The Enchantress (The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel)

Dee and his masters would not have confined themselves to just the regular-sized creatures. If they really wanted to make an impact on the city, they would need some of the great monsters.”
    “So what’s in there?”
    “Full-sized minotaur,” Nicholas guessed. “Probably an ogre or two. You know Dee likes his ogres.”
    “A dragon?” Perenelle wondered. Then she shook her head. “No, if he had a dragon he would have unleashed it already. But something with scales, a wyrm or a wyvern, perhaps. And a smok. Remember when he raised the smok in Poland?”
    They crept closer, moving across rubble and broken stones, barking their shins and scraping their arms on jutting concrete and metal. They were close enough to the warehouse now to peer in through the tall rectangular windows. Grotesque shadows danced across the walls, and they caught glimpses of fur and scales. This close to the house the smell was overwhelming: the stink of wet fur, warm dung and filthy hair, of too many serpents and mammals crowded close together. The reek of wyrm and smok was distinct now: the fire-breathers exuded a nauseating sulfurous miasma every time they opened their mouths.
    The Flamels heard shouts within—a thin high voice speaking in a guttural language. “ ‘One more.’ ” Perenelle translated the arcane language. “ ‘We can take one more this trip. Bring something big.’ ”
    Nicholas nodded in admiration. “I’d forgotten you spoke it.” He suddenly squeezed her hand. “Even after all these years, there is so much I still do not know about you.”
    “Medea taught me the lost language of Danu Talis,” she said. “And you know enough about me. You know that I love you.”
    The Alchemyst touched the scarab he wore around his neck. It throbbed beneath his hand. “I do,” he said.
    Nicholas and Perenelle rounded the end of the building just as a door slammed open. “Anpu,” the Sorceress whispered.
    Two of the jackal-headed warriors appeared, each tugging on a long iron chain. A second pair of anpu hurried out of the building. They were holding smoking tridents, which they used to jab at the long green-skinned two-legged serpent that slithered from the building, attached to the iron chain. The creature was at least twenty feet long. Another pair of anpu followed behind the creature. They had wrapped more chains around its spiked tail.
    “Lindworm,” Nicholas said. “Front claws, but no rear feet. But don’t think for a moment that it is slow. Its bite is deadly and its tail is a lethal weapon.”
    The anpu dragged and prodded the lindworm toward the boat.
    “We cannot let the boat leave the dock,” Nicholas said.
    “How do we stop it?”
    “These creatures—all of them, monsters and anpu—are under the control of a single person. If we can defeat that person, the beasts will turn upon one another. They’ll rip the boat apart for us. So the question is, who is controlling them?”
    “I think I know. . . .” Perenelle’s lips twisted in disappointment. “I thought she had changed. . . .”
    “Who?”
    “She helped me escape. I was hoping she might remain neutral, but it seems I was wrong. I smelled her earlier.”
    “Perenelle . . .,” Nicholas said.
    But before she could respond, fog swirled upward in two concentric coils and a dark figure dropped to the ground directly in front of Nicholas and Perenelle. The Alchemyst and the Sorceress both held out their hands, the first hints of their auras appearing on their fingertips.
    The figure was dressed from head to foot in gleaming black leather, moisture running off the shining silver bolts that studded her jerkin in a spiral design. Draped over her shoulders, its full hood pulled up around her face, and sweeping to the ground behind her was a cloak made entirely of ravens’ feathers. Most of her face was hidden by the hood, but her black lips curled away from overlong incisors.
    “We meet again, Sorceress.”
    “Nicholas,” Perenelle said, “let me introduce you to the Morrigan.”

CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
    BILLY THE KID threw himself forward and down, curling into a tight ball and rolling smoothly back to his feet.
    The sphinx sailed over his head and crashed to the ground, claws slipping and scrabbling for purchase on the stone floor. “You are just delaying the inevitable,” she snarled, spinning around, expecting to see Billy racing down the corridor away from her.
    The immortal stood facing her, arms hanging loose by his sides. He