01_-_The_Alchemyst

briefly smoked before it cleared and Perenelle found she was looking at the
scene she had briefly glimpsed in the ghost’s eyes. Her husband was lying
under Bastet’s claws. Behind them, Scatty was struggling to hold off the
attacking cats and birds, while Josh stood with his back to a tree, awkwardly
clutching a branch like a baseball bat, striking out at anything that came too
close. Sophie lay at his feet, moving slowly, blinking in confusion.
Perenelle glanced up and down the corridor. She could hear noises in
the distance, footsteps against stone, and she knew more guards were
approaching. She could run and hide or she could fight the guards; she had a
little of her strength back. But that wasn’t going to help Nicholas and the
children.
Perenelle looked back into the puddle. In the distance she could see
Hekate withstanding the combined attack of the Morrigan and her birds and
Bastet’s cats. Perenelle also spotted Dee moving around behind Hekate, the
sword in his hand glowing bright, poisonous blue, while behind them the
Yggdrasill burned with fierce red and green flames.
There was one other thing she could do. Something desperate and
dangerous, and if it succeeded, it would leave her utterly exhausted and
completely defenseless. Dee’s creatures would simply be able to pick her up
and carry her away.
Perenelle didn’t think twice.
Crouching over the puddle of dirty water, she placed her right hand,
palm up, in her left hand and concentrated fiercely. Perenelle’s aura began to
shift and move, flowing down her arms like drifting smoke, gathering in the
palm of her hand, running like liquid along the creases and lines in her flesh.
A tiny speck of silver-white light appeared in the folds of skin. It solidified
into a perfect sphere and then it started to spin and grow, and now the ice
white threads of her aura flowed more swiftly down her arms. Within a
heartbeat the sphere was the size of an egg, and then Perenelle suddenly
reversed her palm and thrust the ball of pure auric energy into the water. She
uttered three words.
“Sophie. Wake up!”