The Enchantress (The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel)

her as she had once been: tall, elegant and very, very beautiful, with eyes the color of a morning sky and hair like storm clouds. A tiny pink tongue moved against her full lips and white teeth. “How many did we get, Uncle?” she asked.
    “All of them,” he whispered.
    Suddenly a scorched wild-eyed anpu appeared out of the smoking night. It reared over them both, a huge kopesh raised high, jaws gaping.
    “All of them!” Mars’s huge sword hammered the creature into the ground. The warrior dropped to his knees beside Odin and Hel and gently lifted Odin’s eye patch back into place. Mars took both of his hands in his; they looked childlike and were tiny against his calloused skin. Odin, who had been as tall and as broad as Mars, was now half his size. “It has been an honor to fight alongside you today,” he said.
    “It is an honor to die in your company,” Odin said, and breathed his last. His skin was the color of ancient yellowed parchment. It cracked and flaked away, then crumbled to dust that collected in the cracks in the stone beneath him and disintegrated.
    A colorless liquid coated Hel, who was still beautiful, and then, suddenly, like a bursting bubble, she dissolved, soaking into the same stones that had swallowed her uncle’s dust.

CHAPTER SIXTY-EIGHT
    SCATHACH AND VIRGINIA Dare knelt on either side of John Dee. Aten crouched by his feet. They were surrounded by a protective band of humans, all carrying weapons they’d lifted off the dead warriors.
    Most of the rest of crowd were rampaging through the prison, tearing it apart, freeing the prisoners. Smoke was starting to curl from the upper windows, and already people were calling for the pyramid to be torn down. Others had raced off to spread the word through the city. Any anpu or other hybrid survivors had slunk off into the night.
    Dee was dying. He had used the final shreds of his aura to supplement Virginia’s as she created the massive shield of air to protect the people and then sent the arrows into the guards. He had been old earlier; now he was ancient, his features lost in a shriveled mass of wrinkles.
    Virginia took his hand in hers. It nestled, tiny and delicate, in her palm, almost like a newborn child’s.
    Dee’s eyes cracked open and he peered shortsightedly at Virginia and Scathach. “I never thought I’d breathe my last with you two looking down on me.” He shifted his head toward Scathach. “Though I always had the suspicion that you would be the one to kill me. You came close enough on far too many occasions.”
    “I’m glad I didn’t,” Scathach said. “We would never have been able to do what we did tonight without you.”
    “It is good of you to say that. But it is not true. Virginia did all the work.”
    Virginia Dare shook her head. “Scathach is right. I didn’t have the strength to do it alone. And remember, it was your idea in the first place.”
    “I could heal you,” Aten said quietly. “I could restore a measure of your health, your sight and hearing, too. Your body would always be as it is now, though.”
    Dee shook his head slightly. “Thank you, but no. I’ve been old and healed enough times already today. And, as Mr. Shakespeare would say, my hour is almost come. Let me die in peace. It is the one great adventure left for me to experience; death holds no fears for me.”
    “John,” Virginia Dare said softly, “don’t go yet. Stay awhile.”
    “No, Virginia. You have much to do in the weeks and months to come. You are a symbol for the humani . . . for the
humans
here,” he corrected himself. “The people will make many demands on you. You do not need to be distracted by looking out for a tired old man.” He turned to look at Scathach. “Why did you come here, Shadow?”
    “Obviously to rescue Aten,” she said lightly.
    “Why did you really come here?” he asked.
    “To see Ard-Greimne,” she said softly.
    “Your father.”
    Scathach nodded. “My father.”
    Aten shook his head and looked confused. “But he does not have a daughter.”
    “Not yet. But he will,” Scathach said simply. “Two, in fact. Growing up, my sister and I knew little about our parents. We heard occasional snatches of stories about our father, however. They painted him as a monstrous beast.”
    “Oh, he is,” Aten said. “Make no mistake about that.”
    “And when my sister and I were bad, my mother—who favored our brother and never had much time for us—would tell us that we were just like