The kids must simultaneously battle Set, who's super powerful, and let their father fully merge with Osiris by dying and becoming god of the underworld. Things come to a head in Phoenix, where Zia joins Carter and Sadie, despite the fact that magicians and gods are supposed to be at odds. Bast provides comedic relief but also key information, like the fact that Ruby Kane died while trying to bring the old gods back into the world.

They battle various demons while gathering the ingredients for a ritual to defeat Set. Sadie and Carter come to terms with the gods inside them and meet other deities, such as Anubis (the god of funerals), Nut (the sky goddess), Geb (the earth god) and Thoth (the god of wisdom and knowledge). Bast escorts them on a quest to figure out how to defeat Set, who is constructing a giant red pyramid in Phoenix, Arizona, in order to focus his power and destroy a good chunk of North America. Seeing that they might be condemned to death, Zia lets Carter and Sadie escape. Though ancient Egyptian magicians and pharaohs used to work with gods, in the last few thousand years, the magicians decided to imprison and outlaw the gods. Turns out the kids are in deep, as they're suspected of being 'godlings,' or hosts for the escaped gods Isis and Horus.

The cat goddess Bast comes to their rescue and carts the kids around until Zia, a teenaged magician from the House of Life, brings Carter and Sadie to the magicians' headquarters in Egypt. Amos disappears while gathering info on Set's nefarious plans, and Set's minions attack the kids and Amos's baboon sidekick Khufu. Sadie and Carter's uncle, Amos, steps in and brings the kids to New York, revealing that they come from a line of ancient Egyptian magicians and need to be brought up to speed. Set, generally not known to be a nice guy, imprisons Julius in a tomb and makes cryptic remarks to Carter and Sadie before vanishing. On one of their infrequent visitations, siblings Sadie and Carter take a nice trip to the British Museum in London with their Egyptologist father Julius Kane-during which he blows up the Rosetta Stone, releasing five imprisoned ancient Egyptian gods: Isis, Osiris, Horus, Set, and Nephthys.

Rick riordan the red pyramid series