The Son of Sobek Sneak-Peek
This is just a sneak peek, but because this is the crossover between Percy Jackson and Carter Kane that I've waited for so long, I decided to post it anyway.
Enjoy reading for free :)
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The surface of the river churned with bubbles. The crocodile was gone, but standing
in the marsh about twenty feet away was a teenage guy in jeans and a
faded orange T-shirt that said CAMP something. I couldn’t read the
rest. He looked a little older than me—maybe seventeen—with
tousled black hair and sea-green eyes. What really caught my
attention was his sword—a straight double-edged blade glowing with
faint bronze light.
I’m not sure
which of us was more surprised.
For
a second, Camper Boy just stared at me. He noted my khopesh
and wand, and I got the feeling that he
actually saw these
things as they were. Normal mortals have trouble seeing magic. Their
brains can’t interpret it, so they might look at
my sword, for instance, and see a baseball bat or a walking
stick.
But this kid .
. . he was different. I figured he must be a magician. The only
problem was, I’d met most of the magicians in the North American
nomes, and I’d never seen this guy before. I’d also never seen a
sword like that. Everything about him seemed . . . un-Egyptian.
“The
crocodile,” I said, trying to keep my voice calm and even. “Where
did it go?”Camper Boy frowned. “You’re welcome.”
“What”
“I
stuck that croc in the rump.” He mimicked the action with his
sword. “That’s why it vomited you up. So, you’re welcome. What
were you doing in there?”
I’ll
admit I wasn’t in the best mood. I smelled. I hurt. And, yeah,
I was a little embarrassed: the mighty Carter Kane, head of Brooklyn
House, had been disgorged from a croc’s mouth like a giant
hairball.
“I was resting,” I snapped.
“What do you think I was doing? Now, who are you, and why
are you fighting my monster?”
“Your monster?” The guy
trudged toward me through the water. He didn’t seem to have any
trouble with the mud. “Look, man, I don’t know who you are, but
that crocodile has been terrorizing Long Island for weeks. I take
that kind of personal, as this is my home turf. A few days ago, it
ate one of our pegasi.”
A jolt went up my spine like I’d
backed into an electric fence. “Did you say pegasi?”
He waved the question aside. “Is
it your monster or not?”
“I don’t own it!” I growled.
“I’m trying to stop it! Now, where—”
“The croc headed that way.” He
pointed his sword to the south. “I would already be chasing it, but
you surprised me.”
He sized me up, which was
disconcerting since he was half a foot taller. I still couldn’t
read his T-shirt except or the word CAMP. Around his neck hung a
leather strap with some colorful clay beads, like a kid’s arts and
crafts project. He wasn’t carrying a magician’s pack or a wand.
Maybe he kept them in the Duat? Or maybe he was just a delusional
mortal who’d accidentally found a magic sword and thought he was a
superhero. Ancient relics can really mess with your mind.
Finally he shook his head. “I give
up. Son of Ares? You’ve got to be a half-blood, but what happened
to your sword? It’s all bent.”
“It’s a khopesh.” My
shock was rapidly turning to anger. “It’s supposed to be curved.”
But I wasn’t thinking about the
sword. Camper Boy had just called me a half-blood? Maybe I
hadn’t heard him right. Maybe he meant something else. But my dad
was African American. My mom was white. Half-blood wasn’t a
word I liked.
“Just get out of here,” I said,
gritting my teeth. “I’ve got a crocodile to catch.”
“Dude, I have a crocodile
to catch,” he insisted. “Last time you tried, it ate you.
Remember?”
My fingers tightened around my sword
hilt. “I had every-thing under control. I was about to summon a
fist—”
For what happened next, I take full
responsibility. I didn’t mean it. Honestly. But I was angry. And as
I may have mentioned, I’m not always good at channeling words of
power. While I was in the crocodile’s belly, I’d been preparing
to summon the Fist of Horus, a giant glowing blue hand that can
pulverize doors, walls, and pretty much anything else that gets in
your way. My plan had been to punch my way out of the monster. Gross,
yes; but hopefully effective. I guess that spell was still in my
head, ready to be triggered like a loaded gun. Facing Camper Boy, I
was furious, not to mentioned dazed and confused; so when I meant to
say the English word fist, it came out in Ancient Egyptian instead:
Khefa.
Such a simple hieroglyph:
You wouldn’t think it could cause
so much trouble.
