The Magician

CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

P erched on top of the water tower on Alcatraz, surrounded by huge

Dire-Crows, the Morrigan sang softly to herself. It was a song first heard by

the most primitive of ancient men, now imprinted deep into humankind s DNA.

It was slow and gentle, lost and plaintive, beautiful and utterly terrifying.

It was the Song of the Morrigan: a cry designed to inspire fear and terror.

And on battlefields across the world and down through time, it was often the

last sound a human heard in this life.

The Morrigan drew her black feathered cloak about her and gazed out across

the fog-locked bay toward the city. She could feel the heat of the mass of

humani, could see the seething glow of almost a million auras within San

Fancisco itself. And every aura was wrapped around a humani, each one rich

with fears and worries, filled with succulent, tasty emotions. She pressed

her hands together and brought the tips of her fingers to her thin black

lips. Her ancestors had fed off humankind, had drunk their memories, savored

their emotions like fine wines. Soon oh, so very soon, she would be free to

do it again.

But before that she had a banquet to enjoy.

Earlier, she d received a call from Dee. Finally, he and his Elders had been

forced to agree that it was now too dangerous to allow both Nicholas and

Perenelle to survive; he had given her permission to slay the Sorceress.

The Morrigan had an eyrie high in the San Bernardino Mountains. She would

carry Perenelle there and over the next few days drain every last one of the

woman s memories and emotions. The Sorceress had lived for almost seven

hundred years; she had traveled across the globe and into Shadowrealms, had

seen wonders and experienced terrors. And the woman had an extraordinary

memory; she would have remembered everything, every emotion, every thought

and fear. And the Morrigan would relish them all. When she was finished, the

legendary Perenelle Flamel would be little more than a mindless babe. The

Crow Goddess threw back her head and opened her mouth wide, her long incisors

white and stark against her dark lips, her tongue tiny and black. Soon.

The Morrigan knew that the Sorceress was in the tunnels beneath the water

tower. The only other entrance was through a tunnel that was accessible only

at low tide. And although the tide would not turn for hours, the rocks and

cliff face around the cave mouth were covered with razor-billed crows.

Then the Morrigan s nostrils flared.

Over the salt and iodine smell of the sea, the metallic stink of rusted metal

and rotting stone and the musty scent of countless birds, she suddenly

smelled something else something that didn't belong, not in this place, not

in this age. Something ancient and bitter.

The wind shifted, and the fog curled with it. Beads of salty moisture

suddenly glistened on a thread of silver hanging in the air before her. The

Morrigan blinked her jet-black eyes. Another thread wavered in the air, and

then another and another, crisscrossed in a series of circles. They looked

like webs.

They were webs.

She was coming to her feet when a monstrous spider erupted from the shaft

below her and landed squarely on the side of the water tower, its huge barbed

feet biting into the metal. It scuttled toward the Crow Goddess.

The mass of birds ringing the water tower spiraled skyward, screaming

raucously and were instantly trapped in the enormous web floating overhead.

They fell back on top of their dark mistress, entangling her in a writhing

mass of feathers and sticky web. The Morrigan slashed her way free with

razor-tipped nails, gathered her cloak about her and was about to take to the

air when the spider climbed over the top of the water tower and drove her

back, pinning her down with a huge barbed foot.

Perenelle Flamel, astride the spider s back, a blazing spear in her hand,

leaned forward and smiled at the Morrigan. You were looking for me, I

believe.