Who Is She? | Jaz Anderson

• twenty •

Kwai did not give up easily.

She supposed that's what happens when the Serpent of Chaos is invading your thoughts and filling you with unlimited rage and magic.

Kwai sent a chain of red lightning across the room, knocking over most of the other magicians, including his own followers. Isis must have protected Sadie, because the electricity rippled over her with no effect. Amos didn't seem bothered in his swirling red tornado. Walt stumbled, but only briefly. Ayden turned her side to it and it flickered through her harmlessly.

Even Carter in his weakened state managed to turn aside the lightning with his pharaoh's crook.

The others weren't as lucky. Jaz collapsed. Then Julian.
Then Felix and his squad of penguins. All their initiates and the rebels they'd been fighting crumpled unconscious to the floor. So much for a massive offensive.

Sadie summoned the power of Isis. She began to cast a binding charm; but Kwai wasn't done with his tricks. He raised his hands and created his own sandstorm. Dozens of whirlwinds spun through the hall, thickening and forming into creatures of sand — sphinxes, crocodiles, wolves, and lions. They attacked in every direction, even pouncing on their defenseless friends.

"Sadie, Ayden!" Amos warned. "Protect them!"

Sadie quickly changed spells casting hasty shields over their unconscious initiates. Ayden layered her own shields over the initiates, protecting them further. Amos blasted the monsters one after the other, but they just kept reforming.

Carter summoned his avatar. He charged at Kwai, but the red magician blasted him backward with a new surge of lightning. He slammed into a stone column, which collapsed on top of him. Ayden could only hope his avatar had taken the brunt of the impact.

Walt released a dozen magical creatures at once his sphinx, his camels, his ibis, even Philip of Macedonia. They charged at the sand creatures, trying to keep them away from the fallen magicians.

Then Walt turned to face Kwai.

"Anubis," Kwai hissed. "You should have stayed in your funeral parlor, boy god. You are outmatched."

By way of answer, Walt spread his hands. On either side of him, the floor cracked open. Two massive jackals leaped from the crevices, their fangs bared. Walt's form shimmered.

Suddenly he was dressed in Egyptian battle armor, a was staff twirling in his hands like a deadly fan blade.

Kwai roared. He blasted the jackals with waves of sand.
He hurled lightning and words of power at Walt, but Walt deflected them with his staff, reducing Kwai's attacks to gray ashes. Nephthys forced Ayden forward to protect her son. Ayden was forced to swallow the attacks in her wand and staff and deflected enough of his attacks back toward the caster.

The jackals harried Kwai from either side, sinking their teeth into his legs, while Walt stepped in and swung his staff like a golf club. He hit Kwai so hard, Ayden imagined it echoed all the way through the Duat. The magician fell. His sand creatures vanished.

Walt called off his iackals. Ayden stepped forward, a watery restraint shimmering just in case. Amos lowered his staff. Carter rose from the rubble, looking dizzy but unharmed. They all gathered around the fallen magician.

Kwai should have been dead. A line of blood trickled from his mouth. His eyes were glassy. But as Ayden studied his face, he took a sharp breath and laughed weakly.

"Idiots," he rasped. "Sahei."

A bloodred hieroglyph burned against his chest. His robes erupted in flames. Before their eyes, he dissolved into sand and a wave of cold — the power of Chaos — rippled through the Hall of Ages. Columns shook. Chunks of stone fell from the ceiling. A slab the size of an oven crashed into the steps of the dais, almost crushing the pharaoh's throne.