you say there are a lot of birds gathering?
Sophie turned to stare through the windshield, while Flamel and Scatty peered
through the back window.
The spars and pylons, the braces, ropes and wires of the Golden Gate Bridge
were slowly filling with birds: thousands of them. Mainly blackbirds and
crows, they covered all available surfaces, with more arriving every moment.
They re coming from Alcatraz, Josh said, dipping his head to look across
the choppy waters toward the island.
A dark cloud had gathered above Alcatraz. It rose out of the abandoned prison
in a dark curl and hung in the air looking like smoke, but this smoke didn't
dissipate: it moved and circled in a solid mass.
Birds. Josh swallowed hard. There must be thousands of them.
Tens of thousands, Sophie corrected him. She turned to look at Flamel.
What are they?
The Morrigan s children, he said enigmatically.
Trouble, Scatty added. Big trouble.
Then, as if driven by a single command, the huge flock of birds moved away
from the island and headed across the bay, directly toward the bridge.
Josh hit his window button and the tinted glass hummed down. The noise of the
birds was audible now, a raucous cawing, almost like high-pitched laugher.
Traffic was slowing, some people even stopping to get out of their cars to
take photographs with digital cameras and cell phones.
Nicholas Flamel leaned forward and placed his left hand on Josh s shoulder.
You should drive, he said seriously. Do not stop whatever happens, even if
you hit something. Just drive. As fast as you can. Get us off this bridge.
There was something in Flamel's unnaturally controlled voice that frightened
Sophie even more than if he had shouted. She glanced sidelong at Scatty, but
the young woman was rummaging through her backpack. The warrior pulled out a
short bow and a handful of arrows and placed them on the seat beside her.
Roll up your window, Josh, she said calmly. We don't want anything getting
in.
We re in trouble, aren't we? Sophie whispered, looking at the Alchemyst.
Only if the crows catch us, Flamel'said with a tight smile. Could I borrow
your cell phone?
Sophie pulled her cell out of her pocket and flipped it open. aren't you
going to work some magic? she asked hopefully.
No, I m going to make a call. Let s hope we don't get an answering service.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
the Golem chauffeur expertly maneuvering the car through barred gates into an
underground parking garage. Perenelle Flamel lurched sideways and fell
against the sodden Golem sitting on her right-hand side. Its body squelched
with the blow, and spatters of foul-smelling mud squirted everywhere.
Dr. John Dee, sitting directly opposite, grimaced in disgust and scooted as
far away from the creature as he could. He was on his cell phone, talking
urgently in a language that had not been used on earth in more than three
thousand years.
A drop of Golem mud splashed onto Perenelle s right hand. The sticky liquid
ran across her flesh and erased the curling symbol Dee had drawn on her skin.
The binding spell was partially broken. Perenelle Flamel dipped her head
slightly. This was her chance. To properly channel her auric powers she
really needed both hands, and unfortunately, the ward Dee had drawn on her
forehead prevented her from speaking.
Still
Perenelle Delamere had always been interested in magic, even before she met
the poor bookseller who later became her husband. She was the seventh
daughter of a seventh daughter, and in the tiny village of Quimper in the
northwest corner of France, where she had grown up, she was considered
special. Her touch could heal not only humans, but animals, too she could
talk to the shades of the dead and she could sometimes see a little of the
future. But growing up in an age when such skills were regarded with deep
suspicion, she had learned to keep her abilities to herself. When she first
moved to Paris, she saw how the fortune-tellers working in the markets that
backed onto the great Notre Dame Cathedral made a good and easy living.
Adopting the name Chatte Noire Black Cat because of her jet-black hair, she
set herself up in a little booth in sight of the cathedral. Within a matter
of weeks she built a reputation for being genuinely talented. Her clients
changed: no longer were they just the tradespeople and stall holders, now
they were also drawn from the merchants and even the nobility.
Close to where she had her little covered stall sat the scriveners and
copiers, men who made their living writing letters for those who could
neither read nor write. Some of them, like the slender, dark-haired man with
startling pale eyes, occasionally sold books from their tables. And from the
first moment she saw that man, Perenelle Delamere knew that she would marry
him and that they would live a long and happy life together. She just never
realized quite how long.
They were married less than six months after they first met. They d been
together now for over six hundred years.
Like most educated men of his time, Nicholas Flamel was fascinated with
alchemy a combination of science and magic. His interest was sparked because
he was occasionally offered alchemical books or charts for sale or asked to
copy some of the rarer works. Unlike many other women of her time, Perenelle
could read and knew several languages her Greek was better than her
husband s and he would often ask her to read to him. Perenelle quickly became
familiar with the ancient systems of magic and began to practice in small
ways, developing her skills, concentrating on how to channel and focus the
energy of her aura.
By the time the Codex came into their possession, Perenelle was a sorceress,
though she had little patience for the mathematics and calculations of
alchemy. However, it was Perenelle who recognized that the book written in
the strange, ever-changing language was not just a history of the world that
had never been, but a collection of lore, of science, of spells and
incantations. She had been poring over the pages one bitter winter s night,
