using her to protect the twins. She must be destroyed before we move against
any of the others.
Indeed.
You will need an army.
Perhaps not. Remember, Cunning and deceit will every time serve a man
better than force, he quoted.
Who said that? Dagon asked.
I did, in a book, a long time ago. It was true in the court of the Medicis,
and it is true now. He looked up. Did you send for the Disir?
They re on their way. Dagon s voice turned sticky. I don't trust them.
No one trusts the Disir. There was no humor in Machiavelli s smile. Did
you ever hear the story of how Hekate trapped Scathach in that Underworld?
Dagon remained unmoving.
Hekate used the Disir. Their feud with the Shadow goes back to the time just
after the sinking of Danu Talis. Putting his hands on the creature s
shoulders, Machiavelli stepped close to Dagon, taking care to breathe through
his mouth. Dagon exuded a fishy odor; it coated his pale skin like oily,
rancid sweat. I know you hate the Shadow, and I have never asked you why,
though I have my suspicions. It is obvious that she has caused you much pain.
However, I want you to put aside your feelings; hate is the most useless of
all emotions. Success is the best revenge. I need you focused and by my side.
We are close now, so close to victory, close to returning the Elder Race to
this world. Leave Scathach to the Disir. But if they fail, then she is yours.
I promise you.
Dagon opened his mouth to reveal the circle of needle-pointed teeth. They
will not fail. The Disir intend to bring Nidhogg.
Niccol Machiavelli blinked in surprise. Nidhogg it s free? How?
The World Tree was destroyed.
If they loose Nidhogg on Scathach, then you are right. They will not fail.
They cannot.
Dagon reached up and pulled off his sunglasses. His huge bulbous fish eyes
were wide and staring. And if they lose control of Nidhogg, it could devour
the entire city.
Machiavelli took a moment to consider. Then he nodded. It would be a small
price to pay to destroy the Shadow.
You sound just like Dee.
Oh, I am nothing like the English Magician, Machiavelli said feelingly.
Dee is a dangerous fanatic.
And you re not? Dagon asked.
I m only dangerous.
Dr. John Dee sat back into the soft leather seat and watched the sparkling
grid of L.A. s lights fall away beneath him. Checking an ornate pocket watch,
he wondered if Machiavelli had received the phone call from his master yet.
He imagined he had. Dee grinned, wondering what the Italian would make of
that. If nothing else, it would at least show Machiavelli who was in charge.
It didn't take a genius to realize that the Italian would go after Flamel and
the children himself. But Dee had spent too long chasing the Alchemyst to
lose him at the very end especially to someone like Niccol Machiavelli.
He closed his eyes as the plane rose and his stomach twitched. He
automatically reached for the paper bag on the seat beside him: he loved
flying, but his stomach always protested. If everything went as planned, then
he would soon be the ruler of the entire planet and he d never need to fly
again. Everyone would come to him.
The jet climbed at a steep angle and he swallowed hard; he d had a chicken
wrap in the airport and was regretting it now. The fizzy drink had been a
definite mistake.
Dee was looking forward to the time when the Elders returned. Perhaps they
could reestablish the network of leygates across the world and make flying
unnecessary. Closing his eyes, Dee concentrated on the Elders and the many
benefits they would bring to the planet. In the distant past, he knew the
Elders had created a paradise on earth. All the ancient books and scrolls,
the myths and legends of every race, spoke about that glorious time. His
master had promised him that the Elders would use their powerful magic to
return the planet to that paradise. They would reverse the effects of global
warming, repair the hole in the ozone layer and bring the deserts to life.
The Sahara would bloom; the polar ice caps would melt away, revealing the
rich land beneath. Dee thought he would found his capital city in Antarctica
on the shores of Lake Vanda. The Elders could reestablish their ancient
kingdoms in Sumer, Egypt, Central America and Angkor, and with the knowledge
contained in the Book of Abraham, it would be possible to raise Danu Talis
again.
Of course, Dee knew that the human population would become slaves, and some
would become food for those Elders who still needed to eat, but that was a
small price to pay for the many other benefits.
The jet leveled and he felt his stomach settle. Opening his eyes, he breathed
deeply and checked his watch again. He found it hard to believe that he was
hours literally hours away from finally capturing the Alchemyst, Scathach
and, now, the twins. They were an added bonus. Once he had Flamel and the
pages from the Codex, the world would change.
He would never understand why Flamel and his wife had worked so hard to
prevent the Elders from bringing civilization back to earth. But he d be sure
to ask him just before he killed him.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
N icholas Flamel paused on the Rue Beaubourg and turned slowly, pale eyes
scanning the street. He didn't think he was being followed, but he needed to
be certain. He d taken the train to the Saint-Michel Notre-Dame station and
crossed the Seine on the Pont d Arcole, heading in the direction of the
glass-and-steel monstrosity that was the Pompidou Center. Taking his time,
stopping often, darting from one side of the road to the other, pausing at a
newsstand to buy the morning paper, stopping again for some foul coffee in a
cardboard cup, he kept checking for anyone paying close attention to his
movements. But as far as he could determine, there was no one following him.
Paris had changed since he d last been in the city, and though he now called
San Francisco home, this was the city of his birth and would always be his
city. Only a couple of weeks ago, Josh had loaded Google Earth onto the
computer in the bookshop s back room and shown him how to use it. Nicholas
had spent hours looking down on the streets he d once walked, finding
buildings he d known in his youth, even discovering the location of the
Church of the Holy Innocents, where he d supposedly been buried.
He had been particularly interested in one street. He d found it on the map
program and virtually walked down it, never realizing that he would soon do
so in reality.
Nicholas Flamel turned left off the Rue Beaubourg onto the Rue de
Montmorency and stopped as suddenly as if he had walked into a wall.
He drew a deep shuddering breath, conscious that his heart was pounding. The
wash of emotions was extraordinarily powerful. The street was so narrow that
the morning sunlight didn't reach it, leaving it in shadow. It was lined on
both sides with tall, mostly white-and-cream-colored buildings, many of them
with hanging baskets spilling flowers and greenery across the w
alls.
Round-topped black metal poles had been inserted into the sidewalk on both
sides of the street to prevent cars from stopping.
Nicholas walked slowly down the street, seeing it as it had once been.
Remembering.
More than six hundred years ago, he and Perenelle had lived on this street.
Images of medieval Paris flickered behind his eyes, a jumbled mismatched mess
of wooden and stone houses; narrow winding lanes; rotten bridges; tumbled
listing buildings and streets that were little better than open sewers. The
noise, the incredible, incessant noise, and the foul miasma that hung over
the city a mixture of unwashed disease-ridden humans and filthy animals were
things he would never forget.
At the bottom of the Rue de Montmorency, he found the building he had been
looking for.
It hadn't changed much. The stone had once been cream; now it was ancient,
chipped and weathered, stained black with soot. The three wooden windows and
doors were new, but the building itself was one of the oldest in Paris.
Directly above the middle door was a number in blue metal 51 and above that
was a tired-looking stone sign announcing that this had once been the MAISON
DE NICOLAS FLAMEL ET DE PERENELLE, SA FEMME. A red sign in the shape of a
shield announced that this was the AUBERGE NICOLAS FLAMEL. Now it was a
restaurant.
Once it had been his home.
Stepping up to the window, he pretended to read the menu as he peered inside.
The interior had been completely remodeled, of course, countless times
probably, but the dark beams that stretched across the white ceiling appeared
to be the same beams he d so often looked up at more than six hundred years
ago.
He and Perenelle had been happy here, he realized.
And safe.
Their lives had been simpler then: they hadn't known about the Elders or the
Dark Elders; they d known nothing of the Codex, or of the immortals who
guarded and fought over it.
And both he and Perenelle had still been fully human.
The ancient stones of the house had been carved with an assortment of images,
symbols and letters that he knew had puzzled and intrigued scholars down
through the ages. Most were meaningless, little more than the shop signs of
their day, but there were one or two that had special significance. Quickly
glancing left and right and finding the narrow street empty, he reached up
with his right hand and traced the outline of the letter N, which was cut
into the stone to the left of the middle window. Green power curled around
the letter. Then he traced the ornate F on the opposite side of the window,
leaving a shimmering outline of the letter in the air. Catching hold of the
window frame with his left hand, he hauled himself up onto the ledge and
reached over his head with his right hand, his fingers finding the shapes of
letters in the ancient stone. Allowing the tiniest trickle of his aura to
flow through his fingers, he pressed a sequence of letters and the stone
beneath his flesh turned warm and soft. He pushed and his fingers sank into
the stone. They wrapped around the object he had secreted within the solid
block of granite back in the fifteenth century. Pulling it free, he stepped
off the window ledge and dropped lightly to the ground, quickly wrapping his
copy of Le Monde around the object. Then he turned and headed down the street
without so much as a backward glance.
Before he stepped out onto the Rue Beaubourg, Nicholas turned over his left
hand. Nestled in the center of his palm was the perfect impression of the
black butterfly Saint-Germain had pressed into his skin. It will lead you
back to me, he d said.
Nicholas Flamel brushed his right forefinger over the tattoo. Take me back
to Saint-Germain, he murmured. Bring me to him.
The tattoo shivered on his skin, black wings rippling. Then it suddenly
peeled away from his flesh and hung flapping in the air before him. A moment
later, it danced and wove down the street. Clever, Nicholas muttered, very
clever. And he set off after it.
CHAPTER TWENTY
P erenelle Flamel stepped out of the prison cell.
The door had never been locked. There was no need: nothing could get past the
sphinx. But now the sphinx was gone. Perenelle breathed deeply: the sour odor
of the creature, the musty combination of snake, lion and bird, had lessened,
allowing the usual smells of Alcatraz salt and rusting metal, seaweed and
crumbling stone to take over. She turned to the left, moving swiftly down a
long cell-lined corridor. She was on the Rock, but she had no idea where she
was within the huge crumbling complex. Although she and Nicholas had lived in
San Francisco for years, she had never been tempted to visit the
ghost-haunted island. All she knew was that she was deep below the surface of
the earth. The only light came from an irregular scattering of low-wattage
bulbs set behind wire cages. Perenelle s lips twisted in a wry smile; the
light was not for her benefit. The sphinx was afraid of the dark; the
creature came from a time and place where there really were monsters in the
shadows.
gone in search of the mysterious noises, the rattling bars and slamming doors
that had suddenly filled the building. Every moment the sphinx was away from
her cell, Perenelle s aura recharged. She wasn't back up to full strength she
would need to sleep and eat first but at least she was no longer defenseless.
All she had to do was to keep out of the creature s way.
A door slammed somewhere high above her, and Perenelle froze as claws
click-clacked. Then a bell began to toll, slow and solemn, lonely and
distant. There was a sudden clatter of iron-hard nails on stone as the sphinx
raced off to investigate.
Perenelle folded her arms across her body and ran her hands up and down them,
shivering slightly. She was wearing a sleeveless summer dress, and normally
she d be able to regulate her temperature by adjusting her aura, but she had
very little power left and she was reluctant to use it in any way. One of the
sphinx s special talents was her ability to sense and then feed off magical
energy.
Perenelle s flat sandals made no sound on the damp stones as she moved down
the corridor. She was wary, but not frightened. Perenelle Flamel had lived
for more than six hundred years, and while Nicholas had been fascinated with
alchemy, she had concentrated on sorcery. Her research had taken her into
some very dark and dangerous places, not only on this earth, but also in some
of the adjoining Shadowrealms.
Somewhere in the distance, glass shattered and tinkled to the ground. She
heard the sphinx hiss and howl in frustration, but that sound too was far
away. Perenelle smiled: de Ayala was keeping the sphinx busy, and no matter
how hard she looked, she would never find him. Even a creature as powerful as
a sphinx had no power over a ghost or a poltergeist.
Perenelle knew that she needed to get to an upper level and out into the
sunshine, where her
aura would recharge more quickly. Once she was in the
open air, she could use any of a dozen simple spells, cantrips and
incantations she knew that would make the sphinx s existence a misery. A
Scythian mage, who d claimed to have helped build the pyramids for the
survivors of Danu Talis who had settled in Egypt, had taught her a very
useful spell for melting stone. Perenelle would not hesitate to use it to
bring the entire building down on top of the sphinx. It would probably
survive sphinxes were practically impossible to kill but it would certainly
be slowed down.
Perenelle spotted rusting metal stairs and darted toward them. She was just
about to put her foot on the bottom step when she noticed the gray thread
spilling across the metal. Perenelle froze, foot raised in the air and then
she slowly and carefully stepped back. Crouching down, she looked at the
metal steps. From this angle, she could see the threads of spiderwebs
crisscrossing and weaving through the stairs. Anyone who stepped onto the
metal staircase would be caught. She backed away, staring hard into the
gloomy shadows. The threads were too thick to have been made by any normal
spider and were dotted with tiny globules of liquid silver. Perenelle knew a
dozen creatures that could have spun the webs, and she didn't want to meet
any of them, not here and now, while she was so drained of her power.
Turning, she darted down a long corridor lit only by a single bulb at either
end. Now that she knew what she was looking for, she could see the silver
webs everywhere, stretched across the ceiling, spreading across the walls,
and there were huge nests knotted in corners, growing in the deepest shadows.
The webs presence might explain why she had encountered no vermin in the
prison no ants, flies, mosquitoes or rats. Once the nests hatched, the
building would come alive with spiders if indeed that s what the spinners
were. Over the centuries, Perenelle had encountered Elders who were
associated with spiders, including Arachne and the mysterious and terrifying
Spider Woman, but as far as she knew, none of them was aligned with Dee and
the Dark Elders.
Perenelle was hurrying past an open door, a perfect spiderweb framed in the
opening, when she caught the hint of a sour bitter stench. She slowed, then