Rick Riordan - The Red Pyramid

I realized my legs were shaking and I was making a very undignified whimpering sound.

The cat-serpent jumped back into the pool to join its companion in beating up Philip, who spun and snapped but seemed unable to hurt his attackers.

“We have to help Philip!” I cried. “He’ll be killed!”

I reached for the door handle, but Muffin growled at me.

Carter said, “Sadie, no! You heard Amos. We can’t open the doors for any reason. The house is protected by magic. Philip will have to beat them on his own.”

“But what if he can’t? Philip!”

The old crocodile turned. For a second his pink reptilian eye focused on me as if he could sense my concern. Then the cat-snakes bit at his underbelly and Philip rose up so that only the tip of his tail still touched the water. His body began to glow. A low hum filled the air, like an airplane engine starting up. When Philip came down, he slammed into the terrace with all his might.

The entire house shook. Cracks appeared in the concrete terrace outside, and the swimming pool split right down the middle as the far end crumbled into empty space.

“No!” I cried.

But the edge of the terrace ripped free, plunging Philip and the monsters straight into the East River.

My whole body began to tremble. “He sacrificed himself. He killed the monsters.”

“Sadie…” Carter’s voice was faint. “What if he didn’t? What if they come back?”

“Don’t say that!”

“I-I recognized them, Sadie. Those creatures. Come on.”

“Where?” I demanded, but he ran straight back to the library.

Carter marched up to the shabti who’d helped us before. “Bring me the…gah, what’s it called?”

“What?” I asked.

“Something Dad showed me. It’s a big stone plate or something. Had a picture of the first pharaoh, the guy who united Upper and Lower Egypt into one kingdom. His name…” His eyes lit up. “Narmer! Bring me the Narmer Plate!”

Nothing happened.

“No,” Carter decided. “Not a plate. It was…one of those things that holds paint. A palette. Bring me the Narmer Palette!”

The empty-handed shabti didn’t move, but across the room, the statue with the little hook came to life. He jumped off his pedestal and disappeared in a cloud of dust. A heartbeat later, he reappeared on the table. At his feet was a wedge of flat gray stone, shaped like a shield and about as long as my forearm.

“No!” Carter protested. “I meant a picture of it! Oh great, I think this is the real artifact. The shabti must’ve stolen it from the Cairo Museum. We’ve got to return-”

“Hang on,” I said. “We might as well have a look.”

The surface of the stone was carved with the picture of a man smashing another man in the face with what looked like a spoon.

“That’s Narmer with the spoon,” I guessed. “Angry because the other bloke stole his breakfast cereal?”

Carter shook his head. “He’s conquering his enemies and uniting Egypt. See his hat? That’s the crown of Lower Egypt, before the two countries united.”

“The bit that looks like a bowling pin?”

“You’re impossible,” Carter grumbled.

“He looks like Dad, doesn’t he?”

“Sadie, be serious!”

“I am serious. Look at his profile.”

Carter decided to ignore me. He examined the stone like he was afraid to touch it. “I need to see the back but I don’t want to turn it over. We might damage-”

I grabbed the stone and flipped it over.

“Sadie! You could’ve broken it!”

“That’s what mend spells are for, yes?”

We examined the back of the stone, and I had to admit I was impressed by Carter’s memory. Two cat-snake monsters stood in the center of the palette, their necks entwined. On either side, Egyptian men with ropes were trying to capture the creatures.

“They’re called serpopards,” Carter said. “Serpent leopards.”

“Fascinating,” I said. “But what are serpopards?”

“No one knows exactly. Dad thought they were creatures of chaos-very bad news, and they’ve been around forever. This stone is one of the oldest artifacts from Egypt. Those pictures were carved five thousand years ago.”

“So why are five-thousand-year-old monsters attacking our house?”

“Last night, in Phoenix, the fiery man ordered his servants to capture us. He said to send the longnecks first.”

I had a metallic taste in my mouth, and I wished I hadn’t chewed my last piece of gum. “Well…good thing they’re at the bottom of the East River.”

Just then Khufu rushed into the library, screaming and slapping his head.

“Suppose I shouldn’t have said that,” I muttered.

Carter told the shabti to return the Narmer Palette, and both statue and stone disappeared. Then we followed the baboon upstairs.

The serpopards were back, their fur wet and slimy from the river, and they weren’t happy. They prowled the broken ledge of the terrace, their snake necks whipping round as they sniffed the doors, looking for a way in. They spit poison that steamed and bubbled on the glass. Their forked tongues darted in and out.

“Agh, agh!” Khufu picked up Muffin, who was sitting on the sofa, and offered me the cat.

“I really don’t think that will help,” I told him.

“AGH!” Khufu insisted.

Neither Muffin nor cat ended in -o, so I guessed Khufu was not trying to offer me a snack, but I didn’t know what he was on about. I took the cat just to shut him up.

“Mrow?” Muffin looked up at me.

“It’ll be all right,” I promised, trying not to sound scared out of my mind. “The house is protected by magic.”

“Sadie,” Carter said. “They’ve found something.”

The serpopards had converged at the left-hand door and were intently sniffing the handle.

“Isn’t it locked?” I asked.

Both monsters smashed their ugly faces against the glass. The door shuddered. Blue hieroglyphs glowed along the doorframe, but their light was faint.

“I don’t like this,” Carter murmured.

I prayed that the monsters would give up. Or that perhaps Philip of Macedonia would climb back to the terrace (do crocodiles climb?) and renew the fight.

Instead, the monsters smashed their heads against the glass again. This time a web of cracks appeared. The blue hieroglyphs flickered and died.

“AGH!” Khufu screamed. He waved his hand vaguely at the cat.

“Maybe if I try the ha-di spell,” I said.

Carter shook his head. “You almost fainted after you blew up those doors. I don’t want you passing out, or worse.”

Carter once again surprised me. He tugged a strange sword from one of Amos’s wall displays. The blade had an odd crescent-moon curve and looked horribly impractical.

“You can’t be serious,” I said.

“Unless-unless you’ve got a better idea,” he stammered, his face beading with perspiration. “It’s me, you, and the baboon against those things.”

I’m sure Carter was trying to be brave in his own extremely unbrave way, but he was shaking worse than I was. If anyone was going to pass out, I feared it would be him, and I didn’t fancy him doing that while holding a sharp object.

Then the serpopards struck a third time, and the door shattered. We backed up to the foot of Thoth’s statue as the creatures stalked into the great room. Khufu threw his basketball, which bounced harmlessly off the first monster’s head. Then he launched himself at the serpopard.