A/N Ok so for those who don't know, I am writing another story. It is on fem percy. Until it is completed, read this new chapter. Hope you like this.
Chapter 10. Imprisoned with My Cat.
Zia's Pov
"The chapter ends. " Throth says. "Now before we start the next chapter we wish to ask you some questions. "Athena stated. " Ok, we will answer only if it would be necessary. "Sadie answered. "What is Duat? "Annabeth questioned even before Sadie could finish. "Given in the book. " " What is Per ankh? " "Given in the book. Greek sighed knowing this will be their standard answer. "In that case, we will just read the stupid book. " making magicians smile because they knew no one would understand if they will tell them their way. " Who will read? " Throth asks" I will." Lord Zeus replies. Clearing his throat he begins
Chapter 3: Imprisoned with My Cat.
[Give me the bloody mic.]
Everyone looked confused. " That is usual. Don't worry about them. " I could sense Carter's and Sadie's glare while everyone else laughed.
Hullo. Sadie here. My brother's a rubbish storyteller. Sorry about that. But now you've got me, so all is well.
Let's see. The explosion. Rosetta Stone in a billion pieces. Fiery evil bloke. Dad boxed in a coffin. Creepy Frenchman and Arab girl with the knife. Us passing out. Right.
" Wait. Did you just call me a Creepy Arab girl? " I questioned Sadie
"No, I called you Arab girl and Desjardins creepy Freshman."
So when I woke up, the police were rushing about as you might expect. They separated me from my brother. I didn't really mind that part. He's a pain anyway. But they locked me in the curator's office for ages. And yes, they used our bicycle chain to do it. Cretins.
Everyone laughed at Sadie's comment.
I was shattered, of course. I'd just been knocked out by a fiery whatever-it-was. I'd watched my dad get packed in a sarcophagus and shot through the floor. I tried to tell the police about all that, but did they care? No.
" They never do, they never do. Mortals are very unimaginative and only see what their brains allow them to understand.. " Grover told us. "We know how that feels. " Saide replied, " Many times they have assumed our misadventures as gas explosions." Making them laugh.
Worst of all: I had a lingering chill as if someone was pushing ice-cold needles into the back of my neck. It had started when I looked at those blue glowing words Dad had drawn on the Rosetta Stone and I knew what they meant. A family disease, perhaps? Can knowledge of boring Egyptian stuff be hereditary? With my luck.
" We understand, " Stolls say in mock seriousness and wipe a fake tear out of the corner of their eyes, making us laugh. Gods huffed at that disease comment.
Long after my gum had gone stale, a policewoman finally retrieved me from the curator's office. She asked me no questions. She just trundled me into a police car and took me home. Even then, I wasn't allowed to explain to Gran and Gramps. The policewoman just tossed me into my room and I waited. And waited.
I don't like waiting.
I paced the floor. My room was nothing posh, just an attic space with a window and a bed and a desk. There wasn't much to do. Muffin sniffed my legs and her tail puffed up like a bottlebrush. I suppose she doesn't fancy the smell of museums. She hissed and disappeared under the bed.
" I believe she does not like the smell of Isis. " Sadie muttered to me.
"Thanks a lot," I muttered.
I opened the door, but the policewoman was standing guard.
"The inspector will be with you in a moment," she told me. "Please stay inside."
I could see downstairs—just a glimpse of Gramps pacing the room, wringing his hands, while Carter and a police inspector talked on the sofa. I couldn't make out what they were saying.
"Could I just use the loo?" I asked the nice officer.
"No." She closed the door in my face. As if I might rig an explosion in the toilet. Honestly.
3..2..1.. The room exploded with laughter. Some immature gods cough Apollo and Hermes cough even fell off their thrones. After twenty minutes, when everyone quietened down the reading continued.
I dug out my iPod and scrolled through my playlist. Nothing struck me. I threw it on my bed in disgust. When I'm too distracted for music, that is a very sad thing. I wondered why Carter got to talk to the police first. It wasn't fair.
I fiddled with the necklace Dad had given me. I'd never been sure what the symbol meant. Carter's was obviously an eye, but mine looked a bit like an angel, or perhaps a killer alien robot.
Isis huffed at the 'killer alien robot' comment and we laughed at her. " What is the symbol," Thalia asks. " It is the symbol of Isis. " making Greeks laugh too while Isis turns red.
Why on earth had Dad asked if I still had it? Of course, I still had it. It was the only gift he'd ever given me. Well, apart from Muffin, and with the cat's attitude, I'm not sure I would call her a proper gift.
Dad had practically abandoned me at age six, after all. The necklace was my one link to him. On good days I would stare at it and remember him fondly. On bad days (which were much more frequent) I would fling it across the room and stomp on it and curse him for not being around, which I found quite therapeutic. But in the end, I always put it back on.
" I will recommend stomping on necklaces to my patients as therapy. " Will said laughing. Isis scowls at Sadie
At any rate, during the weirdness at the museum—and I'm not making this up—the necklace got hotter. I nearly took it off, but I couldn't help wondering if it truly was protecting me somehow.
" It was. " Sadie answers the questioning looks given to her.
I'll make things right, Dad had said, with that guilty look he often gives me.
Well, colossal fail, Dad.
What had he been thinking? I wanted to believe it had all been a bad dream: the glowing hieroglyphs, the snake staff, the coffin. Things like that simply don't happen. But I knew better. I couldn't dream anything as horrifying as that fiery man's face when he'd turned on us. "Soon, boy," he'd told Carter as if he intended to track us down. Just the idea made my hands tremble. I also couldn't help wondering about our stop at Cleopatra's Needle, how Dad had insisted on seeing it as if he were steeling his courage as if what he did at the British Museum had something to do with my mum.
My eyes wandered across my room and fixed on my desk.
No, I thought. Not going to do it.
Carter threw Sadie a worried look. She did not meet anyone's eyes.
But I walked over and opened the drawer. I shoved aside a few old mags, my stash of sweets, a stack of maths homework I'd forgotten to hand in
" You forgot to hand in homework. " Carter, Julius and Ruby shout at her. " Geez, no need to worry. I did not even get time after that as I was busy saving the world."
, and a few pictures of me and my mates Liz and Emma trying on ridiculous hats in Camden Market. And there at the bottom of it, all was the picture of Mum.
Gran and Gramps have loads of pictures. They keep a shrine to Ruby in the hall cupboard—Mum's childhood artwork, her O-level results, her graduation picture from university, her favorite jewelry.
Ruby smiled at that.
It's quite mental. I was determined not to be like them, living in the past. I barely remembered Mum, after all, and nothing could change the fact she was dead.
Sadie leaned against Walt. Carter gave them a side-eye but I shook my head. I knew she was saying it for her own sake. She must have missed her mother.
But I did keep the one picture. It was of Mum and me at our house in Los Angeles, just after I was born. She stood out on the balcony, the Pacific Ocean behind her, holding a wrinkled pudgy lump of baby that would someday grow up to be yours truly. Baby me was not much to look at, but Mum was gorgeous, even in shorts and a tattered T-shirt. Her eyes were deep blue. Her blond hair was clipped back. Her skin was perfect. Quite depressing compared to mine. People always say I look like her, but I couldn't even get the spot off my chin much less look so mature and beautiful.
Greeks looked between Sadie and Ruby and then say in sync, "You do look like Ruby, Sadie." " Thanks. We could not have guessed that. " Carter says sarcastically.
[Stop smirking, Carter.]
The photo fascinated me because I hardly remembered our lives together at all. But the main reason I'd kept the photo was because of the symbol on Mum's T-shirt: one of those life symbols—an ankh.
" Well, that is an oxymoron. "Athena said. Everyone looked at her and shook their head in amazement.
My dead mother wearing the symbol for Life. How it could've been sadder? But she smiled at the camera as if she knew a secret. As if my dad and she were sharing a private joke.
" Love is in the air," Aphrodite says dreamingly.
Something tugged at the back of my mind. That stocky man in the trench coat who'd been arguing with Dad across the street—he'd said something about the Per Ankh.
Had he meant ankh as in the symbol for life, and if so, what was a per?
" It could be the fruit, Pear," Nico says.
I supposed he didn't mean pear as in the fruit.
Nico blushes.
I had an eerie feeling that if I saw the words Per Ankh written in hieroglyphics, I would know what they meant.
I put down the picture of Mum. I picked up a pencil and turned over one of my old homework papers. I wondered what would happen if I tried to draw the words Per Ankh. Would the right design just occur to me?
" It will. " Isis said.
As I touched pencil to paper, my bedroom door opened. "Miss Kane?"
I whirled and dropped the pencil.
A police inspector stood frowning in my doorway. "What are you doing?"
"Maths," I said.
My ceiling was quite low, so the inspector had to stoop to come in. He wore a lint-colored suit that matched his gray hair and his ashen face. "Now then, Sadie. I'm Chief Inspector Williams. Let's have a chat, shall we? Sit down."
I didn't sit, and neither did he, which must've annoyed him. It's hard to look in charge when you're hunched over like Quasimodo.
Cue laughs. Sadie certainly has a way with older people. It only gets annoying when she gets sarcastic at you.
"Tell me everything, please," he said, "from the time your father came round to get you."
"I already told the police at the museum."
"Again, if you don't mind."
So I told him everything. Why not? His left eyebrow crept higher and higher as I told him the strange bits like the glowing letters and serpent staff.
"Well, Sadie," Inspector Williams said. "You've got quite an imagination."
" That is what they always think. " Percy muttered.
"I'm not lying, Inspector. And I think your eyebrow is trying to escape."
More laughter. Lord Hermes tried to enact that only to get smacked by Lady Artemis.
He tried to look at his own eyebrows, then scowled. "Now, Sadie, I'm sure this is very hard on you. I understand you want to protect your father's reputation. But he's gone now—"
"You mean through the floor in a coffin," I insisted. "He's not dead."
Inspector Williams spread his hands. "Sadie, I'm very sorry. But we must find out why he did this act of...well..."
"Act of what?"
He cleared his throat uncomfortably. "Your father destroyed priceless artifacts and apparently killed himself in the process. We'd very much like to know why."
" Are you saying I am a terrorist ?" Osiris scowls at the book.
I stared at him. "Are you saying my father's a terrorist? Are you mad?"
" No, he is a mortal. " Hazel replied.
"We've made calls to some of your father's associates. I understand his behavior had become erratic since your mother's death. He'd become withdrawn and obsessive in his studies, spending more and more time in Egypt—"
" I am a Egytologist."
"Umm, Dad you are talking to a book"
"He's a bloody Egyptologist! You should be looking for him, not asking stupid questions!"
"Sadie," he said, and I could hear in his voice that he was resisting the urge to strangle me. Strangely, I get this a lot from adults.
" That is her characteristic." Carter comments. I turn to see why Sadie did not comment back, only to find her sleeping. Seems like someone is tired of using all those magic.
"There are extremist groups in Egypt that object to Egyptian artifacts being kept in other countries' museums. These people might have approached your father. Perhaps in his state, your father became an easy target for them. If you've heard him mention any names—"
I stormed past him to the window. I was so angry I could hardly think. I refused to believe Dad was dead. No, no, no. And a terrorist? Please. Why did adults have to be so thick? They always say "Tell the truth," and when you do, they don't believe you. What's the point?
"Excellent question !" Leo turns only to find Sadie sleeping. He was going to remark something but Walt only shakes his head.
I stared down at the dark street. Suddenly that cold tingly feeling got worse than ever. I focused on the dead tree where I'd met Dad earlier. Standing there now, in the dim light of a streetlamp, looking up at me, was the pudgy bloke in the black trench coat and the round glasses and the fedora—the man Dad had called Amos.
"Wait for a second, you did not remember even your uncle," Piper asked. Amos shook his head and says " I was forbidden to even meet Julius much less my nephew and niece. " " Who forbid you?" Jason asks. But before Amos could answer, Carter says"It will be told in the story. " I hide a smile at their annoyed expression.
I suppose I should've felt threatened by an odd man staring up at me in the dark of night. But his expression was full of concern. And he looked so familiar. It was driving me mad that I couldn't remember why.
Behind me, the inspector cleared his throat. "Sadie, no one blames you for the attack on the museum. We understand you were dragged into this against your will."
I turned from the window. "Against my will? I chained the curator in his office."
" Which was awesome." Strolls, Hermes and Apollo blurt only to get hit by the people sitting next to them.
The inspector's eyebrow started to creep up again.
"Be that as it may, surely you didn't understand what your father meant to do. Possibly your brother was involved?"
I snorted. "Carter? Please."
" Should I take that as an offense or as praise? " Carter asks only to get silence in return. Everyone turns towards us to see Sadie sleeping. " Why is she sleeping? It is still evening. " Reyna asks. " Usage of magic kind of tires us out. She is resting from her excessive use of power. " "Excessive use? " Carter replies" Before coming here we were kind of searching Setne, the guy you saw outside. He is an evil run-away ghost who can cause quite a lot of destruction. Let us talk about it in the next break." Everyone nods their head at that.
"So you are determined to protect him as well. You consider him a proper brother, do you?"
Carter, Julius and Ruby scowl at the book while Percy seems to be lost in thought.
I couldn't believe it. I wanted to smack his face. "What's that supposed to mean? Because he doesn't look like me?"
Their scowl deepens.
The inspector blinked. "I only meant—"
"I know what you meant. Of course, he's my brother!"
Inspector Williams held up his hands apologetically, but I was still seething. As much as Carter annoyed me, I hated it when people assumed we weren't related, or looked at my father askance when he said the three of us were a family—like we'd done something wrong. Stupid Dr. Martin at the museum. Inspector Williams. It happened every time Dad and Carter and I were together. Every bloody time.
Everyone looks at Sadie and Carter with sympathy.
"I'm sorry, Sadie," the inspector said. "I only want to make sure we separate the innocent from the guilty. It will go much easier for everyone if you cooperate. Any information. Anything your father said. People he might've mentioned."
"Amos," I blurted out, just to see his reaction. "He met a man named Amos."
" Is she calling me a terrorist? "Amos narrowed his eyes.
Inspector Williams sighed. "Sadie, he couldn't have done. Surely you know that. We spoke with Amos not one hour ago, on the phone from his home in New York."
"He isn't in New York!" I insisted. "He's right—"
I glanced out the window and Amos was gone. Bloody typical.
Greeks' eyes widened.
"That's not possible," I said.
"Exactly," the inspector said.
"But he was here!" I exclaimed. "Who is he? One of Dad's colleagues? How did you know to call him?"
"Really, Sadie. This acting must stop."
"Acting?"
The inspector studied me for a moment, then set his jaw as if he'd made a decision. "We've already had the truth from Carter. I didn't want to upset you, but he told us everything. He understands there's no point protecting your father now. You might as well help us, and there will be no charges against you."
"You shouldn't lie to children!" I yelled, hoping my voice carried all the way downstairs. "Carter would never say a word against Dad, and neither will I!"
" Yep. It did. Everyone was startled by that. "
The inspector didn't even have the decency to look embarrassed.
" He should eat more cereal. "Demeter said. Making everyone jump as she was so quiet for so long.
He crossed his arms. "I'm sorry you feel that way, Sadie. I'm afraid it's time we went downstairs...to discuss consequences with your grandparents."
"The Chapter ends. Now who will read next. "Zeus boomed waking up Sadie.