The Throne of Fire

9. We Get a Vertically Challenged Tour of Russia

AS USUAL, SADIE LEFT OUT some important details, like how Walt and I nearly killed ourselves trying to find her.

It wasn’t fun, flying to the Brooklyn Museum. We had to hang from a rope under the griffin’s belly like a couple of Tarzans, dodging policemen, emergency workers, city officials, and several old ladies who chased after us with umbrellas screaming, “There’s the hummingbird! Kill it!”

Once we managed to open a portal, I wanted to take Freak through with us, but the gate of swirling sand kind of…well, freaked him out, so we had to leave him behind.

When we got to London, television monitors in the storefronts were showing footage of Waterloo Station—something about a strange disturbance inside the terminal with escaped animals and windstorms. Gee, wonder who that could have been? We used Walt’s amulet for Shu the air god to summon a burst of wind and jump to Waterloo Bridge. Of course, we landed right in the middle of a heavily armed riot squad. Just luck that I remembered the sleep spell.

Then, finally, we were ready to charge in and save Sadie, and she rides up in a limousine driven by an ugly dwarf in a swimsuit, and she accuses us of being late.

So when she told us the dwarf was driving us to Russia, I was like, “Whatever.” And I got into the car.

The limousine drove through Westminster while Sadie, Walt, and I traded stories.

After hearing what Sadie had been through, I didn’t feel so bad about my day. A dream of Apophis and a three-headed snake in the training room didn’t seem nearly as scary as gods taking over our grandparents. I’d never liked Gran and Gramps that much, but still—yikes.

I also couldn’t believe our chauffeur was Bes. Dad and I used to laugh about his pictures in museums—his bulging eyes, wagging tongue, and general lack of clothing. Supposedly, he could scare away almost anything—spirits, demons, even other gods—which is why the Egyptian commoners had loved him. Bes looked out for the little guy…um, which wasn’t meant as a dwarf joke. In the flesh, he looked exactly like his pictures, only in full color, with full smell.

“We owe you,” I told him. “So you’re a friend of Bast’s?”

His ears turned red. “Yeah…sure. She asks me for a favor once in a while. I try to help out.”

I got the feeling there was some history there he didn’t want to go into.

“When Horus spoke to me,” I said, “he warned that some of the gods might try to stop us from waking Ra. Now I guess we know who.”

Sadie exhaled. “If they didn’t like our plan, an angry text message would’ve done. Nekhbet and Babi almost tore me apart!”

Her face was a little green. Her combat boots were splattered with shampoo and mud, and her favorite leather jacket had a stain on the shoulder that looked suspiciously like vulture poop. Still, I was impressed that she was conscious. Potions are hard to make and even harder to use. There’s always a price for channeling that much magic.

“You did great,” I told her.

Sadie looked resentfully at the black knife in her lap—the ceremonial blade Anubis had given her. “I’d be dead if not for Bes.”

“Nah,” Bes said. “Well, okay, you probably would be. But you would’ve gone down in style.”

Sadie turned the strange black knife as if she might find instructions written on it.

“It’s a netjeri,” I said. “A serpent blade. Priests used it for—”

“The opening-of-the-mouth ceremony,” she said. “But how does that help us?”

“Don’t know,” I admitted. “Bes?”

“Death rituals. I try to avoid them.”

I looked at Walt. Magic items were his specialty, but he didn’t seem to be paying attention. Ever since Sadie had told us about her talk with Anubis, Walt had been awfully quiet. He sat next to her, fidgeting with his rings.

“You okay?” I asked him.

“Yeah…just thinking.” He glanced at Sadie. “About netjeri blades, I mean.”

Sadie tugged at her hair, like she was trying to make a curtain between her and Walt. The tension between them was so thick, I doubted even a magic knife could cut through it.

“Bloody Anubis,” she muttered. “I could have died, for all he cared.”

We drove in silence for a while after that. Finally, Bes turned onto Westminster Bridge and doubled back over the Thames.

Sadie frowned. “Where are we going? We need a portal. All the best artifacts are at the British Museum.”

“Yeah,” Bes said. “And the other magicians know that.”

“Other magicians?” I asked.

“Kid, the House of Life has branches all over the world. London is the Ninth Nome. With that stunt at Waterloo, Miss Sadie just sent up a big flare telling Desjardins’ followers, Here I am! You can bet they’re going to be hunting you now. They’ll be covering the museum in case you make a run for it. Fortunately, I know a different place we can open a portal.”

Schooled by a dwarf. It should’ve occurred to me that London had other magicians. The House of Life was everywhere. Outside the security of Brooklyn House, there wasn’t a single continent where we’d be safe.

We rode through South London. The scene along Camberwell Road was almost as depressing as my thoughts. Rows of grubby brick apartments and low-rent shops lined the street. An old woman scowled at us from a bus stop. In the doorway of an Asda grocery store, a couple of young tough guys eyed the Mercedes as if they wanted to steal it. I wondered if they were gods or magicians in disguise, because most people didn’t notice the car.

I couldn’t imagine where Bes was taking us. It didn’t seem like the kind of neighborhood where you’d find a lot of Egyptian artifacts.

Finally a big park opened up on our left: misty green fields, tree-lined paths, and a few ruined walls like aqueducts, covered in vines. The land sloped upward to a hilltop with a radio tower.

Bes jumped the curb and drove straight over the grass, knocking down a sign that said keep to the path. The evening was gray and rainy, so there weren’t many people around. A couple of joggers on the nearby path didn’t even look at us, as if they saw Mercedes limos four-wheeling across the park every day.

“Where are we going?” I asked.

“Watch and learn, kid,” Bes said.

Being called “kid” by a guy shorter than me was a little annoying, but I kept my mouth shut. Bes drove straight up the hill. Close to the top was stone staircase maybe thirty feet wide, built into the hillside. It seemed to lead nowhere. Bes slammed on the brakes and we swerved to a stop. The hill was higher than I’d realized. Spread out below us was the whole of London.

Then I looked more closely at the staircase. Two sphinxes made of weathered stone lay on either side of the stairs, watching over the city. Each was about ten feet long with the typical lion’s body and pharaoh’s head, but they seemed totally out of place in a London park.

“Those aren’t real,” I said.

Bes snorted. “Of course they’re real.”

“I mean they aren’t from Ancient Egypt. They’re not old enough.”

“Picky, picky,” Bes said. “These are the stairs to the Crystal Palace. Big glass-and-steel exhibit hall the size of a cathedral used to sit right here on this hill.”

Sadie frowned. “I read about that in school. Queen Victoria had a party there or something.”

“A party or something?” Bes grunted. “It was the Grand Exhibition in 1851. Showcase of British Imperial might, et cetera. They had good candied apples.”

“You were there?” I asked.

Bes shrugged. “The palace burned down in the 1930s, thanks to some stupid magicians—but that’s another story. All that’s left now are a few relics, like these stairs and the sphinxes.”

“A stairway to nowhere,” I said.

“Not nowhere,” Bes corrected. “Tonight it’ll take us to St. Petersburg.”

Walt sat forward. His interest in the statues had apparently shaken him out of his gloom.

“But if the sphinxes aren’t really Egyptian,” he said, “how can they open a portal?”

Bes gave him a toothy grin. “Depends on what you mean by really Egyptian, kid. Every great empire is a wannabe Egypt. Having Egyptian stuff around makes them feel important.

That’s why you’ve got ‘new’ Egyptian artifacts in Rome, Paris,

London—you name it. That obelisk in Washington—”

“Don’t mention that one, please,” Sadie said.

“Anyway,” Bes continued, “these are still Egyptian sphinxes. They were built to play up the connection between the British Empire and the Egyptian Empire. So yeah, they can channel magic. Especially if I’m driving. And now…” He looked at Walt. “It’s probably time for you to get out.”

I was too surprised to say anything, but Walt stared at his lap as if he’d been expecting this.

“Hang on,” Sadie said. “Why can’t Walt come with us? He’s a magician. He can help.”

Bes’s expression turned serious. “Walt, you haven’t told them?”

“Told us what?” Sadie demanded.

Walt clutched his amulets, as if there might be one that would help him avoid this conversation. “It’s nothing. Really. It’s just…I should help out at Brooklyn House. And Jaz thought—”

He faltered, probably realizing that he shouldn’t have brought up her name.

“Yes?” Sadie’s tone was dangerously calm. “How’s Jaz doing?”

“She’s—she’s still in a coma,” Walt said. “Amos says she’ll probably make it, but that’s not what I—”

“Good,” Sadie said. “Glad she’ll get better. So you need to get back, then. That’s brilliant. Off you go. Anubis said we should hurry.”

Not very subtle, the way she threw his name out there. Walt looked like she’d kicked him in the chest.

I knew Sadie wasn’t being fair to him. From my conversation with Walt back at Brooklyn House, I knew he liked Sadie. Whatever was bothering him, it wasn’t any kind of romantic thing with Jaz. On the other hand, if I tried to take his side, Sadie would just tell me to butt out. I might even make things worse between Sadie and him.

“It’s not that I want to go back,” he managed.

“But you can’t go with us,” Bes said firmly. I thought I heard concern in his voice, even pity. “Go on, kid. It’s fine.”

Walt fished something out of his pocket. “Sadie, about your birthday…you, um, probably don’t want any more presents. It’s not a magic knife, but I made this for you.”

He poured a gold necklace into her hand. It had a small Egyptian symbol:

“That’s the basketball hoop on Ra’s head,” I said.

Walt and Sadie both frowned at me, and I realized I probably wasn’t making the moment more magical for them. “I mean it’s the symbol that surrounds Ra’s sun crown,” I said. “A never-ending loop, the symbol of eternity, right?”

Sadie swallowed as if the magic potion was still bubbling in her stomach. “Eternity?”

Walt shot me a look that clearly meant Please stop helping.

“Yeah,” he said, “um, it’s called shen. I just thought, you know, you’re looking for Ra. And good things, important things, should be eternal. So maybe it’ll bring you luck. I meant to give it to you this morning, but…I kind of lost my nerve.”

Sadie stared the talisman glittering in her palm. “Walt, I don’t—I mean, thank you, but—”

“Just remember I didn’t want to leave,” he said. “If you need help, I’ll be there for you.” He glanced at me and corrected himself: “I mean both of you, of course.”

“But now,” Bes said, “you need to go.”

“Happy birthday, Sadie,” Walt said. “And good luck.”

He got out of the car and trudged down the hill. We watched until he was just a tiny figure in the gloom. Then he vanished into the woods.

“Two farewell gifts,” Sadie muttered, “from two gorgeous guys. I hate my life.”

She latched the gold necklace around her throat and touched the shen symbol.

Bes gazed down at the trees where Walt had disappeared. “Poor kid. Born unusual, all right. It isn’t fair.”

“What do you mean?” I asked. “Why were you so anxious for Walt to leave?”

The dwarf rubbed his scraggly beard. “Not my place to explain. Right now we’ve got work to do. The more time we give Menshikov to prepare his defenses, the harder this is going to get.”

I wasn’t ready to drop it, but Bes stared at me stubbornly, and I knew I wasn’t going to get any more answers from him. Nobody can look stubborn like a dwarf.

“So, Russia,” I said. “By driving up an empty staircase.”

“Exactly.” Bes floored the accelerator. The Mercedes churned grass and mud and barreled up the stairs. I was sure we’d reach the top and get nothing but a broken axle, but at the last second, a portal of swirling sand opened in front of us. Our wheels left the ground, and the black limousine flew headlong into the vortex.

We slammed into pavement on the other side, scattering a group of surprised teenagers. Sadie groaned and pried her head off the headrest.

“Can’t we go anywhere gently?” she asked.

Bes hit the wipers and scraped the sand off our windshield. Outside it was dark and snowy. Eighteenth-century stone buildings lined a frozen river lit with streetlamps. Beyond the river glowed more fairy-tale buildings: golden church domes, white palaces, and ornate mansions painted Easter-egg green and blue. I might have believed we’d traveled back in time three hundred years—except for the cars, the electric lights, and of course the teenagers with body piercings, dyed hair, and black leather clothes screaming at us in Russian and pounding on the hood of the Mercedes because we’d almost run them over.

“They can see us?” Sadie asked.

“Russians,” Bes said with a kind of grudging admiration. “Very superstitious people. They tend to see magic for what it is. We’ll have to be careful here.”

“You’ve been here before?” I asked.

He gave me a duh look, then pointed to either side of the car. We’d landed between two stone sphinxes standing on pedestals. They looked like a lot of sphinxes I’d seen—with crowned human heads on lion bodies—but I’d never seen sphinxes covered in snow.

“Are those authentic?” I asked.

“Farthest-north Egyptian artifacts in the world,” Bes said. “Pillaged from Thebes and brought up here to decorate Russia’s new imperial city, St. Petersburg. Like I said, every new empire wants a piece of Egypt.”

The kids outside were still shouting and banging on the car. One smashed a bottle against our windshield.

“Um,” Sadie said, “should we move?”

“Nah,” Bes said. “Russian kids always hang out by the sphinxes. Been doing it for hundreds of years.”

“But it’s like midnight here,” I said. “And it’s snowing.”

“Did I mention they’re Russian?” Bes said. “Don’t worry. I’ll take care of it.”

He opened his door. Glacier-cold wind swept into the Mer-cedes, but Bes stepped out wearing nothing but his Speedo. The kids backed up quickly. I couldn’t blame them. Bes said something in Russian, then roared like a lion. The kids screamed and ran.

Bes’s form seemed to ripple. When he got back into the car, he was wearing a warm winter coat, a fur-lined hat, and fuzzy mittens.

“See?” he said. “Superstitious. They know enough to run from a god.”

“A small hairy god in a Speedo, yes,” Sadie said. “So what do we do now?”

Bes pointed across the river at a glowing palace of white-and-gold stone. “That’s the Hermitage.”

“Hermits live there?” Sadie asked.

“No,” I said. “I’ve heard of that place. It was the tsar’s palace. Now it’s a museum. Best Egyptian collection in Russia.”

“Dad took you there, I suppose?” Sadie asked. I thought we were over the whole jealous-about-traveling-the-world-with-Dad thing, but every once in a while it cropped up again.

“We never went.” I tried not to sound defensive. “He got an invitation to speak there once, but he declined.”

Bes chuckled. “Your dad was smart. Russian magicians don’t exactly welcome outsiders. They protect their territory fiercely.”

Sadie stared across the river. “You mean the headquarters of the Eighteenth Nome is inside the museum?”

“Somewhere,” Bes agreed, “but it’s hidden with magic, because I’ve never found the entrance. That part you’re looking at is the Winter Palace, the old home of the tsar. There’s a whole complex of other mansions behind it. I’ve heard it would take eleven days just to see everything in all the Hermitage collections.”

“But unless we wake Ra, the world ends in four days,” I said.

“Three days now,” Sadie corrected, “if it’s after midnight.”

I winced. “Thanks for the reminder.”

“So take the abbreviated tour,” Bes said. “Start with the Egyptian section. Ground floor, main museum.”

“Aren’t you coming with us?” I asked.

“He can’t, can he?” Sadie guessed. “Like Bast couldn’t enter Desjardins’ house in Paris. The magicians charm their headquarters against the gods. Isn’t that right?”

Bes made an even uglier face. “I’ll walk you down to the bridge, but I can’t go any farther. If I cross the River Neva too close to the Hermitage, I’ll set off all kinds of alarms. You’ll have to sneak inside somehow—”

“Breaking into a museum at night,” Sadie muttered. “We’ve had such good luck with that.”

“—and find the entrance to the Eighteenth Nome. And don’t get captured alive.”

“What do you mean?” I asked. “It’s better to be captured dead?”

The look in his eyes was grim. “Just trust me. You don’t want to be Menshikov’s prisoner.”

Bes snapped his fingers, and suddenly we were wearing fleece parkas, ski pants, and winter boots.

“Come on, malishi,” he said. “I’ll walk you to the Dvortsovyy Bridge.”

The bridge was only a few hundred yards away, but it seemed farther. March obviously wasn’t springtime in St. Petersburg. The dark, the wind, and the snow made it feel more like January in Alaska. Personally, I would’ve preferred a sweltering day in the Egyptian desert. Even with the warm clothes Bes had summoned for us, my teeth couldn’t stop chattering.

Bes wasn’t in a hurry. He kept slowing down and giving us the guided tour until I thought my nose would fall off from frostbite. He told us we were on Vasilevsky Island, across the Neva River from the center of St. Petersburg. He pointed out the different church spires and monuments, and when he got excited, he started slipping into Russian.

“You’ve spent a lot of time here,” I said.

He walked in silence for a few paces. “Most of that was long ago. It wasn’t—”

He stopped so abruptly, I stumbled into him. He stared across the street at a big palace with canary yellow walls and a green gabled roof. Lit up in the night through a swirl of snow, it looked unreal, like one of the ghostly images in the First Nome’s Hall of Ages.

“Prince Menshikov’s palace,” Bes muttered.

His voice was full of loathing. I almost thought he was going to yell BOO at the building, but he just gritted his teeth.

Sadie looked at me for an explanation, but I wasn’t a walking Wikipedia like she seemed to think. I knew stuff about Egypt, but Russia? Not so much.

“You mean Menshikov as in Vlad the Inhaler?” I asked.

“He’s a descendant.” Bes curled his lip with distaste. He said a Russian word I was willing to bet was a pretty bad insult. “Back in the seventeen hundreds, Prince Menshikov threw a party for Peter the Great—the tsar who built this city. Peter loved dwarves. He was a lot like the Egyptians that way. He thought we were good luck, so he always kept some of us in his court. Anyway, Menshikov wanted to entertain the tsar, so he thought it would be funny to stage a dwarf wedding. He forced them…he forced us to dress up, pretend to get married, and dance around. All the big folk were laughing, jeering…”

His voice trailed off.

Bes described the party like it was yesterday. Then I remembered that this weird little guy was a god. He’d been around for eons.

Sadie put her hand on his shoulder. “I’m sorry, Bes. Must have been awful.”

He scowled. “Russian magicians…they love capturing gods, using us. I can still hear that wedding music, and the tsar laughing…”

“How’d you get away?” I asked.

Bes glared at me. Obviously, I’d asked a bad question.

“Enough of this.” Bes turned up his collar. “We’re wasting time.”

He forged ahead, but I got the feeling he wasn’t really leaving Menshikov’s palace behind. Suddenly its cheery yellow walls and brightly lit windows looked sinister.

Another hundred yards through the bitter wind, and we reached the bridge. On the other side, the Winter Palace shimmered.

“I’ll take the Mercedes the long way around,” Bes said. “Down to the next bridge, and circle south of the Hermitage. Less likely to alert the magicians that I’m here.”

Now I realized why he was so paranoid about setting off alarms. Magicians had snared him in St. Petersburg once before. I remembered what he’d told us in the car: Don’t get captured alive.

“How do we find you if we succeed?” Sadie asked.

“When you succeed,” Bes said. “Think positive, girl, or the world ends.”

“Right.” Sadie shivered in her new parka. “Positive.”

“I’ll meet you on the Nevsky Prospekt, the main street with all the shops, just south of the Hermitage. I’ll be at the Chocolate Museum.”

“The what now?” I asked.

“Well, it’s not really a museum. More of a shop—closed this time of night, but the owner always opens up for me.

They’ve got chocolate everything—chess sets, lions, Vladimir Lenin heads—”

“The communist guy?” I asked.

“Yes, Professor Brilliant,” Bes said. “The communist guy, in chocolate.”

“So let me get this straight,” Sadie said. “We break into a heavily guarded Russian national museum, find the magicians’ secret headquarters, find a dangerous scroll, and escape. Meanwhile, you will be eating chocolate.”

Bes nodded solemnly. “It’s a good plan. It might work. If something happens and I can’t meet you at the Chocolate Museum, our exit point is the Egyptian Bridge, to the south at the Fontanka River. Just turn on the—”

“Enough,” Sadie said. “You will meet us at the chocolate shop. And you will provide me with a takeaway bag. That is final. Now, go!”

Bes gave her a lopsided smile. “You’re okay, girl.”

He trudged back toward the Mercedes.

I looked across the half-frozen river to the Winter Palace. Somehow, London didn’t seem as dreary or dangerous anymore.

“Are we in as much trouble as I think?” I asked Sadie.

“More,” she said. “Let’s go crash the tsar’s palace, shall we?”