01_-_The_Alchemyst

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Even before she opened her eyes, Perenelle Flamel knew she had been
moved to a much more secure prison. Someplace deep and dark and sinister.
She could feel the old evil in the walls, could almost taste it on the air. Lying
still, she tried to expand her senses, but the blanket of malevolence and
despair was too strong, and she found she couldn’t use her magic. She
listened intently, and only when she was absolutely sure that there was no
one in the room with her did she open her eyes.
She was in a cell.
Three walls were solid concrete, the fourth was metal bars. Beyond the
bars she could see another row of cells.
She was in a prison block!
Perenelle swung her legs out of the narrow cot and came slowly to her
feet. She noticed that her clothes smelled slightly of sea salt, and she thought
she could detect the sounds of the not-too-distant ocean.
The cell was bare, little more than an empty box, about ten feet long by
four feet wide, with a narrow cot holding a thin mattress and a single lumpy
pillow. A cardboard tray lay on the floor just inside the bars. It contained a
plastic jug of water, a plastic cup and a thick chunk of dark bread on a paper
plate. Seeing the food made her realize just how hungry she was, but she
ignored it for the moment and crossed to the bars and peered out. Looking left
and right, all she could see were cells, and they were empty.
She was alone in the cell block. But where…
And then a ship’s horn, plaintive and lost, sounded in the distance. With
a shiver, Perenelle suddenly knew where Dee’s men had taken her: she was
on the prison island of Alcatraz, The Rock.