The Alchemyst by Michael Scott Page B

What now, he wondered, what now? He looked at his sister and knew she was thinking exactly the same thing.
    Nicholas Flamel leaned forward between the seats and looked at the barrier. “I believe this is here to discourage the foolhardy who have traveled this far. And if one were exceptionally foolish, one might be tempted to get out of one’s vehicle.”
    “But we are neither foolhardy nor foolish,” Scatty snapped. “So what do we do?” She nodded at the boars. “I haven’t seen this breed in centuries. They look like Gaulish war boars, and if they are, then they are virtually impossible to kill. For every one we can see, there are probably at least three more in the shadows, and that’s not counting their handlers.”
    “These are not Gaulish; this particular breed has no need of handlers,” Flamel said gently, the merest hint of his French accent surfacing. “Look at their tusks.”
    Sophie, Josh and Scatty turned to look at the tusks of the huge creatures standing in the middle of the track behind them. “They’ve got some sort of carvings on them,” Sophie said, squinting in the late-afternoon light. “Curls.”
    “Spirals,” Scatty said, a touch of wonder in her voice. She looked at Flamel. “They are Torc Allta?”
    “Indeed they are,” Flamel said. “Wereboars.”
    “By wereboars,” Josh said, “do you mean like werewolves?”
    Scatty shook her head impatiently. “No, not like werewolves…”
    “That’s a relief,” Josh said, “because for a second there I thought you were taking about humans who changed into wolves.”
    “Werewolves are Torc Madra,” Scatty continued, as if she hadn’t heard him. “They’re a different clan altogether.”
    Sophie stared hard at the nearest boar. Beneath its piglike features, she thought she could begin to see the shapes and planes of a human face, while the eyes—cool and bright, bright blue—regarded her with startling intelligence.
    Josh turned back to the steering wheel, gripping it tightly. “Wereboars…of course they are different from werewolves. Different clan entirely,” he muttered, “how silly of me.”
    “What do we do?” Sophie asked.
    “We drive,” Nicholas Flamel said.
    Josh pointed at the barrier. “What about that?”
    “Just drive,” the Alchemyst commanded.
    “But…,” Josh began.
    “Do you trust me?” Flamel asked for the second time that day. The twins looked at each other, then back at Flamel, and nodded, heads bobbing in unison. “Then drive,” he said gently.
    Josh eased the heavy SUV into gear and released the emergency brake. The vehicle crept forward. The front bumper touched the seemingly impenetrable barrier of leaves and bushes…and vanished. One moment it was there; the next, it was as if the bushes had swallowed the front of the car.
    The SUV rolled into the bushes and trees, and for a single instant everything went dark and chill, and the air was touched with something bittersweet like burnt sugar…and then the path appeared again, curving off to the right.
    “How…,” Josh began.
    “It was an illusion,” Flamel explained. “Nothing more. Light twisted and bent, reflecting the images of trees and bushes in a curtain of water vapor, each drop of moisture acting as a mirror. And just a little magic,” he added. He pointed ahead with a graceful motion. “We’re still in North America, but now we’ve entered the domain of one of the oldest and greatest of the Elder Race. We’ll be safe here for a while.”
    Scatty made a rude sound. “Oh, she’s
old,
all right, but I’m not so sure about
great.
”
    “Scathach, I want you to behave yourself,” Flamel said, turning to the young-looking but ancient woman sitting beside him.
    “I don’t like her. I don’t trust her.”
    “You’ve got to put aside your old feuds.”
    “She tried to kill me, Nicholas,” Scatty protested. “She abandoned me in the Underworld. It took me centuries to find my way out.”
    “That was a little over