The Sorceress (24 page)

“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, Niccolò 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 admitted 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.”

“Was there an odor?”

Billy hesitated, instinctively breathing in, but he smelled only the ever-present salt of the sea and the bitter tang of pollution. He shook his head, then, realizing that Machiavelli could not see him, spoke. “If there was, I don’t remember. No, I’m sure there wasn’t.”

“How did you experience it?”

“It was cold, so cold. And it sparked my own aura. For a few minutes I had no control.” Billy’s voice shook a little. “I thought I was going to burn up.”

“Anything else?” Machiavelli asked, keeping his voice calm, willing the American to focus. Every immortal human knew that an uncontrolled aura could completely consume the human body it wrapped around; the process was known as spontaneous human combustion. “Tell me.”

“Lucky I was parked when it happened; if I’d been driving I would have wrecked the car. I went completely blind and totally deaf. Couldn’t even hear my own heartbeat. And when I could hear again, it sounded as if every dog in the city was howling. All the birds were screaming too.”

“Perhaps it was the sphinx slaying the Sorceress,” the Italian murmured, and Billy frowned, his sensitive ears picking
up what might have been a note of regret in the man’s voice. “I understand she has been given permission to kill the woman.”

“That’s what I thought too,” Billy said. “I’ve got a scrying bowl. Anasazi pottery, very rare, very powerful.”

“The best, I’m told,” Machiavelli agreed.

“When I got my aura back under control, I immediately tried to scry the island. I got a glimpse, just a quick image of the Sorceress standing against a wall in the exercise yard. She was sunning herself, as calm as you please. And then—and I know this is impossible—she opened her eyes and lifted her face to look up … and I swear she saw me.”

“It may well be possible,” Machiavelli murmured. “No one knows the extent of the Sorceress’s powers. And then …?”

“The liquid in my scrying bowl froze into a solid chunk of ice.” The Kid looked down onto the passenger seat, where the fragments of the ancient bowl lay wrapped in the morning’s newspaper. “It shattered,” he said, a note of despair in his voice. “I’ve had that bowl a long time.” And then his voice hardened. “The Sorceress is still alive, but I can’t sense the sphinx. I think Perenelle has killed her,” he said, in awe.

“That too may be possible,” Machiavelli said slowly. “But it is unlikely. Let us not jump ahead. All we know for certain is that the Sorceress is still alive.”

The Kid drew in a deep breath. “I thought I could take Perenelle Flamel on my own; now I know I can’t. If you have any special European magic or spells, then it’s time to bring them.” Billy the Kid laughed, but there was nothing
humorous in the sound. “We’re only going to get one chance to kill this Sorceress; if we fail, then we won’t be leaving the Rock alive.”

Niccolò Machiavelli found himself nodding in agreement. He wondered if the American knew that the Morrigan had also gone missing. But what the Kid could not know was that at the precise moment the aura had been pulsing out from the island, a similar energy had blinked to life in North London. Machiavelli quickly skimmed the e-mails he’d received; they were all reporting on what had to be an incredibly powerful aura bursting to life.

… more powerful than any I have ever encountered, before …

… comparable to an Elder’s aura …

… reports of auras spontaneously flaring on Hampstead Heath and Camden Road and in Highgate Cemetery …

Interestingly, two e-mails reported the distinctive odor of mint.

Flamel’s signature.

Machiavelli shook his head in admiration. The Alchemyst must have connected with Perenelle. Scrying was relatively simple, and while it usually worked best over short distances, the Flamels had married in 1350, and they had lived together for more than 650 years. The connection between them was very strong, and it stood to reason that they should be able to make that connection over thousands of miles. But scrying should not have activated Flamel’s and Perenelle’s auras in such a dramatic way. Unless … unless Perenelle had been in
danger and the Alchemyst had fed her aura with his own. Machiavelli frowned. But Nicholas was weakening; that process should have—would have—killed him.

The twins!

Niccolò Machiavelli shook his head in disgust. He must be getting slow in his old age, he thought. It had to be connected to the twins. He had seen them work together at Notre Dame to defeat the gargoyles. They must have given Flamel some of their strength, and he, in turn, had somehow managed to connect to Alcatraz and Perenelle. That was why the aura’s signature was so strong.

“Why did you contact me?” Machiavelli wondered aloud.

“You weren’t my first call,” the Kid admitted. “But I can’t get in touch with my master. I thought I should warn you … and I hoped that maybe you had some way of defeating this Perenelle Flamel. Have you ever met her?”

“Yes.” Machiavelli smiled bitterly, remembering. “Just the once. A long time ago: in the year 1669. Dee had lost track of the Flamels after the Great Fire in London, and they had fled to continental Europe. I was holidaying in Sicily when I spotted them entirely by chance. Nicholas was ill, laid low with food poisoning, and I ensured that the local physician added some sleeping potion to his medicine. In my arrogance I thought I could defeat Perenelle first and then go after the Alchemyst.” The Italian held his left hand up to the light. A fine tracery of scars was still visible across his flesh, and there were others on his shoulders and back. “We fought for an entire day—her sorcery against my magic and alchemy ….” His voice trailed away into silence.

“What happened?” Billy asked eventually.

“The energies we released caused Mount Etna to erupt. I almost died on the island that day.”

Billy the Kid lowered the binoculars, then turned his back to the bay and sat down on a low stone wall. He stared at his battered cowboy boots; the leather was scuffed and torn, almost worn through in places. It was time to get a new pair, but that meant driving down to a shoemaker he knew in New Mexico, who still crafted boots and shoes to the traditional pattern. Billy had some friends in Albuquerque and Las Cruces, others in Silver City, where he’d grown up, and Fort Sumner, where Pat Garrett had shot him down.

“I could raise a gang,” he said slowly. He expected the Italian to object and was surprised when he heard nothing. “It would be just like in the old days. I know some immortals—a couple of cowboys, a Spanish conquistador and two great Apache warriors—who are loyal to us. Maybe if we all attacked the island together …”