The Enchantress (The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel #6) (16 page)

Tsagaglalal’s aura flared, a brilliant blazing white. It pulsed out around her body in a series of concentric circles and the rats turned to red and black cinders, which spiraled up in the fog. The sudden throb of power also broke the controlling spell, and the surviving vermin disappeared squealing into the gutters.

Without breaking stride, Tsagaglalal turned right and continued down the street, heading for the water.

Danu Talis could have continued on to a golden age, but Bastet’s greed overpowered all common sense. And on one
terrible evening, Anubis and a troop of anpu staged a revolt and imprisoned Aten. The Lord of Danu Talis was accused of plotting to destroy the island empire.

Tsagaglalal suddenly stopped in the middle of Jefferson and threw back her head. There was a new odor on the air. Something ancient and appalling drifting over her left shoulder. She turned her head: it was coming off the Golden Gate Bridge. She smelled burnt enamel, rotting earth and blood and the unmistakable stench of a Drakon.

“Spartoi,” she said, the word foul in her mouth.

She knew instinctively that this was why Bastet had returned.

“What to do?” she asked aloud.

The Flamels needed her help to contain the monsters on the island, but the threat on the bridge was the more immediate danger. If the Spartoi got into the city, there would be chaos. She had seen their work before. Each creature would kill hundreds—thousands—and those they did not eat would lurch back to a semblance of life as zombies, with an extra twenty-four hours of shambling movement before their bodies fell apart. The poor creatures were harmless, but their appearance was shocking and utterly terrifying. All would be lost.

With a heavy heart, Tsagaglalal turned back toward the Golden Gate Bridge. She could do nothing to help the Flamels. They were on their own.

H
ow many more?” Dee gasped.

The immortal had started out well, but he’d managed barely fifty steps before he had to stop, lungs heaving for air, heart hammering.

Marethyu’s voice echoed off the stone walls. “In total: two hundred and forty-eight from bottom to top. You have about two hundred left.”

“Two forty-eight. One of the untouchable numbers. Why am I not surprised?”

“We need to press on, Doctor.”

“And I need to catch my breath,” Dee gasped.

“We have no time.”

“Let me rest … unless you want me to expire here, on these steps.”

“No, Doctor, we’re not going to let you die just yet.” Marethyu stretched out his hand. “Let me help you.”

“Why?” Dee leaned on the slick crystal steps and looked up into Marethyu’s blue eyes. “If you know who I am, then you know what I am, what I have done. Why are you helping me?”

“Because we all have our roles to play in saving the world.”

“Even me?”

“Especially you.”

Marethyu carried Dee up the remaining two hundred steps. The English immortal wrapped an arm over the man’s shoulder and pressed his head against the figure’s chest. He could hear no heartbeat, and as they climbed higher and higher, he became conscious that Marethyu was not breathing heavily with his exertions. He was not breathing at all.

The tall blue-eyed figure raced lightly up the steps. In places the walls were transparent, allowing Dee glimpses of a white-flecked gray ocean. Huge waves crashed against a rocky shoreline, outlining a town in foam and spray. Offshore, enormous blue-green icebergs smashed themselves against unseen rocks. As they climbed, Dee noticed that certain steps exuded odd odors or flickered with strange colors when they moved over them. Others trembled with musical notes or the temperature rose or fell sharply.

“We’re passing through Shadowrealms?” Dee asked.

“Very astute.”

“I would love to explore this place,” Dee whispered.

“No, Doctor, you would not,” Marethyu said with conviction. “This tower is built on the cusp of a dozen ley lines, in a place where at least as many Shadowrealms intersect. A couple of these steps bring us in and out of some of the worst
worlds ever created. Linger too long on a step and you never know where you’ll end up. Or what you might attract.”

“Ah, but think of the adventure.”

“There are some adventures not worth having.”

Dee looked up into Marethyu’s eyes. “And I take it you have had some of those?”

“I have.”

“Is that where you lost your hand? Let me guess: some ravening monster bit it off and then Abraham created this hook for you.”

“No, Doctor. You are so wrong.” Marethyu laughed, and in that moment sounded very young. “Besides, I think if Abraham had made me a replacement, I would have asked him for something shaped a bit more … handlike, something a bit more useful.” He ran the hook along the crystal walls and rainbow sparks cascaded over them. The semicircle of metal came to blazing light, writhing with arcane symbols. “In the beginning I hated it,” he admitted.

“And now?” Dee asked.

“Now it is part of me. And I of it. Together we have changed the world.”

Marethyu climbed up through a narrow rectangle in the floor and eased the elderly Dee into a sitting position on the flat roof of the crystal tower.

“From here I can see the world.” Abraham the Mage stepped away from a squat cylindrical telescope, angling his body so that only one side was turned to Marethyu and Dee. “Come look.”

“Give me a moment, I beg of you. Let me compose myself.” The doctor stretched out his legs and leaned back on stiffened arms. He looked up at the tall blond-haired figure wrapped in a cloak of shimmering gold foil. “In all the long years of my life, I always believed you were a legend,” he breathed. “I never imagined you were real.”

“Doctor, I am disappointed.” Abraham’s head moved in a tiny nod and he coughed a tiny laugh. “You know that at the heart of every legend is a grain of truth. You’ve dealt with monsters all your life. You consorted with creatures who were worshipped as gods, and fought alongside nightmares. And yet you consider me to be a legend!”

“Everyone likes to believe in a legend or two.” Dee reached up and Marethyu helped him to his feet.

They were standing on a flat circular platform at the top of the crystal tower. A bitter wind whipped across the platform, rich with salt and sea spray and flecked with tiny stinging chips of ice.

“It is truly an honor to meet you.” Dee stepped forward and stretched out his hand, but Marethyu gently pushed it down and shook his head slightly.

“The Mage will not shake your hand, Doctor.”

Abraham stepped away from the telescope. “Come look.”

The instrument was made of what looked like solid cream-colored crystal. The surface was faceted. Thin bands of silver encircled the tube, and when Dee peered into the eyepiece, he discovered it was shimmering and liquid, like mercury.

“Marethyu brought this back from one of his travels,”
Abraham said. His voice was labored, every word an effort. “He will not tell me where he found it, but I suspect it is Archon rather than Earthlord. The Earthlord artifacts tend to be almost brutal in their design. This has a certain delicacy to it.”

“I can see nothing,” Dee said. “Does it need to be focused?”

“Think of a person,” Abraham said. “Someone you know well. I would say someone you care for, but I realize that might be difficult in your case.”

Dee looked into the glass.

… Sophie and Josh sitting at a circular table piled high with food. Isis and Osiris sat opposite them.

He jerked his head back and lowered it to the eyepiece again.

… Virginia Dare, in a loose white robe and straw hat, moving through streets teeming with small, dark-skinned people. Red-eyed, black-armored anpu watched from the shadows.

“Extraordinary,” Dee said, looking up. “It is similar to a scrying glass. Will it only see people in this Shadowrealm?”

“If the glass is fed with blood and pain, it will show other times, other places,” Abraham whispered. “I do not feed it.”

“But
you
have.” Dee spun around to look at Marethyu.

“Sometimes,” he admitted. Something sad and lost moved behind his gaze. “There are certain people I like to keep an eye on.”

“I would have loved something like this. I can think of a thousand uses for it.”

Marethyu shook his head. “It would have destroyed you, Doctor.”

“I doubt it.”

“Sometimes, when you look into the glass, you find something looking back at you. Something hungry.”

Dee shrugged. “As you yourself said, I’ve seen monsters before. And there’s not much they can do to you from the other side of a glass.”

“They’re not always on the other side of the glass,” Abraham said. “Sometimes they come through.” The Mage turned, allowing the immortal to see his entire body. The left side of his face from forehead to chin and from nose to ear was a solid gold mask. Only his eye remained untouched, although the white had turned a pale saffron with threads of gold twisted through the gray iris. The upper and lower teeth on the left side of his face were solid gold, and his left hand was covered in what looked like a golden glove.

“The Change,” Dee breathed.

“I am impressed. Few humans in your time even know of it.”

“I am not the average human.”

“As arrogant as ever, Doctor, I see.” Abraham turned back to the telescope and pressed his remaining eye against the eyepiece.

Dee suddenly found himself wondering who Abraham was looking at.

“The Change warps all of us sooner or later. Some—like your friend Bastet—it makes into monsters.”

“Is every Change unique?”

“Yes, individual to the character. Changes may be similar, but no two are identical.”

Dee limped over to stand beside Abraham and peered closely at his arm. “May I?” he asked.

The Mage’s head moved a fraction.

Dee pressed his index finger against Abraham’s shoulder and pushed. It was solid. Then he rapped on it with his knuckle. It rang with a dull thump.

“My aura is hardening on my skin.”

“I saw something similar in a cave beneath Paris.”

“Zephaniah took the idea for Mars’s punishment from my Change.”

“And it is not reversible?”

“No. Generations of Great Elders and Elders have attempted to reverse the process. There are occasional minor successes, but nothing permanent.” Abraham stepped away from the telescope and turned slowly to face Dee. “What am I to do with you, Doctor? I have watched the human world for generations. I have seen heroes and villains. I have studied families and individuals, followed entire lineages for endless centuries. I understand humankind, I know what drives them, what motivates them. I know how and why they love and what they fear. And then there is you…. You are a mystery.”

Dee glanced quickly at Marethyu. “Is that good or bad?”

Abraham walked to the edge of the tower and looked out at the distant city. “You have no idea how close we came to destroying you,” he continued. “Chronos offered to send Marethyu back through time to kill your most distant ancestor so that we could wipe out your entire line.”

“I’m glad you didn’t,” Dee muttered, nodding at Marethyu.

“Don’t thank me. I wanted to do it.”

Footsteps shuffled on the stairs and Dee turned as a beautiful young gray-eyed woman arrived on the platform. She ignored Dee, smiled at Marethyu and then flung a heavy hooded cloak around Abraham’s shoulders. She glared at Dee. “I wanted to do it too.”

“This is Tsagaglalal, my wife.”

Dee bowed slightly. “I am honored.”

“Don’t be,” she snapped. “I would push you off this platform with the greatest of pleasure.” She eased her husband away from the edge of the platform and then moved around to stand in front of him so that he could look at her. “It is nearly time.”

“I know. Go down. Get ready. I am almost finished with the doctor.”

Tsagaglalal swept past Dee and disappeared below.

“She is going to hate you for millennia.” Abraham stretched out his hand. “Give me my book, Doctor.”

Dee hesitated.

The right side of Abraham’s face moved in a ghastly smile. “A very foolish man would think about doing something stupid right now. Or worse—attempting to negotiate.”

The doctor reached under his shirt. There was a soft leather bag on a cord around his neck. He tugged and the cord snapped free.

“Josh carries the pages he tore from the Book in a similar way,” Marethyu said.

“I know. I just discovered that. I can’t believe he had them with him all this time. They were so close; if only he’d given them to me, then everything would be so different.” Dee sighed.

“Your life has been one of disappointments,” Marethyu said.

“Are you being sarcastic?” Dee asked.

“Yes.”

“I’ve had my share of disappointments,” the Magician admitted. Reaching into the bag, he pulled out the small metal-bound book. “I spent my entire life chasing this book. Over the centuries, I came close to securing it. But from the moment I finally got it into my hands, everything changed. It should have been my greatest triumph.” He shook his head slightly. “Instead, everything started to go wrong.”

Marethyu stepped forward and took the Book from the old man’s hands. Resting it on his hook, he opened the cover. Instantly, yellow-white fire blazed across his hook, sizzling streamers dripping onto the stones, raining sparks like fireworks. “It’s real,” he announced.

With an almost painful effort, Abraham raised his golden hand and dropped it onto Dee’s shoulder. “Doctor, did you ever pause to wonder why you never managed to catch up with the Flamels, why they always escaped just before you arrived?”

“Of course. I always thought they were lucky …,” he began. Then he shook his head. “No one is that lucky for that long, are they?”

Marethyu closed the Book with a snap. The fire died on
his hook. “You were never meant to find the Flamels and the Book. Until last week, of course, when you got the call giving you the address of the bookshop in San Francisco.”

“And that was you?” Dee breathed, looking from Marethyu to Abraham. “I thought I was working for Isis and Osiris.”