The bus dropped me at Port Authority at 9:47 AM on a freezing January morning.
I stepped off into a wall of humanity.
People. Everywhere. Thousands of them, moving in every direction, talking, shouting, rushing. The terminal was massive—three levels of chaos, noise echoing off tile walls, announcements blaring from speakers, the smell of hot dogs and diesel and too many bodies crammed into one space.
I stood frozen for a moment, duffel bag clutched in one hand.
This is different from camp.
That was the understatement of the century. At camp there were maybe fifty people maximum. Here? Hundreds just in my immediate vicinity. Maybe thousands in the building. And not a single one of them was a monster, a demigod, or a centaur—which somehow made it more overwhelming, not less.
"Move it, kid!" someone barked, shoving past me.
Right. Standing in the middle of traffic. Bad idea.
I moved to the side, found a relatively empty corner, and took stock.
I had:
One duffel bag (clothes, documents, small amount of nectar and ambrosia)
$847 in cash (six months of camp stipends, hoarded like a dragon guarding gold)
Legal ID courtesy of Hestia—birth certificate, passport, SSN, the works
No job No apartment No plan beyond "find work, build resources, don't die of embarrassment"
Okay. I thought. Step one: Find somewhere to stay. Cheap as possible.
I'd done research at camp using Chiron's computer. NYC had cheap options—hostels, SROs, weekly room rentals. Not great, but survivable. I'd printed a list of addresses before leaving, because apparently even demigods needed printed directions since I still didn't fully trust the subway map.
The Monarch — $40/night, weekly rates available.
That would eat through my money fast, but it was a start.
I asked three people for directions before finding someone who actually helped—an older woman selling newspapers who gave me detailed subway instructions with the patience of someone who'd done this approximately ten thousand times.
"You new to the city, honey?" she asked.
"Yes ma'am."
"Word of advice—don't look lost. Look like you know where you're going, even if you don't. Predators smell confusion."
"Thank you."
"And get yourself a better coat. That thin thing won't cut it in January."
I looked down at my jacket. It was perfectly fine for Long Island winters. Apparently New York had different opinions about what counted as winter.
"Yes ma'am. I'll do that."
She smiled. "Good luck, kid. You're gonna need it."
Great. Very encouraging. Thank you.
Ninety minutes, two wrong subway trains, and one nearly-getting-pickpocketed incident later, I found The Monarch.
"Hotel" was generous. "Building that technically had a roof" was closer to the truth.
It was a narrow five-story wedge of dingy brick squeezed between a laundromat and a bodega, with a flickering neon sign that buzzed like it was contemplating giving up entirely. The lobby smelled like mildew and cigarettes and about forty years of questionable decisions.
The desk clerk—a man who looked like he'd seen literally everything and had decided none of it was worth reacting to—didn't even look up.
"Weekly rate is two-fifty. Daily is forty. Pay upfront. No refunds. No guests. No cooking in rooms. Break something, you pay for it."
"Weekly," I said, counting out bills.
The clerk took the money with the enthusiasm of someone accepting a parking ticket, handed over a key attached to a plastic tag the size of a small book. "Room 3C. Elevator's broken. Stairs are there. Checkout's Sunday noon."
"Thanks."
"Uh-huh."
Room 3C was exactly what $250 a week bought you in New York City: a meditation on minimalism that nobody had asked for. A single bed with a mattress that had clearly lived a full and eventful life and was now in retirement. A desk that wobbled. One chair. A closet barely wide enough for my duffel. A bathroom the size of a phone booth—not a modern one. The window looked out at a brick wall three feet away, which at least meant I didn't have to worry about curtains.
No TV. No Wi-Fi. Just four walls and a roof, which to be fair was the advertised product.
I set down my bag and sat on the bed.
The mattress squeaked ominously, like a warning.
This is fine, I told myself. This is temporary. Just until I find work. Get money. Build up.
I lay back, staring at the water-stained ceiling. Someone in the next room was playing music. Badly. Above me, footsteps. Outside, sirens. New York City, performing its full repertoire.
I've handled worse, I reminded myself. I survived Alcatraz. I can survive a squeaky mattress.
I closed my eyes.
Tomorrow, I'd find a job.
Tomorrow, everything would start coming together.
I almost believed it.
THE JOB HUNT
Monday — Day 1
I'd printed a resume at camp. It was, to be generous, sparse.
ADITYA RUDRANSH Age: 15 Education: International schooling (Mumbai), current home schooling Experience: None Skills: Bilingual (English/Hindi), physical fitness, quick learner References: Available upon request (Chiron, Director of Camp Half-Blood Youth Services)
In my defence, "survived a Titan's fortress" and "can summon fire without a lighter" didn't fit neatly into the Experience section.
I hit ten places by noon.
Starbucks: The manager barely glanced at my resume. "Do you have any customer service experience?"
"I've worked with people in... educational settings."
"So no." She handed it back. "We need retail experience. Thanks anyway."
Educational settings. I once talked a twelve-year-old out of stabbing herself with her own practice sword. That's practically customer service.
Whole Foods: The HR person looked up with the expression of someone about to deliver inevitable bad news. "You're fifteen?"
"Yes."
"Labor laws limit hours for minors. We need full-time availability."
"I can work after 3 PM, weekends—"
"We'll keep your application on file."
They wouldn't. We both knew it.
Local Bookstore: This one almost worked. The owner called Chiron directly, which I had not anticipated.
"Hello, is this Chiron?" the owner said, phone to his ear, looking skeptical.
"Yes," said Chiron, in his most distinguished Director-of-a-Youth-Program voice. "Director of Camp Half-Blood Youth Services. How may I help you?"
I stood across the counter trying to look employable while Chiron described me as "hardworking, honest, reliable, and a young man of exceptional character." All technically true. None of it mentioning the part where exceptional character had recently been tested by a literal Titan.
The owner softened. Then: "I really need someone with bookstore experience."
Still no.
Attempts 4 through 10 were variations on the theme: too young, no experience, no working papers, "we'll call you" (they wouldn't). By attempt seven I'd stopped taking my resume out of my bag. By attempt nine I was conducting a thorough review of every life choice that had led me to this specific point in time.
I helped prevent an apocalypse, I thought, walking away from rejection number ten. I cannot get a job at a sandwich shop.
By 6 PM I was back at The Monarch, sitting on the squeaky bed, doing math I didn't want to do.
$847 starting. Minus $250 (weekly hotel). Minus $45 (food, as cheap as possible—in New York, bodega ramen and not much else). Minus $15 (subway fare). = $537 remaining.
At this rate: maybe two weeks before I was broke.
Okay, I thought. Tomorrow. Different strategy. Lower my standards. Any job.
Tuesday — Day 2
McDonald's wanted working papers—a certificate from a school or guardian allowing employment for minors. Getting Chiron to sign anything through proper bureaucratic channels would take longer than I had and probably involve a conversation I wasn't ready for.
Then I walked into a deli on West 44th Street.
The owner—compact, fifties, efficient in the way of someone who had run a small business for decades—looked me over with a brief, assessing look.
"You work hard?"
"Yes sir."
"You show up on time?"
"Always."
"You steal?"
"Never."
He considered this with the seriousness it deserved. "You look strong. You done food service?"
"No, but I can learn—"
"Start tomorrow. 6 AM. Prep work. Twelve dollar an hour, cash. You screw up, you're out."
Relief hit so fast I had to focus not to visibly sag. "Thank you! I won't screw up, I promise—"
"We'll see. Be here 6 AM. Sharp."
Finally. Finally. A job. Twelve dollars an hour wasn't going to make me rich, but it was real. I did the math before I'd even reached the door.
"How many hours?" I asked.
"Lunch rush. 6 AM to 2 PM. Eight hours. Six days a week."
Eight hours times six days times $12 equals $576 per week. Minus $250 hotel. Minus food, subway, basics. Maybe $250 saved per week. Not enough for Beckendorf's sword—not even close—but enough to survive and keep building.
It's a start, I told myself.
It had to be.
Wednesday through Friday — The Reality
Mr. Patel—I learned his name on day two—ran a tight operation. 6 AM meant 5:55. Clean meant clean. And vegetables needed to be cut to a specific size that I spent the better part of Wednesday morning failing to achieve before he showed me with the patient efficiency of a man who had trained many people and expected to train many more.
I showed up. I kept up. I didn't complain.
By Friday, Mr. Patel handed me a cash envelope without me having to ask.
I walked out of the deli at 2 PM on Friday with the envelope tucked into my jacket, heading back toward The Monarch through Midtown Manhattan, and for approximately four minutes I felt something that might generously be described as optimism.
Then I turned into an alley on 46th Street to take a shortcut I'd been using all week, and optimism died a sudden and violent death.
Because there were seven—
I stopped walking.
My brain made an attempt.
Snake, it offered. But also leopard. But the snake is the neck. But it has spots. But the neck is— the neck goes up and then— and there are seven of them—
My brain gave up and filed it under: things that should not exist.
There were seven of them.
WHAT THE ACTUAL—
I want to be very clear about my first reaction.
It was not heroic.
It was not the calm, battle-ready assessment of a trained demigod who had faced a Titan and emerged ALIVE.
It was: "What the actual fuck."
Seven of them. Each one the size of a large horse, with the body of a leopard and the neck of a serpent that extended up and curved back like a question mark, their scales catching the grey January light in oily, shifting colours. They were pressed into the alley in a snarling, hissing mass, knocking over dumpsters, shredding the side of a fire escape with casual destruction, two of them engaged in what appeared to be a territorial dispute that involved a lot of screaming that no mortal within earshot seemed to be registering as anything other than "weird alley sounds."
I stood at the entrance to the alley and stared.
They turned to look at me.
I looked at them.
Seven leopards. With snake necks. In a Midtown alley. On a Friday afternoon.
What, my brain said, very slowly, the actual hell is THAT.
They had scales but also fur. Serpent neck, leopard body. Several were hissing, forked tongues the length of my forearm flicking in and out. One had the remnants of a dumpster lid stuck around its neck like a very unfortunate collar.
I stared at the neck. The scales. The spots.
Okay, I thought, and I could feel the thought forming with the particular horror of something you genuinely don't want to think but cannot stop. Okay. Snake. And leopard. Together. As one creature. Which means at some point—at some specific point in history—something with a snake and something with a leopard had to have— there had to have been a— someone had to have—
My brain produced a mental image.
I recoiled from my own brain.
NO, I thought. No. Absolutely not. I refuse. Some god sat down one day and looked at a perfectly good leopard and thought "you know what this needs" and then— and then they just— with a SNAKE— and the result was THAT—
One of them sneezed. A small shower of sand came out.
I am going to be sick, I thought. I am going to be sick and then I am going to find whichever god is responsible for this and I am going to have WORDS with them about what is and is not appropriate behaviour toward the animal kingdom and I am going to use VERY SPECIFIC LANGUAGE—
The biggest one lunged.
My brain was still mid-disgust when instinct took over completely.
Dhanush materialised. Armour ignited — golden light slamming across the alley walls, which was probably terrible for the Mist situation but I was busy. The biggest one was already airborne, serpent neck extended, jaws open wide enough to swallow my head.
I sidestepped, drew, loosed in one motion.
The arrow hit the base of the neck on the way past. The thing dissolved mid-air — shriek cutting off instantly — and rained down as sand across my left shoulder.
One.
The remaining six had been watching. They stopped being surprised about half a second after I did and reoriented as a group, which told me these things had some kind of pack intelligence. Wonderful. Wonderful. Not just cosmically wrong to look at, but also smart.
"Oh, brilliant," I said, stepping back to put a dumpster to my left so they couldn't flank me clean. "Fan-bloody-tastic. Absolutely perfect Friday."
The two that had been fighting each other were still distracted — still circling, necks low, hissing at each other with the specific commitment of creatures who had forgotten the larger situation. I took the gift.
Two arrows. One draw. I'd been practising the double-loose for two months and it worked maybe sixty percent of the time and it worked now — both hit, both dissolved, two more showers of sand pattering down onto the alley floor.
Two. Three.
Four left. And now they were paying attention.
They spread out properly — not panicked scattering, but deliberate spacing, cutting off the angles. The biggest remaining one, the one with the dumpster lid somehow still jammed around its neck, hung back while the other three pushed forward. Coordination. They were using the one with armour as a blocker while the others pressured me.
I hate smart monsters, I thought, with feeling.
The three came at once — not a charge, more of a flowing advance, serpent necks weaving in that loose, hypnotic S-curve that I was rapidly learning meant imminent strike. Spread too wide for me to take all three before at least one connected.
Fine.
I dropped Dhanush — it dissolved back to light — grabbed the fire escape railing above me with both hands and swung my legs up just as all three necks snapped at the space I'd been standing in. Three sets of jaws clashed on empty air.
I came back down onto the middle one's back with both feet, put my full weight and every bit of divine reinforcement I had into it, and drove it into the alley floor.
It hit like a bag of wet cement and dissolved under me, which meant I landed in a crouch in a pile of sand with two very angry serpopards on either side.
Four.
I rolled left before they could reorient, came up, Dhanush back in hand, and put an arrow through the left one's neck at point-blank range. It was so close the dissolve dusted my face.
Five.
"OKAY," I said, loudly, switching to Hindi mid-sentence because English was not going to cover this. "WHICH ABSOLUTE DEGENERATE GOD SAT DOWN ONE DAY AND LOOKED AT A PERFECTLY GOOD LEOPARD AND DECIDED WHAT IT NEEDED WAS TO— TO HAVE— WITH A SNAKE— WHAT KIND OF DISEASED DIVINE THOUGHT PROCESS—"
The sixth one lunged from the right.
I caught the neck with my left hand — the scales were cold and wrong against my palm, which I was going to be thinking about for weeks — twisted my whole body with it, used its own momentum, and threw it. It hit the alley wall with a crack and dissolved.
Six.
Last one. The big one. Dumpster-lid-collar one.
It hadn't moved.
It was sitting at the far end of the alley watching me with its serpent neck raised straight up, swaying very slightly, forked tongue tasting the air. Seven feet of neck above a leopard body. The dumpster lid was still jammed around the base of the neck at a slight angle, like a very stupid necklace.
We looked at each other.
"—DID SOMEONE WRITE THIS DOWN? WAS THERE A PLAN? DID SOMEONE PRESENT THIS TO A ROOM AND PEOPLE AGREED—"
It lunged.
I didn't dodge. I stepped into it, got both hands on the neck just behind the jaw before it could close, felt the muscles in it coiling with a strength that would have snapped a normal person's arms, and held. Solar fire came up through my hands automatically — golden-red, running up the scales — and I just let it build for two full seconds while the thing thrashed.
Then I let go.
The detonation was small. Contained. Precisely where I was holding.
The serpopard dissolved from the neck outward in a single clean burst, the sand falling straight down, and the dumpster lid hit the alley floor with a loud metallic clang that echoed off the walls and then slowly rolled in a wobbling circle before settling flat.
Silence.
Seven.
I straightened up. Rolled my neck. Looked at the seven piles of sand arranged across the alley floor.
Silence.
Seven piles of sand.
The dumpster lid that had been attached to the biggest one was lying in the corner by itself, now just a regular dumpster lid again. I stared at it.
I was covered in sand. My hair had sand in it. My jacket had sand in it. Sand that had, moments ago, been seven snake-leopard hybrid creatures whose very existence was an act of theological misconduct.
I need to cleanse myself, I thought. Spiritually. Physically. I need to wash every surface of my body and possibly incinerate the jacket.
Because I had been raised with certain values, and because standing in a pile of divine cosmic filth while doing nothing about it felt deeply, viscerally wrong, I pressed my palms together, closed my eyes, and began to recite every purification shloka I remembered from my previous life.
Not quietly.
"Om apavitrah pavitro va sarvaavasthaam gato api va—"
Full volume. Righteous spiritual purification deserved to be heard.
"Yas smaret pundareekaaksham sa baahyabhyantarah shuchih—"
I opened my eyes mid-chant and began vigorously brushing the sand off my jacket. Sand that had been a creature that should not have existed because someone in some pantheon had apparently had thoughts about a leopard that no deity should ever have—
I dismissed the armour. Put Dhanush away. Looked at the sand.
Not tired. Not even close to tired — seven of them wasn't enough to dent the reserves I had, and I knew it. My pulse had barely moved.
What I was, was disgusted.
My jacket had sand in it. My hair had sand in it. Sand that had, moments ago, been seven snake-leopard hybrid creatures whose very existence was an act of theological misconduct.
"—DISGUSTING," I said loudly, switching languages mid-shloka, "absolutely disgusting, these gods have no self-control, none, zero, and I will NOT be standing here covered in the—the residue of someone's terrible divine choices—"
Back to Sanskrit. "Om tatsaviturvarenyam bhargo devasya dheemahi—"
I was still brushing sand off my sleeves.
A sound at the alley entrance.
I spun around, hand going for Dhanush—
The man standing there had clearly arrived sometime in the last forty-five seconds, because he was holding his staff in one hand and his worn brown leather bag with the other, and he had the specific expression of someone who had walked in on something they had not been prepared for and was now unsure whether to announce themselves or quietly leave.
He had not quietly left.
He was staring at me. At the seven piles of sand. At my hands still mid-brushing. At the general scene.
His mouth was slightly open.
DR. JULIUS KANE, APPARENTLY
The man standing at the entrance to the alley was not a monster.
He was tall, lean, dark skin, bald head, neat goatee—early forties, dressed in a coat that probably cost more than a month of my rent, holding a worn brown leather bag against his side with the particular grip of someone who never lets go of it. A staff in his other hand. A wand tucked into his coat pocket, visible at the edge.
He was staring at me.
More specifically, he had arrived in time to see the last thirty seconds of the fight—I would figure this out later—which meant he had watched me put two arrows through the last two serpopards while yelling about the ethical failures of divine animal husbandry, and had then watched me begin a full purification ritual in the middle of a Midtown alley, in Sanskrit, at volume.
He was staring at the seven piles of sand.
Then at me.
Then at the sand.
Then, very carefully, at my hands, which were still brushing imaginary contamination off my jacket sleeves.
Stage one, I would later think. Total, complete confusion.
"Who," he said, very carefully, "are you."
"Aditya Rudransh." I did not stop brushing the sand off my jacket. Some of it was still there and it was wrong. "Who are you?"
"Dr. Julius Kane." He said it automatically, the way people say their name when they're too surprised to think about whether they should. His eyes went back to the sand. "You killed them."
"I noticed that too."
"All seven."
"Also noticed."
"In—" He glanced at his watch. Something moved in his face. "Under three minutes."
"Was there a time limit I wasn't aware of?"
He opened his mouth. Closed it. Looked at the sand again. Looked at me. Looked at the sand.
"Were you—" he started. "Were you reciting the Gayatri Mantra. In the middle of— while covered in—"
"I was cleansing," I said, with dignity.
"You were cleansing."
"Those things were disgusting. I needed to cleanse."
A very long pause.
Stage two, I would later classify. Professional horror, followed immediately by something that was not quite amusement but was fighting very hard to become it.
"You used a fire bow," he said, finally moving past the cleansing thing because he was a professional.
"Yes."
"On the—" He gestured at the sand piles.
"On the snake-leopard— the leopard-snake— the—" I stopped. My brain made another attempt. "The neck-things."
Julius looked at me.
"They had necks," I said, slightly defensively. "Very long necks. That was the most notable feature."
"They're called serpopards."
I considered this. "That's a real word?"
"It's a real word."
"Someone named those things serpopards and then just let them exist."
"...yes."
"Okay." I absorbed that. Filed it. "Fine. I used a fire bow on the serpopards. Yes."
A pause. "You didn't know what they were."
"I know what they are now. They're sand. I made them into sand." I looked at my hands — mostly clean now, or at least mentally clean, which was what mattered. "What should I have used?"
"A— a specific sequence of words. A binding spell. You target the connection between their physical form and the Duat, you sever it at the root, and they dissolve cleanly with minimal energy expenditure." He said it the way a teacher explains something when they've accepted that they are too late to be useful. "One correctly pronounced word of power would have been sufficient for each one. Two at the most."
"Does it work faster than a fire arrow?"
"It's more precise—"
"Does it work faster."
He closed his mouth.
"Because I had seven of them," I said, "and I had maybe ninety seconds before they started on the dumpsters and someone called animal control, and—" I gestured at the sand. "It worked."
"It worked," he repeated, with an expression that suggested he was having a genuine theological crisis about the meaning of the word worked. "You used an explosive arrow on a creature that a single word of power would have destabilised."
"It still died, didn't it?"
"The energy waste alone—"
"Sir," I said, with great patience, "I don't know what a serpopard is. I didn't know what a serpopard was fifteen minutes ago. What I knew was that it was large, it had teeth, and it was coming at me." I looked at the sand piles. "I defaulted to what I know. It worked. I'm open to a more efficient method for next time, but I would like to first register a formal complaint about the existence of snake-leopard hybrid things in Midtown Manhattan, because I feel very strongly that this is not acceptable."
Julius Kane looked at me for a long moment.
Stage three, I would later determine. Reluctant processing.
His eyes moved over me with the particular attention of someone who catalogues things for a living—taking in the residue of divine armour still faintly visible at my edges, the way Dhanush hadn't fully disappeared because I was still on edge, the sand coating my jacket from the final detonation.
"What tradition," he said finally, "is that bow from."
"Not here if that's what you're asking."
"The energy signature is completely wrong. The colour is wrong. The way it interacts with physical matter is—" He stopped. "What are you?"
"Aditya Rudransh," I said again. "Already covered that."
"What is Aditya Rudransh."
I considered how much to say to a man I'd known for approximately ninety seconds.
"Someone who takes shortcuts through alleys," I said, "and is now reconsidering that habit."
Something flickered in his expression. Not quite amusement—too tightly controlled for that—but adjacent to it. The flicker of a man who had a sense of humour he'd learned to keep on a short leash.
"The serpopards came through a thin point," he said, shifting his bag on his shoulder. "A place where the barrier between the mortal world and the Duat has worn thin. They're Egyptian."
"They came through a thin point in a Midtown alley."
"The city has more than it used to. Ma'at has been under strain." He said it the way someone says the commute has been terrible lately — real problem, accepted inconvenience. "I was coming to deal with them."
"You were six minutes too late."
"I am aware." Another pause. Something was happening behind his eyes — the controlled, methodical thinking of someone filing things into correct categories and finding that one item had no category available. He glanced at the sand again. At me. At my hands, where no trace of Dhanush remained now. "Your energy signature is— I've studied every magical tradition in the world. Greek, Egyptian, Norse, Mesopotamian, Chinese, Mesoamerican. I have forty volumes of comparative divine energy signatures in my library." He tilted his head. "Yours isn't in any of them."
"No," I agreed.
"Subcontinent," he said. Not a question.
Dhanush was in my hands before I'd decided to reach for it. Arrow nocked, drawn halfway, pointed at his chest.
It happened that fast. Pure reflex — not a thought, not a decision, just the part of me that had learned the hard way what it meant when someone started correctly identifying things they shouldn't know.
Julius took half a step back.
Not a flinch. Not panic. A deliberate half-step, weight shifting slightly, hands staying exactly where they were — staff lowered, workbag still at his side, nothing moving that didn't need to move. The measured response of someone who understood threat geometry and was choosing, consciously, not to escalate it.
We held like that for a moment.
His eyes were on the arrow. Then on my face. Reading.
"Easy." His voice dropped — the scholarly precision replaced by something quieter, more careful. The particular tone of a man who had talked people down before and knew exactly how much pressure to apply and how much to leave alone. "I'm not a danger to you. I'm an Egyptologist and a magician who just watched you turn seven serpopards into sand in under three minutes using powers I've never encountered and I would like very much to understand what I just saw. That's all."
I held the draw.
"That's all," he said again. Same tone. No movement.
I let the tension out of the string slowly. Dhanush dissolved.
He didn't relax visibly — just absorbed it, filed it, moved on. As if a teenager had just pointed a divine fire bow at him and it was simply one more data point to catalogue.
I was starting to understand that this was how Julius Kane operated.
"I have questions too," I said.
"I imagine you do." He glanced at the sand one more time with the expression of a man making peace with something. "There's a hotel two blocks north. I'm staying there." He looked at me. "Come up. I'll explain serpopards. You can explain—" he gestured at the general space where my armour had been, "—whatever that was."
"You're offering a stranger access to your hotel room."
"I'm offering someone who just handled a problem that I was coming to handle access to a conversation over room service." He paused. "And possibly a shower. You have sand in your hair."
I reached up. Sand. Right.
"What hotel?" I asked.
"The Carlyle."
I blinked. I knew enough about New York hotels to know what that meant.
"You're staying at the Carlyle."
"I have a suite." He said it the way people say things that are simply true, without performance. "My son is asleep. He's had a long month and I'd prefer not to wake him." He started moving toward the alley exit. "So, Coffee and room service and an explanation. Both directions." He glanced back. "Unless you have somewhere else to be."
I looked at the seven piles of sand.
I looked at my pay envelope, still somehow intact in my jacket pocket.
I looked at The Monarch, conceptually, three blocks south — Room 3C and the squeaky mattress and the brick wall outside the window.
This, I thought, is the strangest Friday I have had in a city full of strange Fridays.
"I don't have anywhere to be," I said.
He nodded once, and we walked out of the alley together into the grey January afternoon — a fifteen-year-old demigod covered in serpopard sand and an Egyptologist who was already, I could tell, running his forty volumes of comparative energy signatures through his head and coming up empty.
Neither of us had any idea what we were getting into.
That, at least, made us even.
END CHAPTER 26