The Enchantress (The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel)

didn’t have too much to complain about. But there were still so many things he wanted to do, so many places he needed to visit, so many worlds still to explore.
    He tried to raise his arms, but there was no feeling in them now. No feeling in his legs either, and his sight was beginning to dim. His Elder masters might have aged his body, but his brain was still as alert as ever. Perhaps that was their greatest cruelty. They had left him alert in this useless shell. He suddenly thought of Mars Ultor, trapped for millennia in his hardened aura deep beneath Paris, his body inert but his brain alive, and for the first time in centuries the English Magician experienced the alien emotion of pity.
    Dee wondered how much longer he would survive.
    Night would fall, and this was Danu Talis, a world where creatures long extinct in the Earth Shadowrealm and monsters drawn from the myriad other Shadowrealms wandered freely.
    He didn’t want to be eaten by monsters.
    When he’d imagined his death—and he’d often thought of it, given the nature of what he did and the capricious humor of his employers—he’d always hoped it would be glorious. He wanted it to have meaning. It had always needled him that so much of his work had been done in secret and the world remained ignorant of his genius. During the Elizabethan Age, everyone had known his name. Even the Queen had feared and respected him. When he’d become immortal he had faded into the shadows, and he had lurked there ever since.
    There was not a lot of meaning in lying shriveled and ancient on a Danu Talis hillside.
    He heard movement, a dull thump. Close by. To his right.
    Dee attempted to turn his head, but he could no longer move.
    There was a shadow.
    It was a monster, come to eat him.
    So this was his destiny: to be eaten alive, alone and friendless. . . .
    He attempted to call upon his aura. If he could just gather enough of it, maybe he could frighten the creature away. Or burn himself to a crisp in the process of trying. That wouldn’t be so bad. At least he’d avoid being eaten.
    The shadow moved closer.
    But why would he want to frighten it away? It would only return. He was merely delaying the inevitable. Better to surrender to it, to remember all the good things he had done during his long life . . . but there were few enough of those.
    The shadow darkened.
    And now that the end was upon him, old fears and almost forgotten doubts washed over him. He found himself humming a line from a song. “Regrets, I’ve had a few . . .” Well, he had more than a few. He could have—should have—been a better father to his children and a kinder husband to his wives. Perhaps he should not have been so greedy—not just for money, but for knowledge—and certainly he should never have accepted the gift, the curse, of immortality.
    The realization struck him like a blow, making his breath catch in his chest. Immortality had doomed him.
    The shadow stretched over him and he caught a glimpse of metal.
    No animal, then. A human. A brigand. He wondered if there were cannibals on Danu Talis. “Make it quick,” he whispered. “Give me that mercy.”
    “Was that a mercy you offered others?” Suddenly he was scooped up in strong arms. “I’ll not kill you yet, Dr. Dee. I have use for you.”
    “Who are you?” Dee gasped, desperately trying to make out the face of the man towering over him.
    “I am Marethyu. I am Death. But today, Doctor, I am your savior.”

CHAPTER NINE
    IT WAS TIME for Aunt Agnes to die.
    The old woman stood before the bathroom mirror and looked at her reflection. An elderly human stared back, a face that was all angles and planes, sharp cheekbones, jutting chin and pointed nose. Iron-gray hair was combed off her face and held in a tight bun at the nape of her neck. Slate-gray eyes were sunken deep in her head. She looked like an eighty-four-year-old woman. But she was Tsagaglalal, She Who Watches, and her age was beyond reckoning.
    Tsagaglalal had adopted the Aunt Agnes disguise for most of the twentieth century. She’d grown fond of this body, and it would be a shame to let it go. But then, she had worn many guises over the millennia. The great trick was knowing when to move on, when to
die
.
    Tsagaglalal had lived through ages when anyone who was different—in any way—was suspect. The humans had many wonderful characteristics, but they had always been and would continue to be suspicious and fearful of those who stood out from the