01_-_The_Alchemyst

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
Deep beneath Alcatraz, Perenelle Flamel lay on a narrow cot, her face
turned toward the back wall of her cell. Behind her, in the corridor outside,
she could hear the sphinx click-clacking up and down the cold stone floors,
and the air was heavy with the musky odors of snake and lion. Perenelle
shivered. The cell was freezing, and green-tinged water was dripping down
the wall inches from her face.
Where was Nicholas?
What was happening?
Perenelle was afraid, but not for herself. The fact that she was alive
meant that Dee needed her for something, and that sooner or later she would
come face to face with him. And if Dee had a failing, it was arrogance. He
would underestimate her…and then she would strike! There was a
particularly nasty little spell she had learned in the foothills of the Carpathian
Mountains in Transylvania that she was saving just for him.
Where was Nicholas?
She was afraid for Nicholas and the children. It was difficult for her to
judge just how much time has passed, but by examining the wrinkles forming
on the backs of her hands, she guessed she’d aged at least two years, so two
days had passed. Without the immortality elixir, she and Nicholas would age
at the rate of a year a day. They had less than a month left before they
succumbed to old—very old—age.
And with no one to stand against them, Dee and the others like him
would loose the Dark Elders into the world again. It would be chaos;
civilization would fall.
Where was Nicholas?