The Magician (The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel #2) (26 page)

And then she suddenly realized what all the creatures in the cells had in common: they
were
monsters.

Where were the gentler spirits, the sprites and fey, the huldra and the rusalka, the elves and the inari? Dee had only gathered the hunters, the predators: the Magician was assembling an army of monsters.

A savage howling shriek ripped through the island, vibrating the very stones beneath her feet.
“Sorceress!”

The sphinx had discovered Perenelle was missing.

“Where are you, Sorceress?” The fresh sea air was suddenly tainted with the stink of the sphinx.

Perenelle was turning back to close the door when she spotted movement in the shadows below. She’d looked into the sun too long, and the golden ball had left burning afterimages on her retina. She squeezed her eyes shut for a moment; then she opened them again to peer into the gloom.

The shadows were moving, flowing down the walls, gathering at the bottom of the steps.

Perenelle shook her head. These were no shadows. This was a mass of creatures, thousands, tens of thousands of them. They flowed up the stairs, slowing only as they approached the light.

Perenelle knew what they were then spiders, deadly and poisonous and knew why the webs were so different. She glimpsed a seething mass of wolf spiders and tarantulas, black widows and brown recluses, garden spiders and funnel webs. She knew they should not exist together which probably meant that whatever had called them, and now controlled them, probably lurked below.

The Sorceress slammed the metal door shut and wedged a lump of masonry against the base. Then she turned and ran. But she had only taken a dozen steps before the door was ripped off its hinges by the weight of the massed spiders.

J
osh wearily pushed open the door to the kitchen and stepped into the long low room. Sophie turned away from the sink and watched her brother slump into a chair, drop the stone sword onto the floor, lay his arms on the table and rest his head on them.

“How was it?” Sophie asked.

“I can barely move”, he mumbled. “My shoulders ache, my back aches, my arms ache, my head aches, I have blisters on my hands and I can barely close my fingers.” He showed her his raw palms. “I never realized just holding a sword would be so hard.”

“But did you learn anything?”

“I learned how to hold it.”

Sophie slid a plateful of toast across the table and Josh immediately straightened up, grabbed a piece and shoved it in his mouth. “At least you can still eat”, she said. Catching hold of his right hand, she turned it over to look at his palm. “Ouch!” she said in sympathy. The skin at the base of his thumb was red, bubbling up in a painful-looking water blister.

“Told you”, he said through a mouthful of toast. “I need a Band-Aid.”

“Let me try something.” Sophie quickly rubbed her hands together, then pressed the thumb of her left hand against her right wrist. Closing her eyes, she concentrated and her little finger popped alight, burning with a cool blue flame.

Josh stopped chewing and stared.

Before he could object, Sophie ran her finger over his blistered flesh. He attempted to pull away, but she held his wrist with surprising strength. When she finally let it go, he jerked his hand back.

“What do you think you’re…” , he began, looking at his hand. Then he discovered that the blister had vanished, leaving only the faint hint of a circle on his skin.

“Francis told me that fire can heal.” Sophie held up her right hand. Wisps of gray smoke curled off her fingers; then they snapped alight. When she closed her hand into a fist, the fire extinguished.

“I thought” Josh swallowed hard and tried again “I didn’t know you’d even started to learn about fire.”

“Started and finished.”

“Finished?”

“All done.” She brushed her hands together; sparks flew.

Chewing his toast, Josh looked at his sister critically. When she’d first been Awakened and when she’d learned the Magic of Air, he’d seen the differences in her immediately, especially around her face and eyes. He’d even noted the new subtle shading of her eye color. He couldn’t see any changes this time. She looked the same as before but she wasn’t. And the Fire magic distanced her even further from him. “You don’t seem any different”, he said.

“I don’t feel any different either. Except warmer”, she added. “I don’t feel cold.”

So this was his sister now, Josh thought. She looked just like any other teenager he knew. And yet she was unlike anyone else on the planet: she could control two of the elemental magics.

Maybe that was the scariest part of all this: the immortal humans people like Flamel and Perenelle, Joan, flamboyant Saint-Germain and even Dee: they all looked so
ordinary.
They were the type of people you would pass in the street and not give a second glance to. Scathach, with her red hair and grass green eyes, was always going to attract attention. But she wasn’t human.

“Did it did it hurt?” he asked, curious.

“Not at all.” She smiled. “It was almost disappointing. Francis sort of washed my hands with fire oh, and I got this”, she said, holding up her right arm and allowing her sleeve to fall back to reveal the design burned into her flesh.

Josh leaned forward to look closely at Sophie’s arm. “It’s a tattoo”, he said, envy clearly audible in his voice. The twins had always talked about getting tattoos together. “Mom is going to freak when she sees that.” Then he added, “Where did you get it? And why?”

“It’s not ink, it was burned on with fire”, Sophie explained, twisting her wrist to show off the design.

Josh suddenly caught her hand and pointed at the red dot surrounded by the gold circle on the underside of her wrist. “I’ve seen something like that before”, he said slowly, and frowned, trying to remember.

His twin nodded. “It took me a while, but then I remembered that Nicholas has something like it on his wrist”, Sophie said. “A circle with a cross through it.”

“That’s right.” Josh closed his eyes. He’d first noted the small tattoo on Flamel’s wrist when he’d started working for him in the bookshop, and though he’d wondered why it was in such an unusual place, he’d never asked about it. He opened his eyes again and looked at the tattoo, and he suddenly realized that Sophie was branded by magic, marked as someone who could control the elements. And he didn’t like it. “What do you need it for?”

“When I want to use fire, I press on the center of the circle and focus my aura. Saint-Germain called it a shortcut, a trigger for my power.”

“I wonder what Flamel needs a trigger for”, Josh wondered aloud.

The kettle pinged and Sophie turned back to the sink. She had asked herself the same question. “Maybe we can ask him when he wakes up.”

“Any more toast?” Josh asked. “I’m starving.”

“You’re always starving.”

“Yeah, well, the sword training made me hungry.”

Sophie stuck a fork through a slice of bread and held it out in front of her. “Watch this”, she said. She pressed on the underside of her wrist and her index finger burst into flame. Frowning hard, concentrating, she focused the wavering flame into a thin blue fire and then ran it over the bread, gently toasting it. “Do you want this done on both sides?”

Josh watched with a mixture of fascination and horror. He knew from science class that bread toasted around 310 degrees Fahrenheit.

M
achiavelli was sitting in the back of his car alongside Dr. John Dee. Facing them were the three Disir. Dagon sat in the driver’s seat, eyes invisible behind his wraparound glasses. The car smelled faintly of his sour fishy odor.

A cell phone buzzed, breaking the uncomfortable silence. Machiavelli flipped it open without looking at the screen. He closed it again almost immediately. “All clear. My men have pulled back and there is a security cordon in place around all the connecting streets. No one will accidentally wander into the area.”

“Whatever happens, do not enter the house”, the Disir with violet eyes said. “Once we free Nidhogg, we shall have very little control until it feeds.”

John Dee leaned forward, and for a moment, it looked as if he was about to tap the young woman on the knee. The look on her face prevented him. “Flamel and the children must not be allowed to escape.”

“That sounds like a threat, Doctor”, the warrior sitting on the left said. “Or an order.”

“And we do not like threats”, her sister sitting to the right added. “And we don’t take orders.”

Dee blinked slowly. “It is neither a threat nor an order. Simply a request”, he said eventually.

“We are here only for Scathach”, the warrior with violet eyes said. “The rest of them are not our concern.”

Dagon climbed out of the car and opened the door. Without a backward glance, the Valkyries stepped out into the first glimmers of predawn light, spread out and moved slowly down the back street. They looked like three young women coming home from an all-night party.

Dee shifted position, taking the seat facing Machiavelli. “If they succeed, I will ensure that our masters know that the Disir were your idea”, he said pleasantly.

“I’m sure you will.” Machiavelli didn’t look at the English Magician and continued to follow the progress of the three girls as they walked down the street. “And if they fail, you can tell our masters that the Disir were my idea, and you can absolve yourself of any blame”, he added. “Shifting the blame: I believe I originally came up with
that
concept about twenty years before you were born.”

“I thought you said they were bringing Nidhogg?” Dee asked, ignoring him.

Niccol Machiavelli tapped the window with his manicured fingernails. “They did.”

As the Disir moved down the narrow, cobbled, high-walled alley, they
changed.

The transformation occurred as they passed through a patch of shadow. They entered as young women, dressed in soft leather jackets, jeans and boots and a moment later they were Valkyries: warrior maidens. Long coats of ice white chain mail fell to their knees, knee-high metal boots with spiked toes covered their feet, and they wore heavy leather-and-metal gauntlets on their hands. Rounded helmets protected their heads and masked their eyes and noses but left their mouths free. White leather belts around their waists held their sword and knife sheaths. The Valkyries each carried a wide-bladed sword in one hand, but each also had a second weapon strapped to her back: a spear, a double-headed axe and a war hammer.

They stopped before a rotting green gate set into the wall. One of the Valkyries turned to look back at the car and pointed a gloved hand at the gate.

Machiavelli hit a button and the window rolled down. He raised his thumb and nodded. Despite its decrepit appearance, it
was
the back gate to Saint-Germain’s house.

Each of the Disir reached into a leather pouch that hung from her belt. Taking out a handful of flat stone like objects, they tossed them at the base of the door.

“They’re Casting the Runes”, Machiavelli explained. “They’re calling Nidhogg the creature you released, a creature the Elders themselves locked away.”

“I didn’t know it was trapped by the World Tree”, Dee muttered.

“I’m surprised. I thought you knew everything.” Machiavelli shifted in the seat to look at Dee. In the gloomy half-light, he could see that the Magician was looking pale and there was the faintest sheen of sweat on his forehead. Centuries of controlling his emotions ensured that Machiavelli didn’t smile. “Why did you destroy the Yggdrasill?” he asked.

“It was the source of Hekate’s power”, Dee said quietly, eyes fixed on the Valkyries, watching them intently. They had stepped back from the stones they’d dropped on the ground and were talking quietly amongst themselves, pointing out individual tiles.

“It was as old as this planet. And yet you destroyed it without a second thought. Why did you do that?” Machiavelli wondered aloud.

“I did what was necessary.” Dee’s words were ice. “I will always do whatever is necessary to bring the Elders back to this world.”

“But you didn’t consider the consequences”, Niccol Machiavelli said softly. “Every action has a consequence. The Yggdrasill you destroyed in Hekate’s kingdom stretched into several other Shadowrealms. The topmost branches reached the Shadowrealm of Asgard, and the roots stretched deep into Niflheim, the World of Darkness.” He saw Dee stiffen. “Not only did you release Nidhogg, but you also destroyed at least three Shadowrealms may be more when you destroyed the World Tree.”

“I didn’t know.”

“You made a lot of enemies”, Machiavelli continued smoothly, ignoring him, “dangerous enemies. I have heard that the Elder Hel escaped the destruction of her kingdom. I understand she is hunting you.”

“She does not frighten me”, Dee snapped, but there was a quaver in his voice.

“Oh, she should”, Machiavelli murmured. “She terrifies me.”

“My master will protect me”, Dee said confidently.

“He must be a powerful Elder indeed to protect you from Hel; no one has stood against her and survived.”