The Chalice of Immortality (2 page)

“What say you, Harry, old doubter?” Sir Arthur Conan Doyle boomed. “I saw my boy in that glass. I saw him clear as day.”

Harry nodded, still puzzled. There had to be a trick. There was
always
a trick.

“I do not know what to say, Sir Arthur.” He frowned. If Madame Bogdanovich had not relied on trickery, then the conclusion he arrived at was chilling. She had foretold his death. And she had warned his friend. Evil, he decided, might be closing in around him and Doyle. This concerned him. Illusions…those he understood. The work of unseen forces? Those were things he had no desire to do battle with.

Nick Rostov and his cousin Isabella sat at their tidy desks in class. Their distant cousin and teacher Theo peered down his nose at them. He pointed a finger, and their test papers glided through the air to settle on their desks with a near-silent
whoosh
.

“F's. Both of you. I do not understand why simple history is so difficult.”

Nick sputtered, “
Simple
history? You want us to memorize complicated magic from ancient Egypt to today. What is that, like a thousand years of magic?”

Theo laughed as he pushed his horn-rimmed glasses up from the end of his nose. “More like five thousand years, which is a clear indication of why you have an F!”

“But it's not just that. You make us study a family tree that's so confusing, it gives me a headache. It's more like a family bush, it has so many branches. And all those names! In the Russian alphabet with that crazy Cyrillic…”

Theo's mouth smirked at the corners. “Speaking of which, your Cyrillic handwriting exam was worse. Worse than an F!”

Isabella sighed, scratching at her ankles. Nick glanced at her. He was itching like crazy too. They both fidgeted in their seats.

“What is wrong with the two of you?”

Nick shrugged. “Bug bites?”

Isabella nodded. “Bedbugs?”

“Are you trying to hang noodle soup on my ears?” Theo accused.

Nick shook his head. He was only now getting used to the strange Russian expressions his cousins favored. “No. This is no noodle soup! We really have bug bites.”

“I don't believe you. Enough of this. You fidget like sturgeon flopping on a shore. You are both dismissed for the day—dismissed like smelly fish. For homework, you can each write a five-page report,
in Cyrillic
, on why history is so important. One word less than five pages, and I will make Monday's paper ten pages.” He snapped his fingers in the air.

Nick groaned, collected his notebook, and said, “Come on, Isabella.”

Isabella motioned for her white Siberian tiger, Sascha, to follow her. The sleepy beast rose from beside Isabella's desk, yawned, scratched at her neck, then padded after the two cousins as they walked down the hallway of the top floor of the Winter Palace Hotel and Casino to Nick's room. When they got inside, Nick started scratching like mad. He walked to his crystal ball and yelled, “Sergei! Sergei! You appear right now!”

When Nick had first discovered he was from a long line of real magicians on his mother's side, he thought crystal balls, snow falling on the Las Vegas desert, evil Shadowkeepers, and tame Siberian tigers were tricks and mirrors. Now he knew that his family's magic and magical items were real—including his crystal ball.

Sergei's face appeared in the ball, his wild eyebrows bouncing up and down like dancing caterpillars as he spoke in his booming voice, “Nicholai! Nick, my man, Nicky-Nick-Nick, Nickster-the-Trickster…what can I do for you, my friend?”

“Look at me!” Nick rolled up his shirt sleeves, revealing arms covered with tiny red bites. “You didn't happen to accidentally
lose
some members of your flea circus the last time you were here, did you?”

“Hey!” Sergei shouted. “I'm telling you that the flea circus is the real deal. You put that circus on display in your lobby, and the tourists will go crazy. Little fleas on flying trapeze. It's killer, my Magickeeper main man. Killer!”

“But you said they were
tame
,” Isabella whined. “They're not tame if they
escaped
.” At that moment, she started scratching her neck.

As if on cue, Sascha began scratching and rolling on the carpet. The tiger let out a snarl that sounded more like a moan.

“We're miserable,” Nick declared.

“You didn't tell Damian about this, did you?” Sergei lowered his voice.

“Not yet,” Nick said, knowing Sergei was terrified of Damian's power. “But if you don't get rid of these fleas, and he finds so much as one flea…well, he'll turn you—”

“I know,” Sergei said, “into a flea on a baboon's behind. In a hot South American jungle. Awful!”

“Yes,” Nick said, scratching at his neck. “Come get your fleas!”

The crystal ball went dark. Two minutes later, Nick heard a knock from the inside of his elaborate wardrobe door.

“Come in, Sergei,” he called out.

The door opened, and Sergei stepped in. He stood almost as wide as he was tall in traditional Russian folk costume and tall black boots polished to a sheen. He carried an enamel box coated with gold inlay.

“All right, Flying Karamazov Brothers, into this box before I exile you to Siberia!” He lifted the lid of the box and winked at Nick, whispering, “Fleas hate the cold!”

Soon, little black specks flew through the air and landed in the box.

“All right. So the fleas didn't work out,” Sergei said. “But have I got a deal for you.”

Nick groaned. “Sergei! No! No more deals for your crazy magic animals.”

“Not even for a platypus that plays chess?”

“No!” Nick shouted. “Sergei…you know Damian. If he catches you in here with your lunatic ideas—forget it!”

Sergei looked hurt. “Fine. I will take my fleas and go home. But I promise you, Nicky-Nick-Nick, that I will discover an animal act that even Damian will approve of.”

With that, he shut the lid of his box, stepped back into the wardrobe, and disappeared.

“Do you think he's mad?” Isabella asked.

“A little. But he'll get over it.” Nick leaned down and scratched at his ankle. “He'll get over it before we get over these bites. He really
is
lucky Damian wasn't here to turn him into a flea on a baboon's behind!”

“I better get going,” Isabella said. “We have a
paper
due tomorrow.” She sighed as she and Sascha left Nick's room.

Alone, Nick flopped on his bed. He hated writing papers. His favorite parts of school were sword-fighting lessons with Boris (at first, he'd thought Boris was insane and creepy, but now he liked him) and anything having to do with real magic. But history and writing papers? He cringed.

Suddenly, he had a strange feeling. He sat up and stared at his crystal ball. The back of his neck tingled as if he were being stuck with tiny pins. In the ball, a fuzzy picture appeared.

Crystal-ball gazing was not an exact science—Theo sure loved to tell him that. It was easy to misinterpret the visions. A Gazer had to be pure of heart in order to understand the visions' meanings. Even then, it was easy to misinterpret what he saw.

Nick took several deep breaths. He tried to push away the stress of school and anything that might cloud the vision. He tried to ignore his flea bites. And there, in the crystal ball was Madame Bogdanovich—the woman his grandpa had taken him to meet on his thirteenth birthday.

She was staring deeply into a teacup, and she was talking to his mother, Tatyana, who had died when he was just a baby.

Nick leaned close to the ball to listen to their conversation.

“I
vish
I had something else to say, Tatyana. You are beautiful and magical. You are the most brilliant spell-caster of your generation, but a prophecy is a prophecy.”

“It can be changed!”

“No,” Madame B. said sadly. “You shall bear a child, and he will be the leader of the next generation.”

“But that means he will be haunted by visions, targeted by Rasputin. Every day, the mantle of his responsibility will rest on his shoulders.”

Madame B., the gifted fortune teller, nodded. “But sometimes, Tatyana, leaders are born. They may not want to be leaders, but history and circumstances make them so. Your baby will lead the Magickeepers into the next generation. The prophecy cannot be unwritten.”

“At what cost?” Tatyana asked. Her green eyes flashed. “I want him to have a normal childhood. I don't want him to feel like he has to fulfill a prophecy. Let him be a child.”

Madame B. shook her head. “He cannot escape what I see in these tea leaves.”

“Then I will ask Theo to cast a spell of protection.”

Madame Bogdanovich's eyes flashed again. “You ask too much.”

“Then I will leave.”

Nick squinted and pressed his ear close to the ball.

“Mom?” he whispered.

But the ball grew dark.

Nick stared at it. The ball seemed to defy him, cold and empty now. Taunting him. “What prophecy?” he said aloud. “What did my mother know?”

But he knew asking questions was futile.

Nick sank down on his bed. His grandfather had taken him to meet Madame Bogdanovich on his birthday. She was the one who'd shown him that he was a Gazer. Nick furrowed his brow. What did she know about his mother? He began to think of a plan to find out.

Crystal ball or not, Nick was going to discover what Madame Bogdanovich knew about his destiny.

Hey, Dad!” Nick said the next day, propping his elbows up on the counter. His dad and his grandfather ran a tour company that took the hotel guests to see all the sights in Las Vegas. His dad wasn't a Magickeeper, but he wanted Nick to learn everything he could about magic. It was the only way to keep him safe from the Shadowkeepers.

“Hey, Nick…Theo gave me a copy of your report card.”

Nick rolled his eyes. “All right, so…it wasn't that great.”

His dad laughed. “That's a little bit of an understatement.”

“You know,” Nick replied, “you're not giving me any credit for how
hard
school is.”

“But you hated regular school too. And now—now you get to learn…” His dad looked around the hotel lobby to see if any tourists were nearby. Then he lowered his voice to a whisper, “
Magic.
So it seems to me you should be earning A's and B's.”

His grandfather walked over to them, his round, Santa-sized belly nearly popping the buttons of his tour guide uniform. “If it isn't my favorite grandson!”

“I'm your
only
grandson.” Nick smiled. His grandfather was seriously in need of some new jokes.

“I saw your report card…”

Nick shook his head. “Tell you what—next time I get my report card, why don't you just have Theo blow it up into a giant poster and hang it in the lobby?” He gestured toward the enormous posters that adorned the walls advertising their magic show. He and his Magickeeper family performed six days a week, with an extra matinee on Saturdays. They made elephants disappear and Siberian tigers turn into princesses. Nick himself rode his magnificent golden horse and leaped over tigers. But what the human audience didn't know was that his cousin Damian's feats, and all the magic the family performed, were
real
.

“That's a good idea,” Grandpa teased, his handlebar mustache wriggling with laughter.

“Well…you know, my report card is actually sort of why I'm here.”

“Oh?” his father asked.

“I feel like I just want a break. Tomorrow, there's no show. And the three of us haven't done something all alone together in forever. I miss our old all-you-can-eat buffet days. And I am so sick of Russian food. If I have to so much as
look
at cod soup again, I might choke! No more
ukha!
I want a good, old-fashioned American cheeseburger. And fries!”

“What does Theo think of you leaving the Winter Palace for a day off?” his dad asked.

“You're my dad. Isn't it up to you, not him?”

“Well…sure, but it's about more than taking you somewhere for the day. It's about keeping you safe.”

“You and Grandpa can keep me safe. And besides, I'm getting stronger in my magic every day—despite what my report card says. You should see me levitate. Please?”

“All right. Tomorrow, we'll go on a road trip. Junk food and maybe a round of miniature golf,” his dad said, almost a little reluctantly.

“Great!”

***

The next day, Isabella pouted when Nick said he was going with his dad and grandpa for an outing. The two of them stood in the lobby as crowds of tourists with cameras and suitcases and noisy children swarmed around them, taking photographs of the ceiling and furniture—all exact replicas of the Winter Palace in Russia, where the tsar and his family had lived long ago.

“What am
I
supposed to do?”

“What did you do before I came to live here?”

She kicked at the end of a beautiful and intricate carpet with her toe. “I don't know. I sort of can't remember before you came here.”

“I promise when I get back, I'll sneak you in some cheeseburgers—and we'll play cards.”

She looked up at him. “And French fries? And a
real
soda, not dark tea?”

He nodded.

“What about a pizza too?”

He looked at his cousin. She was shorter than he was, with freckles scattered across her nose and long brown hair. And she was skinny, with delicate hands and thin legs.

“I know I sound like my grandpa, but Isabella…
where
do you put it?” He had never met a girl who could eat as much pizza as she did.

She shrugged. “Just bring me the pizza, cousin!”

Nick winked at her. “Your wish is my command.” He turned and walked to the front desk, where his father and grandfather waited—along with Theo.

“Hey,” Nick said. “What's up?” He looked at Theo questioningly.

“I was just telling your father and grandfather that they must be alert for anything suspicious. Be careful—all three of you.”

“We'll be fine,” Nick said.

“I'd feel better if you brought Boris with you,” Theo said. Boris was the family sword-fighting teacher—and bodyguard.

But Nick had a plan—and that plan didn't include Boris.

“I just wanted a day with my dad and grandpa. Okay?”

Theo pushed his glasses up from the tip of his nose. “Okay.”

Grandpa glanced out through the glass doors to the circular entranceway to the hotel. “Gentlemen, I believe our carriage awaits! Let us go before it turns into a pumpkin.”

“I think you mean an eggplant,” Nick muttered.

He and his dad and grandpa walked out of the hotel to Grandpa's waiting car, which had been brought by the valet. Grandpa drove a purple Cadillac—a monstrous, gleaming,
purple
convertible Cadillac. Complete with fuzzy dice hanging from the rearview mirror.

Grandpa slid into the front seat, and Nick's dad sat in the passenger seat. Since the convertible top was down, Nick vaulted over the back door like it was a high-jump bar.

His grandpa looked over his shoulder at him. “You could have opened the door, kiddo.”

“I know, but it's more fun to hop in.”

“Well, men, let's blow this Popsicle stand!” Grandpa said and floored the gas pedal. The Cadillac took off with a
vroom
, and soon they were cruising down the Las Vegas strip. Nick had never lived anywhere but Las Vegas. He felt like neon was in his blood. Neon and magic. He leaned on the door and stared at the streets teeming with people. Music, neon, and noise, laughter and squeals all mingled in a cacophony. Las Vegas was home.

Their first stop was miniature golf. Nick had to resist the urge to use magic to get a hole in one. That was something Theo had taught him: Magickeepers needed to honor their magic. It was to be used for real battles, for good—not for foolish things. If Nick took magic for granted, it could betray him. But Nick didn't have to worry about his score. In the end, Grandpa lost one of his golf balls by accidentally hitting it over a fence, and his dad stopped counting when he took eight shots at the spinning windmill.

After golf, the next stop was one of Las Vegas's world-famous, all-you-can-eat buffets. Grandpa parked the car, and the three of them walked inside.

“Now, remember my three golden rules for all-you-can-eat buffets,” Grandpa said.

Nick grinned. “I know them by heart.”

“And they are?” his dad asked.

“Number one,” Nick said, holding up his index finger, “start with the expensive stuff. That means shrimp, lobster, oysters, and anything from a carving station. Number two, no soda. Don't use up perfectly good stomach space on carbonation. And number three, take your time, because we're not leaving until we get our money's worth.”

Two and a half hours later, Nick could barely move. Grandpa was still eating chocolate mousse.

“This was a perfect day,” Grandpa said.

Nick's dad nodded. “It was a good idea for us to get away from the hotel, even if it was just for a few hours.”

“Hey, before we go back—can we do one more thing?” Nick asked.

“What?” his dad asked. “Because I can tell you that after this meal, a roller coaster is out.”

“Nothing that goes upside down. No…I want to go to Madame Bogdanovich's Magical Curiosity Shoppe.”

His grandfather put down his spoon. “But I thought you wanted a break from magic today.”

“I do. A break from
studying
. A break from Theo. A break from Damian. A break from the hotel. But…I really liked Madame B., and that was where I first Gazed. And I remember her shop was filled with all kinds of neat stuff. So I just wanted to go.”

Grandpa exchanged looks with Nick's dad.

“Please?” Nick added.

In the end, the two men agreed. Grandpa paid the bill, and the three of them walked out to Grandpa's purple beast. They headed away from the lights of Las Vegas to the desert, where Madame B.'s shop rose out of the sand.