Death God Alliance

Chapter 2

The pale boy's screams were horrible. Sadie had never heard anything like them before. The pain he must have been in to make them must have been unimaginable. Bloody tears spilled out of his eyes as he writhed in agony, and Sadie could take no more.

"Ha-di!" she screamed, targeting the ribbons. The streamer-like weapons exploded in a storm of unraveled threads. Mercifully the boy fell silent at their destruction. Sadie then turned on the magician who'd used the ribbons and gave a wicked smirk. "Turnabout is fair play," she told the woman, and pointed her wand. The hieroglyphics for "mummy" blazed in the air above the woman, and rolls of linen bandages appeared out of thin air and began wrapping the woman up like a spider's supper. Sadie cackled, proud of her spell. When she invented it, it had been half genius and half a joke. Pop culture about Egypt turned into a nonlethal offensive spell. She turned toward the other magician, who wasn't nearly as brave now that his magic jackal had been drug to hell, but found that her brother had beaten her to him.

Death Boy's skeletal minion seemed to have lost whatever magic that reanimated it when its master was taken out of the fight. It lay still now, still half buried in the earth, though one of its severed arms was still clamped around its foe's wrist, impeding the magician's movements as he tried to duel Carter.

Sadie wanted to go to Death Boy and make sure he was still breathing, but resisted the urge. Carter was still fighting. If he slipped up she needed to be ready to pick up his slack, not kneeling on the ground beside some anemic Yank.

But it seemed as though, for once, Carter didn't mess up. He dispatched their enemy with a shallow slice across his stomach that would make every movement painful, then rammed the pommel of his sword against the side of his enemy's head. The man dropped like a sack of bricks and Carter turned around.

They both hurried to Death Boy who lay still on the ground. Too still. And Sadie couldn't hear him breathing. His eyes were wide open and glazed with blood, and the veins in his face were visible through his too pale skin. He looked worse than the corpse that he'd summoned to fight for him and Sadie was almost positive that he was dead.

Carter reached out and held his hand over Death Boy's face, letting his fingers hover right over the kid's lips and below his nose. "He's breathing," he said with obvious relief. "He's alive."

"He doesn't look alive."

"Well he is," said Carter irritably. "And we need to get out of here." He stashed his sword in the Duat and picked Death Boy up bridal style.

"This is going to be real fun," muttered Sadie. "Running all the way to Brooklyn in the middle of the night. What do you think our chances of getting a cab are?"

Carter gave her a dour look. "I can't even get a cab during broad daylight, even without carrying a bleeding, unconscious necromancer. But I've got another idea. Follow me."

He began walking quickly, taking care not to shake Death Boy too much.

"This isn't the fastest way out of here," protested Sadie.

"If I remember right, there's a pond this way," Carter told her. "If we can summon a boat –"

"We can sail it right up beside the mansion! Brilliant!" Sadie gave her brother an excited punch in the arm. Carter stumbled and almost dropped Death Boy.

"Careful!" said Carter. Death Boy didn't complain though. He didn't move, not even a twitch. He just stayed as still as a corpse, staring sightlessly at the sky with his blood glazed eyes. Sadie felt a chill run down her spine and hoped that it was not a portent of things to come.

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Percy "borrowed" his stepfather's car. It was an emergency after all. His friend was dying.