“Except Setne’s dead,” I said. “We keep coming back to that.”
Walt sat up. “Unless…you’re suggesting we find his spirit in the Underworld. But if Setne was so evil, wouldn’t Osiris have condemned him in the Hall of Judgment? Ammit would’ve eaten his heart, and he would have ceased to exist.”
“Normally, yes,” Thoth said. “But Setne is a special case. He’s quite…persuasive. Even before the court of the Underworld, he was able to, ah, manipulate the legal system. Many times, Osiris sentenced him to oblivion, but Setne always managed to evade punishment. He got a lighter sentence, or he made a plea bargain, or he simply escaped. He’s managed to survive—as a spirit, at least—all these eons.”
Thoth turned his swirling eyes toward me. “But recently, Carter Kane, your father became Osiris. He’s been cracking down on rebellious ghosts, trying to restore Ma’at to the Underworld. The next time the sun sets, approximately fourteen hours from now, Setne is scheduled for a new trial. He will come before your father. And this time—”
“My dad won’t let him go.” I felt like the demon’s hands were closing around my throat again.
My father was fair but stern. He didn’t take excuses from anyone. All the years we’d traveled together, I could never even get away with leaving my shirt untucked. If Setne was as bad as Thoth said, my father would show him no mercy. He’d toss this guy’s heart to Ammit the Devourer like it was a doggie biscuit.
Walt’s eyes shone with excitement. He looked more animated than I’d seen him in a long time. “We can plead with your dad,” he said. “We can get Setne’s trial delayed, or ask for a reduced sentence in exchange for Setne’s help. The laws of the Underworld allow that.”
I frowned. “How do you know so much about dead people’s court?”
I regretted saying that immediately. I realized that he’d probably been preparing himself to face that courtroom. Maybe that’s what he’d been discussing with Thoth earlier.
I’m afraid you don’t have much time, Thoth had said.
“Sorry, man,” I said.
“It’s okay,” Walt said. “But we have to try. If we can convince your dad to spare Setne—”
Thoth laughed. “That would be amusing, wouldn’t it? If Setne got off yet again, because his evil ways were the only thing that might save the world?”
“Hilarious,” I said. The brisket sandwich wasn’t sitting well in my stomach. “So you’re suggesting we go to my father’s court and try to save the ghost of an evil psychotic magician. Then we ask this ghost to lead us to Apophis’s shadow and teach us how to destroy it, while trusting that he won’t escape, kill us, or betray us to the enemy.”
Thoth nodded enthusiastically. “You’d have to be crazy! I certainly hope you are.”
I took a deep breath. “I guess I’m crazy.”
“Excellent!” Thoth cheered. “One more thing, Carter. To make this work, you’ll need Walt’s help, but he’s running out of time. His only chance—”
“It’s fine,” Walt snapped. “I’ll tell him myself.”
Before I could ask what he meant, the overtime buzzer blared from the arena’s speakers.
“It’s almost dawn,” Thoth said. “You two had better leave, before the demons return. Good luck. And by all means, give Setne my regards—if you live that long, of course.”
8. My Sister, The Flowerpot
THE RIDE BACK WASN’T FUN.
Walt and I held on to the boat while our teeth chattered and our eyes jiggled. The magic fog had turned the color of blood. Ghostly voices whispered angrily, like they’d decided to riot and loot the ethereal world.
Sooner than I expected, Freak pushed his way out of the Duat. We found ourselves over the New Jersey dockyards, our boat trailing steam as Freak bobbed wearily through the air. In the distance, the Manhattan skyline gleamed gold in the sunrise.
Walt and I hadn’t spoken during the trip. The Duat tends to put a damper on conversation. Now he regarded me sheepishly.
“I should explain some things,” he said.
I can’t pretend I wasn’t curious. As his sickness had progressed, Walt had gotten more and more secretive. I wondered what he’d been talking about with Thoth.
But it wasn’t my business. After Sadie learned my secret name last spring and got a free tour of my innermost thoughts, I’d become sensitive about respecting people’s privacy.
“Look, Walt, it’s your personal life,” I said. “If you don’t want to tell—”
“But it’s not just personal. You need to know what’s going on. I—I won’t be around much longer.”
I gazed down at the harbor, the Statue of Liberty passing below us. For months I’d known Walt was dying. It never got easier to accept. I remembered what Apophis had said at the Dallas Museum: Walt wouldn’t live long enough to see the end of the world.
“Are you sure?” I asked. “Isn’t there some way—?”
“Anubis is sure,” he said. “I’ve got until sunset tomorrow, at the very latest.”
I didn’t want to hear another impossible deadline. By sunset tonight, we had to save the ghost of an evil magician. By sunset tomorrow, Walt would die. And the sunrise after that, if we were really lucky, we could look forward to Doomsday.
I never liked being thwarted. Whenever I felt like something was impossible, I usually tried even harder out of sheer stubbornness.
But at this point, I felt like Apophis was having a good laugh at my expense.
Oh, you’re not a quitter? he seemed to be asking. How about now? What if we give you a few more impossible tasks? Are you a quitter now?
Anger made a small hard knot in my gut. I kicked the side of the boat and nearly broke my foot.
Walt blinked. “Carter, it’s—”
“Don’t say it’s all right!” I snapped. “It’s not all right.”
I wasn’t mad at him. I was mad at the unfairness of his stupid curse, and the fact that I kept failing people who depended on me. My parents had died to give Sadie and me a chance to save the world, which we were close to botching. In Dallas, dozens of good magicians had died because they’d tried to help me. Now we were about to lose Walt.
Sure, he was important to Sadie. But I relied on him just as much. Walt was my unofficial lieutenant at Brooklyn House. The other kids listened to him. He was a calming presence in every crisis, the deciding vote in every debate. I could trust him with any secret—and even with making the execration statue of Apophis, which I couldn’t tell my uncle about. If Walt died…
“I won’t let it happen,” I said. “I refuse.”
Wild thoughts ran through my mind: Maybe Anubis was lying to Walt about his imminent death, trying to push Walt away from Sadie. (Okay, unlikely. Sadie wasn’t that much of a prize.)
[Yeah, Sadie, I really said that. Just checking to see if you were still paying attention.]
Maybe Walt could beat the odds. People survived cancer miraculously. Why not ancient curses? Maybe we could put him in suspended animation like Iskandar had done for Zia, until we found an antidote. Sure, his family had been searching for a cure unsuccessfully for centuries. Jaz, our best healer, had tried everything with no luck. But maybe we’d overlooked something.
“Carter,” Walt said. “Will you let me finish? We’ve got to make plans.”
“How can you be so calm?” I demanded.
Walt fingered his shen necklace, the twin of the one he’d given Sadie. “I’ve known about my curse for years. I won’t let it stop me from doing what I need to. One way or another, I’m going to help you beat Apophis.”
“How?” I said. “You just told me—”
“Anubis has an idea,” Walt said. “He’s been helping me make sense of my powers.”
“You mean…” I glanced at Walt’s hands. Several times I’d seen him turn objects to ashes simply by touching them, the way he’d done to that criosphinx in Dallas. The power didn’t come from any of his magic items. None of us understood it, and as Walt’s disease progressed, he seemed less and less able to control it, which made me think twice about giving the guy a high five.