The Sorceress sotinf-3

by Michael Scott

  Perenelle took a step closer. "I should thank you."

  The sphinx stepped back.

  "If I had turned and run, you would have chased me down. But when you reminded me that I was more powerful than before, I realized the gift my husband and the twins had given me."

  The sphinx screeched like a feral cat as the icy air bit and stung her human face. "Your powers will not last. I will drink them."

  "You will try," Perenelle said quietly, almost gently. "But to do that you need to concentrate and focus on me. And personally, I have always found it hard to concentrate when it is cold." She smiled again.

  "Your aura will fade." The sphinx's needle-sharp teeth began to chatter. Thin curls of ice were forming on the wall.

  "True. I have a minute, perhaps less, before my aura fades back to normal. But I have enough time."

  "Enough time?" The creature shuddered. Frost now coated the sphinx's chest and legs; her pale cheeks turned red, her lips blue.

  "Enough time to do this!"

  The snowball was now the size of a large pumpkin. The sphinx lashed out at it, an enormous lion's paw cutting through the frozen crystals. When she jerked her paw back, the skin and nails were burned black by the intense chill.

  "A shaman on the Aleutian Islands taught me this pretty spell," Perenelle said, moving closer to the sphinx. The creature immediately tried to back away, but the floor was slick with crackling ice and her feet shot out from beneath her, sending her crashing to the ground. "The Aleut are the masters of snow and ice magic. There are many different types of snow," the Sorceress said. "Soft…"

  Feather-soft snowflakes curled out of the spinning ball and flurried around the sphinx, hissing onto her skin, burning and melting the moment they touched.

  "Hard…"

  Stone-sharp chips of ice danced away from the ball, stinging the sphinx's human face.

  "And then there are blizzards."

  The ball erupted. Thick snow blasted against the creature, coating her chest and face. She coughed as the freezing crystals swirled into her mouth. Feet scrabbling, she attempted to back away, but the entire hallway was now a sheet of ice. The sphinx raised her wings, but they were weighted down beneath a thick coating of frost and could barely move.

  "And of course, hail…"

  Pea-sized chips and chunks of ice battered the ancient creature. Snow pellets and hailstones ricocheted out of the spinning ball, puncturing tiny holes in her wings.

  Howling, the sphinx turned and fled.

  An ice storm pursued her, hail bouncing and pinging off the floor, shattering against the ceiling, rattling off the metal cell doors. Inch-thick ice bloomed along the length of the corridor, metal bars shattered with the intense chill, bricks crumbled to dust and whole chunks of ceiling collapsed under the weight of the heavy ice.

  The sphinx had almost reached the end of the corridor when it collapsed around her, burying her under tons of rock and metal. And then the cracking and snapping ice flowed over it all, sealing the rubble beneath eighteen inches of iron-hard permafrost.

  Perenelle staggered as her aura winked out of existence.

  "Bravo, madame," the ghost Juan Manuel de Ayala murmured, appearing out of the gloom.

  The Sorceress leaned against a wall, breathing in great heaving gasps. She was trembling with exertion, and the effort had left her with aching joints and stiff muscles.

  "Have you killed her?"

  "Hardly," Perenelle said tiredly. "Slowed her down, irritated her, frightened her. I'm afraid it will take more than that to kill a sphinx." She turned and slowly climbed the stairs, leaning heavily on the wall.

  "The snow and ice was impressive," de Ayala said, floating backward up the stairs so that he could admire the solid plug of glacier at the end of the corridor.

  "I was going to try something else, but for some reason, I had an image of two warrior women trapped in ice; they looked like Valkyries…"

  "A memory?" de Ayala suggested.

  "Not one of mine," Perenelle whispered, then sighed with relief as she stepped out into the glorious morning sunshine. With the last remnant of her aura, she trailed her fingers across her wounds, cleansing them. Then, closing her eyes, she tilted her face to the light. "I think they were Sophie's memories," she said in wonder. Then she stopped, a sudden thought chilling her. "Valkyries and the Nidhogg abroad in the world again," she said in wonder. Instinctively, the Sorceress turned to the east and opened her eyes. What was happening to Nicholas and the children? How much trouble were they in? lchemyst," Palamedes shouted desperately, "you have doomed us all!"

  Flamel lay slumped before the destroyed screens. His skin was the color of yellowed parchment, there were new wrinkles around his eyes and the lines etched into his forehead had deepened. When he turned to look at the Saracen, his eyes were glassy and unfocused, the whites tinged with green.

  "I told you not to use your aura," the knight snarled. "I warned you." Palamedes rounded on Shakespeare. "Prepare for battle. Alert the guards." The Bard nodded and hurried outside, the red-eyed dogs silent now, fanning out around him in a protective shield. The knight's chain-mail armor appeared ghostlike around his huge frame, then solidified. "What did I say, Alchemyst? Death and destruction follow you. How many will die tonight because of you?" he shouted before he raced out the door.

  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 Allta?" 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, Niccolo 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 admitt
ed 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."