cloud.”
Before I could lose my cool, I stepped through the portal.
I almost fell and broke my face. The other side of the portal was a mirror hanging five feet off the floor. I’d stepped onto a fireplace mantel. I caught Sadie as she came through, just in time to keep her from toppling off the ledge.
“Ta,” she whispered. “Someone’s been reading too much
I’d thought the Egyptian room was impressive, but it was nothing compared to this ballroom. Coppery geometric designs glittered on the ceiling. The walls were lined with dark green columns and gilded doors. White and gold inlaid marble made a huge octagonal pattern on the floor. With a blazing chandelier above, the golden filigree and green and white polished stone gleamed so brightly, they hurt my eyes.
Then I realized most of the light wasn’t coming from the chandelier. It was coming from the magician casting a spell at the other end of the room. His back was turned, but I could tell it was Vlad Menshikov. Just as Sadie had described, he was a pudgy little man with curly gray hair and a white suit. He stood in a protective circle that pulsed with emerald light. He raised his staff, and the tip burned like a welding torch. To his right, just outside the circle, stood a green vase the size of a grown man. To his left, writhing in glowing chains, was a creature I recognized as a demon. It had a hairy humanoid body with purplish skin, but instead of a head, a giant corkscrew sprouted between its shoulders.
“Mercy!” it screamed in a watery, metallic voice. Don’t ask me how a demon could scream with a corkscrew head—but the sound resonated up the screw like it was a massive tuning fork.
Vlad Menshikov kept chanting. The green vase throbbed with light.
Sadie nudged me and whispered, “Look.”
“Yeah,” I whispered back. “Some kind of summoning ritual.”
“No,” she hissed. “Look
She pointed to our right. In the corner of the room, twenty feet from the fireplace mantel, was an old- fashioned mahogany desk.
Sadie had told me about Anubis’s instructions: We were supposed to find Menshikov’s desk. The next section of the Book of Ra would be in the middle drawer. Could that really be the desk? It seemed too easy. As quietly as we could, Sadie and I climbed off the mantel and crept along the wall. I prayed the invisibility shroud wouldn’t send up any more fireworks.
We were about halfway to the desk when Vlad Menshikov finished his chant. He slammed his staff against the floor, and it stuck there straight up, the tip still burning at a million degrees. He turned his head slightly, and I caught the glint of his white sunglasses. He rummaged in his coat pockets while the big green vase glowed and the demon screamed in his chains.
“Don’t fuss, Death-to-Corks,” Menshikov chided. His voice was even rougher than Sadie had described—like a heavy smoker talking through the blades of a fan. “You know I need a sacrifice to summon such a major god. It’s nothing personal.”
Sadie frowned at me and mouthed,
I shook my head, baffled. The House of Life didn’t allow mortals to summon gods. It was the main reason Desjardins hated us. Menshikov was supposedly his best bud. So what was he doing, breaking the rules?
“Hurts!” the poor demon wailed. “Served you for fifty years, master. Please!”
“Now, now,” Menshikov said without a trace of sympathy. “I
From his suit coat pocket, Menshikov pulled a regular corkscrew and a shard of pottery covered with red hieroglyphics.
He held up both items and began to chant again: “I name you Death-to-Corks, Servant of Vladimir, He Who Turns in the Night.”
As the demon’s names were spoken, the magical chains steamed and tightened around his body. Menshikov held the corkscrew over the flame of his staff. The demon thrashed and wailed. As the smaller corkscrew turned red hot, the demon’s body began to smoke.
I watched in horror. I knew about sympathetic magic, of course. The idea was to make something small affect something large by binding them together. The more alike the items were—like the corkscrew and the demon—the easier they were to bind. Voodoo dolls worked on the same theory.
But execration was serious stuff. It meant destroying a creature utterly—erasing its physical form and even its name from existence. It took some serious magic to pull off that kind of spell. If done wrong, it could destroy the caster. But if done right, most victims didn’t stand a chance. Regular mortals, magicians, ghosts, even demons could be wiped off the face of the earth. Execration might not destroy major powers like gods, but it would still be like detonating a nuclear bomb in their face. They’d be blasted so deep into the Duat, they might never come back.
Vlad Menshikov worked the spell like he did it every day. He kept chanting as the corkscrew began to melt, and the demon melted with it. Menshikov dropped the pottery shard on the floor—the red hieroglyphs that spelled all the demon’s various names. With one final word of power, Menshikov stepped on the shard and crushed it to bits. Death-to-Corks dissolved, chains and all.
Usually I don’t feel sorry for creatures of the underworld, but I couldn’t help getting a lump in my throat. I couldn’t believe the casual way Menshikov had snuffed out his servant just to power a larger spell.
As soon as the demon was gone, the fire on Menshikov’s staff died. Hieroglyphs burned around the summoning circle. The big green jar trembled and a voice from deep inside boomed, “Hello, Vladimir. Long time.”
Sadie inhaled sharply. I had to cover her mouth to keep her from screaming. We both knew that voice. I remembered it all too well from the Red Pyramid.
“Set.” Menshikov didn’t even look tired from the summoning. He sounded awfully calm for someone addressing the god of evil. “We need to talk.”
Sadie pushed my hand away and whispered, “Is he mad?”
“Desk,” I said. “Scroll. Out of here.
For once, she gave me no argument. She began fishing supplies out of her bag.
Meanwhile the big green jar wobbled as if Set were trying to tip it over.
“A malachite vase?” The god sounded annoyed. “Really, Vladimir. I thought we were on friendlier terms than that.”
Menshikov’s laugh sounded like someone choking a cat. “Excellent at constraining evil spirits, isn’t it? And this room has more malachite than any other place on earth. Empress Alexandra was quite wise to have it built for her drawing room.”
The jar plinked. “But it smells like old pennies in here, and it’s much too cold. Have you ever been stuck in a malachite jar, Vlad? I’m not a genie. I’d be so much more talkative if we could sit face-to-face, perhaps over tea.”
“I’m afraid not,” said Menshikov. “Now, you’ll answer my questions.”
“Oh, very well,” Set said. “I like Brazil for the World Cup. I’d advise investing in platinum and small-cap funds. And your lucky numbers this week are 2, 13—”
“Not those questions!” Menshikov snapped.
Sadie pulled a lump of wax from her bag and worked furiously, fashioning some kind of animal shape. I knew she was going to test the desk for magic defenses. She was better at that kind of spell than I was, but I wasn’t sure how she’d do it. Egyptian magic is pretty open-ended. There are always a thousand different ways to accomplish a task. The trick is being creative with your supplies and picking a way that won’t get you killed.
“You will tell me what I need to know,” Menshikov demanded, “or that jar will become even more uncomfortable.”
“My dear Vladimir.” Set’s voice was full of evil amusement. “What you
Menshikov touched his sunglasses, as if making sure they hadn’t fallen off.
“You will tell me the binding for Apophis,” he said in a steely tone. “Then you will tell me how to neutralize
