The Enchantress (The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel #6) (44 page)

“No!”

“I have a little left. I can give it to him,” Machiavelli gasped.

“No,” Black Hawk insisted. “If you use any more, there will be nothing left for you.” He gently lifted Machiavelli’s hand. “Enough. Or you will burst into flames. You have done more than anyone could, more than I could. It is out of our hands now. Now he will live or die: it is up to him. And he is Billy the Kid. He will survive.” The immortal suddenly reached out and caught Machiavelli’s hand. He squeezed tightly. “Whatever happens: you have made a lifelong friend here tonight, Italian. Two, if Billy lives.”

“Three,” Mars said from the doorway, saluting Machiavelli with his sword. He smiled. “This is what I have always loved about you humans. You are essentially good.”

“Not everyone,” Machiavelli said tiredly.

“No. Not everyone. But enough.” Mars turned back to the doorway and settled into his battle stance. “The Karkinos is back,” he announced. “And I do believe it is growing!” He suddenly threw himself back into the room. “Down!” he shouted.

An enormous claw ripped a chunk out of the side of the building. A second claw tore out the steel girders that supported the walls, snipping them apart as if they were made of straw. The Karkinos loomed over the open roof and peered down. It had doubled in size, and then doubled again in the few minutes since Black Hawk had snatched Billy from its claws.

“It’s eaten Xolotl,” Mars said. “That’s why it’s grown.” He rolled to one side as another section of the wall was pulled down. “I’ve seen this happen before. Elder flesh works wonders on their systems, making them huge. And once they get a taste for Elder flesh, nothing else will satisfy them. It’s probably after me now.” Then, when the creature ignored him, he added, “Or not …” Two huge claws reached over the top of the building and punched into the hardened mud surrounding Areop-Enap. They found the hole the Flamels and Machiavelli had carved and went straight for it, snipping at the opening, enlarging it, ripping it apart.

“It’s after Areop-Enap!” Perenelle screamed.

“We have to protect the Old Spider. If it eats her and absorbs her energy, it will be indestructible,” Mars shouted. “Nothing—not even a Great Elder—will be able to stop it.

Perenelle quickly raised her arm, but she had barely any power left. A handful of cold energy washed over the crab. It didn’t even notice.

Mars threw himself at the Karkinos, his sword buzzing and whirling around him. The metal blade screamed off the creature’s armored legs. He stabbed deep into the joints, trying to knock it over.

“Protect Billy,” Black Hawk commanded the Italian. He crawled beneath the creature, then rose to stab at it with his spear. The crab reared up on its four hind legs while flailing the front four wildly. Its two giant claws snapped and clashed.

Black Hawk stabbed again, pushing the spear deep into the monster’s flesh. The crab twisted away at the last moment, dragging the immortal up into the air with it. Black
Hawk clung tightly to the spear shaft as the Karkinos’s front claws click-clacked inches from his head. And then one flailing leg caught a belt loop on the immortal’s jeans. Dangling in midair, the American thrashed and twisted to get loose. Cloth tore, but the crab flicked its leg out and Black Hawk went sailing out over the wall. A moment later there was a splash as he hit the sea.

And they all knew the Nereids were waiting in the water.

The giant crab dropped back onto the ball of mud and resumed ripping it apart. Flamel threw spears of green light at the creature, and Perenelle washed it with ice and fire. But all to no effect.

“You’ve got to awaken the Old Spider!” Mars shouted.

Nicholas threw himself into the shell. Karkinos had torn away the outer layer of protective mud, revealing a second muddy ball within. This thin crust covered the enormous hairy form of the Areop-Enap, the Old Spider.

“Wake up, wake up, wake up!” Flamel’s hands pounded on the shell, leaving pale green impressions on the coating of hardened saliva. “Nothing’s happening,” he said desperately. He had seen the crab punch through the outer shell with ease; it would have no difficulty shattering this inner crust.

And then Mars’s aura blazed bright, filling the ruined building with crimson light, and the air was rich with the stench of burnt meat.

The Karkinos hesitated, huge claws trembling.

“Smell that,” Mars shouted. “That’s what you want, isn’t it?” The Elder blazed brighter and brighter, bloodred armor
flowing over his body and a metal helm appearing on his head, turning him into the ferocious warrior of legend. Sticky streamers of light blazed off his body. The Karkinos’s mouth went into a frenzy trying to taste the energy.

Mars lowered his sword, then sheathed it. He walked up to the creature. “Here I am, beastie. Smell that—it is the scent of an Elder. You want some, don’t you? Well, here I am.”

“Mars, no!” Flamel shouted.

“Mars, you have to stop!” Perenelle shouted. “Stop it now.”

“I have a little left,” he said. “I can lead it away from here.” He started moving toward the door and the crab tracked his movements with its enormous beady eyes.

“No, Mars, you can’t,” she whispered, realizing what was happening.

The Elder’s odor had changed, becoming bitter and sour, and although the aura was still radiating off his flesh, it was flickering wildly. The crab lurched after him, following the rich smell.

“Come taste the aura of Mars Ultor, who was also Ares and Nergal and a dozen other names besides.” Mars concentrated and his aura blazed higher, brighter, stronger. “But before I was Nergal, I was Huitzilopochtli, I was the Champion of Humankind. It is the name I have always been proudest of.”

Then his aura died.

Abruptly, Mars turned and ran through the empty
doorway. He barely made it before he exploded into a fine white ash. When his aura had consumed all his energy, it had fed off his flesh.

Nicholas Flamel leaned his head against the shell protecting Areop-Enap. They had lost.

Another wall shattered as the Karkinos ripped apart the remainder of the building.

The Alchemyst looked up to find the orange crab looming over him, claws clicking. Nicholas desperately needed one more spell, one final transformation, one incantation to awaken the Old Spider, but his aura was spent. He had nothing left to give. He was just a tired old man and Perenelle an old, old woman, looking small and frail now, her life force almost finished. Their friends and allies were no more. They had come close, so very, very close, to defeating the Dark Elders. And they had failed.

“I’m sorry,” Nicholas Flamel said to no one in particular. He looked down at the thin crust surrounding the Old Spider and discovered eight tiny bruise-colored eyes regarding him impassively.

Areop-Enap had awakened.

T
sagaglalal and her brother had been brought to life by Prometheus’s aura.

Prometheus and his sister Zephaniah had been sent to an abandoned city of black glass and glittering gold at the very edge of the world. The Nameless City sat on the cusp of many ley lines and at the confluence of seven Shadowrealms. There were stories that the city of black and gold existed simultaneously in all seven realms.

Legend had it that the city had been built by the Archons, but Abraham the Mage held that they had simply taken up residence in the massive buildings, which he believed dated from the Time Before Time. Eventually, even they abandoned it, and the forest quickly reclaimed what had once been a vast metropolis.

Every aspect of the Nameless City suggested that it had been built by inhuman creatures. The doors were too tall and
too narrow, the windows were small, the steps were shallow, and the irregular angles of the buildings made them hard—almost disturbing—to look at. Most of the buildings were covered with intricately carved whorls and spirals. Elder lore was filled with the stories of individuals who had become entranced by the circles. They had stared wide-eyed and openmouthed at the designs, refusing to move, taking neither food nor water, and when they did speak it was to report both wonders and horrors.

Abraham had sent Zephaniah and Prometheus to the Nameless City with instructions to search for any of the mysterious crystal skulls that sometimes turned up in Archon and Ancient ruins.

It was in an enormous chamber in the heart of the library that they had found the clay statues.

Intricately carved and delicately beautiful, the statues ranged in color from deep black to palest white. Every inch of their perfectly sculpted bodies was covered with archaic script, hieroglyphs from a forgotten language. But their faces were blank, unmarked and unfinished: little more than vague ovals, without eyes, ears, noses or mouths. Male and female stood side by side in identical positions, tall, elegant and otherworldly. They looked not unlike the Elders or even the legendary Archons but were obviously different from those races.

When Prometheus had stepped into the statue-filled chamber, his fiery aura had popped alight, washing over the closest statues. Red sparks ran across the curling script, bringing it to life, and his aura sank into the clay, which shifted and
flowed with the heat. Features began to form on their blank faces: clay running off the foreheads into peaks that formed noses and chins, depressions shaping into eyes, cracks hinting at mouths. The ancient texts glowed orange, then red and finally blue, thickening and sinking below the surface like veins beneath skin.

Prometheus was ablaze. His aura streamed from his body in helixes of power, bathing the statues … bringing them to life.

Tsagaglalal had been the clay statue closest to Prometheus. One moment she was without consciousness, and the next she existed. Opening slate-gray eyes, she was instantly aware of her surroundings. The heat awakened memories, thoughts and implanted ideas—she knew who she was. She even knew the name of the figure feeding her raw burning energy.

She was Tsagaglalal.

She lifted her arm and a sliver of hardened clay fell away and shattered on the ground, revealing dark flesh beneath. She brought the hand to her face and flexed her fingers, dirt crumbling from them.

Behind her, a second statue, a male, shifted slightly, and a slab of clay fell away from his torso to expose rich golden skin beneath. She turned stiffly and looked at him. Memories that could never have been hers gave her his name. This was Gilgamesh, and together, they were the first of the First People.

Prometheus’s aura had brought them to life. It had kept Tsagaglalal alive for many, many millennia.

And Prometheus’s aura burned within her still.

Tsagaglalal sat cross-legged on the Golden Gate Bridge, with her back to the city. Prometheus and Niten lay stretched out by her side. She had arranged them with their feet pointing toward the city so that when she sat between them, she would be able to touch their foreheads.

Pressing both hands against her stomach, Tsagaglalal breathed deeply and felt heat bloom within her. Her white jasmine-scented aura was touched by a suggestion of anise and burned with the merest hint of red.

Tsagaglalal’s age was not measured in centuries or millennia, but in hundreds of millennia. She had seen the rise and fall of countless civilizations and had explored endless Shadowrealms, lived entire lives on worlds where time flowed differently. There was so much she had witnessed, so much she had done, and yet there was one great mystery whose answer had always eluded her: who had created her? Prometheus had brought her to life, but who had carved the human-sized clay statues and then placed them in the Nameless City?

After millennia of searching, she was still no closer to the truth. Even her husband, the legendary Abraham the Mage, had been unable to answer the question. “And maybe you will never know,” he’d told her once. “But what I do know is that you are here for a reason. You and your brother were meant to be found. You were meant to be brought to life by Prometheus. Perhaps one day you will discover the reason for your existence.”

And now, sitting on a cold damp bridge on a summer’s evening in San Francisco, Tsagaglalal believed she might have discovered that reason.

Intense heat flowed through her body, down her arms and into her hands, which were cupped, left hand atop right hand, in her lap. Her fingers glowed, the tips burning red, then yellow and finally white-hot. Her fingernails melted and a thin gelatinous fluid leaked from her fingertips and dribbled into her hands.

The smell of jasmine was gone now, replaced by the thick cloying odor of anise.

Tsagaglalal looked down. A puddle of rich bloodred aura shimmered in her palm. With infinite care, she lifted it … and then stopped. It was not enough. She’d used too much of her aura earlier, rejuvenating herself; she only had enough aura for one.

But which one?

Tsagaglalal looked from Niten to Prometheus and then back to the immortal. She liked him. He was quiet and unassuming, and yet she knew he had a reputation as a fearsome warrior and a man of honor. He was remarkable: he had gone into battle against the Spartoi, knowing that he would probably not return. He’d been prepared to sacrifice his life to save the city. He deserved to live.