Nicholas Flamel 2 - The Magician

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

S ophie 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