'No spell I could read,' Sadie agreed. 'But I have friends.'
She handed the Book of Thoth to Annabeth, who blinked in surprise. 'Um ... Sadie?'
Setne chuckled. 'What's she going to do? She may be smart, but she can't read Old Egyptian.'
Sadie gripped Annabeth's forearm. 'Miss Chase,' she said formally, 'I have one word for you.' She leaned in and whispered something in Annabeth's ear.
Annabeth's face transformed. Only once before had I seen her with such an expression of pure wonder: when she beheld the gods' palaces on Mount Olympus.
Sadie turned to me. 'Percy ... Annabeth has work to do. I need to tend to my brother. Why don't you keep our friend Setne entertained?'
Annabeth opened the scroll. She began to read aloud in Ancient Egyptian. Glowing hieroglyphs floated off the papyrus. They swirled in the air around her, mixing with Greek words as if Annabeth was adding her own commentary to the spell.
Setne looked even more surprised than I was. He made a strangled noise in the back of his throat. 'That's not ... Hold on now. No!'
He raised his arms to cast some counter spell. His crown began to glow.
I needed to move, but Nekhbet wasn't helping. She was a little too focused on Carter, who smelled chargrilled and yummy.
That one is weak, she murmured in my mind. Dead soon. The weak must die.
Anger gave me the upper hand. Carter Kane was my friend. I would not sit around while my friend died.
Move, I told Nekhbet. And I took control of the vulture avatar.
Before Setne could finish casting his spell, I grabbed him in my spectral claws and carried him into the sky.
Now ... I live and breathe weirdness. It goes with the territory when you're a demigod. But there are still moments when I do a mental double take: like when I'm flying upward inside a giant glowing vulture, flapping my arms to control make-believe wings, holding an almost-immortal magician in my talons ... all so I can steal his hat.
That hat was not coming off, either.
I spiralled into the storm, shaking Setne, trying to knock the crown off his head, but the dude must have fastened it to his pompadour with superglue.
He blasted me with fire and flashes of light. My bird exoskeleton deflected the attacks, but, each time, the purple avatar dimmed, and my wings felt heavier.
'Percy Jackson!' Setne writhed in my claws. 'This is a waste of time!'
I didn't bother responding. The strain of combat was quickly taking its toll.
During our first encounter, Carter had warned me that magic could literally burn up a magician if he used too much at once. I guessed that applied to demigods, too. Every time Setne blasted me or tried to wriggle out of my grip with his near-godly strength, my head throbbed. My eyesight dimmed. Soon I was drenched in sweat.
I hoped Sadie was helping Carter. I hoped Annabeth was finishing whatever super-weird spell she'd been chanting so we could trap Setne, because I couldn't stay airborne much longer.
We broke through the top of the cloud layer. Setne stopped fighting, which surprised me so much I almost dropped him. Then coldness began to seep through my vulture avatar, chilling my wet clothes, soaking into my bones. It was a subtler kind of attack probing for weakness and I knew I couldn't allow it. I curled my vulture feet tighter around Setne's chest, hoping to crush him.
'Percy, Percy.' His tone made it sound like we were a couple of bros on a night out. 'Don't you see what an incredible opportunity this is? A perfect do-over. You of all people should appreciate that. The Olympians once offered you their most valuable gift. They offered to make you a god, didn't they? And you you lovable idiot you turned them down! This is your chance to correct that mistake.'
My avatar flickered and blinked like a bad fluorescent tube. Nekhbet, my brain buddy, turned her attention inward.
You turned down immortality? Her voice was incredulous, offended.
She scanned my memories. I saw my own past from her dry, cynical point of view: I stood in the throne room of Mount Olympus after the war against the Titans. Zeus offered me a reward: godhood. I turned him down flat. I wanted justice for other demigods instead. I wanted the gods to stop being jerks and to pay attention to their kids.
A stupid request. A naive thing to wish for. I gave up power. You never give up power.
I struggled to keep my grip on Setne. 'Nekhbet, those are your thoughts, not mine. I made the right choice.'
Then you are a fool, the vulture goddess hissed.
'Yeah, pal,' Setne said, who apparently could hear her. 'I gotta agree with Nekhbet on this one. You did the noble thing. How did that work out? Did the gods honour their promises?'
I couldn't separate Nekhbet's bitterness from my own feelings. Sure, I grumbled about the gods all the time, but I'd never regretted my decision to stay mortal. I had a girlfriend. I had a family. I had my whole life ahead of me assuming I could stay alive.
Now ... maybe it was just Nekhbet in my mind, or Setne toying with me, but I started to wonder if I'd made a huge blunder.
'I get it, kid.' Setne's voice was full of pity. 'The gods are your family. You want to think they're good. You want to make them proud. I wanted that with my family. My dad was Ramses the Great, you know.'
I was gliding in a lazy circle now, my left wing carving the tops of the storm clouds. Setne's crown glowed more brightly. His aura grew colder, numbing my limbs and turning my thoughts sluggish. I knew I was in trouble, but I couldn't think of what to do about it.
'It's hard having a powerful dad,' Setne continued. 'Ramses was the pharaoh, of course, so most of the time he was hosting the god Horus. That made him distant, to say the least. I kept thinking, If I just make the right choices and prove I'm a good kid, he'll eventually notice me. He'll treat me right. But, the thing is, the gods don't care about mortals, even their children. Look into the vulture's mind if you don't believe me. Behave like a good little boy, act all noble that just makes it easier for the gods to ignore you. The only way to get their respect is to act up, be bad and take what you want!'
Nekhbet didn't try to convince me otherwise. She was the protector goddess of the pharaohs, but she didn't care about them as individual humans. She cared about maintaining the power of Egypt, which in turn kept the worship of the gods alive. She certainly didn't care about noble acts or fairness. Only the weak demanded fairness. The weak were carcasses waiting to die appetizers in the long dinner of Nekhbet's eternal life.
'You're a good kid,' Setne told me. 'A lot nicer than the goddess you're trying to host. But you've got to see the truth. You should've taken Zeus's offer. You would be a god now. You'd be strong enough to make those changes you asked for!'
Strength is good, Nekhbet agreed. Immortality is good.
'I'm giving you a second chance,' Setne said. 'Help me out, Percy. Become a god.'
We turned in the air as Nekhbet's consciousness separated from mine. She'd forgotten which of us was the enemy. Nekhbet favoured the strong. Setne was strong. I was weak.
I remembered the way Setne had been strip-mining the Duat cutting fissures in reality, destroying the entire cosmic order to make himself immortal.
I'll just take the bits and pieces I can use, he'd told Sadie.
My thoughts finally cleared. I understood how Setne operated, how he'd beaten us so badly up till now.
'You're looking for a way into my mind,' I said. 'Something you can relate to and use against me. But I'm not like you. I don't want immortality, especially not if it rips the world apart.'
Setne smiled. 'Well, it was worth a try. Especially since I made you lose control of your vulture!'
An explosion of cold shattered my avatar. Suddenly I was falling.
My one advantage: I'd been holding Setne in my claws, which meant he was directly below me. I slammed right into him and locked my arms around his chest. We plummeted together through the clouds.
I shivered so badly that I was surprised I could stay conscious. Frost caked my clothes. Wind and ice stung my eyes. I felt like I was downhill skiing without a mask.
I'm not sure why Setne didn't just magic himself away. I suppose even a powerful magician can succumb to panic. When you're free-falling, you forget to think rationally: Gee, I have spells and stuff. Instead your animal brain takes over and you think: OH MY GOD THIS KID IS HOLDING ON TO ME AND I'M TRAPPED AND FALLING AND I'M GOING TO DIE!
Even though I was seconds away from becoming vulture hors d'oeuvres, Setne's squawking and flapping brought me some satisfaction.
If we'd fallen straight down, I would've hit solid ground and died. No question.
Fortunately, the winds were strong and Governors Island was a small target in a very big harbour.
We hit the water with a wonderfully familiar KA-FLOOM!
My pain disappeared. Warmth surged back into my limbs. Salt water swirled around me, filling me with new energy. Seawater always did good things for me, but normally not this fast. Maybe the presence of Nekhbet ramped up my healing. Maybe my dad Poseidon was trying to do me a favour.
Whatever the case, I felt great. I grabbed Setne by the throat with one hand and began to squeeze. He fought like a demon. (Believe me, I know. I've fought a few.) The crown of Ptolemy glowed in the water, steaming like a volcanic vent. Setne clawed at my arm and exhaled streams of bubbles maybe trying to cast spells, or maybe trying to sweet talk me out of strangling him. I couldn't hear him, and I didn't want to. Underwater, I was in charge.
Bring him to shore, said Nekhbet's voice.
Are you crazy? I thought back. This is my home court.
He cannot be defeated here. Your friends are waiting.
I didn't want to, but I understood. I might be able to keep Setne occupied underwater for a while, but he was too far down the path to immortality for me to destroy. I needed to undo his magic, which meant I needed help.
I kept my grip on his throat and let the currents push me to Governors Island.
Carter waited for me on the island's ring road. His head was wrapped in bandages like a turban. The blisters on his face had been treated with some kind of purple goo. His linen ninja jammies looked like they'd been laundered in a burning wood chipper. But he was alive, and angry. In one hand he held a glowing white rope like a cowboy's lasso.
'Welcome back, Percy.' He glared at Setne. 'This guy give you any trouble?'
Setne flailed and shot fire in Carter's direction. Carter lashed the flames aside with his rope.
'I've got him under control for now,' I said.
I felt confident that was true. The seawater had brought me back to full strength. Nekhbet was cooperating again, ready to shield me from anything Setne might try. The magician himself seemed dazed and deflated. Getting strangled at the bottom of New York Harbor will do that to you.
'Let's go, then,' Carter said. 'We have a nice reception planned.'
Back at the burnt soccer fields, Sadie and Annabeth had sketched a magical bull's-eye on the ground. At least that's how it looked to me. The chalk circle was about five feet in diameter and elaborately bordered with words of power in Greek and hieroglyphics. In the Duat, I could see that the circle radiated white light. It was drawn over the rift that Setne had made, like a bandage over a wound.
The girls stood on opposite sides of the circle. Sadie crossed her arms and planted her combat boots defiantly. Annabeth was still holding the Book of Thoth.
When she saw me, she kept her battle face on, but from the gleam in her eyes I could tell she was relieved.
I mean ... we'd just passed our one-year dating anniversary. I figured I was a sort of long-term investment for her. She hoped I would pay dividends eventually; if I died now, she would've put up with all my annoying qualities for nothing.
'You lived,' she noted.
'No thanks to Elvis.' I lifted Setne by his neck. He weighed almost nothing. 'He was pretty tough until I figured out his system.'
I threw him into the centre of the circle. The four of us surrounded him. The hieroglyphs and Greek letters burned and swirled, rising in a funnel cloud to contain our prisoner.
'Dude is a scavenger,' I said. 'Not too different from a vulture. He picks through our minds, finds whatever he can relate to, and he uses that to get through our defences. Annabeth's love of wisdom. Carter's desire to make his dad proud. Sadie's '
'My incredible modesty,' Sadie guessed. 'And obvious good looks.'
Carter snorted.
'Anyway,' I said, 'Setne tried to offer me immortality. He tried to get a handle on my motives for turning it down once before, but '
'Pardon,' Sadie interrupted. 'Did you say you've turned down immortality before?'
'You can still be a god!' Setne croaked. 'All of you! Together we can '
'I don't want to be a god,' I said. 'You don't get that, do you? You couldn't find anything about me you could relate to, which I take as a big compliment.'
Inside my mind, Nekhbet hissed: Kill him. Destroy him utterly.
No, I said. Because that's not me, either.
I stepped to the edge of the circle. 'Annabeth, Carter, Sadie ... you ready to put this guy away?'
'Any time.' Carter hefted his rope.
I crouched until I was face-to-face with Setne. His kohl-lined eyes were wide and unfocused. On his head, the crown of Ptolemy tilted sideways like an observatory telescope.
'You were right about one thing,' I told him. 'There's a lot of power in mixing Greek and Egyptian. I'm glad you introduced me to my new friends. We're going to keep mixing it up.'
'Percy Jackson, listen '
'But there's a difference between sharing and stealing,' I said. 'You have something that belongs to me.'
He started to speak. I shoved my hand right in his mouth.
Sound gross? Wait, it gets worse.
Something guided me maybe Nekhbet's intuition, maybe my own instincts. My fingers closed around a small pointy object in the back of Setne's throat, and I yanked it free: my ballpoint pen, Riptide.
It was like I'd pulled the plug out of a tyre. Magic spewed from Setne's mouth: a multicoloured stream of hieroglyphic light.
GET BACK! Nekhbet screamed in my mind as Annabeth yelled the same thing aloud.
I stumbled away from the circle. Setne writhed and spun as all the magic he'd tried to absorb now came gushing out in a disgusting torrent. I'd heard about people 'puking rainbows', because they saw something that was just too cute.
Let me tell you: if you actually see someone puking rainbows ... there's nothing cute about it.
Annabeth and Sadie shouted magic commands in unison. The funnel cloud of magic intensified around the circle, hemming in Setne, who was shrivelling rapidly. The crown of Ptolemy rolled off his head. Carter stepped forward and threw his glowing rope.
As soon as the rope touched Setne, a flash of light blinded me.
When my vision returned, Setne and the rope were gone. No magic lights swirled. The vulture goddess had left my mind. My mouth no longer tasted like dead hyena.
Annabeth, the Kanes and I stood in a loose ring, staring at the crown of Ptolemy, which lay sideways in the dirt. Next to it sat a plastic bauble the size of a goose egg.