The Warlock (The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel #5) Read Online Free PDF Page B

said he was called Marethyu,” she said softly.
    “It is not a name. It is a title: it means Death. But it can also mean ‘man,’ ” the Elder said, translating the ancient word.
    “I thought he was an Elder.…”
    Prometheus frowned, sudden fragments of memories catching him by surprise. His fingers tightened on the back of the seat. “Marethyu,” he murmured, nodding. “Death.”
    “You remember him?”
    He shook his head. “Shadows of memories. Marethyu was not one of us. He was neither Elder nor Next Generation, neither Archon nor Ancient. He was—and is—something more and less than all of us. I believe he is humani.” Prometheus swiveled around and rested his huge hands on the steering wheel. “Where do you want to go, Sorceress?”
    “Take me to Tsagaglalal.”

h man, it stinks down here.” Billy the Kid sneezed loudly. “I mean
really
stinks.” He pressed the heels of his hands against his watering eyes and sneezed again.
    “Actually, it’s not too bad. I’ve smelled worse,” Niccolò Machiavelli said softly.
    The two men were standing in a tunnel deep beneath Alcatraz prison. Water dripped from the low ceiling and small waves lapped around their ankles. The air reeked of rotting fish and fetid seaweed, mingled with the pungent tang of bird droppings and the acid odor of bat guano. The only light came from the opening high above their heads, a startling square of blue against the blackness.
    The tall elegant man in the dust-stained suit breathed deeply. “Actually, it reminds me of home.”
    “Home?” Billy coughed. He pulled a patterned red bandanaout of the back pocket of his jeans and tied it over his nose and mouth. “Does your home usually smell like a wild animal’s bathroom?”
    Machiavelli’s teeth flashed in a quick smile. “Well, Rome and Venice—ah, sweet Venice—in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries were smelly … though not as bad as Paris in the eighteenth century or London in the middle of the nineteenth. I was there in 1858; the air was so foul it was virtually unbreathable. It was called the Great Stink.”
    “Can’t say I’d like that,” Billy said. “I like fresh air, and lots of it.” He snapped his fingers and the rancid air was filled with the exotic odor of red pepper. A wispy curl of deep reddish-purple smoke wrapped around his fingertips, and then a globe of translucent red fire rose from his hands to bob at head height. It bounced and floated like a soap bubble as it was pulled by the salty sea air that whistled down the tunnel. “An Apache medicine man taught me that,” Billy said proudly. “Not bad, eh?”
    “Not bad at all.” Machiavelli brought his hands together and the scent of Billy’s aura was swept away with the stench of serpent. A blaze of stark white light lit up the tunnel in sharp relief. The red bubble popped and burst. “My master, Aten, taught me that,” Machiavelli said.
    Billy the Kid quickly rubbed his hands together, tendrils of his purple-red aura dripping into the water at his ankles. “Nice,” he admitted, his voice muffled behind the bandana.
    Machiavelli glanced sidelong at the younger man. “You look like a bandit, wearing that bandana.”
    “I think it suits me.”
    The two men, one in a ruined suit and expensive Italian shoes, the other in jeans and beat-up boots, splashed down the corridor. The white light kept pace with them, sending red-eyed rats skittering into the darkness.
    “I hate rats,” Billy muttered.
    “They have their uses,” Machiavelli said softly. “They make excellent spies.”
    “Spies?” Billy the Kid stopped. He sounded confused. “Spies?”
    The Italian had walked on but stopped as well to look back at Billy. “Have you never looked through an animal’s eyes?”
    “No. I had a Navajo medicine woman tell me she could look through an eagle’s eyes, but I wasn’t entirely sure I believed her until she was able to tell me that thirty miles away, a lawman was putting together a