Michael Scott - The Magician

Allowing the voices to wash over her, she sorted through the sounds until she picked up one voice louder than all the rest: strong and confident, it cut through the babble, and Perenelle found herself concentrating on it, focusing on the words, identifying the language.

“This is my island.”

It was a man, speaking Spanish in an old, very formal accent. Concentrating on the ceiling, Perenelle tuned out the other voices. “Who are you?” In the chill damp of the cell, her words puffed from her mouth like smoke and the myriad ghosts fell silent.

There was a long pause, as if the ghost was surprised to be spoken to; then he said proudly, “I was the first European to sail into this bay, the first to see this island.”

A shape began to form on the roof directly over her head, the crude outline of a face appearing in the cracks and spiderwebs, the black damp and the green moss lending it shape and definition.

“I called this place la Isla de los Alcatraces.”

“The Isle of the Pelicans,” Perenelle said, her words the merest whispered breath.

The face in the ceiling solidified briefly. It was that of a handsome man with a long, narrow face and dark eyes. Water droplets formed and the eyes blinked tears.

“Who are you?” Perenelle asked again.

“I am Juan Manuel de Ayala. I discovered Alcatraz.”

Claws click-clacked on the stones outside the cell, and the smell of snake and rancid meat wafted down the corridor. Perenelle remained silent until the scent and the footsteps retreated, and when she looked at the ceiling again, the face had taken on more detail, the cracks in the stonework creating the deep wrinkles on the man’s forehead and around his eyes. A sailor’s face, she realized, the wrinkles caused by squinting toward distant horizons.

“Why are you here?” she wondered aloud. “Did you die here?”

“No. Not here.” Narrow lips curled in a smile. “I returned because I fell in love with this place from the very first moment I set eyes on it. It was in the year of Our Lord 1775, and I was on the good ship San Carlos. I even remember the month, August, and the date, the fifth.”

Perenelle nodded. She had come across ghosts like de Ayala’s before. Men and women who had been so influenced or affected by a place that they returned to it again and again in their dreams, and eventually, when they died, their spirit returned to the same location to become a Guardian ghost.

“I have watched over this island for generations. I will always watch over it.”

Perenelle stared up at the face. “It must have saddened you to see your beautiful island become a place of pain and suffering,” she probed.

Something twisted in the shape’s mouth, and a single drop of water fell from its eye to spatter on Perenelle’s cheek.

“Dark days, sad days, but gone now…thankfully, gone.” The ghost’s lips moved and the words whispered in Perenelle’s head. “There has not been a human prisoner on Alcatraz since 1963, and the island has been peaceful since 1971.”

“But now there is a new prisoner on your beloved island,” Perenelle said evenly. “A prisoner guarded by a warden more terrible than any this island has ever seen before.”

The face in the ceiling altered, watery eyes narrowing, blinking. “Who? You?”

“I am held here against my will,” Perenelle said. “I am Alcatraz’s last prisoner, and I am guarded by no human jailor, but by a sphinx.”

“No!”

“See for yourself!”

The plaster crackled and damp dust rained down on Perenelle’s face. When she opened her eyes again, the face in the ceiling had gone, leaving nothing more than a stain in its wake.

Perenelle allowed herself a smile.

“What amuses you, humani?” The voice was a slithering hiss, and the language predated the human race.

Swinging herself into a sitting position, Perenelle focused on the creature standing in the corridor less than six feet from her.

Generations of ancient humans had tried to capture the image of this creature on cave walls and pots, etching her shape in stone, capturing her likeness on parchments. And none of them had even come close to the true horror of the sphinx.

The body was that of a hugely muscled lion, the fur scarred and cut with the evidence of old wounds. A pair of eagle’s wings curled out of its shoulders and lay flat against its back, the feathers ragged and filthy. And the small, almost delicate-looking head was that of a beautiful young woman.

The sphinx stepped up to the bars of the cell, and a black forked tongue wavered in the air in front of Perenelle. “You have no reason to smile, humani. I have learned that your husband and the Warrior are trapped in Paris. Soon they will be prisoners, and this time Dr. Dee will ensure that they never escape again. I understand the Elders have given the doctor permission to finally slay the legendary Alchemyst.”

Perenelle felt something twist in the pit of her stomach. For generations the Dark Elders had been intent on capturing Nicholas and Perenelle alive. If she was to believe the sphinx and they were prepared to kill Nicholas, then everything had changed. “Nicholas will escape,” she said confidently.

“Not this time.” The lion’s tail of the sphinx whipped excitedly back and forth, raising plumes of dust. “Paris belongs to the Italian, Machiavelli, and soon he will be joined by the English Magician. The Alchemyst cannot evade them both.”

“And the children?” Perenelle asked, eyes narrowing dangerously. If anything had happened to Nicholas or the children…

The sphinx’s feathers ruffled, raising a musty sour smell. “Dee believes the humani children are powerful, that they may indeed be the twins of prophecy and legend. He also believes they can be convinced that they should serve us, rather than following the ramblings of a mad old bookseller.” The sphinx took a deep shuddering breath. “But if they do not do as they are told, then they too will perish.”

“And what about me?”

The sphinx’s pretty mouth opened to reveal a maw of savage, needle-pointed teeth. Her long black tongue thrashed wildly in the air. “You are mine, Sorceress,” she hissed. “The Elders have given you to me as a gift for my millennia of service to them. When your husband has been captured and slain, then I will be given permission to eat your memories. What a feast it will be. I intend to savor every last morsel. When I am finished with you, you will remember nothing, not even your own name.” The sphinx started to laugh, the sound hissing and mocking, bouncing off the bare stone walls.

And then a cell door slammed.

The sudden sound shocked the sphinx into silence. Her small head turned, her tongue flickering, tasting the air.

Another door boomed shut.

And then another.

And another.

The sphinx spun away, claws striking sparks off the floor. “Who’s there?” Her voice screeched off the damp stones.

Abruptly, all the cell doors in the upper gallery rattled open and closed in quick succession, the sound a rumbling detonation that vibrated deep into the heart of the prison, causing dust to rain from the ceiling.

Snarling and hissing, the sphinx bounded away, looking for the source of the noise.

With an icy smile, Perenelle swung her feet back up on the bench, lay back and rested her head on her laced fingers. The island of Alcatraz belonged to Juan Manuel de Ayala, and it looked as though he was announcing his presence. Perenelle heard cell doors clang, wood thump and walls rattle and knew what de Ayala had become: a poltergeist.

A noisy ghost.

She also knew what de Ayala was doing. The sphinx fed off Perenelle’s magical energies; all the poltergeist had to do was to keep the creature away from the cell for a little time and Perenelle’s powers could begin to regenerate. Raising her left hand, the woman concentrated hard. The tiniest ice white spark danced between her fingers, then fizzled away.