Both heads turned toward me, twin tongues flickering. First step done: distract the monster.
Second step: find some clever way to draw it away from Carter. That part was giving me a bit more trouble.
I’d used my only potion. Most of my magic supplies were gone. My staff and wand wouldn’t do me much good with my magical reserves drained. The knife from Anubis? Somehow I doubted this was the right situation to open someone’s mouth.
The amulet from Walt? I had not the slightest idea how to use it.
For the millionth time, I regretted having given up the spirit of Isis. I could really have used the full magic arsenal of a goddess. But, of course, that was exactly why I’d had to separate from her. That sort of power is intoxicating, dangerously addictive. It can quickly destroy your life.
But what if I could form a limited bond? In the Malachite Room, I’d managed the ha-di spell for the first time in months. And while it had been difficult, it hadn’t been impossible.
Right, Isis, I thought. Here’s what I need—
Don’t think, Sadie, her voice whispered back almost immediately, which was quite a shock. Divine magic has to be involuntary, like breathing.
You mean… I stopped myself. Don’t think. Well, that shouldn’t be too hard. I held up my staff, and a golden hieroglyph blazed in the air. A one-meter-tall tyet lit up the courtyard like a Christmas-tree star.
The tjesu heru snarled, its yellow eyes fixed on the hieroglyph.
“Don’t like that, eh?” I called. “Symbol of Isis, you big ugly mutt. Now, get away from my brother!”
It was a complete bluff, of course. I doubted the glowing sign could do anything useful. But I hoped the snake creature wasn’t smart enough to know that.
Slowly, Carter edged backward. He looked for his sword, but it was ten meters away—much too far to reach.
I kept my eyes on the monster. I used the butt of my staff to trace a magic circle in the snow around me. It wouldn’t provide much protection, but it was better than nothing.
“Carter,” I called, “When I say go, run back here.”
“That thing’s too fast!” he said.
“I’ll try to detonate the hieroglyph and blind it.”
I still maintain that the plan would’ve worked, but I didn’t get the chance to try it. Somewhere off to my left, boots crunched on ice. The monster turned toward the sound.
A young man ran into the light of the hieroglyph. He was dressed in a heavy wool coat and a policeman’s hat, with a rifle in his hands, but he couldn’t have been much older than me. He was fairly drowning in his uniform. When he saw the monster, his eyes widened. He stumbled backward, almost dropping his weapon.
He yelled something at me in Russian, probably, “Why is there a two-headed snake monster with no bum?”
The monster hissed at both of us—which it could do, having two heads.
“That’s a monster,” I told the guard. I was fairly sure he couldn’t understand, but I tried to keep my tone steady. “Stay calm and don’t shoot. I’m trying to save my brother.”
The guard swallowed. His large ears were the only things holding up his hat. He glanced from the monster to Carter to the tyet glowing above my head. Then he did something I wasn’t expecting.
He said a word in Ancient Egyptian: “Heqat”—the command I always used to summon my staff. His rifle changed to a two-meter oaken rod with the carved head of a falcon.
Wonderful, I thought. The security guards are secretly magicians.
He addressed me in Russian—some sort of warning. I recognized the name Menshikov.
“Let me guess,” I said. “You want to take me to your leader.”
The tjesu heru snapped its jaws. It was rapidly losing its fear of my glowin
g tyet. Carter wasn’t far enough away to make a run for it.
“Look,” I told the guard, “your boss Menshikov is a traitor. He summoned this thing to kill us so we wouldn’t blab about his plans to free Apophis. Savvy the word Apophis? Bad snake. Very bad snake! Now, either help me kill this monster or stay out of my way!”