The Red Pyramid (Kane Chronicles #1)(53)

He stepped forward and the ground at his feet suddenly blazed to life with a red hieroglyph. Amos cried out, but his mouth froze half open. Coils of light wrapped around his legs like vines. Soon red tendrils completely entwined him, and Amos stood petrified, his unblinking eyes staring straight ahead.

I tried to fly to him, but I was stuck in place, floating helplessly, so I could only observe.

Laughter echoed through the cavern. A horde of things emerged from the darkness—toad creatures, animal-headed demons, and even stranger monsters half hidden in the gloom. They’d been lying in ambush, I realized—waiting for Amos. In front of them appeared a fiery silhouette—Set, but his form was much clearer now, and this time it wasn’t human. His body was emaciated, slimy, and black, and his head was that of a feral beast.

“Bon soir, Amos,” Set said. “How nice of you to come. We’re going to have so much fun!”

I sat bolt upright in bed, back in my own body, with my heart pounding.

Amos had been captured. I knew it for certain. And even worse...Set had known somehow that Amos was coming. I thought back to something Bast had said, about how the serpopards had broken in to the mansion. She’d said the defenses had been sabotaged, and only a magician of the House could’ve done it. A horrible suspicion started building inside me.

I stared into the dark for a long time, listening to the little kid next to me mumbling spells in his sleep. When I couldn’t stand it any longer, I opened the door with a push of my mind, the way I’d done at Amos’s mansion, and I sneaked out.

I was wandering through the empty marketplace, thinking about Dad and Amos, replaying the events over and over, trying to figure out what I could’ve done differently to save them, when I spotted Zia.

She was hurrying across the courtyard as if she were being chased, but what really caught my attention was the shimmering black cloud around her, as if someone had wrapped her in a glittery shadow. She came to a section of blank wall and waved her hand. Suddenly a doorway appeared. Zia glanced nervously behind her and ducked inside.

Of course I followed.

I moved quietly up to the doorway. I could hear Zia’s voice inside, but I couldn’t make out what she was saying. Then the doorway began to solidify, turning back into a wall, and I made a split-second decision. I jumped through.

Inside, Zia was alone with her back to me. She was kneeling at a stone altar, chanting something under her breath. The walls were decorated with Ancient Egyptian drawings and modern photographs.

The glittery shadow no longer surrounded Zia, but something even stranger was happening. I’d been planning to tell Zia about my nightmare, but that went completely out of my thoughts when I saw what she was doing. She cupped her palms, the way you might hold a bird, and a glowing blue sphere appeared, about the size of a golf ball. Still chanting, she raised her hands. The sphere flew up, straight through the ceiling, and vanished.

Some instinct told me this was not something I was supposed to see.

I thought about backing out of the room. Only problem: the door was gone. No other exits. It was only a matter of time before—Uh-oh.

Maybe I’d made a noise. Maybe her magical senses had kicked in. But faster than I could react, Zia pulled her wand and turned on me, flames flickering down the edge of the boomerang.

“Hi,” I said nervously.

Her expression turned from anger to surprise, then back to anger. “Carter, what are you doing here?”

“Just walking around. I saw you in the courtyard, so—”

“What do you mean you saw me?”

“Well...you were running, and you had this black shimmery stuff around you, and—”

“You saw that? Impossible.”

“Why? What was it?”

She dropped her wand and the fire died. “I don’t appreciate being followed, Carter.”

“Sorry. I thought you might be in trouble.”

She started to say something, but apparently changed her mind. “In trouble...that’s true enough.”

She sat down heavily and sighed. In the candlelight, her amber eyes looked dark and sad.

She stared at the photos behind the altar, and I realized she was in some of them. There she was as a little girl, standing barefoot outside a mud-brick house, squinting resentfully at the camera as if she didn’t want her picture taken. Next to that, a wider shot showed a whole village on the Nile—the kind of place my dad took me to sometimes, where nothing had changed much in the last two thousand years. A crowd of villagers grinned and waved at the camera as if they were celebrating, and above them little Zia rode on the shoulders of a man who must’ve been her father. Another photo was a family shot: Zia holding hands with her mother and father. They could’ve been any fellahin family anywhere in Egypt, but her dad had especially kindly, twinkling eyes—I thought he must have a good sense of humor. Her mom’s face was unveiled, and she laughed as if her husband had just cracked a joke.

“Your folks look cool,” I said. “Is that home?”

Zia seemed like she wanted to get angry, but she kept her emotions under control. Or maybe she just didn’t have the energy. “It was my home. The village no longer exists.”

I waited, not sure I dared to ask. We locked eyes, and I could tell she was deciding how much to tell me.

“My father was a farmer,” she said, “but he also worked for archaeologists. In his spare time he’d scour the desert for artifacts and new sites where they might want to dig.”