Eye of Hecate

Carter

Down in the Great Room, Khufu the baboon sits on the sofa with a basketball between his legs and a chunk of strange-looking meat in his hands. It's covered in pink feathers. ESPN is on the television, and Khufu is watching highlights from the games the night before.

"Hey," I say, though I feel a little weird talking to him. "Lakers win?"

Khufu looks at me and pats his basketball like he wants a game. "Agh, agh."

He has a pink feather hanging from his chin, and the sight makes my stomach do a slow roll.

"Um, yeah," I say. "We'll play later, okay?"

I look over on the mantle where the TV sits, and spot a picture frame. Carefully, as to not block Khufu's view, I peer over at it. It's Amos and that girl I saw the night before. Ozzy. She looks much younger in the photo, but she's dressed in a linen outfit a lot like mine, except hers is black. 

"Who's this?" I ask the baboon. 

Khufu gets excited. He jumps on the couch and slaps his head. "Agh! Agh! Agh!"

"Right," I mutter. 

I can see Sadie and Amos out on the terrace, eating breakfast by the pool. It should be freezing out there, but the fire pit is blazing, and neither Amos nor Sadie looks cold. I head their way, then hesitate in front of the statue of Thoth. In the daylight, the bird-headed god doesn't look quite so scary. Still, I can swear those beady eyes are watching me expectantly. 

What did the fiery guy say last night? Something about catching us before we learn our powers. It sounds ridiculous, but for a moment I feel a surge of strength—like the night before when I opened the front door just by raising my hand. I feel like I can lift anything, even this thirty-foot-tall statue if I wanted to. In a kind of trance, I step forward.

Muffin meows impatiently and butts my foot. The feeling dissolves.

"You're right," I tell the cat. "Stupid idea."

Besides, I can smell breakfast now—French toast, bacon, hot chocolate—and I can't blame Muffin for being in a hurry. I follow her out to the terrace.

"Ah, Carter," Amos says. "Merry Christmas, my boy. Join us."

"About time," Sadie grumbles. "I've been up for ages."

But she holds my eyes for a moment, like she's thinking the same thing I am: Christmas. We haven't spent a Christmas morning together since Mom died. I wonder if Sadie remembers how we used to make god's-eye decorations out of yarn and Popsicle sticks.

Amos pours himself a cup of coffee. His clothes are similar to those he wore yesterday, and I have to admit the guy has style. His tailored suit is made of blue wool, he wears a matching fedora, and his hair is freshly braided with dark blue lapis lazuli, one of the stones the Egyptians often used for jewelry. Even his glasses match. The round lenses are tinted blue. A tenor sax rests on a stand near the fire pit, and I can totally picture him playing out here, serenading the East River. His eyes look sad as he looks over the river at Manhattan, as if he's waiting for something he knows won't come.

As for Sadie, she's dressed in a white linen pajama outfit like me, but somehow she managed to keep her combat boots. She probably slept with them on. She looks pretty comical with the red-streaked hair and the outfit, but since I'm not dressed any better, I can hardly make fun of her.

"Um...Amos?" I ask. "You didn't have any pet birds, did you? Khufu's eating something with pink feathers."

"Mmm." Amos sips his coffee. "Sorry if that disturbed you. Khufu's very picky. He only eats foods that end in -o. Doritos, burritos, flamingos."

I blink. "Did you say—"

"Carter," Sadie warns. She looks a little queasy, like she already had this conversation. "Don't ask."

"Okay," I say. "Not asking."

"Please, Carter, help yourself." Amos waves toward a buffet table piled high with food. "Then we can get started with the explanations."

I don't see any flamingo on the buffet table, which is fine by me, but there is just about everything else. I snag some pancakes with butter and syrup, some bacon, and a glass of OJ.

Then I notice movement in the corner of my eye. I glance at the swimming pool. Something long and pale is gliding just under the surface of the water.

I almost drop my plate. "Is that—"

"A crocodile," Amos confirms. "For good luck. He's albino, but please don't mention that. He's sensitive."

"His name is Philip of Macedonia," Sadie informs me.

I'm not sure how Sadie is taking this all so calmly, but I figure if she isn't freaking out, I shouldn't either.

"That's a long name," I say.

"He's a long crocodile," Sadie says. "Oh, and he likes bacon."

To prove her point, she tosses a piece of bacon over her shoulder. Philip lunges out of the water and snaps up the treat. His hide is pure white and his eyes are pink. His mouth is so big, he could snap up an entire pig.

"He's quite harmless to my friends," Amos assures me. "In the old days, no temple would be complete without a lake full of crocodiles. They are powerful magic creatures."

"Right," I say. "So the baboon, the crocodile...any other pets I should know about?"

Amos thinks for a moment. "Visible ones? No, I think that's it."

I take a seat as far from the pool as possible. Muffin circles my legs and purrs. I hope she has enough sense to stay away from magic crocodiles named Philip.

"So, Amos," I say between bites of pancake. "Explanations."

"Yes," he agrees. "Where to start..."

"Our dad," Sadie suggests. "What happened to him?"

Amos takes a deep breath. "Julius was attempting to summon a god. Unfortunately, it worked."

It's kind of hard to take Amos seriously, talking about summoning gods while he spreads butter on a bagel.

"Any god in particular?" I ask casually. "Or did he just order a generic god?"

Sadie kicks me under the table. She's scowling, as if she actually believes what Amos is saying.

Amos takes a bite of bagel. "There are many Egyptian gods, Carter. But your dad was after one in particular."

He looks at me meaningfully.

"Osiris," I remember. "When Dad was standing in front of the Rosetta Stone, he said, 'Osiris, come.' But Osiris is a legend. He's make-believe."

"I wish that were true." Amos stares across the East River again at the Manhattan skyline, gleaming in the morning sun. "The Ancient Egyptians were not fools, Carter. They built the pyramids. They created the first great nation state. Their civilization lasted thousands of years."

"Yeah," I say. "And now they're gone."

Amos shakes his head. "A legacy that powerful does not disappear. Next to the Egyptians, the Greeks and Romans were babies. Our modern nations like Great Britain and America? Blinks of an eye. The very oldest root of civilization, at least of Western civilization, is Egypt. Look at the pyramid on the dollar bill. Look at the Washington Monument—the world's largest Egyptian obelisk. Egypt is still very much alive. And so, unfortunately, are her gods."

"Come on," I argue. "I mean...even if I believe there's a real thing called magic. Believing in ancient gods is totally different. You're joking, right?"

But as I say it, I think about the fiery guy in the museum, the way his face shifted between human and animal. And the statue of Thoth—how its eyes followed me.

"Carter," Amos says, "the Egyptians would not have been stupid enough to believe in imaginary gods. The beings they described in their myths are very, very real. In the old days, the priests of Egypt would call upon these gods to channel their power and perform great feats. That is the origin of what we now call magic. Like many things, magic was first invented by the Egyptians. Each temple had a branch of magicians called the House of Life. Their magicians were famed throughout the ancient world."

"And you're an Egyptian magician."

Amos nods. "So was your father. You saw it for yourself last night."

I hesitate. It's hard to deny my dad did some weird stuff at the museum—some stuff that looked like magic.

"But he's an archaeologist," I say stubbornly.

"That's his cover story. You'll remember that he specialized in translating ancient spells, which are very difficult to understand unless you work magic yourself. Our family, the Kane family, has been part of the House of Life almost since the beginning. And your mother's family is almost as ancient."

"The Fausts?" I try to imagine Grandma and Grandpa Faust doing magic, but unless watching rugby on TV and burning cookies is magical, I can't see it.

"They had not practiced magic for many generations," Amos admits. "Not until your mother came along. But yes, a very ancient bloodline."

Sadie shakes her head in disbelief. "So now Mum was magic, too. Are you joking?"

"No jokes," Amos promises. "The two of you...you combine the blood of two ancient families, both of which have a long, complicated history with the gods. You are the most powerful Kane children to be born in many centuries. Besides...well, nevermind."

I try to let that sink in. At the moment, I don't feel powerful. I feel queasy. "You're telling me our parents secretly worshipped animal-headed gods?" I ask.

"Not worshipped," Amos corrects. "By the end of the ancient times, Egyptians had learned that their gods were not to be worshipped. They are powerful beings, primeval forces, but they are not divine in the sense one might think of God. They are created entities, like mortals, only much more powerful. We can respect them, fear them, use their power, or even fight them to keep them under control—"

"Fight gods?" Sadie interrupts.

"Constantly," Amos assures her. "But we don't worship them. Thoth taught us that."

I look at Sadie for help. The old guy has to be crazy. But Sadie is looking like she believes every word.

"So..." I say. "Why did Dad break the Rosetta Stone?"

"Oh, I'm sure he didn't mean to break it," Amos says. "That would've horrified him. In fact, I imagine my brethren in London have repaired the damage by now. The curators will soon check their vaults and discover that the Rosetta Stone miraculously survived the explosion."

"But it was blown into a million pieces!" I say. "How could they repair it?"

Amos picks up a saucer and throws it onto the stone floor. The saucer shatters instantly.

"That was to destroy," Amos says. "I could've done it by magic—ha-di—but it's simpler just to smash it. And now..." Amos holds out his hand. "Join. Hi-nehm."

A blue hieroglyphic symbol burns in the air above his palm.

The pieces of the saucer fly into his hand and reassemble like a puzzle, even the smallest bits of dust gluing themselves into place. Amos puts the perfect saucer back on the table.

"Some trick," I manage. I try to sound calm about it, but I'm thinking of all the odd things that happened to my dad and me over the years, like those gunmen in the Cairo hotel who ended up hanging by their feet from a chandelier. Is it possible my dad made that happen with some kind of spell?

Amos pours milk in the saucer, and puts it on the floor. Muffin comes padding over. "At any rate, your father would never intentionally damage a relic. He simply didn't realize how much power the Rosetta Stone contained. You see, as Egypt faded, its magic collected and concentrated into its remaining relics. Most of these, of course, are still in Egypt. But you can find some in almost every major museum. A magician can use these artifacts as focal points to work more powerful spells."

"I don't get it," I say.

Amos spreads his hands. "I'm sorry, Carter. It takes years of study to understand magic, and I'm trying to explain it to you in a single morning. The important thing is, for the past six years your father has been looking for a way to summon Osiris, and last night he thought he had found the right artifact to do it."

"Wait, why did he want Osiris?"

Sadie gives me a troubled look. "Carter, Osiris was the lord of the dead. Dad was talking about making things right. He was talking about Mum."

Suddenly the morning seems colder. The fire pit sputters in the wind coming off the river.

"He wanted to bring Mom back from the dead?" I say. "But that's crazy!"

Amos hesitates. "It would've been dangerous. Inadvisable. Foolish. But not crazy. Your father is a powerful magician. If, in fact, that is what he was after, he might have accomplished it, using the power of Osiris."

I stare at Sadie. "You're actually buying this?"

"You saw the magic at the museum. The fiery bloke. Dad summoned something from the stone."

"Yeah," I say, thinking of my dream. "But that wasn't Osiris, was it?"

"No," Amos says. "Your father got more than he bargained for. He did release the spirit of Osiris. In fact, I think he successfully joined with the god—"

"Joined with?"

Amos holds up his hand. "Another long conversation. For now, let's just say he drew the power of Osiris into himself. But he never got the chance to use it because, according to what Sadie has told me, it appears that Julius released five gods from the Rosetta Stone. Five gods who were all trapped together."

I glance at Sadie. "You told him everything?"

"He's going to help us, Carter."

I'm not quite ready to trust this guy, even if he is our uncle, but I decide I don't have much choice.

"Okay, yeah," I say. "The fiery guy said something like 'You released all five.' What did he mean?"

Amos sips his coffee. The faraway look on his face reminds me of my dad. "I don't want to scare you."

"Too late."

"The gods of Egypt are very dangerous. For the last two thousand years or so, we magicians have spent much of our time binding and banishing them whenever they appear. In fact, our most important law, issued by Chief Lector Iskandar in Roman times, forbids unleashing the gods or using their power. Your father broke that law once before."

Sadie's face pales. "Does this have something to do with Mum's death? Cleopatra's Needle in London?"

"It has everything to do with that, Sadie. Your parents...well, they thought they were doing something good. They took a terrible risk, and it cost your mother her life. Your father took the blame. He was exiled, I suppose you would say. Banished. He was forced to move around constantly because the House monitored his activities. They feared he would continue his...research. As indeed he did."

I think about the times Dad would look over his shoulder as he copied some ancient inscriptions, or wake me up at three or four in the morning and insist it was time to change hotels, or warn me not to look in his workbag or copy certain pictures from old temple walls—as if our lives depended on it.

"Is that why you never came round?" Sadie asks Amos. "Because Dad was banished?"

"The House forbade me to see him. Julius came by a few times, but never in my presence. He never warned me he was coming, and he was gone before I even knew. I loved Julius. It hurt me to stay away from my brother, and from you children. But I could not see you—until last night, when I simply had no choice but to try to help. Julius has been obsessed with finding Osiris for years. He was consumed with grief because of what happened to your mother. When I learned that Julius was about to break the law again, to try to set things right, I had to stop him. A second offense would've meant a death sentence. Unfortunately, we failed. I should've known he was too stubborn."

I look down at my plate. My food has gotten cold. Muffin leaps onto the table and rubs against my hand. When I don't object, she starts eating my bacon.

"Who's we?" Sadie asks.