Rick Riordan: The Throne of Fire

I felt like curling into a ball myself. I didn’t know any spells that could fight these things, and if one of them touched me…

Suddenly the griffin swooped down out of nowhere, followed closely by Sadie’s magic rope, which was still trying to bind it. The griffin snapped up one of the fire creatures in a single gulp and kept flying. Wisps of smoke came out of its nostrils, but otherwise, eating the white fire didn’t seem to bother it.

“Hey!” I yelled.

Too late, I realized my mistake.

The griffin turned toward me, which slowed it down just enough for Sadie’s magic rope to wrap around its back legs.

“SQUAWWWWK!” The griffin crashed into a buffet table. The rope grew longer, winding around the monster’s body while its high-speed wings shredded the table, the floor, and plates of sandwiches like an out-of-control wood chipper.

Wedding guests began clearing the ballroom. Most ran for the elevators, but dozens were unconscious or shaking in fits, their eyes glowing white. Others were stuck under piles of debris. Alarms were blaring, and the white fires—six of them now—were still completely out of control.

I ran toward the griffin, which was rolling around, trying in vain to bite at the rope. “Calm down!” I yelled. “Let me help you, stupid!”

“FREEEEK!” The griffin’s tail swept over my head and just missed decapitating me.

I took a deep breath. I was mostly a combat magician. I’d never been good at hieroglyph spells, but I pointed my sword at the monster and said: “Ha-tep. ”

A green hieroglyph—the symbol for Be at peace —burned in the air, right at the tip of my blade:

The griffin stopped thrashing. The buzzing of its wings slowed. Chaos and screaming still filled the ballroom, but I tried to stay calm as I approached the monster.

“You recognize me, don’t you?” I held out my hand, and another symbol blazed above my palm—a symbol I could always summon, the Eye of Horus:

“You’re a sacred animal of Horus, aren’t you? That’s why you obey me.”

The griffin blinked at the war god’s mark. It ruffled its neck feathers and squawked in complaint, squirming under the rope that was slowly wrapping around its body.

“Yeah, I know,” I said. “My sister’s a loser. Just hang on. I’ll untie you.”

Somewhere behind me, Sadie yelled, “Carter!”

I turned and saw her and Walt stumbling toward me, half-carrying Jaz between them. Sadie was still doing her Statue of Liberty impression, holding the flaming scroll in one hand. Walt was on his feet and his eyes weren’t glowing anymore, but Jaz was slumped over like all the bones in her body had turned to jelly.

They dodged a fiery spirit and a few crazy wedding guests and somehow made it across the ballroom.

Walt stared the griffin. “How did you calm it down?”

“Griffins are servants of Horus,” I said. “They pulled his chariot in battle. I think it recognized my connection to him.”

The griffin shrieked impatiently and thrashed its tail, knocking over a stone column.

“Not very calm,” Sadie noticed. She glanced up at the glass dome, forty feet above, where the tiny figure of Khufu was waving at us frantically. “We need to get Jaz out of here now, ” she said.

“I’m fine,” Jaz muttered.

“No, you’re not,” Walt said. “Carter, she got that spirit out of me, but it almost killed her. It’s some kind of sickness demon—”

“A bau, ” I said. “An evil spirit. These seven are called—”

“The Arrows of Sekhmet,” Jaz said, confirming my fears. “They’re plague spirits, born from the goddess. I can stop them.”

“You can rest, ” Sadie said.

“Right,” I said. “Sadie, get this rope off the griffin and—”

“There’s no time.” Jaz pointed. The bau were getting larger and brighter. More wedding guests were falling as the spirits whipped around the room unchallenged.

“They’ll die if I don’t stop the bau, ” Jaz said. “I can channel the power of Sekhmet and force them back to the Duat. It’s what I’ve been training for.”

I hesitated. Jaz had never tried such a large spell. She was already weak from healing Walt. But she was trained for this. It might seem strange that healers studied the path of Sekhmet, but since Sekhmet was the goddess of destruction, plagues, and famine, it made sense that healers would learn how to control her forces—including bau.

Besides, even if I freed the griffin, I wasn’t one hundred percent sure I could control it. There was a decent chance it would get excited and gobble us up rather than the spirits.

Outside, police sirens were getting louder. We were running out of time.

“We’ve got no choice,” Jaz insisted.

She pulled her wand and then—much to my sister’s shock —gave Walt a kiss on the cheek. “It’ll be okay, Walt. Don’t give up.”

Jaz took something else from her magician’s bag—a wax figurine—and pressed it into my sister’s free hand. “You’ll need this soon, Sadie. I’m sorry I can’t help you more. You’ll know what to do when the time comes.”

I don’t think I’d ever seen Sadie at such a loss for words.

Jaz ran to the center of the ballroom and touched her wand to the floor, drawing a circle of protection around her feet. From her bag she produced a small statue of Sekhmet, her patron goddess, and held it aloft.

She began to chant. Red light glowed around her. Tendrils of energy spread out from the circle, filling the room like the branches of a tree. The tendrils began to swirl, slowly at first, then picking up speed until the magic current tugged at the bau, forcing them to fly in the same direction, drawing them toward the center. The spirits howled, trying to fight the spell. Jaz staggered, but she kept chanting, her face beaded with sweat.

“Can’t we help her?” Walt asked.

“RAWWWWK!” the griffin cried, which probably meant, Helloooo! I’m still here!

The sirens sounded like they were right outside the building now. Down the hall near the elevators, someone was shouting into a megaphone, ordering the last wave of wedding guests to exit the building—like they needed encouragement. The police had arrived, and if we got arrested, this situation was going to be difficult to explain.

“Sadie,” I said, “get ready to dispel the rope on the griffin. Walt, you still got your boat amulet?”

“My—? Yeah. But there’s no water.”

“Just summon the boat!” I dug through my pockets and found my own magic twine. I spoke a charm and was suddenly holding a rope about twenty feet long. I made a loose slipknot in the middle, like a huge necktie, and carefully approached the griffin.

“I’m just going to put this around your neck,” I said. “Don’t freak.”

“FREEEEK!” the griffin said.

I stepped closer, conscious of how fast that beak could snap me up if it wanted to, but I managed to loop the rope around the griffin’s neck.

Then something went wrong. Time slowed down. The red swirling tendrils of Jaz’s spell moved sluggishly, like the air had turned to syrup. The screams and sirens faded to a distant roar.

You won’t succeed, a voice hissed.

I turned and found myself face-to-face with a bau.

It hovered in the air a few inches away, its fiery white features almost coming into focus. It seemed to smile, and I could swear I’d seen its face before.