01_-_The_Alchemyst

shape began to form out of the mist cloud—a surprising shape: that of an
elderly man in a security guard’s uniform. The shape hovered, twisting and
curling over the pond. The late-evening sunshine shone through the water
drops, turning each one into a brilliant rainbow of light. “You are a ghost?”
Nicholas asked.
“Yes, sir, I am. Or I was until Mrs. Flamel freed me.”
“Do you know me?” Nicholas Flamel asked. He wondered quickly if
this might be a trick of Dee’s, but then he dismissed the idea: the sorcerer
was powerful, but there was no way he could penetrate Hekate’s defenses.
The mist shifted and thickened. “Yes, sir, I believe I do: you are
Nicholas Flamel, the Alchemyst. Mrs. Flamel asked me to go in search of
you. She suggested that I would find you here, in this particular
Shadowrealm. She overheard Dee mention that you were here.”
“She is unharmed?” Flamel asked eagerly.
“She is. The small man they call John Dee is terrified of her, though the
other woman is not.”
“What woman?”
“A tall woman, wearing a cloak of black feathers.”
“The Morrigan,” Flamel said grimly.
“Aye, and that’s the message…” A fish leapt out of the pond and the
figure dissolved into a thousand water droplets that hung frozen in the air,
each one a tiny portion of a jigsaw that made up the ghost. “Mrs. Flamel says
you have to leave…and leave now. The Crow Goddess is gathering her
forces to invade the Shadowrealm.”
“She’ll not succeed. She is Next Generation; she has not the power.”
The fish leapt again, scattering the water droplets, and the ghost’s voice
drifted and whispered away, dying with each bursting bubble. “Mrs. Flamel
instructed me to tell you that the Crow Goddess intends to awaken Bastet.”