Unfortunately, the beast now had all three heads – wolf, lion and dog. Its long spiral shell glowed with Greek and hieroglyphic inscriptions. Completely ignoring the flying debris, the monster clambered inside on its six forelegs, then leaped into the air. The storm carried it upward, spiralling through the chaos.
‘It’s heading for its master,’ Annabeth said. ‘We have to stop it.’
‘Lovely,’ Sadie grumbled. ‘This is going to drain me.’
‘What will?’
Sadie raised her staff. ‘N’dah.’
A golden hieroglyph blazed in the air above them:
And suddenly they were surrounded in a sphere of light.
Annabeth’s spine tingled. She’d been encased in a protective bubble like this once before, when she, Percy and Grover had used magic pearls to escape the Underworld. The experience had been … claustrophobic.
‘This will shield us from the storm?’ she asked.
‘Hopefully.’ Sadie’s face was now beaded with sweat. ‘Come on.’
She led the way up the steps.
Immediately, their shield was put to the test. A flying kitchen counter would have decapitated them, but it shattered against Sadie’s force field. Chunks of marble swirled harmlessly around them.
‘Brilliant,’ Sadie said. ‘Now, hold the staff while I turn into a bird.’
‘Wait. What?’
Sadie rolled her eyes. ‘We’re thinking on our feet, remember? I’ll fly up there and stop the staff monster. You try to distract that god … whoever he is. Get his attention.’
‘Fine, but I’m no magician. I can’t maintain a spell.’
‘The shield will hold for a few minutes, as long as you use the staff.’
‘But what about you? If you’re not inside the shield –’
‘I have an idea. It might even work.’
Sadie fished something out of her pack – a small animal figurine. She curled her fingers round it, then began to change form.
Annabeth had seen people turn into animals before, but it never got easier to watch. Sadie shrank to a tenth of her size. Her nose elongated into a beak. Her hair and clothes and backpack melted into a sleek coat of feathers. She became a small bird of prey – a kite, maybe – her blue eyes now brilliant gold. With the little figurine still clutched in her talons, Sadie spread her wings and launched herself into the storm.
Annabeth winced as a cluster of bricks ploughed into her friend – but somehow the debris went straight through without turning Sadie into feather puree. Sadie’s form just shimmered as if she were travelling under a deep layer of water.
Sadie was in the Duat, Annabeth realized – flying on a different level of reality.
The idea made Annabeth’s mind heat up with possibilities. If a demigod could learn to pass through walls like that, run straight through monsters …
But that was a conversation for another time. Right now she needed to move. She charged up the steps and into the maelstrom. Metal bars and copper pipes clanged against her force field. The golden sphere flashed a little more dimly each time it deflected debris.
She raised Sadie’s staff in one hand and her new dagger in the other. In the magical torrent, the Celestial bronze blade guttered like a dying torch.
‘Hey!’ she yelled at ledge far above. ‘Mr God Person!’
No response. Her voice probably couldn’t carry over the storm.
The shell of the building started to groan. Mortar trickled from the walls and swirled into the mix like candy-floss tufts.
Sadie the hawk was still alive, flying towards the three-headed monster as it spiralled upward. The beast was about halfway to the top now, flailing its legs and glowing ever more brightly, as if soaking up the power of the tornado.
Annabeth was running out of time.
She reached into her memory, sifting through old myths, the most obscure tales Chiron had ever told her at camp. When she was younger, she’d been like a sponge, soaking up every fact and name.
The three-headed staff. The god of Alexandria, Egypt.
The god’s name came to her. At least, she hoped she was right.
One of the first lessons she’d learned as a demigod: Names have power. You never said the name of a god or monster unless you were prepared to draw its attention.
Annabeth took a deep breath. She shouted at the top of her lungs: ‘SERAPIS!’
The storm slowed. Huge sections of pipe hovered in midair. Clouds of bricks and timber froze and hung suspended.
Becalmed in the middle of the tornado, the three-headed monster tried to stand. Sadie swooped overhead, opened her talons and dropped her figurine, which instantly grew into a full-sized camel.
The shaggy dromedary slammed into the monster’s back. Both creatures tumbled out of the air and crashed to the floor in a tangle of limbs and heads. The staff monster continued to struggle, but the camel lay on top of it with its legs splayed, bleating and spitting and basically going limp like a thousand-pound toddler throwing a tantrum.