The Complete Kane Chronicles (63 page)

“And the collar,” Walt continued. “It’s got a tassel thing hanging down in back. You don’t see that with Osiris. And those animals at his feet…are those rats? I remember some story about rats—

“I thought you were priests,” Mad Claude grumped. “Obviously, the god is Ptah.”

“Ptah?” I’d heard quite a few odd Egyptian god names, but this was a new one for me. “Ptah, son of Pitooey? Is he the god of spitting?”

Claude glared at me. “Are you always so irreverent?”

“Usually, more.”

“A novice
and
a heretic,” he said. “Just my luck. Well, girl, I shouldn’t have to teach
you
about your own gods, but as I understand it, Ptah was the god of craftsmen. We compared him to our Roman god Vulcan.”

“Then what’s he doing in a tomb?” Walt asked.

Claude scratched his nonexistent head. “I’ve never been sure, actually. You don’t see him in most Egyptian funeral rites.”

Walt pointed to the statue’s staff. When I looked more closely, I realized the
djed
symbol was combined with something else, a curved top that looked strangely familiar.

“That’s the symbol
was,
” Walt said. “It means power. Lots of the gods had staffs like that, but I never realized it looks like—”

“Yes, yes,” Claude said impatiently. “The priest’s ceremonial knife for opening the mouth of the dead. Honestly, you Egyptian priests are hopeless. No wonder we conquered you so easily.”

My hand acted quite on its own, reaching into my bag and bringing out the black
netjeri
blade Anubis had given me.

Mad Claude’s eyes glinted. “Ah, so you’re
not
hopeless. That’s perfect! With that knife and the proper spell, you should be able to touch my mummy and release me into the Duat.”

“No,” I said. “No, there’s more to it. The knife, the Book of Ra, this statue of the spit god. It all fits together somehow.”

Walt’s face lit up. “Sadie, Ptah was more than the craftsman god, right? Didn’t they call him the God of Opening?”

“Um…possibly.”

“I thought you taught us that. Or maybe it was Carter.”

“Boring bit of information? Probably Carter.”

“But it’s important,” Walt insisted. “Ptah was a creation god. In some legends, he created the souls of mankind just by speaking a word. He could revive any soul, and open any door.”

My eyes drifted to the debris-filled doorway, the only other exit from the room. “Open any door?”

I held up the two scrolls of Ra and walked toward the collapsed tunnel. The scrolls became uncomfortably warm.

“The last scroll is on the other side,” I said. “We need to get past this rubble.”

I held the black knife in one hand and the scrolls in the other. I spoke the command for Open. Nothing happened. I went back to the statue of Ptah and tried the same thing. No luck.

“Hullo, Ptah?” I called. “Sorry about the spit comment. Look, we’re trying to get the third scroll of Ra, which is on the other side, there. I suppose you were placed here to open a path. So would you mind terribly?”

Still nothing happened.

Mad Claude gripped the trim of his toga as if he wanted to strangle us with it. “Look, I don’t know why you need this scroll to free us if you’ve got the knife. But why don’t you try an offering? All gods need offerings.”

Walt rummaged through his supplies. He placed a juice pouch and a bit of beef jerky at the foot of the statue. The statue did nothing. Even the gold rats at his feet apparently didn’t want our beef jerky.

“Bloody spit god.” I threw myself down on the dusty ground. I had a mummy on either side of me, but I didn’t care anymore. I couldn’t believe we were so close to the last scroll, after fighting demons, gods, and Russian assassins, and now we’d been stopped by a pile of rocks.

“I hate to suggest it,” Walt said, “but you could blast through with the
ha-di
spell.”

“And bring down the ceiling on top of us?” I said.

“You’d die,” Claude agreed. “Which isn’t an experience I’d recommend.”

Walt knelt next to me. “There’s got to be something…” He took stock of his amulets.

Mad Claude paced the room. “I still don’t understand. You’re priests. You have the ceremonial knife. Why can’t you release us?”

“The knife isn’t for you!” I snapped. “It’s for Ra!”

Walt and Claude both stared at me. I hadn’t realized it before, but as soon as I spoke, I knew it was the truth.

“Sorry,” I said. “But the knife is used for the Opening of the Mouth ceremony, to free a soul. I’ll need it to awaken Ra. That’s why Anubis gave it to me.”

“You know Anubis!” Claude clapped with delight. “He can free us all! And you—” He pointed at Walt. “You’re one of Anubis’s chosen, aren’t you? You can get us more knives if you need them! I sensed the presence of the god around you as soon as we met. Did you take his service when he realized you were dying?”

“Wait…what?” I asked.

Walt wouldn’t meet my eyes. “I’m not a priest of Anubis.”

“But
dying?”
I choked up. “How are you dying?”

Mad Claude looked incredulous. “You mean you don’t know? He’s got the old pharaoh’s curse. We didn’t see it much in my day, but I recognize it, all right. Occasionally a person from one of the old Egyptian royal lines—”

“Claude, shut up,” I said. “Walt, speak. How does this curse work?”

In the dim light, he looked thinner and older. On the wall behind him, his shadow loomed like a deformed monster.

“Akhenaton’s curse runs in my family,” he said. “Kind of a genetic disease. Not every generation, not every person, but when it strikes, it’s bad. Tut died at nineteen. Most of the others…twelve, thirteen. I’m sixteen now. My dad…my dad was eighteen. I never knew him.”

“Eighteen?” That alone brought up a host of new questions, but I tried to stay focused. “Can’t it be cured…?” Guilt washed over me, and I felt like a total imbecile. “Oh, god. That’s why you were talking to Jaz. She’s a healer.”

Walt nodded grimly. “I thought she might know spells that I hadn’t been able to find. My dad’s family—they spent years searching. My mom has been looking for a cure since I was born. The doctors in Seattle couldn’t do anything.”

“Doctors,” Mad Claude said with disgust. “I had one in the legion, loved to put leeches on my legs. Only made me worse. Now, about this connection to Anubis, and using that knife…”

Walt shook his head. “Claude, we’ll try to help you, but not with the knife. I know magic items. I’m pretty sure it can be used only once, and we can’t just make another. If Sadie needs it for Ra, she can’t risk using it before that.”

“Excuses!” Claude roared.

“If you don’t shut up,” I warned, “I’m going to find your mummy and draw a mustache on your portrait!”

Claude turned as white as…well, a ghost. “You wouldn’t dare!”

“Walt,” I said, trying to ignore the Roman, “was Jaz able to help?”

“She tried her best. But this curse has been defying healers for three thousand years. Modern doctors think it’s related to sickle cell anemia, but they don’t know. They’ve been trying for decades to figure out how King Tut died, and they can’t agree. Some say poison. Some say a genetic disease. It’s the curse, but of course they can’t say that.”

“Isn’t there any way? I mean we know
gods.
Perhaps I could cure you like Isis did Ra. If I knew your secret name—”

“Sadie, I’ve thought of that,” he said. “I’ve thought of everything. The curse can’t be cured. It can only be slowed down if…if I avoid magic. That’s why I got into talismans and amulets. They store magic in advance, so they don’t require as much from the user. But it’s only helped a little bit. I was
born
to do magic, so the curse progresses in me no matter what I do. Some days it’s not so bad. Some days my whole body is in pain. When I do magic, it gets worse.”

“And the more you do—”

“The faster I die.”

I punched him in the chest. I couldn’t help it. All my grief and guilt flipped right to anger. “You idiot! Why are you here, then? You should’ve told me to shove off! Bes warned you to stay in Brooklyn. Why didn’t you listen?”

What I told you earlier about Walt’s eyes not melting me? I take it back. When he looked at me in that dusty tomb, his eyes were every bit as dark, tender, and sad as Anubis’s. “I’m going to die anyway, Sadie. I want my life to mean something. And…I want to spend as much time as I can with you.”

That hurt me worse than a punch in the chest. Much worse.

I think I might’ve kissed him. Or possibly slapped him.

Mad Claude, however, was not a sympathetic audience. “Very sweet, I’m sure, but you promised me payment! Come back to the Roman tombs. Release my spirit from my mummy. Then release the others. After that, you can do as you like.”

“The others?” I asked. “Are you mad?”

He stared at me.

“Silly question,” I conceded. “But there are thousands of mummies. We have one knife.”

“You promised!”

“We did not,” I said. “You said we’d discuss a fee
after
we found the scroll. We’ve found nothing but a dead end here.”

The ghost growled, more like a wolf than a human. “If you won’t come to us,” he said, “we’ll come to you.”

His spirit glowed, then disappeared in a flash.

I looked nervously at Walt. “What did he mean by that?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “But we should figure out how to get through that rubble and get out of here—
quickly.
”

Despite our best efforts, nothing happened quickly. We couldn’t move the debris. There were too many large boulders. We couldn’t dig around, over, or under it. I didn’t dare risk a
ha-di
spell or use the black knife’s magic. Walt had no amulets that would help. I was frankly stumped. The statue of Ptah smiled at us but didn’t offer any helpful suggestions, nor did he seem interested in the beef jerky and juice.

Finally, covered with dust, drenched with sweat, I plopped down on a stone sarcophagus and examined my blistered fingers.

Walt sat next to me. “Don’t give up. There has to be a way.”

“Does there?” I asked, feeling especially resentful. “Like there has to be a cure for you? What if there
isn’t
? What if…”

My voice broke. Walt turned his face so it was hidden in shadow.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “That was terrible. But I just couldn’t stand it if…”

I was so confused, I didn’t know what to say, or how I felt. All I knew was that I didn’t want to lose Walt.

“Did you mean it?” I asked. “When you said you wanted to spend time…you know.”

Walt shrugged. “Isn’t it obvious?”

I didn’t answer, but, please—
nothing
is obvious with boys. For such simple creatures, they are quite baffling.

I imagined I was blushing fiercely, so I decided to change the subject.

“Claude said he sensed the spirit of Anubis about you. You’ve been talking to Anubis a lot?”

Walt turned his rings. “I thought maybe he could help me. Maybe grant me a little extra time before…before the end. I wanted to be around long enough to help you defeat Apophis. Then I’d feel like I did something with my life. And…there were other reasons I wanted to talk to him. About some—some powers I’ve been developing.”

“What sort of powers?”

It was Walt’s turn to change the subject. He looked at his hands like they’d become dangerous weapons. “The thing is, I almost didn’t come to Brooklyn. When I got the
djed
amulet —that calling card you guys sent—my mom didn’t want me to leave. She knew that learning magic would make the curse accelerate. Part of me was afraid to go. Part of me was angry. It seemed like a cruel joke. You guys offered to train me for magic when I knew I wouldn’t survive longer than a year or two.”

“A year or two?” I could hardly breathe. I’d always thought of a year as an incredibly long time. I’d waited
forever
to turn thirteen. And each school term seemed like an eternity. But suddenly two years seemed much too short. I’d only be fifteen, not even driving yet. I couldn’t imagine what it would be like to know that I would die in two years—possibly sooner, if I continued doing what I was born to do, practicing magic. “Why did you come to Brooklyn, then?”

“I had to,” Walt said. “I’ve lived my whole life under the threat of death. My mom made everything so serious, so
huge.
But when I got to Brooklyn, I felt like I had a destiny, a purpose. Even if it made the curse more painful, it was worth it.”

“But it’s so bloody unfair.”

Walt looked at me, and I realized he was smiling. “That’s
my
line. I’ve been saying that for years. Sadie, I
want
to be here. The past two months I’ve felt like I’m actually living for the first time. And getting to know you…” He cleared his throat. He was quite attractive when he got nervous. “I started worrying about small things. My hair. My clothes. Whether I brushed my teeth. I mean, I’m
dying,
and I’m worrying about my teeth.”

“You have lovely teeth.”

He laughed. “That’s what I mean. A little comment like that, and I feel better. All these small things suddenly seem important. I don’t feel like I’m dying. I feel happy.”

Personally, I felt miserable. For months I’d dreamed about Walt admitting he liked me, but not like this—not like,
I can be honest with you, because I’m dying anyway.