Chapter 6

Disclaimer: none of the characters are mine, except for Kennedy Vasquez. She is an OC.

Note: OC alert.

Carter Kane

When Walt and Sadie returned from their brief sojourn in the woods and told us the gnome's story (that is a gnome with a 'g') Zia grew thoughtful.

"What Walt – or Anubis – says about gods and their connections to the mortals is true," she said, "but I confess that I do not quite trust that creature – gnome. Both Chief Lector Iskander and monsignor Desjardins – I mean Chief Lector Desjardins – agreed that the elemental creatures are tricky and are not to be fully trusted."

"What are they?" Sadie did not back down exactly, but she did not really confront Zia either. "Are they like demons or what?"

Before Zia could reply we heard a sound coming from a river – a mechanical sound. It sounded rather like a vehicle – not a car, a motor boat or something – and sure enough when we looked out of the opening made by Sadie when the resident shabti threw her out, a motor boat or a hovercraft or something like that had appeared from around a river bend, stopped at our shore and its passenger (also captain slash pilot, I suppose) disembarked.

It was a young woman, few years older than us (well, me – that makes her older than Sadie quite a lot), maybe uncle Amos' ago, probably younger, I do not know. Beyond Zia I do not really have much of an experience with women. Anyways...

Anyways the young woman disembarked and began to walk towards the two hundred and fifty first nome. Considered that Sadie had damaged it when she got kicked out by the shabti its magic did not appear to be working... if it had been working from the start. When we looked at it in a greater detail, it was less of a mansion and more of a lodge (think Native American, not Freemason or anything like that) or a hut – not really unexpected in those parts and probably not in a need of a good disguise...

Anyways, I did get off topic, thanks for pointing it out Sadie. The young woman, she came within our line of sight, glared at us – none of us really thought of hiding behind the wall and said:

"Ok, you little monkeys, what is going on here, and where's my brother?"

It was hardly the sort of an opening line that made us want to be friends, but it did not make us want to be enemies either.

"Are you senhora Vasquez?" Zia asked instead.

The woman glared. "It's senhorita, thank you very much, and yes, I am. Are you his, er, fellow magicians?" she suddenly sounded less certain of herself than before.

"Yes we are," Zia said with more confidence now.

"So where is he?"

"Er, the gnome told us that Nephthys has taken him and his friend," Sadie piped up before Zia could reply.

Zia glared, senhorita Vasquez stared. "Are you talking about Iara, the mother of waters?" she (not Zia) asked.

"Yes," Walt, or rather – Anubis replied.

"That's not good," senhorita Vasquez began to mutter to herself. "Brother dearest can take care of himself, but his partner – not so much."

"Really?" Sadie would not shut up, but senhorita Vasquez did not appear to mind.

"Really. He is in tune with the entire natural world, if it was just him he would give even the mother of waters the slip and be already in your nome in Manaus, warning everyone that the mother of waters is on the warpath and entertaining them with his stories about his latest great escape, but his partner isn't quite up the par with him, so they're in trouble."

"What sort of trouble?"

"Mmm... When mother of waters kidnaps people they just disappear, and when they reappear, they are dead, their lips still bleeding from her kisses. The rest of the body is not pleasant to look at either," senhorita exhaled. "Kids, you're magicians, can't you, I don't know, use your magic to see if they're not dead yet?"

"Yes we can," Zia nodded. "We need a bowl, though-"

"Here it is," Sadie pointed to a scrying bowl in the corner of the lodge. Unlike ours back in Boston, this one was plain and wooden and had been used often as well.

"Good. Now we need some of their personal belongings," Zia continued.

"Let's see." In several long strides senhorita was right next to the hole in the wall, and with another quick movement she was inside the lodge without breaking a sweat. "What? I am a Vasquez, that is how we roll. Now, as for personal belongings, how about that?" She pointed to a photo on a wall that showed two young men – one clearly Native American, the other somewhat more European – holding hands and smiling.

"...Let's leave that as option B," Zia said after some thinking. "Using photos is too tricky for my tastes. Is there anything else?"

"Let me see," senhorita Vasquez walked over to the back wall, looked at it, grabbed an imaginary handle and opened... a very real door.

"What? I may have a veritable anti-talent when it comes to magic, but I am a Vasquez," she explained as she went through the door and returned several minutes later with a pair of somewhat worn but still colorful socks. "Anyways, are these better? There's also underwear and his toy sloth, if you want more options."

"...What are you talking about?"

"This is their bedroom. What do you think I am talking about?"

"Sorry," Zia shook her head. "I guess I am not used to your quant American customs."

"Yes, well, that was a time when my family was more pro-USA in their politics," senhora Vasquez shrugged. "Guess I'm just lucky that I'm Kennedy, and not Bush, name-wise. Anyways, the socks?"

"Right," Zai gingerly grabbed them from the older woman (yes, Sadie, Zia is a woman, and I am sticking to this) and put them into the bowl before casting her spell.

That was when it all fell apart, and not just the bowl, (it fell apart like an orange peel), but everything, as Nephthys appeared in the middle of the room.

Mostly she appeared to be a very beautiful woman (though Sadie here says that when she saw Nephthys at Osiris and Isis' wedding Nephthys looked different), but also, I'm thinking, inhuman, and not just because she was made of water: her body was bending in ways that human bodies just couldn't bend, not without the humans dying in the process.

"Great Nephthys, Avenging Mother, Protector of the Dead," Zia began and Nephthys turned on her.

"You! I remember you! You and Ra, beating me mercilessly with your sunrays in that waterless desert! And you!" she turned to Sadie and I. "You are the children of that, that ghost who actually can be with Osiris while I can't! And you!" she turned to Walt...

"Mother," said Anubis...

And Nephthys fell apart as well – into a puddle of water.

"We need to talk to uncle Amos," I said firmly. "Now."

Surprisingly, everyone agreed...

TBC