Michael Scott - The Sorceress

"It's a good strategy," Josh said, before Flamel could answer. He was aware, even as he spoke, that he had no idea what he was talking about. It was Mars speaking. "You've spent a lifetime running; Dee won't expect you to change tactics."

Palamedes rested his huge forearms on the table. "The boy is right," he sighed. "The Magician has effectively trapped you here in London. If you run, he will capture you."

"And if we stay here, he'll capture us," Josh said quickly.

Nicholas Flamel looked around the table, obviously troubled by what he'd heard. "I'm not sure…," he said finally. "If only I could speak to Perenelle; she would know what to do."

Shakespeare grinned delightedly for the first time since they'd arrived. "I think we can arrange that." erenelle Flamel stood framed in the doorway and stared down into the gloom. The heavy metal door that had once sealed this opening lay on the ground behind her, battered and twisted, ripped off its hinges by the weight of the spiders that had surged out of the prison cells below. With Areop-Enap's retreat to its cocoon, the surviving arachnids had vanished, and all that remained on the surface of Alcatraz were the dried-up husks of dead flies and the shells of spiders. She wondered who-or what-had sent the flies. Someone powerful, certainly; someone who was probably even now plotting their next move.

Perenelle tilted her head to one side and pushed her long black hair back over her ear, closed her eyes and listened. Her hearing was acute, but she could pick up nothing moving. And yet the Sorceress knew the cells were not empty. The island's prison was full of blood drinkers and flesh eaters, vetala, minotaur, Windigo and oni, trolls and cluricauns-and, of course, the deadly sphinx. The sunlight had recharged Perenelle's aura, and she knew she could handle the lesser creatures-though the minotaur and the Windigo would give her some problems-but she was fully aware that she could not deal with the sphinx. The eagle-winged lion fed off magical energy; just being close to it would drain her aura, leaving her helpless.

Perenelle pressed her hand to her growling stomach. She was hungry. The Sorceress rarely needed to eat anymore, but she recognized that she was burning a lot of energy and needed calories to fuel it. If Nicholas were there it would not be a problem; many times on their travels, he had used his alchemical skills to transmute stones into bread, and water into soup. She knew a couple of horn-of-plenty spells she'd learned in Greece that would give her enough to eat, but casting them would mean using her aura, whose distinctive signature would draw the sphinx upon her.

She'd encountered no humans on the island-she doubted any could have survived a single night on Alcatraz with their sanity or body intact. She remembered reading a newspaper report recently-about six months ago-that had said Alcatraz had been acquired by a private corporation and was closing to the public. The state park was going to be turned into a multimedia living history museum. Now that she knew Dee owned the island, she guessed that that wasn't the truth. Worse, though, with no humans having been on the island for at least six months, it was looking less and less likely she'd discover anything edible left behind. It wouldn't be the first time she'd gone hungry in her long life.

The Magician had gathered an army in the cells, creatures from every nation and the myths of every race. Without exception, they were the monsters who had been the source of human nightmares for millennia. And if there was an army, that meant a war was coming. Perenelle's full lips curled in a wry smile. So it looked as if she was the only human on Alcatraz… along with assorted mythical beasts, nightmare monsters, vampires and werebeasts. There were Nereids in the sea, a vengeful Crow Goddess locked up in a cell deep below the island and an incredibly powerful Elder or Next Generation attacking her from somewhere on the mainland.

Perenelle's smile faded; she was sure she'd been in worse situations at some time in her past, but right now she couldn't remember when. And she'd always had Nicholas with her. Together, they were unbeatable.

The tiniest breeze blew up from below, ruffling her hair, and then dust motes whirled and a shape flickered in the gloom. Perenelle darted back out into the sunlight, where she was strongest. She doubted it was the sphinx; she would have smelled its unmistakable odor: the musky scent of lion, bird and serpent.

A shape materialized in the doorway, taking on depth and substance as the light hit it, a figure composed of red rust particles and the shining scraps of spiderweb: it was the ghost, Juan Manuel de Ayala, the discoverer and Guardian of Alcatraz. The specter bowed deeply. "It is good to see you hale and well, madame," he said in archaic, formal Spanish.

Perenelle smiled. "Why, did you think I would be joining you as a spirit?"

A semitransparent de Ayala floated in the air and considered the question carefully; then he shook his head. "I knew that if you had fallen on the island, you would not have remained here. Your spirit would have gone wandering."

Perenelle nodded in agreement, eyes clouding in sorrow. "I would have gone to find Nicholas."

The perfect teeth that the ghost sailor had never possessed in life flashed in a grin. "Come, madame, come: I think there is something you should see." He turned and floated back down the stairs. Perenelle hesitated; she trusted de Ayala, but ghosts were not the brightest creatures and were easily fooled. And then, thinly and faintly, Perenelle caught the scent of mint-little more than a suggestion-on the damp salty air. Without a second's hesitation, the Sorceress followed the ghost into the shadows. icholas Flamel sat in front of the two matching LCD computer screens. William Shakespeare sat on his left while Josh hovered over their shoulders, trying to keep as far away from the English immortal as possible and breathe only through his mouth. When Shakespeare moved, he trailed an odor in his wake, but when he sat still, the stink gathered around him in a thick cloud. Palamedes and Sophie had gone outside to feed the dogs.

"Trust me; it is quite simple," Shakespeare explained patiently, eyes huge behind his glasses, "the merest variation of the scrying spell Dee taught me over four hundred years ago."

"Should I mention at this point that the computer is turned off?" Josh interjected, suddenly realizing what apparently no one else had. "Only the screens are on."

"But we only need the screens," Shakespeare said enigmatically. He looked at the Alchemyst. "Dee always used a reflective surface for scrying…"

"Scrying?" Josh frowned. He'd heard Flamel use the same word. "What do you mean?"

"From the ancient French word deserter," Shakespeare murmured, "meaning 'to proclaim' or 'to show.' In Dee's case, it meant 'to reveal.' When I was with him, he carried a mirror everywhere."

Flamel nodded. "His famous 'shew-stone,' or magical lens. I've read about it."

"He demonstrated it to Queen Elizabeth herself at his home at Mortlake," Shakespeare said. "She was so terrified by what she saw that she ran from the house and never returned. The doctor could look into the lens and focus in on people and places across the world."

Flamel nodded. "I've often wondered what it was."

"That sounds like TV," Josh said quickly. And then he realized he was talking about something in the seventeenth century.

"Yes, very like television, but without a camera at the other end to transmit the picture. It was a scrap of Elder technology," Shakespeare added, "a gift from his master. I believe it was an organic lens activated by the power of his aura."

"Whatever happened to it?" Flamel wondered aloud.

Shakespeare smiled, tight-lipped. "I stole it from him the night I ran away. I had a mind to keep it for myself and mayhap even use it against him. But then I realized that if it linked Dee to his master, it probably linked his master to me. I dropped it in the Thames at Southwark, close to where we later built the Globe Theatre."