Most of the enemies below us scattered as the boat came down, but the slowest of the demons said, “Ra?” and looked up just as our sun boat landed on top of him with a satisfying crunch.
Carter and I jumped into battle. In spite of all we’d be through, I felt wonderful. The Chaos sickness had disappeared as soon as we’d risen from the Duat. My magic was strong. My spirits were high. If I’d just had a shower, some fresh clothes, and a proper cup of tea, I would’ve been in paradise. (Strike that; now that I’d seen Paradise, I didn’t much like it. I’d settle for my own room.)
I zapped one demon into a tiger and unleashed him on his brethren. Carter popped into avatar form—the glowing golden kind, thank goodness; the three-meter-tall birdman had been a bit too scary for me. He smashed his way through the terrified enemy magicians, and with a sweep of his hand sent them sailing into the East River. Zia and Walt came out from the stairwell and helped us mop up the stragglers. Then they ran to us with big grins on their faces. They looked battered and bruised but still very much alive.
“FREEEEK!” said the griffin. He swooped down and landed next to Carter, head-butting his combat avatar, which I hoped was a sign of affection.
“Hey, buddy.” Carter rubbed his head, careful to avoid the monster’s chain-saw wings. “What’s happening, guys?”
“Talking didn’t work,” Zia said drily.
“The enemy’s been trying to break in all night,” Walt said. “Amos and Bast have held them off, but—” He glanced at the sun boat, and his voice faltered. “Is that—that isn’t—”
“Zebra!” Ra called, tottering toward us with a big toothless grin.
He walked straight up to Zia and pulled something out of his mouth—the glowing gold scarab, now quite wet but undigested. He offered it to her. “I like zebras.”
Zia backed up. “This is—this is Ra, the Lord of the Sun? Why is he offering me a bug?”
“And what does he mean about zebras?” Walt asked.
Ra looked at Walt and clucked disapprovingly. “Weasels are sick.”
Suddenly a chill went through me. My head spun as if the Chaos sickness was returning. In the back of mind, an idea started to form—something very important.
Zebras…Zia. Weasels…Walt.
Before I could think about this further, a large BOOM! shook the building. Chunks of limestone flew from the side of the mansion and rained down on the warehouse yard.
“They’ve breached the walls again!” Walt said. “Hurry!”
I consider myself fairly scattered and hyper, but the rest of the battle happened too fast even for me to keep track of. Ra absolutely refused to be parted from Zebra and Weasel (sorry, Zia and Walt), so we left him in their car
e at the sun boat while Freak lowered Carter and me to the deck below. We dropped from his claws onto the buffet table and found Bast whirling around with her knives in hand, slicing demons to sand and kicking magicians into the swimming pool, where our albino crocodile, Philip of Macedonia, was only too happy to entertain them.
“Sadie!” she cried with relief. [Yes, Carter, she called my name instead of yours, but she’s known me longer, after all.] She seemed to be having a great deal of fun, but her tone was urgent. “They’ve breached the east wall. Get inside!”
We ran through the doorway, dodging a random wombat that went flying over our heads—possibly someone’s spell gone awry—and stepped into complete pandemonium.
“Holy Horus,” Carter said.
In fact, Horus was about the only thing not doing battle in the Great Room. Khufu, our intrepid baboon, was riding an old magician around the room, choking him with his own wand and steering him into walls as the mage turned blue. Felix had unleashed a squad of penguins on another magician, who cowered in a magic circle with some sort of posttraumatic stress, screaming, “Not Antarctica again! Anything but that!” Alyssa was summoning the powers of Geb to repair a massive hole the enemy had blasted in the far wall. Julian had summoned a combat avatar for the first time, and was slicing demons with his glowing sword. Even bookish Cleo was dashing about the room, pulling scrolls from her pouch and reading random words of power like “Blind!” “Horizontal!” and “Gassy!” (which, by the way, work wonders to incapacitate an enemy). Everywhere I looked, our initiates were ruling the day. They fought as if they’d been waiting all night for the chance to strike, which I suppose was exactly the case. And there was Jaz—Jaz! Up and looking quite healthy!—knocking an enemy shabti straight into the fireplace, where it broke into a thousand pieces.
I felt an overwhelming sense of pride, and not a small amount of amazement. I’d been so worried about our young trainees’ surviving, yet they were quite simply dominating a much more seasoned group of magicians.
Most impressive, though, was Amos. I’d seen him do magic, but never like this. He stood at the base of Thoth’s statue, swirling his staff and summoning lightning and thunder, blasting enemy magicians, and flinging them away in miniature storm clouds. A woman magician charged at him, her staff glowing with red flames, but Amos simply tapped the floor. The marble tiles turned to sand at her feet, and the woman sank up to her neck.
Carter and I looked at each other, grinned, and joined the fight.
It was a complete rout. Soon the demons had been reduced to sand piles, and the enemy magicians began scattering in panic. No doubt they’d been expecting to fight a band of untrained children. They hadn’t counted on the full Kane treatment.
One of the women managed to open a portal in the far wall.
Stop them, the voice of Isis spoke in my mind, which was quite a shock after such a long silence. They must hear the truth.
I don’t know where I got the idea, but I raised my arms and shimmering rainbow wings appeared on either side of me—the wings of Isis.
I swept my arms. A blast of wind and multicolored light knocked our enemies off their feet, leaving our friends perfectly unharmed.