The god’s sword moved again, tapping lightly against the boy’s shoulders. “Truly, yours is one of the most powerful auras I have ever encountered,” Mars said quietly. “There is something else I can give you—a gift—and this I give freely. You may find it of use in the days to come.” Stretching out his left hand, he rested it on top of the boy’s head. Instantly, Josh’s aura burst into incandescent light. Streamers and globes of yellow fire curled from his body and bounced around the room. Phobos and Deimos were caught by the blast of light and heat, and it sent them squealing and scrambling behind the stone plinth, but not before their pale skin had reddened and the tips of their snow white hair had darkened and crisped. The searing light drove Dee to his knees, gloved hands pressed against his eyes. He rolled over, burying his face in his hands as spheres of fire bounced off the floor and ceiling, spattering against the walls, leaving scorch marks on the polished bone.
Only Machiavelli had escaped the full force of the explosion of light. He’d turned away and ducked out of the room in the last instant before Mars had touched the boy. Curling up in a ball, he hid in the deep shadows outside the door while streamers of yellow light ricocheted off the walls and hissing balls of solid energy blazed out into the corridor. He blinked hard, trying to clear the streaked afterimages seared onto his retinas. Machiavelli had seen Awakenings before, but never anything this dramatic. What was Mars doing to the boy, what gift was he giving him?
Then, through his blurring vision, he saw a vague silvery shape materialize at the other end of the corridor.
And the scent of vanilla filled the catacombs.
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
Perched on top of the water tower on Alcatraz, surrounded by huge Dire-Crows, the Morrigan sang softly to herself. It was a song first heard by the most primitive of ancient men, now imprinted deep into humankind’s DNA. It was slow and gentle, lost and plaintive, beautiful…and utterly terrifying. It was the Song of the Morrigan: a cry designed to inspire fear and terror. And on battlefields across the world and down through time, it was often the last sound a human heard in this life.
The Morrigan drew her black feathered cloak about her and gazed out across the fog-locked bay toward the city. She could feel the heat of the mass of humani, could see the seething glow of almost a million auras within San Fancisco itself. And every aura was wrapped around a humani, each one rich with fears and worries, filled with succulent, tasty emotions. She pressed her hands together and brought the tips of her fingers to her thin black lips. Her ancestors had fed off humankind, had drunk their memories, savored their emotions like fine wines. Soon…oh, so very soon, she would be free to do it again.
But before that she had a banquet to enjoy.
Earlier, she’d received a call from Dee. Finally, he and his Elders had been forced to agree that it was now too dangerous to allow both Nicholas and Perenelle to survive; he had given her permission to slay the Sorceress.
The Morrigan had an eyrie high in the San Bernardino Mountains. She would carry Perenelle there and over the next few days drain every last one of the woman’s memories and emotions. The Sorceress had lived for almost seven hundred years; she had traveled across the globe and into Shadowrealms, had seen wonders and experienced terrors. And the woman had an extraordinary memory; she would have remembered everything, every emotion, every thought and fear. And the Morrigan would relish them all. When she was finished, the legendary Perenelle Flamel would be little more than a mindless babe. The Crow Goddess threw back her head and opened her mouth wide, her long incisors white and stark against her dark lips, her tongue tiny and black. Soon.
The Morrigan knew that the Sorceress was in the tunnels beneath the water tower. The only other entrance was through a tunnel that was accessible only at low tide. And although the tide would not turn for hours, the rocks and cliff face around the cave mouth were covered with razor-billed crows.
Then the Morrigan’s nostrils flared.
Over the salt and iodine smell of the sea, the metallic stink of rusted metal and rotting stone and the musty scent of countless birds, she suddenly smelled something else…something that didn’t belong, not in this place, not in this age. Something ancient and bitter.
The wind shifted, and the fog curled with it. Beads of salty moisture suddenly glistened on a thread of silver hanging in the air before her. The Morrigan blinked her jet-black eyes. Another thread wavered in the air, and then another and another, crisscrossed in a series of circles. They looked like webs.
They were webs.
She was coming to her feet when a monstrous spider erupted from the shaft below her and landed squarely on the side of the water tower, its huge barbed feet biting into the metal. It scuttled toward the Crow Goddess.
The mass of birds ringing the water tower spiraled skyward, screaming raucously…and were instantly trapped in the enormous web floating overhead. They fell back on top of their dark mistress, entangling her in a writhing mass of feathers and sticky web. The Morrigan slashed her way free with razor-tipped nails, gathered her cloak about her and was about to take to the air when the spider climbed over the top of the water tower and drove her back, pinning her down with a huge barbed foot.
Perenelle Flamel, astride the spider’s back, a blazing spear in her hand, leaned forward and smiled at the Morrigan. “You were looking for me, I believe.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
Sophie ran.
She was no longer afraid; she didn’t feel sick or weak anymore. She just had to get to her brother. Josh was directly ahead of her, in a room at the end of the tunnel. She could see the golden glow of his aura lighting up the darkness, smell the mouthwatering scent of oranges.
Pushing past Nicholas, Joan and Saint-Germain, ignoring their cries to stop, Sophie raced for the glowing arched doorway. She had always been a good runner and held track records for the hundred-meter in most of the schools she’d attended, but now she practically flew down the corridor. And with every step, her aura—fueled by anger and determination—grew around her, sparking, crackling and metallic. Her enhanced senses flared, her pupils shrinking to dots and then expanding to silver discs, and instantly the shadows vanished and she could see the gloomy catacomb in all its shocking detail. Her nostrils were assaulted with a variety of smells—snake and sulfur, rot and mold—but stronger than all the others was the orange scent of her brother’s aura.
And she knew she was too late: he had been Awakened.
Ignoring the man crouching on the ground outside the chamber, Sophie raced through the doorway…and her aura instantly hardened to a metallic shell as blazing arcs of gold fire bounced off the walls to spatter against her. She staggered, battered by the energy. Gripping the edge of the door, she held on to prevent herself from being pushed back out into the corridor.
“Josh,” she said, awed by the sight before her.
Josh was kneeling on the ground before what could only be Mars. The huge Elder was holding a broadsword aloft in his left hand, the point touching the ceiling, while his right was clamped onto her brother’s head. Josh’s aura was blazing like wildfire, cocooning him in golden light. Yellow fire spun around him, throwing off spheres and whips of energy. They splashed against the walls and ceilings, cutting away chunks of time-yellowed bone to reveal the white beneath.
“Josh!” Sophie screamed.
The god slowly turned his head and fixed her with glowing red eyes. “Leave,” Mars commanded.
Sophie shook her head. “Not without my twin,” she said through gritted teeth. She wasn’t going to abandon her brother; she’d never do that.
“He is no longer your twin,” Mars said mildly. “You are different now.”
“He will always be my twin,” she said simply.
Pushing into the room, she sent a wave of ice-cold silver fog rolling out from her body to wash over her brother and the Elder. It hissed and sizzled where it touched Josh’s aura, dirty white smoke curling up to gather at the ceiling. It frosted over Mars’s hard skin
, and ice crystals sparkled in the amber light.
The god slowly lowered his sword. “Have you any idea who I am?” he asked, his voice soft, almost gentle. “If you did, you would fear me.”
“You are Mars Ultor,” Sophie said slowly, the Witch of Endor’s knowledge informing her. “And before the Romans worshipped you, the Greeks knew you as Ares, and before that the Babylonians called you Nergal.”
“Who are you?” The Elder’s hand dropped away from Josh’s head, and instantly, the boy’s aura winked out and the fires died.
Josh swayed and Sophie swooped in to catch him before he hit the ground. The moment she touched him, her own aura disappeared, leaving her defenseless. But she’d gone beyond fear now; she felt nothing, only relief that she’d been reunited with her twin. Crouching on the ground, cradling her brother in her arms, Sophie looked up at the towering war god. “And before you were Nergal, you were the champion of the humankind: you were Huitzilopochtli. You led the human slaves to safety when Danu Talis sank beneath the waves.”
The god staggered away. The backs of his knees hit the plinth and he sat down suddenly, the massive stone cracking beneath his great weight. “How do you know this?” he asked, and what sounded like fear rattled in his voice.
“Because you walked with the Witch of Endor.” She straightened, hauling her brother to his feet. His eyes were open but had rolled back in his head, leaving only the whites showing. “The Witch of Endor gave me all her memories,” Sophie said. “I know what you did…and why she cursed you.” Stretching out her hand, she touched the god’s stone-hard skin with her fingertip. A spark snapped. “I know why she did this to your aura.”
Draping her brother’s arm over her shoulder, she turned her back on the war god. Flamel, Saint-Germain and Joan had arrived and had gathered in the doorway. Joan’s sword was loosely pointed at Dee, who was lying unmoving on the floor. No one spoke.
“If you have the Witch’s knowledge within you,” Mars said urgently, almost pleadingly, “then you know her incantations and cantrips. You know how to lift this curse.”
Nicholas hurried forward to lift Josh from Sophie’s arms, but she refused to let her brother go. Glancing over her shoulder at the god, she said very softly, “Yes, I know how to lift it.”
“Then do it,” Mars commanded. “Do it and I will give you everything you want. I can give you anything!”
Sophie thought for a moment. “Can you take away my Awakened senses? Can you make me and my brother normal again?”
There was a long moment of silence before the god spoke again. “No. I cannot do that.”
“Then there is nothing you can do for us.” Sophie turned away and, with Saint-Germain’s assistance, helped Josh out into the corridor. Joan ducked out, leaving only Flamel standing in the doorway.
“Wait!” The god’s voice rose and the entire chamber trembled with the sound. Phobos and Deimos slunk out from behind the cracked plinth, chattering noisily. “You will reverse this curse, or…,” the god began.
Nicholas stepped forward. “Or what?”
“None of you will leave these catacombs alive,” Mars barked. “I will not permit it. And I am Mars Ultor!” The god’s hidden eyes blazed bloodred and he took a step forward, swinging the huge sword before him. “Who are you to deny me?”
“I am Nicholas Flamel. And you,” he added, “are an Elder who made the mistake of believing that you were a god.” He snapped his fingers and dust motes of glittering emerald drifted to the bone floor. They raced across the smoothly polished surface, leaving tiny threads of green in the aged yellow. “I am the Alchemyst…and let me introduce you to the greatest secret of alchemy: transmutation.” And then he turned back to the corridor and disappeared into the shadows.
“No!” Mars took a step forward and instantly sank up to his ankle in the floor, which had suddenly turned soft and gelatinous. The god took another shuddering step and then lost his footing as the ground melted beneath his weight. He crashed forward, hitting the floor hard enough to send splashes of jellylike bone onto the walls. His sword bit a huge chunk out of the wall where, a moment earlier, Flamel had been standing. Mars struggled to regain his footing, but the floor was a shifting quagmire of sticky semiliquid bone. Rising to his hands and knees, Mars thrust his head forward to glare at Dee, who was slowly crawling out of the liquid toward the door. “This is your doing, Magician!” he howled savagely, the entire chamber vibrating with his rage. Bone dust and chips of ancient stone rained down. “I hold you responsible.”
Dee staggered to his feet and leaned against the doorframe, shaking glutinous jelly off his hands, brushing it off his ruined trousers.
“Bring me the girl and the boy,” Mars snarled, “and I may forgive you. Bring me the twins. Or else.”
“Or else—what?” Dee asked mildly.
“I will destroy you: not even your Elder master will be able to protect you from my wrath.”
“Don’t you dare threaten me!” Dee said, his voice an ugly snarl. “And I don’t need my Elder to protect me.”
“Fear me, Magician, for you have made an enemy of me.”
“Do you know what I do to those who frighten me?” Dee demanded, his accent thickening. “I destroy them!” The room suddenly filled with the stench of sulfur, and then the bone walls began to run and melt like soft ice cream. “Flamel is not the only alchemist who knows the secret of transmutation,” he said as the ceiling turned soft and liquid, long strands dripping down to the floor, covering Mars in sticky fluid. Then it began to rain bone in huge yellow drops.
“Destroy him!” Mars howled. Phobos and Deimos leapt from the plinth onto the Elder’s back, teeth and claws extended, huge eyes fixed on Dee.
The Magician spoke a single word of power and snapped his fingers: the liquid bone instantly hardened.
Niccolò Machiavelli appeared in the doorway. He folded his arms and looked into the chamber. In the center of the room, caught as he tried to rise from the floor, the two satyrs on his back, was Mars Ultor, frozen in bone.
“So the catacombs of Paris have yet another mysterious bone statue,” the Italian said mildly. Dee turned away. “First you kill Hekate and now Mars,” Machiavelli continued. “And I thought you were supposed to be on our side. You do realize,” he called after Dee, “that we are both dead men. We’ve failed to capture Flamel and the twins. Our masters will not forgive us.”
“We’ve not failed yet,” Dee called back. He was almost at the end of the corridor. “I know where this tunnel comes out. I know how we can capture them.” He stopped and looked back, and when he spoke, the words came slowly, almost reluctantly. “But…Niccolò…we will need to work together. We will need to combine our powers.”
“What do you intend to do?” Machiavelli asked.
“Together, we can loose the Guardians of the City.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE
The Morrigan managed to struggle to her feet, but a spiderweb as thick as her arm wrapped around her waist and twisted between her legs, entangling them, and she fell. She started to slide over the side of the water tower when a second and then a third web caught her, curling around her body, wrapping it from neck to toes in a thick mummylike shell. Perenelle leapt off Areop-Enap’s back and crouched beside the Crow Goddess. The head of her spear vibrated with energy, and red and white smoke coiled into the damp night air. “You probably feel like screaming right now,” Perenelle said with a wry smile. “Go ahead.”
The Morrigan obliged. Her jaws unhinged, black lips parted to reveal her savage teeth and she howled.
The nerve-shattering cry echoed across the island. Every unbroken pane of glass on Alcatraz shattered into powder, and the entire water tower swayed. Across the bay, the city came awake as business, house and car alarms along the waterfront burst into cacophonous life. Every dog within a hundred-mile radius of the island started yowling piteously.
But the scream also brought the rest of the huge flock of gathered birds surging into the night sky i
n a thunderous explosion of flapping wings and raucous cries. Most were immediately entangled and brought down by a thick cloud of spiderwebs hanging in the air between the desolate buildings, draped across every open window, spun from pole to pole. The moment the ensnared birds hit the ground, spiders of every shape and size swarmed over them, cocooning them in thick silver webs. Within moments, the island fell silent again.
A handful of Dire-Crows escaped. Six of the huge birds swooped low over the island, avoiding the festoons and nets of sticky web. The birds curled out over San Francisco Bay toward the bridge, soared high and then swung back to attack. Now they were above the entangling spiderwebs. They circled over the water tower. Twelve pitch-black eyes fixed on Perenelle, and razor beaks and dagger-tipped claws opened as they dropped silently toward the woman.
Crouched over the Morrigan, Perenelle caught the flickering hint of movement reflected in her adversary’s black eyes. The Sorceress brought the spearhead to blazing life with a single word and spun it in her hand, leaving a red triangle burning in the foggy air. The savage birds flew through the red fire…and changed.
Six perfect eggs dropped out of the sky and were plucked out of midair by strands of gossamer-thin spiderweb. “Breakfast,” Areop-Enap said delightedly, clambering down the side of the tower.
Perenelle sat down beside the struggling Crow Goddess. Resting the spear on her knees, she looked out across the bay in the direction of the city she called home.
“What will you do now, Sorceress?” the Morrigan demanded.
“I have no idea,” Perenelle said truthfully. “It seems Alcatraz is mine.” She sounded almost bemused by the idea. “Well, mine and Areop-Enap’s.”
“Unless you’ve managed to master the art of flight, you are trapped here,” the Morrigan snarled. “This is Dee’s property. No tourists come here now; there are no sightseers, no fishing boats. You are still as much a prisoner as when you were in your cell. And the sphinx patrols the corridors below. She’ll be coming for you.”
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