The Serpent's Shadow (Kane Chronicles, #3)

by Rick Riordan

Felix had summoned three penguins, which were waddling around wearing paper King Tut masks.

(He does have rather strong feelings about the usefulness of penguins. I’m afraid I can’t explain it.)

The King Tut masks flew off the penguins, revealing them to be—gasp—penguins.

We passed statues of glowering monsters and gods whom I’d fought in person—the vulture Nekhbet, who’d once possessed my Gran (long story); the crocodile Sobek, who’d tried to kill my cat (longer story); and the lion goddess Sekhmet, whom we’d once vanquished with hot sauce (don’t even ask).

Atop a replica of the scales of justice sat a golden baboon, which Khufu immediately started flirting with.

The building shook. Khufu shrieked and leaped into the arms of the golden baboon. Felix’s penguins waddled around frantically.

(Sadie is telling me to hurry up with the story. She says you don’t care about the feeding habits of griffins. Well, excuse me.)

It worked great, except when Felix yelled down at the mortals, “Ho, ho, ho, Merry Christmas!” Of course, most mortals can’t see magic clearly, so I’m not sure what they thought they saw as we passed overhead. No doubt it caused many of them to adjust their medication.

She gave me a toothy grin, shaking her crayon like a spear. I stepped back. Shelby might’ve been a kindergartner, but she was already an excellent magician. Her crayons sometimes morphed into weapons, and the things she drew tended to peel off the page—like the red, white, and blue unicorn she had summoned for the Fourth of July.

Julian ruffled Shelby’s hair. “Come on, sweetie. Draw me another picture, okay?” Shelby said, “Kill?”

patting our new antique cabinet and grunting in Baboon, like: Hey, Cleo, wanna buy a gold box?

make room in her library for our school texts, Internet stations, large artifacts, and Bast’s back issues of Cat Fancy magazine.

One of the shabti jumped onto the table. He tried to stick a scanner label on the golden cabinet, but Cleo shooed the clay man away. “All of you, back to your places!” She clapped her hands, and the four shabti returned to their pedestals. They reverted to solid clay, though one was still wearing rubber gloves and holding a feather duster, which looked a little odd.

There was a tiny pedestal marked by gold footprints, as if an Ancient Egyptian Barbie doll had once stood there.

“I give you permission to enter,” I said formally. “Horus, in the form of a…uh…pigeon.” “Thank you.” The pigeon hopped off the railing and waddled inside.

My understanding of magic is fairly straightforward. Hit enemies with a sword until they’re dead. If they rise again, hit them again. Repeat as necessary. It worked against Set.” “After how many years of fighting?” The pigeon glared at me. “What’s your point?”

The idea might have been more tempting if I hadn’t been looking at a plump bird with Cheerio dust on its plumage. Letting the pigeon rule the world sounded like a bad idea.

Philip was well trained. He only ate bacon, stray waterfowl, and the occasional invading monster.

Even Felix seemed to have recovered from his shock in Dallas. He was sculpting tiny shabti penguins out of his mashed potatoes and bringing them to life.

Walt shooed a mashed-potato penguin away from his Jell-O.

I reckoned it would be good to have an Egyptian relic close by for emergencies. So I did the logical thing: I borrowed a chunk of limestone frieze from the nearby Brooklyn Museum. Honestly, the museum had enough rocks. I didn’t think they’d miss this one.

We leaned on the rail overlooking the Great Room while Ra skipped back and forth on the balcony, singing nursery songs in Ancient Egyptian.

Little Shelby was chasing the other ankle-biters with a fistful of crayons that shot rainbow-colored sparks.

“Kitty!” Ra appeared behind us, patted Bast on the head, and skipped away. “Meow, meow, meow!”

(Probably she’d been attacked by Sadie’s rogue Thermos, which was still on the loose.)

Over the past year I’d got rather used to surprises—what with my cat being a goddess, my brother turning into a falcon, and Felix producing penguins in the fireplace several times a week.

“Oh, dear. Doomsday tomorrow? Bingo night was supposed to be Friday. My poor darlings will be so disappointed.…”

He had jumped out of the car wearing nothing but a Speedo and screamed, “Boo!” Yes, he’d been a true friend.

“Sadie,” Dad said firmly, “please do not refer to the Devourer of Souls as Poochiekins.”

“Robert Windham, you have been found sufficiently virtuous, despite the fact you were an investment banker.” “Red Cross donations, baby!” the ghost yelled.

For an absurd moment, I wondered if Ammit devoured the hearts of wicked cows, and if he liked the beefy taste.

I didn’t want to process that—the idea that the girl I liked had been possessed by a dung beetle and was now having dreams about pushing a giant sphere of flaming poo across the sky.

“Do you think me cruel?” Neith asked. “Oh, yes, I collect the pockets of my enemies.” “Horrifying,” I said. “I didn’t know demons had pockets.” “Oh, yes.” Neith glanced in either direction, apparently to be sure no one was eavesdropping. “You just have to know where to look.”

I wondered if I would appear on a temple wall painting someday—a blond Egyptian girl with purple highlights running sideways through the palm trees, screaming “Yikes!” in hieroglyphics as Neith chased after me. The thought of some poor archaeologist trying to figure that out almost lifted my spirits.

Two old guys in loincloths were hobbling around, throwing fireballs into the sky and incinerating flying demons. One of the old dudes kept screaming, “My pudding!” for no apparent reason. Heket the frog goddess leaped around the battlefield, knocking out monsters with her tongue. She seemed to have a special fondness for the demons with insect heads. A few yards away, the senile cat goddess Mekhit was smashing demons with her walker, yelling, “Meow!” and hissing.

Felix used an ice spell that I’d never seen before—encasing his enemies in big fluffy snowmen, complete with carrot noses and pipes. His army of penguins waddled around him, pecking at enemy magicians and stealing their wands.

Young Shelby had scattered her crayons down the hallway to trip the enemy. Now she was wielding her wand like a tennis racket, running between the legs of adult magicians, swatting them on the bottom and yelling, “Die, die, die!” Aren’t children adorable? She swatted a large metal warrior, a shabti no doubt, and he transformed into a rainbow-colored potbellied pig. If we lived through the day, I had a bad feeling Shelby would want to keep it.

“We speak with one voice,” Walt said. “Especially on this matter. No one harms Sadie Kane.”

In the Duat, Anubis looked as he always had, with his tousled dark hair and lovely brown eyes, but I’d never seen him filled with such rage. I realized that anyone who dared to hurt me would suffer his full wrath, and Walt wasn’t going to hold him back.

She was pretty easy to spot because of the palm fronds in her hair, and she kept yelling something about a Jelly Baby conspiracy.

Call me close-minded, but hearing my girlfriend talk like a five-thousand-year-old male god was not on my top ten list of Things I Find Attractive.

you’re a cat. It’s your nature to think you’re the center of the universe.” She stared at him blankly. “But I am the center of the universe.”

“That girl has a future,” Sadie said. “Reminds me of myself when I was young.” I shuddered. What a disturbing thought.

Felix ran up to us, all smiles, with a herd of penguins behind him. (Herd? Flock? Gaggle? Oh, whatever.)

Ammit the Devourer ran around the scales of justice, yapping excitedly with a birthday hat on his crocodile head.

JD Grissom and his wife, Anne, from the Dallas Museum, had finally found a party that didn’t have to end.

“Oh, my kittens. If I could, I would pick you up by the scruffs of your necks and carry you forever. But you’ve grown. Your claws are sharp, your eyesight is keen, and cats must make their own way in the world. I must say farewell for now, though I’m sure we’ll meet again.” I wanted to protest that I hadn’t grown up and I didn’t even have claws. (Carter disagrees, but what does he know?)