"First things first," I said. "How do we fly to the boats?"
"As a storm," Amos suggested.
"No!" the rest of us said.
"I will not be part of more chaos magic," Zia insisted. "It is not natural."
Amos waved at the spectacle below us. "Tell me this is natural. You have another plan?"
"Birds," I said, hating myself for even considering it. "I"ll become a kite. Carter can do a falcon."
"Sadie," Carter warned, "what if-"
"I have to try." I looked away before I could lose my resolve. "Zia, it"s been almost ten hours since your pillar of fire, hasn"t it? Still no magic?"
Zia held out her hand and concentrated. At first, nothing happened. Then red light flickered along her fingers, and her staff appeared in her grip, still smoking.
"Good timing," Carter said.
"Also bad timing," Amos observed. "It means Desjardins is no longer pursued by the pillar of fire. He"ll be here soon, and I"m sure he"ll bring backup. More enemies for us."
"My magic will still be weak," Zia warned. "I won"t be much help in a fight, but I can perhaps manage to summon a ride." She brought out the vulture pendant she"d used at Luxor.
"Which leaves me," Amos said. "No worries there. Let"s meet on the left boat. We"ll take that one out, then deal with the right. And let"s hope for surprise."
I wasn"t in the mood to let Amos set our plans, but I couldn"t find any fault with his logic. "Right. We"ll have to finish the boats off quickly, then head into the pyramid itself. Perhaps we can seal off the entrance or something."
Carter nodded. "Ready."
At first, the plan seemed to go well. Turning into a kite was no problem, and to my surprise, once I reached the prow of the ship, I managed to turn back into a human on the first try, with my staff and wand ready. The only person more surprised was the demon right in front of me, whose switchblade head popped straight up in alarm.
Before he could slice me or even cry out, I summoned wind from my staff and blew him off the side of the boat. Two of his brethren charged forward, but Carter appeared behind them, sword drawn, and sliced them into piles of sand.
Unfortunately, Zia was a bit less stealthy. A giant vulture with a girl hanging from its feet tends to attract attention. As she flew towards the boat, demons below pointed and yelled. Some threw spears that fell short of their mark.
Zia"s grand entrance did manage to distract the remaining two demons on our boat, however, which allowed Amos to appear behind them. He"d taken the form of a fruit bat, which brought back bad memories; but he quickly returned to human form and body-slammed the demons, sending them tumbling into the air.
"Hold on!" he told us. Zia landed just in time to grab the tiller. Carter and I grabbed the sides of the boat. I had no idea what Amos was planning, but after my last flying boat ride, I wasn"t taking chances. Amos began to chant, pointing his staff towards the other boat, where the demons were just beginning to shout and point at us.
One of them was tall and very thin, with black eyes and a disgusting face, like muscle with the skin peeled away.
"That"s Set"s lieutenant," Carter warned. "Face of Horror."
"You!" the demon screamed. "Get them!"
Amos finished his spell. "Smoke," he intoned.
Instantly, the second boat evaporated into gray mist. The demons fell screaming. The golden capstone plummeted until the lines attached to it from our side yanked taut, and our boat nearly flipped over. Canted sideways, we began to sink towards the cavern floor.
"Carter, cut the lines!" I screamed.
He sliced them with his sword, and the boat leveled out, rising several meters in an instant and leaving my stomach behind.
The pyramidion crashed to the cavern floor with much crunching and squishing. I had the feeling we"d just made a nice stack of demon griddlecakes.
"So far so good," Carter noted, but as usual, he"d spoken too soon.
Zia pointed below us. "Look."
All those demons who had wings-a small percentage, but still a good forty or fifty-had launched themselves towards us, filling the air like a swarm of angry wasps.
"Fly to the pyramid," Amos said. "I"ll distract the demons."
The pyramid"s entrance, a simple doorway between two columns at the base of the structure, was not far from us. It was guarded by a few demons, but most of Set"s forces were running towards our boat, screaming and throwing rocks (which tended to fall back down and hit them, but no one says demons are bright).
"They"re too many," I argued. "Amos, they"ll kill you."
"Don"t worry about me," he said grimly. "Seal the entrance behind you."
He pushed me over the side, giving me no choice but to turn into a kite. Carter in falcon form was already spiraling towards the entrance, and I could hear Zia"s vulture flapping its great wings behind us.
I heard Amos yell, "For Brooklyn!"
It was an odd battle cry. I glanced back, and the boat burst into flames. It began drifting away from the pyramid and down towards the army of monsters. Fireb.a.l.l.s shot from the boat in all directions as pieces of the hull crumbled away. I didn"t have time to marvel at Amos"s magic, or worry what had happened to him. He distracted many of the demons with his pyrotechnics, but some noticed us.
Carter and I landed just inside the pyramid"s entrance and returned to human form. Zia tumbled in next to us and turned her vulture back into an amulet. The demons were only a few steps behind-a dozen ma.s.sive blokes with the heads of insects, dragons, and a.s.sorted Swiss Army knife attachments.
Carter thrust out his hand. A giant shimmering fist appeared and mimicked his move-pushing right between Zia and me and slamming the doors shut. Carter closed his eyes in concentration, and a burning golden symbol etched itself across the doors like a seal: the Eye of Horus. The lines glowed faintly as demons hammered against the barrier, trying to get in.
"It won"t hold them long," Carter said.
I was duly impressed, though of course I didn"t say that. Looking at the sealed doors, all I could think about was Amos, out there on a burning boat, surrounded by an evil army.
"Amos knew what he was doing," Carter said, though he didn"t sound very convinced. "He"s probably fine."
"Come on," Zia prodded us. "No time for second guessing."
The tunnel was narrow, red, and humid, so I felt like I was crawling through an artery of some enormous beast. We made our way down single file, as the tunnel sloped at about forty degrees-which would"ve made a lovely waterslide but wasn"t so good for stepping carefully. The walls were decorated with intricate carvings, like most Egyptian walls we"d seen, but Carter obviously didn"t like them. He kept stopping, scowling at the pictures.
"What?" I demanded, after the fifth or sixth time.
"These aren"t normal tomb drawings," he said. "No afterlife pictures, no pictures of the G.o.ds."
Zia nodded. "This pyramid is not a tomb. It is a platform, a body to contain the power of Set. All these pictures are to increase chaos, and make it reign forever."
As we kept walking, I paid more attention to the carvings, and I saw what Zia meant. The pictures showed horrible monsters, scenes of war, cities such as Paris and London in flames, full-color portraits of Set and the Set animal tearing into modern armies-scenes so gruesome, no Egyptian would ever commit them to stone. The farther we went, the weirder and more vivid the pictures became, and the queasier I felt.
Finally we reached the heart of the pyramid.
Where the burial chamber should"ve been in a regular pyramid, Set had designed a throne room for himself. It was about the size of a tennis court, but around the edges, the floor dropped off into a deep trench like a moat. Far, far below, red liquid bubbled. Blood? Lava? Evil ketchup? None of the possibilities were good.
The trench looked easy enough to jump, but I wasn"t anxious to do so because inside the room, the entire floor was carved with red hieroglyphs-all spells invoking the power of Isfet, chaos. Far above in the center of the ceiling, a single square hole let in blood-red light. Otherwise, there seemed to be no exits. Along either wall crouched four obsidian statues of the Set animal, their faces turned towards us with pearl teeth bared and emerald eyes glittering.
But the worst part was the throne itself. It was a horrid misshapen thing, like a red stalagmite that had grown haphazardly from centuries of dripping sediment. And it had formed itself around a gold coffin-Dad"s coffin-which was buried in the throne"s base, with just enough of it sticking out to form a kind of footrest.
"How do we get him out?" I said, my voice trembling.
Next to me, Carter caught his breath. "Amos?"
I followed his gaze up to the glowing red vent in the middle of the ceiling. A pair of legs dangled from the opening. Then Amos dropped down, opening his cloak like a parachute so that he floated to the floor. His clothes were still smoking, his hair dusted with ash. He pointed his staff towards the ceiling and spoke a command. The shaft he"d come through rumbled, spilling dust and rubble, and the light was abruptly cut off.
Amos dusted off his clothes and smiled at us. "That should hold them for a while."
"How did you do that?" I asked.
He gestured for us to join him in the room.
Carter jumped the trench without hesitation. I didn"t like it, but I wasn"t going to let him go without me, so I hopped the trench too. Immediately I felt even queasier than before, as if the room were tilting, throwing my senses off balance.
Zia came over last, eyeing Amos carefully.
"You should not be alive," she said.
Amos chuckled. "Oh, I"ve heard that before. Now, let"s get to business."
"Yes." I stared at the throne. "How do we get the coffin out?"
"Cut it?" Carter drew his sword, but Amos held up his hand.
"No, children. That"s not the business I mean. I"ve made sure no one will interrupt us. Now it"s time we talked."
A cold tingle started up my spine. "Talked?"
Suddenly Amos fell to his knees and began to convulse. I ran towards him, but he looked up at me, his face racked with pain. His eyes were molten red.
"Run!" he groaned.
He collapsed, and red steam issued from his body.
"We have to go!" Zia grabbed my arm. "Now!"
But I watched, frozen in horror, as the steam rose from Amos"s unconscious form and drifted towards the throne, slowly taking the shape of a seated man-a red warrior in fiery armor, with an iron staff in his hand and the head of a canine monster.
"Oh, dear," Set laughed. "I suppose Zia gets to say "I told you so.""
C A R T E R.
37. Leroy Gets His Revenge.
MAYBE I"M A SLOW LEARNER, OKAY?
Because it wasn"t until that moment, facing the G.o.d Set in the middle of his throne room, in the heart of an evil pyramid, with an army of demons outside and the world about to explode, that I thought, Coming here was a really bad idea.
Set rose from his throne. He was red skinned and muscular, with fiery armor and a black iron staff. His head shifted from b.e.s.t.i.a.l to human. One moment he had the hungry stare and slavering jaws of my old friend Leroy, the monster from the D.C. airport. The next he had sandy hair and a handsome but harsh face, with intelligent eyes that sparkled with humor and a cruel, crooked smile. He kicked our uncle out of the way and Amos groaned, which at least meant he was alive.
I was clenching my sword so tight, the blade trembled.
"Zia was right," I said. "You possessed Amos."
Set spread his hands, trying to look modest. "Well, you know...It wasn"t a full possession. G.o.ds can exist in many places at once, Carter. Horus could tell you that if he was being honest. I"m sure Horus has been looking for a nice war monument to occupy, or a military academy somewhere-anything but that scrawny little form of yours. Most of my being has now transferred to this magnificent structure."
He swept his arm proudly around the throne room. "But a sliver of my soul was quite enough to control Amos Kane."
He held out his pinky, and a wisp of red smoke snaked toward Amos, sinking into his clothes. Amos arched his back like he"d been hit by lightning.
"Stop it!" I yelled.
I ran toward Amos, but the red mist had already dissipated. Our uncle"s body went slack.
Set dropped his hand as if bored with the attack. "Not much left, I"m afraid. Amos fought well. He was very entertaining, demanding much more of my energy than I had antic.i.p.ated. That chaos magic-that was his idea. He tried his best to warn you, to make it obvious I was controlling him. The funny thing is, I forced him to use his own magic reserves to pull off those spells. He almost burned out his soul trying to send you those warning flares. Turn you into a storm? Please. Who does that anymore?"
"You"re a beast!" Sadie shouted.
Set gasped in mock surprise. "Really? Me?"
Then he roared with laughter as Sadie tried to drag Amos out of harm"s way.
"Amos was in London that night," I said, hoping to keep his attention on me. "He must"ve followed us to the British Museum, and you"ve been controlling him ever since. Desjardins was never your host."
"Oh, that commoner? Please," Set sneered. "We always prefer blood of the pharaohs, as I"m sure you"ve heard. But I did love fooling you. I thought the bon soir was an especially nice touch."
"You knew my ba was there, watching. You forced Amos to sabotage his own house so your monsters could get in. You made him walk into an ambush. Why didn"t you just have him kidnap us?"
Set spread his hands. "As I said, Amos put up a good fight. There were certain things I could not make him do without destroying him completely, and I didn"t want to ruin my new plaything quite so soon."
Anger burned inside me. Amos"s odd behavior finally made sense. Yes, he had been controlled by Set, but he"d been fighting it all the way. The conflict I"d felt in him had been his attempts to warn us. He"d almost destroyed himself trying to save us, and Set had thrown him aside like a broken toy.
Give me control, Horus urged. We will avenge him.
I"ve got this, I said.
No! Horus said. You must let me. You are not ready.
Set laughed as if he could sense our struggle. "Oh, poor Horus. Your host needs training wheels. You seriously expect to challenge me with that?"