just the loss of the Codex. You could have taken Dee and his minions on your
own.
don't be so sure. It s been a long time since I fought, Scathach, Flamel
said gently. The only alchemy I do now is to brew a little of the
philosopher s stone potion to keep Perenelle and myself young. Occasionally,
I'll make a little gold or the odd jewel when we need some money.
Scatty coughed a short humorless laugh, and spun back to her packing. She had
changed into a pair of black combat pants, steel-toed Magnum boots and a
black T-shirt, over which she wore a black vest covered in pockets and
zippers. She pushed a second pair of trousers into her backpack, found one
sock and went looking for its match under her bed.
Nicholas Flamel, she said, her voice muffled by the blankets, you are the
most powerful alchemyst in the known world. Remember, I stood beside you when
we fought the demon Fomor, and you were the one who rescued me from the
dungeons of An Chaor-Thanach and not the other way around. She came out from
under the bed with the missing sock. When the Rusalka were terrorizing St.
Petersburg, you alone turned them back, and when Black Annis raged across
Manitoba, I watched you defeat her. You alone faced down the Night Hag and
her Undead army. you've spent more than half a millennium reading and
studying the Codex, no one is more familiar with the stories and legends it
holds Scatty stopped suddenly and gasped, green eyes widening. That'swhat
this is about, she said. This is to do with the legend .
Flamel reached out and pressed his forefinger to Scatty s lips, preventing
her from saying another word. His smile was enigmatic. Do you trust me? he
asked her eventually.
Her response was immediate. Without question.
Then trust me. I want you to protect the twins. And train them, he added.
Train them! Do you know what you re asking?
Flamel nodded. I want you to prepare them for what is to come.
And what is that? Scathach asked.
I have no idea Flamel'smiled except that it is going to be bad.
We re fine, Mom, honestly, we re fine. Sophie Newman tilted the cell phone
slightly so that her brother could listen in. Yes, Perry Fleming was feeling
sick. Something she ate, probably. She s fine now. Sophie could feel the
beads of sweat gathering in the small hairs at the back of her neck. She was
uncomfortable lying to her mother even though her mother was so wrapped up in
her work that she never bothered to check.
Josh and Sophie s parents were archaeologists. They were known worldwide for
their discoveries, which had helped reshape modern archaeology. They were
among the first in their field to discover the existence of the new species
of small hominids that were now commonly called Hobbits in Indonesia. Josh
always said that their parents lived five million years in the past and were
only happy when they were up to their ankles in mud. The twins knew that they
were loved unconditionally, but they also knew that their parents simply
didn't understand them or much else about modern life.
Mr. Fleming is taking Perry out to their house in the desert and they ve
asked us if we d like to go with them for a little break. We said we had to
ask you first, of course. Yes, we spoke to Aunt Agnes; she said so long as it
was OK with you. Say yes, Mom, please.
She turned to her brother and crossed her fingers. He crossed his too; they
had talked long and hard about what to say to their aunt and their mother
before they made the calls, but they weren t entirely sure what they were
going to do if their mother said they couldn t go.
Sophie uncrossed her fingers and gave her brother a thumbs-up. Yes, I ve got
time off from the coffee shop. No, we won t be a bother. Yes, Mom. Yes. Love
to you, and tell Dad we love him too. Sophie listened, then moved the phone
away from her mouth. Dad found a dozen Pseudo-arctolepis sharpi in
near-perfect condition, she reported. Josh looked blank. A very rare
Cambrian crustacean, she explained.
Her brother nodded. Tell Dad That'sgreat. We ll keep in touch, he called
out.
Love you, Sophie said, cutting the conversation short, then hung up. I
I know. But you couldn t really tell her the truth, now, could you?
Sophie shrugged. I guess not.
Josh turned back to the sink. His laptop was perched precariously on the
draining board next to his cell phone. He was using the cell to go online
because, shockingly, there was no phone line or Internet connection in the
dojo.
Scatty lived above the dojo in a small two-room apartment with a kitchen at
one end of the hall and a bedroom with a tiny bathroom at the other. A little
balcony connected the two rooms and looked down directly onto the dojo below.
The twins were standing in the kitchen while Flamel brought Scatty up to date
on the events of the past hour in her bedroom at the other end of the hall.
What do you think of her? Josh asked casually, concentrating on his laptop.
He d managed to get online, but the connection speed was crawlingly slow. He
called up Altavista and typed in a dozen versions of Scathach before he
finally got a hit with the correct spelling. Here she is: twenty-seven
thousand hits for Scathach, the shadow or the shadowy one, he said, then
added offhandedly, I think she s cool.
Sophie picked up on the too-casual tone immediately. She smiled broadly and
her eyebrows shot up. Who? Oh, you mean the two-thousand-year-old warrior
maid. don't you think she might be a little too old for you?
A wash of color rose from beneath the neck of Josh s T-shirt, painting his
cheeks bright red. Let me try Google, he muttered, fingers rattling across
the keyboard. Forty-six thousand hits for Scathach, he said. Looks like
she s real too. Let s see what Wiki has to say about her, he went on, and
then realized that Sophie wasn't even looking at him. He turned to her and
discovered that she was staring fixedly through the window.
There was a rat standing on the rooftop of the building across the alley,
staring at them. As they watched, it was joined by a second and then a third.
They re here, Sophie whispered.
Dee concentrated on keeping his lunch down.
Looking through the rat s eyes was a nauseating experience. Because of their
tiny brain, it required a huge effort of will to keep the creature
focused which, in an alleyway filled with rotten food, was no easy task. Dee
was momentarily grateful that he had not used the full force of the scrying
spell, which would have allowed him to hear, to taste and this was a
terrifying thought to smell everything the rat encountered.
It was like looking at a badly tuned black-and-white television. The image
shifted, pitched and lurched with the rat s every movement. The rat could go
from running horizontally on the ground, to running vertically up a wall,
then upside-down across a rope, all within a matter of seconds.
Then the image stabilized.
Directly in front of Dee, outlined in purple-tinged gray and glowing in
grayish black, were the two
humans he had seen in the bookshop. A boy and a
girl in their midteens, perhaps and similar enough in appearance for them to
be related. A sudden thought struck him hard enough to break his
concentration: brother and sister, possibly or could they be something else?
Surely not!
He looked back into the scrying dish and concentrated with his full will,
forcing the rat he was controlling to stand absolutely still. Dee focused on
the young man and woman, trying to decide if one was older than the other,
but the rat s vision was too clouded and distorted for him to be sure.
But if they were the same age that meant they were twins. That was curious.
He looked at them again and then shook his head: they were humans. Dismissing
the thought, he unleashed a single command that rippled through every rat
within a half-mile radius of the twins position. Destroy them. Destroy them
utterly.
The gathering crows took to the air, cawing raucously, as if applauding.
Josh watched openmouthed as the huge rat leapt from the roof opposite,
effortlessly bridging the six-foot space. Its mouth was wide and its teeth
were wickedly pointed. He managed a brief Hey! and jerked away from the
window just as the rat hit the glass with a furry, wet thump. It slid down to
the alley one floor below, where it staggered around in stunned surprise.
Josh grabbed Sophie s hand, and dragged her out of the kitchen and onto the
balcony. we've got a problem, he shouted. And stopped.
Below them, three huge Golems, trailing flaking dried mud, were pushing their
way through the wide-open alley door. And behind them, in a long sinuous
line, came the rats.
CHAPTER NINE
T he three Golems moved stiffly into the corridor, spotted the open door at
the far end of the hallway and moved toward it. The finger-length metal darts
hissed from the walls and stuck deeply into their hardened mud skin, but
didn't even slow the creatures down.
The half-moon blades close to the floor were a different matter altogether.
The blades clicked out of their concealed sheaths in the walls and sliced
into the ankles of the clay men. The first creature crashed to the floor,
hitting it with the sound of wet mud. The second tottered on one foot before
it slowly toppled forward, hit the wall and slid down, leaving a muddy smear
in its wake. The semicircular blades click-clacked again, slicing the
creatures completely in two, and then the Golems abruptly reverted to their
muddy origin. Thick globules of mud spattered everywhere.
The third Golem, the largest of the creatures, stopped. Its black stone eyes
moved dully over the remains of its two companions, and then it turned and
punched a huge fist directly into the wall, first to the right, then to the
left. A whole section of the wall on the left-hand side gave way, revealing
the space beyond. The Golem stepped into the dojo and looked around, black
eyes still and unmoving.
The rats meanwhile raced toward the open door at the end of the corridor.
Most of them survived the scything blades .
In the speeding limousine, Dr. John Dee released his control of the rats, and
now concentrated his attention on the surviving Golem. Controlling the
artificial creature was much easier. Golems were mindless beings, created of
mud mixed with stones or gravel to give their flesh consistency, and brought
to life by a simple spell written on a square of parchment and pressed into
their mouths. Sorcerers had been building Golems of all shapes and sizes for
thousands of years: they were the source of every zombie and walking-dead
story ever created. Dee himself had told the story of the greatest of all the
Golems, the Red Golem of Prague, to Mary Shelley one cold winter s evening
when she, Lord Byron, the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley and the mysterious Dr.
Polidori were visiting his castle in Switzerland in 1816. Less than six
months later, Mary created the story of The Modern Prometheus, the book that
became more commonly known as Frankenstein. The monster in her book was just
like a Golem: created of spare parts and brought to life by magical science.
Golems were impervious to most weapons, though a sudden fall or blow could
shatter their mud skin, especially if it was dry and hardening. In a damp
climate, their skins rarely dried out and could absorb incredible punishment,
but this warm climate made them brittle which was why they had fallen so
easily to the concealed blades. Some sorcerers used glass or mirrors for
their eyes, but Dee preferred highly polished black stones. They enabled him
to see with almost razor-sharp clarity, albeit in monochrome.
Dee caused the Golem to tilt his head upward. Directly above him, on a narrow
balcony overlooking the dojo, were the pale and terrified faces of the teens.
Dee smiled and the Golem s lips mimicked the movement. He d deal with Flamel
first; then he d take care of the witnesses.
Suddenly, Nicholas Flamel's head appeared, followed, a moment later, by the
distinctive spiky hair of the Warrior Maid, Scathach.
Dee s smile faded and he could feel his heart sink. Why did it have to be
Scathach? He d had no idea that the red-haired warrior was in this city, or
even on this continent, for that matter. Last he d heard of her, she was
singing in an all-girl band in Berlin.
Through the Golem s eyes, Dee watched both Flamel and Scathach leap over the
railing and float down to stand directly in front of the mud man. Scathach
spoke directly to Dee but this particular Golem had no ears and couldn t
hear, so he had no idea what she had just said. A threat probably, a promise
certainly.
Flamel drifted away, moving toward the door, which was now dark and heaving
with rats, leaving Scatty to face him and the Golem alone.
Maybe she wasn't as good as she d once been, he thought desperately, maybe
time had dulled her powers.
We should help, Josh said.
And do what? Sophie asked, without a trace of sarcasm. They were both
standing on the balcony, looking down into the dojo. They had watched
openmouthed as Flamel and Scatty leaped over the edge and drifted far too
slowly to the ground. The red-haired girl faced the huge Golem, while Flamel
hurried to the door where the rats were gathering. The vermin seemed
reluctant to enter the room.
Without warning, the Golem swung a huge fist, then followed it up with a
massive kick.
Josh opened his mouth to shout a warning, but he didn't get a chance to say
anything before Scatty moved. One moment she was standing directly in front
of the creature, then she was throwing herself forward, moving under the
blows, closing right in on it. Her hand moved, blurringly fast, and she
delivered a flat open-handed blow to the point of the Golem s jaw. There was
a liquid squelch, and then its jaw unhinged and its mouth gaped open. In the
blackness of its maw, the twins could clearly see a yellow rectangle of
paper.
The creature struck out wildly and Scatty danced back out of range. It lashed
out a kick, which missed and struck the polished floorboards, shattering them
to spl
inters.
we've got to help! Sophie said.
How? Josh shouted, but his twin had run into the kitchen, desperately
looking for a weapon. She emerged a moment later carrying a small microwave
oven. Sophie, Josh murmured, what are you going to do with ?
Sophie heaved the microwave over the edge of the railing. It struck the Golem
full in the chest and stuck, globules of mud spattering everywhere. The Golem
stopped, confused and disorientated. Scatty took advantage of its
disorientation and moved in again, feet and hands striking blows from all
angles, further confusing the creature. Another blow from the Golem came
close enough to ruffle Scatty s spiky red hair, but she caught its arm and
used it as leverage to spin the creature to the floor. Floorboards cracked
and snapped as it hit them. Then her hand shot out and almost delicately
plucked the paper square from the Golem s mouth.
Instantly, the Golem returned to its muddy origins, splashing foul, stinking
water and dirt across the once-pristine dojo floor. The microwave rattled to
the ground.
I guess no one s cooking anything in that, Josh murmured.
Scatty waved the square of paper at the twins. Every magical creature is
kept animated by a spell that is either in or on its body. All you have to do
is remove it to break the spell. Remember that.
Josh glanced quickly at his sister. He knew she was thinking the same thing
he was: if they ever came up against a Golem again, there was no way they
were getting close enough to stick their hands in its mouth.
Nicholas Flamel approached the rats warily. Underestimating them would be
deadly indeed, but while he had no difficulty fighting and destroying magical
creatures, which were never properly alive in the first place, he was
reluctant to destroy living creatures. Even if they were rats. Perry would
have no such compunction, he knew, but he had been an alchemyst for far too
long: he was dedicated to preserving life, not destroying it. The rats were
under Dee s control. The poor creatures were probably terrified though that
would not stop them from eating him.
Flamel crouched on the floor, turned his right hand palm up and curled the
fingers inward. He blew gently into his hand, and a tiny ball of green mist
immediately formed. Then he suddenly turned his hand and plunged it straight