n. All portals will stop working. You need to get as close as possible to Set before that happens.”
“Hold on,” I said. “I meant you should come with us and help us! We can’t even use an obelisk, much less destroy Set!”
“I cannot betray the House,” she said. “You have four minutes now. If you can’t operate the obelisk, you’ll die.”
That was enough incentive for me. I started to drag Carter off, but Zia called: “Sadie?”
When I looked back, Zia’s eyes were full of bitterness.
“Desjardins will order me to hunt you down,” she warned. “Do you understand?”
Unfortunately, I did. The next time we met, we would be enemies.
I grabbed Carter’s hand and ran.
C A R T E R
17. A Bad Trip to Paris
OKAY, BEFORE I GET TO THE demon fruit bats, I should back up.
The night before we fled Luxor, I didn’t get much sleep—first because of an out-of-body experience, then a run-in with Zia. [Stop smirking, Sadie. It wasn’t a good run-in.]
After lights out, I tried to sleep. Honest. I even used the stupid magic headrest they gave me instead of a pillow, but it didn’t help. As soon as I managed to shut my eyes, my ba decided to take a little trip.
Just like before, I felt myself floating above my body, taking on a winged form. Then the current of the Duat swept me away at blurring speed. When my vision cleared, I found myself in a dark cavern. Uncle Amos was sneaking through it, finding his way with a faint blue light that flickered on the top of his staff. I wanted to call to him, but my voice didn’t work. I’m not sure how he could miss me, floating a few feet away in glowing chicken form, but apparently I was invisible to him.
He stepped forward and the ground at his feet suddenly blazed to life with a red hieroglyph. Amos cried out, but his mouth froze half open. Coils of light wrapped around his legs like vines. Soon red tendrils completely entwined him, and Amos stood petrified, his unblinking eyes staring straight ahead.
I tried to fly to him, but I was stuck in place, floating helplessly, so I could only observe.
Laughter echoed through the cavern. A horde of things emerged from the darkness—toad creatures, animal-headed demons, and even stranger monsters half hidden in the gloom. They’d been lying in ambush, I realized—waiting for Amos. In front of them appeared a fiery silhouette—Set, but his form was much clearer now, and this time it wasn’t human. His body was emaciated, slimy, and black, and his head was that of a feral beast.
“Bon soir, Amos,” Set said. “How nice of you to come. We’re going to have so much fun!”
I sat bolt upright in bed, back in my own body, with my heart pounding.
Amos had been captured. I knew it for certain. And even worse...Set had known somehow that Amos was coming. I thought back to something Bast had said, about how the serpopards had broken in to the mansion. She’d said the defenses had been sabotaged, and only a magician of the House could’ve done it. A horrible suspicion started building inside me.
I stared into the dark for a long time, listening to the little kid next to me mumbling spells in his sleep. When I couldn’t stand it any longer, I opened the door with a push of my mind, the way I’d done at Amos’s mansion, and I sneaked out.
I was wandering through the empty marketplace, thinking about Dad and Amos, replaying the events over and over, trying to figure out what I could’ve done differently to save them, when I spotted Zia.
She was hurrying across the courtyard as if she were being chased, but what really caught my attention was the shimmering black cloud around her, as if someone had wrapped her in a glittery shadow. She came to a section of blank wall and waved her hand. Suddenly a doorway appeared. Zia glanced nervously behind her and ducked inside.
Of course I followed.
I moved quietly up to the doorway. I could hear Zia’s voice inside, but I couldn’t make out what she was saying. Then the doorway began to solidify, turning back into a wall, and I made a split-second decision. I jumped through.
Inside, Zia was alone with her back to me. She was kneeling at a stone altar, chanting something under her breath. The walls were decorated with Ancient Egyptian drawings and modern photographs.
The glittery shadow no longer surrounded Zia, but something even stranger was happening. I’d been planning to tell Zia about my nightmare, but that went completely out of my thoughts when I saw what she was doing. She cupped her palms, the way you might hold a bird, and a glowing blue sphere appeared, about the size of a golf ball. Still chanting, she raised her hands. The sphere flew up, straight through the ceiling, and vanished.
Some instinct told me this was not something I was supposed to see.
I thought about backing out of the room. Only problem: the door was gone. No other exits. It was only a matter of time before—Uh-oh.
Maybe I’d made a noise. Maybe her magical senses had kicked in. But faster than I could react, Zia pulled her wand and turned on me, flames flickering down the edge of the boomerang.