The Serpent's Shadow

12. Bulls with Freaking Laser Beams

BEING LIQUIDATED IS NOT FUN. I will never be able to walk by another LIQUIDATION SALE sign without getting seasick and feeling like my bones are turning to tapioca.

I know I’m going to sound like a public service announcement here, but for all you kids at home: if somebody offers you Hapi pills, just say, “No!”

I felt myself seeping inland through the mud, traveling at incredible speed. When I hit the hot sand, I evaporated, rising above the ground as a cloud of moisture, pushed west by the winds into the desert. I couldn’t exactly see, but I could feel the movement and the heat. My molecules agitated as the sun dispersed me.

Suddenly the temperature dropped again. I sensed cool stone around me—a cave or an underground room, maybe. I coalesced into moisture, splashed to the floor as a puddle, then rose and solidified into Carter Kane once more.

For my next trick, I buckled to my knees and lost my breakfast.

Zia stood near me, hugging her stomach. We seemed to be in the entry tunnel of a tomb. Below us, stone steps led into the darkness. A few feet above, desert sunlight blazed.

“That was horrible,” Zia gasped.

I could only nod. Now I understood the science lesson my dad had once taught me in homeschooling—matter has three forms: solid, liquid, and gas. In the last few minutes I’d been all three. And I didn’t like it.

Setne materialized just outside the doorway, smiling down at us. “So, did I come through again, or what?”

I didn’t remember loosening his bonds, but his arms were now free. That would’ve worried me more if I hadn’t felt so sick.

Zia and I were still wet and muddy from our swim in the Nile, but Setne looked immaculate—jeans and T-shirt freshly pressed, Elvis hair perfect, not even a spot on his white running shoes. That disgusted me so much, I staggered into the sunlight and threw up on him. Unfortunately, my stomach was mostly empty and he was a ghost, so nothing much happened.

“Hey, pal!” Setne adjusted his golden ankh necklace and straightened his jacket. “Some respect, all right? I did you a favor.”

“A favor?” I gulped back the horrible taste in my mouth. “Don’t—ever—”

“Never Hapi again,” Zia finished for me. “Never.”

“Aw, c’mon!” Setne spread his hands. “That was a smooth trip! Look, even your ship made it.”

I squinted. Mostly we were surrounded by flat, rocky desert, like the surface of Mars; but beached on a nearby sand dune was a slightly broken riverboat—the Egyptian Queen. The stern wasn’t on fire anymore, but the ship looked like it had taken more damage in transit. A section of railing was broken. One of the smokestacks was leaning dangerously. For some reason, a huge slimy tarp of fish scales was hanging off the pilot’s house like a snagged parachute.

Zia muttered, “Oh, gods of Egypt—please don’t let that be Hapi’s loincloth.”

Bloodstained Blade stood at the bow, facing our direction. He had no expression, being an ax head, but from the way his arms were crossed, I could tell he was not a Hapi camper.

“Can you fix the ship?” I called to him.

“Yes, my lord,” he hummed. “Given a few hours. Sadly, we seem to be stuck in the middle of a desert.”

“We’ll worry about that later,” I said. “Get the ship repaired. Wait here for us to return. You’ll receive more instructions at that time.”

“As you say.” Bloodstained Blade turned and started humming at the glowing orbs in a language I didn’t understand. The crew stirred into a flurry of activity.

Setne smiled. “See? Everything’s good!”

“Except we’re running out of time.” I looked at the sun. I figured it was one or two in the afternoon, and we still had a lot to do before Doomsday tomorrow morning. “Where does that tunnel go? What’s a serapeum? And why did Hapi say it was a trap?”

“So many questions,” Setne said. “Come on, you’ll see. You’re gonna love this place!”

I did not love this place.

The steps down led to a wide hall chiseled from golden bedrock. The barreled ceiling was so low, I could touch it without stretching my arms. I could tell that archaeologists had been here, from the bare electric bulbs that cast shadows across the arches. Metal beams braced the walls, but the cracks in the ceiling didn’t help me feel safe. I’d never been comfortable in enclosed spaces.

Every thirty feet or so, square alcoves opened up on either side of the main hall. Each niche held a massive freestanding stone sarcophagus.

After passing the fourth such coffin, I stopped. “Those things are way too big for humans. What’s in there?”

“Bull,” Setne said.

“Excuse me?”

Setne’s laugh echoed through the hall. I figured that if there were any sleeping monsters in this place, they were awake now.

“These are the burial chambers for the Apis Bull.” Setne gestured around him proudly. “I built all this, you know, back when I was Prince Khaemwaset.”

Zia ran her hand along the white stone lid of the sarcophagus. “The Apis Bull. My ancestors thought it was an incarnation of Osiris in the mortal world.”

“Thought?” Setne snorted. “It was his incarnation, doll. At least some of the time—like on festival days and whatnot. We took our Apis Bull seriously back then.”

He patted the coffin like he was showing off a used car. “This bad boy here? He had the perfect life. All the food he could eat. Got a harem of cows, burnt offerings, a special gold cloth for his back—all the perks. Only had to show himself in public a few times a year for big festivals. When he turned twenty-five, he got slaughtered in a big ceremony, mummified like a king, and put down here. Then a new bull took his place. Nice gig, huh?”

“Killed at twenty-five,” I said. “Sounds awesome.”

I wondered how many mummified bulls were down that hallway. I didn’t want to find out. I liked being right here, where I could still see the exit and the sunlight outside. “So why is this place called a—what was it?”

“Serapeum,” Zia answered. Her face was illuminated with golden light—probably just the electrical bulbs reflecting off the stone, but it seemed like she was glowing. “Iskandar, my old teacher—he told me about this place. The Apis Bull was a vessel for Osiris. In later times, the names were merged: Osiris-Apis. Then the Greeks shorted it to Serapis.”

Setne sneered. “Stupid Greeks. Moving in on our territory. Taking over our gods. I’m telling you, I got no love for those guys. But yeah, that’s how it happened. This place became known as a serapeum—a house for dead bull gods. Me, I wanted to call it the Khaemwaset Memorial of Pure Awesomeness, but my dad wouldn’t go for it.”

“Your dad?” I asked.

Setne waved aside the question. “Anyway, I hid the Book of Thoth down here before I died because I knew no one would ever disturb it. You’d have to be frothing-at-the-mouth crazy to mess with the sacred tomb of the Apis Bull.”

“Great.” I felt like I was turning back into liquid.

Zia frowned at the ghost. “Don’t tell me—you hid the book in one of these sarcophagi with a mummified bull, and the bull will come to life if we disturb it?”

Setne winked at her. “Oh, I did better than that, doll. Archaeologists have discovered this part of the complex.” He gestured at the electric lights and metal support beams. “But I’m gonna take you on a behind-the-scenes tour.”

The catacombs seemed to go on forever. Hallways split off in different directions, all of them lined with sarcophagi for holy cows. After descending a long slope, we ducked through a secret passage behind an illusionary wall.

On the other side, there were no electric lights. No steel beams braced the cracked ceiling. Zia summoned fire at the tip of her staff and burned away a canopy of cobwebs. Our footprints were the only marks on the dusty floor.

“Are we close?” I asked.

Setne chuckled. “It’s just getting good.”

He led us farther into the maze. Every so often, he stopped to deactivate traps with a command or a touch. Sometimes he made me do it—supposedly because he couldn’t cast certain spells, being dead—though I got the feeling he thought it would be incredibly funny if I failed and died.

“How come you can touch some things but not other things?” I asked. “You seem to have a real selective ability.”

Setne shrugged. “I don’t make the rules of the spirit world, pal. We can touch money and jewelry. Picking up trash and messing with poison spikes, no. We get to leave that dirty work to the living.”

Whenever the traps were disabled, hidden hieroglyphs glowed and vanished. Sometimes we had to jump over pits that opened in the floor, or swerve when arrows shot from the ceiling. Paintings of gods and pharaohs peeled off the walls, formed into ghostly guardians, and faded. The whole time, Setne kept a running commentary.

“That curse would’ve made your feet rot off,” he explained. “This one over here? That summons a plague of fleas. And this one—oh, man. This is one of my favorites. It turns you into a dwarf! I hate those short little guys.”

I frowned. Setne was shorter than me, but I decided to let it go.

“Yes, indeed,” he continued. “You’re lucky to have me along, pal. Right now, you’d be a flea-bitten dwarf with no feet. And you haven’t even seen the worst of it! Right this way.”

I wasn’t sure how Setne remembered so many details about this place from so long ago, but he was obviously proud of these catacombs. He must have relished designing horrible traps to kill intruders.

We turned down another corridor. The floor sloped again. The ceiling got so low, I had to stoop. I tried to stay calm, but I was having trouble breathing. All I could think about were those tons of stone over my head, ready to collapse at any moment.

Zia took my hand. The tunnel was so narrow, we were walking single file; but I glanced back at her.

“You okay?” I asked.

She mouthed the words: Watch him.

I nodded. Whatever trap Hapi had warned us about, I had a feeling we hadn’t seen it yet, even though we were surrounded by traps. We were alone with a murderous ghost, deep underground in his home territory. I didn’t have my khopesh anymore. For some reason I hadn’t been able to summon it from the Duat. And I couldn’t use my warrior avatar in such a tiny tunnel. If Setne turned on us, my options would be limited.

Finally the corridor widened. We reached a dead end—a solid wall flanked by two statues of my dad…I mean, Osiris.

Setne turned. “Okay, here’s the score, you guys. I’m gonna have to cast a disenchantment to open this wall. The spell takes a few minutes. I don’t want you freaking out halfway through and wrapping me in pink ribbons, or things could get ugly. Half-finished magic right here, and this whole tunnel could collapse on top of us.”

I managed to avoid screaming like a little girl—but only barely.

Zia cranked the fire on her staff to white-hot. “Careful, Setne. I know what a proper disenchantment sounds like. If I suspect you’re casting anything else, I’ll blast you into ectoplasmic dust.”

“Relax, doll.” Setne cracked his knuckles. His diamond pinky rings flashed in the firelight. “You gotta keep that scarab under control, or you’re gonna turn yourself into ashes.”

I frowned. “Scarab?”

Setne glanced back and forth between us and laughed. “You mean she hasn’t told you? And you haven’t figured it out? You kids today! I love the ignorance!”

He turned toward the wall and began to chant. Zia’s fire ebbed to a cooler red flame. I gave her a questioning look.

She hesitated—then touched the base of her throat. She hadn’t been wearing a necklace before. I was sure of that. But when she touched her throat, an amulet blinked into existence—a glittering golden scarab on a gold chain. She must have hidden it with a glamor—a magical illusion like Setne had done with the Ribbons of Hathor.

The scarab looked metal, but I realized I’d seen it before, and I’d seen it alive. Back when Ra had imprisoned Apophis in the Underworld, he’d given up part of his soul—his incarnation as Khepri, scarab of the morning sun—to keep his enemy confined. He’d buried Apophis under a landslide of living beetles.

By the time Sadie and I had found that prison last spring, millions of scarabs had been reduced to desiccated shells. When Apophis broke free, only one golden beetle survived: the last remnant of Khepri’s power.

Ra had tried to swallow that scarab. (Yes, disgusting. I know.) When that didn’t work…he’d offered it to Zia.

I didn’t remember Zia taking the scarab, but somehow I knew that amulet was the same bug.

“Zia—”

She shook her head adamantly. “Later.”

She gestured at Setne, who was in the middle of his spell.

Okay, probably not a good time to talk. I didn’t want the tunnel coming down on us. But my mind was reeling.

You haven’t figured it out? Setne had taunted me.

I knew Ra was fascinated with Zia. She was his favorite babysitter. Setne mentioned that Zia was having temperature control problems. The old man is getting to you, he’d said. And Ra had given Zia that scarab—literally a piece of his soul—as if she were his high priestess…or maybe someone even more important.

The tunnel rumbled. The dead-end wall dissolved into dust, revealing a chamber beyond.

Setne glanced back at us with a smile. “Showtime, kids.”

We followed him into a circular room that reminded me of the library at Brooklyn House. The floor was a sparkling mosaic of pastures and rivers. On the walls, painted priests were adorning painted cows with flowers and feathery headdresses for some kind of festival, while Ancient Egyptians waved palm fronds and shook bronze noisemakers called sistrums. The domed ceiling depicted Osiris on his throne, passing judgment over a bull. For an absurd moment, I wondered if Ammit devoured the hearts of wicked cows, and if he liked the beefy taste.

In the middle of the chamber, on a coffin-shaped pedestal, stood a life-sized statue of the Apis Bull. It was made of dark stone—basalt, maybe—but painted so skillfully, it looked alive. Its eyes seemed to follow me. Its hide glistened black except for a small white diamond on the front of its chest, and over its back was a gold blanket cut and embroidered to resemble a hawk’s wings. Between its horns sat a Frisbee of gold—a sun disk crown. Beneath that, sticking out of the bull’s forehead like a curly unicorn horn, was a rearing cobra.

A year ago I would’ve said, “Freaky, but at least it’s just a statue.” Now, I’d had lots of experience with Egyptian statues coming to life and trying to stomp the ankh out of me.

Setne didn’t seem worried. He strolled right up to the stone bull and patted its leg. “The Shrine of Apis! I built this chamber just for my chosen priests and me. Now all we have to do is wait.”

“Wait for what?” Zia asked. Being a smart girl, she was hanging back by the entrance with me.

Setne checked his nonexistent watch. “It won’t be long. Just a timer, sort of. Come on in! Make yourself comfortable.”

I edged my way inside. I waited for the doorway to solidify behind me, but it stayed open. “You sure the book is still here?”

“Oh, yeah.” Setne walked around the statue, checking the base. “I just need to remember which of these panels on the dais is going to pop open. I wanted to make this entire room out of gold, you know? That would’ve been much cooler. But Dad cut back on my funding.”

“Your dad.” Zia stepped next to me and slipped her hand into mine, which I didn’t mind. The golden scarab necklace glinted around her neck. “You mean Ramses the Great?”

Setne’s mouth twisted in a cruel sneer. “Yeah, that’s how his PR department branded him. Me, I liked to call him Ramses II, or Ramses Number Two.”

“Ramses?” I said. “Your dad is the Ramses?”

I suppose I hadn’t processed how Setne fit into Egyptian history. Looking at this scrawny little guy with his greasy hair, his shoulder-padded jacket, and his ridiculous bling, I couldn’t believe he was related to a ruler so famous. Even worse, it made him related to me, since our mom’s side of the family traced its magic heritage from Ramses the Great.

(Sadie says she can see the family resemblance between Setne and me. [Shut up, Sadie.])

I guess Setne didn’t like my looking surprised. He stuck his beaky nose in the air. “You should know what it’s like, Carter Kane—growing up in the shadow of a famous dad. Always trying to live up to his legend. Look at you, son of the great Dr. Julius Kane. You finally make a name for yourself as a big-shot magician, what does your dad do? He goes and becomes a god.”

Setne laughed coldly. I’d never felt any resentment toward my father before; I’d always thought it was cool being Dr. Kane’s son. But Setne’s words rolled over me, and anger started to build in my chest.

He’s playing with you, said the voice of Horus.

I knew Horus was right, but that didn’t make me feel better.

“Where’s the book, Setne?” I asked. “Enough delays.”

“Don’t warp your wand, pal. It won’t be much longer.” He gazed at the picture of Osiris on the ceiling. “There he is! The blue dude himself. I’m telling you, Carter, you and I are a lot alike. I can’t go anywhere in Egypt without seeing my dad’s face, either. Abu Simbel? There’s Papa Ramses glaring down at me—four copies of him, each sixty feet tall. It’s like a nightmare. Half the temples in Egypt? He commissioned them and put up statues of himself. Is it any wonder I wanted to be the world’s biggest magician?” He puffed up his scrawny chest. “And I made it, too. What I don’t understand, Carter Kane, is why you haven’t taken the pharaoh’s throne yet. You’ve got Horus on your side, itching for power. You should merge with the god, become the pharaoh of the world, and, ah…” He patted the Apis statue. “Take the bull by the horns.”

He’s right, Horus said. This human has wisdom.

Make up your mind, I complained.

“Carter, don’t listen to him,” Zia said. “Setne, whatever you’re up to—stop. Now.”

“What I’m up to? Look, doll—”

“Don’t call me that!” Zia said.

“Hey, I’m on your side,” Setne promised. “The book’s right here in the dais. As soon as the bull moves—”

“The bull moves?” I asked.

Setne narrowed his eyes. “Didn’t I mention that? I got the idea from this holiday we used to have in the old days, the Festival of Sed. Awesome fun! You ever been to that Running of the Bulls in, what is it, Spain?”

“Pamplona,” I said. Another wave of resentment got the best of me. My dad had taken me to Pamplona once, but he hadn’t let me go out in the street while the bulls were running through town. He’d said it was too dangerous—as if his secret life as a magician weren’t way more dangerous than that.

“Right, Pamplona,” Setne agreed. “Well, you know where that tradition started? Egypt. The pharaoh would do this ritual race with the Apis Bull to renew his kingly power, prove his strength, get blessed by the gods—all that junk. In later times, it became just a charade, no real danger. But at the beginning, it was the real thing. Life and death.”

On the word death, the bull statue moved. He bent his legs stiffly. Then he lowered his head and glared at me, snorting out a cloud of dust.

“Setne!” I reached for my sword, but of course it wasn’t there. “Make that thing stop, or I’ll wrap you in ribbons so fast—”

“Oh, I wouldn’t do that,” Setne warned. “See, I’m the only one who can pick up the book without getting zapped by about sixteen different curses.”

Between the bull’s horns, its golden sun disk flashed. On its forehead, the cobra writhed to life, hissing and spitting gobs of fire.

Zia drew her wand. Was it my imagination, or was her scarab necklace starting to steam? “Call off that creature, Setne. Or I swear—”

“I can’t, doll. Sorry.” He grinned at us from behind the bull’s dais. He didn’t look very sorry. “This is part of the security system, see? If you want the book, you’ve got to distract the bull and get it out of here, while I open the dais and grab the Book of Thoth. I have complete faith in you.”

The bull pawed his pedestal and leaped off. Zia pulled me back into the hallway.

“That’s it!” Setne shouted. “Just like the Sed Festival. Prove you’re worthy of the pharaoh’s throne, kid. Run or die!”

The bull charged.

A sword would’ve been really nice. I would’ve settled for a matador’s cape and a spear. Or an assault rifle. Instead, Zia and I ran back through the catacombs and quickly realized that we were lost. Letting Setne lead us into the maze had been a stupid idea. I should’ve dropped breadcrumbs or marked the walls with hieroglyphs or something.

I hoped the tunnels would be too narrow for the Apis Bull. No such luck. I heard rock walls rumbling behind us as the bull shouldered his way through. There was another sound I liked even less—a deep hum followed by an explosion. I didn’t know what that was, but it was good incentive to run faster.

We must have passed through a dozen halls. Each had twenty or thirty sarcophagi. I couldn’t believe how many Apises had been mummified down here—centuries’ worth of bull. Behind us, our monstrous stone friend bellowed as he smashed his way through the tunnels.

I glanced back once and was sorry I did. The bull was closing fast, the cobra on his forehead spewing fire.

“This way!” Zia cried.

She pulled me down a side corridor. At the far end, what looked like daylight spilled from an open doorway. We sprinted toward it.

I was hoping for an exit. Instead we stumbled into another circular chamber. There was no bull statue in the middle, but spaced around the circumference were four giant stone sarcophagi. The walls were painted with pictures of bovine paradise—cows being fed, cows frolicking in meadows, cows being worshipped by silly little humans. The daylight streamed from a shaft in the domed ceiling, twenty feet above. A beam of sunshine sliced through the dusty air and hit the middle of the floor like a spotlight, but there was no way we could use the shaft to escape. Even if I turned into a falcon, the opening was too narrow, and I wasn’t about to leave Zia alone.

“Dead end,” she said.

“HRUUUFF!” The Apis Bull loomed in the doorway, blocking our exit. His hood ornament cobra hissed.

We backed into the room until we stood in the warm sunlight. It seemed cruel to die here, stuck under thousands of tons of rock but able to see the sun.

The bull pawed the floor. He took a step forward, then hesitated, as if the sunlight bothered him.

“Maybe I can talk to him,” I said. “He’s connected to Osiris, right?”

Zia looked at me like I was crazy—which I was—but I didn’t have any better ideas.

She readied her wand and staff. “I’ll cover you.”

I stepped toward the monster and showed my empty hands. “Nice bull. I’m Carter Kane. Osiris is my dad, sort of. How about we call a truce and—”

The cobra spewed fire in my face.

It would’ve turned me into an extra-crispy Carter, but Zia shouted a command. As I stumbled backward, her staff absorbed the blast, sucking in the flames like a vacuum cleaner. She sliced the air with her wand, and a shimmering red wall of fire erupted around the Apis Bull. Unfortunately, the bull just stood there and glared at us, completely unharmed.

Zia cursed. “We seem to be at an impasse with the fire magic.”

The bull lowered its horns.

My war god instincts took control. “Take cover!”

Zia dove one way. I dove the other. The bull’s sun disk glowed and hummed, then shot a golden beam of heat right where we’d been standing. I barely made it behind a sarcophagus. My clothes were steaming. The bottoms of my shoes were melted. Where the beam had hit, the floor was blackened and bubbling, as if the rock had reached boiling point.

“Cows with laser beams?” I protested. “That’s completely unfair!”

“Carter!” Zia called from across the room. “You okay?”

“We’ll have to split up!” I shouted back. “I’ll distract it. You get out of here!”

“What? No!”

The bull turned toward the sound of her voice. I had to move fast.

My avatar wouldn’t be much good in an enclosed space like this, but I needed the war god’s strength and speed. I summoned the power of Horus. Blue light flickered around me. My skin felt as thick as steel, my muscles as powerful as hydraulic pistons. I rose to my feet, smashed my fists into the sarcophagus, and reduced it to a pile of stone and mummy dust. I picked up a chunk of the lid—a three-hundred-pound stone shield—and charged at the bull.

We smashed into each other. Somehow I held my ground, but it took every bit of my magical strength. The bull bellowed and pushed. The cobra spit flames that rolled over the top of my shield.

“Zia, get out of here!” I shouted.

“I’m not leaving you!”

“You’ve got to! I can’t—”

The hairs on my arms stood up even before I heard the humming sound. My slab of stone disintegrated in a flash of gold, and I flew backward, crashing into another sarcophagus.

My vision blurred. I heard Zia shout. When my eyes could focus again, I saw her standing in the middle of the room, wrapped in sunlight, chanting a spell I didn’t recognize. She’d gotten the bull’s attention, which had probably saved my life. But before I could cry out, the bull aimed his sun disk and shot a superheated laser beam straight at Zia.

“No!” I screamed.

The light blinded me. The heat sucked all the oxygen out of my lungs. There was no way Zia could have survived that hit.

But when the golden light faded, Zia was still there. Around her burned a massive shield shaped like…like a scarab shell. Her eyes glowed with orange fire. Flames swirled around her. She looked at the bull and spoke a deep rasping voice that definitely wasn’t hers: “I am Khepri, the rising sun. I will not be denied.”

Only later did I realize that she’d spoken in Ancient Egyptian.

She thrust out her hand. A miniature comet shot toward the Apis Bull and the monster burst into flames, turning and stomping, suddenly panicked. His legs crumbled. He collapsed and broke into a smoking pile of charred rubble.

The room was suddenly quiet. I was afraid to move. Zia was still wreathed in fire, and it seemed to be getting hotter—burning yellow, then white. She stood as if in a trance. The golden scarab around her neck was definitely smoking now.

“Zia!” My head throbbed, but I managed to rise.

She turned toward me and hefted another fireball.

“Zia, no!” I said. “It’s me. Carter.”

She hesitated. “Carter…?” Her expression turned to confusion, then fear. The orange flames faded in her eyes, and she collapsed in the pool of sunlight.

I ran to her. I tried to gather her in my arms, but her skin was too hot to touch. The golden scarab had left a nasty burn on her throat.

“Water,” I muttered to myself. “I need water.”

I’d never been good at divine words, but I shouted: “Maw!”

The symbol blazed above us:

Several cubic gallons of water materialized in midair and crashed down on us. Zia’s face steamed. She coughed and spluttered, but she didn’t wake. Her fever still felt dangerously high.

“I’ll get you out of here,” I promised, lifting her in my arms.

I didn’t need the strength of Horus. I had so much adrenaline coursing through my body, I didn’t feel any of my own injuries. I ran right by Setne when he passed me in the hall.

“Hey, pal!” He turned and jogged along next to me, waving a thick papyrus scroll. “Good job! I got the Book of Thoth!”

“You almost killed Zia!” I snapped. “Get us out of here—NOW!”

“Okay, okay,” Setne said. “Calm down.”

“I’m taking you back to my dad’s courtroom,” I growled. “I’m going to personally stuff you down Ammit’s mouth, like a branch into a wood chipper.”

“Whoa, big man.” Setne led me up a sloping passage back to the electrical lighting of the excavated tunnels. “How about we get you out of here first, huh? Remember, you still need me to decipher this book and find the serpent’s shadow. Then we’ll see about the wood chipper, okay?”

“She can’t die,” I insisted.

“Right, I got that.” Setne led me through more tunnels, picking up speed. Zia seemed to weigh nothing. My headache had disappeared. Finally we burst into the sunlight and ran for the Egyptian Queen.

I’ll admit I wasn’t thinking straight.

When we got back on board, Bloodstained Blade reported on the ship’s repairs, but I barely heard him. I plowed right past him and carried Zia inside to the nearest cabin. I set her on the bed and rummaged through my pack for medical supplies—a water bottle, some magic salve Jaz had given me, a few written charms. I was no rekhet like Jaz. My healing powers consisted mostly of bandages and aspirin, but I began to work.

“Come on,” I mumbled. “Come on, Zia. You’re going to be fine.”

She was so warm, her drenched clothes had almost dried. Her eyes were rolled back in her head. She started muttering, and I could’ve sworn she said, “Dung balls. Time to roll the dung balls.”

It might’ve been funny—except for the fact that she was dying.

“That’s Khepri talking,” Setne explained. “He’s the divine dung beetle, rolling the sun across the sky.”

I didn’t want to process that—the idea that the girl I liked had been possessed by a dung beetle and was now having dreams about pushing a giant sphere of flaming poo across the sky.

But there was no question: Zia had used the path of the gods. She’d called on Ra—or at least one of his incarnations, Khepri.

Ra had chosen her, the way Horus had chosen me.

Suddenly it made sense that Apophis had destroyed Zia’s village when she was young, and that the old Chief Lector Iskandar had gone to such lengths to train her and then hide her in a magical sleep. If she held the secret to reawakening the sun god…

I dabbed some ointment on her throat. I pressed a cold washcloth to her forehead, but it didn’t seem to help.

I turned to Setne. “Heal her!”

“Oh, um…” He winced. “See, healing magic isn’t really my thing. But at least you’ve got the Book of Thoth! If she dies, it wasn’t for nothing—”

“If she dies,” I warned, “I will…I will…” I couldn’t think of a torture painful enough.

“I see you need some time,” Setne said. “No problem. How about I go tell your captain where we’re heading? We should get back to the Duat, back onto the River of Night as soon as possible. Do I have your permission to give him orders?”

“Fine,” I snapped. “Just get out of my sight.”

I don’t know how much time passed. Zia’s fever seemed to subside. She started breathing more easily and slipped into a gentler sleep. I kissed her forehead and stayed by her side, holding her hand.

I was dimly aware of the ship’s moving. We dropped into a momentary free-fall, then hit water with a shudder and a loud splash. I felt a river rolling under the hull once again, and from the tingling in my gut, I guessed we were back in the Duat.

The door creaked open behind me, but I kept my eyes on Zia.

I waited for Setne to say something—probably to brag about how well he’d done navigating us back to the River of Night—but he stayed silent.

“Well?” I asked.

The sound of splintering wood made me jump.

Setne wasn’t at the door. Instead, Bloodstained Blade loomed over me, his ax head having just split the doorframe. His fists were clenched.

He spoke in an angry, cold hum: “Lord Kane, it’s time to die.”