The Serpent's Shadow

tomorrow morning.”

Neith snorted. “The end of the world? I’ve seen that coming for eons. You soft mortals have ignored the warning signs, but I’m prepared. I’ve got an underground bunker stockpiled with food, clean water, and enough weapons and ammunition to hold off a zombie army.”

Walt knit his eyebrows. “A zombie army?”

“You never know!” Neith snapped. “The point is, I’ll survive the apocalypse. I can live off the land!” She jabbed a finger at me. “Did you know the palm tree has six different edible parts?”

“Um—”

“And I’ll never be bored,” Neith continued, “since I’m also the goddess of weaving. I have enough twine for a millennium of macramé!”

I had no reply, as I wasn’t sure what macramé was.

Walt raised his hands. “Neith, that’s great, but Apophis is rising tomorrow. He’ll swallow the sun, plunge the world into darkness, and let the whole earth crumble back into the Sea of Chaos.”

“I’ll be safe in my bunker,” Neith insisted. “If you can prove to me that you’re friend and not foe, maybe I’ll help you with Bes. Then you can join me in the bunker. I’ll teach you survival skills. We’ll eat rations and weave new clothes from the pockets of our enemies!”

Walt and I exchanged looks. The goddess was a nutter. Unfortunately, we needed her help.

“So you want to hunt us,” I said. “And we’re supposed to survive—”

“Until sunset,” she said. “Evade me that long, and you can live in my bunker.”

“I’ve got a counteroffer,” I said quickly. “No bunker. If we win, you help us find Bes’s shadow, but you’ll also fight on our side against Apophis. If you’re really a war goddess and a huntress and all that, you should enjoy a good battle.”

Neith grinned. “Done! I’ll even give you a five-minute head start. But I should warn you: I never lose. When I kill you, I’ll take your pockets!”

“You drive a hard bargain,” I said. “But fine.”

Walt elbowed me. “Um, Sadie—”

I shot him a warning look. As I saw it, there was no way we could escape this hunt, but I did have an idea that might keep us alive.

“We’ve begun!” Neith cried. “You can go anywhere in my territory, which is basically the entire delta. It doesn’t matter. I’ll find you.”

Walt said, “But—”

“Four minutes, now,” Neith said.

We did the only sensible thing. We turned and ran.

“What is macramé?” I yelled as we barreled through the rushes.

“A kind of weaving,” Walt said. “Why are we talking about this?”

“Dunno,” I admitted. “Just cur—”

The world turned upside down—or rather, I did. I found myself hanging in a scratchy twine net with my feet in the air.

“That’s macramé,” Walt said.

“Lovely. Get me down!”

He pulled a knife from his pack—practical boy—and managed to free me, but I reckoned we’d lost most of our head start. The sun was lower on the horizon, but how long would we have to survive—thirty minutes? An hour?

Walt rifled through his pack and briefly considered the white wax crocodile. “Philip, maybe?”

“No,” I said. “We can’t fight Neith head-on. We have to avoid her. We can split—”

“Tiger. Boat. Sphinx. Camels. No invisibility,” Walt muttered, examining his amulets. “Why don’t I have an amulet for invisibility?”

I shuddered. The last time I’d tried invisibility, it hadn’t gone very well. “Walt, she’s a hunting goddess. We probably couldn’t fool her with any sort of concealment spell, even if you had one.”

“Then what?” he asked.

I put my finger on Walt’s chest and tapped the one amulet he wasn’t considering—a necklace that was the twin to mine.

“The shen amulets?” He blinked. “But how can those help?”

“We split up and buy time,” I said. “We can share thoughts through the amulets, yes?”

“Well…yes.”

“And they can teleport us to each other’s side, right?”

Walt frowned. “I—I designed them for that, but—”

“If we split up,” I said, “Neith will have to choose one of us to track. We get as far apart as possible. If she finds me first, you teleport me out of danger with the amulet. Or vice versa. Then we split up again, and we keep at it.”

“That’s brilliant,” Walt admitted. “If the amulets will work quickly enough. And if we can keep the mental connection. And if Neith doesn’t kill one of us before we can call for help. And—”

I put my finger to his lips. “Let’s just leave it at ‘That’s brilliant.’”

He nodded, then gave me a hasty kiss. “Good luck.”

The silly boy shouldn’t do things like that when I need to stay focused. He dashed off to the north and, after a dazed moment, I ran south.

Squishy combat boots are not the best for sneaking around.

I considered wading into the river, thinking perhaps the water would obscure my trail, but I didn’t want to go for a swim without knowing what was under the surface—crocs, snakes, evil spirits. Carter once told me that most Ancient Egyptians couldn’t swim, which had seemed ridiculous to me at the time. How could people living next to a river not swim? Now I understood. No one in his right mind would want to take a dip in that water.

(Carter says a swim in the Thames or the East River would be almost as bad for your health. All right, fair point. [Now shut up, brother dear, and let me get back to the brilliant Sadie-saves-the-day part.])

I ran along the banks, crashing through reeds, jumping straight over a sunning crocodile. I didn’t bother to check if it was chasing me. I had bigger predators to worry about.

I’m not sure how long I ran. It seemed like miles. As the riverbank widened, I veered inland, trying to stay under the cover of the palm trees. I heard no signs of pursuit, but I had a constant itch in the middle of my shoulder blades where I expected an arrow.

I stumbled through a clearing where some Ancient Egyptians in loincloths were cooking over an open fire next to a small thatched hut. Perhaps the Egyptians were just shadows from the past, but they looked real enough. They seemed quite startled to see a blond girl in combat clothes stumble into their encampment. Then they saw my staff and wand and immediately groveled, putting their heads to the dirt and mumbling something about Per Ankh—the House of Life.

“Um, yes,” I said. “Per Ankh official business. Carry on. Bye.”

Off I raced. I wondered if I would appear on a temple wall painting someday—a blond Egyptian girl with purple highlights running sideways through the palm trees, screaming “Yikes!” in hieroglyphics as Neith chased after me. The thought of some poor archaeologist trying to figure that out almost lifted my spirits.

I reached the edge of the palm forest and stumbled to a stop. Before me, plowed fields spread into the distance. Nowhere to run or hide.

I turned back.

THUNK!

An arrow hit the nearest palm tree with such force that dates rained down on my head.

Walt, I thought desperately, now, please.

Twenty meters away, Neith rose from the grass. She had smeared river mud on her face. Palm fronds stuck from her hair like bunny ears.

“I’ve hunted feral pigs with more skill than you,” she complained. “I’ve hunted papyrus plants with more skill!”

Now, Walt, I thought. Dear, dear Walt. Now.

Neith shook her head in disgust. She nocked an arrow. I felt a tugging sensation in my stomach, as if I were