“And here we have this great civilization of Danu Talis,” Virginia continued bitterly, “ruled by a collection of immortal Great Elders and Elders … and what do we find?” Without waiting for an answer, she continued. “We find that nothing is different. The poor live beyond the outer canals, the rich live safe within the inner circles, protected by bridges guarded by dog-headed monsters. The poor cannot even walk these streets. I guess they must be paved with gold.”
“Actually, I think they are,” Josh murmured. The flagstones and pavements on the other side of the canal shimmered with liquid golden light.
Virginia Dare ignored him. She walked down the center of the bridge and all the guards pulled out their curved swords. “Is it any wonder that the world we lived in was such a mess?” She spread her arms wide. “This is what it came from. The humani modeled more than their buildings on this place. The human world was doomed from the very beginning. When I have my world to rule, things will be very different, I promise you.”
“They’ve got swords, Virginia,” Josh said.
“So they have,” she answered lightly.
Guards were streaming left and right along the canal banks, racing in to support those already in position on the bridge.
“So how many guards do you need to protect the precious streets of gold from a woman and two teenagers?” Virginia asked.
Josh did a quick head count. “Thirty.”
“Thirty-two,” Sophie said.
Virginia had reached the midpoint. The anpu were spread out, all with weapons drawn. Muzzles gaped, revealing ragged teeth, making it appear as if the creatures were grinning. The leader tapped his kopesh against his metal claw. The sound rang like a bell.
Virginia continued marching straight ahead. “And do you know what I despise more than anything else?” she snapped. “Bullies. Especially bullies who think a fancy sword and a suit of armor make them invulnerable.” Reaching under the billowing white robe, Virginia lifted her flute off her back. She shook it out of its cloth case and pressed it to her lips.
She blew a single note. The sound started high and climbed until even Sophie and Josh with their enhanced hearing could no longer make it out. The effect on the anpu was immediate. They stiffened, jerked upright as if they were pulled on strings, arms wide on either side, fingers spread. Kopesh dropped rattling to the stones.
Virginia’s delicate fingers moved swiftly across the flute and the anpu danced. The creatures rose up on their toes and staggered left and right, crashing into each other, armor clashing and ringing. The immortal laughed, the sound high-pitched, uncomfortably close to hysterical. “I think I will dance them all right into the canal.”
“Virginia,” Sophie snapped. “No!”
With the flute still pressed to her lips, the immortal turned to look at the girl.
“No!”
“No? It’s what I usually do.”
“It’s not necessary,” Sophie said. “Kill them and you become just like them. And you aren’t like them, are you?”
“You have no idea what I am,” Virginia whispered, but she lifted her fingers off the flute.
The anpu fell as if they had been struck, crashing to the bridge in a clatter of armor and metal. The huge leader’s metal hand scraped and twitched against the stones, scoring deep grooves in the soft rock, then stiffened and fell still.
Virginia picked her way through the fallen anpu, taking care not to touch any of them. Sophie and Josh followed her example. Close up the creatures were terrifying. Their jet-black bodies were human, corded with muscle, but from the neck up, they had the pointy-eared heads of jackals. Their hands were human, though tipped with curved claws, and their feet were dogs’ paws. Some had bushy tails curling from the backs of their armor, and most had tiny green and gold scarabs or what looked like cowry shells woven into their fur.
“This way, I believe,” Virginia said, pointing with her flute to an enormous circular building topped by a spire flying a narrow pennant with an eye on it. The flapping eye looked like it was winking. The outer windowless walls were sheeted in gold and decorated with constellations picked out in precious stones. The building was protected by a narrow moat filled with bubbling grass-green liquid, and a pair of enormous albino anpu carrying spears taller than they were stood on either side of the drawbridge.
Virginia smiled at the creatures and twirled her flute, leaving a shimmering note hanging in the air. The creatures dropped their spears, lowered the bridge and then turned and scampered on all fours into a low hutch hidden in the undergrowth. Bloodred eyes regarded the immortal with something like awe as she passed by.
“It is better to be feared than loved,” Virginia said lightly. “I believe Machiavelli said that.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Oh man, I am never—and I mean never—eating meat again.” Billy the Kid turned away from the sight of the wounded Hel ripping into the enormous boar’s carcass.
“Humans were never meant to be vegetarian,” Hel bubbled, her face and fangs black with fluids.
“You’re not human,” Billy said, still facing the other direction.
“It is good for me. It will restore my aura. It will help me heal.” There was a snap like breaking wood, followed by a sucking sound.
Billy looked up at Machiavelli. “Whatever you do, do not tell me what she’s doing right now.”
The Italian immortal shook his head. “She has a healthy appetite, I’ll give her that,” he said, then added with a sly grin, “and the marrow is particularly nutritious!”
Billy stepped away from the stink of the butchered hog and breathed great gulps of the cold night air. A thick fog had started to roll in, flowing over the prison walls like smoke, and the temperature was falling fast.
“I did not think you would be so squeamish,” Machiavelli said, joining him. “I thought you were a great American hero, fearless and brave.”
Billy rolled his eyes. “You’ve been watching too many of my movies. Always felt I should have earned royalties from them. Didn’t seem fair that they were using my name and not paying me.”
“Billy, you’re supposed to be dead.”
“I know.” Something liquid popped behind him and he jumped and pressed both hands to his mouth. “I’m not squeamish.” Billy’s every word plumed on the air like smoke. “I’ve hunted buffalo, butchered my share of steers, and killed chickens and hogs for the table. I’ve caught and gutted fish. But I liked to cook my meat before I eat it!” He glanced back over his shoulder to where Hel lay on the steps of the exercise yard feasting off the remains of the Hus Krommyon. Odin sat beside her, feeding her tidbits.
Mars Ultor had taken up a position at the ruined doorway, driving away any creatures that came too close. From within the prison something that had never been human giggled with the voice of a little girl.
Hel saw Billy looking, and her smile was appalling. She offered him something glistening wet. “I saved this for you. A special treat,” she lisped.
“I’ll pass. Thanks. I ate something just before we came out. And besides, I’m on a diet. And I’m vegetarian. Vegan, even.”
Machiavelli caught Billy’s arm and eased him out into the center of the exercise yard. He pointed to the tracery of lines on the flagstones. “What do you smell?” he asked.
“You mean besides the butchered—”
“Focus, Billy.”
The American immortal breathed in. “Salt air …”
“More.”
“Oranges, vanilla, sulfur and …” He took another deep breath. “And sage. That’s my girl, Virginia,” he added.
“The sulfur is Dee.” Machiavelli traced the outline of a rectangle with the toe of his scuffed boot. “And the twins of legend were here also.”
“Where are they now?”
“Gone.”
“Gone?”
“I believe Dee activated the four ancient Swords of Power to create a leygate to go back in time.”
“How far back?” Billy wond
ered aloud.
“All the way,” the Italian said grimly. “If I were a gambling man, which I am not, I’d say he’s gone back to Danu Talis.”
Billy wrapped his arms around his body and shivered. “I’m guessing that’s not good.”
Machiavelli shook his head. “No. No doubt he has some master plan to take over Danu Talis and rule the world. The doctor was always coming up with mad schemes like that. He always played by his own rules.”
“I figured.”
“And he’s usually been wrong. Dee has an overinflated impression of his own importance. The doctor is intelligent, but he’s survived because he was cunning rather than clever. And he’s always been lucky.”
“You can’t be lucky all the time,” Billy said. “Sooner or later your luck runs out.” He jerked his thumb over his shoulder, toward the monster-filled jailhouse. “Maybe ours has. We’re trapped on a island filled with monsters and”—he lowered his voice and nodded toward Hel and Odin—“until a few hours ago, they were our enemies.”
“The enemy of my enemy is my friend,” Machiavelli reminded him.
“Yes, and the enemy of my enemy can still be my enemy. And I should remind you that most people are killed by someone they know. I learned that the hard way—I knew Pat Garrett.”
The Italian put his hands on Billy’s shoulders and looked into his eyes. The roiling milky fog turned his gray eyes to alabaster, making him look blind. “Did we make the right decision to try to prevent Dee from loosing the monsters onto the city?” he demanded.
“Absolutely,” Billy said without hesitation.
“Did we make the right decision to stand and fight with these Elders against the monsters?”
“Yes, without a doubt,” Billy said again.
“Consider this.” Machiavelli smiled. “What would have happened if you and I had chosen to stand with Dee and the monsters?”
Billy’s expression went blank. “I don’t really know.”
“Dee and Dare would still be gone, and we would have been left on the island to face Mars, Odin and Hel. And while you may be a good fighter, Billy, I am not. How long do you think we would have survived against any of those three?”
“Well, I think I could have taken the one-eyed guy….”
Machiavelli sighed. “The one-eyed guy is Odin.”
Billy looked at him blankly.
“You must have had a dog when you were growing up?” the Italian asked.
“Sure.”
“What did you call it?”
“Kid.”
“You called your dog Kid?”
Billy grinned. “That was before I got my nickname.”
Machiavelli nodded. “Odin—the one-eyed guy—keeps two wolves. Geri and Freki.”
“Good names. Strong.”
“The words mean ‘ravenous’ and ‘greedy’—and their names are perfect descriptions for them. They are as big as small donkeys. He walks them on a single leash.”
Billy turned to look at the man with the patch over his right eye. “Did he lose the eye in a fight?”
Machiavelli shook his head. “No. He plucked it out himself. Used it to pay off a giant. Do you still think you could take him?”
“Maybe not.”
The Italian pointed toward the doorway with his chin. “And how long do you think you could stand against the ultimate warrior, Mars Ultor?”
Billy flattened his right hand, palm down, and rocked it from side to side.
“Or Hel, who rules a kingdom of the dead?”
“Not long,” Billy admitted.
“Not long,” Machiavelli agreed. He leaned forward and pressed his mouth close to the American’s ear. “And remember, Hel isn’t fussy about the type of meat she eats.”
Billy swallowed hard. His eyes flickered toward the remains of the hog.
“That could just as easily be you,” Machiavelli said.
“You really like telling me all this stuff, don’t you?”
“It’s educational.”
“Okay then, mister educator, master strategist. Tell me how we’re going to get off this island.”
Machiavelli started to shake his head once again, when abruptly the fog shifted and swirled between the two men as if blown by a strong wind. But there was no breeze in the prison yard. Water droplets hung suspended in the air. They coalesced, running together to form larger beads of moisture.
And suddenly the outline of a head formed in midair.
A face appeared: it was long and narrow and had once been handsome. There were two holes where the eyes should have been, another in place of the mouth. Then the fog thickened and the water droplets turned white and became hair, and the face took on form and substance. The hint of clothing appeared: a loose white linen shirt tucked into knee-length trousers. The legs disappeared just below the knee, and there were no visible feet.
“Ghost …,” Billy squeaked.
The ghost’s mouth moved, opening and closing, and then the voice became audible. It was a thread, a series of bursting bubbles of water splashes. “I am Juan Manuel de Ayala. I discovered Alcatraz.”
“An honor to meet you.” Machiavelli bowed and tapped Billy with his foot.
Billy nodded quickly. “An honor. Sure.”
“You fight with the Sorceress, Perenelle Flamel?” the ghost asked.
“We fight the same enemy,” Machiavelli said carefully.
“Then we have a common cause,” the ghost said. “Follow me.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Prometheus raised a metal-gloved hand. “Hang on. We’re just about to reach the zenith of our glide.”
The crippled Rukma vimana hung suspended in the air for a single moment. There was a sudden lurch. Simultaneously, all the darkened screens cracked and shattered, metal floor plates shivered loose, screws and bolts ricocheting off the walls, and a tiny fire began in the controls under Prometheus’s feet. He stamped it out.
“And now we fall.”
The Rukma vimana plunged downward. William Shakespeare turned a surprisingly high-pitched scream into a cough.
The dark-skinned Saracen Knight reached out to pat his arm. “I am sure that the man who wrote so much about death must have thought about it a lot. You’ve written about dying, Will,” Palamedes said.
“Lots,” Shakespeare said, his voice a little uneven. “But not so much about falling, tumbling and crashing in a ball of fire.”
“I doubt there’ll be fire,” Prometheus said.
“That’s comforting. So just the falling, tumbling and crashing bit.”
Joan of Arc leaned forward. “I have always liked your line For in that sleep of death what dreams may come … Very poetic. It’s a very French sentiment. I’m surprised it was written by an Englishman,” she added with a little smile.
“Hamlet,” Will said, smiling weakly. “One of my favorites.”
Palamedes grinned, teeth white against his dark face. “But what about: Woe, destruction, ruin, and decay; the worst is death, and death will have his day.”
“From Richard II,” Shakespeare said. “Trust you to think of that one. A great line, even if I did write it myself.”
Saint-Germain crossed his legs. “I must admit I have always been partial to King John: Death, death; O amiable, lovely death!… Come, grin on me, and I will think thou smilest.” He glanced over at his wife. “Another very French sentiment, don’t you think?”
“Very. Will, you must have French blood in you somewhere,” she insisted.
The Bard folded his hands in his lap and nodded affably. Like most writers, he loved talking about his work, and he’d perked up noticeably at the subject. “Well, I did live with a family of French Huguenots in Cripplegate in London for a while.”
“A French influence. I knew it!” Joan said, clapping her hands.
“Have you all quite finished with the death quotes?” Scathach snapped.
“Oh, I’ve got more,” Shakespeare offered.
“Enough already!” Scathach
closed her eyes and breathed deeply. She’d once been told she was going to die in an exotic location, and she guessed it didn’t get much more exotic than in a vimana above the legendary isle of Danu Talis.
Dying did not frighten her—she’d spent her entire life as a warrior. There was always the expectation of death, and over the millennia, she’d come close on more than one occasion. Her only regret was that she would not be able to see her sister again. Aoife had sacrificed her life to keep the appalling Coatlicue from this Shadowrealm and from Scathach. And now Aoife was trapped in Coatlicue’s lightless world, doomed to an eternity of suffering unless she was rescued. Yet who would rescue her? Who would be foolhardy—or brave—enough to venture into Coatlicue’s realm? Scathach had sworn that she would rescue her sister, and now it looked like she would not be able to keep that promise.
“Uncle, you don’t seem too concerned about our imminent death,” she said to Prometheus.
“For the final time, girl, I am not your uncle,” the red-haired Elder snapped.
“Not yet,” the Shadow snapped back. “But for the hundredth time, you will be. Now—are we going to crash and die?”
“Crash, yes. Die? Maybe. It depends on whether my calculations were correct.”
Scathach pushed herself from her seat and staggered to a cracked porthole.
They were racing directly toward a forest. Scathach shook her head. That was not possible. They had risen too high, and hadn’t fallen far enough or long enough—how could there be trees so close?
Not trees, she suddenly realized. A tree—just one. They were falling into the side of a single tree.
Scathach flung herself across the cabin, bouncing off the walls, to peer through another and then another porthole. The tree was massive. Huge and twisting, it loomed before them like a vast green wall. She craned her neck, looking up and down. The trunk disappeared into the forest canopy far below, and the top of the tree soared up through the clouds, reaching high into the heavens. She was only looking at a tiny section of it, but that portion was enormous.
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