“Hurry,” I said. My adrenaline was fading quickly. My avatar form was starting to feel like an extra five hundred pounds of dead weight. “Get the scarab to Ra.”
She nodded, and ran toward the sun boat; but she’d only made it halfway when Menshikov’s glass grave blew up.
The most powerful explosive magic I’d ever seen was Sadie’s ha-di spell. This blast was about fifty times more powerful.
A high-powered wave of sand and glass shards knocked me off my feet and shredded my avatar. Back in my regular body, blind and in pain, I crawled away from the laughing voice of Apophis.
“Where did you go, Sadie Kane?” Apophis called, his voice now as deep as a cannon shot. “Where is that bad little girl with my scarab?”
I blinked the sand out of my eyes. Vlad Menshikov—no, he might look like Vlad, but he was Apophis now—was about fifty feet away, stalking around the rim of the crater he’d made in the beach. He either didn’t see me, or he assumed I was dead. He was looking for Sadie, but she was nowhere. The blast must’ve buried her in the sand, or worse.
My throat closed up. I wanted to get to my feet and tackle Apophis, but my body wouldn’t work. My magic was depleted. The power of Chaos was sapping my life force. Just from being near Apophis I felt like I was coming undone—my brain synapses, my DNA, everything that made me Carter Kane was slowly dissolving.
Finally, Apophis spread his arms. “No matter. I’ll dig your body up later. First, I’ll deal with the old man.”
For a second I thought he meant Desjardins, who was still crumpled lifelessly over the broken railing, but Apophis climbed into the boat, ignoring the Chief Lector, and approached the throne of fire.
“Hello, Ra,” he said in a kindly voice. “It’s been a long time.”
A feeble voice from behind the chair said, “Can’t play. Go away.”
“Would you like a treat?” Apophis asked. “We used to play so nicely together. Every night, trying to kill each other. Don’t you remember?”
Ra poked his bald head above the throne. “Treat?”
“How about a stuffed date?” Apophis pulled one out of the air. “You used to love stuffed dates, didn’t you? All you have to do is come out and let me devour—I mean, entertain you.”
“Want a cookie,” Ra said.
“What kind?”
“Weasel cookie.”
I’m here to tell you, that comment about weasel cookies probably saved the known universe.
Apophis stepped back, obviously confused by a comment that was even more chaotic than he was. And in that moment, Michel Desjardins struck.
The Chief Lector must have been playing dead, or maybe he just recovered quickly. He rose up and launched himself at Apophis, slamming him against the burning throne.
Menshikov screamed in his old raspy voice. Steam hissed like water on a barbecue. Desjardins’ robes caught fire. Ra scrambled to the back of the boat and poked his crook in the air like that would make the bad men go away.
I struggled to my feet, but I still felt like I was carrying a few hundred extra pounds. Menshikov and Desjardins grappled with each other in front of the throne. This was the scene I’d witnessed in the Hall of Ages: the first moment in a new age.
I knew I should help, but I scrambled along the beach, trying to gauge the spot where I’d last seen Sadie. I fell to my knees and started to dig.
Desjardins and Menshikov struggled back and forth, shouting out words of power. I glanced over and saw a cloud of hieroglyphs and red light swirling around them as the Chief Lector summoned Ma’at, and Apophis just as quickly dissolved his spells with Chaos. As for Ra, the almighty sun god, he had scrambled to the stern of the boat and was cowering under the tiller.
I kept digging.
“Sadie,” I muttered. “Come on. Where are you?”
Think, I told myself.
I closed my eyes. I thought about Sadie—every memory we’d shared since Christmas. We’d lived apart for years, but over the last three months, I’d become closer to her than to anyone else in the world. If she could figure out my secret name while I was unconscious, surely I could find her in a pile of sand.
I scrambled a few feet to the left and began to dig again. Immediately I scratched Sadie’s nose. She groaned, which at least meant she was alive. I brushed off her face and she coughed. Then she raised her arms, and I pulled her out of the sand. I was so relieved, I almost sobbed; but being a macho guy and all, I didn’t.
[Shut up, Sadie. I’m telling this part.]
Apophis and Desjardins were still fighting back and forth on the sun boat.
Desjardins yelled, “Heh-sieh!” and a hieroglyph blazed between them:
Apophis went flying off the boat like he’d been hooked by a moving train. He sailed right over us and landed in the sand about forty feet away.
“Nice one,” Sadie muttered in a daze. “Glyph for ‘Turn back.’”
Desjardins staggered off the sun boat. His robes were still smoldering, but from his sleeve he pulled a ceramic statuette —a red snake carved with hieroglyphs.
Sadie gasped. “A shabti of Apophis? The penalty for making those is death!”
I could understand why. Images had power. In the wrong hands, they could strengthen or even summon the being they represented, and a statue of Apophis was way too dangerous to play with. But it was also a necessary ingredient for certain spells….
“An execration,” I said. “He’s trying to erase Apophis.”