The Red Pyramid Part 4

"I'm no stranger, Sadie," he said. "Don't you remember?"

It was creepy hearing him talk to me in such a familiar way. I felt I should know him. I looked at Carter, but he seemed just as mystified as I was.

"No, Amos," Gran said, trembling. "You can't take Sadie. We had an agreement."

"Julius broke that agreement tonight," Amos said. "You know you can't care for Sadie anymore-not after what's happened. Their only chance is to come with me."

"Why should we go anywhere with you?" Carter asked. "You almost got in a fight with Dad!"

Amos looked at the workbag in Carter's lap. "I see you kept your father's bag. That's good. You'll need it. As for getting into fights, Julius and I did that quite a lot. If you didn't notice, Carter, I was trying to stop him from doing something rash. If he'd listened to me, we wouldn't be in this situation."

I had no idea what he was on about, but Gramps apparently understood.

"You and your superst.i.tions!" he said. "I told you we want none of it."

Amos pointed to the back patio. Through the gla.s.s doors, you could see the lights s.h.i.+ning on the Thames. It was quite a nice view at night, when you couldn't notice how run-down some of the buildings were.

"Superst.i.tion, is it?" Amos asked. "And yet you found a place to live on the east bank of the river."

Gramps turned even redder. "That was Ruby's idea. Thought it would protect us. But she was wrong about many things, wasn't she? She trusted Julius and you, for one!"

Amos looked unfazed. He smelled interesting-like old-timey spices, copal and amber, like the incense shops in Covent Garden.

He finished his tea and looked straight at Gran. "Mrs. Faust, you know what's begun. The police are the least of your worries."

Gran swallowed. "You...you changed that inspector's mind. You made him deport Sadie."

"It was that or see the children arrested," Amos said.

"Hang on," I said. "You changed Inspector Williams's mind? How?"

Amos shrugged. "It's not permanent. In fact we should get to New York in the next hour or so before Inspector Williams begins to wonder why he let you go."

Carter laughed incredulously. "You can't get to New York from London in a hour. Not even the fastest plane-"

"No," Amos agreed. "Not a plane." He turned back to Gran as if everything had been settled. "Mrs. Faust, Carter and Sadie have only one safe option. You know that. They'll come to the mansion in Brooklyn. I can protect them there."

"You've got a mansion," Carter said. "In Brooklyn."

Amos gave him an amused smile. "The family mansion. You'll be safe there."

"But our dad-"

"Is beyond your help for now," Amos said sadly. "I'm sorry, Carter. I'll explain later, but Julius would want you to be safe. For that, we must move quickly. I'm afraid I'm all you've got."

That was a bit harsh, I thought. Carter glanced at Gran and Gramps. Then he nodded glumly. He knew that they didn't want him around. He'd always reminded them of our dad. And yes, it was a stupid reason not to take in your grandson, but there you are.

"Well, Carter can do what he wants," I said. "But I live here. And I'm not going off with some stranger, am I?"

I looked at Gran for support, but she was staring at the lace doilies on the table as if they were suddenly quite interesting.

"Gramps, surely..."

But he wouldn't meet my eyes either. He turned to Amos. "You can get them out of the country?"

"Hang on!" I protested.

Amos stood and wiped the crumbs off his jacket. He walked to the patio doors and stared out at the river. "The police will be back soon. Tell them anything you like. They won't find us."

"You're going to kidnap us?" I asked, stunned. I looked at Carter. "Do you believe this?"

Carter shouldered the workbag. Then he stood like he was ready to go. Possibly he just wanted to be out of Gran and Gramps's flat. "How do you plan to get to New York in an hour?" he asked Amos. "You said, not a plane."

"No," Amos agreed. He put his finger to the window and traced something in the condensation-another b.l.o.o.d.y hieroglyph.

"A boat," I said-then realized I'd translated aloud, which I wasn't supposed to be able to do.

Amos peered at me over the top of his round gla.s.ses. "How did you-"

"I mean that last bit looks like a boat," I blurted out. "But that can't be what you mean. That's ridiculous."

"Look!" Carter cried.

I pressed in next to him at the patio doors. Down at the quayside, a boat was docked. But not a regular boat, mind you. It was an Egyptian reed boat, with two torches burning in the front, and a big rudder in the back. A figure in a black trench coat and hat-possibly Amos's-stood at the tiller.

I'll admit, for once, I was at a loss for words.

"We're going in that," Carter said. "To Brooklyn."

"We'd better get started," Amos said.

I whirled back to my grandmother. "Gran, please!"

She brushed a tear from her cheek. "It's for the best, my dear. You should take m.u.f.fin."

"Ah, yes," Amos said. "We can't forget the cat."

He turned towards the stairs. As if on cue, m.u.f.fin raced down in a leopard-spotted streak and leaped into my arms. She never does that.

"Who are you?" I asked Amos. It was clear I was running out of options, but I at least wanted answers. "We can't just go off with some stranger."

"I'm not a stranger." Amos smiled at me. "I'm family."

And suddenly I remembered his face smiling down at me, saying, "Happy birthday, Sadie." A memory so distant, I'd almost forgotten.

"Uncle Amos?" I asked hazily.

"That's right, Sadie," he said. "I'm Julius's brother. Now come along. We have a long way to go."

C A R T E R.

5. We Meet the Monkey.

IT'S CARTER AGAIN. SORRY. We had to turn off the tape for a while because we were being followed by-well, we'll get to that later. We had to turn off the tape for a while because we were being followed by-well, we'll get to that later.

Sadie was telling you how we left London, right?

So anyway, we followed Amos down to the weird boat docked at the quayside. I cradled Dad's workbag under my arm. I still couldn't believe he was gone. I felt guilty leaving London without him, but I believed Amos about one thing: right now Dad was beyond our help. I didn't trust Amos, but I figured if I wanted to find out what had happened to Dad, I was going to have to go along with him. He was the only one who seemed to know anything.

Amos stepped aboard the reed boat. Sadie jumped right on, but I hesitated. I'd seen boats like this on the Nile before, and they never seemed very st.u.r.dy.

It was basically woven together from coils of plant fiber-like a giant floating rug. I figured the torches at the front couldn't be a good idea, because if we didn't sink, we'd burn. At the back, the tiller was manned by a little guy wearing Amos's black trench coat and hat. The hat was shoved down on his head so I couldn't see his face. His hands and feet were lost in the folds of the coat.

"How does this thing move?" I asked Amos. "You've got no sail."

"Trust me." Amos offered me a hand.

The night was cold, but when I stepped on board I suddenly felt warmer, as if the torchlight were casting a protective glow over us. In the middle of the boat was a hut made from woven mats. From Sadie's arms, m.u.f.fin sniffed at it and growled.

"Take a seat inside," Amos suggested. "The trip might be a little rough."

"I'll stand, thanks." Sadie nodded at the little guy in back. "Who's your driver?"

Amos acted as if he hadn't heard the question. "Hang on, everyone!" He nodded to the steersman, and the boat lurched forward.

The feeling was hard to describe. You know that tingle in the pit of your stomach when you're on a roller coaster and it goes into free fall? It was kind of like that, except we weren't falling, and the feeling didn't go away. The boat moved with astounding speed. The lights of the city blurred, then were swallowed in a thick fog. Strange sounds echoed in the dark: slithering and hissing, distant screams, voices whispering in languages I didn't understand.

The tingling turned to nausea. The sounds got louder, until I was about to scream myself. Then suddenly the boat slowed. The noises stopped, and the fog dissipated. City lights came back, brighter than before.

Above us loomed a bridge, much taller than any bridge in London. My stomach did a slow roll. To the left, I saw a familiar skyline-the Chrysler Building, the Empire State Building.

"Impossible," I said. "That's New York."

Sadie looked as green as I felt. She was still cradling m.u.f.fin, whose eyes were closed. The cat seemed to be purring. "It can't be," Sadie said. "We only traveled a few minutes."

And yet here we were, sailing up the East River, right under the Williamsburg Bridge. We glided to a stop next to a small dock on the Brooklyn side of the river. In front of us was an industrial yard filled with piles of sc.r.a.p metal and old construction equipment. In the center of it all, right at the water's edge, rose a huge factory warehouse heavily painted with graffiti, the windows boarded up.

"That is not a mansion," Sadie said. Her powers of perception are really amazing.

"Look again." Amos pointed to the top of the building.

"How...how did you..." My voice failed me. I wasn't sure why I hadn't seen it before, but now it was obvious: a five-story mansion perched on the roof of the warehouse, like another layer of a cake. "You couldn't build a mansion up there!"

"Long story," Amos said. "But we needed a private location."

"And is this the east sh.o.r.e?" Sadie asked. "You said something about that in London-my grandparents living on the east sh.o.r.e."

Amos smiled. "Yes. Very good, Sadie. In ancient times, the east bank of the Nile was always the side of the living, the side where the sun rises. The dead were buried west of the river. It was considered bad luck, even dangerous, to live there. The tradition is still strong among...our people."

"Our people?" I asked, but Sadie muscled in with another question.

"So you can't live in Manhattan?" she asked.

Amos's brow furrowed as he looked across at the Empire State Building. "Manhattan has other problems. Other G.o.ds. It's best we stay separate."

"Other what?" Sadie demanded.

"Nothing." Amos walked past us to the steersman. He plucked off the man's hat and coat-and there was no one underneath. The steersman simply wasn't there. Amos put on his fedora, folded his coat over his arm, then waved toward a metal staircase that wound all the way up the side of the warehouse to the mansion on the roof.

"All ash.o.r.e," he said. "And welcome to the Twenty-first Nome."

"Gnome?" I asked, as we followed him up the stairs. "Like those little runty guys?"

"Heavens, no," Amos said. "I hate gnomes. They smell horrible."

"But you said-"

"Nome, n-o-m-e. As in a district, a region. The term is from ancient times, when Egypt was divided into forty-two provinces. Today, the system is a little different. We've gone global. The world is divided into three hundred and sixty nomes. Egypt, of course, is the First. Greater New York is the Twenty-first."

Sadie glanced at me and twirled her finger around her temple.

"No, Sadie," Amos said without looking back. "I'm not crazy. There's much you need to learn."

We reached the top of the stairs. Looking up at the mansion, it was hard to understand what I was seeing. The house was at least fifty feet tall, built of enormous limestone blocks and steel-framed windows. There were hieroglyphs engraved around the windows, and the walls were lit up so the place looked like a cross between a modern museum and an ancient temple. But the weirdest thing was that if I glanced away, the whole building seemed to disappear. I tried it several times just to be sure. If I looked for the mansion from the corner of my eye, it wasn't there. I had to force my eyes to refocus on it, and even that took a lot of willpower.

Amos stopped before the entrance, which was the size of a garage door-a dark heavy square of timber with no visible handle or lock. "Carter, after you."

"Um, how do I-"

"How do you think?"

Great, another mystery. I was about to suggest we ram Amos's head against it and see if that worked. Then I looked at the door again, and I had the strangest feeling. I stretched out my arm. Slowly, without touching the door, I raised my hand and the door followed my movement-sliding upward until it disappeared into the ceiling.

Sadie looked stunned. "How..."

"I don't know," I admitted, a little embarra.s.sed. "Motion sensor, maybe?"

"Interesting." Amos sounded a little troubled. "Not the way I would've done it, but very good. Remarkably good."

"Thanks, I think."

Sadie tried to go inside first, but as soon as she stepped on the threshold, m.u.f.fin wailed and almost clawed her way out of Sadie's arms.

Sadie stumbled backward. "What was that about, cat?"