cute.

I didn't want to sleep. I didn't want to miss anything. But I realized my eyelids were incredibly heavy.

"All right, then," I said. "Don't let the bedbugs bite."

I lay down to sleep, but my soul—my ba—had other ideas.

Please review! There are twenty-two more chapters to this volume of the story of Katya Kane. That seems like a lot, that is a lot. Happy New Years!