aphophis child

II. An Explosion for Christmas (yay)

I'D BEEN TO THE BRITISH MUSEM BEFORE. In fact I've been in more museums than I like to admit—it makes me sound like a total geek. Not my fault Annabeth forces me to join her to do this. Or this.

Anyway, the museum was closed and completely dark, but the curator and two security guards were waiting for us on the front steps.

"Dr. Kane!" The curator was a greasy little dude in a cheap suit. I'd seen mummies with more hair and better teeth. He shook Julius's hand like he was meeting a rock star. "Your last paper on Imhotep—brilliant! I don't know how you translated those spells!"

"Im-ho-who?" Sadie muttered to Carter.

"Imhotep," Carter said. "High priest, architect. Some say he was a magician. Designed the first step pyramid. You know."

"Don't know," Sadie said. "Don't care. But thanks."

Julius expressed his gratitude to the curator for hosting Carter on a holiday. Then he put his hand on Carter's shoulder. "Dr. Martin, I'd like you to meet Carter, Mikah and Sadie."

"Ah! Your son, obviously, and—" The curator looked hesitantly at Sadie and Mikah. "And these young children?"

"The girl is my daughter, Mikah is a son of a Friend, just caring for him," Julius Caesar (no it's just actually Julius) said.

Dr. Martin's stare went temporarily blank. Doesn't matter how open-minded or polite people think they are, there's always that moment of confusion that flashes across their faces when they realize Sadie is part of our family. I hate it, but over the years I've come to expect it.

The curator regained his smile. "Yes, yes, of course. Right this way, Dr. Kane. We're very honored!"

The security guards locked the doors behind us. They took their luggage, then one of them reached for Julius's workbag.

"Ah, no," Julius said with a tight smile. "I'll keep this one."

The guards stayed in the foyer as we followed the curator into the Great Court. It was ominous at night. Dim light from the glass-domed ceiling cast crosshatched shadows across the walls like a giant spiderweb. Our footsteps clicked on the white marble floor.

"So," Dad said, "the stone."

"Yes!" the curator said. "Though I can't imagine what new information you could glean from it. It's been studied to death—our most famous artifact, of course."

"Of course," Julius said. "But you may be surprised."

"What's he on about now?" Sadie whispered to us.

Carter and I didn't answer. I had a sneaking suspicion what stone they were talking about, but I couldn't figure out why Julius would drag us out on Christmas Eve to see it.

I wondered what he'd been about to tell us at Cleopatra's Needle—something about Ruby was it? and the night she died. And why did he keep glancing around as if he expected those strange people we'd seen at the Needle to pop up again? We were locked in a museum surrounded by guards and high-tech security. Then again, the mist.

We turned left into the Egyptian wing. The walls were lined with massive statues of the pharaohs and gods, but my dad bypassed them all and went straight for the main attraction in the middle of the room.

"Beautiful," Julius K murmured. "And it's not a replica?"

"No, no," the curator promised. "We don't always keep the actual stone on display, but for you—this is quite real."

We were staring at a slab of dark gray rock about three feet tall and two feet wide. It sat on a pedestal, encased in a glass box. The flat surface of the stone was chiseled with three distinct bands of writing. The top part was Ancient Egyptian picture writing: hieroglyphics. The middle section was Greek, I understand it due to my mother being a legacy of random gods and daughter of Gaia that makes Gaia my grandmother. The last lines were in Greek.