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I tried to focus on the present. I stared at my shoes … the same old pair of Brooks, yellow shoelace on the left, black shoelace on the right. I raised my sword arm to make sure I could still control my muscles.
Relax, demigod. The voice of Nekhbet spoke in my mind. Let me take charge.
‘I don’t think so,’ I said aloud. I was relieved that my voice still sounded like my voice. ‘We do this together or not at all.’
‘Percy?’ Annabeth asked. ‘Are you okay?’
Looking at her was disorientating. The ‘Percy’ part of me saw my usual awesome girlfriend. The ‘Nekhbet’ part of me saw a young woman surrounded by a powerful ultraviolet aura – the mark of a Greek demigod. The sight filled me with disdain and fear. (For the record: I have my own healthy fear of Annabeth. She has kicked my butt on more than one occasion. But disdain? Not so much. That was all Nekhbet.)
‘I’m fine,’ I said. ‘I was talking to the vulture in my head.’
Carter walked a circle around me, frowning like I was an abstract sculpture. ‘Percy, try to strike a balance. Don’t let her take over, but don’t fight her, either. It’s kind of like running a three-legged race. You have to get in a rhythm with your partner.’
‘But if you have to choose,’ Sadie said, ‘smack her down and stay in control.’
I snarled. ‘Stupid girl! Do not tell me –’ I forced my lips closed. The taste of rotting jackal filled my mouth. ‘Sorry, Sadie,’ I managed. ‘That was Nekhbet talking, not me.’
‘I know.’ Sadie’s expression tightened. ‘I wish we had more time for you to get used to hosting a goddess. However –’
Another red flash illuminated the treetops.
‘The sooner I get this goddess out of my head, the better,’ I said. ‘Let’s go smash Setne’s face.’
Setne really could not decide on his wardrobe.
He strutted around the soccer field in black bell-bottomed slacks, a frilly white shirt and a glittery purple trench coat – all of which clashed with his newly combined red and white crown. He looked like Prince from one of my mom’s old album covers, and, judging from the magic lights swirling around him, Setne was getting ready to party like it was 1999 B.C.E.
Having only one hand didn’t seem to bother him. He waved his stump conductor-style, chanting in Greek and Egyptian while fog rose at his feet. Bursts of light danced and bobbed around him, as if a thousand kids were writing their names with sparklers.
I didn’t understand what I was looking at, but Nekhbet did. Having her sight, I recognized the Duat – the magical dimension that existed beneath the mortal realm. I saw layers of reality, like strata of glowing multicoloured jelly, plunging down into infinity. On the surface, where the mortal and immortal worlds met, Setne was whipping the Duat into a storm – churning waves of colour and frothy white plumes of smoke.
After Annabeth’s adventure on Rockaway Beach, she’d told me how frightening it was to see the Duat. She wondered whether the Egyptian Duat was somehow related to the Greek concept of Mist – the magical veil that kept mortals from recognizing gods and monsters.
With Nekhbet in my mind, I knew the answer. Of course the Mist was related. The Mist was simply a Greek name for the uppermost layer between the worlds – the layer that Setne was now shredding.
I should have been terrified. Seeing the world in all its infinite levels was enough to give anybody vertigo.
But I’d been dropped into oceans before. I was used to floating in the depths with endless thermal layers around me.
Also, Nekhbet wasn’t easily impressed. She’d seen just about everything over the millennia. Her mind was as cold and dry as the desert night wind. To her, the mortal world was a constantly changing wasteland, dotted with the carcasses of men and their civilizations. Nothing lasted. It was all roadkill waiting to happen. As for the Duat, it was always churning, sending up plumes of magic like sun flares into the mortal world.
Still, we were both disturbed by the way Setne’s spell tore through the Mist. He wasn’t just manipulating it. Magicians did that all the time. Setne was strip-mining the Duat. Wherever he stepped, fractures radiated outward, cleaving through the layers of the magic realm. His body sucked in energy from every direction, destroying the boundaries between the Duat and the mortal world, between Greek magic and Egyptian magic – slowly transforming him into an immortal. In the process, he was ripping a hole in the cosmic order that might never close.
His magic pulled at us – Nekhbet and me – urging us to give up and be absorbed into his new glorious form.
I didn’t want to be absorbed. Neither did the vulture goddess. Our common purpose helped us work together.
I marched across the field. Sadie and Annabeth fanned out on my right. I assumed Carter was somewhere on my left, but he’d gone invisible again, so I couldn’t be sure. The fact that I couldn’t detect him, even with Nekhbet’s super vulture senses, gave me hope that Setne wouldn’t see him, either.
Maybe if I kept Setne busy, Carter would be able to cut off Setne’s other hand. Or his legs. Bonus points for his head.
Setne stopped chanting when he saw me.
‘Awesome!’ He grinned. ‘You brought the vulture with you. Thanks!’
Not the reaction I’d been hoping for. I keep waiting for the day when the bad guy sees me and screams, I give up! But it hasn’t happened yet.
‘Setne, drop the crown.’ I raised my kopis, which didn’t feel heavy with Nekhbet’s power flowing through me. ‘Surrender, and you might get out of this alive. Otherwise –’
