Rick Riordan - The Serpent's Shadow

“You’re right,” I decided. “Not a bug.”

Walt wagged his finger as if he’d just had a thought. “The bees…I remember now. That was one name for your temple—the House of the Bee.”

“Bees are tireless hunters,” Neith said. “Fearless warriors. I like bees.”

“Uh, who doesn’t?” I offered. “Charming little…buzzers. But you see, we’re here on a mission.”

I began to explain about Bes and his shadow.

Neith cut me off with a wave of her arrow. “I know why you’re here. The others told me.”

I moistened my lips. “The others?”

“Russian magicians,” she said. “They were terrible prey. After that, a few demons came by. They weren’t much better. They all wanted to kill you.”

I moved a step closer to Walt. “I see. And so you—”

“Destroyed them, of course,” Neith said.

Walt made a sound somewhere between a grunt and a whimper. “Destroyed them because…they were evil?” he said hopefully. “You knew the demons and those magicians were working for Apophis, right? It’s a conspiracy.”

“Of course it’s a conspiracy,” Neith said. “They’re all in on it—the mortals, the magicians, the demons, the tax collectors. But I’m on to them. Anyone who invades my territory pays.” She gave me a hard smile. “I take trophies.”

From under the collar of her army jacket, she dug out a necklace. I winced, expecting to see some grisly bits of…well, I don’t even want to say. Instead, the cord was strung with ragged squares of cloth—denim, linen, silk.

“Pockets,” Neith confided, a wicked gleam in her eyes.

Walt’s hands went instinctively to the sides of his workout pants. “You, um…took their pockets ?”

“Do you think me cruel?” Neith asked. “Oh, yes, I collect the pockets of my enemies.”

“Horrifying,” I said. “I didn’t know demons had pockets.”

“Oh, yes.” Neith glanced in either direction, apparently to be sure no one was eavesdropping. “You just have to know where to look.”

“Right…” I said. “So anyway, we’ve come to find Bes’s shadow.”

“Yes,” the goddess said.

“And I understand you’re a friend of Bes and Tawaret’s.”

“That’s true. I like them. They’re ugly. I don’t think they’re in the conspiracy.”

“Oh, definitely not! So could you, perhaps, show us where Bes’s shadow is?”

“I could. It dwells in my realm—in the shadows of ancient times.”

“In the…what now?”

I was so sorry I asked.

Neith nocked her arrow and shot it toward the sky. As it sailed upward, the air rippled. A shockwave spread across the landscape, and I felt momentarily dizzy.

When I blinked, I found that the afternoon sky had turned a more brilliant blue, striped with orange clouds. The air was crisp and clean. Flocks of geese flew overhead. The palm trees were taller; the grass was greener—

[Yes, Carter, I know it sounds silly. But the grass really was greener on the other side.]

Where the mud-brick ruins had been, a proud temple now stood. Walt, Neith, and I were just outside the walls, which rose ten meters and gleamed brilliant white in the sun. The whole complex must have been at least a kilometer square. Halfway down the left wall, a gate glittered with gold filigree. A road lined with stone sphinxes led to the river, where sailboats were docked.

Disorienting? Yes. But I’d had a similar experience once before, when I’d touched the curtains of light in the Hall of Ages.

“We’re in the past?” I guessed.

“A shadow of it,” Neith said. “A memory. This is my refuge. It may be your burial ground, unless you survive the hunt.”

I tensed. “You mean…you hunt us ? But we’re not your enemy! Bes is your friend. You should be helping us!”

“Sadie’s right,” Walt said. “ Apophis is your enemy. He’s going to destroy the world tomorrow morning.”

Neith snorted. “The end of the world? I’ve seen that coming for eons. You soft mortals have ignored the warning signs, but I’m prepared. I’ve got an underground bunker stockpiled with food, clean water, and enough weapons and ammunition to hold off a zombie army.”

Walt knit his eyebrows. “A zombie army?”

“You never know!” Neith snapped. “The point is, I’ll survive the apocalypse. I can live off the land!” She jabbed a finger at me. “Did you know the palm tree has six different edible parts?”

“Um—”

“And I’ll never be bored,” Neith continued, “since I’m also the goddess of weaving. I have enough twine for a millennium of macramé!”

I had no reply, as I wasn’t sure what macramé was.

Walt raised his hands. “Neith, that’s great, but Apophis is rising tomorrow. He’ll swallow the sun, plunge the world into darkness, and let the whole earth crumble back into the Sea of Chaos.”

“I’ll be safe in my bunker,” Neith insisted. “If you can prove to me that you’re friend and not foe, maybe I’ll help you with Bes. Then you can join me in the bunker. I’ll teach you survival skills. We’ll eat rations and weave new clothes from the pockets of our enemies!”

Walt and I exchanged looks. The goddess was a nutter. Unfortunately, we needed her help.

“So you want to hunt us,” I said. “And we’re supposed to survive—”

“Until sunset,” she said. “Evade me that long, and you can live in my bunker.”

“I’ve got a counteroffer,” I said quickly. “No bunker. If we win, you help us find Bes’s shadow, but you’ll also fight on our side against Apophis. If you’re really a war goddess and a huntress and all that, you should enjoy a good battle.”

Neith grinned. “Done! I’ll even give you a five-minute head start. But I should warn you: I never lose. When I kill you, I’ll take your pockets!”

“You drive a hard bargain,” I said. “But fine.”

Walt elbowed me. “Um, Sadie—”

I shot him a warning look. As I saw it, there was no way we could escape this hunt, but I did have an idea that might keep us alive.

“We’ve begun!” Neith cried. “You can go anywhere in my territory, which is basically the entire delta. It doesn’t matter. I’ll find you.”

Walt said, “But—”

“Four minutes, now,” Neith said.

We did the only sensible thing. We turned and ran.

“What is macramé?” I yelled as we barreled through the rushes.

“A kind of weaving,” Walt said. “Why are we talking about this?”

“Dunno,” I admitted. “Just cur—”

The world turned upside down—or rather, I did. I found myself hanging in a scratchy twine net with my feet in the air.

“ That’s macramé,” Walt said.

“Lovely. Get me down!”

He pulled a knife from his pack—practical boy—and managed to free me, but I reckoned we’d lost most of our head start. The sun was lower on the horizon, but how long would we have to survive—thirty minutes? An hour?

Walt rifled through his pack and briefly considered the white wax crocodile. “Philip, maybe?”

“No,” I said. “We can’t fight Neith head-on. We have to avoid her. We can split—”

“Tiger. Boat. Sphinx. Camels. No invisibility,” Walt muttered, examining his amulets. “Why don’t I have an amulet for invisibility?”

I shuddered. The last time I’d tried invisibility, it hadn’t gone very well. “Walt, she’s a hunting goddess. We probably couldn’t fool her with any sort of concealment spell, even if you had one.”

“Then what?” he asked.

I put my finger on Walt’s chest and tapped the one amulet he wasn’t considering—a necklace that was the twin to mine.