The Magician

CHAPTER FIVE

T he ghosts of Alcatraz awoke Perenelle Flamel.

The woman lay unmoving on the narrow cot in the cramped icy cell deep beneath

the abandoned prison and listened to them whisper and murmur in the shadows

around her. There were a dozen languages she could understand, many more she

could identify and a few that were completely incomprehensible.

Keeping her eyes closed, Perenelle concentrated on the languages, trying to

make out the individual voices, wondering if there were any she recognized.

And then a sudden thought struck her: how was she able to hear the ghosts?

Sitting outside the cell was a sphinx, a monster with a lion s body, an

eagle s wings and the head of a beautiful woman. One of its special powers

was the ability to absorb the magical energies of another living being. It

had drained Perenelle s, rendering her helpless, trapping her in this

terrible prison cell.

A tiny smile curled Perenelle s lips as she realized something: she was the

seventh daughter of a seventh daughter; she had been born with the ability to

hear and see ghosts. She had been doing so long before she had learned how to

train and concentrate her aura. Her gift had nothing to do with magic, and

therefore the sphinx had no power over it. Throughout the centuries of her

long life, she had used her skill with magic to protect herself from ghosts,

to coat and shield her aura with colors that rendered her invisible to the

apparitions. But as the sphinx had absorbed her energies, those shields had

been wiped away, revealing her to the spirit realm.

And now they were coming.

Perenelle Flamel had seen her first ghost that of her beloved grandmother

Mamom when she was seven years old. Perenelle knew that there was nothing to

fear from ghosts; they could be annoying, certainly, were often irritating

and sometimes downright rude, but they possessed no physical presence. There

were even a few she had learned to call friends. Over the centuries certain

spirits had returned to her again and again, drawn to her because they knew

she could hear, see or help them and often, Perenelle thought, simply because

they were lonely. Mamom turned up every decade or so just to check up on her.

But even though they had no presence in the real world, ghosts were not

powerless.

Opening her eyes, Perenelle concentrated on the chipped stone wall directly

in front of her face. The wall ran with green-tinged water that smelled of

rust and salt, the two elements that had ultimately destroyed Alcatraz the

prison. Dee had made a mistake, as she had known he would. If Dr. John Dee

had one great failing, it was arrogance. He obviously thought that if she was

imprisoned deep below Alcatraz and guarded by a sphinx, then she was

powerless. He could not be more wrong.

Alcatraz was a place of ghosts.

And Perenelle Flamel would show him just how powerful she was.

Closing her eyes, relaxing, Perenelle listened to the ghosts of Alcatraz, and

then slowly, her voice barely above a breathed whisper, she began to talk to

them, to call them and to gather them all to her.