The Enchantress (The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel #6) (2 page)

Quetzalcoatl leaned over the glass, pulled a pin from the sleeve of his shirt and pressed the tip of the pin into the fleshy pad of his thumb. “By the pricking of my thumbs …,” he muttered in the ancient language of the Toltec. A ruby droplet of blood slowly gathered on his smooth flesh. “… something wicked, this way comes.” Holding his hand out over the glass, he allowed the drop to spatter onto the mirror. The surface instantly trembled and shimmered, the ancient crystal running with a rainbow of oily colors. Red smoke steamed off the glass; then the colors settled into images.

Millennia of experimentation and vast quantities of blood—very little of it his—had taught the Elder how to control the images in the crystal. He had fed it so much blood that he had come to believe that it was somehow sentient and alive. Staring into the glass, he murmured, “Take me to San Francisco.”

The mirror blurred, then washed with white and gray
light, and suddenly Quetzalcoatl found himself floating high over the city, looking down over the bay.

“Why isn’t it burning?” he wondered aloud. “Why are there no monsters in the streets?” He had permitted the immortal humani Machiavelli and Billy the Kid to return to San Francisco in order to release the creatures on Alcatraz Island into the city. Had they failed in their mission? Or was he too early?

The image in the crystal shifted once again and settled on the narrow length of Alcatraz, and Quetzalcoatl spotted a line of movement in the water. A shape moved across the bay, leaving the smudge of Alcatraz and heading toward the city. Quetzalcoatl rubbed his hands together. No, he wasn’t too late: he was just in time to witness a little chaos. It had been a long time since he had seen a city destroyed, and he did love a spectacle.

The color image suddenly flickered and faded. The Elder pierced his finger with the pin again and then again, dripping more of his lifeblood onto the glass, feeding it. The mirror blinked to life once more and the image of the city re-formed, three-dimensional in its clarity. Quetzalcoatl focused and the image spun downward, pulling him toward choppy white-capped water. A creature lurked beneath the waves, something huge and sinuous: a sea serpent. The Elder squinted. It was hard to make out any details, but it seemed as if the creature had more than one head. He nodded in approval; he liked that. It was a nice touch. It made sense to send the sea creatures to the city first. He smiled, showing savage teeth as he imagined the monster rampaging through the streets.

Quetzalcoatl watched the sea serpent sweep across the bay and curl toward one of the piers that jutted out into the water. He frowned and then nodded in understanding. It would crawl ashore on the Embarcadero. Excellent: lots of tourists, high profile.

Light shifted on the sea. He spotted the faintest shimmer of a blue and red oily stain on the water and abruptly realized that the sea serpent was heading straight for it.

Unconsciously, Quetzalcoatl dropped lower still. His head dipped toward the glass, hawk nose almost touching the surface. He could smell the sea now, salt with the faintest hint of rotting fish and seaweed … and something else. Closing his eyes, he breathed deeply. A city should smell of metal and traffic, burnt food and too many unwashed bodies. But what was he smelling here—these were odors that had no place in the city: the tartness of mint, the sweetness of aniseed, the flowery scent of green tea.

Realization struck him as the monstrous creature—the Lotan—rose from the sea, seven heads darting toward the swirling red and blue stain on the water. Quetzalcoatl recognized the auras and the colors now: the red was Prometheus, while the blue was the immortal humani Niten. And the sickening odor of mint in the air could belong to only one man: the Alchemyst, Nicholas Flamel.

Quetzalcoatl saw them then, standing on the end of a pier. And yes, the woman was there also, Perenelle the Sorceress, whom he knew from bitter experience. His tongue automatically found the space in his teeth where she’d knocked out one of his big back molars. This was not good,
this was not good at all: a renegade Elder and three of the most dangerous and deadly humani in the Shadowrealm.

Quetzalcoatl’s hands clenched into tight fists, razor-sharp nails biting into the flesh of his palms, dripping thin blood onto the glass, keep the images alive. His dark eyes watched unblinkingly.

… the Lotan turning to feed on the auras …

… the creature rising from the water, balancing on its tail, all seven heads darting in to feed, mouths agape …

… the flash of green fire and the overwhelming stink of mint.

“No!” the Elder hissed as he watched the Lotan transform into a small blue-veined egg. He saw the egg drop into the Alchemyst’s outstretched hand. Flamel tossed it triumphantly in the air … and a circling seagull snatched it and swallowed it whole.

“No! Nonononono …” Quetzalcoatl howled his rage, his face darkening, contorting into the flat serpent image that had terrified the Maya and the Aztec. Ragged teeth jutted from his mouth, his eyes narrowed and his dark hair stiffened in spikes about his face. He pounded on the table, the ancient wood cracking and only his lightning-fast reflexes saved the mirror from falling to the floor and shattering.

As quickly as it had begun, the rage passed.

Quetzalcoatl breathed deeply and ran a hand through his stiff hair, flattening it. All Billy and Machiavelli had to do was to release a few monsters into the city—three or four would have sufficed. Two would have been fine; even one, preferably something big with scales and teeth, would have been a
start. But they’d failed, and they would pay for that failure later—if they survived!

He needed to get the beasts off the island, but to do that he would have to keep the Flamels and their Elder and immortal friends busy.

It was obviously time now for Quetzalcoatl to take matters into his own hands. A sudden smile revealed the Elder’s needlelike teeth. He had collected a few pets in his Shadowrealm—the humani would call them monsters—and he could allow them out to play. But no doubt the Alchemyst would deal with them in the same way he’d dealt with the Lotan. No, he needed something bigger, something much more dramatic than a few mangy monsters

Quetzalcoatl found his cell phone on the kitchen table. He dialed the Los Angeles number from memory. It rang fifteen times before it was answered with a snarling rasp. “Do you still have that bag of teeth I sold you millennia ago?” Quetzalcoatl started in. “I’d like to buy it back. Why? I want to use it to teach the Flamels a lesson … and of course keep them busy while I get our creatures off the island,” he added hastily. “How much for the bag? Free! Well, yes, of course you can watch. Meet me at Vista Point; I’ll make sure there are no humani around.

“Something wicked this way comes …,” Quetzalcoatl whispered. “Heading your way, Alchemyst. Heading your way.”

S
ophie Newman opened her eyes. She was lying facedown on grass that was too green to be natural and had the texture of silk. Crushed beneath her face were flowers the likes of which had never grown on the earth, tiny creations of spun glass and hardened resin.

She rolled over on her back and looked up … and then immediately squeezed her eyes shut again. A moment ago, she had been on Alcatraz in San Francisco Bay, the cool salt-scented air stinking with raw power and the zoolike odors of too many beasts crammed together. Now the air was clean and crisp, filled with exotic smells, and the sun was warm on her face, searing blinding afterimages on her retinas. She opened her eyes again and watched a shape move across the face of the sun. Squinting, she made out an oval of crystal and metal. “Oh!” she breathed, surprised, and reached over to nudge her twin. “You better wake up….”

Josh was lying on his back. He opened one eye and groaned as the sunlight hit his face, and then, when the realization of what he’d just seen sank in, he snapped awake and sat bolt upright. “That’s a …”

“… a flying saucer,” Sophie finished.

There was movement behind them and they both turned to see they were not alone on the grassy hillside. Dr. John Dee was on his hands and knees, staring wide-eyed into the sky, while Virginia Dare sat cross-legged beside him, jet-black hair rippling in the wind.

“A vimana,” Dee breathed. “I never thought I’d see one in my lifetime.” He crouched on the grass, staring in awe at the fast-approaching object.

“Is this a Shadowrealm?” Josh asked, looking from Dee to Dare.

The woman shook her head slightly. “No, this is no Shadowrealm.”

Josh stood and shaded his eyes, staring at the craft, mesmerized. As the vimana drew closer, he could see that it was made from what appeared to be a milky crystal encircled by a thick band of gold. The saucer dipped and dropped to the ground, filling the air with a low subsonic buzzing that fell to a deep rumbling as it hovered inches over the grass.

Sophie climbed to her feet and stood alongside her twin. “It’s beautiful,” she whispered. “It’s like a jewel.” The opalescent crystal was flawless, and the gold rim of the vehicle was inscribed with tiny sticklike characters.

“Where are we, Josh?” Sophie whispered.

Josh shook his head. “Not where … 
when
,” he murmured. “Vimanas belong to the oldest of all the myths.”

Without a sound, the top half of the oval flipped open and the side of the craft retracted, revealing a blinding white interior.

A man and a woman appeared in the opening.

Tall and slender with deeply tanned skin, they both wore white ceramic armor etched with patterns, pictographs and hieroglyphs from a score of languages. The woman wore her black hair short, in a style cropped close to her head, whereas the man’s skull was smooth shaven. Their eyes were a bright, brilliant blue, and when they smiled, their teeth were small and perfectly white, except for the incisors, which looked unnaturally long and sharp. Hand in hand, they stepped off the vimana and walked across the grass. The glass and resin flowers melted to globules beneath their feet.

Unconsciously Sophie and Josh stepped back, squinting against the low sun and the blinding reflection off the couple’s armor, trying to make out their features. There was something so terribly familiar….

Suddenly Dee gasped, then drew in his arms and legs, trying to make himself as small as possible. “Masters,” he said. “Forgive me.”

The couple ignored him. They continued on their path, staring at the twins pointedly, until their heads blocked the sunlight, revealing their features in a halo of light.

“Sophie,” the man said, bright blue eyes twinkling with delight.

“Josh,” the woman added, shaking her head slightly, lips curling into a smile. “We’ve been waiting for you.”

“Mom? Dad?” the twins said simultaneously. They took another step backward, confused and frightened now.

The couple bowed formally. “In this place we are called Isis and Osiris. Welcome to Danu Talis, children.” They stretched out their hands. “Welcome home.”

The twins looked at one another, eyes and mouths wide in fear and confusion. Sophie reached out and gripped her brother’s arm. Despite a week of extraordinary revelations, this was almost too much to take in. She tried to form words and ask questions, but her mouth was dry, and her tongue felt thick and swollen.

Josh kept looking from his father to his mother and back again, trying to make some sense of what he was seeing. The couple looked like his parents, Richard and Sara Newman. They sure sounded like them too, but his parents were in Utah … he’d spoken to his father only a few days ago. They’d talked about a horned dinosaur from the Cretaceous period.

“I know this is a lot to take in,” Richard Newman—Osiris—said with a grin.

“But trust us,” Sara—Isis—said, “it will all make sense.” Her voice was reassuring as she smiled at the boy and girl. “All your lives have been leading up to this moment. This, children, is your destiny. This is your day. And what have we always said about the day?” she asked, smiling.

“Carpe diem,” they both responded automatically. “Seize the day.”

“What—” Josh began.

Isis raised her hand. “In time. All in good time. And trust us—this is a good time. This is the best of times. You have stepped back ten thousand years into your past.”

Sophie and Josh looked at one another. After everything they’d been through, they knew they should be delighted to be reunited with their parents, but there was something terribly wrong here. They had a hundred questions … and the two people standing in front of them hadn’t exactly answered any of them.

Dr. John Dee scrambled to his feet and fastidiously brushed himself off before pushing past the twins and bowing deeply to the white-armored couple. “Masters. I am honored—deeply honored—to stand in your presence again.” He raised his head to look from face to face. “And I trust you will acknowledge that I was instrumental in bringing the twins of legend to you.”

Osiris looked at Dee, flashing a ghost of the smile he’d shown the twins. “Ah, the dependable Dr. Dee, always the opportunist …” He stretched out his right hand, palm downward, and the Magician scrambled to take it in both of his and press his lips to the back of the fingers. “… and ever the fool.”

Dee looked up quickly and attempted to pull away, but Osiris had caught his hand. “I have always—” the Magician began in alarm.

“—been a fool,” Isis snapped.

A shadow crossed Osiris’s face, and as his lips drew back from sharp white teeth, it transformed in an instant into a
cruel mask. The shaven-headed man suddenly took hold of Dee’s head on either side, thumbs on the immortal’s cheekbones, and pulled him up until the human’s feet left the ground. “And what use have we for a fool … or worse, a flawed tool!” Osiris’s blue eyes were level with the Magician’s. “Do you remember the day I made you immortal, Dee?” he whispered.

The doctor started to struggle, eyes suddenly wide with terror. “No,” he gasped.

“When I told you I could make you human again?” Osiris said.
“Athanasia-aisanahta,”
he breathed, and then he flung the Magician away from him.