The Serpent's Shadow

She touched the figurine to the shadow and began to chant.

I was afraid the waves of Chaos might dissolve the figurine, or, worse, pull Sadie in. Instead, the serpent’s shadow began to thrash. Slowly it shrank, writhing and snapping its mouth as if it were being hit with a cattle prod. The figurine absorbed the darkness. Soon the shadow was completely gone, and the statue was midnight black. Sadie spoke a simple binding spell on the figurine: “Hi-nehm.”

A long hiss escaped from the sea—almost like a sigh of relief—and the sound echoed across the hills. The churning waves turned a lighter shade of red, as if some murky sediment had been dredged away. The pull of Chaos seemed to lessen just slightly.

Sadie stood. “Right. We’re ready.”

I stared at my sister. Sometimes she teased me that she’d eventually catch up to me in age and be my older sibling. Looking at her now, with that determined glint in her eyes and the confidence in her voice, I could almost believe her. “That was amazing,” I said. “How did you know the spell?”

She scowled. Of course, the answer was obvious: she’d watched Walt do the same spell on Bes’s shadow… before whatever happened to Walt.

“The execration will be easy,” she said. “We have to be facing Apophis, but otherwise it’s the same spell we’ve been practicing.”

Zia prodded Setne with her foot. “That’s another thing this maggot lied about. What should we do with him? We’ll have to get the Book of Thoth out of those bindings, obviously, but after that should we shove him into the drink?”

“MMM!” Setne protested.

Sadie and I exchanged looks. We silently agreed that we couldn’t dissolve Setne—even as horrible as he was. Maybe we’d seen too many awful things over the past few days, and we didn’t need to see any more. Or maybe we knew that Osiris had to be the one to decide Setne’s punishment, since we had promised to bring the ghost back to the Hall of Judgment.

Maybe, standing next to the obelisk of Ma’at, surrounded by the Sea of Chaos, we both realized that restraining ourselves from vengeance is what made us different from Apophis. Rules had their place. They kept us from unraveling.

“Drag him along,” Sadie said. “He’s a ghost. Can’t be that heavy.”

I grabbed his feet, and we made our way back down the jetty. Setne’s head bonked against the rocks, but that didn’t concern me. It took all my concentration to keep putting one foot in front of the other. Moving away from the Sea of Chaos was even harder than moving toward it.

By the time we reached the beach, I was exhausted. My clothes were drenched in sweat. We trudged across the sand and finally crested the hill.

“Oh…” I uttered some words that were definitely not divine.

In the cratered field below us, demons had gathered—hundreds of them, all marching in our direction. As Setne had guessed, the shadow had sent a distress signal to the forces of Apophis, and the call had been answered. We were trapped between the Sea of Chaos and a hostile army.

At this point, I was starting to wonder, Why me?

All I wanted was to infiltrate the most dangerous part of the Duat, steal the shadow of the primordial Lord of Chaos, and save the world. Was that too much to ask?

The demons were maybe two football fields away, closing rapidly. I estimated that there were at least three or four hundred of them, and more kept pouring onto the field. Several dozen winged monsters were even closer, spiraling lower and lower overhead. Against this army, we had two Kanes, Zia, and a gift-wrapped ghost. I didn’t like those odds.

“Sadie, can you make a gate to the surface?” I asked.

She closed her eyes and concentrated. She shook her head. “No signal from Isis. Possibly we’re too close to the Sea of Chaos.”

That was a scary thought. I tried to summon the avatar of Horus. Nothing happened. I guess I should have known it would be hard to channel his powers down here, especially after I had asked him for a weapon back on the ship, and the best he could do was an ostrich feather.

“Zia?” I said. “Your powers from Khepri are still working. Can you get us out of here?”

She clutched her scarab amulet. “I don’t think so. All Khepri’s energy is being spent shielding us from Chaos. He can’t do any more.”

I considered running back to the white obelisk. Maybe we could use it to open a portal. But I quickly dismissed the idea. The demons would be on us before we ever got there.

“We’re not going to get out of this,” I decided. “Can we cast the execration on Apophis right now?”

Zia and Sadie spoke in unison: “No.”

I knew they were right. We had to stand face-to-face with Apophis for the spell to work. But I couldn’t believe we’d come all this way, just to be stopped now.

“At least we can go out fighting.” I unhooked the crook and flail from my belt.

Sadie and Zia readied their staffs and wands.

Then, at the other end of the field, a wave of confusion spread through the demons’ ranks. They slowly began turning away from us, running in different directions. Behind the demon army, fireballs lit the sky. Plumes of smoke rose from newly opened craters in the ground. A battle seemed to be breaking out at the wrong end of the field.

“Who are they fighting?” I asked. “Each other?”

“No.” Zia pointed, a smile spreading across her face. “Look.”

It was hard to see through the hazy air, but a wedge of combatants was slowly forcing its way through the back ranks of the demons. Their numbers were smaller—maybe a hundred or so—but the demons gave way to them. Those that didn’t were cut down, trampled, or blown up like fireworks.

“It’s the gods!” Sadie said.

“That’s impossible,” I said. “The gods wouldn’t march into the Duat to rescue us!”

“Not the big gods, no.” She grinned at me. “But the old forgotten ones from the House of Rest would! Anubis said he was calling for reinforcements.”

“Anubis?” I was really confused now. When had she seen Anubis?

“There!” Sadie shouted. “Oh—!”

She seemed to forget how to speak. She just waved her finger toward our new friends. The battle lines opened momentarily. A sleek black car barreled into combat. The driver had to be a maniac. He plowed down demons, going out of his way to hit them. He jumped over fiery crevices and spun in circles, flashing his lights and honking his horn. Then he came straight at us, until the front ranks of demons started to scatter. Only a few brave winged demons had the nerve to chase him.

As the car got closer, I could see it was a Mercedes limo. It climbed the hill, trailed by bat demons, and screeched to a stop in a cloud of red dust. The driver’s door opened, and a small hairy man in a blue Speedo stepped out.

I had never been so happy to see someone so ugly.

Bes, in all his horrible warty glory, climbed onto the roof of his car. He turned to face the bat demons. His eyes bulged. His mouth opened impossibly wide. His hair stood out like porcupine quills, and he yelled, “BOO!”

The winged demons screamed and disintegrated.

“Bes!” Sadie ran toward him.

The dwarf god broke into a grin. He slid down to the hood, so he was almost Sadie’s height when she hugged him.

“There’s my girl!” he said. “And, Carter, get your sorry hide over here!”

He hugged me, too. I didn’t even mind him rubbing his knuckles on my head.

“And, Zia Rashid!” Bes cried generously. “I got a hug for you too—”

“I’m good,” Zia said, stepping back. “Thanks.”

Bes bellowed with laughter. “You’re right. Time for warm and fuzzy later. We gotta get you guys out of here!”

“The—the shadow spell?” Sadie stammered. “It actually worked?”

“Of course it worked, you crazy kid!” Bes thumped his hairy chest, and suddenly he was wearing a chauffeur’s