01_-_The_Alchemyst

CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Perenelle Flamel sat in a corner of the tiny windowless room and drew
her knees up to her chest, then wrapped her arms around her shins. She rested
her chin on her knees. She could hear voices—angry, bitter voices.
Perry concentrated on the sound. She allowed her aura to expand a little
as she murmured a small spell she had learned from an Inuit shaman. The
shaman used it to listen to the fish moving under the arctic ice sheets and the
bears crunching across the distant ice fields. The simple spell worked by
shutting down all other senses and concentrating exclusively on hearing.
Perry watched as the color faded from her surroundings and darkness closed
in until she went blind. She gradually lost her sense of smell and felt the
pins-and-needles tingle in her fingertips and toes as her sense of touch
dulled, then faded completely. She knew that if there were anything in her
mouth, she would no longer be able to taste it. Only her hearing remained, but
it was enhanced and supersensitive. She heard beetles crawling in the walls
behind her, heard the scritch-scratch as a mouse gnawed through wood
somewhere above her, knew that a colony of termites was munching their
way through distant floorboards. She also heard two voices, high and thin, as
if they were being picked up on a badly tuned radio, and coming from a great
distance. Perry tilted her head, homing in on the sound. She heard wind
whistling, the flap of clothing, the high crying of birds. She could tell that the
voices she was hearing were coming from the roof of the building. They
strengthened, warbled and bubbled, and then abruptly clarified: they
belonged to Dee and the Morrigan, and Perry could clearly hear the fear in
the gray man’s voice and the rage in the Crow Goddess’s shrill cries.
“She must pay for this! She must!”
“She is an Elder. Untouchable by the likes of you and me,” Dee said,
trying unsuccessfully to calm the Morrigan.