C A R T E R
6. A Birdbath Almost Kills Me
AMOS TURNED THE SCARAB SHELL in his fingers. “A three-headed snake, you say.”
I felt guilty dumping this on him. He’d been through so much since Christmas. Then he finally got healed and came home, and boom—a monster invades our practice room. But I didn’t know who else to talk to. I was kind of sorry Sadie wasn’t around.
[All right, Sadie, don’t gloat. I wasn’t that sorry.]
“Yeah,” I said, “with wings and flamethrower breath. Ever seen something like that before?”
Amos put the scarab shell on the table. He nudged it, as if expecting it to come to life. We had the library to ourselves, which was unusual. Often, the big round chamber was filled with trainees hunting through rows of cubbyholes for scrolls, or sending retrieval shabti across the world for artifacts, books, or pizza. Painted on the floor was a picture of Geb the earth god, his body dotted with trees and rivers. Above us, the starry-skinned sky goddess Nut stretched across the ceiling. I usually felt safe in this room, sheltered between two gods who’d been friendly to us in the past. But now I kept glancing at the retrieval shabti stationed around the library and wondering if they would dissolve into scarab shells or decide to attack us.
Finally Amos spoke a command word: “A’max.”
Burn.
A small red hieroglyph blazed over the scarab:
The shell burst into flames and crumbled to a tiny mound of ash.
“I seem to recall a painting,” Amos said, “in the tomb of Thuthmose III. It showed a three-headed winged snake like the one you described. But what it means…” He shook his head. “Snakes can be good or bad in Egyptian legend. They can be the enemies of Ra, or his protectors.”
“This wasn’t a protector,” I said. “It wanted the scroll.”
“And yet it had three heads, which might symbolize the three aspects of Ra. And it was born from the rubble of Ra’s statue.”
“It wasn’t from Ra,” I insisted. “Why would Ra want to stop us from finding him? Besides, I recognized the snake’s voice. It was the voice of your—” I bit my tongue. “I mean, it was the voice of Set’s minion from the Red Pyramid—the one who was possessed by Apophis.”
Amos’s eyes became unfocused.
“Face of Horror,” he remembered. “You think Apophis was speaking to you through this serpent?”
I nodded. “I think he set those traps at the Brooklyn Museum. He spoke to me through that bau. If he’s so powerful that he can infiltrate this mansion—”
“No, Carter. Even if you’re right, it wasn’t Apophis himself. If he’d broken out of his prison
, it would cause ripples through the Duat so powerful, every magician would feel them. But possessing the minds of minions, even sending them into protected places to deliver a message—that’s much easier. I don’t think that snake could’ve done you much harm. It would’ve been quite weak after breaching our defenses. It was mostly sent to warn you, and scare you.”
“It worked,” I said.
I didn’t ask Amos how he knew so much about possession and the ways of Chaos. Having had his body taken over by Set, the god of evil, had given him an intensive crash course in stuff like that. Now he seemed back to normal, but I knew from my own experience of sharing a mind with Horus: once you hosted a god—whether it was voluntary or not—you were never quite the same. You retained the memories, even some traces of the god’s power. I couldn’t help noticing that the color of Amos’s magic had changed. It used to be blue. Now when he summoned hieroglyphs, they glowed red—the color of Set.
“I’ll strengthen the charms around the house,” he promised. “It’s high time I upgraded our security. I’ll make sure Apophis can’t send messengers through again.”
I nodded, but his promise didn’t make me feel much better.
Tomorrow, if Sadie came back safely, we’d be off on a quest to find the other two scrolls for the Book of Ra.
Sure, we’d survived our last adventure fighting Set, but Apophis was in a totally different league. And we weren’t hosting gods anymore. We were just kids, facing evil magicians, demons, monsters, spirits, and the eternal Lord of Chaos. In the plus column, I had a cranky sister, a sword, a baboon, and a griffin with a personality disorder. I wasn’t liking those odds.
“Amos,” I said, “what if we’re wrong? What if awakening Ra doesn’t work?”
It had been a long time since I’d seen my uncle smile. He didn’t look much like my father, but when he smiled, he got the same crinkles around his eyes.
“My boy, look what you’ve accomplished. You and Sadie have rediscovered a way of magic that hasn’t been practiced in millennia. You’ve taken your trainees further in two months than most First Nome initiates would get in two years. You’ve battled gods. You’ve accomplished more than any living magician has—even me, even Michel Desjardins. Trust your instincts. If I were a betting man, my money would be on you and your sister every time.”
A lump formed in my throat. I hadn’t gotten a pep talk like that since my dad was still alive, and I guess I hadn’t realized how much I needed one.