this is now a site featuring stories of Rick Riordan's books in general and here is the beginning of a story of the red pyramid. I call it Blood of Queens.
Blood of Queens
It all started when we moved. My father had recently died so my mother had to get a job which meant she couldn’t homeschool me anymore. So there I was walking into school on my first day, wearing clothes that fitted me exactly: a black rock t-shirt and a pair of ratty jeans. I was comfortable in these clothes partly because they were physically comfortable-no itching lace or sequins- and partly because they reflected my personality: different. Tomboy. Intelligent. Troublemaker. The kind of person who didn’t care what others thought.
“Hey Tommy!”
Ugh. I so hoped there wouldn’t be teasers here. But who was I kidding? Of course there’d be teasers. Every school has teasers. And how had my old nickname followed me here? I turned around and nearly feinted.
A boy with black hair and coffee skin stood there. My archenemy. Angus. Chicken breath. No seriously once, we both called each other that at the same time. Then we said “jinx” at the same time.
“Hey Dora! bet ya fifty cents I’ll remember my locker combination better!”
“Yeah right! I heard our math teacher’s gonna give us a surprise pop quiz! I’ll kick your butt in fourth period!”
Rubbish, I thought. Everyone knows I’m top in my math class. Or I was anyway before we moved. what did he have to gain by telling me this? It wouldn’t be a surprise then would it? Puzzling over this I went down to my locker and opened my zip-up notebook(yet another sign of my weirdness) and looked at the note with my locker combination on it. 13-32-33. easy enough, lots of threes.
I reached into a pocket in my notebook and unfolded a drawing. It showed a blond teenage girl with a bloody stake(you know like you kill a vampire with?) in one hand and her other hand was on her hip. She wore this look on her face like hey man, why don’t you go fly a kite or something? And in front of her was a teenage guy lying on the ground. He had messed up bronze hair and amber eyes. But the weirdest thing about him was that he sparkled. His pale skin looked almost tan compared to the points of light like a hundred diamonds were imbedded in his skin, and right where his heart should be a gaping hole.
I’m not sure how I made him glitter and I wished I knew how I did that so I could do it again.
I’d drawn them in a clearing, she standing above him looking down with legs wide spread, he laying as if dead in front of her, sunlight streaming down to fall on his handsome face. In the background dark trees rose up imposingly with spider webs stretching across branches.
“Nice drawing.” Said a voice.
I looked up to see a girl with long, dark brown hair and braces grinning at me.
“Thanks.” I said, a little weakly. “Do you understand it?”
The girl nodded. “That’s a sociopath that drinks blood,” she said pointing to the boy on the ground. “ That’s a vampire slayer.. and that’s ..” she squinted at the background. “Its hard to tell but it looks like it says ‘and then Buffy staked Edward. The end.’”
I nodded. “I wrote that in the cobwebs to see if people would find it. What do you think?”
“I like it.”
“Cool.”
The girl opened her locker and began storing things inside it. I followed suit and taped up the drawing to the door. As I turned to put up another drawing- a portrait of a girl in a black-and-white plaid dress-to the back of the locker I saw it.
It lay on a piece of rumpled white cloth, as if it had just been unwrapped. I cant describe it but if you know what a Greek column looks like then combine that with a spine.
I stared at it. I knew immediately what it was. It was a djed an Egyptian amulet used for stability, strength, renewed life-literally the backbone. But what was it doing here of all places? A random locker in a school in Brooklyn?
“hey look at-“ I broke off, as I turned to where the girl was.
Or rather where she had been.
Right where she’d stood a moment ago the spot was empty, the locker closed and locked.
Or was it?
I tugged at the handle on the locker and it swung open.
Inside it was empty. Or, almost anyway. Inside was a piece of paper that I picked up.
It was written in hieroglyphics. Lovely. I thought. I’m fairly good at hieroglyphics. Once, at a camp we were translating them and I got mine done third. Oddly I could read these perfectly, as if I was reading English(and believe me I’m good at that).
Dear Ziva, it read.
How do they know my name? I wondered vaguely but I kept reading.
if you can read this you are already in danger. The Eclipse Society and the Serpents of Chaos may be trying to recruit you. DO NOT JOIN THEM UNDER ANY CICUMSTANCES. You will end up dead, without a coin for the ferryman and with a heavy heart. Do not keep the djed for longer than a few weeks at most. It holds the power of Osiris and should not be used by a novice unless in an emergency. your name is not Ziva but pearl, and you are not like other 12 year olds. I regret to say that I cannot explain fully in this letter, for fear it will be intercepted but I will do so as soon as we meet. Go to your apartment building after school and turn to Ra. Continue and you will find me within a few miles.
Goodbye and good luck,
Anubis Death Caller
Diamond
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