ower popped into my head: Protect. N’dah. I released the magic. A gold hieroglyph burned in front of me:
A wave of golden light rippled through the concourse. The troop of baboons hesitated. Babi stumbled on the Body Shop roof. Even Nekhbet squawked and faltered on the ceiling girders.
All around the station, inanimate objects began to move. Backpacks and briefcases suddenly learned to fly. Magazine racks, gum, sweets, and assorted cold drinks exploded out of the shops and attacked the baboon troop. The decapitated bronze head from the statue shot out of nowhere and slammed into Babi’s chest, knocking him backward through the roof of the Body Shop. A tornado of pink Financial Times newspapers swirled toward the ceiling. They engulfed Nekhbet, who stumbled blindly and fell shrieking from her perch in a flurry of pink and black.
“Go!” I told my friends. We ran for the exit, weaving around baboons who were much too busy to stop us. One was being pummeled by a half-dozen bottles of sparkling water. Another was fending off a briefcase and several kamikaze BlackBerrys.
Babi tried to rise, but a maelstrom of Body Shop products surged around him—lotions, loofa sponges, and shampoos all battering him, squirting in his eyes, and trying to give him an extreme makeover. He bellowed in irritation, slipped, and fell back into the ruined shop. I doubted my spell would do the gods any permanent damage, but with luck it would keep them occupied for a few minutes.
Liz, Emma, and I made it out of the terminal. With the entire station evacuated, I didn’t really expect any cabs to be in the taxi queue, and indeed the curb was empty. I resigned myself to running all the way to Waterloo Bridge, though Emma had no shoes, and the potion had made me queasy.
“Look!” Liz said.
“Oh, well done, Sadie,” Emma said.
“What?” I asked. “What did I do?”
Then I noticed the chauffeur—an extremely short, scruffy man standing at the end of the drive in a black suit, holding a placard that read KANE.
I suppose my friends thought I’d summoned him by magic. Before I could tell them differently, Emma said, “Come on!” and they sprinted toward the little man. I had no choice but to follow. I remembered what Anubis had said about sending my “driver” to meet me. I supposed this must be him, but the closer we got, the less eager I was to meet him.
He was shorter than me by half, stouter than my Uncle Amos, and uglier than anyone else on the planet. His facial features were positively Neanderthal. Under his thick furry mono-brow, one eye was bigger than the other. His beard looked as if it had been used to scrape greasy pots. His skin was poxy with red welts, and his hair looked like a bird’s nest that had been set on fire then stomped out.
When he saw me, he scowled, which did nothing to help his appearance.
“About time!” His accent was American. He belched into his fist, and the smell of curry nearly knocked me over. “Bast’s friend? Sadie Kane?”
“Um…possibly.” I decided to have a serious talk with Bast about her choice of friends. “Just by the way, we have two gods trying to kill us.”
The warty little man smacked his lips, clearly unimpressed. “Guess you’ll want a bridge, then.”
He turned toward the curb and yelled, “BOO!”
A black Mercedes limousine appeared out of nowhere, as if it had been scared into existence.
The chauffeur glanced back at me and arched his brow. “Well? Get in!”
I’d never been in a limousine before. I hope most are nicer than the one we took. The backseat was littered with takeaway curry containers, old fish-and-chip paper, crisps bags, and various dirty socks. Despite this, Emma, Liz, and I crammed together in the back, because none of us dared ride up front.
You may think I was mad to get in a car with a strange man. You’re right, of course. But Bast had promised us help, and Anubis had told me to expect a driver. The fact that our promised help was a little man with bad hygiene and a magical limousine did not particularly surprise me. I’d seen stranger things.
Also, I didn’t have much choice. The potion had worn off, and the strain of releasing so much magic had made me lightheaded and wobbly-legged. I wasn’t sure I could’ve walked to Waterloo Bridge without passing out.
The chauffeur floored the gas and barreled out of the station. The police had cordoned it off, but our limo swerved around the barricades, past a cluster of BBC news vans and a mob of spectators, and no one paid us any attention.
The chauffeur started whistling a tune that sounded like “Short People.” His head barely reached the headrest. All I could see of him was a grubby nest of hair and a set of furry hands on the wheel.
Stuck in the sun visor was an identification card with his picture—sort of. It had been taken at point-blank range, showing only an out-of-focus nose and a hideous mouth, as if he’d been trying to eat the camera. The card read: Your Driver is BES.
“You’re Bes, I guess?” I said.
“Yes,” he said.
“Your car’s a mess,” Liz muttered.
“If one more person rhymes,” Emma grumbled, “I’ll throw up.”
“Is it Mr. Bes?” I asked, trying to place his name from Egyptian mythology. I was fairly sure they hadn’t had a god of chauffeurs. “Lord Bes? Bes the Extremely Short?”