“Unless—unless you’ve got a better idea,” he stammered, his face beading with perspiration. “It’s me, you, and the baboon against those things.”
I’m sure Carter was trying to be brave in his own extremely unbrave way, but he was shaking worse than I was. If anyone was going to pass out, I feared it would be him, and I didn’t fancy him doing that while holding a sharp object.
Then the serpopards struck a third time, and the door shattered. We backed up to the foot of Thoth’s statue as the creatures stalked into the great room. Khufu threw his basketball, which bounced harmlessly off the first monster’s head. Then he launched himself at the serpopard.
“Khufu, don’t!” Carter yelled.
But the baboon sank his fangs into the monster’s neck. The serpopard lashed around, trying to bite him. Khufu leaped off, but the monster was quick. It used its head like a bat and smacked poor Khufu in midair, sending him straight through the shattered door, over the broken terrace, and into the void.
I wanted to sob, but there wasn’t time. The serpopards came toward us. We couldn’t outrun them. Carter raised his sword. I pointed my hand at the first monster and tried to speak the ha-di spell, but my voice stuck in my throat.
“Mrow!” Muffin said, more insistently. Why was the cat still nestled in my arm and not running away in terror?
Then I remembered something Amos had said: Muffin will protect you. Was that what Khufu had been trying to remind me? It seemed impossible, but I stammered, “M-muffin, I order you to protect us.”
I tossed her on the floor. Just for a moment, the silver pendant on her collar seemed to gleam. Then the cat arched her back leisurely, sat down, and began licking a front paw. Well, really, what was I expecting—heroics?
The two red-eyed monsters bared their fangs. They raised their heads and prepared to strike—and an explosion of dry air blasted through the room. It was so powerful, it knocked Carter and me to the floor. The serpopards stumbled and backed away.
I staggered to my feet and realized that the center of the blast had been Muffin. My cat was no longer there. In her place was a woman—small and lithe like a gymnast. Her jet-black hair was tied in a ponytail. She wore a skintight leopard-skin jumpsuit and Muffin’s pendant around her neck.
She turned and grinned at me, and her eyes were still Muffin’s—yellow with black feline pupils. “About time,” she chided.
The serpopards got over their shock and charged the cat woman. Their heads struck with lightning speed. They should’ve ripped her in two, but the cat lady leaped straight up, flipping three times, and landed above them, perched on the mantel.
She flexed her wrists, and two enormous knives shot from her sleeves into her hands. “A-a-ah, fun!”
The monsters charged. She launched herself between them, dancing and dodging with incredible grace, letting them lash at her futilely while she threaded their necks together. When she stepped away, the serpopards were hopelessly intertwined. The more they struggled, the tighter the knots became. They trampled back and forth, knocking over furniture and roaring in frustration.
“Poor things,” the cat woman purred. “Let me help.”
Her knives flashed, and the two monsters’ heads thudded to the floor at her feet. Their bodies collapsed and dissolved into enormous piles of sand.
“So much for my playthings,” the woman said sadly. “From sand they come, and to sand they return.”
She turned towards us, and the knives shot back into her sleeves. “Carter, Sadie, we should leave. Worse will be coming.”
Carter made a choking sound. “Worse? Who—how—what—”
“All in good time.” The woman stretched her arms above her head with great satisfaction. “So good to be in human form again! Now, Sadie, can you open us a door through the Duat, please?”
I blinked. “Um...no. I mean—I don’t know how.”
The woman narrowed her eyes, clearly disappointed. “Shame. We’ll need more power, then. An obelisk.”
“But that’s in London,” I protested. “We can’t—”
“There’s a nearer one in Central Park. I try to avoid Manhattan, but this is an e
mergency. We’ll just pop over and open a portal.”
“A portal to where?” I demanded. “Who are you, and why are you my cat?”
The woman smiled. “For now, we just want a portal out of danger. As for my name, it’s not Muffin, thank you very much. It’s—”
“Bast,” Carter interrupted. “Your pendant—it’s the symbol of Bast, goddess of cats. I thought it was just decoration but...that’s you, isn’t it?”
“Very good, Carter,” Bast said. “Now come, while we can still make it out of here alive.”