Josh blinked black spots from in front of his eyes. He saw his sister swaying and caught her arm. “I’m exhausted,” he said.
Sophie nodded in agreement. “Me too.”
“I could actually feel the energy flowing up through my body and down my arm,” he said in wonder. He looked at his fingertips. The skin was red and there were water blisters forming over his fingerprints. He helped his twin to a chair and sat her down, then knelt in front of her. “How do you feel?”
“Drained,” Sophie mumbled, and Josh noticed that her eyes were still flat, mirrored silver discs. He was disturbed to see a distorted image of himself reflected in them. It was such a tiny change to her body, and yet it lent her face a sinister and almost alien appearance. As he watched, the silver gradually faded and the normal blue returned. “Perenelle?” she said, but her mouth was dry and the words came out thickly. “What happened to her?” she whispered hoarsely, then added, “I need some water.”
Josh was getting to his feet when Shakespeare appeared by his side with two glasses of muddy-colored liquid. “Drink these.”
Josh accepted both glasses but took a tentative sip of his first before handing it to his sister. He made a face. “Tastes sweet. What’s in it?”
“Just water. I took the liberty of adding a spoonful of natural honey to each,” the immortal said. “You have just used a lot of calories and burned through much of your bodies’ natural sugars and salts. You will need to replace them as quickly as possible.” He smiled crookedly, showing his bad teeth. “Consider it the price of magic.” He placed a third glass, larger than the others, swirling with brown honey, on the table by the Alchemyst. “And you too, Nicholas,” he said gently. “Drink quickly. There is much to do.” Then he turned and hurried out into the night.
Sophie and Josh watched Nicholas raise the glass to his lips and sip the sticky liquid. His right hand was trembling and he caught it with his left and held it steady. He saw them looking at him and tried to smile, but it came out more like a grimace of pain. “Thank you,” he whispered, his voice raw. “You saved her.”
“Perenelle,” Sophie repeated. “What happened?”
Nicholas shook his head. “I don’t know,” he admitted.
“Those creatures …,” Josh began.
“Vetala,” Nicholas said.
“And what looked like a ghost,” Sophie added.
Nicholas finished the water and put the glass down with a shudder. “Actually, that gives me cause for hope,” he said, and this time his smile was genuine. “Perenelle is the seventh daughter of a seventh daughter. She can communicate with the shades of the dead; they hold no fear for her. Alcatraz is an isle of ghosts, and ghosts are mostly harmless.”
“Mostly?” Josh said.
“Mostly,” Nicholas agreed. “But none can harm my Perenelle,” he added confidently.
“Do you think anything has happened to her?” Sophie said, just as Josh opened his mouth to ask the same question.
There was a pause, and then Flamel answered. “I don’t think so. We saw her aura flare. Augmented by our auras—yours especially—she would be briefly powerful.”
“But what did she mean when she said you had killed her?” Sophie asked, her voice stronger now.
“I do not know,” he said quietly. “But this I am sure of: if anything had happened to her, I would know. I would feel it.” He came slowly and stiffly to his feet, pressing his hands into the small of his back. He looked around the empty hut and nodded toward the twins’ backpacks. “Get your stuff; we need to get out of here.”
“And go where?” Josh demanded.
“Anywhere away from here,” Nicholas said. “Our combined auras will have acted like a beacon. I’ll wager every Elder, Next Generation and immortal in London is heading this way right now. That’s what has Palamedes so upset.”
Sophie stood. Josh reached out to steady his sister, but she shook her head. “I thought you were going to stay and fight,” she said to Nicholas. “That’s what Perenelle wanted you to do, and isn’t that what Shakespeare and Palamedes both said we should do also?”
Flamel climbed down the steps and waited until the twins had joined him outside in the cool night air before he replied. He looked at Josh. “And what do you think? Stay and fight or flee?”
Josh looked at him in astonishment. “You’re asking me? Why?”
“You are our tactician, inspired by Mars himself. If anyone knows what to do in a battle, it is you. And, as Perenelle reminded me, you two are the twins of legend: you are powerful indeed. So tell me, Josh, what should we do?”
Josh was about to protest that he had no idea … but even as he was shaking his head, he suddenly knew the answer. “With no idea what’s coming at us, it’s impossible to say.” He looked around. “On the one hand, we are secure behind a cleverly designed and booby-trapped fortress. We know there is a protective zone around the castle and that the houses are occupied by creatures loyal to the knight. I’m sure that Shakespeare and Palamedes have other defenses. But if we do stay and fight, we’ll be stuck here, and since this is Dee’s country, there will be time for him to bring in reinforcements, completely trapping us.” He looked at his sister. “I say we run. When we fight, we need to do it on our terms.”
“Well said.” The Alchemyst nodded. “I agree. We run now and live to fight another day.”
Palamedes appeared out of the darkness, trailing the scent of cloves. His transformation into the Saracen Knight who had fought with King Arthur was now complete. He was dressed from head to foot in smooth black metal plate armor over a suit of black chain mail. A chain-link coif completely protected his head and neck and spread over his shoulders. Over that was a smooth metal bascinet helmet with a long nose guard. A curved shamshir sword dangled by his side and an enormous claymore sword was strapped to his back. The armor made the already-huge man look monstrous. Before he could speak, Shakespeare hurried up, five of the red-eyed dogs silently following him. “How bad is it?” Palamedes rumbled.
“Bad,” Shakespeare murmured. “A little while ago, a few individuals—immortals, mainly, and some humani bounty hunters—entered the streets patrolled by the larvae and the lemurs. They did not get far.” Shakespeare’s aura crackled dull yellow and the air was touched with lemon. A suit of modern police body armor grew over the immortal’s soiled mechanic’s overalls. He carried a mace and chain loosely in his left hand, the studded head of the mace trailing in the mud. One of the dogs licked it with its forked tongue. “The larvae and lemurs are our first line of defense,” he continued, looking from the Alchemyst to the twins. “They are loyal, but none too bright. And once they feed, they’ll sleep. The attackers will be at the walls before midnight.”
“The castle will hold,” Palamedes said confidently.
“No castle is completely impregnable,” Josh said simply, and then stopped as a huge red-eyed shape loomed out of the night. Everyone turned to follow his gaze. It was the largest of the dogs. Its fur was matted with filth and there was a long cut on its back dangerously close to its spine.
“Gabriel!” Shakespeare cried.
In the space of a single heartbeat, between one step and the next, the dog transformed. Muscle flowed, bones popped and cracked and the dog reared up on its two hind legs, neck shortening, the planes and angles of its face and the line of its jaw shifting. The dog became an almost-human-looking young man with long dun-colored hair. Curling purple-blue tattoos spiraled on his cheeks, ran down his neck and spread across his bare chest. He was barefoot, wearing only rough-spun woolen trousers with a red and black check pattern. Bloodred eyes peered from beneath badly cut bangs.
“Gabriel, you’re hurt,” the Bard said.
“A scratch,” the dogman answered. “Nothing more. And the creature who did it to me will do nothing more.” He spoke in a singsong accent that Sophie recognized as Welsh.
One by one the dogs standing around Shakespeare blinked into a human shape.
“Are you Torc Al
lta?” Josh asked, remembering the creatures that had guarded Hekate’s Shadowrealm.
“They are kin to us,” Gabriel said. “We are Torc Madra.”
“Gabriel Hounds,” Sophie said, eyes sparkling silver. “Ratchets.”
Gabriel turned to look at the girl, his forked tongue tasting the air like a snake’s. “It has been a long time since we were called by that name.” The tongue appeared again. “But you are not entirely human, are you, Sophie Newman? You are the Moon Twin, and young, young, young to be carrying the knowledge of ages within you. You stink of the foul witch, Endor,” he said dismissively, turning away, nose wrinkling in disgust.
“Hey, you can’t talk to my—” Josh began, but Sophie jerked his arm, pulling him back.
Ignoring the outburst, Gabriel turned to Palamedes. “The larvae and lemur have fallen.”
“So soon!” cried the Saracen Knight. Both he and Shakespeare were visibly shaken. “Surely not all?”
“All. They are no more.”
“There were nearly five thousand …,” Shakespeare began.
“Dee is here,” Gabriel said, his voice little more than a growl. “And so too is Bastet.” He rolled his shoulders and grimaced as the wound on his back opened.
“There is something else, though, isn’t there?” Flamel said tiredly. “The Dark Elders’ followers and Dee’s agents in the city are a ragtag alliance of opposed factions who would just as soon fight one another as go into battle together. To kill the larvae and lemurs would take an army, trained and organized, loyal to one leader.”
Gabriel inclined his head slightly. “The Hunt is abroad.”
“Oh no.” Palamedes drew in a great ragged breath and shrugged the longsword from his back.
“And their master,” Gabriel added grimly.
Josh looked at his sister, wondering if she knew what the Torc Madra was talking about. Her eyes were flat silver discs and there was an expression not of fear but almost of awe on her face.
“Cernunnos has come again,” Gabriel said, a note of absolute terror in his voice. And then, one by one, all the ratchets threw back their heads and howled piteously.
“The Horned God,” Sophie whispered and she started to shiver. “Master of the Wild Hunt.”
“An Elder?” Josh asked.
“An Archon.”
was told this Perenelle woman was trapped, weak, defenseless,” Billy the Kid said firmly into the narrow Bluetooth microphone that ran along the line of his unshaven jaw. “That’s just not true.” Through the Thunderbird’s bug-spattered windshield, he could clearly see Alcatraz across the bay. “And I think we have a problem. A big problem.”
Half a world away, Niccolò Machiavelli listened carefully to the voice on the speakerphone as he packed his overnight bag. He couldn’t remember the last time he had packed for himself; Dagon had always taken care of that. “And why are you calling me?” Machiavelli asked. He packed a third pair of handmade shoes, then decided two pairs were enough and took them out of the case again.
“I’ll be straight with you,” Billy admitted reluctantly. “I didn’t think I needed you. I was sure I’d be able to take care of the woman myself.”
“A mistake that has cost many their lives,” Machiavelli mumbled in Italian; then he reverted to English. “And what changed your mind?”
“A few minutes ago, something happened on Alcatraz. Something odd … something powerful.”
“How do you know? You’re not on the island.”
The Italian clearly heard the awe in the American immortal’s voice. “I felt it—from three miles away!”
Machiavelli straightened. “When? When exactly?” he demanded, checking his watch. Crossing the room, he opened his laptop and ran his index finger across the fingerprint reader to bring it back to life. He’d received a dozen encrypted e-mails from his spies in London, reporting that something extraordinary had happened. The e-mails had come in at 8:45 p.m., just over a quarter of an hour ago.
“Fifteen minutes ago,” Billy said.
“Tell me exactly what happened,” Machiavelli said. He pressed a button on the side of his phone that started to record the conversation.
Billy the Kid climbed out of the car and raised a pair of battered military green binoculars to his deep blue eyes. He had parked close to the Golden Gate Bridge; ahead and to his right the distant island looked calm and peaceful, basking under a cloudless noon sky, but he knew that the image was deceptive. He frowned, trying to remember precisely what had happened. “It was … it was like an aura igniting,” he explained. “But powerful, more powerful than any I’ve ever encountered in my life.”
Machiavelli’s voice was surprisingly clear on the transatlantic line. “A powerful aura …”
“Very powerful.”
“Was there an odor?”
Billy hesitated, instinctively breathing in, but he smelled only the ever-present salt of the sea and the bitter tang of pollution. He shook his head, then, realizing that Machiavelli could not see him, spoke. “If there was, I don’t remember. No, I’m sure there wasn’t.”
“How did you experience it?”
“It was cold, so cold. And it sparked my own aura. For a few minutes I had no control.” Billy’s voice shook a little. “I thought I was going to burn up.”
“Anything else?” Machiavelli asked, keeping his voice calm, willing the American to focus. Every immortal human knew that an uncontrolled aura could completely consume the human body it wrapped around; the process was known as spontaneous human combustion. “Tell me.”
“Lucky I was parked when it happened; if I’d been driving I would have wrecked the car. I went completely blind and totally deaf. Couldn’t even hear my own heartbeat. And when I could hear again, it sounded as if every dog in the city was howling. All the birds were screaming too.”
“Perhaps it was the sphinx slaying the Sorceress,” the Italian murmured, and Billy frowned, his sensitive ears picking up what might have been a note of regret in the man’s voice. “I understand she has been given permission to kill the woman.”
“That’s what I thought too,” Billy said. “I’ve got a scrying bowl. Anasazi pottery, very rare, very powerful.”
“The best, I’m told,” Machiavelli agreed.
“When I got my aura back under control, I immediately tried to scry the island. I got a glimpse, just a quick image of the Sorceress standing against a wall in the exercise yard. She was sunning herself, as calm as you please. And then—and I know this is impossible—she opened her eyes and lifted her face to look up … and I swear she saw me.”
“It may well be possible,” Machiavelli murmured. “No one knows the extent of the Sorceress’s powers. And then …?”
“The liquid in my scrying bowl froze into a solid chunk of ice.” The Kid looked down onto the passenger seat, where the fragments of the ancient bowl lay wrapped in the morning’s newspaper. “It shattered,” he said, a note of despair in his voice. “I’ve had that bowl a long time.” And then his voice hardened. “The Sorceress is still alive, but I can’t sense the sphinx. I think Perenelle has killed her,” he said, in awe.
“That too may be possible,” Machiavelli said slowly. “But it is unlikely. Let us not jump ahead. All we know for certain is that the Sorceress is still alive.”
The Kid drew in a deep breath. “I thought I could take Perenelle Flamel on my own; now I know I can’t. If you have any special European magic or spells, then it’s time to bring them.” Billy the Kid laughed, but there was nothing humorous in the sound. “We’re only going to get one chance to kill this Sorceress; if we fail, then we won’t be leaving the Rock alive.”
Niccolò Machiavelli found himself nodding in agreement. He wondered if the American knew that the Morrigan had also gone missing. But what the Kid could not know was that at the precise moment the aura had been pulsing out from the island, a similar energy had blinked to life in North London. Machiavelli quickly skimmed the e-mails he’d received; they were all reportin
g on what had to be an incredibly powerful aura bursting to life.
… more powerful than any I have ever encountered, before …
… comparable to an Elder’s aura …
… reports of auras spontaneously flaring on Hampstead Heath and Camden Road and in Highgate Cemetery …
Interestingly, two e-mails reported the distinctive odor of mint.
Flamel’s signature.
Machiavelli shook his head in admiration. The Alchemyst must have connected with Perenelle. Scrying was relatively simple, and while it usually worked best over short distances, the Flamels had married in 1350, and they had lived together for more than 650 years. The connection between them was very strong, and it stood to reason that they should be able to make that connection over thousands of miles. But scrying should not have activated Flamel’s and Perenelle’s auras in such a dramatic way. Unless … unless Perenelle had been in danger and the Alchemyst had fed her aura with his own. Machiavelli frowned. But Nicholas was weakening; that process should have—would have—killed him.
The twins!
Niccolò Machiavelli shook his head in disgust. He must be getting slow in his old age, he thought. It had to be connected to the twins. He had seen them work together at Notre Dame to defeat the gargoyles. They must have given Flamel some of their strength, and he, in turn, had somehow managed to connect to Alcatraz and Perenelle. That was why the aura’s signature was so strong.
“Why did you contact me?” Machiavelli wondered aloud.
“You weren’t my first call,” the Kid admitted. “But I can’t get in touch with my master. I thought I should warn you … and I hoped that maybe you had some way of defeating this Perenelle Flamel. Have you ever met her?”
“Yes.” Machiavelli smiled bitterly, remembering. “Just the once. A long time ago: in the year 1669. Dee had lost track of the Flamels after the Great Fire in London, and they had fled to continental Europe. I was holidaying in Sicily when I spotted them entirely by chance. Nicholas was ill, laid low with food poisoning, and I ensured that the local physician added some sleeping potion to his medicine. In my arrogance I thought I could defeat Perenelle first and then go after the Alchemyst.” The Italian held his left hand up to the light. A fine tracery of scars was still visible across his flesh, and there were others on his shoulders and back. “We fought for an entire day—her sorcery against my magic and alchemy ….” His voice trailed away into silence.