The Enchantress (The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel)

wild reports that anpu were attacked, and I’ve heard stories of rioting in the humani slums. A rumor raced through the marketplace today that a humani defeated a dozen guards and crossed the canal.”
    “Ridiculous!”
    “What will the humani do if we do execute Aten?” Anubis asked.
    “Run wild for a few days. Let them burn their wooden houses and the grain stores. When they get cold and start to grow hungry, they’ll begin to come to their senses. And when you are the ruler here, I expect you to deal harshly with this disconnected, lazy rabble.”
    “I hope I’ll be a good ruler,” Anubis said sincerely.
    “Of course you will,” Bastet snapped. “You’ll do exactly as I say.”
    “Yes, Mother.”

CHAPTER FORTY
    MARS, ODIN AND Hel prepared to make their final stand in the corridors of Alcatraz.
    “There are just too many of them!” Mars shouted. The Elder was standing in a corridor facing down a host of gray Moss People. Short and stunted, their skin the texture of tree bark, they were covered in thick moss, and although they were armed only with wooden swords and spears, their weapons were deadly. Mars’s armor was scratched and torn, and he was bleeding from a score of minor wounds.
    Behind and to his left, he heard Odin grunt and knew the one-eyed Elder had sustained another wound. He was facing off with a dozen filthy vetala.
    “There is no shame in running away to live and fight another day,” Odin grunted in the lost language of Danu Talis.
    Behind them, propped against a wall, lay Hel. She had managed to drive back a hairy minotaur with her long metal whip, but not before its horns had opened a deep gash in her side and along her left arm. “Running would be good,” she grunted, “if we had somewhere to run to.”
    Realizing that if they remained in the exercise yard they would eventually be overwhelmed, the three Elders had fought their way through the prison corridors. Attacked on all sides by nightmarish creatures, they had defeated scores, but for every one they killed, another three appeared. Each creature was different: some fought with weapons, others with teeth and claws, but curiously, they did not fight with one another. They were focused solely on attacking the three Elders.
    “They’re hungry,” Hel said. “Look at them: most are skin and bones. They’ve probably been in these cells for months in a deep sleep. And now, like animals coming out of hibernation, they need to eat. Unfortunately, we’re the only things here they can eat.”
    “I wonder why they don’t turn on one another,” Mars said.
    “They have to be under some sort of binding spell,” Odin said.
    “I think it is simpler than that,” Hel lisped. “I don’t think they can see one another. They can only see us.”
    “Of course!” Odin answered. “They’re under a glamour.”
    Mars hacked at a pair of Moss Men—or they could have been women; it was hard to tell under the moss and hair—and they staggered back, unperturbed by the slashes across their woody skin. “If we could lift the spell . . .,” he began.
    “. . . they would attack one another,” Hel said. “That would make our job easier.”
    As the Elders fought their way down a corridor lined with stacks of cells, they were cut, stabbed and bitten, their flesh scraped and torn. It was difficult for them to use their auras to heal the wounds as they ran and fought. And now they were tiring, their auras were fading and they were starting to discover that some of the wounds had been infected by the monsters’ poisonous teeth and claws.
    A howling cucubuth dropped from one of the upper cells and landed on top of Mars. Long teeth snapped at the Elder’s head, biting into his ears. Odin caught the creature by the tail, spun it once, twice, then sent it sailing the entire length of the corridor. It hit the wall hard enough to crack the stonework.
    Hel was swarmed by a dozen horned Domovi. Each creature was about the size of a small child, completely covered in hair, except for circles around the eyes. They bit and snapped, bending their heads to gore her with their short, razor-sharp horns. Mars grabbed two by the legs and used them as clubs to beat the others away from her. The two he held wriggled and twisted, screaming and scratching at his hands, jabbering in a language that set his teeth on edge.
    Odin faced the vetala. Their faces were those of beautiful young men and women; their bodies were skeletal, and they walked on