The Kane Chronicles(55)

“That’s not Anubis,” Walt warned.

“Of course it is,” I told him. “Watch.”

“Sadie, don’t,” Carter said, but I walked toward the guardian.

“Hullo, Anubis,” I called. “It’s just me, Sadie.”

The cute fuzzy jackal bared his fangs. His mouth began to froth. His adorable yellow eyes sent an unmistakable message: One more step, and I’ll chew your head off.

I froze. “Right…that’s not Anubis, unless he’s having a really bad day.”

“This is where we met him before,” Carter said. “Why isn’t he here?”

“It’s one of his minions,” Walt ventured. “Anubis must be…elsewhere.”

Again, he sounded awfully sure, and I felt a strange pang of jealousy. Walt and Anubis seemed to have spent more time talking with each other than with me. Walt was suddenly an expert on all things deathly. Meanwhile, I couldn’t even be near Anubis without invoking the wrath of his chaperone—Shu, the god of hot air. It wasn’t bloody fair!

Zia moved next to me, gripping her staff. “So, what now? Do we have to defeat it to pass?”

I imagined her lobbing some of her daisy-destroying fireballs. That’s all we needed—a yelping, flaming jackal running through my father’s courtyard.

“No,” Walt said, stepping forward. “It’s just a gatekeeper. It needs to know our business.”

“Walt,” Carter said, “if you’re wrong…”

Walt raised his hands and slowly approached the jackal. “I am Walt Stone,” he said. “This is Carter and Sadie Kane. And this is Zia…”

“Rashid,” Zia supplied.

“We have business at the Hall of Judgment,” Walt said.

The jackal snarled, but it sounded more inquisitive, not so chew-your-head-off hostile.

“We have testimony to offer,” Walt continued. “Information relevant to the trial of Setne.”

“Walt,” Carter whispered, “when did you become a junior lawyer?”

I shushed him. Walt’s plan seemed to be working. The jackal tilted its head as if listening, then rose and padded away into the darkness. The obsidian double doors swung open silently.

“Well done, Walt,” I said. “How did you…?”

He faced me, and my heart did a somersault. Just for a moment I thought he looked like…No. Obviously my mixed-up emotions were playing with my mind. “Um, how did you know what to say?”

Walt shrugged. “I took a guess.”

Just as quickly as they’d opened, the doors began to close.

“Hurry!” Carter warned. We sprinted into the courtroom of the dead.

At the start of the autumn semester—my first experience in an American school—our teacher had asked us to write down our parents’ contact information and what they did for a living, in case they could help with career day. I had never heard of career day. Once I understood what it was, I couldn’t stop giggling.

Could your dad come talk about his work? I imagined the headmistress asking.

Possibly, Mrs. Laird…I’d say. Except he’s dead, you see. Well, not completely dead. He’s more of a resurrected god. He judges mortal spirits and feeds the hearts of the wicked to his pet monster. Oh, and he has blue skin. I’m sure he’d make quite an impression on career day, for all those students aspiring to grow up and become Ancient Egyptian deities.

The Hall of Judgment had changed since my last visit. The room tended to mirror the thoughts of Osiris, so it often looked like a ghostly replica of my family’s old apartment in Los Angeles, from the happier times when we all lived together.

Now, possibly because Dad was on duty, the place was fully Egyptian. The circular chamber was lined with stone pillars carved in lotus flower designs. Braziers of magic fire washed the walls in green and blue light. In the center of the room stood the scales of justice, two large golden saucers balanced from an iron T.

Kneeling before the scales was the ghost of a man in a pinstriped suit, nervously reciting from a scroll. I understood why he was tense. On either side of him stood a large reptilian demon with green skin, a cobra head, and a wicked-looking pole arm poised over the ghost’s head.

Dad sat at the far end of the room on a golden dais, with a blue-skinned Egyptian attendant at his side. Seeing my father in the Duat was always disorienting, because he appeared to be two people at once. On one level, he looked like he had in life—a handsome, muscular man with chocolate-brown skin, a bald scalp, and a neatly trimmed goatee. He wore an elegant silk suit and a dark traveling coat, like a businessman about to board a private jet.