“We’re here,” Sadie said nervously. She’d changed into a fresh linen outfit, black this time, which matched her combat boots. She’d even managed to redye her hair so the streaks were blue.
I sat up and realized I felt rested for the first time in a week. My soul may have been traveling, but at least my body had gotten some sleep. I glanced out the stateroom window. It was pitch-black outside.
“How long was I out?” I demanded.
“We’ve sailed down most of the Mississippi and into the Duat,” Bast said. “Now we approach the First Cataract.”
“The First Cataract?” I asked.
“The entrance,” Bast said grimly, “to the Land of the Dead.”
S A D I E
27. A Demon with Free Samples
ME? I SLEPT LIKE THE DEAD, which I hoped wasn’t a sign of things to come.
I could tell Carter’s soul had been wandering through some frightening places, but he wouldn’t talk about them.
“Did you see Zia?” I asked. He looked so rattled I thought his face would fall off. “Knew it,” I said.
We followed Bast up to the wheelhouse, where Bloodstained Blade was studying a map while Khufu manned—er, babooned—the wheel.
“The baboon is driving,” I noted. “Should I be worried?”
“Quiet, please, Lady Kane.” Bloodstained Blade ran his fingers over a long stretch of papyrus map. “This is delicate work. Two degrees to starboard, Khufu.”
“Agh!” Khufu said.
The sky was already dark, but as we chugged along, the stars disappeared. The river turned the color of blood. Darkness swallowed the horizon, and along the riverbanks, the lights of towns changed to flickering fires, then winked out completely.
Now our only lights were the multicolored servant fires and the glittering smoke that bloomed from the smokestacks, washing us all in a weird metallic glow.
“Should be just ahead,” the captain announced. In the dim light, his red-flecked axe blade looked scarier than ever.
“What’s that map?” I asked.
“Spells of Coming Forth by Day,” he said. “Don’t worry. It’s a good copy.”
I looked at Carter for a translation.
“Most people call it The Book of the Dead,” he told me. “Rich Egyptians were always buried with a copy, so they could have directions through the Duat to the Land of the Dead. It’s like an Idiot’s Guide to the Afterlife.”
The captain hummed indignantly. “I am no idiot, Lord Kane.”
“No, no, I just meant...” Carter’s voice faltered. “Uh, what is that?”
Ahead of us, crags of rock jutted from the river like fangs, turning the water into a boiling mass of rapids.
“The First Cataract,” Bloodstained Blade announced. “Hold on.”
Khufu pushed the wheel to the left, and the steamboat skidded sideways, shooting between two rocky spires with only centimeters to spare. I’m not much of a screamer, but I’ll readily admit that I screamed my head off. [And don’t look at me like that, Carter. You weren’t much better.]
We dropped over a stretch of white water—or red water—and swerved to avoid a rock the size of Paddington Station. The steamboat made two more suicidal turns between boulders, did a three-sixty spin round a swirling vortex, launched over a ten-meter waterfall, and came crashing down so hard, my ears popped like a gunshot.
We continued downstream as if nothing had happened, the roar of the rapids fading behind us.
“I don’t like cataracts,” I decided. “Are there more?”