The Throne of Fire

shampoos all battering him, squirting in his eyes, and trying to give him an extreme makeover. He bellowed in irritation, slipped, and fell back into the ruined shop. I doubted my spell would do the gods any permanent damage, but with luck it would keep them occupied for a few minutes.

Liz, Emma, and I made it out of the terminal. With the entire station evacuated, I didn’t really expect any cabs to be in the taxi queue, and indeed the curb was empty. I resigned myself to running all the way to Waterloo Bridge, though Emma had no shoes, and the potion had made me queasy.

“Look!” Liz said.

“Oh, well done, Sadie,” Emma said.

“What?” I asked. “What did I do?”

Then I noticed the chauffeur—an extremely short, scruffy man standing at the end of the drive in a black suit, holding a placard that read KANE.

I suppose my friends thought I’d summoned him by magic. Before I could tell them differently, Emma said, “Come on!” and they sprinted toward the little man. I had no choice but to follow. I remembered what Anubis had said about sending my “driver” to meet me. I supposed this must be him, but the closer we got, the less eager I was to meet him.

He was shorter than me by half, stouter than my Uncle Amos, and uglier than anyone else on the planet. His facial features were positively Neanderthal. Under his thick furry mono-brow, one eye was bigger than the other. His beard looked as if it had been used to scrape greasy pots. His skin was poxy with red welts, and his hair looked like a bird’s nest that had been set on fire then stomped out.

When he saw me, he scowled, which did nothing to help his appearance.

“About time!” His accent was American. He belched into his fist, and the smell of curry nearly knocked me over. “Bast’s friend? Sadie Kane?”

“Um…possibly.” I decided to have a serious talk with Bast about her choice of friends. “Just by the way, we have two gods trying to kill us.”

The warty little man smacked his lips, clearly unimpressed. “Guess you’ll want a bridge, then.”

He turned toward the curb and yelled, “BOO!”

A black Mercedes limousine appeared out of nowhere, as if it had been scared into existence.

The chauffeur glanced back at me and arched his brow. “Well? Get in!”

I’d never been in a limousine before. I hope most are nicer than the one we took. The backseat was littered with takeaway curry containers, old fish-and-chip paper, crisps bags, and various dirty socks. Despite this, Emma, Liz, and I crammed together in the back, because none of us dared ride up front.

You may think I was mad to get in a car with a strange man. You’re right, of course. But Bast had promised us help, and Anubis had told me to expect a driver. The fact that our promised help was a little man with bad hygiene and a magical limousine did not particularly surprise me. I’d seen stranger things.

Also, I didn’t have much choice. The potion had worn off, and the strain of releasing so much magic had made me lightheaded and wobbly-legged. I wasn’t sure I could’ve walked to Waterloo Bridge without passing out.

The chauffeur floored the gas and barreled out of the station. The police had cordoned it off, but our limo swerved around the barricades, past a cluster of BBC news vans and a mob of spectators, and no one paid us any attention.

The chauffeur started whistling a tune that sounded like “Short People.” His head barely reached the headrest. All I could see of him was a grubby nest of hair and a set of furry hands on the wheel.

Stuck in the sun visor was an identification card with his picture—sort of. It had been taken at point-blank range, showing only an out-of-focus nose and a hideous mouth, as if he’d been trying to eat the camera. The card read: Your Driver is BES.

“You’re Bes, I guess?” I said.

“Yes,” he said.

“Your car’s a mess,” Liz muttered.

“If one more person rhymes,” Emma grumbled, “I’ll throw up.”

“Is it Mr. Bes?” I asked, trying to place his name from Egyptian mythology. I was fairly sure they hadn’t had a god of chauffeurs. “Lord Bes? Bes the Extremely Short?”

“Just Bes,” he grunted. “One s. And no, it’s NOT a girl’s name. Call me Bessie, and I’ll have to kill you. As for being short, I’m the dwarf god, so what do you expect? Oh, there’s bottled water for you back there if you’re thirsty.”

I looked down. Rolling about at my feet were two partially empty bottles of water. One had lipstick on the cap. The other looked as if it had been chewed on.

“Not thirsty,” I decided.

Liz and Emma murmured agreement. I was surprised they weren’t absolutely catatonic after the evening’s events, but then again, they were my mates. I didn’t hang out with weak-willed girls, did I? Even before I discovered magic, it took a strong constitution and a fair amount of adaptability to be my friend. [And no comment from you, Carter.]

Police vehicles were blocking Waterloo Bridge, but Bes swerved around them, jumped the pavement, and kept driving. The police didn’t even blink.

“Are we invisible?” I asked.

“To most mortals.” Bes belched. “They’re pretty dense, aren’t they? Present company excepted, et cetera.”

“You’re really a god?” Liz asked.

“Huge,” Bes said. “I’m huge in the world of gods.”

“A huge god of dwarves,” Emma marveled. “You mean as in Snow White, or—”

“All dwarves.” Bes waved his hands expansively, which made me a bit nervous as he took both of them off the wheel. “Egyptians were smart. They honored people who were born unusual. Dwarves were considered extremely magical. So yeah, I’m the god of dwarves.”

Liz cleared her throat. “Isn’t there a more polite term we’re supposed to use nowadays? Like…little person, or vertically challenged, or—”

“I’m not going to call myself the god of vertically challenged people,” Bes grumbled. “I’m a dwarf! Now, here we are, just in time.”

He spun the car to a stop in the middle of the bridge. Looking behind us, I almost lost the contents of my stomach. A winged black shape was circling over the riverbank. At the end of the bridge, Babi was taking care of the barricade in his own fashion. He was throwing police cars into the River Thames while the officers scattered and fired their weapons, though the bullets seemed to have no effect on the baboon god’s steely fur.

“Why are we stopping?” Emma asked.

Bes stood on his seat and stretched, which he could do quite easily. “It’s a river,” he said. “Good place to fight gods, if I do say so myself. All that force of nature flowing underneath our feet makes it hard to stay anchored in the mortal world.”

Looking at him more closely, I could see what he meant. His face was shimmering like a mirage.

A lump formed in my throat. This was the moment of truth. I felt sick from the potion and from fear. I wasn’t at all sure I had enough magic to combat those two gods. But I had no choice.

“Liz, Emma,” I said. “We’re getting out.”

“Getting…out?” Liz whimpered.

Emma swallowed. “Are you sure—”

“I know you’re scared,” I said, “but you’ll need to do exactly as I say.”

They nodded hesitantly and opened the car doors. The poor things. Again I wished I’d left them behind; but honestly, after seeing my grandparents possessed, I couldn’t stand the idea of letting my friends out of my sight.

Bes stifled a yawn. “Need my help?”

“Um…”

Babi was lumbering toward us. Nekhbet circled over him, shrieking orders. If the river was affecting them at all, they didn’t show it.

I didn’t see how a dwarf god could stand against those two, but I said, “Yes. I need help.”