“Sadie!” Carter charged toward me, but Kwai blasted him with a bolt of red lightning. Carter fell to his knees. I didn’t even have the strength to cry out.
Jaz ran toward him. Little Shelby yelled, “Stop it! Stop it!” Our other initiates seemed stunned, unable to move.
“Give up,” Jacobi said. I realized she was speaking with words of power, just like the ghost Setne had done. She was using magic to paralyze my friends. “The Kanes have brought you nothing but trouble. It’s time this ended.”
She lifted her netjeri blade from Amos’s throat. Quick as light, she threw it at me. As the blade flew, my mind seemed to speed up. In that millisecond, I understood that Sarah Jacobi wouldn’t miss. My end would be as painful as poor Leonid’s, who was bleeding to death alone in the outer tunnel. Yet I could do nothing to defend myself.
A shadow crossed in front of me. A bare hand snatched the blade out of the air. The meteoric iron turned gray and crumbled.
Jacobi’s eyes widened. She hastily drew her second knife.
“Who are you?” she demanded.
“Walt Stone,” he said, “blood of the pharaohs. And Anubis, god of the dead.”
He stepped in front of me, shielding me from my enemies. Maybe my vision was double because I’d cracked my head, but I saw the two of them with equal clarity—both handsome and powerful, both quite angry.
“We speak with one voice,” Walt said. “Especially on this matter. No one harms Sadie Kane.”
He thrust out his hand. The floor split open at Sarah Jacobi’s feet, and souls of the dead sprang up like weeds—skeletal hands, glowing faces, fanged shadows, and winged ba with their claws extended. They swarmed Sarah Jacobi, wrapping her in ghostly linen, and dragged her screaming into the chasm. The floor closed behind her, leaving no trace that she had ever existed.
The black noose slackened around Amos’s neck, and the voice of Set laughed with delight. “That’s my boy!”
“Shut up, Father,” Anubis said.
In the Duat, Anubis looked as he always had, with his tousled dark hair and lovely brown eyes, but I’d never seen him filled with such rage. I realized that anyone who dared to hurt me would suffer his full wrath, and Walt wasn’t going to hold him back.
Jaz helped Carter to his feet. His shirt was burned, but he looked all right. I suppose a blast of lightning wasn’t the worst thing that had happened to him lately.
“Magicians!” Carter managed to stand tall and confident, addressing both our initiates and the rebels. “We’re wasting time. Apophis is above, about to destroy the world. A few brave gods are holding him back for our sakes, for the sake of Egypt and the world of mortals, but they can’t do it alone. Jacobi and Kwai led you astray. Unbind the Chief Lector. We have to work together.”
Kwai snarled. Red electricity arced between his fingers. “Never. We do not bow to gods.”
I managed to rise.
“Listen to my brother,” I said. “You don’t trust the gods? They are already helping us. Meanwhile, Apophis wants us to fight one another. Why do you think your attack was timed for this morning, at the same moment Apophis is rising? Kwai and Jacobi have sold you out. The enemy is right in front of you!”
Even the rebel magicians now turned to stare at Kwai. The remaining ropes fell away from Amos.
Kwai sneered. “You’re too late.”
His voice hummed with power. His robes turned from blue to bloodred. His eyes glowed, his pupils turning to reptilian slits. “Even now, my master destroys the old gods, sweeping away the foundations of your world. He will swallow the sun. All of you will die.”
Amos got to his feet. Red sand swirled around him, but I had no doubt who was in charge now. His white robes shimmered with power. The leopard-skin cape of the Chief Lector gleamed on his shoulders. He held out his staff, and multicolored hieroglyphs filled the air.
“House of Life,” he said. “To war!”
Kwai did not give up easily.
I suppose that’s what happens when the Serpent of Chaos is invading your thoughts and filling you with unlimited rage and magic.
Kwai sent a chain of red lightning across the room, knocking over most of the other magicians, including his own followers. Isis must have protected me, because the electricity rippled over me with no effect. Amos didn’t seem bothered in his swirling red tornado. Walt stumbled, but only briefly. Even Carter in his weakened state managed to turn aside the lightning with his pharaoh’s crook.
The others weren’t as lucky. Jaz collapsed. Then Julian. Then Felix and his squad of penguins. All our initiates and the rebels they’d been fighting crumpled unconscious to the floor. So much for a massive offensive.