The Red Pyramid

34. Doughboy Gives Us a Ride

I SUMMONED DAD’S MAGIC TOOLKIT out of the Duat and grabbed our little legless friend. “Doughboy, we need to talk.”

Doughboy opened his wax eyes. ““Finally! You realize how stuffy it is in there? At last you’ve remembered that you need my brilliant guidance.”

“Actually we need you to become a coat. Just for a while.”

His tiny mouth fell open. “Do I look like an article of clothing? I am the lord of all knowledge! The mighty-”

I smashed him into my jacket, wadded it up, threw it on the pavement and stepped on it. “Zia, what’s that spell?”

She told me the words, and I repeated the chant. The coat inflated and hovered in front of me. It brushed itself off and ruffled its collar. If coats can look indignant, this one did.

Sadie eyed it suspiciously. “Can it drive a lorry with no feet for the pedals?”

“Shouldn’t be a problem,” Zia said. “It’s a nice long coat.”

I sighed with relief. For a moment, I’d imagined myself having to animate my pants, too. That could get awkward.

“Drive us to Phoenix,” I told the coat.

The coat made a rude gesture at me-or at least, it would’ve been rude if the coat had hands. Then it floated into the driver’s seat.

The cab was bigger than I’d thought. Behind the seat was a curtained area with a full-size bed, which Sadie claimed immediately.

“I’ll let you and Zia have some quality time,” she told me. “Just the two of you and your coat.”

She ducked behind the curtains before I could smack her.

The coat drove us west on I-10 as a bank of dark clouds swallowed the stars. The air smelled like rain.

After a long time, Zia cleared her throat. “Carter, I’m sorry about…I mean, I wish the circumstances were better.”

“Yeah,” I said. “I guess you’ll get in a lot of trouble with the House.”

“I will be shunned,” she said. “My staff broken. My name blotted from the books. I’ll be cast into exile, assuming they don’t kill me.”

I thought about Zia’s little shrine in the First Nome-all those pictures of her village and her family that she didn’t remember. As she talked about getting exiled, she had the same expression on her face that she had worn then: not regret or sadness, more like confusion, as if she herself couldn’t figure out why she was rebelling, or what the First Nome had meant to her. She’d said Iskandar was like her only family. Now she had no one.

“You could come with us,” I said.

She glanced over. We were sitting close together, and I was very aware of her shoulder pressing against mine. Even with the reek of burned peppers on both of us, I could smell her Egyptian perfume. She had a dried chili stuck in her hair, and somehow that made her look even cuter.

Sadie says my brain was just addled. [Seriously, Sadie, I don’t interrupt this much when you’re telling the story.]

Anyway, Zia looked at me sadly. “Where would we go, Carter? Even if you defeat Set and save this continent, what will you do? The House will hunt you down. The gods will make your life miserable.”

“We’ll figure it out,” I promised. “I’m used to traveling. I’m good at improvising, and Sadie’s not all bad.”

“I heard that!” Sadie’s muffled voice came through the curtain.

“And with you,” I continued, “I mean, you know, with your magic, things would be easier.”

Zia squeezed my hand, which sent a tingle up my arm. “You’re kind, Carter. But you don’t know me. Not really. I suppose Iskandar saw this coming.”

“What do you mean?”

Zia took her hand away, which kind of bummed me out. “When Desjardins and I came back from the British Museum, Iskandar spoke to me privately. He said I was in danger. He said he would take me somewhere safe and…” Her eyebrows knit together. “That’s odd. I don’t remember.”

A cold feeling started gnawing at me. “Wait, did he take you somewhere safe?”

“I…I think so.” She shook her head. “No, he couldn’t have, obviously. I’m still here. Perhaps he didn’t have time. He sent me to find you in New York almost immediately.”

Outside, a light rain began to fall. The coat turned on our windshield wipers.

I didn’t understand what Zia had told me. Perhaps Iskandar had sensed a change in Desjardins, and he was trying to protect his favorite student. But something else about the story bothered me-something I couldn’t quite put my finger on.

Zia stared into the rain as if she saw bad things out there in the night.

“We’re running out of time,” she said. “He’s coming back.”

“Who’s coming back?”

She looked at me urgently. “The thing I needed to tell you-the thing you need. It’s Set’s secret name.”

The storm surged. Thunder crackled and the truck shuddered in the wind.

“H-hold on,” I stammered. “How could you know Set’s name? How did you even know we needed it?”

“You stole Desjardins’ book. Desjardins told us about it. He said it didn’t matter. He said you could not use the spell without Set’s secret name, which is impossible to get.”

“So how do you know it? Thoth said it could only come from Set himself, or from the person…” My voice trailed off as a horrible thought occurred to me. “Or from the person closest to him.”

Zia shut her eyes as if in pain. “I-I can’t explain it, Carter. I just have this voice telling me the name-”

“The fifth goddess,” I said, “Nephthys. You were there too at the British Museum.”

Zia looked completely stunned. “No. That’s impossible.”

“Iskandar said you were in danger. He wanted to take you somewhere safe. That’s what he meant. You’re a godling.”

She shook her head stubbornly. “But he didn’t take me away. I’m right here. If I were hosting a god, the other magicians of the House would’ve figured it out days ago. They know me too well. They would’ve noticed the changes in my magic. Desjardins would’ve destroyed me.”

She had a point-but then another terrible thought occurred to me. “Unless Set is controlling him,” I said.

“Carter, are you really so blind? Desjardins is not Set.”

“Because you think it’s Amos,” I said. “Amos who risked his life to save us, who told us to keep going without him. Besides, Set doesn’t need a human form. He’s using the pyramid.”

“Which you know because…?”

I hesitated. “Amos told us.”

“This is getting us nowhere,” Zia said. “I know Set’s secret name, and I can tell you. But you must promise you will not tell Amos.”

“Oh, come on. Besides, if you know the name, why can’t you just use it yourself?”

She shook her head, looking almost as frustrated as I felt. “I don’t know why…I just know it’s not my role to play. It must be you or Sadie-blood of the pharaohs. If you don’t-”

The truck slowed abruptly. Out the front windshield, about twenty yards ahead, a man in a blue coat was standing in our headlights. It was Amos. His clothes were tattered like he’d been sprayed with a shotgun, but otherwise he looked okay. Before the truck had even stopped completely, I jumped out of the cab and ran to meet him.

“Amos!” I cried. “What happened?”

“I distracted Sekhmet,” he said, putting a finger through one of the holes in his coat. “For about eleven seconds. I’m glad to see you survived.”

“There was a salsa factory,” I started to explain, but Amos held up his hand.

“Time for explanations later,” he said. “Right now we have to get going.”

He pointed northwest, and I saw what he meant. The storm was worse up ahead. A lot worse. A wall of black blotted out the night sky, the mountains, the highway, as if it would swallow the whole world.

“Set’s storm is gathering,” Amos said with a twinkle in his eyes. “Shall we drive into it?”

S A D I E