The Throne of Fire (Kane Chronicles #2)(81)

I glanced at Zia’s terrified face, and I hesitated too long. The white vines encircled my arms. The combat avatar crumpled to its knees, and I dropped Menshikov.

Pain wracked my body. My blood turned cold. The avatar’s limbs shrank, the hawk’s head slowly changing into the head of a serpent. I could feel my heart slowing, my vision darkening. The taste of venom filled my mouth.

Zia cried out. “Stop it! This is too much!”

“On the contrary,” Menshikov said, rubbing his chafed neck. “He deserves worse. Chief Lector, you saw how this boy threatened you. He wants the pharaoh’s throne. He must be destroyed.”

Zia tried to run to me, but Desjardins held her back.

“Discontinue the spell, Vladimir,” he said. “The boy can be contained in more humane ways.”

“Humane, my lord? He’s barely human!”

The two magicians locked eyes. I don’t know what would’ve happened—but just then a portal opened under Bes’s cage.

I’ve seen plenty of portals, but none like this. The whirlpool opened level with the ground, sucking down a trampoline-size area of red sand, dead fish, old lumber, pottery shards, and one glowing fluorescent cage containing a dwarf god. As the cage entered the vortex, the bars broke into splinters of light. Bes unfroze, found himself halfway submerged in sand, and did some creative cursing. Then my sister and Walt shot straight up out of the portal, suspended horizontally, as if they were running toward the sky. When gravity took over, they waved their arms and fell back into the sand. They might’ve been pulled under except Bes grabbed them both and managed to haul them out of the whirlpool.

Bes dumped them on firm ground. Then he turned to Vlad Menshikov, planted his feet, and ripped off his Hawaiian shirt and shorts like they were made of tissue. His eyes blazed with anger. His Speedo was embroidered with the words Dwarf Pride, which was something I really didn’t need to see.

Menshikov only had time to say, “How—”

“BOO!” yelled Bes.

The sound was like the blast of an H-bomb—or a U-bomb, for Ugly. The ground shook. The river rippled. My avatar collapsed, and Menshikov’s spell dissolved with it—the venom taste in my mouth subsiding, the pressure lifting so I could breathe again. Sadie and Walt were already on the ground. Zia had quickly backed away. But Menshikov and Desjardins got a full blast of ugly right in their faces.

Their expressions turned to astonishment, and they disintegrated on the spot.

After a moment of shock, Zia gasped. “You killed them!”

“Nah.” Bes dusted off his hands. “Just scared ’em back home. They may be unconscious for a few hours while their brains try to process my magnificent physique, but they’ll live. More important—” He scowled at Sadie and Walt. “You two had the nerve to anchor a portal on me? Do I look like a relic?”

Sadie and Walt wisely didn’t answer that. They got to their feet, brushing off the sand.

“It wasn’t our idea!” Sadie protested. “Ptah sent us here to help you.”

“Ptah?” I said. “Ptah, the god?”

“No, Ptah the date farmer. I’ll tell you later.”

“What’s wrong with your hair?” I asked. “It looks like a camel licked it.”

“Shut up.” Then she noticed Zia. “My god, is that her? The real Zia?”

Zia stumbled back, trying to light up her staff. “Get away!” The fire spluttered weakly.

“We’re not going to hurt you,” Sadie promised.

Zia’s legs shook. Her hands trembled. Then she did the only logical thing for someone who’d been through her kind of day after a three-month coma. Her eyes rolled back in her head, and she passed out.

Bes grunted. “Strong girl. She held up under a full frontal BOO! Still…we’d better pick her up and get out of here. Desjardins won’t stay gone forever.”

“Sadie,” I said, “did you get the scroll?”

She pulled all three scrolls out of her bag. Part of me was relieved. Part of me was frightened.

“We need to get to the Great Pyramid,” she said. “Please tell me you have a car.”

Not only did we have a car, we had a whole bunch of Bedouins. We returned their truck well after dark, but the Bedouins seemed happy to see us, even though we’d brought three extra people, one of them unconscious. Somehow Bes made a deal with them to drive us to Cairo. After a few minutes talking in their tent, he emerged wearing new robes. The Bedouins came out ripping the remains of his Hawaiian shirt into strips, which they carefully wrapped around their arms, their radio antenna, and their rearview mirror as good luck talismans.

We piled into the back of the truck. It was too crowded and noisy to talk much as we drove to Cairo. Bes told us to get some sleep while he kept watch. He promised he’d be nice to Zia if she woke up.

Sadie and Walt went straight to sleep, but I stared at the stars for a while. I was painfully aware of Zia—the real Zia—sleeping fitfully right next to me, and the magic weapons of Ra, the crook and the flail, now stashed in my bag. My body was still buzzing from the battle. Menshikov’s spell had been broken, but I could still hear his voice in my head, trying to turn me into a cold-blooded reptile—sort of like him.

Finally, I managed to close my eyes. Without magical protection, my ba drifted as soon as I fell asleep.