He was taller than Dad, and his laugh cut through me like a chainsaw.
“Well done,” he said to my father. “Very well done, Julius.”
“You were not summoned!” My father’s voice trembled. He held up the boomerang, but the fiery man flicked one finger, and the stick flew from Dad’s hand, shattering against the wall.
“I am never summoned, Julius,” the man purred. “But when you open a door, you must be prepared for guests to walk through.”
“Back to the Duat!” my father roared. “I have the power of the Great King!”
“Oh, scary,” the fiery man said with amusement. “And even if you knew how to use that power, which you do not, he was never my match. I am the strongest. Now you will share his fate.”
I couldn’t make sense of anything, but I knew that I had to help my dad. I tried to pick up the nearest chunk of stone, but I was so terrified my fingers felt frozen and numb. My hands were useless.
Dad shot me a silent look of warning: Get out. I realized he was intentionally keeping the fiery man’s back to us, hoping Sadie and I would escape unnoticed.
Sadie was still groggy. I managed to drag her behind a column, into the shadows. When she started to protest, I clamped my hand over her mouth. That woke her up. She saw what was happening and stopped fighting.
Alarms blared. Fire circled around the doorways of the gallery. The guards had to be on their way, but I wasn’t sure if that was a good thing for us.
Dad crouched to the floor, keeping his eyes on his enemy, and opened his painted wooden box. He brought out a small rod like a ruler. He muttered something under his breath and the rod elongated into a wooden staff as tall as he was.
Sadie made a squeaking sound. I couldn’t believe my eyes either, but things only got weirder.
Dad threw his staff at the fiery man’s feet, and it changed into an enormous serpent—ten feet long and as big around as I was—with coppery scales and glowing red eyes. It lunged at the fiery man, who effortlessly grabbed the serpent by its neck. The man’s hand burst into white-hot flames, and the snake burned to ashes.
“An old trick, Julius,” the fiery man chided.
My dad glanced at us, silently urging us again to run. Part of me refused to believe any of this was real. Maybe I was unconscious, having a nightmare. Next to me, Sadie picked up a chunk of stone.
“How many?” my dad asked quickly, trying to keep the fiery man’s attention. “How many did I release?”
“Why, all five,” the man said, as if explaining something to a child. “You should know we’re a package deal, Julius. Soon I’ll release even more, and they’ll be very grateful. I shall be named king again.”
“The Demon Days,” my father said. “They’ll stop you before it’s too late.”
The fiery man laughed. “You think the House can stop me? Those old fools can’t even stop arguing among themselves. Now let the story be told anew. And this time you shall never rise!”
The fiery man waved his hand. The blue circle at Dad’s feet went dark. Dad grabbed for his toolbox, but it skittered across the floor.
“Good-bye, Osiris,” the fiery man said. With another flick of his hand, he conjured a glowing coffin around our dad. At first it was transparent, but as our father struggled and pounded on its sides, the coffin became more and more solid—a golden Egyptian sarcophagus inlaid with jewels. My dad caught my eyes one last time, and mouthed the word Run! before the coffin sank into the floor, as if the ground had turned to water.
“Dad!” I screamed.
Sadie threw her stone, but it sailed harmlessly through the fiery man’s head.
He turned, and for one terrible moment, his face appeared in the flames. What I saw made no sense. It was as if someone had superimposed two different faces on top of each other—one almost human, with pale skin, cruel, angular features, and glowing red eyes, the other like an animal with dark fur and sharp fangs. Worse than a dog or a wolf or a lion—some animal I’d never seen before. Those red eyes stared at me, and I knew I was going to die.
Behind me, heavy footsteps echoed on the marble floor of the Great Court. Voices were barking orders. The security guards, maybe the police—but they’d never get here in time.
The fiery man lunged at us. A few inches from my face, something shoved him backward. The air sparked with electricity. The amulet around my neck grew uncomfortably hot.
The fiery man hissed, regarding me more carefully. “So...it’s you.”
The building shook again. At the opposite end of the room, part of the wall exploded in a brilliant flash of light. Two people stepped through the gap—the man and the girl we’d seen at the Needle, their robes swirling around them. Both of them held staffs.
The fiery man snarled. He looked at me one last time and said, “Soon, boy.”
Then the entire room erupted in flames. A blast of heat sucked all the air of out my lungs and I crumpled to the floor.