Michael Scott - The Necromancer

The Italian immortal nodded but said nothing.

“Mr. Machiavelli doesn’t think I have the authority to remove his immortality. He’s incorrect.” The man who stepped out of the house was short and slender, his skin the color of brightly polished copper, his face bisected by an enormous hawklike nose and dominated by a full white beard that reached to his chest. His eyes were solid black with no whites showing. He was dressed simply in white linen trousers and shirt and his feet were bare. He smiled, revealing that every one of his teeth had been filed to razor-sharp points. “I am Quetzalcoatl the Feathered Serpent.”

“It is an honor to meet you, Lord Quez… Quet… Quaza…,” Machiavelli began.

“Oh, call me Kukulkan, everyone else does,” the Elder said, and headed back into the house. Machiavelli blinked in surprise: a long serpent’s tail, bright with multicolored feathers, trailed behind the Elder.

Billy caught Machiavelli by the arm. “Whatever you do,” he whispered urgently, “don’t mention the tail.”

The ghost of Juan Manuel de Ayala floated silently through the ruins of Alcatraz. The Spanish lieutenant had been the first European to discover the small island in 1775 and had named it after the vast number of pelicans that claimed the rock as their own: La Isla de los Alcatraces. By the time it was sold to the American government in 1854, it was called Alcatraz.

When de Ayala had died, his shade had returned to the island, and he had haunted and protected it ever since.

He’d seen the nature of the island change and change again over the centuries: it was the site of the first lighthouse on the coast of California; then it held a military garrison that soon became a prison, which from 1861 to 1963 was home to some of America’s most violent and dangerous criminals.

More recently it had been a popular tourist attraction, and de Ayala had delighted in drifting unseen through the crowds of visitors, listening to their excited comments. He particularly loved to follow those who spoke his native tongue, Spanish.

In the last couple of months, however, the nature of Alcatraz had changed yet again. The island had been sold to a private company, Enoch Enterprises, which had immediately stopped all tours of the island. And quite soon afterward, new prisoners had arrived. None of which were human. There were creatures de Ayala vaguely recognized from sailors’ tales-werewolves and dragons, wyverns and worms-and some he knew from myth, like the minotaur and the sphinx, but most were completely alien to him.

And then Perenelle Flamel had been incarcerated on the island.

De Ayala had helped her escape her cell and was more delighted when she managed to flee the island altogether, leaving the two dangerous newcomers, Machiavelli and Billy the Kid, stranded with the monsters. He had hoped that they would remain overnight so he and the island’s other ghosts might have a little fun with them. But the two men had been rescued by a Native American, and as de Ayala watched their boat head toward the city, he wondered what would become of his beloved Isla de los Alcatraces. The sphinx still walked the prison’s corridors, the hideous spider Areop-Enap was wrapped in an enormous cocoon in the ruins of the Warden’s House and the Old Man of the Sea and his foul daughters patrolled the waters.

The ghost drifted to the top of the watchtower and turned to look toward the city he could never visit. What was it like, he wondered, this huge city on the edge of the continent? He could see its towers rising into the skies, and the fabulous orange bridge spanning the bay. He watched the boats cruise the waters, saw the metal birds in the skies and could just make out the metallic glitter of cars moving on the shore. When he had discovered Alcatraz, Philadelphia had been the largest city in the United States, with a population of thirty-four thousand. Now, over eight hundred thousand people lived in San Francisco-an inconceivable figure-and more than thirty-six million lived in the state of California. What would happen to them when the monsters were loosed into the city’s streets and sewers?

Unconsciously, de Ayala drifted out over the water toward the city, and then the invisible ties that bound him to Alcatraz drew him back. He protected the island-but for how much longer? he wondered. The forces of the humani and the Elders were gathering, and no matter how it ended, de Ayala did not think his beloved Alcatraz would survive the coming war.

And with no Rock to watch over, he too would finally cease to exist.

“S ophie, I am going to ask you to do something, something you might find a little… odd,” Perenelle said softly. She had caught Sophie’s arm and drawn her to one side while Josh and Niten were carrying the plastic chairs into the houseboat. Aoife had disappeared belowdecks, and Nicholas sat on the edge of the craft, eyes closed, lined face turned toward the sun.

“What?” Sophie asked cautiously, turning to look at the Sorceress. The late-afternoon sun highlighted the tracery of lines that were beginning to appear on the woman’s face, around her eyes and at the corners of her mouth. Sophie wasn’t sure how she felt about Perenelle. She still liked her-she still wanted to like her-but there was something about the woman that was beginning to trouble her, and she wasn’t sure what it was.

“It would be better if you did not tell Josh what you know-what the Witch knows-about Prometheus.”

At the mention of the Elder’s name, the girl’s eyes blinked-blue, then silver-and the faintest hint of her vanilla odor touched the salty air. “I try not to think about the Witch’s memories,” she said carefully.

“Why not?” Perenelle sounded genuinely surprised.

“Nicholas told me that there is a possibility that her memories could overwhelm mine, that I could become the Witch”-Sophie frowned-“or that she could become me. If I remember all that the Witch knew… would that make me the Witch?”

Perenelle laughed gently. “I have never heard anything more ridiculous in my life.”

“But Nicholas said-”

“Nicholas told you what he believed to be true,” Perenelle said. “He was mistaken.”

Sophie pressed the heels of her hands against her eyes and shook her head, trying to make sense of what she was hearing. “But if the Witch’s memories become stronger than mine…”

“But it is you who are remembering, Sophie. It will always be you. I have lived on this earth for centuries; I can remember the smell of my grandmother’s hair, and she died more than six hundred and sixty years ago. I can recall the address of every house and apartment, hovel, tenement and palace I’ve lived in over the centuries. One memory does not crowd out another. The Witch’s memories have only been added to yours. Nothing more. True, our memories and experiences help make us unique. But if the Witch had wanted to take over your memories, she could have done so immediately, instantaneously, when you were with her in Ojai.”

The Sorceress paused and then added softly, “When Nicholas was imprisoned in the Bastille, I spent the time apprenticed to the Witch of Endor. She lived in the South of France then, and I studied with her for more than a decade. She can be cruel and capricious, and she is dangerous beyond belief, but she is extraordinarily disorganized. She was never able to plan ahead. I’ve often wondered about that. She sacrificed her eyes for the ability to observe the shifting strands of time. She can see years, decades, centuries, even millennia into the future, and can track the curling threads to their possible outcomes. But she is so scattered that she is unable to plan her own day. She often forgets even the simplest things. Yet she is cunning, and if she had wanted to control you, she would have done so when she was Awakening you.”