“The one Dad was after.”
“Then Horus, Set, Isis, and, um...” Carter consulted his scroll. “Nephthys. I always forget that one.”
“And the fiery man in the museum said, you have released all five.”
“Exactly. What if they were imprisoned together and Dad didn’t realize it? They were born together, so maybe they had to be summoned back into the world together. The thing is, one of these guys, Set, was a really bad dude. Like, the villain of Egyptian mythology. The god of evil and chaos and desert storms.”
I shivered. “Did he perhaps have something to do with fire?”
Carter pointed to one of the figures in the picture. The god had an animal head, but I couldn’t quite make out which sort of animal: Dog? Anteater? Evil bunny rabbit? Whichever it was, his hair and his clothes were bright red.
“The Red Lord,” I said.
“Sadie, there’s more,” Carter said. “Those five days—the Demon Days—were bad luck in Ancient Egypt. You had to be careful, wear good luck charms, and not do anything important or dangerous on those days. And in the British Museum, Dad told Set: They’ll stop you before the Demon Days are over.”
“Surely you don’t think he meant us,” I said. “We’re supposed to stop this Set character?”
Carter nodded. “And if the last five days of our calendar year still count as the Egyptian Demon Days—they’d start on December 27, the day after tomorrow.”
The shabti seemed to be staring at me expectantly, but I had not the slightest idea what to do. Demon Days and evil bunny gods—if I heard one more impossible thing, my head would explode.
And the worst of it? The little insistent voice in the back of my head saying: It’s not impossible. To save Dad, we must defeat Set.
As if that had been on my to-do list for Christmas hols. See Dad—check. Develop strange powers—check. Defeat an evil god of chaos—check. The whole idea was mad!
Suddenly there was a loud crash, as if something had broken in the Great Room. Khufu began barking in alarm.
Carter and I locked eyes. Then we ran for the stairs.
S A D I E
8. Muffin Plays with Knives
OUR BABOON WAS GOING completely sky goddess—which is to say, nuts.
He swung from column to column, bouncing along the balconies, overturning pots and statues. Then he ran back to the terrace windows, stared outside for a moment, and proceeded to go berserk again.
Muffin was also at the window. She crouched on all fours with her tail twitching as if she were stalking a bird.
“Perhaps it’s just a passing flamingo,” I suggested hopefully, but I’m not sure Carter could hear me over the screaming baboon.
We ran to the glass doors. At first I didn’t see any problem. Then water exploded from the pool, and my heart nearly jumped out of my chest. Two enormous creatures, most definitely not flamingos, were thrashing about with our crocodile, Philip of Macedonia.
I couldn’t make out what they were, only that they were fighting Philip two against one. They disappeared under the boiling water, and Khufu ran screaming through the Great Room again, bonking himself on the head with his empty Cheerios box, which I must say was not particularly helpful.
“Longnecks,” Carter said incredulously. “Sadie, did you see those things?”
I couldn’t find an answer. Then one of the creatures was thrown out of the pool. It slammed into the doors right in front of us, and I jumped back in alarm. On the other side of the glass was the most terrifying animal I’d ever seen. Its body was like a leopard’s—lean and sinewy, with golden spotted fur—but its neck was completely wrong. It was green and scaly and at least as long as the rest of its body. It had a cat’s head, but no normal cat’s. When it turned its glowing red eyes towards us, it howled, showing a forked tongue and fangs dripping with green venom.
I realized my legs were shaking and I was making a very undignified whimpering sound.
The cat-serpent jumped back into the pool to join its companion in beating up Philip, who spun and snapped but seemed unable to hurt his attackers.
“We have to help Philip!” I cried. “He’ll be killed!”
I reached for the door handle, but Muffin growled at me.
Carter said, “Sadie, no! You heard Amos. We can’t open the doors for any reason. The house is protected by magic. Philip will have to beat them on his own.”