The Red Pyramid -1 (25 page)

"Ow!" I complained. "It's not my fault. Keep trying."

She closed her eyes and ruffled her feathers until she looked like she was going to explode, but she stayed a kite.

"Don't worry," I said, trying to keep a straight face. "Bast will help once we get out of here."

"Ha--ha--ha."

"Just keep watch. I'm going to look around."

The room was huge--more like a traditional library than a magician's lair. The furniture was dark mahogany. Every wall was covered with floor-to-ceiling bookcases. Books overflowed onto the floor. Some were stacked on tables or stuffed into smaller shelves. A big easy chair by the window looked like the kind of place Sherlock Holmes would sit smoking a pipe.

Every step I took, the floorboards creaked, which made me wince. I couldn't hear anyone else in the house, but I didn't want to take any chances.

Aside from the glass doors to the rooftop, the only other exit was a solid wooden door that locked from the inside. I turned the deadbolt. Then I wedged a chair up under the handle. I doubted that would keep magicians out for very long, but it might buy me a few seconds if things went bad.

I searched the bookshelves for what seemed like ages. All different types of books were jammed together--nothing alphabetized, nothing numbered. Most of the titles weren't in English. None were in hieroglyphics. I was hoping for something with big gold lettering that said The Book of Thoth, but no such luck.

"What would a Book of Thoth even look like?" I wondered.

Sadie turned her head and glared at me. I was pretty sure she was telling me to hurry up.

I wished there were shabti to fetch things, like the ones in Amos's library, but I didn't see any.

Or maybe...

I slung Dad's bag off my shoulder. I set his magic box on the table and slid open the top. The little wax figure was still there, right where I'd left him. I picked him up and said, "Doughboy, help me find The Book of Thoth in this library."

His waxy eyes opened immediately. "And why should I help you?"

"Because you have no choice."

"I hate that argument! Fine--hold me up. I can't see the shelves."

I walked him around the room, showing him the books. I felt pretty stupid giving the wax doll a tour, but probably not as stupid as Sadie felt. She was still in bird form, scuttling back and forth on the table and snapping her beak in frustration as she tried to change back.

"Hold it!" Doughboy announced. "This one is ancient--right here."

I pulled down a thin volume bound in linen. It was so tiny, I would've missed it, but sure enough, the front cover was inscribed in hieroglyphics. I brought it over to the table and carefully opened it. It was more like a map than a book, unfolding into four parts until I was looking at a wide, long papyrus scroll with writing so old I could barely make out the characters.

I glanced at Sadie. "I bet you could read this to me if you weren't a bird."

She tried to peck me again, but I moved my hand.

"Doughboy," I said. "What is this scroll?"

"A spell lost in time!" he pronounced. "Ancient words of tremendous power!"

"Well?" I demanded. "Does it tell how to defeat Set?"

"Better! The title reads: The Book of Summoning Fruit Bats!"

I stared at him. "Are you serious?"

"Would I joke about such a thing?"

"Who would want to summon fruit bats?"

"Ha--ha--ha," Sadie croaked.

I pushed the scroll away and we went back to searching.

After about ten minutes, Doughboy squealed with delight. "Oh, look! I remember this painting."

It was a small oil portrait in a gilded frame, hanging on the end of a bookshelf. It must've been important, because it was bordered by little silk curtains. A light shone upon the portrait dude's face so he seemed about to tell a ghost story.

"Isn't that the guy who plays Wolverine?" I asked, because he had some serious jowl hair going on.

"You disgust me!" Doughboy said. "That is Jean-Francois Champollion."

It took me a second, but I remembered the name. "The guy who deciphered hieroglyphics from the Rosetta Stone."

"Of course. Desjardins' great uncle."

I looked at Champollion's picture again, and I could see the resemblance. They had the same fierce black eyes. "Great uncle? But wouldn't that make Desjardins--"

"About two hundred years old," Doughboy confirmed. "Still a youngster. You know that when Champollion first deciphered hieroglyphics, he fell into a coma for five days? He became the first man outside the House of Life to ever unleash their magic, and it almost killed him.

Naturally, that got the attention of the First Nome. Champollion died before he could join the House of Life, but the Chief Lector accepted his descendants for training. Desjardins is very proud of his family...but a little sensitive too, because he's such a newcomer."

"That's why he didn't get along with our family," I guessed. "We're like...ancient."

Doughboy cackled. "And your father breaking the Rosetta Stone? Desjardins would've viewed that as an insult to his family honor! Oh, you should've seen the arguments Master Julius and Desjardins had in this room."

"You've been here before?"

"Many times! I've been everywhere. I'm all-knowing."

I tried to imagine Dad and Desjardins having an argument in here. It wasn't hard. If Desjardins hated our family, and if gods tended to find hosts who shared their goals, then it made total sense that Set would try to merge with him. Both wanted power, both were resentful and angry, both wanted to smash Sadie and me to a pulp. And if Set was now secretly controlling the Chief Lector...A drop of sweat trickled down the side of my face. I wanted to get out of this mansion.

Suddenly there was a banging sound below us, like someone closing a door downstairs.

"Show me where The Book of Thoth is," I ordered Doughboy. "Quick!"

As we moved down the shelves, Doughboy grew so warm in my hands, I was afraid he would melt. He kept a running commentary on the books.

"Ah, Mastery of the Five Elements!"

"Is that the one we want?" I asked.

"No, but a good one. How to tame the five essential elements of the universe--earth, air, water, fire, and cheese!"

"Cheese?"

He scratched his wax head. "I'm pretty sure that's the fifth, yes. But moving right along!"

We turned to the next shelf. "No," he announced. "No. Boring. Boring. Oh, Clive Cussler! No.

No."

I was about to give up hope when he said, "There."

I froze. "Where--here?"

"The blue book with the gold trim," he said. "The one that's--"

I pulled it out, and the entire room began to shake.

"--trapped," Doughboy continued.

Sadie squawked urgently. I turned and saw her take flight. Something small and black swooped down from the ceiling. Sadie clashed with it in midair, and the black thing disappeared down her throat.

Before I could even register how gross that was, alarms blared downstairs. More black forms dropped from the ceiling and seemed to multiply in the air, swirling into a funnel cloud of fur and wings.

"There's your answer," Doughboy told me. "Desjardins would want to summon fruit bats. You mess with the wrong books, you trigger a plague of fruit bats. That's the trap!"

The things were on me like I was a ripe mango--diving at my face, clawing at my arms. I clutched the book and ran to the table, but I could hardly see. "Sadie, get out of here!" I yelled.

"SAW!" she cried, which I hoped meant yes.

I found Dad's workbag and shoved the book and Doughboy inside. The library door rattled.

Voices yelled in French.

Horus, bird time! I thought desperately. And no emu, please!

I ran for the glass doors. At the last second, I found myself flying--once again a falcon, bursting

into the cold rain. I knew with the senses of a predator that I was being followed by approximately four thousand angry fruit bats.

But falcons are wicked fast. Once outside, I raced north, hoping to draw the bats away from Sadie and Bast. I outdistanced the bats easily but let them keep close enough that they wouldn't give up. Then, with a burst of speed, I turned in a tight circle and shot back toward Sadie and Bast in a hundred-mile-an-hour dive.

Bast looked up in surprise as I plummeted to the sidewalk, tumbling over myself as I turned back into a human. Sadie caught my arm, and only then did I realize she was back to normal as well.

"That was awful!" she announced.

"Exit strategy, quick!" I pointed at the sky, where an angry black cloud of fruit bats was getting closer and closer.

"The Louvre." Bast grabbed our hands. "It's got the closest portal."

Three blocks away. We'd never make it.

Then the red door of Desjardins' house blasted open, but we didn't wait to see what came out of it. We ran for our lives down the rue des Pyramides.

19. A Picnic in the Sky

[Right, Carter. Give me the mic.]

So I'd been to the Louvre once before on holiday, but I hadn't been chased by vicious fruit bats.

I would've been terrified, except I was too busy being angry with Carter. I couldn't believe the way he'd treated my bird problem. Honestly, I thought I would be a kite forever, suffocating inside a little feathery prison. And he had the nerve to make fun!

I promised myself I'd get revenge, but for the time being we had enough worries staying alive.

We raced along in the cold rain. It was all I could do to avoid slipping on the slick pavements. I glanced back and saw two figures chasing us--men with shaved heads and goatees and black raincoats. They might've passed for normal mortals except they each carried a glowing staff. Not a good sign.

The bats were literally at our heels. One nipped my leg. Another buzzed my hair. I had to force myself to keep running. My stomach still felt queasy from eating one of the little pests when I was a kite--and no, that had not been my idea. Totally a defensive instinct!

"Sadie," Bast called as we ran. "You'll have only seconds to open the portal."

"Where is it?" I yelled.

We dashed across the rue de Rivoli into a wide plaza surrounded by the wings of the Louvre.

Bast made straight for the glass pyramid at the entrance, glowing in the dusk.

"You can't be serious," I said. "That isn't a real pyramid."

"Of course it's real," Bast said. "The shape gives a pyramid its power. It is a ramp to the heavens."

The bats were all around us now--biting our arms, flying around our feet. As their numbers increased, it got harder to see or move.

Carter reached for his sword, then apparently remembered it wasn't there anymore. He'd lost it at Luxor. He swore and rummaged around in his workbag.

"Don't slow down!" Bast warned.

Carter pulled out his wand. In total frustration, he threw it at a bat. I thought this a pointless gesture, but the wand glowed white-hot and thumped the bat solidly on the head, knocking it out of the air. The wand ricocheted through the swarm, thumping six, seven, eight of the little monsters before returning to Carter's hand.

"Not bad," I said. "Keep it up!"

We arrived at the base of the pyramid. The plaza was thankfully empty. The last thing I wanted was my embarrassing death by fruit bats posted on YouTube.

"One minute until sundown," Bast warned. "Our last chance for summoning is now."

She unsheathed her knives and started slicing bats out of the air, trying to keep them away from me. Carter's wand flew wildly, knocking fruit bats every which way. I faced the pyramid and tried to think of a portal, the way I'd done at Luxor, but it was almost impossible to concentrate.

Where do you wish to go? Isis said in my mind.

God, I don't care! America!

I realized I was crying. I hated to, but shock and fear were starting to overwhelm me. Where did I want to go? Home, of course! Back to my flat in London--back to my own room, my grandparents, my mates at school and my old life. But I couldn't. I had to think about my father and our mission. We had to get to Set.

America, I thought. Now!

My burst of emotion must've had some effect. The pyramid trembled. Its glass walls shimmered and the top of the structure began to glow.

A swirling sand vortex appeared, all right. Only one problem: it was hovering above the very top of the pyramid.

"Climb!" Bast said. Easy for her--she was a cat.

"The side is too steep!" Carter objected.

He'd done a good job with the bats. Dazed heaps littered the pavement, but more still flew round us, biting every bit of exposed skin, and the magicians were closing in.

"I'll toss you," Bast said.

"Excuse me?" Carter protested, but she picked him up by his collar and pants and tossed him up the side of the pyramid. He skittered to the top in a very undignified manner and slipped straight through the portal.

"Now you, Sadie," Bast said. "Come on!"

Before I could move, a man's voice yelled, "Stop!"

Stupidly, I froze. The voice was so powerful, it was hard not to.

The two magicians were approaching. The taller one spoke in perfect English: "Surrender, Miss Kane, and return our master's property."