A 1

C A R T E R
The Son of Sobek
GETTING EATEN BY A GIANT CROCODILE was bad enough.
The kid with the glowing sword only made my day worse.
Maybe I should introduce myself.
I’m Carter Kane – part-time high-school freshman, part-time magician, fulltime
worrier about all the Egyptian gods and monsters who are constantly trying
to kill me.
Okay, that last part is an exaggeration. Not all the gods want me dead. Just a lot
of them – but that kind of goes with the territory, since I’m a magician in the
House of Life. We’re like the police for Ancient Egyptian supernatural forces,
making sure they don’t cause too much havoc in the modern world.
Anyway, on this particular day I was tracking down a rogue monster on Long
Island. Our scryers had been sensing magical disturbances in the area for several
weeks. Then the local news started reporting that a large creature had been sighted
in the ponds and marshes near the Montauk Highway – a creature that was eating
the wildlife and scaring the locals. One reporter even called it the Long Island
Swamp Monster. When mortals start raising the alarm, you know it’s time to
check things out.
Normally my sister, Sadie, or some of our other initiates from Brooklyn House
would’ve come with me. But they were all at the First Nome in Egypt for a weeklong
training session on controlling cheese demons (yes, they’re a real thing –
believe me, you don’t want to know), so I was on my own.
I hitched our flying reed boat to Freak, my pet griffin, and we spent the
morning buzzing around the south shore, looking for signs of trouble. If you’re
wondering why I didn’t just ride on Freak’s back, imagine two hummingbird-like
wings beating faster and more powerfully than helicopter blades. Unless you want
to get shredded, it’s really better to ride in the boat.
Freak had a pretty good nose for magic. After a couple of hours on patrol, he
shrieked, ‘FREEEEEEK!’ and banked hard to the left, circling over a green
marshy inlet between two neighbourhoods.
‘Down there?’ I asked.
Freak shivered and squawked, whipping his barbed tail nervously.