01_-_The_Alchemyst

CHAPTER ELEVEN
Security gates opened, and Dee’s black limousine swerved into the
driveway, the Golem chauffeur expertly maneuvering the car through barred
gates into an underground parking garage. Perenelle Flamel lurched sideways
and fell against the sodden Golem sitting on her right-hand side. Its body
squelched with the blow, and spatters of foul-smelling mud squirted
everywhere.
Dr. John Dee, sitting directly opposite, grimaced in disgust and scooted
as far away from the creature as he could. He was on his cell phone, talking
urgently in a language that had not been used on earth in more than three
thousand years.
A drop of Golem mud splashed onto Perenelle’s right hand. The sticky
liquid ran across her flesh…and erased the curling symbol Dee had drawn on
her skin.
The binding spell was partially broken. Perenelle Flamel dipped her
head slightly. This was her chance. To properly channel her auric powers she
really needed both hands, and unfortunately, the ward Dee had drawn on her
forehead prevented her from speaking.
Still…
Perenelle Delamere had always been interested in magic, even before
she met the poor bookseller who later became her husband. She was the
seventh daughter of a seventh daughter, and in the tiny village of Quimper in
the northwest corner of France, where she had grown up, she was considered
special. Her touch could heal—not only humans, but animals, too—she could
talk to the shades of the dead and she could sometimes see a little of the
future. But growing up in an age when such skills were regarded with deep
suspicion, she had learned to keep her abilities to herself. When she first
moved to Paris, she saw how the fortune-tellers working in the markets that