The Enchantress (The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel)

changing color, rendering her almost invisible against the night. She could smell the meaty foulness in the air and recognized both Quetzalcoatl’s and Bastet’s auras. The Feathered Serpent was dangerous enough, but the Elder goddess’s return was a real concern: it meant that events were coming to a head. And Bastet, like Dee, did not know the meaning of subtlety. She also had nothing but contempt for humankind.
    Turning left onto Hyde Street, Tsagaglalal raced toward Russian Hill Park. Less than a week ago, Bastet, the Morrigan and Dee had been involved in an attack on Hekate’s new Yggdrasill in the Mill Valley Shadowrealm. In the brief and bitter battle, the ancient tree, grown from seeds salvaged during the fall of Danu Talis, was destroyed by John Dee wielding Excalibur. The Goddess with Three Faces had fallen with the tree, and her vast knowledge died with her. Dee and the Morrigan had continued to chase the twins, but Bastet had vanished. Tsagaglalal knew she had a house in Bel Air.
    “When this is all over,” Tsagaglalal whispered into the damp air, “and if I survive, I will make it my duty to hunt you down.”
    She was passing the tennis courts when a trio of badly dressed shaven-headed figures appeared in the gloom directly ahead of her, rubber-soled combat boots silent on the pavement as they approached. They were chittering with excitement, the sound almost too high to hear, and threads of their gray auras, shot through with bruise-colored streaks, leaked from their flesh. Two hadn’t even bothered to hide their tails. They were cucubuths on their way to feast.
    “I hate cucubuths,” Tsagaglalal breathed. “Nasty, foul, smelly . . .”
    She Who Watches unsheathed her kopesh and sliced through them without a sound, leaving their bodies to dissolve to gritty powder.
    Tsagaglalal knew that the only reason the cat-headed goddess had returned to the city was because she wanted to be around for the Elders’ victory.
    On more than one occasion, Tsagaglalal’s husband, Abraham, had told her that he considered Bastet to be one of the most dangerous creatures he had ever met. “Her ambition will destroy the world,” he warned.
    At the top of the hill Tsagaglalal paused. “Right or straight on?” she wondered aloud, trying to work out the shortest route.
    To the right lay Lombard Street, famous for its eight sharp curves. She could turn here, but she knew if she continued straight, she could make a right onto Jefferson, which would bring her directly to Fisherman’s Wharf.
    “Straight on.” She jogged past the curvy road.
    Bastet had always been both ambitious and greedy. Along with her husband, Amenhotep, she had ruled Danu Talis for centuries. When the Change began to work its way first through Amenhotep and later through Bastet, the Lord of Danu Talis had stepped aside and vested power in his son, Aten. Bastet had been furious: she’d spent decades working behind the scenes to ensure that her other son, her favorite, Anubis, would rule the island empire. She could control him; she had no control over Aten.
    “Got any spare change, miss?”
    Shimmering with moisture, two men, one unnaturally skinny, with a spiderweb tattooed across his ear, the other bigger, with a bodybuilder’s broad chest and narrow waist, stepped out of the night. They had obviously been lounging against a wall on the corner of Lombard and Hyde. As she jogged nearer, she noted that the big man’s face was bruised and scratched.
    “Not a good night for jogging,” the skinny one said.
    “This fog—not healthy,” the big one laughed.
    “You could slip. You could fall. You could hurt yourself.” The skinny one emphasized the word
hurt
.
    Tsagaglalal’s grip tightened on the kopesh, but she could smell that these were human. She kept her pace and saw something like alarm flicker in the bigger man’s dirty eyes. “Oh no, not again . . .,” he breathed.
    Her right shoulder hit the smaller man in the center of his chest. She heard something crack as he went sailing out across the road and onto the steep incline of Lombard Street. He squealed as he started to roll down the most crooked street in the world. Her left leg struck the bigger man just as he was scrambling to get out of her way. Something popped in his hip and he hit the ground hard enough to break something else.
    Tsagaglalal kept going without giving them a second thought.
    Aten was not without his flaws. She’d met him when he’d come to visit