The Throne of Fire

were rising rapidly through the Duat. Despite that, I still felt like my insides were melting. Sadie didn’t look any better.

Menshikov’s words echoed in my head: Mortals can’t leave this cavern alive.

“It’s Chaos sickness,” Sadie said. “We’re not going to make it, are we?”

“We have to hold on,” I said. “At least until dawn.”

“All that,” Sadie said, “and what happened? We retrieved a senile god. We lost Bes and the Chief Lector. And we’re dying.”

I took Sadie’s hand. “Maybe not. Look.”

Ahead of us, the tunnel was getting brighter. The cavern walls dissolved, and the river widened. Two pillars rose from the water—two giant golden scarab statues. Beyond them gleamed the morning skyline of Manhattan. The River of Night was emptying out into New York Harbor.

“Each new dawn is a new world,” I remembered our dad saying. “Maybe we’ll be healed.”

“Ra, too?” Sadie asked.

I didn’t have an answer, but I was starting to feel better, stronger, like I’d had a good night’s sleep. As we passed between the golden scarab statues, I looked to our right. Across the water, smoke was rising from Brooklyn—flashes of multicolored light and streaks of fire as winged creatures engaged in aerial combat.

“They’re still alive,” Sadie said. “They need help!”

We turned the sun boat toward home—and sailed straight into battle.

S A D I E

23. We Throw a Wild House Party

[FATAL MISTAKE, CARTER. Giving me the microphone at the most important part? You’ll never get it back now. The end of the story is mine. Ha-ha-ha!]

Oh, that felt good. I’d be excellent at world domination.

But I digress.

You might’ve seen news reports about the strange double sunrise over Brooklyn on the morning of March twenty-first. There were many theories: haze in the air from pollution, a temperature drop in the lower atmosphere, aliens, or perhaps another sewer-gas leak causing mass hysteria. We love sewer gas in Brooklyn!

I can confirm, however, that there briefly were two suns in the sky. I know this because I was in one of them. The normal sun rose as usual. But there was also the boat of Ra, blazing as it rose from the Duat, out of New York Harbor and into the sky of the mortal world.

To observers below, the second sun appeared to merge with the light of the first. What actually happened? The sun boat dimmed as it descended toward Brooklyn House, where the mansion’s antimortal camouflage shielding enveloped it, and made it seem to disappear.

The shielding was already working overtime, as a full-fledged war was in progress. Freak the Griffin was diving through the air, engaging the winged flaming snakes, the uraei, in aerial combat.

[I know that’s a horrible word to pronounce, uraei, but Carter insists it’s the plural for uraeus, and there’s no arguing with him. Just say you’re right and leave off the t, and you’ve got it.]

Freak yelled, “Freaaaak!” and gobbled up a uraeus, but he was sorely outnumbered. His fur was singed, and his buzzing wings must’ve been damaged, as he kept spinning in circles like a broken helicopter.

His rooftop nest was on fire. Our portal sphinx was broken, and the chimney was stained with a massive black star-burst where something or someone had exploded. A squad of enemy magicians and demons had taken cover behind the air conditioning unit and were pinned in combat against Zia and Walt, who were guarding the stairwell. Both sides threw fire, shabti, and glowing hieroglyphic bombs across the no- man’sland of the roof.

As we descended over the enemy, old Ra (yes, he was still just as senile and withered as ever) leaned over the side and waved at everyone with his crook. “Hel-lo-o-o-o! Zebras!”

Both sides looked up in amazement. “Ra!” one demon screamed. Then everyone took up the cry: “Ra?” “Ra!” “Ra!”

They sounded like the world’s most terrified pep squad.

The uraei stopped spitting fire, much to Freak’s surprise, and immediately flew to the sun boat. They began circling us like an honor guard, and I remembered what Menshikov had said about them originally being creatures of Ra. Apparently they recognized their old master (emphasis on old.)

Most of the enemies below us scattered as the boat came down, but the slowest of the demons said, “Ra?” and looked up just as our sun boat landed on top of him with a satisfying crunch.

Carter and I jumped into battle. In spite of all we’d be through, I felt wonderful. The Chaos sickness had disappeared as soon as we’d risen from the Duat. My magic was strong. My spirits were high. If I’d just had a shower, some fresh clothes, and a proper cup of tea, I would’ve been in paradise. (Strike that; now that I’d seen Paradise, I didn’t much like it. I’d settle for my own room.)

I zapped one demon into a tiger and unleashed him on his brethren. Carter popped into avatar form—the glowing golden kind, thank goodness; the three-meter-tall birdman had been a bit too scary for me. He smashed his way through the terrified enemy magicians, and with a sweep of his hand sent them sailing into the East River. Zia and Walt came out from the stairwell and helped us mop up the stragglers. Then they ran to us with big grins on their faces. They looked battered and bruised but still very much alive.

“FREEEEK!” said the griffin. He swooped down and landed next to Carter, head-butting his combat avatar, which I hoped was a sign of affection.

“Hey, buddy.” Carter rubbed his head, careful to avoid the monster’s chain-saw wings. “What’s happening, guys?”

“Talking didn’t work,” Zia said drily.

“The enemy’s been trying to break in all night,” Walt said. “Amos and Bast have held them off, but—” He glanced at the sun boat, and his voice faltered. “Is that—that isn’t—”

“Zebra!” Ra called, tottering toward us with a big toothless grin.

He walked straight up to Zia and pulled something out of his mouth—the glowing gold scarab, now quite wet but undigested. He offered it to her. “I like zebras.”

Zia backed up. “This is—this is Ra, the Lord of the Sun? Why is he offering me a bug?”

“And what does he mean about zebras?” Walt asked.

Ra looked at Walt and clucked disapprovingly. “Weasels are sick.”

Suddenly a chill went through me. My head spun as if the Chaos sickness was returning. In the back of mind, an idea started to form—something very important.

Zebras…Zia. Weasels…Walt.

Before I could think about this further, a large BOOM! shook the building. Chunks of limestone flew from the side of the mansion and rained down on the warehouse yard.

“They’ve breached the walls again!” Walt said. “Hurry!”

I consider myself fairly scattered and hyper, but the rest of the battle happened too fast even for me to keep track of. Ra absolutely refused to be parted from Zebra and Weasel (sorry, Zia and Walt), so we left him in their care at the sun boat while Freak lowered Carter and me to the deck below. We dropped from his claws onto the buffet table and found Bast whirling around with her knives in hand, slicing demons to sand and kicking magicians into the swimming pool, where our albino crocodile, Philip of Macedonia, was only too happy to entertain them.