The Throne of Fire

20. We Visit the House of the Helpful Hippo

HOSPITALS. CLASSROOMS. Now I’ll add to my list of least-favorite places: old people’s homes.

That may sound odd, as I lived with my grandparents. I suppose their flat counts as an old people’s home. But I mean institutions. Nursing homes. Those are the worst. They smell like an unholy mixture of canteen food, cleaning supplies, and pensioners. The inmates (sorry, patients) always look so miserable. And the homes have absurdly happy names, like Sunny Acres. Please.

We stepped through the limestone gateway into a large open hall—the Egyptian version of assisted living. Rows of colorfully painted columns were studded with iron sconces holding blazing torches. Potted palms and flowering hibiscus plants were placed here and there in a failed attempt to make the place feel cheerful. Large windows looked out on the Lake of Fire, which I suppose was a nice view if you enjoyed brimstone. The walls were painted with scenes of the Egyptian afterlife, along with jolly hieroglyphic mottos like immortality with security and life starts at 3000!

Glowing servant lights and clay shabti in white medical uniforms bustled about, carrying trays of medication and pushing wheelchairs. The patients, however, didn’t bustle much. A dozen withered figures in linen hospital gowns sat around the room, staring vacantly into space. A few wandered the room, pushing wheelie poles with IV bags. All wore bracelets with their names in hieroglyphs.

Some looked human, but many had animal heads. An old man with the head of a crane rocked back and forth in a metal folding chair, pecking at a game of senet on the coffee table. An old woman with a grizzled lioness’s head scooted herself around in a wheelchair, mumbling, “Meow, meow.” A shriveled blue-skinned man not much taller than Bes hugged one of the limestone columns and cried softly, as if he were afraid the column might try to leave him.

In other words, the scene was thoroughly depressing.

“What is this place?” I asked. “Are those all gods?”

Carter seemed just as mystified as I was. Bes looked like he was about to crawl out of his skin.

“Never actually been here,” he admitted. “Heard rumors, but…” He swallowed as if he’d just eaten a spoonful of peanut butter. “Come on. Let’s ask at the nurses’ station.”

The desk was a crescent of granite with a row of telephones (though I couldn’t imagine who they’d call from the Duat), a computer, lots of clipboards, and a platter-size stone disk with a triangular fin—a sundial, which seemed strange, as there was no sun.

Behind the counter, a short, heavy woman stood with her back to us, checking a whiteboard with names and medication times. Her glossy black hair was plaited down her back like an extra-large beaver’s tail, and her nurse’s cap barely fit on her wide head.

We were halfway to the desk when Bes froze. “It’s her.”

“Who?” Carter asked.

“This is bad.” Bes turned pale. “I should’ve known….Curse it! You’ll have to go without me.”

I looked more closely at the nurse, who still had her back to us. She did seem a bit imposing, with massive beefy arms, a neck thicker than my waist, and oddly tinted purplish skin. But I couldn’t understand why she bothered Bes so much.

I turned to ask him, but Bes had ducked behind the nearest potted plant. It wasn’t big enough to hide him, and certainly didn’t camouflage his Hawaiian shirt.

“Bes, stop it,” I said.

“Shhh! I’m invisible!”

Carter sighed. “We don’t have time for this. Come on, Sadie.”

He led the way to the nurses’ station.

“Excuse us,” he called across the desk.

The nurse turned, and I yelped. I tried to contain my shock, but it was difficult, as the woman was a hippopotamus.

I don’t mean that as an unflattering comparison. She was actually a hippo. Her long snout was shaped like an upsidedown valentine heart, with bristly whiskers, tiny nostrils, and a mouth with two large bottom teeth. Her eyes were small and beady. Her face looked quite odd framed with luxurious black hair, but it wasn’t nearly as peculiar as her body. She wore her nurse’s blouse open like a jacket, revealing a bikini top that—how to put this delicately—was trying to cover a very great deal of top with very little fabric. Her purple-pink belly was incredibly swollen, as if she were nine months pregnant.

“May I help you?” she asked. Her voice was pleasant and kindly—not what one would expect from a hippopotamus. Come to think of it, I wouldn’t expect any voice from a hippopotamus.

“Um, hippo—I mean, hullo!” I stammered. “My brother and I are looking for…” I glanced at Carter and found he was not staring at the nurse’s face. “Carter!”

“What?” He shook himself out of his trance. “Right. Sorry. Uh, aren’t you a goddess? Tawaret, or something?”

The hippo woman bared her two enormous teeth in what I hoped was a smile. “Why, how nice to be recognized! Yes, dear. I’m Tawaret. You said you were looking for someone? A relative? Are you gods?”

Behind us, the potted hibiscus rustled as Bes picked it up and tried to move it behind a column. Tawaret’s eyes widened.

“Is that Bes?” she called. “Bes!”

The dwarf stood abruptly and brushed off his shirt. His face was redder than Set’s. “Plant looks like it’s getting enough water,” he muttered. “I should check the ones over there.”

He started to walk away, but Tawaret called again, “Bes! It’s me, Tawaret! Over here!”

Bes stiffened like she’d shot him in the back. He turned with a tortured smile.

“Well…hey. Tawaret. Wow!”

She scrambled out from the behind the desk, wearing high heels that seemed inadvisable for a pregnant water mammal. She spread her chubby arms for a hug, and Bes thrust out his hand to shake. They ended up doing an awkward sort of dance, half hug, half shake, which made one thing perfectly obvious to me.

“So, you two used to date?” I asked.

Bes shot eye-daggers at me. Tawaret blushed, which made it the first time I’d ever embarrassed a hippo.

“A long time ago…” Tawaret turned to the dwarf god. “Bes, how are you? After that horrible time at the palace, I was afraid—”

“Good!” he shouted. “Yes, thanks. Good. You’re good? Good! We’re here on important business, as Sadie was about to tell you.”

He kicked me in the shin, which I thought quite unnecessary.

“Yes, right,” I said. “We’re looking for Ra, to awaken him.”

If Bes had been hoping to redirect Tawaret’s train of thought, the plan worked. Tawaret opened her mouth in a silent gasp, and as if I’d just suggested something horrible, like a hippo hunt.

“Awaken Ra?” she said. “Oh, dear…oh, that is unfortunate. Bes, you’re helping them with this?”

“Uh-hum,” he stuttered. “Just, you know—”

“Bes is doing us a favor,” I said. “Our friend Bast asked him to look after us.”

I could tell right away I’d made matters worse. The temperature in the air seemed to drop ten degrees.

“I see,” Tawaret said. “A favor for Bast.”

I wasn’t sure what I’d said wrong, but I tried my best to backtrack. “Please. Look, the fate of the world is at stake It’s very important we find Ra.”

Tawaret crossed her arms skeptically. “Dear, he’s been missing for millennia. And trying to awaken him would be terribly dangerous. Why now?”

“Tell her, Sadie.” Bes inched backward as if preparing to dive into the hibiscus. “No secrets here. Tawaret can be trusted completely.”

“Bes!” She perked up immediately and fluttered her eyelashes. “Do you mean that?”

“Sadie, talk!” Bes pleaded.

And so I did. I showed Tawaret the Book of Ra. I explained why we needed to wake the sun god—the threat of Apophis’s ascension, mass chaos and destruction, the world about to end at sunrise, et cetera. It was difficult to judge her hippoish expressions [Yes, Carter, I’m sure that’s a word], but as I spoke, Tawaret twirled her long black hair nervously.

“That’s not good,” she said. “Not good at all.”

She glanced behind her at the sundial. Despite the lack of sun, the needle cast a clear shadow over the hieroglyphic number five:

“You’re running out of time,” she said.

Carter frowned at the sundial. “Isn’t this place the Fourth House of the Night?”

“Yes, dear,” Tawaret agreed. “It goes by different names —Sunny Acres, the House of Rest—but it’s also the Fourth House.”

“So how can the sundial be on five?” he asked. “Shouldn’t we be, like, frozen at the fourth hour?”

“Doesn’t work that way, kid,” Bes put in. “Time in the mortal world doesn’t stop passing just because you’re in the Fourth House. If you want to follow the sun god’s voyage, you have to keep in synch with his timing.”

I felt a head-splitting explanation coming on. I was ready to accept blissful ignorance and get on with finding Ra, but Carter, naturally, wouldn’t let it drop.

“So what happens if we get too far behind?” he asked.

Tawaret checked the sundial again, which was slowly creeping past five. “The houses are connected to their times of night. You can stay in each one as long as you want, but you can only enter or exit them close to the hours they represent.”

“Uh-huh.” I rubbed my temples. “Do you have any headache medicine behind that nurses’ station?”

“It’s not that confusing,” said Carter, just to be annoying. “It’s like a revolving door. You have to wait for an opening and jump in.”

“More or less,” Tawaret agreed. “There is a little wiggle room with most of the Houses. You can leave the Fourth House, for instance, pretty much whenever you want. But certain gates are impossible to pass unless you time it exactly right. You can only enter the First House at sunset. You can only exit the Twelfth House at dawn. And the gates of the Eighth House, the House of Challenges…can only be entered during the eighth hour.”

“House of Challenges?” I said. “I hate it already.”

“Oh, you have Bes with you.” Tawaret stared at him dreamily. “The challenges won’t be a problem.”

Bes shot me a panicked look, like, Save me!

“But if you take too long,” Tawaret continued, “the gates will close before you can get there. You’ll be locked in the Duat until tomorrow night.”

“And if we don’t stop Apophis,” I said, “there won’t be a tomorrow night. That part I understand.”

“So can you help us?” Carter asked Tawaret. “Where is Ra?”

The goddess fidgeted with her hair. Her hands were a cross between human and hippo, with short stubby fingers and thick nails.

“That’s the problem, dear,” she said. “I don’t know. The Fourth House is enormous. Ra is probably here somewhere, but the hallways and doors go on forever. We have so many patients.”

“Don’t you keep track of them?” Carter asked. “Isn’t there a map or something?”

Tawaret shook her head sadly. “I do my best, but it’s just me, the shabti and the servant lights….And there are thousands of old gods.”

My heart sank. I could barely keep track of the ten or so major gods I’d met, but thousands? In this room alone, I counted a dozen patients, six hallways leading off in different directions, two staircases, and three elevators. Perhaps it was my imagination, but it seemed as if some of the hallways had appeared since we’d entered the room.

“All these old folks are gods?” I asked.

Tawaret nodded. “Most were minor deities even in ancient times. The magicians didn’t consider them worth imprisoning. Over the centuries, they’ve wasted away, lonely and forgotten. Eventually they made their way here. They simply wait.”

“To die?” I asked.

Tawaret got a faraway look in her eyes. “I wish I knew. Sometimes they disappear, but I don’t know if they simply get lost wandering the halls, or find a new room to hide in, or truly fade to nothing. The sad truth is it amounts to the same thing. Their names have been forgotten by the world above. Once your name is no longer spoken, what good is life?”

She glanced at Bes, as if trying to tell him something.

The dwarf god looked away quickly. “That’s Mekhit, isn’t it?” He pointed to the old lion woman who was making her way around in a wheelchair. “She had a temple near Abydos, I think. Minor lion goddess. Always got confused with Sekhmet.”

The lioness snarled weakly when Bes said the name Sekhmet. Then she went back to rolling her chair, muttering, “Meow, meow.”

“Sad story,” Tawaret said. “She came here with her husband, the god Onuris. They were a celebrity couple in the old days, so romantic. He once traveled all the way to Nubia to rescue her. They got married. Happy ending, we all thought. But they were both forgotten. They came here together. Then Onuris disappeared. Mekhit’s mind began to go quickly after that. Now she rolls her chair around the room aimlessly all day. She can’t remember her own name, though we keep reminding her.”

I thought about Khnum, whom we’d met on the river, and how sad he’d seemed, not knowing his secret name. I looked at the old goddess Mekhit, meowing and snarling and scooting along with no memory of her former glory. I imagined trying to care for a thousand gods like that—senior citizens who never got better and never died.

“Tawaret, how can you stand it?” I said in awe. “Why do you work here?”

She touched her nurse’s cap self-consciously. “A long story, dear. And we have very little time. I wasn’t always here. I was once a protector goddess. I scared away demons, though not as well as Bes.”

“You were plenty scary,” Bes said.

The hippo goddess sighed with adoration. “That’s so sweet. I also protected mothers giving birth—”

“Because you’re pregnant?” Carter asked, nodding at her enormous belly.

Tawaret looked mystified. “No. Why would you think that?”

“Um—”

“So!” I broke in. “You were explaining why you take care of aging gods.”

Tawaret checked the sundial, and I was alarmed to see how fast the shadow was creeping toward six. “I’ve always liked to help people, but in the world above, well…it became clear I wasn’t needed anymore.”

She was careful not to look at Bes, but the dwarf god blushed even more.

“Someone was needed to look after the aging gods,” Tawaret continued. “I suppose I understand their sadness. I understand about waiting forever—”

Bes coughed into his fist. “Look at the time! Yes, about Ra. Have you seen him since you’ve been working here?”

Tawaret considered. “It’s possible. I saw a falcon-headed god in a room in the southeast wing, oh, ages ago. I thought it was Nemty, but it’s possible it could have been Ra. He sometimes liked to go about in falcon form.”

“Which way?” I pleaded. “If we can get close, the Book of Ra may be able to guide us.”

Tawaret turned to Bes. “Are you asking me for this, Bes? Do you truly believe it’s important, or are you just doing it because Bast told you to?”

“No! Yes!” He puffed out his cheeks in exasperation. “I mean, yes, it’s important. Yes, I’m asking. I need your help.”

Tawaret pulled a torch from the nearest sconce. “In that case, right this way.”

We wandered the halls of an infinite magic nursing home, led by a hippo nurse with a torch. Really, just an ordinary night for the Kanes.

We passed so many bedrooms I lost count. Most of the doors were closed, but a few were open, showing frail old gods in their beds, staring at the flickering blue light of televisions or simply lying in the dark crying. After twenty or thirty such rooms, I stopped looking. It was too depressing.

I held the Book of Ra, hoping it would get warmer as we approached the sun god, but no such luck. Tawaret hesitated at each intersection. I could tell she felt uncertain about where she was leading us.

After a few more hallways and still no change in the scroll, I began to feel frantic. Carter must’ve noticed.

“It’s okay,” he promised. “We’ll find him.”

I remembered how fast the sundial had been moving at the nurses’ station. And I thought about Vlad Menshikov. I wanted to believe he’d been turned into a deep-fried Russian when he fell into the Lake of Fire, but that was probably too much to hope for. If he was still hunting us, he couldn’t be far behind.

We turned down another corridor and Tawaret froze. “Oh, dear.”

In front of us, an old woman with the head of a frog was jumping around—and when I say jumping, I mean she leaped ten feet, croaked a few times, then leaped against the wall and stuck there before leaping to the opposite wall. Her body and limbs looked human, dressed in a green hospital gown, but her head was all amphibian—brown, moist, and warty. Her bulbous eyes turned in every direction, and by the distressed sound of her croaking, I guessed she was lost.

“Heket’s got out again,” Tawaret said. “Excuse me a moment.”

She hurried over to the frog woman.

Bes pulled a handkerchief from the pocket of his Hawaiian shirt. He dabbed his forehead nervously. “I wondered what had ever happened to Heket. She’s the frog goddess, you know.”

“I never would’ve guessed,” Carter said.

I watched as Tawaret tried to calm down the old goddess. She spoke in soothing tones, promising to help Heket find her room if she’d just stop bouncing off the walls.

“She’s brilliant,” I said. “Tawaret, I mean.”

“Yeah,” Bes said. “Yeah, she’s fine.”

“Fine?” I said. “Clearly, she likes you. Why are you so…”

Suddenly the truth smacked me in the face. I felt almost as thick as Carter.

“Oh, I see. She mentioned a horrible time at a palace, didn’t she? She’s the one who freed you in Russia.”

Bes mopped his neck with the handkerchief. He really was sweating quite a lot. “Wh-what makes you say that?”

“Because you’re so embarrassed around her! Like…” I was about to say “like she’s seen you in your underpants,” but I doubted that would mean much to the God of Speedos. “Like she’s seen you at your worst, and you want to forget it.”

Bes stared at Tawaret with a pained expression, the way he had stared at Prince Menshikov’s palace in St. Petersburg.

“She’s always saving me,” he said bitterly. “She’s always wonderful, nice, kind. Back in ancient times, everyone assumed we were dating. They always said we were a cute couple—the two demon-scaring gods, the two misfits, whatever. We did go out a few times, but Tawaret was just too—too nice. And I was kind of obsessed with somebody else.”

“Bast,” Carter guessed.

The dwarf god’s shoulders slumped. “That obvious, huh? Yeah, Bast. She was the most popular goddess with the common folk. I was the most popular god. So, you know, we’d see each other at festivals and such. She was…well, beautiful.”

Typical man, I thought. Only seeing the surface. But I kept my mouth shut.

“Anyway,” Bes sighed, “Bast treated me like a little brother. She still does. Has no interest in me at all, but it took me a long time to realize that. I was so obsessed, I wasn’t very good to Tawaret over the years.”

“But she came to get you in Russia,” I said.

He nodded. “I sent out distress calls. I thought Bast would come to my aid. Or Horus. Or somebody. I didn’t know where they all were, you understand, but I had a lot of friends back in the old days. I figured somebody would show up. The only one who did was Tawaret. She risked her life sneaking into the palace during the dwarf wedding. She saw the whole thing—saw me humiliated in front of the big folk. During the night, she broke my cage and freed me. I owe her everything. But once I was free…I just fled. I was so ashamed, I couldn’t look at her. Every time I think of her, I think about that night, and I hear the laughing.”

The pain in his voice was raw, as if he were describing something that had happened yesterday, not three centuries ago.

“Bes, it isn’t her fault,” I said gently. “She cares about you. It’s obvious.”

“It’s too late,” he said. “I’ve hurt her too much. I wish I could turn back the clock, but…”

He faltered. Tawaret was walking toward us, leading the frog goddess by the arm.

“Now, dear,” Tawaret said, “just come with us, and we’ll find your room. No need for leaping.”

“But it’s a leap of faith,” Heket croaked. (I mean she made that sound; she didn’t die in front of us, thankfully.) “My temple is around here somewhere. It was in Qus. Lovely city.”

“Yes, dear,” Tawaret said. “But your temple is gone now. All our temples are gone. You have a nice bedroom, though—”

“No,” Heket murmured. “The priests will have sacrifices for me. I have to…”

She fixed her large yellow eyes on me, and I understood how a fly must feel right before it’s zapped by a frog tongue.

“That’s my priestess!” Heket said. “She’s come to visit me.”

“No, dear,” Tawaret said. “That’s Sadie Kane.”

“My priestess.” Heket patted my shoulder with her moist webbed hand, and I did my best not to cringe. “Tell the temple to start without me, will you? I’ll be along later. Will you tell them?”

“Um, yeah,” I said. “Of course, Lady Heket.”

“Good, good.” Her eyes became unfocused. “Very sleepy now. Hard work, remembering…”

“Yes, dear,” Tawaret said. “Why don’t you lie down in one of these rooms for now?”

She shepherded Heket into the nearest vacant room.

Bes followed her with sad eyes. “I’m a terrible dwarf.”

Perhaps I should’ve reassured him, but my mind was racing on to other matters. Start without me, Heket had said. A leap of faith.

Suddenly I found it hard to breathe.

“Sadie?” Carter asked. “What’s wrong?”

“I know why the scroll isn’t guiding us,” I said. “I have to start the second part of the spell.”

“But we’re not there yet,” Carter said.

“And we won’t be unless I start the spell. It’s part of finding Ra.”

“What is?” Tawaret appeared at Bes’s side and almost scared the dwarf out of his Hawaiian shirt.

“The spell,” I said. “I have to take a leap of faith.”

“I think the frog goddess infected her,” Carter fretted.

“No, you dolt!” I said. “This is the only way to find Ra. I’m sure of it.”

“Hey, kid,” Bes said, “if you start that spell, and we don’t find Ra by the time you’re finished reading it—”

“I know. The spell will backfire.” When I said backfire, I meant it quite literally. If the spell didn’t find its proper target, the power of the Book of Ra might blow up in my face.

“It’s the only way,” I insisted. “We don’t have time to wander the halls forever, and Ra will only appear if we invoke him. We have to prove ourselves by taking the risk. You’ll have to lead me. I can’t stumble on the words.”

“You have courage, dear.” Tawaret held up her torch. “Don’t worry, I’ll guide you. Just do your reading.”

I opened the scroll to the second section. The rows of hieroglyphs, which had once seemed like disconnected phrases of rubbish, now made perfect sense.

“‘I invoke the name of Ra,’” I read aloud, “‘the sleeping king, lord of the noonday sun, who sits upon the throne of fire…’”

Well, you get the idea. I described how Ra rose from the sea of Chaos. I recalled his light shining on the primordial land of Egypt, bringing life to the Nile Valley. As I read, I felt warmer.

“Sadie,” Carter said, “you’re smoking.”

Hard not to panic when someone makes a comment like that, but I realized Carter was right. Smoke was curling off my body, forming a column of gray that drifted down the hallway.

“Is it my imagination,” Carter asked, “or is the smoke showing us the way? Ow!”

He said that last part because I stomped his foot, which I could do quite well without breaking my concentration. He got the message: Shut up and start walking.

Tawaret took my arm and guided me forward. Bes and Carter flanked us like security guards. We followed the trail of smoke down two more corridors and up a flight of stairs. The Book of Ra became uncomfortably warm in my hands. The smoke from my body began obscuring the letters.

“You’re doing well, Sadie,” Tawaret said. “This hallway looks familiar.”

I don’t know how she could tell, but I stayed focused on the scroll. I described Ra’s sun boat sailing across the sky. I spoke of his kingly wisdom and the battles he’d won against Apophis.

A bead of sweat trickled down my face. My eyes began to burn. I hoped they weren’t literally on fire.

When I came to the line, “Ra, the sun’s zenith…” I realized we’d stopped in front of a door.

It didn’t look any different from any other door, but I pushed it open and stepped inside. I kept reading, though I was quickly approaching the end of the spell.

Inside, the room was dark. In the sputtering light of Tawaret’s torch, I saw the oldest man in the world sleeping in bed—his face shriveled, his arms like sticks, his skin so translucent, I could see every vein. Some of the mummies in Bahariya had looked more alive than this old husk.

“‘The light of Ra returns,’” I read. I nodded at the heavily curtained windows, and fortunately Bes and Carter got my meaning. They yanked back the curtains, and red light from the Lake of Fire flooded the room. The old man didn’t move. His mouth was pursed like his lips had been sewn together.

I moved to his bedside and kept reading. I described Ra awakening at dawn, sitting in his throne as his boat climbed the sky, the plants turning toward the warmth of the sun.

“It’s not working,” Bes muttered.

I began to panic. There were only two lines left. I could feel the power of the spell backing up, beginning to overheat my body. I was still smoking, and I didn’t like the smell of flame-broiled Sadie. I had to awaken Ra or I’d burn alive.

The god’s mouth…Of course.

I set the scroll on Ra’s bed and did my best to hold it open with one hand. “‘I sing the praises of the sun god.’”

I stretched out my free hand to Carter and snapped my fingers.

Thank goodness, Carter understood.

He rummaged through my bag and passed me the obsidian netjeri blade from Anubis. If ever there was a moment for Opening the Mouth, this was it.

I touched the knife to the old man’s lips and spoke the last line of the spell: “‘Awake, my king, with the new day.’”

The old man gasped. Smoke spiraled into his mouth like he’d become a vacuum cleaner, and the magic of the spell funneled into him. My temperature dropped to normal. I almost collapsed with relief.

Ra’s eyes fluttered open. With horrified fascination, I watched as blood began to flow through his veins again, slowly inflating him like a hot air balloon.

He turned toward me, his eyes unfocused and milky with cataracts. “Uh?”

“He still looks old,” Carter said nervously. “Isn’t he supposed to look young?”

Tawaret curtsied to the sun god (which you should not try at home if you are a pregnant hippo in heels) and felt Ra’s forehead. “He isn’t whole yet,” she said. “You’ll need to complete the night’s journey.”

“And the third part of the spell,” Carter guessed. “He’s got one more aspect, right? The scarab?”

Bes nodded, though he didn’t look terribly optimistic. “Khepri, the beetle. Maybe if we find the last part of his soul, he’ll be reborn properly.”

Ra broke into a toothless grin. “I like zebras!”

I was so tired, I wondered if I’d heard him correctly. “Sorry, did you say zebras?”

He beamed at us like a child who’d just discovered something wonderful. “Weasels are sick.”

“O-h-h-kay,” Carter said. “Maybe he needs these…”

Carter took the crook and flail from his belt. He offered them to Ra. The old god pulled the crook to his mouth and began gumming it like a pacifier.

I started to feel uneasy, and not just because of Ra’s condition. How much time had passed, and where was Vlad Menshikov?

“Let’s get him to the boat,” I said. “Bes, can you—”

“Yep. Excuse me, Lord Ra. I’ll have to carry you.” He scooped the sun god out of bed and we bolted from the room. Ra couldn’t have weighed very much, and Bes didn’t have any difficulty keeping up despite his short legs. We ran down the corridor, retracing our steps, as Ra warbled, “Wheeee! Wheeee! Wheeee!”

Perhaps he was having a good time, but I was mortified. We’d been through so much trouble, and this was the sort of god we’d woken? Carter looked as grim as I felt.

We raced past other decrepit gods, who all got quite excited. Some pointed and made gurgling noises. One old jackal-headed god rattled his IV pole and yelled, “Here comes the sun! There goes the sun!”

We burst into the lobby, and Ra said, “Uh-oh. Uh-oh on the floor.”

His head lolled. I thought he wanted to get down. Then I realized he was looking at something. On the floor next to my foot lay a glittering silver necklace: a familiar amulet shaped like a snake.

For someone who’d been smoking hot only a few minutes before, I suddenly felt terribly chilly. “Menshikov,” I said. “He was here.”

Carter drew his wand and scanned the room. “But where is he? Why would he just drop that and walk away?”

“He left it on purpose,” I guessed. “He wants to taunt us.”

As soon as I said it, I knew it was true. I could almost hear Menshikov laughing as he continued his journey downriver, leaving us behind.

“We have to get to the boat!” I said. “Hurry, before—”

“Sadie.” Bes pointed to the nurses’ station. His expression was grim.

“Oh, no,” Tawaret said. “No, no, no…”

On the sundial, the needle’s shadow was pointing to eight. That meant even if we could still leave the Fourth House, even if we could get through the Fifth, Sixth, and Seventh Houses, it wouldn’t matter. According to what Tawaret had told us, the gates of the Eighth House would already be closed.

No wonder Menshikov had left us here without bothering to fight us.

We’d already lost.