The Magician (The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel #2) (6 page)

Machiavelli rounded on the captain, his face as impassive as the masks he collected. His cold gray eyes bored into the man, but when he spoke his voice was even and controlled, barely above a whisper. “You know who I am?” he asked mildly.

The captain, a decorated veteran of the French Foreign Legion, felt something cold and sour at the back of his throat as he looked into the man’s stony eyes. Licking suddenly dry lips, he said, “You are Monsieur Machiavelli, the new head of the Direction Genarale de la Securite Exterieure. But this is a police matter, sir, not an external security matter. You have no authority”

“I am making this a DGSE matter”, Machiavelli interrupted softly. “My powers come directly from the president. I will shut down this entire city if necessary. I want these people found. Tonight, a catastrophe was averted.” He waved his hand vaguely in the direction of Sacre -Coeur, now beginning to appear out of the thinning mist. “Who knows what other terrors they have planned? I want a progress report on the hour, every hour”, he finished, and without waiting for a response turned and marched over to his car, where his dark-suited driver waited, arms folded across his massive chest. The driver, face half hidden behind wraparound mirrored sunglasses, opened the door and then closed it gently behind Machiavelli. After he had climbed into the car, the driver sat patiently, black gloved hands resting lightly on the leather steering wheel, and awaited instructions. The sheet of privacy glass that separated the driver s section from the back of the car buzzed down.

“Flamel is in Paris. Where would he go?” Machiavelli asked without preamble.

The creature known as Dagon had served Machiavelli for close to four hundred years. It was the name by which he had been known for millennia, and despite his appearance, he had never been even remotely human. Turning in the seat, he pulled off his mirrored sunglasses. In the dim car interior, his eyes were bulbous and fishlike, huge and liquid behind a clear, glassy film: he had no eyelids. When he spoke, two rows of tiny ragged teeth were visible behind his thin lips. “Who are his allies?” Dagon asked, shifting from deplorable French to appalling Italian before dropping back to the bubbling, liquid language of his long-lost youth.

“Flamel and his wife have always been loners”, Machiavelli said. “That is why they have survived for so long. To the best of my knowledge, they have not lived in this city since the end of the eighteenth century.” He pulled out his slender black laptop and ran his index finger over the integrated fingerprint reader. The machine blipped and the screen blinked to life.

“If they came through a leygate, then they came unprepared”, Dagon said wetly. “No money, no passports, no clothes other than those they were wearing.”

“Exactly”, Machiavelli whispered. “So they’re going to need to find themselves an ally.”

“Humani or immortal?” Dagon asked.

Machiavelli took a moment to consider. “An immortal”, he said finally. “I’m not sure they know many humani in this city.”

“So which immortals are currently living in Paris?” Dagon asked.

The Italian’s fingers hit a complicated series of keystrokes and the screen scrolled to reveal a directory called Temp. There were dozens of .jpg, .bmp and .tmp files in the directory. Machiavelli highlighted one and hit Enter. A box appeared in the center of the screen.

Enter Password.

His slender fingers clicked across the keyboard as he typed in the password
Del
modo di trattare i sudditi della Val di Chiana ribellati,
and a database encoded with unbreakable 256-bit AES encryption, the same encryption used by most governments for their top-secret files, blinked open. Over the course of his long life, Niccol Machiavelli had amassed a huge fortune, but he considered this single file to be his most valuable treasure. It was a complete dossier on every immortal human still living in the twenty-first century, compiled by his network of spies across the globe most of whom didn’t even know they were working for him. He scrolled through the names. Not even his own Dark Elder masters knew he possessed this list, and he was sure some would be very unhappy if they were to discover that he also knew the locations and attributes of almost all the Elders and Dark Elders still walking the earth or in the Shadowrealms that bordered this world.

Knowledge, as Machiavelli well knew, was power.

Although there were three screens devoted to Nicholas and Perenelle Flamel, hard information was scarce. There were hundreds of entries, each one a reported sighting of the Flamel’s since their supposed deaths in 1418. They had been seen on just about every continent in the world except Australia. For the past 150 years, they had lived on the North American continent, with the first confirmed and verified sighting of the last century taking place in Buffalo,
New York
, in September 1901. He skipped to the section marked
Known Immortal Associates.
It was blank.

“Nothing. I have no records of the Flamels associating with other immortals.”

“But now he is back in Paris”, Dagon said, bubbles of liquid forming on his lips as he spoke. “He will seek out old friends. People behave differently at home”, he added; “their guard comes down. And no matter how long Flamel has lived away from this city, he will still consider it his home.”

Niccol Machiavelli looked over the top of the computer screen. He was reminded yet again of how little he knew about his faithful employee. “And where is your home, Dagon?” he asked.

“Gone. Long gone.” A translucent skin flickered across the huge globes of his eyes.

“Why have you remained with me?” Machiavelli wondered aloud. “Why have you not sought out others of your kind?”

“They too are gone. I am the last of my kind, and besides, you are not that dissimilar to me.”

“But you are not human”, Machiavelli said softly.

“Are you?” Dagon asked, eyes wide and unblinking.

Machiavelli took a long moment before finally nodding and returning to the screen. “So we’re looking for someone the Flamels would have known when they were still living here. And we know they haven’t been in the city since the eighteenth century, so let us limit our search to immortals who were around then.” His fingers tapped the keys, filtering the results. “Seven only. Five are loyal to us.”

“And the other two?”

“Catherine de Medici is living off the Rue du Dragon.”

“She’s not French”, Dagon mumbled stickily.

“Well, she was the mother of three French kings”, Machiavelli said with a rare smile. “But she is loyal only to herself”. His voice trailed away and he straightened. “But what do we have here?”

Dagon remained unmoving.

Niccol Machiavelli swiveled the computer screen so that his servant could see the photograph of a man staring directly at the camera in what was obviously a posed publicity shot. Thick curling black hair tumbled to his shoulders, framing a round face. His eyes were startlingly blue.

“I do not know this man”, Dagon said.

“Oh, but I do. I know him very well. This is the immortal human once known as the Comte de Saint-Germain. He was a magician, an inventor, a musician and an alchemist.” Machiavelli closed the program and shut down the computer.

“Saint-Germain was also the student of Nicholas Flamel. And he’s currently living in Paris”, he finished triumphantly.

Dagon smiled, his mouth a perfect O filled with razor teeth. “Does Flamel know that Saint-Germain is here?”

“I have no idea. No one knows the extent of Nicholas Flamel’s knowledge.”

Dagon pushed his sunglasses back in place. “And I thought you knew everything.”

“W
e need to rest”, Josh said finally. “I can’t go any farther.” He stopped and leaned against a building, bent over and wheezing. Every breath was an effort, and he was beginning to see black spots dancing in front of his eyes. Any moment now he was going to throw up. He felt this way sometimes after football practice, and he knew from experience that he needed to sit and get some liquids into his system.

“He’s right.” Scatty turned to Flamel. “We need to rest, even if only briefly.” She was still carrying Sophie in her arms, and with gray glimmers of light illuminating the Parisian rooftops toward the east, the first of the early-morning workers had begun to appear. The fugitives had kept to the dark side streets, and so far no one had paid any attention to the strange group, but that would quickly change as the street filled first with Parisians, then with tourists.

Nicholas stood outlined at the mouth of the narrow street. He glanced up and down before turning to look over his shoulder. “We have to push on”, he protested. “Every second we delay brings Machiavelli closer to us.”

“We can’t”, Scatty said. She looked at Flamel, and for a single instant, her bright green eyes glowed. “The twins need to rest”, she said, and then added softly, “And so do you, Nicholas. You’re exhausted.”

The Alchemyst considered her and then he nodded and his shoulders slumped. “You’re right, of course. I’ll do as you say.”

“Maybe we could check into a hotel?” Josh suggested. He was achingly tired, his eyes and throat gritty, head throbbing.

Scatty shook her head. “They would ask for our passports.” Sophie stirred in her arms, and Scathach gently eased her to the ground and leaned her up against the wall.

Josh was immediately by her side. “You’re awake”, he said, relief in his voice.

“I wasn’t really asleep”, Sophie answered, her tongue feeling too big for her mouth. “I knew what was going on, but it was as if I was looking at it from the outside. Like watching something on TV.” She pressed her hands into the small of her back and pushed hard as she rotated her neck. “Ouch. That hurt.”

“What hurts?” Josh asked immediately.

“Everything.” She attempted to straighten, but aching muscles protested and a sick headache pulsed behind her eyes.

“Is there anyone here you can call for help?” Josh looked from Nicholas to Scathach. “Are there any more immortals or Elders?”

“There are immortals and Elders everywhere”, Scatty said. “Few are as friendly as we are, though”, she added with a humorless smile.

“There will be immortals in Paris”, Flamel agreed slowly, “but I’ve no idea where to find one, and even if I did, I would have no idea where their allegiances lay. Perenelle would know”, he added, a hint of sadness in his voice.

“Would your grandmother know?” Josh asked Scatty.

The Warrior glanced at him. “I’m sure she would.” She turned to look at Sophie. “Amongst all of your new memories, can you recall anything about immortals or Elders living in Paris?”

Sophie closed her eyes and tried to concentrate, but the scenes and images that flashed by fire raining from a bloodred sky, a huge flat-topped pyramid about to be overwhelmed by a gigantic wave were chaotic and terrifying. She started to shake her head, then stopped. Even the simplest of movements hurt. “I can’t think”, she sighed. “My head is so full, it feels like it’s going to burst.”

“The Witch might know”, Flamel said, “but we have no way of getting in touch with her. She has no phone.”

“What about her neighbors, friends?” Josh asked. He turned back to his sister. “I know you don’t want to think about this, but you have to. It’s important.”

“I can’t think”, Sophie began, looking away and shaking her head.

“Don’t think. Just answer”, Josh snapped. He took a quick breath and lowered his voice, speaking slowly. “Sis, who is the Witch of Endor’s closest friend in Ojai?”

Sophie’s bright blue eyes closed again and she swayed as if she was about to faint. When her eyes opened, she shook her head. “She has no friends there. But everyone knows her. Maybe we could call the store next to hers”, she suggested. Then she shook her head. “It’s too late there.”

Flamel nodded. “Sophie’s right; it’ll be closed at this time of night.”

“It’ll be closed, all right”, Josh agreed, a touch of excitement entering his voice, “but when we left Ojai, the place was in chaos. And don’t forget, I drove a Hummer into the fountain in
Libbey
Park
; that had to have caught someone’s attention. I’ll bet the police and the press are there right now. And the press might answer some questions if we ask the right ones. I mean, if the Witch’s shop was damaged they’re sure to be looking for a story.”

“It might work”, Flamel began. “I just need to know the name of the newspaper.”

“Ojai Valley News,
646-1476”, Sophie said immediately. “I remember that much or the Witch does”, she added, and then shuddered. There were so many memories in her head, so many thoughts and ideas and not just the terrifying and fantastic images of people and places that should never have existed, but also ordinary mundane thoughts: phone numbers and recipes, names and addresses of people she’d never heard of, pictures from old TV shows, posters from movies. She even knew the name of every single Elvis Presley song.

But all of these were the Witch’s memories. And right now, she had to struggle to remember her own cell phone number. What would happen if the Witch’s memories grew so strong that they overwhelmed her own? She tried to focus on the faces of her parents, Richard and Sara. Hundreds of faces flickered past, images of figures carved in stone, the heads of giant statues, paintings daubed onto the sides of buildings, tiny shapes etched in shards of pottery. Sophie started to get frantic. Why couldn’t she remember her parents’ faces? Closing her eyes, she concentrated hard on the last time she had seen her mother and father. It would have been about three weeks ago, just before they had left for the dig in
Utah
. More faces tumbled behind Sophie’s closed eyes: images on scraps of parchment, fragments of manuscripts or cracked oil paintings; faces in faded sepia photographs, in blurred newspapers