Lowe hurried Hadley around the murmuring couple and headed through the open door.

“Wait!” Mr. Farnsworth called. “What do you think you’re doing with that?”

Lowe glanced at the urn under his arm. “This?”

“You can’t just take whatever you please from this house. It belongs to the bank.” In a startling show of nimbleness, the real estate agent lunged and grabbed the sculpted lid of the canopic jar. The scrawny man was outmatched by Lowe in every possible way: size, strength, age. But, unfortunately, he had the element of surprise.

The lid separated from the jar with a terrible grinding sound. The men fell apart as a cloud of black ash billowed into the air between them. Hadley stumbled backward. Pottery crashed.

“Richard!” Mrs. Davidson shouted, as Mr. Farnsworth crashed into her husband.

“I’m all right,” the man answered.

Lowe was, too, and he’d managed to avoid the bone dust. The downwind real estate agent, however, was doubled over coughing. Oh, and the poor canopic jar! Smashed to bits all over the front steps, nothing recognizable.

“What in the world is going on?” Mr. Davidson said to no one in particular. “Was that an urn?”

“Poor Mrs. Rosewood,” Lowe mumbled.

Hadley spotted something sitting in the ashes accumulating on the walkway. Acting quickly, she snatched it up with gloved fingers: another beige nest of excelsior shavings. Cradled in the packing material was a slender rectangle of bright red-gold.

The crossbar!

“Got it,” she mouthed to Lowe as a flash of bright spring-green zipped by her face. “What was that?”

“Feral parrot,” Mrs. Davidson said. “There’s a wild flock of them on Telegraph Hill. No one knows where they came from—oh, goodness!”

More green. A dozen or more parrots with red heads buzzed past, madly flapping their wings and squawking. “How odd. You’d almost think they were fleeing something,” Mr. Davidson mumbled.

They were.

Something a lot bigger and stranger.

FOURTEEN

LOWE’S LEGS WEAKENED AS he gaped at the impossible creature that had landed on the bracketed cornice above the house’s entrance.

Like the Sphinx, it had a feline body, albeit more the size and shape of an alley cat than some majestic lioness. But its head was that of a hawk—curved beak, beady gold eyes. And it had enormous, feathered brown wings that were gilded at the tips.

A giant cat with wings. Or a giant bird with paws.

He must’ve inhaled some of the bone ash.

But the ragged screech that blasted from the open beak of the beast wasn’t an illusion. And neither were the terrified shouts circling around him. Part of him wanted to join them.

Only one voice was calm. Firm. Steady. And it said, “A griffin.”

He darted a glance at Hadley.

“Chimera,” she elaborated. “Mythical beast.”

“Egyptian?” he choked out.

“Maybe the canopic jar was warded with some sort of magic.”

“Magic,” he repeated. The Davidsons were running into Gloom Manor with Mr. Farnsworth. Perhaps Hadley and he should be doing the same.

Hadley wasn’t paying attention. Her calm and collected scholar’s gaze was fixated on the fantastical creature flapping its wings on the roof. “Or perhaps the crossbars are cursed, and that’s why my mother—”

The griffin took flight, diving toward them like a fallen angel. The wings weren’t just gilded; they were covered in golden symbols. Dozens. Hundreds. God, never mind all that—the thing was fast as lightning. Beak and claws, fur and feather, it all rushed through the air behind a disarming screech.

At the last moment, he shoved Hadley behind him. He hadn’t realized he’d drawn his dagger until the beast was on him. He struck out blindly, shielding his face as it swooped past. A slash connected with flesh—real flesh that oozed blood. Real fur. Horribly real stink of something foul and putrid. Something dead and rotting and rancid.

Something from the grave.

He swung around to track it. The griffin made a massive, arcing turn in the air before coming at them again.

Jesus! Nowhere to go. And trying to stab it midflight was like fishing in the air with no line. “Get behind me!” he shouted at Hadley, but not soon enough. The thing was on them again, and this time Lowe spied golden claws extending from its paws.

He threw himself over Hadley’s head and struck out at the incoming attacker. No hit with the dagger, but his hand knocked against a furry rib cage. Wings flapped. The beast struggled. And for a moment there was nothing but the stench of death and an ear-piercing squawk like a goddamn Harpy—so loud, he barely heard Hadley cry out when the bird swooped away.

“It took the crossbar!” She flailed against him and they stumbled to their feet. Her left glove was slashed.

In a panic, Lowe spun around to find the griffin flapping furiously against the palm tree. Either Lowe’s blow had set him off balance, or whatever dark magic powered the creature was having trouble managing the weight of the crossbar. But sure enough, from the grip of his brown beak, a rod of gold flashed.

Gold worth about as much as his life, because without it, he had nothing.

Lowe raced for the griffin, not sure if it was out of his reach yet or what he’d do if it was. But something changed when he was still several strides away. The griffin was losing his battle with gravity. It was making horrific sounds, flapping and throwing itself against the palm tree’s ringed bark, as if it were wrestling an invisible foe or swarmed by furious bees.