The Enchantress (The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel)

knot under his arms. He looked up at the red-haired Elder and nodded. “Haul away.”
    Prometheus’s massive arms bulged and he started to pull Shakespeare up to safety.
    The branch creaked again, then cracked. It broke.
    Palamedes leaped, and just as the branch ripped away from the trunk of the tree, he caught hold of Will’s right foot and dangled, swaying slightly from side to side.
    Prometheus grunted with the extra strain. The vine slipped in his hands, tearing his flesh, scraping it raw; then it began to unravel. The Elder roared his frustration.
    “Will,” Palamedes said, looking upward. “I’ve got to let go. . . .”
    “No!” The Bard’s eyes brimmed with tears. “No, please . . .”
    “Will, if I don’t, then we both die. And there is no need for that.”
    “Wait . . .,” Shakespeare breathed. “Wait. . . .”
    “I have been honored by the centuries of our friendship. . . .”
    “No!”
    “When all this is over, you might think about writing again. Write me a good part, make me truly immortal. Goodbye, Will.” The Saracen Knight’s fingers loosened.
    There was a hiss, and suddenly a lasso of vine wrapped around Palamedes’s chest just as he let go. Abruptly, scores of threads and streamers of vines rained down and wound around Joan and Saint-Germain and Will and Palamedes like a vast spider’s web, catching them, holding them. The vines retracted, pulling them up to the safety of the broad branch, where they were unceremoniously deposited. The vines slithered away, disappearing back into the tree, leaving the group shaken but alive.
    Two figures appeared at the end of the branch.
    “Now we’re in trouble,” Prometheus murmured. “She’s not going to be happy.” He concentrated on his torn palms, picking splinters of wood from the hard flesh.
    In the green light, it was hard to make out details, but one of the figures was tall and broad, completely clad in black glass and metal armor, bright blue eyes blazing beneath an ornate helmet. The second figure was a middle-aged woman with skin the color of jet and ice-white hair tumbling to her shoulders. She was wearing a shimmering robe that flickered green and gold with every step.
    Marching up to Prometheus, she put her hands on her hips and stamped her foot in annoyance. “You crashed into my tree. Again.”
    “I am sorry, mistress. We were in a lot of trouble.”
    “You damaged my tree. It will take ages to heal.” Her voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper. “You even broke some branches this time. It is not going to like that.”
    “I will apologize. Profusely,” he added. “I’ll make an offering to the roots.”
    “That might do. Make it a good offering. Something big. Make sure there are bones; it loves bones.” The woman looked around. “So, they’re here at last. Abraham was right, one more time. Though he didn’t mention anything about crashing into my tree.” She glared at each in turn. “They look a shifty lot. Especially this one.” She jerked a finger at Scathach. Then she leaned forward and sniffed. “Don’t I know you?”
    “Not yet. But you will.”
    The woman sniffed again. “I know your mother.” She sniffed again. “And your no-good brother.”
    Joan stepped between the two women. “Prometheus, you are forgetting your manners. Why don’t you introduce us?” she suggested.
    “Of course,” Prometheus said. “Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to introduce the Elder Hekate, the Goddess with Three Faces.” The woman bowed graciously, her dress flaring emerald. “And of course, the Champion, Huitzilopochtli.”
    “Mars,” Scathach breathed in awe.
    “I don’t know that name,” the warrior rumbled.
    “You will,” she muttered.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN
    NICHOLAS AND PERENELLE sat side by side on the metal seats outside the Hard Rock Cafe at the entrance to Pier 39. Although it was only a little after seven o’clock in the evening and the sun wouldn’t set for another hour and a half, the fog had ensured that night had arrived prematurely. A cold, damp gray gloom covered everything, and visibility was down to a few feet. Traffic was light, and already the streets were starting to empty. Some of the restaurants and shops along Pier 39 had even closed.
    Nicholas breathed in. “Well, I never thought I’d be spending my last night alive sitting outside a restaurant on a foggy night in San Francisco. I always wanted to die in Paris.”
    Perenelle reached out to squeeze his fingers.