The Staff of Serapis (2 page)

The other girl yelled something like: “
Mar!
”

A series of golden hieroglyphs blazed in the air:

The dog creature staggered backwards, retching as if it had swallowed a billiard ball.

Annabeth struggled to keep Crabby down, but the beast was twice her weight. It pushed up on its forelegs, trying to throw her. Both heads turned to snap at her face.

Fortunately she’d harnessed plenty of wild pegasi at Camp Half-Blood. She managed to keep her balance while slipping off her backpack. She smacked twenty pounds of architecture books into the lion’s head, then looped her shoulder strap through the wolf’s maw and yanked it like a bit.

Meanwhile, the train burst into the sunlight. They rattled along the elevated rails of Queens, fresh air blowing through the broken windows and glittering bits of glass dancing across the seats.

Out of the corner of her eye, Annabeth saw the black dog shake off its fit of retching. It lunged at Karate Girl, who whipped out her ivory boomerang and blasted the monster with another golden flash.

Annabeth wished she could summon golden flashes. All she had was a stupid backpack. She did her best to subdue Crabby, but the monster seemed to get stronger by the second while the thing’s red aura weakened Annabeth. Her head felt stuffed with cotton. Her stomach twisted.

She lost track of time as she wrestled the creature. She only knew she couldn’t let it combine with that dog-headed thing. If the monster turned into a complete three-headed whatever-it-was, it might be impossible to stop.

The dog lunged again at Karate Girl. This time it knocked her down. Annabeth, distracted, lost her grip on the crab monster, and it threw her off—slamming her head into the edge of a seat.

Her ears rang as the creature roared in triumph. A wave of red-hot energy rippled through the car. The train pitched sideways, and Annabeth went weightless.

“Up you come,” said a girl’s voice. “We have to move.”

Annabeth opened her eyes. The world was spinning. Emergency sirens wailed in the distance.

She was lying flat on her back in some prickly weeds. The blonde girl from the train leaned over her, tugging on her arm.

Annabeth managed to sit up. She felt as if someone was hammering hot nails into her rib cage. As her vision cleared, she realized she was lucky to be alive. About fifty yards away, the subway train had toppled off the track. The cars lay sideways in a broken, steaming zigzag of wreckage that reminded Annabeth of a 
drakon
 carcass (unfortunately, she’d seen several of those).

She spotted no wounded mortals. Hopefully they’d all fled the train at the Fulton Street station. But still—what a disaster.

Annabeth recognized where she was: Rockaway Beach. A few hundred feet to the left, vacant plots and bent chain-link fences gave way to a yellow sand beach dotted with tar and trash. The sea churned under a cloudy sky. To Annabeth’s right, past the train tracks, stood a row of apartment towers so dilapidated they might’ve been make-believe buildings fashioned from old refrigerator boxes.

“Yoo-hoo.” Karate Girl shook her shoulder. “I know you’re probably in shock, but we need to go. I don’t fancy being questioned by the police with 
this
 thing in tow.”

The girl scooted to her left. Behind her on the broken tarmac, the black Labrador monster flopped like a fish out of water, its muzzle and paws bound in glowing golden rope.

Annabeth stared at the younger girl. Round her neck glinted a chain with a silver amulet – a symbol like an Egyptian ankh crossed with a gingerbread man.

At her side lay her staff and her ivory boomerang—both carved with hieroglyphs and pictures of strange, very 
un-Greek
 monsters.

“Who 
are
 you?” Annabeth demanded.

A smile tugged at the corner of the girl’s mouth. “Usually I don’t give my name to strangers. Magical vulnerabilities and all that. But I have to respect someone who fights a two-headed monster with nothing but a rucksack.” She offered her hand. “Sadie Kane.”

“Annabeth Chase.”

They shook.

“Lovely to meet you, Annabeth,” Sadie said. “Now, let’s take our dog for a walk, shall we?”

They left just in time.

Within minutes, emergency vehicles had surrounded the train wreck, and a crowd of spectators gathered from the nearby apartment buildings.

Annabeth felt more nauseous than ever. Red spots danced before her eyes, but she helped Sadie drag the dog creature backwards by its tail into the sand dunes. Sadie seemed to take pleasure in pulling the monster over as many rocks and broken bottles as she could find.

The beast snarled and wriggled. Its red aura glowed more brightly, while the golden rope dimmed.

Normally Annabeth liked walking on the beach. The ocean reminded her of Percy. But today she was hungry and exhausted. Her backpack felt heavier by the moment, and the dog creature’s magic made her want to hurl.

Also, Rockaway Beach was a dismal place. A massive hurricane had blown through more than a year ago, and the damage was still obvious. Some of the apartment buildings in the distance had been reduced to shells, their boarded-up windows and breeze-block walls covered in graffiti. Rotted timber, chunks of tarmac and twisted metal littered the beach. The pylons of a destroyed pier jutted up out of the water. The sea itself gnawed resentfully at the shore as if to say, 
Don’t ignore me. I can always come back and finish the job.

Finally they reached a derelict ice-cream truck half sunken in the dunes. Painted on the side, faded pictures of long-lost tasty treats made Annabeth’s stomach howl in protest.

“Gotta stop,” she muttered.

She dropped the dog monster and staggered over to the truck, then slid down with her back against the passenger’s door.

Sadie sat cross-legged, facing her. She rummaged around in her own backpack and brought out a cork-stoppered ceramic vial.

“Here.” She handed it to Annabeth. “It’s yummy. Drink.”

Annabeth studied the vial warily. It felt heavy and warm, as if it were full of hot coffee. “Uh . . . this won’t unleash any golden flashes of 
ka-bam
 in my face?”

Sadie snorted. “It’s just a healing potion, silly. A friend of mine, Jaz, brews the best in the world.”

Annabeth still hesitated. She’d sampled potions before, brewed by the children of Hecate. Usually they tasted like pond-scum soup, but at least they were made to work on demigods. Whatever was in this vial, it definitely wasn’t.

“I’m not sure I should try,” she said. “I’m . . . not like you.”

“
No one
 is like me,” Sadie agreed. “My amazingness is unique. But if you mean you’re not a magician, well, I can
 see
 that. Usually we fight with staff and wand.” She patted the carved white pole and the ivory boomerang lying next to her. “Still, I think my potions should work on you. You wrestled a monster. You survived that train wreck. You 
can’t
 be normal.”

Annabeth laughed weakly. She found the other girl’s brashness sort of refreshing. “No, I’m definitely not normal. I’m a demigod.”

“Ah.” Sadie tapped her fingers on her curved wand. “Sorry, that’s a new one on me. A 
demon god
?”

“Demigod,” Annabeth corrected. “Half god, half mortal.”

“Oh, right.” Sadie exhaled, clearly relieved. “I’ve hosted Isis in my head quite a few times. Who’s
 your
 special friend?”

“My – no. I don’t 
host
 anybody. My mother is a Greek goddess, Athena.”

“Your mother.”

“Yeah.”

“A goddess. A 
Greek
 goddess.”

“Yeah.” Annabeth noticed that her new friend had gone pale. “I guess you don’t have that kind of thing, um, where you come from.”

“Brooklyn?” Sadie mused. “No. I don’t think so. Or London. Or Los Angeles. I don’t recall meeting Greek 
demigods
 in any of those places. Still, when one has dealt with magical baboons, goddess cats and dwarfs in Speedos, one can’t be surprised very easily.”

Annabeth wasn’t sure she’d heard right. “Dwarfs in Speedos?”

“Mmm.” Sadie glanced at the dog monster, still writhing in its golden bonds. “But here’s the rub. A few months ago my mum gave me a warning. She told me to beware of other gods and other types of magic.”

The vial in Annabeth’s hands seemed to grow warmer. “Other gods. You mentioned Isis. She’s the Egyptian goddess of magic. But … she’s not your mom?”

“No,” Sadie said. “I mean, yes. Isis is the goddess of Egyptian magic. But she’s not my mum. My mum’s a ghost. Well … she was a magician in the House of Life, like me, but then she died, so—”

“Just a sec.” Annabeth’s head throbbed so badly she figured nothing could make it worse. She uncorked the potion and drank it down.

She’d been expecting pond-scum consommé, but it actually tasted like warm apple juice. Instantly, her vision cleared. Her stomach settled.

“Wow,” she said.

“Told you,” Sadie smirked. “Jaz is quite the apothecary.”

“So you were saying … House of Life. Egyptian magic. You’re like the kid my boyfriend met.”

Sadie’s smile eroded. “Your boyfriend … met someone like me? Another magician?”

A few feet away, the dog creature snarled and struggled. Sadie didn’t appear concerned, but Annabeth was worried about how dimly the magic rope was glowing now.

“This was a few weeks ago,” Annabeth said. “Percy told me a crazy story about meeting a boy out near Moriches Bay. Apparently this kid used hieroglyphs to cast spells. He helped Percy battle a big crocodile monster.”

“The Son of Sobek!” Sadie blurted. “But my 
brother
 battled that monster. He didn’t say anything about –”

“Is your brother’s name Carter?” Annabeth asked.

An angry golden aura flickered around Sadie’s head—a halo of hieroglyphs that resembled frowns, fists and dead stick men.

“As of this moment,” Sadie growled, “my brother’s name is Punching Bag. Seems he hasn’t been telling me everything.”

“Ah.” Annabeth had to fight the urge to scoot away from her new friend. She feared those glowing angry hieroglyphs might explode. “Awkward. Sorry.”

“Don’t be,” Sadie said. “I’ll rather enjoy bashing my brother’s face in. But first tell me everything—about yourself, demigods, Greeks and whatever it might have to do with our evil canine friend here.”

Annabeth told her what she could.

Usually she wasn’t so quick to trust, but she’d had a lot of experience reading people. She liked Sadie immediately: the combat boots, the purple highlights, the attitude … In Annabeth’s experience, untrustworthy people weren’t so up-front about wanting to bash someone’s face in. They certainly didn’t help an unconscious stranger and offer a healing potion.

Annabeth described Camp Half-Blood. She recounted some of her adventures battling gods and giants and Titans. She explained how she’d spotted the two-headed lion-wolf-crab at the West Fourth Street station and decided to follow it.

“So here I am,” Annabeth summed up.

Sadie’s mouth quivered. She looked as if she might start yelling or crying. Instead, she broke down in a fit of the giggles.

Annabeth frowned. “Did I say something funny?”

“No, no …” Sadie snorted. “Well … it is a 
bit
 funny. I mean, we’re sitting on the beach talking about Greek gods. And a camp for demigods, and—”

“It’s all true!”

“Oh, I believe you. It’s too ridiculous 
not
 to be true. It’s just that each time my world gets stranger, I think: 
Right.
 
We’re at maximum oddness now. At least I know the full extent of it. 
First, I find out my brother and I are descended from the pharaohs and have magic powers. All right. No problem. Then I find out my dead father has merged his soul with Osiris and become the lord of the dead. Brilliant! Why not? Then my uncle takes over the House of Life and oversees hundreds of magicians around the world. Then my boyfriend turns out to be a hybrid magician boy/immortal god of funerals. And all the while I’m thinking, 
Of course! Keep calm and carry on! I’ve adjusted!
 And then you come along on a random Thursday, la-di-da, and say, 
Oh, by the way, Egyptian gods are just one small part of the cosmic absurdity. We’ve also got the Greeks to worry about! Hooray!
”

Annabeth couldn’t follow everything Sadie had said—a funeral god boyfriend?—but she had to admit that giggling about it was healthier than curling into a ball and sobbing.

“Okay,” she admitted. “It all sounds a little crazy, but I guess it makes sense. My teacher Chiron … for years he’s been telling me that ancient gods are immortal because they’re part of the fabric of civilization. If Greek gods can stick around all these millennia, why not the Egyptians?”

“The more the merrier,” Sadie agreed. “But, erm, what about this little doggie?” She picked up a tiny seashell and bounced it off the head of the Labrador monster, which snarled in irritation. “One minute it’s sitting on the table in our library – a harmless artefact, a stone fragment from some statue, we think. The next minute it comes to life and breaks out of Brooklyn House. It shreds our magical wards, ploughs through Felix’s penguins and shrugs off my spells like they’re nothing.”

“Penguins?” Annabeth shook her head. “No. Forget I asked.”

She studied the dog creature as it strained against its bonds. Red Greek letters and hieroglyphs swirled around it as if trying to form new symbols – a message Annabeth could almost read.

“Will those ropes hold?” she asked. “They look like they’re weakening.”

“No worries,” Sadie assured her. “Those ropes have held gods before. And not small gods, mind you. Extra-large ones.”

“Um, okay. So you said the dog was part of a statue. Any idea 
what
 statue?”

“None.” Sadie shrugged. “Cleo, our librarian, was just researching that question when Fido here woke up.”

“But it has to be connected to the other monster – the wolf and the lion heads. I got the impression they’d just come to life, too. They’d fused together and weren’t used to working as a team. They got on that train searching for something – probably this dog.”