01_-_The_Alchemyst

drew close, wondering if the figures were Golems. She heaved a sigh as they
pulled alongside and discovered that the men looked like harassed
accountants. Josh glanced at his sister and attempted a grin, and she knew he
had been thinking the same thing.
Sophie twisted in her seat, and turned to look back at Flamel and Scatty.
In the darkened, air-conditioned interior of the SUV, they seemed so
ordinary: Flamel looked like a fading hippy, and Scatty, despite her rather
military dress sense, wouldn’t have looked out of place behind the counter at
The Coffee Cup. The red-haired girl had propped her chin on her fist and
was staring through the darkened glass across the bay toward Alcatraz.
Nicholas Flamel dipped his head to follow the direction of her gaze.
“Haven’t been there for a while,” he murmured.
“We did the tour,” Sophie said.
“I liked it,” Josh said quickly. “Sophie didn’t.”
“It was creepy.”
“And so it should be,” Flamel said quietly. “It is home to an
extraordinary assortment of ghosts and unquiet spirits. Last time I was there,
it was to put to rest an extremely ugly Snakeman.”
“I’m not sure I even want to know what a Snakeman is,” Sophie
muttered, then paused. “You know, a couple of hours ago, I could never have
imagined myself saying something like that?”
Nicholas Flamel sat back in the comfortable seats and folded his arms
across his chest. “Your lives—yours and your brother’s—are now forever
altered. You know that, don’t you?”
Sophie nodded. “That’s beginning to sink in now. It’s just that
everything’s happening so fast that it’s hard to take it all in. Mud men, magic,
books of spells, rats…” She looked at Scathach. “Ancient warriors…”
Scatty dipped her head in acknowledgment.
“And of course, a six-hundred-year-old alchemyst…” Sophie stopped, a
sudden thought crossing her mind. She looked from Flamel to Scatty and back