The Sorceress (52 page)

Sophie slapped the glass partition with the palm of her hand. “Go, Josh, go!”

“I’ve got to get Clarent.”

“Look
behind
you!
” she screamed.

In the rearview mirror, Josh could see that the field was full of monsters. They looked like they were part of the Wild Hunt, but these wolves were black, with brutish, almost apelike faces, and were twice the size of the gray wolves. Running alongside them were huge coal-colored cats with blazing red eyes.

“What are they?” Josh shouted.

“Aspects of the Wild Hunt from all across the country,” Palamedes said tiredly.

Josh glanced at the long grass where he knew Clarent was lying and made a decision. It would take only a moment to get to it … but doing so would endanger everyone. Even as he floored the accelerator, he recognized that the old Josh Newman would have put his own needs above others and gone for the sword. He had changed. Maybe it had to do with the magic he’d learned, but he doubted it. The experiences of the past few days had taught him what was important.

Sophie leaned out the window, gathering strength she didn’t know she possessed, and pressed her thumb against the circle on her wrist. An arrow-straight line of raging vanilla-scented fire blazed into six-foot flames, bringing the charging creatures to a halt.

“What do I do?” Josh shouted. “Where do I go?” A wooden gate appeared in the headlights. Josh held on, hunched his shoulders and drove straight through it, shattering it into splinters. A length of timber snapped back and punched a hole through the windshield.

Palamedes grabbed the Alchemyst and none too gently shook his head. Flamel’s eyes cracked open and his lips moved, but no sound came out. “Where are we going?” the knight demanded.

“Stonehenge,” Flamel mumbled.

“Yes, yes, I know that. Where, specifically?”

“The heart of the Henge,” the Alchemyst whispered, head lolling. Sophie saw that there were long tears in his clothing where Dee’s whip had sliced at him. The skin beneath was blistered and raw. Focusing the remnants of her aura into the tip of her index finger, Sophie drew it along one of the nastier cuts, sealing and healing it.

“Where’s Gilgamesh?” Palamedes asked.

“He was wounded. He told me to go; he made me go.” Sophie’s voice caught. “I didn’t want to.”

The Saracen Knight smiled kindly. “He’s impossible to kill,” he said.

“Where do I go?” Josh called again from the front seat.

“Just follow my directions,” Palamedes said, leaning forward. “Go left. Stick to the back roads, there should be no traffic ….”

The road behind them suddenly lit up with blue and white light. Headlights flashed and sirens blared. “Police,” Josh said, unnecessarily.

“Keep going,” Palamedes commanded. “Stop for nothing.” He looked out the rear window at the police cars and turned to Sophie. “Is there anything you can do?”

Sophie shook her head. “I have nothing left.” She lifted her hand. It was trembling violently, and tiny wisps of smoke curled off her fingertips.

“We have three police cars closing in on us,” Josh yelled back from the front seat. “Do something!”

“You
do something,” Palamedes said. “Sophie has no power left. It’s up to you, Josh.”

“I’m driving,” he protested.

“Think of something,” the knight snapped.

“What should I do?” he asked desperately.

“Think of rain,” Sophie murmured.

Josh kept his foot pressed to the floor, the cab roaring down the road, speedometer touching ninety. Rain. OK, they’d lived in Chicago, New York, Seattle and San Francisco. He knew all about rain. The boy imagined water falling from the skies: thick fat drops of rain, torrential rain, misty summer rain, frozen winter rain.

“Nothing’s happening,” he called.

Abruptly, a torrential downpour washed across the road behind them, sluicing from a cloud that hadn’t been there a
heartbeat earlier. The nearest police car hit a patch of water and skidded sideways, and the second car crashed into its back passenger door. A tire exploded. The third car rear-ended the second and the three cars slid across the road, completely blocking it in a tangle of metal. The sirens died to squawks.

“Nicely done,” Palamedes commented.

“Where to now?”

The knight pointed. “Over there.”

Josh ducked his head to look to the left. Stonehenge was smaller than he’d imagined, and the road came surprisingly close to the standing stones.

“Stop here. We’ll get out and run,” Palamedes said.

“Stop where?” Josh asked, looking around.

“Right here!”

Josh hit the brakes and the car skidded to a halt. Palamedes leapt from the car, the Alchemyst unceremoniously draped over his shoulder. “Follow me,” the knight shouted. His huge sword slashed a metal fence to ribbons.

Josh grabbed the Persian sword and wrapped his arm around his sister, who was struggling to stay conscious, holding her as they raced across the grass toward the circle of standing stones.

“And whatever you do,” the Saracen Knight shouted, “don’t look back.”

Sophie and Josh both looked back.

ou know her?” Billy the Kid asked, dipping his head and speaking out of the corner of his mouth. He was looking at the back of the woman they were following through the maze of stone and metal corridors.

Machiavelli nodded. “We’ve met on occasion,” he said quietly. “She is the Crow Goddess, one of the Next Generation.”

The woman’s head swiveled around like an owl’s to regard the two men. Her eyes were hidden behind mirrored wraparound sunglasses. “And my hearing is excellent.”

Billy grinned. He took two quick steps forward and fell in alongside the woman in black leather. He stuck out his hand. “William Bonney, ma’am. Most people just call me Billy.”

The Crow Goddess looked at the hand and then she smiled, overlong incisors pressing against her black lips. “Don’t touch me. I bite.”

Billy was unfazed. “I haven’t been immortal for long, a mite over a hundred twenty-six years, in fact, and I’ve not met that many Elders or Next Generation. Certainly no one like you …”

“William,” Machiavelli said quietly, “I think you should stop bothering the Crow Goddess.”

“I’m not bothering her, I’m just asking …”

“You’re immortal, William, not invulnerable.” Machiavelli smiled. “The Morrigan is worshipped in the Celtic lands as a goddess of death. That should be a clue to her nature.” He suddenly stopped walking. “What was that?”

Billy the Kid’s hand dipped under his coat and came out with a fifteen-inch-long bowie knife. His face changed, instantly becoming hard. “What?”

Machiavelli held up his hand, silencing the American. Head tilted to one side, he concentrated. “It sounds like—”

“—an outboard engine!” Billy took off at a run. Machiavelli cast a quick suspicious glance at the Crow Goddess and turned to race back down the corridor.

Moments later the sphinx padded around the corner. She spotted the Crow Goddess and stopped, and the two women bowed politely. They were distantly related through a complex web of Elder relationships. “I thought I heard something,” the sphinx said.

“So did they.” The Crow Goddess’s smile was savage.

Nicholas had never learned to drive, but Perenelle had finally taken lessons ten years ago and, after six weeks of driving school, passed her test on the first attempt. They had
never bought a car, but Perenelle had forgotten none of her lessons. It took her a few moments to work out how to control the small bright yellow motorboat. She turned the key in the ignition and pushed the throttle, and the outboard motor foamed white water. Spinning the wheel, she pushed the throttle farther and the boat roared away from Alcatraz Island, leaving a V of white water in its wake.

De Ayala’s face coalesced out of the spray spitting in over the bow.
“I thought you were going to fight.”

“Fighting is a last resort,” she shouted above the wind and the roar of the engine. “If Scathach and Joan had joined me, perhaps then I would have gone up against the sphinx and the two immortals. But not on my own.”

“What about the Spider God?”

“Areop-Enap can take care of itself,” Perenelle said. “They’d best hope they’re not on the island when it awakes. It’ll be hungry, and the Old Spider has a voracious appetite.”

A tiny distant shout made her turn. Machiavelli and his companion were on the docks. The Italian was standing still, and the smaller man was waving his arms, sunlight glinting off a knife in his hand.

“Will they not use their magic?”
de Ayala asked.

“Magic is not really effective over running water.” Perenelle grinned.

“I fear I must leave you, madame. I need to return to the island.”
The ghost’s face started to dissolve into spray.

“Thank you, Juan, for all that you have done,” Perenelle said sincerely in formal Spanish. “I am in your debt.”

“Will you be back to Alcatraz?”

Perenelle looked over her shoulder at the prison. Knowing now that the cells held a collection of nightmares, she thought the island itself looked almost like a sleeping beast. “I will.” Someone would have to do something about the army before it was awakened. “I will be back. And soon,” she promised.

“I will be waiting,”
de Ayala said, and vanished.

Perenelle angled the boat in toward the pier and eased back on the throttle. A delighted smile crept across her face. She was free.

Niccolò Machiavelli took a deep breath and calmed himself. Anger clouded judgment, and right now he needed to be thinking clearly. He had underestimated the Sorceress, and she’d made him pay for that mistake. It was unforgivable. He’d been sent to Alcatraz to kill Perenelle and he’d failed. Neither his master nor Dee’s master was going to be happy, though he had a feeling that Dee himself would not be too upset. The English Magician would probably gloat.

Although he feared the Sorceress, Machiavelli had really wanted to fight the woman. He had never forgiven her for defeating him on Mount Etna and over the centuries had spent a fortune collecting spells, incantations and cantrips that would destroy her. He was determined to have his revenge. And she had cheated him. Not with magic, or with the power of her aura. But with cunning … and that was supposed to be his specialty.

“Stop her,” Billy shouted. “Do something!”

“Will you be quiet for a moment?” he snapped at the
American. He pulled out his phone. “I need to make a report, and I’m really not looking forward to it. One should never be the bearer of bad news.”

And then, across the bay, the Old Man of the Sea exploded out of the water, directly in front of the boat. Octopus tentacles wrapped tightly around the small craft, bringing it to a shuddering halt. Perenelle disappeared, flung back by the sudden stop.

Machiavelli put his phone back in his pocket; maybe he would have some good news to report after all.

Nereus’s voice trembled across the water, his words vibrating on the waves. “I knew we would meet again, Sorceress.” Machiavelli and Billy watched as the hideous Elder flowed up out of the sea and squatted across the prow of the boat, legs writhing. Wood creaked and cracked, the small windshield shattered and the weight of the creature in the front of the vessel brought the stern right up out of the waves, its outboard engine still whining.

Shading his eyes, Machiavelli watched the Sorceress climb to her feet. She was holding a long wooden spear in both hands. Sunlight winked golden off the weapon, which trailed white smoke into the air. He saw her stab once, twice, three times at the creature’s legs before bringing the spear around to jab at Nereus’s chest. Water fountained, spraying high, as the Old Man of the Sea desperately scrambled away from the blade. The Elder fell off the prow of the boat and disappeared back under the waves in an explosion of frothing bubbles. The boat settled back in the water, engine foaming and
churning, and then shot forward again. Three long still-wriggling legs peeled off the motorboat and drifted away on the tide. The entire encounter had taken less than a minute.

Machiavelli sighed and pulled out his phone again. He had no good news to report after all; could this day get any worse? A shadow appeared overhead and he looked up to see the huge shape of the Crow Goddess flying by. She soared high, black cloak spread like wings, then swooped down to land neatly on the back of the yellow motorboat.