Slice!
The sphinx dissolved into smoke.
I tried to rise but couldn’t. Sadie stumbled over. “Carter! Oh god, are you okay?”
I blinked at the other person—the one who had saved me: a tall, thin figure in a black, hooded raincoat. What had she yelled: Eat muffins? What kind of battle cry was that?
She threw off her coat, and a woman in a leopard-skin acrobatic suit grinned down at me, showing off her fangs and her lamplike yellow eyes.
“Miss me?” asked Bast.
C A R T E R
18. When Fruit Bats Go Bad
WE HUDDLED UNDER THE EAVES of a big white government building and watched the rain pour down on the Place de la Concorde. It was a miserable day to be in Paris. The winter skies were heavy and low, and the cold, wet air soaked right into my bones. There were no tourists, no foot traffic. Everyone with any sense was inside by a fire enjoying a hot drink.
To our right, the River Seine wound sluggishly through the city. Across the enormous plaza, the gardens of the Tuileries were shrouded in a soupy haze.
The Egyptian obelisk rose up lonely and dark in the middle of the square. We waited for more enemies to pop out of it, but none came. I remembered what Zia had said about artifacts needing a twelve-hour cooldown before they could be used again. I hoped she was right.
“Hold still,” Bast told me.
I winced as she pressed her hand against my chest. She whispered something in Egyptian, and the pain slowly subsided.
“Broken rib,” she announced. “Better now, but you should rest for at least a few minutes.”
“What about the magicians?”
“I wouldn’t worry about them just yet. The House will assume you teleported somewhere else.”
“Why?”
“Paris is the Fourteenth Nome—Desjardins’ headquarters. You would be insane trying to hide in his home territory.”
“Great.” I sighed.
“And your amulets do shield you,” Bast added. “I could find Sadie anywhere because of my promise to protect her. But the amulets will keep you veiled from the eyes of Set and from other magicians.”
I thought about the dark room in the First Nome with all the children looking into bowls of oil. Were they looking for us right now? The thought was creepy.
I tried to sit up and winced again.
“Stay still,” Bast ordered. “Really, Carter, you should learn to fall like a cat.”
“I’ll work on that,” I promised. “How are you even alive? Is it that ‘nine lives’ thing?”
“Oh, that’s just a silly legend. I’m immortal.”
“But the scorpions!” Sadie scrunched in closer, shivering and drawing Bast’s raincoat around her shoulders. “We saw them overwhelm you!”
Bast made a purring sound. “Dear Sadie, you do care! I must say I’ve worked for many children of the pharaohs, but you two—” She looked genuinely touched. “Well, I’m sorry if I worried you. It’s true the scorpions reduced my power to almost nothing. I held them off as long as I could. Then I had just enough energy to revert to Muffin’s form and slip into the Duat.”
“I thought you weren’t good at portals,” I said.
“Well, first off, Carter, there are many ways in and out of the Duat. It has many different regions and layers—the Abyss, the River of Night, the Land of the Dead, the Land of Demons—”
“Sounds lovely,” Sadie muttered.