The Warlock (The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel #5) (7 page)

“None like this,” she murmured in French.

Shakespeare moved closer to Palamedes, the Saracen Knight. “I wish I were still writing,” he murmured. “What a tale this would make.”

“It’s how this tale ends that worries me,” Palamedes rumbled. “I’ve never wanted anything more than a quiet life. And yet I always end up in the middle of wars and battles.” He shook his head.

“How old is the city?” Saint-Germain wondered aloud. He squinted down at the maze of streets and waterways. “It reminds me a little of Venice.”

Marethyu shrugged. “The city is younger than the island, and the island is younger than the earth. It is said that the Great Elders raised the island in a single day by combining all the Elemental Magics. It was considered the greatest feat of magic the world had ever seen.”

“Has it a library?” Shakespeare asked.

“It has, Bard. One of the most remarkable in the world. The Great Library of Danu Talis is in a vast chamber hewn out of the bedrock at the base of that pyramid. You could spend the rest of your life exploring just one shelf. And there are hundreds of miles of shelves. The island is relatively modern, but the civilization of Danu Talis is older, much, much
older. The Great Elders ruled before the Elders, and there is a King List carved into the steps of the pyramid that stretches back hundreds of thousands of years. And before the Great Elders there were other races: the Archons, the Ancients and, in the very distant past, the Earthlords. One civilization building upon the ruins of the other.” Marethyu pointed with his hook to a huge stepped pyramid. “That is the Pyramid of the Sun, the very heart of not only the island but the empire. The Final Battle will be won or lost there.”

“And you know all that because it has already happened,” Scathach said.

“In one strand of time, yes.”

“And what happens in the other strands?”

Marethyu shrugged. “There are many strands, many possibilities, but we have come back to the point before those strands split apart, where our actions can shape the future.”

“How do you know this to be true?” Scathach demanded.

“Because Abraham the Mage told me.”

“I think we should go and see this Abra—” Scatty stopped suddenly and whirled around, eyes flaring.

The still morning air was filled with a low humming, the sound of distant bees.

“Down …,” Marethyu began, and then choked and staggered as a flickering blue-white electrical discharge rippled across his chest, sparking and snapping into his hook. He collapsed to the ground, pale smoke rising from his body, white sparks crawling across the runes etched into his hook.

Joan went to move to Marethyu’s side, but Saint-Germain
caught her arm and held her back. He shook his head slightly. “No. Wait.”

Shakespeare and Palamedes immediately moved apart, the bard taking up a position behind and to the left of his friend. If there was a battle, Will would guard his friend’s back.

“Vimanas coming,” Scathach snarled. She crouched but made no move to reach for the matched swords on her back. “Remain still, touch no metal.”

“What are vim …,” Joan began; then she followed Scathach’s finger. It was pointing straight up.

The warm air trembled and turned chill and suddenly three large spinning discs dropped out of the clear sky and hovered just above their heads, buzzing and vibrating gently. Everyone looked up. On the undersides of the metal discs was etched a map of Danu Talis.

“Vimanas,” Scathach explained. “Flying discs. A few survived the Fall of Danu Talis and made it to the Earth Shadowrealm. My father had one … until Aoife crashed it. She blamed me,” she added bitterly.

The largest disc—which was at least twelve feet across—dropped lower but did not settle on the ground, and a thin sheen of ice appeared on the grass beneath it. Under a crystal dome on top of the disc, two black jackal-headed creatures with solid red eyes glared out at them.

“I hate these guys,” Saint-Germain muttered.

“Anpu,” Scathach whispered. “I think we’re in trouble. Big trouble.”

urn here.” Dr. John Dee leaned forward and pointed to the right. “Take the Barbary Coast Trail and continue around to the Embarcadero. Then follow the signs for the Oakland Bay Bridge.”

Josh nodded, mouth clamped tightly shut, unwilling to speak and trying hard not to breathe too deeply. The Magician’s breath was foul with the stink of rotten eggs.

“Where are we going?” Virginia Dare asked from the shadows.

“Away from here,” Dee spat. “The streets will be swarming with police and firefighters.”

Josh adjusted the mirror so that he could see into the back of the car. Dee was sitting almost directly behind him, outlined in the faintest tracery of yellow, while the young-looking woman sat on the right, as far away from the Magician
as possible. She was tapping the wooden flute against her bottom lip.

Josh focused on driving, keeping the heavy car under control and within the speed limit. He tried not to think about what had just happened and, more importantly, what had happened with his sister. She’d turned against him—or rather, the Flamels had turned her against him. But where was she now … and how was he going to tell his parents that he had lost her? He was supposed to look after her, protect her. And he’d failed.

“What was the name of the comedian,” Virginia Dare asked suddenly, “part of a double act, who said, ‘Here’s another nice mess you’ve gotten me into’?”

“Stan Laurel,” Dee said.

“Oliver Hardy,” Josh corrected him. His father loved Laurel and Hardy. Even though Josh preferred the anarchic humor of the Marx Brothers, one of his earliest memories was of sitting on his father’s lap, feeling his entire body shake as he laughed uproariously at Laurel and Hardy’s antics.

“Oliver Hardy,” Virginia Dare repeated, nodding in agreement. “I met them once, a long time ago, when I first came out to Hollywood.”

“Were you in movies?” Josh asked, glancing at her in the mirror. She was certainly beautiful enough.

Dare’s white teeth flashed a quick smile in the gloom. “Before there was sound,” she said, then turned to the English Magician. “Well, here’s another nice mess you’ve gotten me into.”

“Not now, Virginia,” Dee said tiredly.

“You’ve gotten me in trouble before, John, but nothing like this. I knew I should never have joined with you.”

“It did not take much to convince you,” Dee reminded her.

“You promised me a world …,” she began, and then Dee’s hand shot out and touched her arm, his eyes darting toward Josh. The pause in her sentence was so brief it was barely noticeable. “… free of all pain and suffering,” she finished, unable to keep the note of sarcasm out of her voice.

Josh turned right off Bay Street onto the Embarcadero.

“All is not lost yet,” Dee said. “Not while we still have this.” Opening his stained and torn coat, he pulled out a small book bound in tarnished green copper. The book was about six inches across by nine inches long and was older than humanity. The doctor ran his fingers across the metal surface and yellow particles danced and crackled beneath his flesh. The air immediately turned sour as their three auras—orange, sage and sulfur—mingled. Sparks danced across every metal surface inside the car. The interior lights flashed on and off, then died, and the satellite navigation system’s LCD screen bubbled with warped rainbow-colored streamers. The radio turned itself on and ran through a dozen stations before dying in a squawk of static. Every indicator on the dashboard lit up with red warning lights. The heavy car jerked and stalled.

“Close it,” Josh called from the front. “It’s going to destroy the electronics in the car.” Dee snapped the book shut and shoved it back under his coat and Josh turned the ignition to restart the car. The engine coughed, then caught, and Josh floored the accelerator.

“Nicely done,” Virginia Dare said.

“The Codex is the key,” Dee continued, as if nothing had happened. “I am sure of that. All I have to do is figure out how to use it.” He leaned forward and tapped Josh on the shoulder. “If only someone hadn’t torn out the last two pages.”

Josh kept his mouth shut. Concentrating on the drive had, curiously, allowed him to think more clearly again. Beneath his red 49ers Faithful T-shirt he was carrying the two pages he’d torn from the Codex in a cloth bag around his neck. Although he had come to trust the English Magician—or to distrust him less than Flamel, anyway—for some reason he didn’t quite understand, Josh was still reluctant to let Dee know that he had the pages.

“Everything is coming,” Virginia Dare said quietly. “And I mean
everything
. Those cucubuths we encountered in London are nothing compared to what’s heading toward this city.” She twisted in her seat to look out the rear window. A tall column of smoke was rising into the sky over San Francisco. “The humani authorities will start investigating. First your company causes chaos in Ojai and now your head office burns down.” Even as she was speaking a rumbling explosion rippled through the air, sounding like distant thunder. “And this is not just any ordinary fire. I’m sure they’ll discover that you were storing illegal substances in the building.”

“A few chemicals I needed for my experiments,” Dee said dismissively.

“
Dangerous
chemicals,” Dare continued. “Also, you attacked two police officers. The authorities are going to be
looking very closely at you, Dr. Dee. How vulnerable are you to that type of investigation?”

Dee shrugged uncomfortably. “If they dig deep enough I’m sure they will find something. Nothing can remain truly secret in this digital age.”

Virginia blew gently across the top of her flute. The sound was harsh, discordant. “The SFPD will bring in the FBI; they will talk to Scotland Yard in London, and if they link it to the recent devastation in Paris, they will get in touch with the French Sûreté. Once the police start to look for you on their surveillance cameras, they’ll find you. Then they will start asking questions. I am sure they will want to know how you got from Ojai to Paris with no record of your travel, and then managed to get back to San Francisco without boarding a commercial or private jet.”

“You don’t have to sound quite so pleased about it,” Dee muttered.

“And let us not forget the Elders. I would imagine even now, Elders, Next Generation and assorted creatures are making their way here, following the stink of magic. No doubt a phenomenal reward has been offered for you dead or alive.”

“Alive,” Dee said miserably, “they want me alive.”

“How do you know?”

“Machiavelli told me.”

“Machiavelli!” Virginia and Josh said simultaneously.

“No friend of yours, John,” Virginia said, “unless you’ve had an extraordinary change of heart in the last few hundred years.”

“Not my friend, but not exactly my enemy, either. He too has failed his Elder master.” He jerked his thumb behind him. “Do you know, he’s only a couple of miles away? He’s on Alcatraz with Billy the Kid.”

“Billy the Kid?” Josh said quickly. “
The
Billy the Kid? The outlaw?”

“Yes, yes,” Dee snapped. “The immortal Billy the Kid.”

“What are they doing there?” Josh asked, confused.

“Mischief,” Dee said with a smile.

“How can they get onto the island? I thought it was closed to the public.”

“It is,” Dee said. “My company, Enoch Enterprises, owns it. We bought it from the state. We told them we were going to turn it into a living history museum.”

Josh slowed as the traffic lights ahead of him turned red. “I’m guessing that was a lie,” he said.

“Dr. John Dee is incapable of telling the truth,” Virginia Dare muttered.

The immortal ignored her. “My masters instructed me to gather a menagerie of beasts and monsters in a secure location as close to the city as possible. The island prison was the perfect location. And it had ready-made cells to house them.”

The woman sat forward. “What sort of monsters?” she asked. “The usual kind, or did you find something interesting?”

“The worst kind,” Dee said. “The nightmares, the savages, the abominations.”

“Why?”

“When the time is right, they want to release them onto the city.”