“Carter,” I said with glee, “all that talk about basketball and the Lakers, and you’re absolute rubbish! Beaten by monkeys!”
He groaned miserably. “It was...it was Dad’s favorite game.”
I stared at him. Dad’s favorite game. God, why hadn’t that occurred to me?
Apparently he took my gobsmacked expression as further criticism.
“I...I can tell you any NBA stat you want,” he said a bit desperately. “Rebounds, assists, free throw percentages.”
The other baboons went back to their game, ignoring Carter and Khufu both. Khufu let out a disgusted noise, half gag and half bark.
I understood the sentiment, but I came forward and offered Carter my hand. “Come on, then. It doesn’t matter.”
“If I had better shoes,” he suggested. “Or if I wasn’t so tired—”
“Carter,” I said with a smirk. “It doesn’t matter. And I’ll not breathe a word to Dad when we save him.”
He looked at me with obvious gratitude. (Well, I am rather wonderful, after all.) Then he took my hand, and I hoisted him up.
“Now for god’s sake, put on your shirt,” I said. “And Khufu, it’s time you took us to the professor.”
Khufu led us into a deserted science building. The air in the hallways smelled of vinegar, and the empty classroom labs looked like something from an American high school, not the sort of place a god would hang out. We climbed the stairs and found a row of professors’ offices. Most of the doors were closed. One had been left open, revealing a space no bigger than a broom closet stuffed with books, a tiny desk, and one chair. I wondered if that professor had done something bad to get such a small office.
“Agh!” Khufu stopped in front of a polished mahogany door, much nicer than the others. A newly stenciled name glistened on the glass: Dr. Thoth.
Without knocking, Khufu opened the door and waddled inside.
“After you, chicken man,” I said to Carter. (And yes, I’m sure he was regretting telling me about that particular incident. After all, I couldn’t completely stop teasing him. I have a reputation to maintain.)
I expected another broom closet. Instead, the office was impossibly big.
The ceiling rose at least ten meters, with one side of the office all windows, looking out over the Memphis skyline. Metal stairs led up to a loft dominated by an enormous telescope, and from somewhere up there came the sound of an electric guitar being strummed quite badly. The other walls of the office were crammed with bookshelves. Worktables overflowed with weird bits and bobs—chemistry sets, half-assembled computers, stuffed animals with electrical wires sticking out of their heads. The room smelled strongly of cooked beef, but with a smokier, tangier scent than I’d ever smelled.
Strangest of all, right in front of us, half a dozen longnecked birds—ibises—sat behind desks like receptionists, typing on laptop computers with their beaks.
Carter and I looked at each other. For once I was at a loss for words.
“Agh!” Khufu called out.
Up in the loft, the strumming stopped. A lanky man in his twenties stood up, electric guitar in hand. He had an unruly mane of blond hair like Khufu’s, and he wore a stained white lab coat over faded jeans and a black T-shirt. At first I thought blood was trickling from the corner of his mouth. Then I realized it was some sort of meat sauce.
“Fascinating.” He broke into a wide grin. “I’ve discovered something, Khufu. This is not Memphis, Egypt.”
Khufu gave me a sideways look, and I could swear his expression meant, Duh.
“I’ve also discovered a new form of magic called blues music,” the man continued. “And barbecue. Yes, you must try barbecue.”
Khufu looked unimpressed. He climbed to the top of a bookshelf, grabbed a box of Cheerios, and began to munch.
The guitar man slid down the banister with perfect balance and landed in front of us. “Isis and Horus,” he said. “I see you’ve found new bodies.”
His eyes were a dozen colors, shifting like a kaleidoscope, with hypnotic effect.
I managed to stutter, “Um, we’re not—”
“Oh, I see,” he said. “Trying to share the body, eh? Don’t think I’m fooled for a minute, Isis. I know you’re in charge.”
“But she’s not!” I protested. “My name is Sadie Kane. I assume you’re Thoth?”
He raised an eyebrow. “You claim not to know me? Of course I’m Thoth. Also called Djehuti. Also called—”
I stifled a laugh. “Ja-hooty?”
Thoth looked offended. “In Ancient Egyptian, it’s a perfectly fine name. The Greeks called me Thoth. Then later they confused me with their god Hermes. Even had the nerve to rename my sacred city Hermopolis, though we’re nothing alike. Believe me, if you’ve ever met Hermes—”
“Agh!” Khufu yelled through a mouthful of Cheerios.
“You’re right,” Thoth agreed. “I’m getting off track. So you claim to be Sadie Kane. And...” He swung a finger toward Carter, who was watching the ibises type on their laptops. “I suppose you’re not Horus.”
“Carter Kane,” said Carter, still distracted by the ibises’ screens. “What is that?”
Thoth brightened. “Yes, they’re called computers. Marvelous, aren’t they? Apparently—”
“No, I mean what are the birds typing?” Carter squinted and read from the screen. “‘A Short Treatise on the Evolution of Yaks’?”
“My scholarly essays,” Thoth explained. “I try to keep several projects going at once. For instance, did you know this university does not offer majors in astrology or leechcraft? Shocking! I intend to change that. I’m renovating new headquarters right now down by the river. Soon Memphis will be a true center of learning!”
“That’s brilliant,” I said halfheartedly. “We need help defeating Set.”
The ibises stopped typing and stared at me.
Thoth wiped the barbecue sauce off his mouth. “You have the nerve to ask this after last time?”
“Last time?” I repeated.
“I have the account here somewhere....” Thoth patted the pockets of his lab coat. He pulled out a rumpled piece of paper and read it. “No, grocery list.”
He tossed it over his shoulder. As soon as the paper hit the floor, it became a loaf of wheat bread, a jug of milk, and a six-pack of Mountain Dew.
Thoth checked his sleeves. I realized the stains on his coat were smeared words, printed in every language. The stains moved and changed, forming hieroglyphs, English letters, Demotic symbols. He brushed a stain off his lapel and seven letters fluttered to the floor, forming a word: crawdad. The word morphed into a slimy crustacean, like a shrimp, which wiggled its legs for only a moment before an ibis snapped it up.
“Ah, never mind,” Thoth said at last. “I’ll just tell you the short version: To avenge his father, Osiris, Horus challenged Set to a duel. The winner would become king of the gods.”
“Horus won,” Carter said.
“You do remember!”
“No, I read about it.”
“And do you remember that without my help, Isis and you both would’ve died? Oh, I tried to mediate a solution to prevent the battle. That is one of my jobs, you know: to keep balance between order and chaos. But no-o-o, Isis convinced me to help your side because Set was getting too powerful. And the battle almost destroyed the world.”
He complains too much, Isis said inside my head. It wasn’t so bad.
“No?” Thoth demanded, and I got the feeling he could hear her voice as well as I could. “Set stabbed out Horus’s eye.”
“Ouch.” Carter blinked.
“Yes, and I replaced it with a new eye made of moonlight. The Eye of Horus—your famous symbol. That was me, thank you very much. And when you cut off Isis’s head—”
“Hold up.” Carter glanced at me. “I cut off her head?”
I got better, Isis assured me.
“Only because I healed you, Isis!” Thoth said. “And yes, Carter, Horus, whatever you call yourself, you were so mad, you cut off her head. You were reckless, you see—about to charge Set while you were still weak, and Isis tried to stop you. That made you so angry you took your sword— Well, the point is, you almost destroyed each other before you could defeat Set. If you start another fight with the Red Lord, beware. He will use chaos to turn you against each other.”
We’ll defeat him again, Isis promised. Thoth is just jealous.
“Shut up,” Thoth and I said at the same time.
He looked at me with surprise. “So, Sadie...you are trying to stay in control. It won’t last. You may be blood of the pharaohs, but Isis is a deceptive, power-hungry—”
“I can contain her,” I said, and I had to use all my will to keep Isis from blurting out a string of insults.
Thoth fingered the frets of his guitar. “Don’t be so sure. Isis probably told you she helped defeat Set. Did she also tell you she was the reason Set got out of control in the first place? She exiled our first king.”
“You mean Ra?” Carter said. “Didn’t he get old and decide to leave the earth?”
Thoth snorted. “He was old, yes, but he was forced to leave. Isis got tired of waiting for him to retire. She wanted her husband, Osiris, to become king. She also wanted more power. So one day, while Ra was napping, Isis secretly collected a bit of the sun god’s drool.”
“Eww,” I said. “Since when does drool make you powerful?”
Thoth scowled at me accusingly. “You mixed the spit with clay to create a poisonous snake. That night, the serpent slipped into Ra’s bedroom and bit him on the ankle. No amount of magic, even mine, could heal him. He would’ve died—”
“Gods can die?” Carter asked.
“Oh, yes,” Thoth said. “Of course most of the time we rise again from the Duat—eventually. But this poison ate away at Ra’s very being. Isis, of course, acted innocent. She cried to see Ra in pain. She tried to help with her magic. Finally she told Ra there was only one way to save him: Ra must tell her his secret name.”
“Secret name?” I asked. “Like Bruce Wayne?”
“Everything in Creation has a secret name,” Thoth said. “Even gods. To know a being’s secret name is to have power over that creature. Isis promised that with Ra’s secret name, she could heal him. Ra was in so much pain, he agreed. And Isis healed him.”
“But it gave her power over him,” Carter guessed.
“Extreme power,” Thoth agreed. “She forced Ra to retreat into the heavens, opening the way for her beloved, Osiris, to become the new king of the gods. Set had been an important lieutenant to Ra, but he could not bear to see his brother Osiris become king. This made Set and Osiris enemies, and here we are five millennia later, still fighting that war, all because of Isis.”
“But that’s not my fault!” I said. “I would never do something like that.”