“’Course we do.” Liz’s face was flushed, the way she got after several roller coaster rides. “I’ve never heard you talk so seriously about anything. You—you’ve changed.”
“It’s just I’m a magician now, and…and I can’t believe how stupid that sounds.”
“It’s more than that.” Emma studied my face as if I was turning into something quite frightening. “You seem older. More mature.”
Her voice was tinged with sadness, and I realized my mates and I were growing apart. It was as if we stood on opposite sides of a widening chasm. And I knew with gloomy certainty the breach was already too wide for me to jump back across.
“Your boyfriend is amazing,” Liz added, probably to cheer me up.
“He’s not my…” I stopped. There was no winning that argument with Liz. Besides, I was so mixed up about that bloody jackal Anubis, I didn’t know where to begin.
The train slowed. I saw the signs for Waterloo Station.
“Oh, god,” I said. “I meant to get off at London Bridge. I need a bridge.”
“Can’t we backtrack?” Liz asked.
A roar from the tunnel behind us answered that question. Looking back, I saw a large shape with glittering silver fur loping along the tracks. Its foot touched the third rail, and sparks flew; but the baboon god lumbered on, unfazed. As the train braked, Babi started to gain on us.
“No going back,” I said. “We’ll have to make it to Waterloo Bridge.”
“That’s half a mile from the station!” Liz protested. “What if it catches us?”
I rummaged through my bag and pulled ou
t my new staff. Instantly it expanded to full length, the lion-carved tip blazing with golden light. “Then I suppose we’ll have to fight.”
Should I describe Waterloo Station as it was before or after we destroyed it? The main concourse was massive. It had a polished marble floor, loads of shops and kiosks, and a glass-and-girder ceiling high enough so that a helicopter could fly about inside comfortably.
Rivers of people flowed in and out, mixing, separating, and occasionally colliding as they made their way to various escalators and platforms.
When I was small, the station building had rather frightened me. I worried that the giant Victorian clock hanging from the ceiling might fall and crush me. The announcers’ voices were much too loud. (I prefer to be the noisiest thing in my environment, thank you very much.) The masses of commuters standing mesmerized under the departure boards, watching for their trains, reminded me of a mob in a zombie movie—which, granted, I shouldn’t have watched as a young child, but I was always rather precocious.
At any rate, my mates and I were racing through the main station, pushing our way toward the nearest exit, when a stairwell behind us exploded.
Crowds scattered as Babi climbed from the rubble. Businessmen screamed, dropping their briefcases and sprinting for their lives. Liz, Emma, and I pressed against the side of the Paperchase kiosk to avoid getting trampled by a group of tourists yelling in Italian.
Babi howled. His fur was covered with grime and soot from his run through the tunnels. Gramps’s cardigan was ripped to shreds on his arm, but, miraculously, his glasses were still on his head.
He sniffed the air, probably trying to catch my scent. Then a dark shadow passed overhead.
“Where are you going, Sadie Kane?” Nekhbet shrieked. She soared through the terminal, swooping down on the already panicked crowds. “Would you fight by running away? You are not worthy!”
An announcer’s calm voice echoed through the terminal: “The 8:02 train for Basingstoke will arrive on platform three.”
“ROOOAR!” Babi swatted a bronze statue of some poor famous bloke and knocked his head clean off. A policeman ran forward, armed with a pistol. Before I could yell at him to stop, he fired a shot at Babi. Liz and Emma both screamed. The bullet deflected off Babi’s fur as if it were made of titanium, and shattered a nearby McDonald’s sign. The officer fainted dead away.
I’d never seen so many people clear out of a terminal so quickly. I considered following them, but decided it would be too dangerous. I couldn’t have these insane gods killing loads of innocent people just because I was in their midst; and if we tried to join the exodus, we’d only get stuck or crushed in a stampede.
“Sadie, look!” Liz pointed up, and Emma yelped.
Nekhbet sailed into the ceiling girders and perched there with the pigeons. She glared down at us and cried to Babi, “Here she is, my dear! Here!”
“I wish she’d shut up,” I muttered.
“Isis was foolish to choose you!” Nekhbet yelled. “I will feed on your entrails!”
“ROOOOAR!” said Babi, in hearty agreement.