The Enchantress (The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel)

Yggdrasill too—is no more. Where will I go, what would I do?” she asked.
    Odin nodded in understanding. “I came to this world to avenge my dear Hekate. I swore vengeance on Dee, but perhaps we can have a greater victory.” He took Hel’s hand in his, locking their fingers together.
    The clean scent of ozone was touched with the rancid odor of rotting fish. “I always meant to change that smell,” Hel murmured. “But over time, I rather grew to like it.”
    Odin’s hands were smoking, and suddenly the others in the room became aware that the Elder’s aura was coming alive.
    “Brother Odin,” Mars said in alarm. “No . . .”
    “Yes,” Odin whispered.
    The anpu opened their mouths to scream.
    “Down,” Mars shouted. “Everyone down! Cover your eyes.”
    Odin squeezed his niece’s hand. “Why don’t you tell the jackals just who I am.”
    Hel nodded. Straightening, she threw back her head and began to exude her bloodred aura. The stench of rotting fish became overwhelming, and, deep and powerful, her voice echoed off the stones. “You stand in the presence of Odin, Lord of the Aesir, the Mighty and Wise, the Aged and the Merciful. . . .”
    Odin’s right hand was a solid gray glove. “We don’t have time for all two hundred names,” he muttered. He reached for the patch that covered his right eye.
    “You stand before Yggr, the Terror.”
    Odin peeled back the metal eye patch.
    “Who is also known as Baleyg the Flaming Eye.”
    A focused beam of solid yellow-white light shot from the Elder’s eye and splashed across the front line of the anpu and the monokerata. They crisped to spiraling cinders. The Anpu in the second line screamed as their armor melted in the intense heat, and more were caught, crushed or impaled on the unicorns’ horns as the beasts fled. But the beam of light was unrelenting. Stones at their feet cracked and shattered, bubbling like thick liquid.
    Odin turned his head slowly, the yellow-white light washing over everything. Nothing escaped his gaze.
    A few surviving monokerata scattered in terror, leaving the anpu to face the blazing lance of fire. In grim silence, the anpu pressed on, desperately trying to get close to the two Elders. They flung spears and even swords, but Odin rendered them into pools of sizzling metal as he turned his eye upon them.
    The air filled with black soot and cinders. It was rank with rotting fish and ozone, but the smells quickly grew bitter and sour as Hel’s strength weakened. Odin’s gray aura began to fade, then turned pink as Hel poured the last of her strength into her uncle. Her red aura flickered and spat like a guttering candle, and another dozen anpu raced toward the house.
    Odin’s gaze flared brighter than before, slicing right through them, flames reaching high onto the walls of the Administration Building, bathing it in flames, washing along the length of the lighthouse before it. Odin staggered, his head jerked back and a curl of flame shot into the sky, then arced down to splash before Xolotl, who desperately scrambled to escape. A thread of sticky fire caught his multicolored cloak, setting it alight, and he flung it away, dancing in fury as he watched more of the anpu rendered into ash.
    Hel’s red aura paled even more, then faded to white. Her legs buckled under her, but she still held on to her uncle’s hand. The beam of light lancing from Odin’s right eye flickered and then winked out. He slumped in the doorway next to his niece, smoke and gossamer-thin threads of his gray aura curling off his flesh. The once tall Elder had shrunk and was now bent over and wizened.
    Almost incoherent with rage, Xolotl sent the last of the anpu, his personal bodyguard of a dozen scarred warriors, up toward the house. “Kill everything within,” he commanded. “Everything!”
    The twelve creatures, bigger and broader than any of the others, spread out into a broad semicircle and approached the two small figures in the doorway. On an unseen command, they raced forward as one, mouths stretched wide to howl their victory.
    Odin raised his head for a final time. “I am Odin,” he shouted, light blazing from his eye once more—only brighter, more intense than ever before. He looked at each of the anpu in turn, incinerating them. He fell to his knees, but the blazing light never wavered. He raised his niece’s arm. “And this is Hel. Today we are your doom.” The light faded from his eye. He turned to look at Hel and saw