The Enchantress (The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel #6) (27 page)

“No. But your eyes were closed.”

“Maybe I was sleeping,” Shakespeare said, turning away and running up the steps. He stopped and glanced back at the Saracen Knight. “But you should know this, Palamedes—I would not wish any companion in the world but you.”

“It will be an honor to die with you, William Shakespeare,” the Saracen Knight said very softly. He hurried up the irregular steps after the immortal Bard.

“There is a chess term that I believe is applicable now,” Saint-Germain said to Joan as they waited at the top of the stairs ahead of Shakespeare and Palamedes.

Joan nodded. “The endgame.”

“And we have reached it.”

The stairs opened into the very heart of the tree. On a vast wooden plane an army had gathered, men and women standing in long uneven lines, green light running off metal and armor, giving everything an underwater appearance. The air above was dark with whirling gliders, and somewhere a drummer was beating an irregular tattoo. A bagpipe joined in, the sound lost and lonely.

Saint-Germain and Joan watched as dozens of vimana were wheeled out of hangars. Most were patched with wood and leather; others were bound together with rope or had
leaves over portholes instead of glass. Humans in thick wool and leather flying suits swarmed around the craft, checking them over, while others loaded spears and crates stacked with crystal globes into the holds.

“I am reminded of the young men who flew over the battlefields of Europe in the First World War in wood and fabric planes,” Joan said quietly. “How many survived?”

“Very few,” Saint-Germain said.

“And how many of these will return?” she asked.

Saint-Germain looked at the ancient vimana with their patchwork of repairs. “None.”

The tiny French immortal breathed deeply. “I seem to have spent most of my long life on battlefields watching young men and women die.”

“And you spent as many years as a nurse saving lives,” Saint-Germain reminded her.

“After the last war, I swore I would never end up on a battlefield again,” she said.

“We do not always get what we want. Sometimes life presents us with surprises.”

“Well, this adventure certainly counts as a surprise.” She smiled. “And while I really do love surprises, I’m not sure I’m loving this. But here we are, and here we will do what we must do.”

“You know,” Saint-Germain said, looking around, “I think I’m getting an idea for a new album.” His hands moved through the air, tapping time with the drum and bagpipe. “It’s going to be a big concept album, with an orchestra and choir….” He started to whistle.

Joan held up her hand, silencing him. “Why don’t you just surprise me.” A sudden thought struck her and she turned back to her husband. “Do you have a title for this album?”

“Armageddon!”

T
he ground floor of the Alcatraz Powerhouse pulsed with a dull gray glow.

Moving cautiously through the ever-thickening fog, Nicholas and Perenelle crept toward the light. The Alchemyst’s right hand trailed against a metal railing. Beyond the railing, they could hear—but not see—the sea lapping against the shore.

Perenelle breathed deeply. Above the salt and rotten-meat stink of the fog, she caught the hint of another smell: the dry musty odor of wet feathers. She placed her mouth close to Nicholas’s ear and whispered. “I think I know what is going on here.”

“So do I,” he said, surprising her. Then he hissed in pain as his toe smacked into a piece of broken masonry. This section of the island was in a state of disrepair. The salt erosion
and the weather were gradually reclaiming Alcatraz, slowly wiping away signs of man.

They could just about make out the steeply slanting roof of the Quartermaster Warehouse and the Powerhouse. Behind them was a tall chimney stack. And docked alongside the Powerhouse was the vague outline of a battered and rusty tourist boat, similar to the type that had brought tourists to the island before Dee’s company bought it and closed it down. Most of the boat was concealed behind the Powerhouse and the shifting fog, but they caught a glimpse of a series of lights stretching from the back of the ruined building out to the boat.

“Tell me,” Perenelle whispered.

“Think about the monsters you saw in the cells….”

He felt her hair brush his face as she nodded.

“And you said that some cells held more than one type of creature.”

The Sorceress nodded again. “Some held two or three.”

“But these are small cells, Perenelle. Five feet by nine feet …”

“The bigger monsters,” she said immediately. “Of course! There were no big creatures in the cellblocks.” She turned to look at the vague shapes of the two buildings. “I did see a minotaur, but it was relatively small—a baby. The sphinx was the biggest creature there, and she was walking free.”

“It makes sense that Dee and his masters would not have confined themselves to just the regular-sized creatures. If they really wanted to make an impact on the city, they would need some of the great monsters.”

“So what’s in there?”

“Full-sized minotaur,” Nicholas guessed. “Probably an ogre or two. You know Dee likes his ogres.”

“A dragon?” Perenelle wondered. Then she shook her head. “No, if he had a dragon he would have unleashed it already. But something with scales, a wyrm or a wyvern, perhaps. And a smok. Remember when he raised the smok in Poland?”

They crept closer, moving across rubble and broken stones, barking their shins and scraping their arms on jutting concrete and metal. They were close enough to the warehouse now to peer in through the tall rectangular windows. Grotesque shadows danced across the walls, and they caught glimpses of fur and scales. This close to the house the smell was overwhelming: the stink of wet fur, warm dung and filthy hair, of too many serpents and mammals crowded close together. The reek of wyrm and smok was distinct now: the fire-breathers exuded a nauseating sulfurous miasma every time they opened their mouths.

The Flamels heard shouts within—a thin high voice speaking in a guttural language. “ ‘One more.’ ” Perenelle translated the arcane language. “ ‘We can take one more this trip. Bring something big.’ ”

Nicholas nodded in admiration. “I’d forgotten you spoke it.” He suddenly squeezed her hand. “Even after all these years, there is so much I still do not know about you.”

“Medea taught me the lost language of Danu Talis,” she said. “And you know enough about me. You know that I love you.”

The Alchemyst touched the scarab he wore around his neck. It throbbed beneath his hand. “I do,” he said.

Nicholas and Perenelle rounded the end of the building just as a door slammed open. “Anpu,” the Sorceress whispered.

Two of the jackal-headed warriors appeared, each tugging on a long iron chain. A second pair of anpu hurried out of the building. They were holding smoking tridents, which they used to jab at the long green-skinned two-legged serpent that slithered from the building, attached to the iron chain. The creature was at least twenty feet long. Another pair of anpu followed behind the creature. They had wrapped more chains around its spiked tail.

“Lindworm,” Nicholas said. “Front claws, but no rear feet. But don’t think for a moment that it is slow. Its bite is deadly and its tail is a lethal weapon.”

The anpu dragged and prodded the lindworm toward the boat.

“We cannot let the boat leave the dock,” Nicholas said.

“How do we stop it?”

“These creatures—all of them, monsters and anpu—are under the control of a single person. If we can defeat that person, the beasts will turn upon one another. They’ll rip the boat apart for us. So the question is, who is controlling them?”

“I think I know….” Perenelle’s lips twisted in disappointment. “I thought she had changed….”

“Who?”

“She helped me escape. I was hoping she might remain neutral, but it seems I was wrong. I smelled her earlier.”

“Perenelle …,” Nicholas said.

But before she could respond, fog swirled upward in two concentric coils and a dark figure dropped to the ground directly in front of Nicholas and Perenelle. The Alchemyst and the Sorceress both held out their hands, the first hints of their auras appearing on their fingertips.

The figure was dressed from head to foot in gleaming black leather, moisture running off the shining silver bolts that studded her jerkin in a spiral design. Draped over her shoulders, its full hood pulled up around her face, and sweeping to the ground behind her was a cloak made entirely of ravens’ feathers. Most of her face was hidden by the hood, but her black lips curled away from overlong incisors.

“We meet again, Sorceress.”

“Nicholas,” Perenelle said, “let me introduce you to the Morrigan.”

B
illy the Kid threw himself forward and down, curling into a tight ball and rolling smoothly back to his feet.

The sphinx sailed over his head and crashed to the ground, claws slipping and scrabbling for purchase on the stone floor. “You are just delaying the inevitable,” she snarled, spinning around, expecting to see Billy racing down the corridor away from her.

The immortal stood facing her, arms hanging loose by his sides. He was close enough to her now that his own aura, a deep reddish purple, had begun to rise in a thin mist off his flesh. The air smelled of red pepper, and the sphinx sneezed. Billy tilted his head to one side and smiled. “Remember me?”

“Oh good,” she answered. “My first course is already seasoned.” She leapt into the air, claws extended.

Billy’s hands moved.

Two ancient leaf-shaped spearheads were tucked into his
belt on the left and right, just above his hips. In one fluid movement, he scooped them out and flung them through the air.

The sphinx screamed a defiant laugh that rose to a screeching wail.

And then the spears struck her.

And time slowed.

And stopped.

The sphinx hung suspended in the air. The spearheads had penetrated deep into the lion’s skin. They pulsed, once, twice and then again, throbbing blue, then red and finally white-hot.

Directly around each wound the sphinx’s flesh changed color, darkening to a deep blue, then paling to white and turning transparent. The transformation flowed through the creature, racing across her body, flesh turning to glass, revealing the bones beneath the skin. The sphinx managed a single gasped breath, but the skin on her face had begun to turn to glass, revealing the white bone skull beneath. Gradually the skull and all the bones in the glass sphinx transformed from bone to crystal.

And then the sphinx fell and shattered to a million pieces on the floor.

Billy the Kid bent and carefully plucked the two leaf-shaped blades from the shards of glass on the ground. He spun them on his fingers and stuck them back in his belt. He turned and winked at Mars, Odin and Hel. “Some things you just don’t forget.” He grinned.

T
he flat-topped stepped pyramid was enormous.

It sat in the precise center of the island of Danu Talis, surrounded by a vast golden plane, which was in turn encircled by a ring of water. Canals radiated from the circle like spokes on a wheel.

“The Pyramid of the Sun,” Osiris said. “The heart of Danu Talis.” He banked the vimana so the twins could look out over the extraordinary building.

Josh tried to gauge its size. “What is it—ten blocks, twelve?”

“Remember when we took you to see the Great Pyramid at Giza?” Isis asked.

The twins nodded.

Isis turned to look out the vimana’s porthole, admiring the massive structure. “That is a puny seven hundred and fifty-six feet long. The Pyramid of the Sun is ten times that length.”

Josh frowned, trying to do the calculation, converting
feet into miles. “Nearly one and a half miles,” Sophie said with a smile, putting him out of his misery.

“And it rises almost a mile high,” Isis continued.

“Who built it?” Josh asked. “You?”

“No,” Osiris said. “Those who came before us, the Great Elders, raised the island from the seabed and created the first pyramid. The original was bigger. Much of the rest of the island is of our creation, though.”

Sophie, who was sitting behind Osiris, leaned forward. “So just how old are you, really?”

“That’s hard to tell,” Osiris said. “We have wandered the Shadowrealms for thousands of years; time flows differently here. We’ve lived here for millennia and of course, we spent fifteen years on earth, raising you.”

“So when you said you were going off on digs, you were really slipping off to some Shadowrealm?” Josh asked.

“Sometimes,” Isis said. “Not always. Sometimes we really did go on digs. History is our passion.”

“And Aunt Agnes—Tsagaglalal—you knew who she was?” Sophie asked.

Josh looked at his sister. “Aunt Agnes?” he mouthed.

The couple’s laughs were identical. “Of course we knew,” Isis said. “Did you think we would abandon you to some perfect stranger? We’ve always been aware of She Who Watches. She moves in and out of human history, but only as a neutral observer. She never takes sides. When she offered to care for you, we were quite surprised. And she was the perfect choice: neither Elder nor Next Generation. And not really humani, either.”

“Aunt Agnes?” Josh mouthed again, looking at Sophie.

She shook her head at her twin. “Later,” she mouthed.

The vimana curled away from the pyramid, banked sharply and flew low over an enormous blocky building that lay in the shadow of the pyramid. The roof was laid out in a spectacular garden with seven distinct circles, each one bright with flowers. At the edge of the roof, vines and trailing roses flowed over the walls. “The ziggurat is the Palace of the Sun, home of the rulers of Danu Talis,” Isis said. “And beginning today, your home.”

“I hope we have gardeners,” Josh muttered.

“Josh, you will have everything,” Isis said sincerely. “On this island, you will both be the absolute rulers. The humani will worship you as gods.” She swiveled around in her seat to look at the twins. “You have been Awakened; you have a hint of the extent of your powers. Those powers will expand in the months to come. We will find the finest teachers to train you.” She smiled and her black tongue wriggled like a worm in her mouth. “Soon you will be able to create your own Shadowrealms. Think of that: you could make a world and populate it with anything you desire.”