The Son of Sobek (Kane Chronicles)(9)

“You can’t be serious,” I said.

“Maybe somebody’s abandoned pet?” Percy shrugged. “You hear about those on the news sometimes.”

I couldn’t think of a better explanation, but how had a baby croc gotten hold of a necklace that turned him into a giant killing machine?

Down the street, voices started yelling: “Up here! There’s these two guys!”

It was the mortal kids. Apparently they’d decided the danger was over. Now they were leading the police straight toward us.

“We have to go.” Percy scooped up the baby crocodile, clenching one hand around his little snout. He looked at me. “You coming?”

Together, we ran back to the swamp.

Half an hour later, we were sitting in a diner off the Montauk Highway. I’d shared the rest of my healing potion with Percy, who for some reason insisted on calling it nectar. Most of our wounds had healed.

We’d tied the crocodile out in the woods on a makeshift leash, just until we could figure out what to do with it. We’d cleaned up as best we could, but we still looked like we’d taken a shower in a malfunctioning car wash. Percy’s hair was swept to one side and tangled with pieces of grass. His orange shirt was ripped down the front.

I’m sure I didn’t look much better. I had water in my shoes, and I was still picking falcon feathers out of my shirtsleeves (hasty transformations can be messy).

We were too exhausted to talk as we watched the news on the television above the counter. Police and firefighters had responded to a freak sewer event in a local neighborhood. Apparently pressure had built up in the drainage pipes, causing a massive explosion that unleashed a flood and eroded the soil so badly, several houses on the cul-de-sac had collapsed. It was a miracle that no residents had been injured. Local kids were telling some wild stories about the Long Island Swamp Monster, claiming it had caused all the damage during a fight with two teenage boys; but of course the officials didn’t believe this. The reporter admitted, however, that the damaged houses looked like “something very large had sat on them.”

“A freak sewer accident,” Percy said. “That’s a first.”

“For you, maybe,” I grumbled. “I seem to cause them everywhere I go.”

“Cheer up,” he said. “Lunch is on me.”

He dug into the pockets of his jeans and pulled out a ballpoint pen. Nothing else.

“Oh…” His smile faded. “Uh, actually…can you conjure up money?”

So, naturally, lunch was on me. I could pull money out of thin air, since I kept some stored in the Duat along with my other emergency supplies; so in no time we had cheeseburgers and fries in front of us, and life was looking up.

“Cheeseburgers,” Percy said. “Food of the gods.”

“Agreed,” I said, but when I glanced over at him, I wondered if he was thinking the same thing I was: that we were referring to different gods.

Percy inhaled his burger. Seriously, this guy could eat. “So, the necklace,” he said between bites. “What’s the story?”

I hesitated. I still had no clue where Percy came from or what he was, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to ask. Now that we’d fought together, I couldn’t help but trust him. Still, I sensed we were treading on dangerous ground. Everything we said could have serious implications—not just for the two of us, but maybe for everyone we knew.

I felt sort of like I had two winters ago, when my uncle Amos explained the truth about the Kane family heritage—the House of Life, the Egyptian gods, the Duat, everything. In a single day, my world expanded tenfold and left me reeling.

Now I was standing at the edge of another moment like that. But if my world expanded tenfold again, I was afraid my brain might explode.

“The necklace is enchanted,” I said at last. “Any reptile that wears it turns into the next petsuchos, the Son of Sobek. Somehow that little crocodile got it around his neck.”

“Meaning someone put it around his neck,” Percy said.

I didn’t want to think about that, but I nodded reluctantly.

“So who?” he asked.

“Hard to narrow it down,” I said. “I’ve got lots of enemies.”

Percy snorted. “I can relate to that. Any idea why, then?”

I took another bite of my cheeseburger. It was good, but I had trouble concentrating on it.

“Someone wanted to cause trouble,” I speculated. “I think maybe…” I studied Percy, trying to judge how much I should say. “Maybe they wanted to cause trouble that would get our attention. Both of our attention.”

Percy frowned. He drew something in his ketchup with a french fry—not a hieroglyph. Some kind of non-English letter. Greek, I guessed.

“The monster had a Greek name,” he said. “It was eating pegasi in my…” He hesitated.

“In your home turf,” I finished. “Some kind of camp, judging from your shirt.”

He shifted on his bar stool. I still couldn’t believe he was talking about pegasi as if they were real, but I remembered one time at Brooklyn House, maybe a year back, when I was certain I saw a winged horse flying over the Manhattan skyline. At the time, Sadie had told me I was hallucinating. Now, I wasn’t so sure.

Finally Percy faced me. “Look, Carter. You’re not nearly as annoying as I thought. And we made a good team today, but—”