Bes glared at me. “What’s he doing here?”
“Not my idea!” I promised. I gave him the abbreviated story of our encounter with Menshikov.
“And so Carter’s been hurt,” I summed up, which seemed rather obvious. “We have to get him out of here.”
“But first,” Set interrupted, pointing at the Chocolate Museum bag next to Bes, “I can’t stand surprises. What’s in there? A gift for me?”
Bes frowned. “Sadie wanted a souvenir. I brought her Lenin’s head.”
Set slapped his thigh with delight. “Bes, how evil! There’s hope for you yet.”
“Not his real head,” Bes said. “It’s chocolate.”
“Oh…shame. Can I have part of your chessboard, then? I simply love eating pawns.”
“Get out of here, Set!” Bes said.
“Well, I could do that, but since our friends are on their way, I thought perhaps we should make a deal.”
Set snapped his fingers, and a globe of red light appeared in front of him. In it, the holographic images of six men in security uniforms piled into two white sports cars. Their headlights blazed to life. The cars swerved across a parking lot, then passed straight through a stone wall as if it were made of smoke.
“I’d say you have about two minutes.” Set smiled, and the globe of light faded. “You remember Menshikov’s minions, Bes. Are you sure you want to meet them again?”
The dwarf god’s face darkened. He crushed a white chocolate chess piece in his hand. “You lying, scheming, murdering?
?”
“Stop!” I said.
Carter groaned in his poisoned daze. Either he was getting heavier, or I was getting tired of holding him up.
“We don’t have time to argue,” I said. “Set, are you offering to stop the magicians?”
He laughed. “No, no. I’m still hoping they’ll kill you, you see. But I was going to offer you the location of the last scroll in the Book of Ra. That is what you’re after, isn’t it?”
I assumed he was lying. He usually was—but if he was serious…
I looked at Bes. “Is it possible he knows the location?”
Bes grunted. “More than possible. The priests of Ra gave him the scroll for safekeeping.”
“Why on earth would they do that?”
Set tried to look modest. “Come now, Sadie. I was a loyal lieutenant of Ra. If you were Ra, and you didn’t want to be bothered by any old magician trying to wake you, wouldn’t you trust the key to your location with your most fearsome servant?”
He had a point. “Where’s the scroll, then?”
“Not so fast. I’ll give you the location if you give me back my secret name.”
“Not likely!”
“It’s quite simple. Just say ‘I give you back your name.’ You’ll forget the proper way to say it—”
“And then I’ll have no power over you! You’ll kill me!”
“You’d have my word that I won’t.”
“Right. That’s worth a lot. What if I used your secret name to force you to tell me?”