The Staff of Serapis Read Online Free PDF Page A

shallow stairwell – a kind of trench in the concrete. If they’d walked into the storm on ground level, they would’ve been ripped to shreds.
    As Annabeth watched, a twisted steel girder flew overhead at race-car speed. Dozens of bricks sped by like a school of fish. A fiery red hieroglyph slammed into a flying sheet of plywood, and the wood ignited like tissue paper.
    ‘Up there,’ Sadie whispered.
    She pointed to the top of the building, where part of the thirtieth floor was still intact – a crumbling ledge jutting out into the void. It was hard to see through the swirling rubble and red haze, but Annabeth could discern a bulky humanoid shape standing at the precipice, his arms spread as if welcoming the storm.
    ‘What’s he doing?’ Sadie murmured.
    Annabeth flinched as a helix of copper pipes spun a few inches over her head. She stared into the debris and began noticing patterns like she had with the Duat: a swirl of boards and nails coming together to form a platform frame, a cluster of bricks assembling like Lego to make an arch.
    ‘He’s building something,’ she realized.
    ‘Building what, a disaster?’ Sadie asked. ‘This place reminds me of the Realm of Chaos. And, believe me, that was 
not
 my favorite holiday spot.’
    Annabeth glanced over. She wondered if Chaos meant the same thing for Egyptians as it did for Greeks. Annabeth had had her own close call with Chaos, and if Sadie had been there, too … well, the magician must be even tougher than she seemed.
    ‘The storm isn’t completely random,’ Annabeth said. ‘See there? And there? Bits of material are coming together, forming some kind of structure inside the building.’
    Sadie frowned. ‘Looks like bricks in a blender to me.’
    Annabeth wasn’t sure how to explain it, but she’d studied architecture and engineering long enough to recognize the details. Copper piping was reconnecting like arteries and veins in a circulatory system. Sections of old walls were piecing themselves together to form a new jigsaw puzzle. Every so often, more bricks or girders peeled off the outer walls to join the tornado.
    ‘He’s cannibalizing the building,’ she said. ‘I don’t know how long the outer walls will last.’
    Sadie swore under her breath. ‘Please tell me he’s not building a pyramid. Anything but that.’
    Annabeth wondered why an Egyptian magician would hate pyramids, but she shook her head. ‘I’d guess it’s some kind of conical tower. There’s only one way to know for sure.’
    ‘Ask the builder.’ Sadie gazed up at the remnant of the thirtieth floor.
    The man on the ledge hadn’t moved, but Annabeth could swear he’d grown larger. Red light swirled around him. In silhouette, he looked like he was wearing a tall angular top hat 
à la
Abe Lincoln.
    Sadie shouldered her backpack. ‘So, if that’s our mystery god, where’s the –’
    Right on cue, a three-part howl cut through the din. At the opposite end of the building, a set of metal doors burst open and the crab monster loped inside.
    Unfortunately, the beast now had all three heads – wolf, lion and dog. Its long spiral shell glowed with Greek and hieroglyphic inscriptions. Completely ignoring the flying debris, the monster clambered inside on its six forelegs, then leaped into the air. The storm carried it upward, spiraling through the chaos.
    ‘It’s heading for its master,’ Annabeth said. ‘We have to stop it.’
    ‘Lovely,’ Sadie grumbled. ‘This is going to drain me.’
    ‘What will?’
    Sadie raised her staff. ‘
N’dah.
’
    A golden hieroglyph blazed in the air above them:

    And suddenly they were surrounded in a sphere of light.
    Annabeth’s spine tingled. She’d been encased in a protective bubble like this once before, when she, Percy and Grover had used magic pearls to escape the Underworld. The experience had been … claustrophobic.
    ‘This will shield us from the storm?’ she asked.
    ‘Hopefully.’ Sadie’s face was now