“But what if he can’t? Philip!”
The old crocodile turned. For a second his pink reptilian eye focused on me as if he could sense my concern. Then the cat-snakes bit at his underbelly and Philip rose up so that only the tip of his tail still touched the water. His body began to glow. A low hum filled the air, like an airplane engine starting up. When Philip came down, he slammed into the terrace with all his might.
The entire house shook. Cracks appeared in the concrete terrace outside, and the swimming pool split right down the middle as the far end crumbled into empty space.
“No!” I cried.
But the edge of the terrace ripped free, plunging Philip and the monsters straight into the East River.
My whole body began to tremble. “He sacrificed himself. He killed the monsters.”
“Sadie...” Carter’s voice was faint. “What if he didn’t? What if they come back?”
“Don’t say that!”
“I—I recognized them, Sadie. Those creatures. Come on.”
“Where?” I demanded, but he ran straight back to the library.
Carter marched up to the shabti who’d helped us before. “Bring me the...gah, what’s it called?”
“What?” I asked.
“Something Dad showed me. It’s a big stone plate or something. Had a picture of the first pharaoh, the guy who united Upper and Lower Egypt into one kingdom. His name...” His eyes lit up. “Narmer! Bring me the Narmer Plate!”
Nothing happened.
“No,” Carter decided. “Not a plate. It was...one of those things that holds paint. A palette. Bring me the Narmer Palette!”
The empty-handed shabti didn’t move, but across the room, the statue with the little hook came to life. He jumped off his pedestal and disappeared in a cloud of dust. A heartbeat later, he reappeared on the table. At his feet was a wedge of flat gray stone, shaped like a shield and about as long as my forearm.
“No!” Carter protested. “I meant a picture of it! Oh great, I think this is the real artifact. The shabti must’ve stolen it from the Cairo Museum. We’ve got to return—”
“Hang on,” I said. “We might as well have a look.”
The surface of the stone was carved with the picture of a man smashing another man in the face with what looked like a spoon.
“That’s Narmer with the spoon,” I guessed. “Angry because the other bloke stole his breakfast cereal?”
Carter shook his head. “He’s conquering his enemies and uniting Egypt. See his hat? That’s the crown of Lower Egypt, before the two countries united.”
“The bit tha
t looks like a bowling pin?”
“You’re impossible,” Carter grumbled.
“He looks like Dad, doesn’t he?”
“Sadie, be serious!”
“I am serious. Look at his profile.”
Carter decided to ignore me. He examined the stone like he was afraid to touch it. “I need to see the back but I don’t want to turn it over. We might damage—”
I grabbed the stone and flipped it over.
“Sadie! You could’ve broken it!”