The Complete Kane Chronicles (46 page)

My life was rubbish.

I pulled on my nightclothes while Adele kept singing. Were
all
her songs about not being noticed by boys? Suddenly I found that quite annoying.

I turned off the music and flopped into bed.

Sadly, once I fell asleep my night only got worse.

At Brooklyn House, we sleep with all sorts of magic charms to protect us against malicious dreams, invading spirits, and the occasional urge our souls might get to wander off. I even have a magic pillow to make sure my soul—or
ba,
if you want to get Egyptian about it—stays anchored to my body.

It isn’t a perfect system, though. Every so often I can sense some outside force tugging on my mind, trying to get my attention. Or my soul will let me know it has some other place to go, some important scene it needs to show me.

I got one of those sensations immediately when I fell asleep. Think of it as an incoming call, with my brain giving me the option to accept or decline. Most of the time, it’s best to decline, especially when my brain is reporting an unknown number.

But sometimes those calls are important. And my birthday
was
tomorrow. Perhaps Dad and Mum were trying to reach me from the underworld. I imagined them in the Hall of Judgment, my father sitting on his throne as the blue-skinned god Osiris, my mum in her ghostly white robes. They might be wearing paper party hats and singing “Happy Birthday” while Ammit the Devourer, their extremely tiny pet monster, jumped up and down, yapping.

Or it could be, just maybe, Anubis calling.
Hi, um, thought you might want to go to a funeral or something?

Well…it was possible.

So I accepted the call. I let my spirit go where it wanted to take me, and my
ba
floated above my body.

If you’ve never tried
ba
travel, I wouldn’t recommend it—unless of course you fancy turning into a phantom chicken and rafting uncontrollably through the currents of the Duat.

The
ba
is usually invisible to others, which is good, as it takes the form of a giant bird with your normal head attached. Once upon a time, I’d been able to manipulate my
ba
’s form into something less embarrassing, but since Isis vacated my head, I didn’t have that ability. Now when I lifted off, I was stuck in default poultry mode.

The doors of the balcony swung open. A magical breeze swept me into the night. The lights of New York blurred and faded, and I found myself in a familiar underground chamber: the Hall of Ages, in the House of Life’s main headquarters under Cairo.

The room was so long, it could’ve hosted a marathon. Down the middle was a blue carpet that glittered like a river. Between the columns on either side, curtains of light shimmered—holographic images from Egypt’s long history. The light changed color to reflect different eras, from the white glow of the Age of the Gods all the way to the crimson light of modern times.

The roof was even higher than the ballroom at the Brooklyn Museum, the vast space lit by glowing orbs of energy and floating hieroglyphic symbols. It looked as if someone had detonated a few kilos of children’s cereal in zero gravity, all the colorful sugary bits drifting and colliding in slow motion.

I floated to the end of the room, just above the dais with the pharaoh’s throne. It was an honorary seat, empty since the fall of Egypt, but on the step below it sat the Chief Lector, master of the First Nome, leader of the House of Life, and my least favorite magician: Michel Desjardins.

I hadn’t seen Monsieur Delightful since our attack on the Red Pyramid, and I was surprised how much he’d aged. He’d only become Chief Lector a few months ago, but his slick black hair and forked beard were now streaked with gray. He leaned wearily on his staff, as if the Chief Lector’s leopard-skin cape across his shoulders was as heavy as lead.

I can’t say I felt sorry for him. We hadn’t parted as friends. We’d combined forces (more or less) to defeat the god Set, but he still considered us dangerous rogue magicians. He’d warned us that if we continued studying the path of the gods (which we had) he would destroy us the next time we met. That hadn’t given us much incentive to invite him over for tea.

His face was gaunt, but his eyes still glittered evilly. He studied the bloodred images in the curtains of light as if he were waiting for something.

“Est-il allé?”
he asked, which my grammar school French led me to believe meant either “Is he gone?” or possibly “Have you repaired the island?”

Fine…it was probably the first one.

For a moment I was afraid he was talking to me. Then from behind the throne, a raspy voice answered, “Yes, my lord.”

A man stepped out of the shadows. He was dressed completely in white—suit, scarf, even white reflective sunglasses. My first thought was:
My god, he’s an evil ice cream vendor.

He had a pleasant smile and chubby face framed in curly gray hair. I might’ve mistaken him as harmless, even friendly —until he took off his glasses.

His eyes were ruined.

I’ll admit I’m squeamish about eyes. A video of retinal surgery? I’ll run out of the room. Even the idea of contact lenses makes me cringe.

But the man in white looked as if his eyes had been splashed with acid, then repeatedly clawed by cats. His eyelids were masses of scar tissue that didn’t close properly. His eyebrows were burned away and raked with deep grooves. The skin above his cheekbones was a mask of red welts, and the eyes themselves were such a horrible combination of blood red and milky white that I couldn’t believe he was able to see.

He inhaled, wheezing so badly, the sound made my chest hurt. Glittering against his shirt was a silver pendant with a snake-shaped amulet.

“He used the portal moments ago, my lord,” the man rasped. “Finally, he has gone.”

That voice was as horrible as his eyes. If he
had
been splashed with acid, some of it must have gotten into his lungs. Yet the man kept smiling, looking calm and happy in his crisp white suit as if he couldn’t wait to sell ice cream to the good little children.

He approached Desjardins, who was still staring at the curtains of light. The ice cream man followed his gaze. I did the same and realized what the Chief Lector was looking at. At the last pillar, just next to the throne, the light was changing. The reddish tint of the modern age was darkening to a deep purple, the color of bruises. On my first visit to the Hall of Ages, I’d been told that the room grew longer as the years passed, and now I could actually see it happening. The floor and walls rippled like a mirage, expanding ever so slowly, and the sliver of purple light widened.

“Ah,” said the ice cream man. “It’s much clearer now.”

“A new age,” Desjardins murmured. “A darker age. The color of the light has not changed for a thousand years, Vladimir.”

An evil ice cream man named Vladimir? All right, then.

“It is the Kanes, of course,” said Vladimir. “You should’ve killed the elder one while he was in our power.”

My
ba
feathers ruffled. I realized he was talking about Uncle Amos.

“No,” Desjardins said. “He was under our protection. All who seek healing must be given sanctuary—even Kane.”

Vladimir took a deep breath, which sounded like a clogged vacuum cleaner. “But surely now that he has left, we must act. You heard the news from Brooklyn, my lord. The children have found the first scroll. If they find the other two—”

“I know, Vladimir.”

“They humiliated the House of Life in Arizona. They made peace with Set rather than destroy him. And now they seek the Book of Ra. If you would allow me to deal with them—”

The top of Desjardins’ staff erupted in purple fire. “Who is Chief Lector?” he demanded.

Vladimir’s pleasant expression faltered. “You are, my lord.”

“And I will deal with the Kanes in due time, but Apophis is our greatest threat. We must divert all our power to keeping down the Serpent. If there is any chance the Kanes can help us restore order—”

“But, Chief Lector,” Vladimir interrupted. His tone had a new intensity—an almost magical force to it. “The Kanes are part of the problem. They have upset the balance of Ma’at by awakening the gods. They are teaching forbidden magic. Now they would restore Ra, who has not ruled since the beginning of Egypt! They will throw the world into disarray. This will only help Chaos.”

Desjardins blinked, as if confused. “Perhaps you’re right.

I…I must think on this.”

Vladimir bowed. “As you wish, my lord. I will gather our forces and await your orders to destroy Brooklyn House.”

“Destroy…” Desjardins frowned. “Yes, you will await my orders. I will choose the time to attack, Vladimir.”

“Very good, my lord. And if the Kane children seek the other two scrolls to awaken Ra? One is beyond their reach, of course, but the other—”

“I will leave that to you. Guard it as you think best.”

Vladimir’s eyes were even more horrible when he got excited—slimy and glistening behind those ruined eyelids. They reminded me of Gramps’s favorite breakfast: soft-boiled eggs with Tabasco sauce.

[Well, I’m sorry if it’s disgusting, Carter. You shouldn’t try to eat while I’m narrating, anyway!]

“My lord is wise,” Vladimir said. “The children
will
seek the scrolls, my lord. They have no choice. If they leave their stronghold and come into my territory—”

“Didn’t I just say we will dispose of them?” Desjardins said flatly. “Now, leave me. I must think.”

Vladimir retreated into the shadows. For someone dressed in white, he managed to disappear quite well.

Desjardins returned his attention to the shimmering curtain of light. “A new age…” he mused. “An age of darkness…”

My
ba
swirled into the currents of the Duat, racing back to my sleeping form.

“Sadie?” a voice said.

I sat up in bed, my heart pounding. Gray morning light filled the windows. Sitting at the foot of my bed was…

“Uncle Amos?” I stammered.

He smiled. “Happy birthday, my dear. I’m sorry if I scared you. You didn’t answer your door. I was concerned.”

He looked back to full health and as fashionably dressed as ever. He wore wire-rimmed glasses, a porkpie hat, and a black wool Italian suit that made him seem a bit less short and stout. His long hair was braided in cornrows decorated with pieces of glittering black stone—obsidian, perhaps. He might’ve passed for a jazz musician (which he was) or an African American Al Capone (which he wasn’t).

I started to ask, “How—?” Then my vision from the Hall of Ages—the implications of what I’d seen—sank in.

“It’s all right,” Amos said. “I’ve just returned from Egypt.”

I tried to swallow, my breath almost as labored as that ghastly man Vladimir’s. “So have I, Amos. And it’s
not
all right. They’re coming to destroy us.”

S A D I E

A
FTER EXPLAINING MY HORRIBLE VISION
, only one thing would do: a proper breakfast.

Amos looked shaken, but he insisted we wait to discuss matters until we’d assembled the entire Twenty-first Nome (as our branch of the House of Life was called). He promised to meet me on the veranda in twenty minutes.

After he’d gone, I showered and considered what to wear. Normally, I would teach Sympathetic Magic on Mondays, which would require proper magician’s linen. However, my birthday was
supposed
to be a day off.

Given the circumstances, I doubted Amos, Carter, and Bast would let me go to London, but I decided to think positive. I put on some ripped jeans, my combat boots, a tank top, and my leather jacket—not good for magic, but I was feeling rebellious.

I stuffed my wand and the mini-Carter figure into my magic supply bag. I was about to sling it over my shoulder when I thought—No, I’ll not be lugging this about on my birthday.

I took a deep breath and concentrated on opening a space in the Duat. I hate to admit it, but I’m
rubbish
at this trick. It’s simply not fair that Carter can pull things out of thin air at a moment’s notice, but I normally need five or ten minutes of absolute focus, and even then the effort makes me nauseous. Most of the time, it’s simpler just to keep my bag over my shoulder. If I went out with my mates, however, I didn’t want to be burdened with it, and I didn’t want to leave it behind completely.

At last the air shimmered as the Duat bent to my will. I tossed my bag in front of me, and it disappeared. Excellent —assuming I could figure out how to get it back again later.

I picked up the scroll we’d stolen from Bullwinkle the night before and headed downstairs.

With everyone at breakfast, the mansion was strangely silent. Five levels of balconies faced the Great Room, so normally the place was bustling with noise and activity; but I remembered how empty it had felt when Carter and I first arrived last Christmas.

The Great Room still had many of the same touches: the massive statue of Thoth in the middle, Amos’s collection of weapons and jazz instruments along the wall, the snakeskin rug in front of the garage-size fireplace. But you could tell that twenty young magicians lived here now as well. An assortment of remote controls, wands, iPads, snack food wrappers, and
shabti
figurines littered the coffee table. Someone with big feet —probably Julian—had left his muddy trainers on the stairs. And one of our hoodlums—I assumed Felix—had magically converted the fireplace into an Antarctic wonderland, complete with snow and a live penguin. Felix does love penguins.

Magical mops and brooms sped about the house, trying to clean up. I had to duck to avoid getting dusted. For some reason, the dusters think my hair is a maintenance issue.

[No comments from you, Carter.]

As I expected, everyone was gathered on the veranda, which served as our dining area and albino crocodile habitat. Philip of Macedonia splashed around happily in his pool, jumping for bacon strips whenever a trainee tossed him one. The morning was cold and rainy, but the fire in the terrace’s magic braziers kept us toasty.

I grabbed a
pain au chocolat
and a cup of tea from the buffet table and sat down. Then I realized the others weren’t eating. They were staring at me.

At the head of the table, Amos and Bast both looked grim. Across from me, Carter hadn’t touched his plate of waffles, which was
very
unlike him. To my right, Jaz’s chair was empty. (Amos had told me she was still in the infirmary, no change.) To my left sat Walt, looking quite good as usual, but I did my best to ignore him.

The other trainees seemed to be in various states of shock. They were a motley assortment of all ages from all over the world. A handful were older than Carter and me—old enough for university, in fact—which was nice for chaperoning the younger ones, but always made me feel a bit uncomfortable when I tried to act as their teacher. The others were mostly between ten and fifteen. Felix was just nine. There was Julian from Boston, Alyssa from Carolina, Sean from Dublin, and Cleo from Rio de Janeiro (yes, I know, Cleo from Rio, but I’m not making it up!). The thing we all had in common: the blood of the pharaohs. All of us were descended from Egypt’s royal lines, which gave us a natural capacity for magic and hosting the power of the gods.

The only one who didn’t seem affected by the grim mood was Khufu. For reasons we never quite understood, our baboon eats only foods that end in
-o.
Recently he had discovered Jell-O, which he regarded as a miracle substance. I suppose the capital
O
made everything taste better. Now he would eat almost anything encased in gelatin—fruit, nuts, bugs, small animals. At the moment he had his face buried in a quivering red mountain of breakfast and was making rude noises as he excavated for grapes.

Everyone else watched me, as if waiting for an explanation.

“Morning,” I muttered. “Lovely day. Penguin in the fireplace, if anyone’s interested.”

“Sadie,” Amos said gently, “tell everyone what you told me.”

I sipped some tea to settle my nerves. Then I tried not to sound terrified as I described my visit to the Hall of Ages.

When I was done, the only sounds were the fires crackling in the braziers and Philip of Macedonia splashing in his pool.

Finally nine-year-old Felix asked what was on everyone’s mind: “So we’re all going to die, then?”

“No.” Amos sat forward. “Absolutely not. Children, I know I’ve just arrived. I’ve hardly met most of you, but I promise we’ll do everything we can to keep you safe. This house is layered with magic protection. You have a major goddess on your side”—he gestured to Bast, who was opening a can of Fancy Feast Tuna Supreme with her fingernails—“and the Kane family to protect you. Carter and Sadie are more powerful than you might realize, and I’ve battled Michel Desjardins before, if it comes to that.”

Given all the trouble we’d had last Christmas, Amos’s speech seemed a tad optimistic, but the trainees looked relieved.

“
If
it comes to that?” Alyssa asked. “It sounds pretty certain they’ll attack us.”

Amos knitted his brow. “Perhaps, but it troubles me that Desjardins would agree to such a foolish move. Apophis is the real enemy, and Desjardins knows it. He should realize he needs all the help he can get. Unless…” He didn’t finish the sentence. Whatever he was thinking, it apparently troubled him greatly. “At any rate, if Desjardins decides to come after us, he will plan carefully. He knows this mansion will not fall easily. He can’t afford to be embarrassed by the Kane family again. He’ll study the problem, consider his options, and gather his forces. It would take several days for him to prepare —time he should be using to stop Apophis.”

Walt raised an index finger. I don’t know what it is about him, but he has a sort of gravity that draws the group’s attention when he’s about to speak. Even Khufu looked up from his Jell-O.

“If Desjardins
does
attack us,” Walt said, “he’ll be well prepared, with magicians who are a lot more experienced than we are. Can he get through our defenses?”

Amos gazed at the sliding glass doors, possibly remembering the last time our defenses had been breached. The results hadn’t been good.

“We must make sure it doesn’t come to that,” he said. “Desjardins knows what we’re attempting, and that we only have five days—well, four days, now. According to Sadie’s vision, Desjardins is aware of our plan and will try to prevent it out of some misguided belief that we are working for the forces of Chaos. But if we succeed, we’ll have bargaining power to make Desjardins back off. ”

Cleo raised her hand. “Um…
We
don’t know the plan. Four days to do what?”

Amos gestured at Carter, inviting him to explain. That was fine with me. Honestly, I found the plan a bit crazy.

My brother sat up. I must give him credit. Over the last few months, he’d made progress at resembling a normal teenager. After six years of homeschooling and traveling with Dad, Carter had been hopelessly out of touch. He’d dressed like a junior executive, in crisp white shirts and slacks. Now at least he’d learned to wear jeans and T-shirts and the occasional hoodie. He’d let his hair grow out in a curly mess—which looked
much
better. If he kept on improving, the boy might even get a date some day.

[What? Don’t poke me. It was a compliment!]

“We’re going to wake the god Ra,” Carter said, as if it was as easy as getting a snack from the fridge.

The trainees glanced at one another. Carter wasn’t known for his sense of humor, but they must’ve wondered if he was joking.

“You mean the sun god,” Felix said. “The old king of the gods.”

Carter nodded. “You all know the story. Thousands of years ago, Ra got senile and retreated into the heavens, leaving Osiris in charge. Then Osiris got overthrown by Set. Then Horus defeated Set and became pharaoh. Then—”

I coughed. “Short version, please.”

Carter gave me a cross look. “The point is, Ra was the first and most powerful king of the gods. We believe Ra is still alive. He’s just asleep somewhere deep in the Duat. If we can wake him—”

“But if he retired because he was senile,” Walt said, “wouldn’t that mean he’s really,
really
senile now?”

I’d asked the same thing when Carter first told me his idea. The last thing we needed was an all-powerful god who couldn’t remember his own name, smelled like old people, and drooled in his sleep. And how could an immortal being get senile in the first place? No one had given me a satisfactory answer.

Amos and Carter looked at Bast, which made sense, as she was the only Egyptian god present.

She frowned at her uneaten Fancy Feast. “Ra is the god of the sun. In olden times, he aged as the day aged, then sailed through the Duat on his boat each night and was reborn with the sunrise each morning.”

“But the sun isn’t reborn,” I put in. “It’s just the rotation of the earth—”

“Sadie,” Bast warned.

Right, right. Myth and science were both true—simply different versions of the same reality, blah, blah. I’d heard that lecture a hundred times, and I didn’t want to hear it again.

Bast pointed at the scroll, which I’d set next to my teacup. “When Ra stopped making his nightly journey, the cycle was broken, and Ra faded into permanent twilight—at least, so we think. He meant to sleep forever. But if you could find him in the Duat—and that’s a big
if
—it’s possible he might be brought back and reborn with the right magic. The Book of Ra describes how this might be done. Ra’s priests created the book in ancient times and kept it secret, dividing it into three parts, to be used only if the world was ending.”

“If…the world was ending?” Cleo asked. “You mean Apophis is really going to…to swallow the sun?”

Walt looked at me. “Is that possible? In your story about the Red Pyramid, you said Apophis was behind Set’s plan to destroy North America. He was trying to cause so much chaos that he could break out of his prison.”

I shivered, remembering the apparition that had appeared in the sky over Washington, D.C.—a writhing giant snake.

“Apophis is the
real
problem,” I agreed. “We stopped him once, but his prison is weakening. If he manages to escape—”

“He will,” Carter said. “In four days. Unless we stop him. And then he’ll destroy civilization—everything humans have built since the dawn of Egypt.”

That put a chill over breakfast table.

Carter and I had talked privately about the four-day deadline, of course. Horus and Isis had both discussed it with us. But it had seemed like a horrible possibility rather than absolute certainty. Now, Carter sounded sure. I studied his face and realized he’d seen something during the night—possibly a vision even worse than mine. His expression said,
Not here. I’ll tell you later.

Bast was digging her claws into the dining table. Whatever the secret was, she must be in on it.

At the far end of the table, Felix counted on his fingers. “Why four days? What’s so special about…
um,
March twenty-first?”

“The spring equinox,” Bast explained. “A powerful time for magic. The hours of day and night are exactly balanced, meaning the forces of Chaos and Ma’at can be easily tipped one way or the other. It’s the perfect time to awaken Ra. In fact, it’s our
only
chance until the fall equinox, six months from now. But we can’t wait that long.”

“Because unfortunately,” Amos added, “the equinox is also the perfect time for Apophis to escape his prison and invade the mortal world. You can be sure he has minions working on that right now. According to our sources among the gods, Apophis will succeed, which is why we have to awaken Ra first.”

I’d heard all this before, but discussing it in the open, in front of all our trainees, and seeing the devastated looks on their faces, it all seemed much more frightening and real.

I cleared my throat. “Right…so
when
Apophis breaks out, he’ll try to destroy Ma’at, the order of the universe. He’ll swallow the sun, plunge the earth into eternal darkness, and otherwise make us have a very bad day.”