“Cernunnos has come again,” Gabriel said, a note of absolute terror in his voice. And then, one by one, all the ratchets threw back their heads and howled piteously.

“The Horned God,” Sophie whispered and she started to shiver. “Master of the Wild Hunt.”

“An Elder?” Josh asked.

“An Archon.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

“I was told this Perenelle woman was trapped, weak, defenseless,” Billy the Kid said firmly into the narrow Bluetooth microphone that ran along the line of his unshaven jaw. “That’s just not true.” Through the Thunderbird’s bug-spattered windshield, he could clearly see Alcatraz across the bay. “And I think we have a problem. A big problem.”

Half a world away, Niccolò Machiavelli listened carefully to the voice on the speakerphone as he packed his overnight bag. He couldn’t remember the last time he had packed for himself; Dagon had always taken care of that. “And why are you calling me?” Machiavelli asked. He packed a third pair of handmade shoes, then decided two pairs were enough and took them out of the case again.

“I’ll be straight with you,” Billy admitted reluctantly. “I didn’t think I needed you. I was sure I’d be able to take care of the woman myself.”

“A mistake that has cost many their lives,” Machiavelli mumbled in Italian; then he reverted to English. “And what changed your mind?”

“A few minutes ago, something happened on Alcatraz. Something odd… something powerful.”

“How do you know? You’re not on the island.”

The Italian clearly heard the awe in the American immortal’s voice. “I felt it-from three miles away!”

Machiavelli straightened. “When? When exactly?” he demanded, checking his watch. Crossing the room, he opened his laptop and ran his index finger across the fingerprint reader to bring it back to life. He’d received a dozen encrypted e-mails from his spies in London, reporting that something extraordinary had happened. The e-mails had come in at 8:45 p.m., just over a quarter of an hour ago.

“Fifteen minutes ago,” Billy said.

“Tell me exactly what happened,” Machiavelli said. He pressed a button on the side of his phone that started to record the conversation.

Billy the Kid climbed out of the car and raised a pair of battered military green binoculars to his deep blue eyes. He had parked close to the Golden Gate Bridge; ahead and to his right the distant island looked calm and peaceful, basking under a cloudless noon sky, but he knew that the image was deceptive. He frowned, trying to remember precisely what had happened. “It was… it was like an aura igniting,” he explained. “But powerful, more powerful than any I’ve ever encountered in my life.”

Machiavelli’s voice was surprisingly clear on the transatlantic line. “A powerful aura…”

“Very powerful.”

“Was there an odor?”