The Serpent's Shadow (Kane Chronicles #3)(74)

JELLY BABIES? SERIOUSLY?

I hadn’t heard that part. My sister never ceases to amaze me—[and no, Sadie, that’s not a compliment, either.]

Anyway, while Sadie was having her supernatural guy drama, I was confronting an ax-murdering riverboat captain who apparently wanted to change his name to Even-More-Bloodstained Blade.

“Back down,” I told the demon. “That’s an order.”

Bloodstained Blade made a humming sound that might’ve been laughter. He swung his head to the left—kind of an Elvis Presley dance move—and smashed a hole in the wall. Then he faced me again, splinters all over his shoulders.

“I have other orders,” he hummed. “Orders to kill!”

He charged like a bull. After the mess we’d just been through in the serapeum, a bull was the last thing I wanted to deal with.

I thrust out my fist. “Ha-wi!”

The hieroglyph for Strike glowed between us:

A blue fist of energy slammed into Bloodstained Blade, pushing him out the door and straight through the wall of the opposite stateroom. A hit like that would have knocked out a human, but I could hear BSB digging out from the rubble, humming angrily.

I tried to think. It would’ve been nice to keep smashing him with that hieroglyph over and over, but magic doesn’t work that way. Once spoken, a divine word can’t be used again for several minutes, sometimes even hours.

Besides, divine words are top-of-the-line magic. Some magicians spend years mastering a single hieroglyph. I’d learned the hard way that saying too many will burn through your energy really fast, and I didn’t have much to spare.

First problem: keep the demon away from Zia. She was still half-conscious and totally defenseless. I summoned as much magic as I could and said: “N’dah!”—Protect.

Blue light shimmered around her. I had a horrible flashback to when I found Zia in her watery tomb last spring. If she woke up encased in blue energy and thought she was imprisoned again…

“Oh, Zia,” I said, “I didn’t mean—”

“KILL!” Bloodstained Blade rose from the wreckage of the opposite room. A feather pillow was impaled on his head, raining goose fluff all over his uniform.

I dashed into the hall and headed for the stairs, glancing back to be sure the captain was following me and not going after Zia. Lucky me—he was right on my tail.

I reached the deck and yelled, “Setne!”

The ghost was nowhere to be seen. The crew lights were going crazy, buzzing around frantically, bonking into walls, looping around the smokestacks, lowering and raising the gangplank for no apparent reason. I guess without Bloodstained Blade to give them directions, they were lost.

The riverboat careened down the River of Night, weaving drunkenly in the current. We slipped between two jagged rocks that would have pulverized the hull, then dropped over a cataract with a jaw-rattling thunk. I glanced up at the wheelhouse and saw no one steering. It was a miracle that we hadn’t crashed already. I had to get the boat under control.

I ran for the stairs.

When I was halfway there, Bloodstained Blade appeared out of nowhere. He sliced his head across my gut, ripping open my shirt. If I’d had a larger belly—no, I don’t want to think about it. I stumbled backward, pressing my hand against my navel. He’d only grazed the skin, but the sight of blood on my fingers made me feel faint.

Some warrior, I scolded myself.

Fortunately, Bloodstained Blade had embedded his ax head in the wall. He was still trying to tug it free, grumbling, “New orders: Kill Carter Kane. Take him to the Land of Demons. Make sure it’s a one-way trip.”

The Land of Demons?

I bolted up the stairs and into the wheelhouse.

All around the boat, the river churned into whitewater rapids. A pillar of stone loomed out of the fog and scraped against our starboard side, ripping off part of the railing. We twisted sideways and picked up speed. Somewhere ahead of us, I heard the roar of millions of tons of water cascading into oblivion. We were rushing toward a waterfall.

I looked around desperately for the shore. It was hard to see through the thick fog and gloomy gray light of the Duat, but a hundred yards or so off the bow, I thought I saw fires burning, and a dark line that might’ve been a beach.

The Land of Demons sounded bad, but not as bad as dropping off a waterfall and getting smashed to pieces. I ripped the cord off the alarm bell and lashed the pilot’s wheel in place, pointing us toward the shore.

“Kill Kane!”

The captain’s well-polished boot slammed me in the ribs and sent me straight through the port window. Glass shattered, raking my back and legs. I bounced off a hot smokestack and landed hard on the deck.

My vision blurred. The cut across my stomach stung. My legs felt like they’d been used for a tiger’s chew toy, and judging from the hot pain in my side, I may have broken some ribs in the fall.

All in all, not my best combat experience.

Hello? Horus spoke in my mind. Any intention of calling for help, or are you happy to die on your own?

Yeah, I snapped back at him. The sarcasm is real helpful.

Truthfully, I didn’t think I had enough energy left to summon my avatar, even with Horus’s help. My fight with the Apis Bull had nearly tapped me out, and that was before I got chased by an ax demon and kicked out a window.

I could hear Bloodstained Blade stomping his way back down the stairs. I tried to rise, and almost blacked out from the pain.