The Magician (The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel #2) (44 page)

And she knew she was too late: he had been Awakened.

Ignoring the man crouching on the ground outside the chamber, Sophie raced through the doorway and her aura instantly hardened to a metallic shell as blazing arcs of gold fire bounced off the walls to spatter against her. She staggered, battered by the energy. Gripping the edge of the door, she held onto prevent herself from being pushed back out into the corridor.

“Josh”, she said, awed by the sight before her.

Josh was kneeling on the ground before what could only be Mars. The huge Elder was holding a broadsword aloft in his left hand, the point touching the ceiling, while his right was clamped onto her brother’s head. Josh’s aura was blazing like wildfire, cocooning him in golden light. Yellow fire spun around him, throwing off spheres and whips of energy. They splashed against the walls and ceilings, cutting away chunks of time-yellowed bone to reveal the white beneath.

“Josh!” Sophie screamed.

The god slowly turned his head and fixed her with glowing red eyes. “Leave”, Mars commanded.

Sophie shook her head. “Not without my twin”, she said through gritted teeth. She wasn’t going to abandon her brother; she’d never do that.

“He is no longer your twin”, Mars said mildly. “You are different now.”

“He will always be my twin”, she said simply.

Pushing into the room, she sent a wave of ice-cold silver fog rolling out from her body to wash over her brother and the Elder. It hissed and sizzled where it touched Josh’s aura, dirty white smoke curling up to gather at the ceiling. It frosted over Mars’s hard skin, and ice crystals sparkled in the amber light.

The god slowly lowered his sword. “Have you any idea who I am?” he asked, his voice soft, almost gentle. “If you did, you would fear me.”

“You are Mars Ultor”, Sophie said slowly, the Witch of Endor’s knowledge informing her. “And before the Romans worshipped you, the Greeks knew you as Ares, and before that the Babylonians called you Nergal.”

“Who are you?” The Elder’s hand dropped away from Josh’s head, and instantly, the boy’s aura winked out and the fires died.

Josh swayed and Sophie swooped in to catch him before he hit the ground. The moment she touched him, her own aura disappeared, leaving her defenseless. But she’d gone beyond fear now; she felt nothing, only relief that she’d been reunited with her twin. Crouching on the ground, cradling her brother in her arms, Sophie looked up at the towering war god. “And before you were Nergal, you were the champion of the humankind: you were Huitzilopochtli. You led the human slaves to safety when Danu Talis sank beneath the waves.”

The god staggered away. The backs of his knees hit the plinth and he sat down suddenly, the massive stone cracking beneath his great weight. “How do you know this?” he asked, and what sounded like fear rattled in his voice.

“Because you walked with the Witch of Endor.” She straightened, hauling her brother to his feet. His eyes were open but had rolled back in his head, leaving only the whites showing. “The Witch of Endor gave me all her memories”, Sophie said. “I know what you did and why she cursed you.” Stretching out her hand, she touched the god’s stone-hard skin with her fingertip. A spark snapped. “I know why she did this to your aura.”

Draping her brother’s arm over her shoulder, she turned her back on the war god. Flamel, Saint-Germain and Joan had arrived and had gathered in the doorway. Joan’s sword was loosely pointed at Dee, who was lying unmoving on the floor. No one spoke.

“If you have the Witch’s knowledge within you”, Mars said urgently, almost pleadingly, “then you know her incantations and cantrips. You know how to lift this curse.”

Nicholas hurried forward to lift Josh from Sophie’s arms, but she refused to let her brother go. Glancing over her shoulder at the god, she said very softly, “Yes, I know how to lift it.”

“Then do it”, Mars commanded. “Do it and I will give you everything you want. I can give you anything!”

Sophie thought for a moment. “Can you take away my Awakened senses? Can you make me and my brother normal again?”

There was a long moment of silence before the god spoke again. “No. I cannot do that.”

“Then there is nothing you can do for us.” Sophie turned away and, with Saint-Germain’s assistance, helped Josh out into the corridor. Joan ducked out, leaving only Flamel standing in the doorway.

“Wait!” The god’s voice rose and the entire chamber trembled with the sound. Phobos and Deimos slunk out from behind the cracked plinth, chattering noisily. “You will reverse this curse, or…” the god began.

Nicholas stepped forward. “Or what?”

“None of you will leave these catacombs alive”, Mars barked. “I will not permit it. And I am Mars Ultor!” The god’s hidden eyes blazed bloodred and he took a step forward, swinging the huge sword before him. “Who are you to deny me?”

“I am Nicholas Flamel. And you”, he added, “are an Elder who made the mistake of believing that you were a god.” He snapped his fingers and dust motes of glittering emerald drifted to the bone floor. They raced across the smoothly polished surface, leaving tiny threads of green in the aged yellow. “I am the Alchemyst and let me introduce you to the greatest secret of alchemy: transmutation.” And then he turned back to the corridor and disappeared into the shadows.

“No!” Mars took a step forward and instantly sank up to his ankle in the floor, which had suddenly turned soft and gelatinous. The god took another shuddering step and then lost his footing as the ground melted beneath his weight. He crashed forward, hitting the floor hard enough to send splashes of jellylike bone onto the walls. His sword bit a huge chunk out of the wall where, a moment earlier, Flamel had been standing. Mars struggled to regain his footing, but the floor was a shifting quagmire of sticky semiliquid bone. Rising to his hands and knees, Mars thrust his head forward to glare at Dee, who was slowly crawling out of the liquid toward the door. “This is your doing, Magician!” he howled savagely, the entire chamber vibrating with his rage. Bone dust and chips of ancient stone rained down. “I hold you responsible.”

Dee staggered to his feet and leaned against the doorframe, shaking glutinous jelly off his hands, brushing it off his ruined trousers.

“Bring me the girl and the boy”, Mars snarled, “and I may forgive you. Bring me the twins. Or else.”

“Or else what?” Dee asked mildly.

“I will destroy you: not even your Elder master will be able to protect you from my wrath.”

“Don’t you dare threaten me!” Dee said, his voice an ugly snarl. “And I don’t need my Elder to protect me.”

“Fear me, Magician, for you have made an enemy of me.”

“Do you know what I do to those who frighten me?” Dee demanded, his accent thickening. “I destroy them!” The room suddenly filled with the stench of sulfur, and then the bone walls began to run and melt like soft ice cream. “Flamel is not the only alchemist who knows the secret of transmutation”, he said as the ceiling turned soft and liquid, long strands dripping down to the floor, covering Mars in sticky fluid. Then it began to rain bone in huge yellow drops.

“Destroy him!” Mars howled. Phobos and Deimos leapt from the plinth onto the Elder’s back, teeth and claws extended, huge eyes fixed on Dee.

The Magician spoke a single word of power and snapped his fingers: the liquid bone instantly hardened.

Niccol Machiavelli appeared in the doorway. He folded his arms and looked into the chamber. In the center of the room, caught as he tried to rise from the floor, the two satyrs on his back, was Mars Ultor, frozen in bone.

“So the catacombs of Paris have yet another mysterious bone statue”, the Italian said mildly. Dee turned away. “First you kill Hekate and now Mars”, Machiavelli continued. “And I thought you were supposed to be on our side. You do realize”, he called after Dee, “that we are both dead men. We’ve failed to capture Flamel and the twins. Our masters will not forgive us.”

“We’ve not failed yet”, Dee called back. He was almost at the end of the corridor. “I know where this tunnel comes out. I know how we can capture them.” He stopped and looked back, and when he spoke, the words came slowly, almost reluctantly. “But Niccol we will need to work together. We will need to combine our powers.”

“What do you intend to do?” Machiavelli asked.

“Together, we can loose the Guardians of the City.”

T
he Morrigan managed to struggle to her feet, but a spiderweb as thick as her arm wrapped around her waist and twisted between her legs, entangling them, and she fell. She started to slide over the side of the water tower when a second and then a third web caught her, curling around her body, wrapping it from neck to toes in a thick mummy like shell. Perenelle leapt off Areop-Enap’s back and crouched beside the Crow Goddess. The head of her spear vibrated with energy, and red and white smoke coiled into the damp night air. You probably feel like screaming right now, Perenelle said with a wry smile. Go ahead.

The Morrigan obliged. Her jaws unhinged, black lips parted to reveal her savage teeth and she howled.

The nerve-shattering cry echoed across the island. Every unbroken pane of glass on Alcatraz shattered into powder, and the entire water tower swayed. Across the bay, the city came awake as business, house and car alarms along the waterfront burst into cacophonous life. Every dog within a hundred-mile radius of the island started yowling piteously.

But the scream also brought the rest of the huge flock of gathered birds surging into the night sky in a thunderous explosion of flapping wings and raucous cries. Most were immediately entangled and brought down by a thick cloud of spiderwebs hanging in the air between the desolate buildings, draped across every open window, spun from pole to pole. The moment the ensnared birds hit the ground, spiders of every shape and size swarmed over them, cocooning them in thick silver webs. Within moments, the island fell silent again.

A handful of Dire-Crows escaped. Six of the huge birds swooped low over the island, avoiding the festoons and nets of sticky web. The birds curled out over San Francisco Bay toward the bridge, soared high and then swung back to attack. Now they were above the entangling spiderwebs. They circled over the water tower. Twelve pitch-black eyes fixed on Perenelle, and razor beaks and dagger-tipped claws opened as they dropped silently toward the woman.

Crouched over the Morrigan, Perenelle caught the flickering hint of movement reflected in her adversary s black eyes. The Sorceress brought the spearhead to blazing life with a single word and spun it in her hand, leaving a red triangle burning in the foggy air. The savage birds flew through the red fire and
changed.

Six perfect eggs dropped out of the sky and were plucked out of midair by strands of gossamer-thin spider web. “Breakfast”, Areop-Enap said delightedly, clambering down the side of the tower.

Perenelle sat down beside the struggling Crow Goddess. Resting the spear on her knees, she looked out across the bay in the direction of the city she called home.

“What will you do now, Sorceress?” the Morrigan demanded.

“I have no idea”, Perenelle said truthfully. “It seems Alcatraz is mine.” She sounded almost bemused by the idea. “Well, mine and Areop-Enap’s.”

“Unless you’ve managed to master the art of flight, you are trapped here”, the Morrigan snarled. “This is Dee’s property. No tourists come here now; there are no sightseers, no fishing boats. You are still as much a prisoner as when you were in your cell. And the sphinx patrols the corridors below. She’ll be coming for you.”

The Sorceress smiled. “She can try.” She twirled the spear. It hummed in the air. “I wonder what this would turn her into: baby girl, lion cub or bird egg.”

“You know that Dee will return and in force. He’ll want his army of monsters.”

“I’ll be waiting for him, too”, the Sorceress promised.

“You cannot win”, the Morrigan spat.

“People have been telling Nicholas and me that for centuries. And yet, we’re still here.”

“What will you do with me?” the Crow Goddess asked eventually. “Unless you kill me, you know I’ll never rest until you are dead.”

Perenelle smiled. She brought the spearhead close to her lips and blew gently on it until it glowed white-hot. “I wonder what this would turn
you
into?” she asked absently. “Bird or egg?”

“I was born, not hatched”, the Morrigan said simply. “You cannot threaten me with death. It holds no fear for me.”

Perenelle got to her feet and planted the butt of the spear on the ground. “I’m not going to kill you. I’ve got a much more suitable punishment in store for you.” She looked toward the skies, and the wind took her long hair, blowing it straight out behind her. “I’ve often wondered what it would be like to be able to fly, to soar silently through the heavens.”

“There is no greater feeling”, the Morrigan said honestly.

Perenelle’s smile was icy. “That’s what I thought. So I’m going to take away that which you hold most precious: your freedom and your ability to fly. I have the most wonderful cell just for you.”

“No prison can hold me”, the Morrigan said contemptuously.

“It was designed to hold Areop-Enap”, Perenelle said. “Deep underground, you will never see the sunlight or fly in the air again.”