The Throne of Fire (Kane Chronicles 2)

“Don’t like bugs,” Ra muttered.

We waited for him to change into a powerful youthful king. Instead, he burped. He stayed old, and weird, and disgusting.

In a daze, I walked with Sadie back to the front of the ship. We’d done everything we could, and yet I felt like we’d lost. As we sailed on, the magic pressure seemed to ease. The river appeared level, but I could sense we were rising rapidly through the Duat. Despite that, I still felt like my insides were melting. Sadie didn’t look any better.

Menshikov’s words echoed in my head: Mortals can’t leave this cavern alive.

“It’s Chaos sickness,” Sadie said. “We’re not going to make it, are we?”

“We have to hold on,” I said. “At least until dawn.”

“All that,” Sadie said, “and what happened? We retrieved a senile god. We lost Bes and the Chief Lector. And we’re dying.”

I took Sadie’s hand. “Maybe not. Look.”

Ahead of us, the tunnel was getting brighter. The cavern walls dissolved, and the river widened. Two pillars rose from the water—two giant golden scarab statues. Beyond them gleamed the morning skyline of Manhattan. The River of Night was emptying out into New York Harbor.

“Each new dawn is a new world,” I remembered our dad saying. “Maybe we’ll be healed.”

“Ra, too?” Sadie asked.

I didn’t have an answer, but I was starting to feel better, stronger, like I’d had a good night’s sleep. As we passed between the golden scarab statues, I looked to our right. Across the water, smoke was rising from Brooklyn—flashes of multicolored light and streaks of fire as winged creatures engaged in aerial combat.

“They’re still alive,” Sadie said. “They need help!”

We turned the sun boat toward home—and sailed straight into battle.

S A D I E

23. We Throw a Wild House Party

[FATAL MISTAKE, CARTER. Giving me the microphone at the most important part? You’ll never get it back now. The end of the story is mine. Ha-ha-ha!]

Oh, that felt good. I’d be excellent at world domination.

But I digress.

You might’ve seen news reports about the strange double sunrise over Brooklyn on the morning of March twenty-first. There were many theories: haze in the air from pollution, a temperature drop in the lower atmosphere, aliens, or perhaps another sewer-gas leak causing mass hysteria. We love sewer gas in Brooklyn!

I can confirm, however, that there briefly were two suns in the sky. I know this because I was in one of them. The normal sun rose as usual. But there was also the boat of Ra, blazing as it rose from the Duat, out of New York Harbor and into the sky of the mortal world.

To observers below, the second sun appeared to merge with the light of the first. What actually happened? The sun boat dimmed as it descended toward Brooklyn House, where the mansion’s antimortal camouflage shielding enveloped it, and made it seem to disappear.

The shielding was already working overtime, as a full-fledged war was in progress. Freak the Griffin was diving through the air, engaging the winged flaming snakes, the uraei, in aerial combat.

[I know that’s a horrible word to pronounce, uraei, but Carter insists it’s the plural for uraeus, and there’s no arguing with him. Just say you’re right and leave off the t, and you’ve got it.]

Freak yelled, “Freaaaak!” and gobbled up a uraeus, but he was sorely outnumbered. His fur was singed, and his buzzing wings must’ve been damaged, as he kept spinning in circles like a broken helicopter.

His rooftop nest was on fire. Our portal sphinx was broken, and the chimney was stained with a massive black star-burst where something or someone had exploded. A squad of enemy magicians and demons had taken cover behind the air conditioning unit and were pinned in combat against Zia and Walt, who were guarding the stairwell. Both sides threw fire, shabti, and glowing hieroglyphic bombs across the no-man’sland of the roof.

As we descended over the enemy, old Ra (yes, he was still just as senile and withered as ever) leaned over the side and waved at everyone with his crook. “Hel-lo-o-o-o! Zebras!”

Both sides looked up in amazement. “Ra!” one demon screamed. Then everyone took up the cry: “Ra?” “Ra!” “Ra!”

They sounded like the world’s most terrified pep squad.

The uraei stopped spitting fire, much to Freak’s surprise, and immediately flew to the sun boat. They began circling us like an honor guard, and I remembered what Menshikov had said about them originally being creatures of Ra. Apparently they recognized their old master (emphasis on old.)