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

A picture of a sword pulsed gently on the large LCD screen.

Machiavelli’s smile vanished. In that second he knew he was not going to be able to buy the Kabuki masks this century. Turning on his heel, he strode out of the room and pressed the phone to his ear. Behind him, he could hear the auctioneer’s hammer hit the lectern “Sold. For two hundred and sixty thousand euro”

“I’m here”, Machiavelli said, reverting to the Italian of his youth.

The line crackled and an English-accented voice responded in the same language, using a dialect that had not been heard in Europe for more than four hundred years. “I need your help.”

The man on the other end of the line didn’t identify himself, nor did he need to; Machiavelli knew it was the immortal magician and necromancer Dr. John Dee, one of the most powerful and dangerous men in the world.

Niccol Machiavelli strode out of the small hotel into the broad cobbled square of the Place du Tertre and stopped to breathe in the chill night air. “What can I do for you?” he asked cautiously. He detested Dee and knew the feeling was mutual, but they both served the Dark Elders, and that meant they had been forced to work together down through the centuries. Machiavelli was also slightly envious that Dee was younger than he and looked it. Machiavelli had been born in Florence in 1469, which made him fifty-eight years older than the English Magician. History recorded that he had
died
in the same year that Dee had been born, 1527.

“Flamel is back in Paris.”

Machiavelli straightened. “When?”

“Just now. He got there through a leygate. I’ve no idea where it comes out. He’s got Scathach with him”.

Machiavelli’s lips curled into an ugly grimace. The last time he’d encountered the Warrior, she’d pushed him through a door. It had been closed at the time, and he’d spent weeks picking splinters from his chest and shoulders.

“There are two humani children with him. Americans”, Dee said, his voice echoing and fading on the transatlantic line. “Twins”, he added.

“Say again?” Machiavelli asked.

“Twins”, Dee added, “with pure gold and silver auras. You know what that means”, he snapped.

“Yes”, Machiavelli muttered. It meant trouble. Then the tiniest of smiles curled his thin lips. It could also mean opportunity.

Static crackled and then Dee’s voice continued. “The girl’s powers were Awakened by Hekate before the Goddess and her Shadow realm were destroyed.”

“Untrained, the girl is no threat”, Machiavelli murmured, quickly assessing the situation. He took a breath and added, “Except perhaps to herself and those around her.”

“Flamel took the girl to Ojai. There, the Witch of Endor instructed her in the Magic of Air.”

“No doubt you tried to stop them?” There was a hint of amusement in Machiavelli’s voice.

“Tried. And failed”, Dee admitted bitterly. “The girl has some knowledge but is without skill.”

“What do you want me to do?” Machiavelli asked carefully, although he already had a very good idea.

“Find Flamel and the twins”, Dee demanded. “Capture them. Kill Scathach if you can. I’m just leaving Ojai. But it’s going to take me fourteen or fifteen hours to get to Paris.”

“What happened to the leygate?” Machiavelli wondered aloud. If a leygate connected Ojai and Paris, then why didn’t Dee?

“Destroyed by the Witch of Endor”, Dee raged, “and she nearly killed me, too. I was lucky to escape with a few cuts and scratches”, he added, and then ended the call without saying good-bye.

Niccol Machiavelli closed his phone carefully and tapped it against his bottom lip. Somehow he doubted that Dee had been lucky if the Witch of Endor had wanted him dead, then even the legendary Dr. Dee would not have escaped. Machiavelli turned and walked across the square to where his driver was patiently waiting with the car. If Flamel, Scathach and the American twins had come to Paris via a leygate, then there were only a few places in the city where they could have emerged. It should be relatively easy to find and capture them.

And if he could capture them tonight, then he would have plenty of time to work on them before Dee arrived.

Machiavelli smiled; he’d only need a few hours, and in that time they would tell him everything they knew. Half a millennium on this earth had taught him how to be very persuasive indeed.

J
osh Newman reached out and pressed the palm of his right hand against the cold stone wall to steady himself.

What had just happened?

One moment he’d been standing in the Witch of Endor’s shop in Ojai,
California
. His sister, Sophie, Scathach and the man he now knew to be Nicholas Flamel had been
in
the mirror looking out at him. And the next thing he knew, Sophie had stepped out of the glass, taken his hand and pulled him
through
it. He’d squeezed his eyes shut and felt something icy touch his skin and raise the small hairs on the back of his neck. When he’d opened his eyes again, he was standing in what looked like a tiny storage room. Pots of paint, stacked ladders, broken pieces of pottery and bundled paint-spattered cloths were piled around a large, rather ordinary-looking grimy mirror fixed to the stone wall. A single low-wattage light bulb shed a dim yellow glow over the room. “What happened?” he asked, his voice cracking. He swallowed hard and tried again. “What happened? Where are we?”

“We’re in Paris”, Nicholas Flamel said delightedly, rubbing his dusty hands against his black jeans. “The city of my birth.”

“Paris?” Josh whispered. He was going to say Impossible, but he was beginning to understand that that word had no meaning anymore. “How?” he asked aloud. “Sophie?” He looked to his twin sister, but she had pressed her ear against the room’s only door and was listening intently. She waved him away. He turned to Scathach, but the red-haired warrior just shook her head, both hands covering her mouth. She looked as if she was about to throw up. Josh finally turned to the legendary Alchemyst, Nicholas Flamel. “How did we get here?” he asked.

“This planet is crisscrossed with invisible lines of power sometimes called ley lines or cursus”, Flamel explained. He crossed his index fingers. “Where two or more lines intersect a gateway exists. Gates are incredibly rare now, but in ancient times the Elder Race used them to travel from one side of the world to the other in an instant just as we did. The Witch opened the leygate in Ojai and we ended up here, in Paris.” He made it sound so matter-of-fact.

“Leygates: I hate them”, Scatty mumbled. In the gloomy light, her pale, freckled skin looked green. “You ever been seasick?” she asked.

Josh shook his head. “Never.”

Sophie looked up from her spot leaning against the door. “Liar! He gets seasick in a swimming pool.” She grinned, then pressed the side of her face back against the cool wood.

“Seasick”, Scatty mumbled. “That’s exactly what it feels like. Only worse.”

Sophie turned her head again to look at the Alchemyst. “Do you have any idea where we are in Paris?”

“Someplace old, I’m guessing”, Flamel said, joining her at the door. He put the side of his head back against the door and listened.

Sophie stepped back. “I m not so sure”, she said hesitantly
.

“Why not?” Josh asked. He glanced around the small untidy room. It certainly looked as though it was part of an old building.

Sophie shook her head. “I don’t know it just doesn’t feel that old.” She reached out and touched the wall with the palm of her hand, then immediately jerked it back again.

“What’s wrong?” Josh whispered.

Sophie placed her hand against the wall again. “I can hear voices, songs and what sounds like organ music.”

Josh shrugged. “I can’t hear anything.” He stopped, abruptly conscious of the huge difference between himself and his twin. Sophie’s magical potential had been Awakened by Hekate, and she was now hypersensitive to sights and sounds, smells, touch and taste.

“I can.” Sophie lifted her hand from the stone wall and the sounds in her head faded.

“You’re hearing ghost sounds”, Flamel explained. “They’re just noises absorbed by the building, recorded into the very structure itself.”

“This is a church”, Sophie said decisively, then frowned. “It’s a new church modern, late nineteenth century, early twentieth. But it’s built on a much, much older site.”

Flamel paused at the wooden door and looked over his shoulder. In the dim overhead light, his features were suddenly sharp and angular, disturbingly skull-like, his eyes completely in shadow. “There are many churches in Paris”, he said, “though there is only one, I believe, which matches that description.” He reached for the door handle.

“Hang on a second”, Josh said quickly. “Don’t you think there’ll be some sort of alarm?”

“Oh, I doubt it”, Nicholas said confidently. “Who would put an alarm on a storeroom in a church?” he asked, jerking the door open.

Immediately an alarm pealed through the air, the sound echoing and reechoing off the flagstones and walls. Red security lights strobed and flashed.

Scatty sighed and muttered something in an ancient Celtic language. “Didn’t you tell me once to wait before moving, to look before stepping and to observe everything?” she demanded.

Nicholas shook his head and sighed at the stupid mistake. “Getting old, I guess”, he said in the same language. But there was no time for apologies. “Let’s go!” he shouted over the shrieking alarm, and darted down the corridor. Sophie and Josh followed close behind, while Scatty took up the rear, moving slowly and grumbling with every step.

The door opened onto a short narrow stone corridor that led to another wooden door. Without pausing, Flamel pushed through the second door and immediately a new alarm began to shriek. He turned left into a huge open space that smelled of old incense, floor polish and wax. Banks of lit candles shed a golden yellow light over walls and floor and, combined with the security lights, revealed a pair of enormous doors with the word EXIT above them. Flamel raced toward it, his footsteps echoing.

“Don’t touch” Josh began, but Nicholas Flamel grasped the door handles and pulled hard.

A third alarm much louder than the others went off, and a red light above the door began to wink on and off.

“Told you not to touch”, Josh muttered.

“I can’t understand it why is it not open?” Flamel asked, shouting to be heard above the din. This church is always open. He turned and looked around. “Where is everyone? What time is it?” he asked, as a thought struck him.

“How long does it take to travel from one place to another through the leygate?” Sophie asked.

“It’s instantaneous.”

“And you’re sure we’re in Paris, France?”

“Positive.”

Sophie looked at her watch and did a quick calculation. “Paris is nine hours ahead of Ojai?” she asked.

Flamel nodded, suddenly understanding.

“It’s about four o clock in the morning; that’s why the church is closed”, Sophie said.

“The police will be on their way”, Scatty said glumly. She reached for her nunchaku. “I hate fighting when I’m not feeling well”, she muttered.

“What do we do now?” Josh demanded, panic rising in his voice.

“I could try and blast the doors apart with wind”, Sophie suggested hesitantly. She wasn’t sure she had the energy to raise the wind again so soon. She had used her new magical powers to battle the undead in Ojai, but the effort had completely exhausted her.

“I forbid it”, Flamel shouted, his face painted in shades of crimson and shadow. He turned and pointed across rows of wooden pews toward an ornate altar picked out in a tracery of white marble. Candlelight hinted at an intricate mosaic in glittering blues and golds in the dome over the altar. “This is a national monument; I’ll not let you destroy it.”

“Where are we?” the twins asked together, looking around the building. Now that their eyes had adjusted to the gloom, they realized that the building was huge. They could distinguish columns soaring high into the shadows overhead and were able to make out the shapes of small side altars, statues in nooks and countless banks of candles.

“This”, Flamel announced proudly, “is the
church
of
Sacre
-Coeur.”

Sitting in the back of his limousine, Niccol Machiavelli tapped coordinates into his laptop and watched a high-resolution map of Paris wink into existence on the screen. Paris was an incredibly ancient city. The first settlement went back more than two thousand years, though there had been humans living on the island in the Seine for generations before that. And like many of the earth s oldest cities, it had been sited where groups of leylines met.

Machiavelli hit a keystroke, which laid down a complicated pattern of leylines over the map of the city. He was looking for a line that connected with the United States. He finally managed to reduce the number of possibilities to six. With a perfectly manicured fingernail, he traced two lines that directly linked the West Coast of America to Paris. One finished at the great cathedral of Notre Dame, the other in the more modern but equally famous Sacre -Coeur basilica in Montmartre.

But which one?