The Enchantress (The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel)

was answered on the first ring by a slightly surprised Bastet. “Hello?”
    “When all this is over, Elder, I will come for you. And if I am not able to do it in person, I will send something to hunt you down. I am the seventh daughter of a seventh daughter, and I was trained by Medea herself. . . .” The Sorceress’s ice-white aura formed in a silken glove around her hand and flowed over the phone.
    “You don’t frighten me,” Bastet began, and then a scream of pain sounded over the connection and the conversation was cut short.
    “What did you do?” Nicholas asked.
    Perenelle shrugged. “Perhaps the phone melted into her hand.” She tossed the cell back to the Sack Man, who instantly retreated into the night. The Sorceress turned to Prometheus and Niten. “The Spartoi are coming across the Golden Gate Bridge, heading this way.”
    “The Swordsman and I will go and hold the bridge,” Prometheus said. “We will buy you as much time as we can . . . but hurry. You know what the Spartoi are like.”
    Tears sparkling in her eyes, Perenelle nodded.
    “How many are coming?” Niten asked.
    “Thirty-two of the deadliest warriors in the known world.” She looked at Niten. “And you don’t have to look quite so happy about it!”

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
    THE SIZE OF the Yggdrasill was almost beyond comprehension.
    Impossibly wide, incalculably high, it stretched from ground to sky in a single massive column. Its roots plunged underground, deep into the core of the earth. Entire ecosystems thrived on the exterior of the vast tree; birds and insects, small mammals and lizards swarmed through the branches and leaves. Those living at the top of the tree in the ever-present clouds never saw those who lived close to the roots, and none of those knew about the world in the dark earth beneath the tree, where another environment flourished, pale blind creatures winding through enormous tunnels left by the roots. Endless generations lived and died on—and in—the Yggdrasill.
    The tree was hollow, and within the trunk flourished the city of Wakah-Chan, one of the hidden wonders of Danu Talis.
    Joan of Arc left Saint-Germain talking to Shakespeare and Palamedes and fell into step alongside Scathach. She linked her arm with her friend’s. The French immortal’s slate-gray eyes danced with excitement, and the faintest miasma of her lavender aura leaked from her body in a visible cloud. “We’ve had a lot of great adventures over the centuries,” she said in English.
    “We have,” the Shadow agreed.
    “And we have seen wonders.”
    Scathach nodded again.
    “But in all your travels, have you ever seen anything like this before?” Joan asked.
    “I have, actually. This is the second Yggdrasill I’ve been in this week. There is—there was—a distant relative of the original tree just north of San Francisco. It was huge, but nothing like this. Dee destroyed it,” she added bitterly.
    The two women were walking along a branch at least sixty feet wide. The branch was both road and bridge and stretched, unsupported, from one side of the Yggdrasill to the other, which was so far away it was lost in a swirling green mist that curled throughout the interior of the tree. Small one- and two-story buildings were scattered along the length of the branch. Slender dark-skinned men and women offered fruit and colored drinks from brightly canopied stalls in front of the buildings.
    “Do you think they live here, on the bridge?” Joan asked.
    “It sure looks that way,” the Shadow said. “I wonder how many have rolled out of bed in the morning, stepped out their back door and gone off the side.” She nodded to where the rears of the little homes were built right up against the edge of the branch. Beyond, there was nothing but a sheer drop.
    “Trust you to think of that.” Joan stopped then and suddenly grinned, realizing Scatty was making one of her very rare jokes. The houses had no back doors. “Very funny.”
    “Thank you.”
    “I was being sarcastic.”
    “I know.”
    The immortal craned her neck and looked upward. The vast hollow trunk disappeared into emerald-tinged clouds far above. The air over her head was crisscrossed with branches linking one side of the tree to the other, and the trunk was speckled with countless bulbous protrusions. Lights sparkled around these growths, but it was only when she walked to the edge of the branch, looked down and saw one up close that she realized she was looking at