“Right, Pamplona,” Setne agreed. “Well, you know where that tradition started? Egypt. The pharaoh would do this ritual race with the Apis Bull to renew his kingly power, prove his strength, get blessed by the gods—all that junk. In later times, it became just a charade, no real danger. But at the beginning, it was the real thing. Life and death.”
On the word
“Setne!” I reached for my sword, but of course it wasn’t there. “Make that thing stop, or I’ll wrap you in ribbons so fast—”
“Oh, I wouldn’t do that,” Setne warned. “See, I’m the only one who can pick up the book without getting zapped by about sixteen different curses.”
Between the bull’s horns, its golden sun disk flashed. On its forehead, the cobra writhed to life, hissing and spitting gobs of fire.
Zia drew her wand. Was it my imagination, or was her scarab necklace starting to steam? “Call off that creature, Setne. Or I swear—”
“I can’t, doll. Sorry.” He grinned at us from behind the bull’s dais. He didn’t look very sorry. “This is part of the security system, see? If you want the book, you’ve got to distract the bull and get it out of here, while I open the dais and grab the Book of Thoth. I have complete faith in you.”
The bull pawed his pedestal and leaped off. Zia pulled me back into the hallway.
“That’s it!” Setne shouted. “Just like the Sed Festival. Prove you’re worthy of the pharaoh’s throne, kid. Run or die!”
The bull charged.
A sword would’ve been really nice. I would’ve settled for a matador’s cape and a spear. Or an assault rifle. Instead, Zia and I ran back through the catacombs and quickly realized that we were lost. Letting Setne lead us into the maze had been a stupid idea. I should’ve dropped breadcrumbs or marked the walls with hieroglyphs or something.
I hoped the tunnels would be too narrow for the Apis Bull. No such luck. I heard rock walls rumbling behind us as the bull shouldered his way through. There was another sound I liked even less—a deep hum followed by an explosion. I didn’t know what that was, but it was good incentive to run faster.
We must have passed through a dozen halls. Each had twenty or thirty sarcophagi. I couldn’t believe how many Apises had been mummified down here—centuries’ worth of bull. Behind us, our monstrous stone friend bellowed as he smashed his way through the tunnels.
I glanced back once and was sorry I did. The bull was closing fast, the cobra on his forehead spewing fire.
“This way!” Zia cried.
She pulled me down a side corridor. At the far end, what looked like daylight spilled from an open doorway. We sprinted toward it.
I was hoping for an exit. Instead we stumbled into another circular chamber. There was no bull statue in the middle, but spaced around the circumference were four giant stone sarcophagi. The walls were painted with pictures of bovine paradise—cows being fed, cows frolicking in meadows, cows being worshipped by silly little humans. The daylight streamed from a shaft in the domed ceiling, twenty feet above. A beam of sunshine sliced through the dusty air and hit the middle of the floor like a spotlight, but there was no way we could use the shaft to escape. Even if I turned into a falcon, the opening was too narrow, and I wasn’t about to leave Zia alone.
“Dead end,” she said.
We backed into the room until we stood in the warm sunlight. It seemed cruel to die here, stuck under thousands of tons of rock but able to see the sun.
The bull pawed the floor. He took a step forward, then hesitated, as if the sunlight bothered him.
“Maybe I can talk to him,” I said. “He’s connected to Osiris, right?”
Zia looked at me like I was crazy—which I was—but I didn’t have any better ideas.
She readied her wand and staff. “I’ll cover you.”
I stepped toward the monster and showed my empty hands. “Nice bull. I’m Carter Kane. Osiris is my dad, sort of. How about we call a truce and—”
The cobra spewed fire in my face.
It would’ve turned me into an extra-crispy Carter, but Zia shouted a command. As I stumbled backward, her staff absorbed the blast, sucking in the flames like a vacuum cleaner. She sliced the air with her wand, and a shimmering red wall of fire erupted around the Apis Bull. Unfortunately, the bull just stood there and glared at us, completely unharmed.
Zia cursed. “We seem to be at an impasse with the fire magic.”
The bull lowered its horns.
My war god instincts took control. “Take cover!”
Zia dove one way. I dove the other. The bull’s sun disk glowed and hummed, then shot a golden beam of heat right where we’d been standing. I barely made it behind a sarcophagus. My clothes were steaming. The bottoms of my shoes were melted. Where the beam had hit, the floor was blackened and bubbling, as if the rock had reached boiling point.
“Cows with laser beams?” I protested. “That’s
“Carter!” Zia called from across the room. “You okay?”
“We’ll have to split up!” I shouted back. “I’ll distract it. You get out of here!”
“What? No!”
The bull turned toward the sound of her voice. I had to move fast.
My avatar wouldn’t be much good in an enclosed space like this, but I needed the war god’s strength and speed. I summoned the power of Horus. Blue light flickered around me. My skin felt as thick as steel, my muscles as powerful as hydraulic pistons. I rose to my feet, smashed my fists into the sarcophagus, and reduced it to a pile of stone and mummy dust. I picked up a chunk of the lid—a three-hundred-pound stone shield—and charged at the bull.
We smashed into each other. Somehow I held my ground, but it took every bit of my magical strength. The bull bellowed and pushed. The cobra spit flames that rolled over the top of my shield.
“Zia, get out of here!” I shouted.
“I’m not leaving you!”
“You’ve got to! I can’t—”
The hairs on my arms stood up even before I heard the humming sound. My slab of stone disintegrated in a flash of gold, and I flew backward, crashing into another sarcophagus.
My vision blurred. I heard Zia shout. When my eyes could focus again, I saw her standing in the middle of the room, wrapped in sunlight, chanting a spell I didn’t recognize. She’d gotten the bull’s attention, which had probably saved my life. But before I could cry out, the bull aimed his sun disk and shot a superheated laser beam straight at Zia.
“No!” I screamed.
The light blinded me. The heat sucked all the oxygen out of my lungs. There was no way Zia could have survived that hit.
But when the golden light faded, Zia was still there. Around her burned a massive shield shaped like…like a scarab shell. Her eyes glowed with orange fire. Flames swirled around her. She looked at the bull and spoke a deep rasping voice that definitely wasn’t hers: “I am Khepri, the rising sun. I will not be denied.”
Only later did I realize that she’d spoken in Ancient Egyptian.
She thrust out her hand. A miniature comet shot toward the Apis Bull and the monster burst into flames, turning and stomping, suddenly panicked. His legs crumbled. He collapsed and broke into a smoking pile of charred rubble.
The room was suddenly quiet. I was afraid to move. Zia was still wreathed in fire, and it seemed to be getting hotter—burning yellow, then white. She stood as if in a trance. The golden scarab around her neck was definitely smoking now.
