The Son of Sobek (Kane Chronicles)(4)

In the back of my mind, I knew Camper Boy could kill me easily. For some reason he didn’t. A wave of nausea made me double over.

I forced myself to look at the wound. There was a lot of blood, but I remembered something Jaz had told me once in the infirmary at Brooklyn House: cuts usually looked a lot worse than they were. I hoped that was true. I fished a piece of papyrus out of my pack and pressed it against the wound as a makeshift bandage.

The pain was still horrible, but the nausea became more manageable. My thoughts started to clear, and I wondered why I hadn’t been skewered yet.

Camper Boy was sitting nearby in waist-deep water, looking dejected. My magic rope had wrapped around his sword arm, then lashed his hand to the side of his head. Unable to let go of his sword, he looked like he had a single reindeer antler sprouting next to his ear. He tugged at the rope with his free hand, but of course he couldn’t make any progress.

Finally he just sighed and glared at me. “I’m really starting to hate you.”

“Hate me?” I protested. “I’m gushing blood here! And you started all this by calling me a half-blood!”

“Oh, please.” Camper Boy rose unsteadily, his sword antenna making him top-heavy. “You can’t be mortal. If you were, my sword would’ve passed right through you. If you’re not a spirit or a monster, you’ve got to be a half-blood. A rogue demigod from Kronos’s army, I’d guess.”

Most of what this guy said, I didn’t understand. But one thing sank in.

“So when you said ‘half-blood’…”

He stared at me like I was an idiot. “I meant demigod. Yeah. What did you think I meant?”

I tried to process that. I’d heard the term demigod before, but it wasn’t an Egyptian concept. Maybe this guy was sensing that I was bound to Horus, that I could channel the god’s power…but why did he describe everything so strangely?

“What are you?” I demanded. “Part combat magician, part water elementalist? What nome are you with?”

The kid laughed bitterly. “Dude, I don’t know what you’re talking about. I don’t hang out with gnomes. Satyrs, sometimes. Even Cyclopes. But not gnomes.”

The blood loss must have been making me dizzy. His words bounced around in my head like lottery balls: Cyclopes, satyrs, demigods, Kronos. Earlier he’d mentioned Ares. That was a Greek god, not Egyptian.

I felt like the Duat was opening underneath me, threatening to pull me into the depths. Greek…not Egyptian.

An idea started forming in my mind. I didn’t like it. In fact, it scared the holy Horus out of me.

Despite all the swamp water I’d swallowed, my throat felt dry. “Look,” I said, “I’m sorry about hitting you with that fist spell. It was an accident. But the thing I don’t understand…it should have killed you. It didn’t. That doesn’t make sense.”

“Don’t sound so disappointed,” he muttered. “But while we’re on the subject, you should be dead too. Not many people can fight me that well. And my sword should have vaporized your crocodile.”

“For the last time, it’s not my crocodile.”

“Okay, whatever.” Camper Boy looked dubious. “The point is, I stuck that crocodile pretty good, but I just made it angry. Celestial bronze should’ve turned it to dust.”

“Celestial bronze?”

Our conversation was cut short by a scream from the nearby subdivision—the terrified voice of a kid.

My heart did a slow roll. I really was an idiot. I’d forgotten why we were here.

I locked eyes with Camper Boy. “We’ve got to stop the crocodile.”

“Truce,” he suggested.

“Yeah,” I said. “We can continue killing each other after the crocodile is taken care of.”

“Deal. Now, could you please untie my sword hand from my head? I feel like a freaking unicorn.”

I won’t say we trusted each other, but at least now we had a common cause. He summoned his shoes out of the river—I had no idea how—and put them on. Then he helped me bind my hand with a strip of linen and waited while I swigged down half of my healing potion.

After that, I felt good enough to race after him toward the sound of the screaming.

I thought I was in pretty good shape—what with combat magic practice, hauling heavy artifacts, and playing basketball with Khufu and his baboon friends (baboons don’t mess around when it comes to hoops). Nevertheless, I had to struggle to keep up with Camper Boy.

Which reminded me, I was getting tired of calling him that.

“What’s your name?” I asked, wheezing as I ran behind him.

He gave me a cautious glance. “I’m not sure I should tell you. Names can be dangerous.”

He was right, of course. Names held power. A while back, my sister Sadie had learned my ren, my secret name, and it still caused me all sorts of anxiety. Even with someone’s common name, a skilled magician could work all kinds of mischief.

“Fair enough,” I said. “I’ll go first. I’m Carter.”

I guess he believed me. The lines around his eyes relaxed a bit.

“Percy,” he offered.

That struck me as an unusual name—British, maybe, though the kid spoke and acted very much like an American.