The Serpent's Shadow

Page 33

My face was burning. It was bad enough that my mother was a spirit. I could never properly hug her again, never go shopping with her, never get advice about girl sorts of things. Bad enough that I’d been cut off from Anubis—that horribly frustrating gorgeous god who’d wrapped my heart into knots. Deep down, I’d always known a relationship with him was impossible given our age difference—five thousand years or so—but having the other gods decree him off-limits just rubbed salt in the wound.
Now to think of Walt as a spirit, out of reach as well—that was simply too much.
I looked up at him, afraid my bratty behavior would have made him feel even worse.
To my surprise, he broke into a smile. Then he laughed.
“What?” I demanded.
He doubled over, still laughing, which I found quite inconsiderate.
“You find this funny?” I shouted. “Walt Stone!”
“No…” He hugged his sides. “No, it’s just…You don’t understand. It’s not like that.”
“Well, then, what is it like?”
He got control of himself. He seemed to be collecting his thoughts when his white ibis dived out of the sky. It landed on Philip’s head, flapped its wings, and cawed.
Walt’s smile melted. “We’re here. The ruins of Saïs.”
Philip carried us ashore. We put on our shoes and waded across the marshy ground. In front of us stretched a forest of palm trees, hazy in the afternoon light. Herons flew overhead. Orange-and-black bees hovered over the papyrus plants.
One bee landed on Walt’s arm. Several more circled his head.
Walt looked more perplexed than worried. “The goddess who’s supposed to live around here, Neith…didn’t she have something to do with bees?”
“No idea,” I admitted. For some reason, I felt the urge to speak quietly.
[Yes, Carter. It was a first for me. Thanks for asking.]
I peered through the palm forest. In the distance, I thought I saw a clearing with a few clumps of mud brick sticking above the grass like rotten teeth.
I pointed them out to Walt. “The remains of a temple?”
Walt must have felt the same instinct for stealth that I did. He crouched in the grass, trying to lower his profile. Then he glanced back nervously at Philip of Macedonia. “Maybe we shouldn’t have a three-thousand-pound crocodile trampling through the woods with us.”
“Agreed,” I said.
He whispered a command word. Philip shrank back to a small wax statuette. Walt pocketed our croc, and we began sneaking toward the ruins.
The closer we got, the more bees filled the air. When we arrived at the clearing, we found an entire colony swarming like a living carpet over a cluster of crumbling mud-brick walls.
Next to them, sitting on a weathered block of stone, a woman leaned on a bow, sketching in the dirt with an arrow.
She was beautiful in a severe way—thin and pale with high cheekbones, sunken eyes, and arched eyebrows, like a supermodel walking the line between glamorous and malnourished. Her hair was glossy black, braided on either side with flint arrowheads. Her haughty expression seemed to say: I’m much too cool to even look at you.
There was nothing glamorous about her clothes, however. She was dressed for the hunt in desert-colored fatigues—beige, brown, and ochre. Several knives hung from her belt. A quiver was strapped to her back, and her bow looked like quite a serious weapon—polished wood carved with hieroglyphs of power.
Most disturbing of all, she seemed to be waiting for us.
“You’re noisy,” she complained. “I could’ve killed you a dozen times already.”
I glanced at Walt, then back at the huntress. “Um…thanks? For not killing us, I mean.”
The woman snorted. “Don’t thank me. You’ll have to do better than that if you want to survive.”
I didn’t like the sound of that, but generally speaking, I don’t ask heavily armed women to elaborate on such statements.
Walt pointed to the symbol the huntress was drawing in the dirt—an oval with four pointy bits like legs.
“You’re Neith,” Walt guessed. “That’s your symbol—the shield with crossed arrows.”
The goddess raised her eyebrows. “Think much? Of course I’m Neith. And, yes, that’s my symbol.”
“It looks like a bug,” I said.
“It’s not a bug!” Neith glowered. Behind her, the bees became agitated, crawling over the mud bricks.
“You’re right,” I decided. “Not a bug.”
Walt wagged his finger as if he’d just had a thought. “The bees…I remember now. That was one name for your temple—the House of the Bee.”
“Bees are tireless hunters,” Neith said. “Fearless warriors. I like bees.”
“Uh, who doesn’t?” I offered. “Charming little…buzzers. But you see, we’re here on a mission.”
I began to explain about Bes and his shadow.
Neith cut me off with a wave of her arrow. “I know why you’re here. The others told me.”
I moistened my lips. “The others?”
“Russian magicians,” she said. “They were terrible prey. After that, a few demons came by. They weren’t much better. They all wanted to kill you.”
I moved a step closer to Walt. “I see. And so you—”
“Destroyed them, of course,” Neith said.
Walt made a sound somewhere between a grunt and a whimper. “Destroyed them because…they were evil?” he said hopefully. “You knew the demons and those magicians were working for Apophis, right? It’s a conspiracy.”
“Of course it’s a conspiracy,” Neith said. “They’re all in on it—the mortals, the magicians, the demons, the tax collectors. But I’m on to them. Anyone who invades my territory pays.” She gave me a hard smile. “I take trophies.”
From under the collar of her army jacket, she dug out a necklace. I winced, expecting to see some grisly bits of…well, I don’t even want to say. Instead, the cord was strung with ragged squares of cloth—denim, linen, silk.
“Pockets,” Neith confided, a wicked gleam in her eyes.
Walt’s hands went instinctively to the sides of his workout pants. “You, um…took their pockets?”
“Do you think me cruel?” Neith asked. “Oh, yes, I collect the pockets of my enemies.”
“Horrifying,” I said. “I didn’t know demons had pockets.”
“Oh, yes.” Neith glanced in either direction, apparently to be sure no one was eavesdropping. “You just have to know where to look.”
“Right…” I said. “So anyway, we’ve come to find Bes’s shadow.”
“Yes,” the goddess said.
“And I understand you’re a friend of Bes and Tawaret’s.”
“That’s true. I like them. They’re ugly. I don’t think they’re in the conspiracy.”
“Oh, definitely not! So could you, perhaps, show us where Bes’s shadow is?”
“I could. It dwells in my realm—in the shadows of ancient times.”
“In the…what now?”
I was so sorry I asked.
Neith nocked her arrow and shot it toward the sky. As it sailed upward, the air rippled. A shockwave spread across the landscape, and I felt momentarily dizzy.
When I blinked, I found that the afternoon sky had turned a more brilliant blue, striped with orange clouds. The air was crisp and clean. Flocks of geese flew overhead. The palm trees were taller; the grass was greener—
[Yes, Carter, I know it sounds silly. But the grass really was greener on the other side.]
Where the mud-brick ruins had been, a proud temple now stood. Walt, Neith, and I were just outside the walls, which rose ten meters and gleamed brilliant white in the sun. The whole complex must have been at least a kilometer square. Halfway down the left wall, a gate glittered with gold filigree. A road lined with stone sphinxes led to the river, where sailboats were docked.
Disorienting? Yes. But I’d had a similar experience once before, when I’d touched the curtains of light in the Hall of Ages.
“We’re in the past?” I guessed.
“A shadow of it,” Neith said. “A memory. This is my refuge. It may be your burial ground, unless you survive the hunt.”
I tensed. “You mean…you hunt us? But we’re not your enemy! Bes is your friend. You should be helping us!”
“Sadie’s right,” Walt said. “Apophis is your enemy. He’s going to destroy the world 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—”