Michael Scott - The Magician

Unless…

Racing up to the monster, she plunged the weapon point first into its shoulder.

The effect was immediate. Red-black fire burned along the length of the blade, and the monster’s skin immediately started to harden. Sophie’s aura blazed brighter than it had ever been before, and instantly her brain was filled with impossible visions and incredible memories. Then her aura overloaded and winked out in an explosion that picked her up and sent her sailing through the air. She managed to scream once before she came crashing down onto the canvas roof of Joan’s Citroen, which slowly and gently ripped along its seams and deposited her neatly in the front passenger seat.

Nidhogg spasmed, great claws opening as its flesh hardened.

Joan of Arc darted through the monster’s legs, grabbed Scatty around the waist and jerked her free, oblivious to the creature’s huge feet stamping inches from her head.

Nidhogg bellowed, a sound that set house alarms clanging across the city. Every car alarm in the parking lot burst to life. The beast attempted to turn its head, to follow Joan as she dragged Scatty away, but its ancient flesh was solidifying into thick black stone. Its mouth opened, revealing its daggerlike teeth.

Abruptly, a huge section of the quayside cracked; rock pulverized to dust, crumpling to powder beneath the creature’s weight. Nidhogg tilted forward and crashed down through the moored tourist boat, snapping it in two, disappearing into the Seine in an enormous explosion of water that sent a huge wave racing down the river.

Lying on the quayside, close to the water’s edge, soaked through, Scathach came slowly, groggily awake. “I haven’t felt this bad in centuries,” she mumbled, attempting but failing to sit up. Joan eased her into a sitting position and held her tightly. “The last thing I remember…” Scatty’s green eyes snapped open. “Nidhogg…Josh.”

“He tried to save you,” Flamel said, limping up to Scatty and Joan. He snatched Clarent from the quayside. “He stabbed Nidhogg, slowed it down long enough for us to get here. Then Joan fought the Disir for you.”

“We all fought for you,” Joan said. She put her arm around Sophie, who had staggered from the wrecked car, bruised and battered, with a long scrape along her forearm but otherwise unharmed. “Sophie finally defeated Nidhogg.”

The Warrior slowly got to her feet, turning her head from side to side, working her stiff neck muscles. “And Josh?” she asked, looking around. Her eyes went wide with alarm. “Where’s Josh?”

“Dee and Machiavelli have him,” Flamel said, his face gray with exhaustion. “We’re not sure how.”

“We have to go after them now,” Sophie said urgently.

“Their car’s not in good shape, they cannot have gotten far,” Flamel said. He turned to look at the Citroen. “I’m afraid yours has taken a battering as well.”

“And I did so love that car…,” Joan murmured.

“Let’s get out of here,” Scatty said decisively. “We’re about to be inundated with police.”

And then, like a shark erupting from the waves, Dagon exploded out of the Seine. Rearing up, more fish now than man, gills open on his long neck, round eyes bulging, he wrapped webbed claws around Scathach and dragged her backward into the river. “Finally, Shadow. Finally.”

They disappeared into the water with barely a splash and didn’t reappear.

P erenelle followed de Ayala’s ghost as he led her through the maze of Alcatraz’s ruined buildings. She tried to keep to the shadows, ducking under shattered walls and empty doorways, constantly alert for creatures moving in the night. She didn’t think the sphinx would dare venture out of the prison-despite their terrifying appearance, sphinxes were cowardly creatures, fearful of the dark. However, many of the beings she’d seen in the spiderwebbed cells below were creatures of the night.

The entrance to the tunnel was almost directly under the tower that had once held the island’s only fresh water supply. Its metal framework was rusted, eaten away by the salt sea, acid bird droppings and countless tiny leaks from the huge water tank. However, the ground directly beneath the tower was lush with growth, fed by the same dripping water.

De Ayala pointed out an irregular patch of earth close to one of the metal legs. “You will find a shaft leading down to the tunnel under here. There is another entrance to the tunnel cut into the cliff face,” he said, “but it is only accessible by boat at low tide. That is how Dee brought his prisoner to the island. He doesn’t know about this entrance.”

Perenelle found a rusted length of metal and used it to scrape away the dirt, revealing broken and cracked concrete beneath the soil. Using the edge of the metal bar, she began to dig away at the dirt. She kept glancing up, trying to gauge how close the birds had come to the island, but with the wind whipping in over the ruined buildings and keening through the rusted metal struts of the water tower, it was impossible to make out any other noises. Tendrils of the thick fog that had claimed San Francisco and the Golden Gate Bridge had now reached the island, coating everything in a dripping, salt-smelling cloud.

When she had scraped back the earth, de Ayala drifted over one particular spot. “Just here,” he said, his voice a breath in her ear. “The prisoners discovered the existence of the tunnel and managed to dig a shaft down to it. They understood that decades of water dripping from the tower had softened the soil and even eaten away at the stones beneath. But when they eventually broke through to the tunnel below, it was at high tide, and they found that it was flooded. They abandoned their efforts.” He showed his teeth in a perfect smile he had not possessed in life. “If only they had waited until the tide turned.”

Perenelle scraped away more soil, revealing more broken stone. Jamming the metal bar under the edge of a block, she leaned hard on it. The stone didn’t budge. She pressed again with both hands, and then, when that didn’t work, lifted a boulder and hammered once on the metal bar: the clink rang out across the island, tolling like a bell.

“Oh, this is impossible,” she muttered. She was reluctant to use her powers, since it would reveal her location to the sphinx, but she had no other choice. Cupping her right hand, she allowed her aura to gather in her palm, where it puddled like mercury. She rested her hand lightly, almost gently, on the stone, then turned her hand over and allowed the raw power to pour from her palm and seep into the granite. The stone turned soft and soapy and then melted like candle wax. Thick globs of liquid rock fell away and disappeared into the darkness below.

“I’ve been dead a long time; I thought I’d seen wonders, but I’ve never seen anything like that,” de Ayala said in awe.

“A Scythian mage taught me the spell in return for saving his life. It’s quite simple, really,” she said. She leaned over the hole and then jerked back, eyes watering. “Oh my: it stinks!”

The ghost of Juan Manuel de Ayala hovered directly over the hole. He turned and smiled, showing his perfect teeth again. “I can’t smell anything.”

“Trust me, be glad you cannot,” Perenelle muttered, shaking her head; ghosts often had a peculiar sense of humor. The tunnel reeked of rotting fish and ancient seaweed, of rancid bird and bat droppings, of pulped wood and rusting metal. There was another scent also, bitter and acrid, almost like vinegar. Bending down, she tore a strip off the bottom of her dress and wrapped it around her nose and mouth as a crude mask.

“There is a ladder of sorts,” de Ayala said, “but be careful, I’m sure it’s rusted through.” He suddenly glanced up. “The birds have reached the southern end of the island. And something else. Something evil. I can feel it.”