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"Hoe find you if we succeed?" Sadie asked

"When you succeed," Bes said "Think positive, girl, or the world ends"

"Right" Sadie shivered in her new parka "Positive"

"I’ll meet you on the Nevsky Prospekt, the e I’ll be at the Chocolate Museum"

"The what now?" I asked

"Well, it’s not really a ht, but the owner always opens up for --chess sets, lions, Vladiuy?" I asked

"Yes, Professor Brilliant," Bes said "The coet this straight," Sadie said "We break into a heavily guarded Russian national erous scroll, and escape Meanwhile, you will be eating chocolate"

Bes nodded sole happens and I can’t yptian Bridge, to the south at the Fontanka River Just turn on the--"

"Enough," Sadie said "You will meet us at the chocolate shop And you will provide o!"

Bes gave her a lopsided sed back toward the Mercedes

I looked across the half-frozen river to the Winter Palace Soerous anymore

"Are we in as much trouble as I think?" I asked Sadie

"More," she said "Let’s go crash the tsar’s palace, shall we?"

10 An Old Red Friend Comes to Visit

GETTING INSIDE THE HERMITAGE wasn’t a probleainst et past the perimeter, but with a little concentration, ink and papyrus, and soodly friends Isis and Horus, we h the Duat

Onein the abandoned Palace Square Then everything went gray and led like I was in free fall We slipped out of synch with the ates and solid stone into the round floor, just as Bes had said We re-entered the mortal realm and found ourselves in the lyphic scrolls, statues of gods and pharaohs It wasn’t yptian collections I’d seen, but the setting was pretty i soared overhead The polished ray dia on an optical illusion I wondered how many rooms there were like this in the tsar’s palace, and if it really took eleven days to see theht about the secret entrance to the no somewhere in this room We didn’t have eleven days to search In less than seventy-two hours, Apophis would break free I re red eye beneath the scarab shells--a force of chaos so powerful, it couldwould be unleashed on the world

Sadie summoned her staff and pointed it at the nearest security ca zapper Even in the best of situations, technology andOne of the easiest spells in the world is to make electronics malfunction I just have to look at a cell phone funny to ined Sadie had just sent a h the security system that would fry every camera and sensor in the network

Still, there were other kinds of surveillance--ical kinds I pulled a piece of black linen and a pair of crude wax shabti out ofI wrapped the shabti in the cloth and spoke a colowed briefly over the cloth A e, like a squid’s ink cloud It expanded until it covered both Sadie and h it, but hopefully nothing could see in The cloud would be invisible to anyone outside

"You got it right this time!" Sadie said "When did you master the spell?"

I probably blushed I’d been obsessed with figuring out the invisibility spell for months, ever since I’d seen Zia use it in the First Noold spark shot out of the cloud like aon it"

Sadie sighed "Well…better than last time The cloud looked like a lava las--"

"Could we just get going?" I asked "Where should we start?"

Her eyes locked on one of the displays She drifted toward it in a trance

"Sadie?" I followed her to a lirave marker--a stele--about two feet by three feet The description next to it was in Russian and English

"‘From the tomb of the scribe Ipi,’" I read aloud "‘Worked in the court of King Tut’ Why are you interested…oh"

Stupid ravestone showed the deceased scribe honoring Anubis After talking with Anubis in person, Sadie e to see hi, especially when he was pictured with the head of a jackal, wearing a skirt

"Walt likes you"

I have no idea why I blurted that out This wasn’t the ti Walt any favors by taking his side But I’d started to feel bad for hiuy had come all the way to London to help me save Sadie, and we’d dumped him in Crystal Palace Park like an unwanted hitchhiker

I was kind of angry at Sadie for giving hi so hard on Anubis, as five thousand years too old for her and not even human Plus, the way she snubbed Walt reminded me too much of the way Zia had treated me at first And maybe, if I was honest with myself, I was also irritated with Sadie because she’d solved her own proble our help