The Enchantress (The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel)

close. The fire would catch Joan, too.
    And then a shape formed out of the night air.
    A rider spiraling in on a glider.
    And the light from Joan’s blazing armor lit up a white face and bright red hair and savage vampire teeth.
    Josh watched as Scathach unhooked herself from the glider at the last moment and dropped screaming with delight onto the startled anpu. She stood back to back with Joan; the Shadow’s weapons blurred and the beasts fell in waves.
    But the monsters continued to climb the pyramid on all sides.
    “No more,” Josh pleaded, turning back to Isis and Osiris. “Let this end now.”
    “Only you can end it,” Isis said. “Only you have the power.” She smiled. “Think of this: you could wipe away the anpu and the humani, and the Elders, too. This world, and all the Shadowrealms, could be yours to command.”
    “Look around you!” Osiris shouted, spreading his arms wide. “Look at what could be yours. The greatest empire ever seen. It is yours for the taking.”
    “But we don’t want it,” Sophie said, speaking for both of them. “You do.”
    “And we don’t want to give it to you,” Josh added.
    Isis and Osiris looked at them blankly.
    “You will do as you are told,” Isis insisted.
    “No!” The twins spoke as one.
    “Then you are useless to us,” Isis hissed. She looked at Osiris. “Kill them.”

CHAPTER SEVENTY-THREE
    “MAN, THAT IS one ugly crustacean,” Black Hawk said. The two American immortals were creeping through the fog toward the giant crab, crawling on their bellies across the stones.
    “Good eating in those claws, though,” Billy said with a grin. “At least two weeks’ worth of eating.”
    “Now, don’t get stupid, Billy,” Black Hawk muttered. “Remember what happened last time.” The last time the two men had gone hunting, Billy had almost been trampled to death in a buffalo stampede.
    “There were about a million buffalo that time,” Billy said. “All we have here is one crab. Admittedly, a giant crab.”
    “There will be a moment when it comes around by the Administration Building,” Black Hawk said. “It should be off balance, hind legs lower than its forelegs. If you can hook a leg, you can pull it back.” The copper-skinned man carried two spears strapped to his back. He shrugged them free and handed one to Billy. “If you get a chance, take it. And, Billy,” he added, “remember, there are other creatures out there. Make sure they don’t sneak up and take a bite out of you. Don’t be creative. Don’t be stupid.”
    “That’s what Machiavelli said. You guys really have a lot of faith in me, don’t you?”
    “Neither of us wants to lose you. Just be careful, Billy.”
    “Careful is my middle name.”
    Black Hawk rolled his eyes. “You told me it was Henry.”
    Using the spearheads, Nicholas, Perenelle and Machiavelli had carved a huge hole in the shell encasing Areop-Enap. In places the mud was several feet thick, speckled and encrusted with the corpses of some of the millions of flies that had poisoned the creature earlier in the week.
    Perenelle stuck her head into the opening, then pulled it out again, tears streaming down her cheeks. “Stinks,” she gasped. Turning away, she inhaled in a deep breath, then used her aura to bring her index finger alight. She pushed her arm into the opening and watched as the flame danced, flaring as it burned through the noxious gases. With Nicholas holding on to her belt, she shoved her head into the opening again and looked around. When she jerked it out, her eyes were bright with excitement. “I saw Areop-Enap.”
    “Is she alive?”
    “That’s hard to tell. But she looks healthy; the horrible blisters and wounds are gone from her flesh.”
    “So all we have to do is to wake her,” Nicholas said. He looked at the Italian. “Have you any idea how to wake a hibernating Elder?”
    Machiavelli shook his head.
    “Mars, what about you? Any advice?”
    “Yes. Don’t.”
    Vegetarian, Billy decided. When all this excitement was over and done with, he was turning vegetarian. Vegan, actually. Nothing that crawled, walked, slithered or swam was going into his mouth ever again. Especially nothing with legs. Alcatraz was littered with monsters—or rather, parts of monsters. None were alive, and most of them he couldn’t even recognize.
    Billy had seen the results of buffalo kills, had walked battlefields and witnessed the aftermath of natural disasters of all kinds, but nothing could