Rick Riordan - The Red Pyramid

Sure enough, more passengers started yelling “Moose!” and running around as the Set animal plowed through the lines and got tangled up in the stanchions. TSA officers surged forward, but the Set animal tossed them aside like rag dolls.

“Come on!” Bast told me.

“I can’t just let it hurt these people.”

“We can’t stop it!”

But I didn’t move. I wanted to believe Horus was giving me courage, or that maybe the past few days had finally woken up some dormant bravery gene I’d inherited from my parents. But the truth was scarier. This time, nobody was making me take a stand. I wanted to do it.

People were in trouble because of us. I had to fix it. I felt the same kind of instinct I felt when Sadie needed my help, like it was time for me to step up. And yes, it terrified me. But it also felt right.

“Go to the gate,” I told Bast. “Take Sadie. I’ll meet you there.”

“What? Carter-”

“Go!” I imagined opening my invisible locker: 13/32/33. I reached out my hand, but not for my dad’s magic box. I concentrated on something I’d lost in Luxor. It had to be there. For a moment, I felt nothing. Then my hand closed around a hard leather grip, and I pulled my sword out of nowhere.

Bast’s eyes widened. “Impressive.”

“Get moving,” I said. “It’s my turn to run interference.”

“You realize it’ll kill you.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence. Now, scat!”

Bast took off at top speed, Sadie flapping to stay balanced on her arm.

A shot rang out. I turned and saw the Set animal plow into a cop who’d just fired at its head to no effect. The poor cop flew backward and toppled over the metal detector gate.

“Hey, moose!” I screamed.

The Set animal locked its glowing eyes on me.

Well done! Horus said. We will die with honor!

Shut up, I thought.

I glanced behind me to make sure Bast and Sadie were out of sight. Then I approached the creature.

“So you’ve got no name?” I asked. “They couldn’t think of one ugly enough?”

The creature snarled, stepping over the unconscious policeman.

“Set animal is too hard to say,” I decided. “I’ll call you Leroy.”

Apparently, Leroy didn’t like his name. He lunged.

I dodged his claws and managed to smack him in the snout with the flat of my blade, but that barely fazed him. Leroy backed up and charged again, slavering, baring his fangs. I slashed at his neck, but Leroy was too smart. He darted to the left and sank his teeth into my free arm. If it hadn’t been for my makeshift leather armguard, I would’ve been minus one arm. As it was, Leroy’s fangs still bit clear through the leather. Red-hot pain shot up my arm.

I yelled, and a primal surge of power coursed through my body. I felt myself rising off the ground and the golden aura of the hawk warrior forming around me. The Set animal’s jaws were pried open so fast that it yelped and let go of my arm. I stood, now encased in a magical barrier twice my normal size, and kicked Leroy into the wall.

Good! said Horus. Now dispatch the beast to the netherworld!

Quiet, man. I’m doing all the work.

I was vaguely aware of security guards trying to regroup, yelling into their walkie-talkies and calling for help. Travelers were still screaming and running around. I heard a little girl shout: “Chicken man, get the moose!”

You know how hard it is to feel like an extreme falcon-headed combat machine when somebody calls you “chicken man”?

I raised my sword, which was now at the center of a ten-foot-long energy blade.

Leroy shook the dust off his cone-shaped ears, and came at me again. My armored form might’ve been powerful, but it was also clumsy and slow; moving it around felt like moving through Jell-O. Leroy dodged my sword strike and landed on my chest, knocking me down. He was a lot heavier than he looked. His tail and claws raked against my armor. I caught his neck in my glowing fists and tried to keep his fangs away from my face, but everywhere he drooled, my magical shield hissed and steamed. I could feel my wounded arm going numb.

Alarms blared. More passengers crowded toward the checkpoint to see what was happening. I had to end this soon-before I passed out from pain or more mortals got hurt.

I felt my strength fading, my shield flickering. Leroy’s fangs were an inch from my face, and Horus was offering no words of encouragement.

Then I thought about my invisible locker in the Duat. I wondered if other things could be put in there too…large, evil things.

I closed my hands around Leroy’s throat and wedged my knee against his rib cage. Then I imagined an opening in the Duat-in the air right above me: 13/32/33. I imagined my locker opening as wide as it could go.

With my last bit of strength, I pushed Leroy straight up. He flew toward the ceiling, his eyes widening with surprise as he passed through an unseen rift and disappeared.

“Where’d it go?” someone yelled.

“Hey, kid!” another guy called. “You okay?”

My energy shield was gone. I wanted to pass out, but I had to leave before the security guys came out of their shock and arrested me for moose fighting. I got to my feet and threw my sword at the ceiling. It disappeared into the Duat. Then I wrapped the torn leather around my bleeding arm as best I could and ran for the gates.

I reached our flight just as they were closing the door.

Apparently, word of the chicken man incident hadn’t spread quite yet. The gate agent gestured back toward the checkpoint as she took my ticket. “What’s all the noise up there?”

“A moose got through security,” I said. “It’s under control now.” Before she could ask questions, I raced down the jetway.

I collapsed into my seat across the aisle from Bast. Sadie, still in kite form, was pacing in the window seat next to me.

Bast let out a huge sigh of relief. “Carter, you made it! But you’re hurt. What happened?”

I told her.

Bast’s eyes widened. “You put the Set animal in your locker? Do you know how much strength that requires?”

“Yeah,” I said. “I was there.”

The flight attendant started making her announcements. Apparently, the security incident hadn’t affected our flight. The plane pushed back from the gate on time.

I doubled forward in pain, and only then did Bast notice how bad my arm was. Her expression turned grim.

“Hold still.” She whispered something in Egyptian, and my eyes began to feel heavy.

“You’ll need sleep to heal that wound,” she said.

“But if Leroy comes back-”

“Who?”

“Nothing.”

Bast studied me as if seeing me for the first time. “That was extraordinarily brave, Carter. Facing the Set monster-you have more tomcat in you than I realized.”

“Um-thanks?”

She smiled and touched my forehead. “We’ll be in the air soon, my tomcat. Sleep.”

I couldn’t really object. Exhaustion washed over me, and I closed my eyes.

Naturally my soul decided to take a trip.

I was in ba form, circling above Phoenix. It was a brilliant winter morning. The cool desert air felt good under my wings. The city looked different in the daylight-a vast grid of beige and green squares dotted with palm trees and swimming pools. Stark mountains rose up here and there like chunks of the moon. The most prominent mountain was right below me-a long ridge with two distinct peaks. What had Set’s minion called it on my first soul visit? Camelback Mountain.

Its foothills were crowded with luxury homes, but the top was barren. Something caught my attention: a crevice between two large boulders, and a shimmer of heat coming from deep within the mountain-something that no human eye would’ve noticed.