01_-_The_Alchemyst

“I can drive,” Josh said, surprised that his voice sounded so calm and
steady, “I just didn’t say I was good at it. Do you think anyone got our license
plates?” he asked. This was nothing like one of his driving games! The palms
of his hands were slick and wet and beads of sweat were running down the
sides of his face. A muscle twitched in his right leg from the effort of keeping
the accelerator pressed hard to the floor.
“I think they’ve got other things to worry about,” Sophie whispered.
The crows had descended on the Golden Gate Bridge. Thousands of
them. They came in a black wave, cawing and screaming, wings cracking and
snapping. They hovered over the cars, darting low, occasionally even landing
on car roofs and hoods to peck at the metal and glass. Cars crashed and
sideswiped one another along the entire length of the bridge.
“They’ve lost focus,” Scathach said, watching the birds’ behavior.
“They’re looking for us, but they’ve forgotten our description. They have
such tiny brains,” she said dismissively.
“Something distracted their dark mistress,” Nicholas Flamel said.
“Perenelle,” he said delightedly. “I wonder what she did. Something
dramatic, no doubt. She always did have a sense of the theatrical.”
But even as he was speaking, the birds rose into the air again, and then,
as one, their black eyes turned in the direction of the fleeing black SUV. This
time when they cawed, it sounded like screams of triumph.
“They’re coming back,” Sophie said quickly, breathlessly. She realized
that her heart was pumping hard against her rib cage. She looked at Flamel
and the Warrior for support, but their grim expressions gave her no comfort.
Scathach looked at her and said, “We’re in trouble now.”
In a huge black-feathered mass, the crows took off after the car.
Most of the traffic on the bridge was now stalled. People sat frozen in
terror in their cars as the birds flowed, foul and stinking, over the roofs. The
SUV was the only car moving. Josh had his foot pressed flat to the floor, and
the needle on the speedometer hovered close to eighty. He was becoming
more comfortable with the controls—he hadn’t hit anything for at least a