The Chalice of Immortality (3 page)

Gustav!” Madame B. purred when Grandpa, Nick, and his dad walked into the shop. With her thick accent, she asked, “
Vy
did you not tell me you
vere
bringing the
leetle
prince to see me again?”

Grandpa spread out his palms. “I didn't even know it myself until an hour ago. Nick said he wanted to come visit you.”

Madame B. stared meaningfully at Nick. “
Did
he now?”

“You were the first person to show me I could Gaze.” Nick looked around her shop, which—like last time he had been there—was crammed with potions, books on magic, props, relics, wands, crystal balls, and even a corner gilded cage housing white pigeons that cooed softly.

Madame B.'s eyes were made up like butterflies, glittering with makeup and sparkles, right down to rhinestones on the ends of enormous false eyelashes. She narrowed her eyes at Nick suspiciously, giving the impression that the butterflies were landing near her nose. “Perhaps Nicholai and I should meet in private.” She put up one finger. “For just a moment, Gustav.”

With one black-velvet-glove-covered hand, she half-dragged Nick into the back room. She drew the thick curtains shut, leaving them in near-darkness, except for the soft purplish glow of a large crystal ball on a golden pedestal.

“
Vy
are you here?” she hissed softly. “I sense
eet
, Nicholai. You are here for a reason.”

“I saw you in my crystal ball, Madame B. I saw you when I Gazed.”

She squinted still more. “And?”

“You read tea leaves for my mother. I want you to read them for me.” He crossed his arms across his chest determinedly.

“No. I shouldn't have read them for her. Leave the past to the past, Nicholai. You do not know
vhat
you are asking me to do.”

“Past to the past?” Nick looked at her incredulously. “You
do
realize you are talking about a family that's re-created a Russian palace from over a hundred years ago. They live in the past. All of them. It's like they are frozen in time.”

“
Ve
miss Mother Russia. But
ve
study the past as a way to understand the present, Nicholai. Surely, Theo has explained all that to you. Wait!” She looked at him sternly. “Theo has no idea you are here, does he?”

Nick shook his head. “No. But I saw what I saw. My mother…she wanted to take me away from a prophecy. From the family. I don't understand. She was pregnant in the crystal ball, with me. I want to know what it means.”

“But you do not understand, child. You cannot escape destiny. Your mother tried to run from who you are. But… Show me your hand.”

Nick held out his hand, which she took and held palm up. She pointed. “There.”

He gazed down at his hand, but it looked like his hand—the same hand that he'd had his whole life. Nothing special.

Madame B. slapped his palm. “
Nyet!
Look the way you
Gaze!
My goodness,
Meester Smarty-Pants
, you don't know how to Gaze after all this time? Look with your heart.”

Nick stared down into the palm of his hand. It looked like crisscrossing lines.
Like a hand.
Sometimes, he really felt like everyone in his life was crazy. He took a deep breath and shut his eyes. When he opened them again, his mouth dropped open. His palm—it was moving. At least, the lines were. They seemed to tremble and shift as he watched. In the center of his palm, a small star formed, and it throbbed. It felt warm—hot, even—to his touch.

“What?” He looked at Madame B. “What is that star?” But then it seemed as if the earth shook. “Did you feel that?” he asked her.

She nodded, her eyes widening as if the butterflies took flight.

“Earthquake?” The two of them ran from the back room into the main shop. The floor shook again. Jars and books fell off shelves, crashing noisily around them. The birds flapped their wings frantically.

“What's going on?” Nick shouted.

Nick's grandpa grabbed his hand. “I don't like this, Kolya,” he said, calling Nick by his Russian nickname. “I think we should all get in my car and get away from here while there's still time, Madame B.”

Nick's dad shook his head. “No. In an earthquake, we should stand in the most secure part of the building.” He looked around as they heard glass shattering and a far-off sound like the howling whistle of a train.

“
Thees
is no earthquake,” Madame B. shouted above the din. “
Eet's
them!
”

“Them?” Nick's dad asked.

“Them!” Nick shouted. “Shadowkeepers!”

Nick's legs felt like rubber bands as he struggled to get out of the magic shop. He held up his arms to shield himself from falling objects. Books struck him, and shards of glass from broken jars flew through the air.

Madame B. ran to the bird cage and released the doves. She grabbed a velvet bag.

“Come on!” Nick yelled. “There's no time!”

“I must take the ball.
Eet's
my best one, the tsarina's ball.”

Nick's dad opened the door to the shop and nearly slipped down the stairs. When Nick, Grandpa, and Madame B. reached the door, the sky was blacker than black. A suffocating darkness enveloped Nick like a heavy blanket. He couldn't see anything.

Nick concentrated on calling up flames from his hands, if only to illuminate the darkness. No sooner did he send a spark shooting into the sky than it was extinguished.

The ground still rocked, wildly buckling beneath them. As Nick scrambled down the stairs, sand from the desert rose up in spiraling tornadoes, stinging his face and eyes. Then the earth shook so hard that they all fell to their hands and knees on the ground, unable to walk—unable to even crawl.

The sand beneath Nick fell away. He turned his head one last time, and glimpsed the lights in the shop flickering through squinted eyes. Then he watched as a giant sinkhole opened and swallowed the shop like a humongous whale swallowing krill. Effortlessly, the house disappeared, and Nick felt himself sliding down, down, down into the sinkhole, too.

All he felt was sand…and all he heard was deafening silence.

Nick felt himself suffocating. He wanted to breathe, but sand filled his nostrils and his mouth. He felt himself being sucked deeper into the sinkhole. He couldn't walk. He couldn't crawl. Panic coursed through him. His heart pounded with terror. He couldn't move.

But I can fly.

At the thought, Nick called on his powers of levitation, which always felt like a swarm of bats in his stomach lifting him skyward. He sensed the sand shift as he inched slightly upward. As hard as he pulled himself to the surface, the sand seemed to want to carry him to a gritty grave. He concentrated, even as he thought he was blacking out from lack of oxygen, and in one final
swoosh
, he burst up from the sand and into the air.

The sky had lightened to its normal color. Nick spat out sand and wiped at his eyes with his shirt. He shivered in the desert night air and looked at the landscape. It was as if Madame Bogdanovich's Magical Curiosity Shoppe had never existed.

“Dad, Grandpa, Madame B.!” he screamed. This was his fault. He should not have come to Madame B.'s. He had underestimated the enemy. How many times had Theo warned him about that?

Nick dropped to his knees and began digging at the sand. He felt a hand grab his. Nick concentrated and pulled hard, using whatever Magickeeper strength he could summon. His grandpa's head appeared up through the sand. He spat. “Pull me out, Kolya!”

Nick pulled, levitating and tugging. His grandfather was a large man, and Nick sweat with the effort. Soon, Grandpa was free. They dug at the sand and found Madame B. They both pulled her hands, and slowly she emerged from the sand.

“
Eef
I
ever
get my hands on those Shadowkeepers, I shall cast a spell to turn them into
steenky
cod, and then I
vill
make them into
ukha!
” she vowed. “And feed them to
zee
tiger,” she spat as if for good measure.

“My dad!” Nick shouted. “Where is he?”

Nick stared down at the sand, but there was no sign of his father.

“Help me!” Nick moaned.

“Use your powers,” Madame B. urged. She put a hand on his shoulder as if to calm him. “Use your powers.”

Nick closed his eyes. He saw nothing but darkness. But then, almost like being pulled by some magical rope, he felt his entire body propel forward until he was standing near a scrubby cactus.

“I think he's under here,” Nick proclaimed.

Rather than dig, Nick cast a spell to move the sand in swirls of wind that spun the grains up into the sky. When he was done, there was his father, eyes shut, lying on the sand.

“Dad?” Nick kneeled down next to his father. He couldn't see his chest moving. “Dad! Wake up!” He clutched his father's shoulders and shook him. But his dad did not move.

“Grandpa! Is he…dead?” Nick felt a sob rising up from his throat, and he pushed it back down.

Grandpa pressed his fingers against the side of his father's neck. “He has a pulse. He's still alive.”

“But he—he's a funny color. So pale.”

“He's not dead,” Madame B. whispered. “He's
vorse
than dead.”

Nick shook his head. “What? What do you mean, he's worse than dead? What's worse than dead?”

She seemed sad. “
Eet's
a spell. Come, we must get him to Theo.”

“Where's my car?” Grandpa asked. “We're stuck out here.”

Madame B. still held on to her velvet satchel. She pulled out her crystal ball. “I
vill
call my friend Igor. He runs a taxi service.”

She set her ball on the ground and spoke into it. “Igor?”

A bald head appeared—as round and smooth as the crystal ball itself. “Madame B.! Haven't heard from you in a long time! You look great.”

She patted her head of Medusa-like curls. “Oh, I am a sandy mess, Igor.”

“Madame B.!” Nick snapped. “Focus!”

“Ahh, yes, Igor. We need a taxi. Right now. To take us to Theo.
Eet's
an emergency. Step on it!”

“Be right there!”

The ball went dark, and Nick heard a sound like a jet plane. Cruising through the sky was a taxi. A flying cab, bright yellow, descended and parked precisely in front of where they knelt on the desert floor.

The driver's-side door opened, and an older man emerged. His bald head was shiny, and he had tattoos from his knuckles to his neck peeking through his collar and beneath the sleeves of his T-shirt. The tattoos were of stars and moons—and words in Cyrillic.

Igor stared down at Nick's dad. “This guy don't look too good, Madame B.”

“Please,” Nick begged. “Just help us get him in the cab, and take us to the Winter Palace Hotel and Casino—as fast as you can.”

Igor lifted Nick's dad like he was a piece of luggage and slid him into the back seat. Nick climbed in there with him.

“Aren't you coming, Madame B.?”

“Are you crazy, Nick? I have to fix my shop!”

“Fix your shop? There's nothing left!”

“You'll see. At my age, I still have a few spells up my sleeves.”

She hugged Grandpa. “Take care of the
leetle
prince.”

Then she kissed Igor on both cheeks, leaving perfect crimson lipstick marks on each. “And you,” she purred, “you can come back and see me. I cook you dinner.”

With that, Igor and Grandpa got into the front seat, and the cab took off through the desert sky in a blur. Within five minutes, it seemed, they had landed on the roof of the hotel.

***

“This is very bad, Kolya,” Theo whispered. He had sent Grandpa to go get showered and cleaned up. Nick's dad was on a blanket on the floor of Theo's classroom and laboratory.

“I don't understand. Madame B. said this was worse than death.”

Theo nodded. “If you believe that when you die, you go someplace else—someplace beautiful—then yes, this is worse than death. Because your father is neither alive nor dead. He is in an in-between state.”

The room was so silent, Nick swore he could hear his heart breaking in two. “Can't you wake him up? Please, Theo?”

Theo shook his head. “This is a spell—one of the hardest to break. There are rare and sacred spells that are from the origins of our bloodline. We do not even whisper them. They are spells that are too powerful, too dangerous, and interfere with life or death.”

Nick felt a crushing sensation in his chest, as if his ribs were going to squash his organs. “But Theo, the Grand Duchess once told me that your magic was even stronger than Damian's.” The Grand Duchess was sort of like Nick's grandmother. She was ancient and wise, the daughter of a tsar, and all the Magickeepers revered and protected her. “You
have
to be able to make my father well again. Please, I'm begging you—
do
something! Anything!”

Theo shook his head sadly.

“No!” Nick's throat tightened. “No! No! No! Theo—somewhere in your book of spells, there has to be a cure for this. There has to be! They can't win!”

Nick collapsed onto his father's chest, hugging him. “I'm so sorry, Dad. I'm so, so sorry. This is all my fault!” He clutched at his father and buried his face by his dad's neck. Then he lifted his head and looked at Theo. “I didn't appreciate him. I should have appreciated him more. I should have told him how much I loved him—that I understood how hard it must have been to be a single dad all these years. I should have told him I was sorry for being a terrible student.”

Theo soothed, “He didn't care about your grades.”

“Yes, he did.”

Theo shook his head. “He cared because he wanted you to do well, but he loved you no matter what. And I know he was aware how much you loved him. He was, Kolya. He loved your mother, and he loved you, very, very much.”

“I did this to him. This is all my fault.”

Theo walked over to Nick and patted him on his back. “This is
not
your fault. You're upset—and rightfully so. You need to get some rest.”

“It
is
my fault. I shouldn't have asked Grandpa and Dad to take me to Madame B.'s.”

Theo spoke softly. “You couldn't have known this would happen.”

“But I should have guessed. I should have expected they would find me. Don't you want to know why I went there? Why I felt like I
had
to go there?”

Theo stood upright, walked over to one of his massive books, and began turning pages. “I think I know.”

“Theo…” Nick took a deep breath. “I saw something in my crystal ball. I had a vision. I should have asked you about it. But I was afraid. I was afraid you wouldn't tell me anything. My mother left the family…and when she did, she was already pregnant with me. And I saw Madame B. telling her she couldn't protect me from a
prophecy
. Theo…who is my real father? I have so many questions. I think I always have. About my mother. About my dad. That's why I went. I wanted to know what Madame B. saw in those tea leaves. I needed to know why the Shadowkeepers hate me so much. I never meant for this to happen.”

He stared down at his dad and felt a tear tracing a path down his face.

Theo sighed. “Kolya, your parentage is in many ways not important. I could not love you more than if you were my own son. Damian, Isabella, Irina, the Grand Duchess—even crabby old Boris—we love you. You are one of us. When you came to us, I could see in your eyes that you considered your father a failure. But he was a magician without his muse: your mother. I consider him a very successful man. He is a great man, to be admired very much.”

“Because the tour guide business is doing so well?” Nick asked. He held his father's hand, which was ice cold. He tried to will life back into his father.

“No. Because of
you
. A man could be wealthy beyond his imagination. He could be a powerful Magickeeper, like Damian. He could be world famous. But if he somehow is a failure at being a
parent
, then it amounts to nothing, because that is the only thing that matters.
Children
. You have been loved and loved fiercely, Kolya. If you found out right now that the man whose hand you hold is not your father by blood, would it change anything at all? It does not matter what Madame B. saw in the tea leaves. Do you understand that?”

Nick nodded and looked down at his dad. He remembered, in a kaleidoscope of images, birthdays and trips to the skate park, bad microwaveable dinners and video games together. And he remembered the stories—the way his dad would tell him stories about his mother, even though Nick couldn't really remember her much. His dad had told Nick that when they met she was very secretive about her past and her family, but he had won her over by making her laugh with his very bad jokes. After they had fallen in love, she told him a Russian expression:
Eslib kazhdiy raz koda ya dumayu o tebe padala by zvezda, to luna stalaby odinokoy
. Something about stars and the moon; that if a star fell every time she thought of his dad, the moon would become lonely. Nick thought it was hopelessly corny. But now he wished he had paid more attention to his stories.

“I know,” Nick said. “Whatever was in the tea leaves wouldn't change anything.” He squeezed his dad's hand. “Theo…he can't die.
Please
.” His voice choked off, and he felt like a lemon was stuck in his throat. “I can't lose him, Theo. I can't.”

“There is just one chance for this spell to be broken.”

“Anything, Theo. What? Tell me. I would lay down my life for him. I would do anything.
Anything!
”

“The Chalice of Immortality is the one magic item that can save him.”

“What's that?”

Theo waved his hand, and a crystal ball that glittered like a large opal floated through the air.

“Behold,” Theo commanded. “The chalice!”