The Red Pyramid (Kane Chronicles #1)(61)

It took me a second, but I remembered the name. “The guy who deciphered hieroglyphics from the Rosetta Stone.”

“Of course. Desjardins’ great uncle.”

I looked at Champollion’s picture again, and I could see the resemblance. They had the same fierce black eyes. “Great uncle? But wouldn’t that make Desjardins—”

“About two hundred years old,” Doughboy confirmed. “Still a youngster. You know that when Champollion first deciphered hieroglyphics, he fell into a coma for five days? He became the first man outside the House of Life to ever unleash their magic, and it almost killed him. Naturally, that got the attention of the First Nome. Champollion died before he could join the House of Life, but the Chief Lector accepted his descendants for training. Desjardins is very proud of his family...but a little sensitive too, because he’s such a newcomer.”

“That’s why he didn’t get along with our family,” I guessed. “We’re like...ancient.”

Doughboy cackled. “And your father breaking the Rosetta Stone? Desjardins would’ve viewed that as an insult to his family honor! Oh, you should’ve seen the arguments Master Julius and Desjardins had in this room.”

“You’ve been here before?”

“Many times! I’ve been everywhere. I’m all-knowing.”

I tried to imagine Dad and Desjardins having an argument in here. It wasn’t hard. If Desjardins hated our family, and if gods tended to find hosts who shared their goals, then it made total sense that Set would try to merge with him. Both wanted power, both were resentful and angry, both wanted to smash Sadie and me to a pulp. And if Set was now secretly controlling the Chief Lector...A drop of sweat trickled down the side of my face. I wanted to get out of this mansion.

Suddenly there was a banging sound below us, like someone closing a door downstairs.

“Show me where The Book of Thoth is,” I ordered Doughboy. “Quick!”

As we moved down the shelves, Doughboy grew so warm in my hands, I was afraid he would melt. He kept a running commentary on the books.

“Ah, Mastery of the Five Elements!”

“Is that the one we want?” I asked.

“No, but a good one. How to tame the five essential elements of the universe—earth, air, water, fire, and cheese!”

“Cheese?”

He scratched his wax head. “I’m pretty sure that’s the fifth, yes. But moving right along!”

We turned to the next shelf. “No,” he announced. “No. Boring. Boring. Oh, Clive Cussler! No. No.”

I was about to give up hope when he said, “There.”

I froze. “Where—here?”

“The blue book with the gold trim,” he said. “The one that’s—”

I pulled it out, and the entire room began to shake.

“—trapped,” Doughboy continued.

Sadie squawked urgently. I turned and saw her take flight. Something small and black swooped down from the ceiling. Sadie clashed with it in midair, and the black thing disappeared down her throat.

Before I could even register how gross that was, alarms blared downstairs. More black forms dropped from the ceiling and seemed to multiply in the air, swirling into a funnel cloud of fur and wings.

“There’s your answer,” Doughboy told me. “Desjardins would want to summon fruit bats. You mess with the wrong books, you trigger a plague of fruit bats. That’s the trap!”

The things were on me like I was a ripe mango—diving at my face, clawing at my arms. I clutched the book and ran to the table, but I could hardly see. “Sadie, get out of here!” I yelled.

“SAW!” she cried, which I hoped meant yes.

I found Dad’s workbag and shoved the book and Doughboy inside. The library door rattled. Voices yelled in French.

Horus, bird time! I thought desperately. And no emu, please!

I ran for the glass doors. At the last second, I found myself flying—once again a falcon, bursting into the cold rain. I knew with the senses of a predator that I was being followed by approximately four thousand angry fruit bats.

But falcons are wicked fast. Once outside, I raced north, hoping to draw the bats away from Sadie and Bast. I outdistanced the bats easily but let them keep close enough that they wouldn’t give up. Then, with a burst of speed, I turned in a tight circle and shot back toward Sadie and Bast in a hundred-mile-an-hour dive.

Bast looked up in surprise as I plummeted to the sidewalk, tumbling over myself as I turned back into a human. Sadie caught my arm, and only then did I realize she was back to normal as well.

“That was awful!” she announced.

“Exit strategy, quick!” I pointed at the sky, where an angry black cloud of fruit bats was getting closer and closer.

“The Louvre.” Bast grabbed our hands. “It’s got the closest portal.”

Three blocks away. We’d never make it.

Then the red door of Desjardins’ house blasted open, but we didn’t wait to see what came out of it. We ran for our lives down the rue des Pyramides.

Chapter 19. A Picnic in the Sky

[Right, Carter. Give me the mic.]

So I’d been to the Louvre once before on holiday, but I hadn’t been chased by vicious fruit bats. I would’ve been terrified, except I was too busy being angry with Carter. I couldn’t believe the way he’d treated my bird problem. Honestly, I thought I would be a kite forever, suffocating inside a little feathery prison. And he had the nerve to make fun!