She looked around the room, paying particular attention to the area around
the metal gate. Unlike in her previous prison, she couldn t see any magical
wards or protective sigils painted on the lintel or the floor. Perenelle
couldn t resist a tiny smile. What were Dee s people thinking? Once she had
recovered her strength, she d charge up her aura, and then bend this metal
like putty and simply walk out of here.
It took her a moment before she realized that the
assumed to be dripping water was actually something approaching, moving
slowly and deliberately. Pressing herself against the bars, she tried to see
down the corridor. A shadow moved. More of Dee s faceless simulacra? she
wondered. They would not be able to hold her for long.
The shadow, huge and misshapen, moved out of the darkness and stepped down
the corridor to stand before her cell. Perenelle was suddenly grateful for
the bars that separated her from the terrifying entity.
Filling the corridor was a creature that had not walked the earth since a
millennium before the first pyramid rose over the Nile. It was a sphinx, an
enormous lion with the wings of an eagle and the head of a beautiful woman.
The sphinx smiled and tilted her head to one side, and a long black forked
tongue flickered. Perenelle noticed that her pupils were flat and horizontal.
This was not one of Dee s creations. The sphinx was one of the daughters of
Echidna, one of the foulest of the Elders, shunned and feared even by her own
race, even the Dark Elders. Perenelle suddenly found herself wondering who,
exactly, Dee was serving.
The sphinx pressed her face against the bars. Her long tongue shot out,
tasting the air, almost brushing Perenelle s lips. Do I need to remind you,
Perenelle Flamel, she asked in the language of the Nile, that one of the
especial skills of my race is that we absorb auric energy? Her huge wings
flapped, almost filling the corridor. You have no magical powers around me.
An icy shiver ran down Perenelle s spine as she realized just how clever Dee
was. She was a defenseless and powerless prisoner on Alcatraz, and she knew
that no one had ever escaped The Rock alive.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
allow a rather ordinary-looking elderly woman in a neat gray blouse and gray
skirt to precede him into the shop. Short and round, her hair tightly permed
and touched faintly with blue, only the overlarge black glasses covering much
of her face set her apart. A white cane was folded in her right hand.
Sophie and Josh immediately realized that she was blind.
Flamel cleared his throat. Allow me to introduce He stopped and looked at
the woman. Excuse me. What do I call you?
Call me Dora, everyone else does. She spoke English with a decided New York
accent. Scathach? she suddenly said. Scathach! And then her words
dissolved into a language that seemed to consist of a lot of spitting
sounds which Sophie was surprised to find she could understand.
She wants to know why Scatty hasn t come to see her in the past three
hundred and seventy-two years, eight months and four days, she translated
for Josh. She was staring intently at the old woman and didn't see the fear
and envy that flickered across his face.
The old woman moved quickly around the narrow room, head darting left and
right, never looking directly at Scatty. She continued to speak, seemingly
without stopping for breath.
She s telling Scatty that she could have been dead and no one would have
known. Nor cared. Why, only last century she was desperately ill, and no one
called, no one wrote
Gran , Scatty began.
don't Gran me, Dora said, dropping into English again. You could have
written any language would have done. You could have phoned .
You don't have a phone.
And what s wrong with e-mail? Or a fax?
Gran, have you got a computer or a fax machine?
Dora stopped. No. What would I need one of them for?
Dora s hand moved and suddenly her white stick extended to its full length
with a snap. She tapped against the glass of a simple square mirror. Have
you got one of these?
Yes, Gran, Scatty said miserably. Her pale cheeks were flushed red with
embarrassment.
So you couldn t find the time to look in a mirror and talk to me. You re so
busy these days? I ve got to hear it from your brother. And when was the last
time you spoke to your mother!
Scathach turned to the twins. This is my grandmother, the legendary Witch of
Endor. Gran, this is Sophie and Josh. And you've met Nicholas Flamel.
Yes, such a nice man. She kept turning her head, her nostrils flaring.
Twins, she said finally.
Sophie and Josh looked at each other. How did she know? Did Nicholas tell
her?
There was something about the way the woman kept moving her head that
intrigued Josh. He tried to follow the direction of her gaze and then he
realized why the old woman s head kept moving left and right: she was somehow
seeing them
and nodded to the mirror. She glanced at it, back at the old woman, then back
at the mirror, and then she nodded at her brother, silently agreeing with
him.
Dora stepped up to Scathach, her head turned to one side as she stared hard
at a tall length of polished glass. you've lost weight. Are you eating
properly?
Gran, I ve looked like this for two and a half thousand years.
So you re saying I m going blind now, eh? the old woman asked, then burst
into surprisingly deep laughter. Give your old Gran a hug.
Scathach carefully hugged the old woman and kissed her cheek. It s good to
see you, Gran. You re looking well.
I m looking old. Do I look old?
Not a day over ten thousand. Scatty smiled.
The Witch pinched Scathach s cheek. The last person who mocked me was a tax
inspector. I turned him into a paperweight, she said. I still have it here
