The Magician

by Michael Scott

  Scatty drew the twins away from Nicholas and slowly retreated under the shadowed arches. Standing between them, she put her arms around their shoulders—both their auras crackling silver and gold with her touch—and drew their heads together.

  “Machiavelli. The master of lies.” Scatty’s whisper was the merest breath against their ears. “He must not hear us.”

  “I cannot say I am pleased to see you, Signor Machiavelli. Or is it Monsieur Machiavelli in this age?” the Alchemyst said quietly, leaning against the balustrade, looking down the white steps to where Machiavelli was still small in the distance.

  “This century, I am French,” Machiavelli replied, his voice clearly audible. “I love Paris. It is my favorite city in Europe—after Florence, of course.”

  While Nicholas talked to Machiavelli, he kept his hands behind his back, out of sight of the other immortal. His fingers were moving in an intricate series of taps and beats.

  “Is he working a spell?” Sophie breathed, watching his hands.

  “No, he’s talking to me,” Scatty said.

  “How?” Josh whispered. “Magic? Telepathy?”

  “ASL: American Sign Language.”

  The twins glanced quickly at one another. “American Sign Language?” Josh asked. “He knows sign language? How?”

  “You seem to keep forgetting that he’s lived a long time,” Scathach said with a grin that showed her vampire teeth. “And he did help create French sign language in the eighteenth century,” she added casually.

  “What’s he saying?” Sophie asked impatiently. Nowhere in the witch’s memory could she find the knowledge necessary to translate the older man’s gestures.

  Scathach frowned, her lips moving as she spelled out a word. “Sophie…brouillard… fog,” she translated. She shook her head. “Sophie, he’s asking you for fog. That doesn’t make sense.”

  “It does to me,” Sophie said as a dozen images of fog, clouds and smoke flashed through her brain.

  Niccolò Machiavelli paused on the steps and drew in a deep breath. “My people have the entire area surrounded,” he said, moving slowly toward the Alchemyst. He was slightly out of breath and his heart was hammering; he really needed to get back to the gym.

  Creating the wax tulpa had exhausted him. He had never made one so big before, and never from the back of a car roaring through Montmartre’s narrow and winding streets. It wasn’t an elegant solution, but all he had needed to do was to keep Flamel and his companions trapped in the church until he got there, and he had succeeded. Now the church was surrounded, more gendarmes were en route and he had called in all available agents. As the head of the DGSE, his powers were almost limitless, and he’d issued an order to impose a press blackout. He prided himself on having complete control of his emotions, but he had to admit that right now he was feeling quite excited: soon he would have Nicholas Flamel, Scathach and the children in custody. He would have triumphed where Dee had failed.

  Later he would have someone in his department leak a story to the press that thieves had been apprehended breaking into the national monument. Close to dawn—just in time for the early-morning news—a second report would be leaked, revealing how the desperate prisoners had overpowered their guards and escaped on their way to the police station. They would never be seen again.

  “I have you now, Nicholas Flamel.”

  Flamel came to stand at the edge of the steps and pushed his hands into the back pockets of his worn black jeans. “I believe the last time you made that statement, you were just about to break into my tomb.”

  Machiavelli stopped in shock. “How do you know that?”

  More than three hundred years ago, in the dead of night, Machiavelli had cracked open Nicholas and Perenelle’s tomb, looking for proof that the Alchemyst and his wife were indeed dead and trying to determine whether they had been buried with the Book of Abraham the Mage. The Italian hadn’t been entirely surprised to find that both coffins were filled with stones.

  “Perry and I were right there behind you, standing in the shadows, close enough to touch you when you lifted the top off our tomb. I knew someone would come…I just never imagined it would be you. I’ll admit I was disappointed, Niccolò,” he added.

  The white-haired man continued up the steps to Sacré-Coeur. “You always thought I was a better person than I was, Nicholas.”

  “I believe there is good in everyone,” Flamel whispered, “even you.”

  “Not me, Alchemyst, not anymore, and not for a very long time.” Machiavelli stopped and indicated the police and heavily armed black-clad French special forces gathering at the bottom of the steps. “Come now. Surrender. No harm will come to you.”

  “I cannot tell you how many people have said that to me,” Nicholas said sadly. “And they were always lying,” he added.

  Machiavelli’s voice hardened. “You can deal with me or with Dr. Dee. And you know the English Magician never had any patience.”

  “There is one other option,” Flamel said with a shrug. His thin lips curled in a smile. “I could deal with neither of you.” He half turned, but when he looked back at Machiavelli, the expression on the Alchemyst’s face made the immortal Italian take a step back in shock. For an instant something ancient and implacable shone through Flamel’s pale eyes, which flickered a brilliant emerald green. Now it was Flamel’s voice that dropped to a whisper, still clearly audible to Machiavelli. “It would be better if you and I were never to meet again.”

  Machiavelli attempted a laugh, but it came out sounding shaky. “That sounds like a threat…and believe me, you are in no position to issue threats.”

  “Not a threat,” Flamel said, and stepped back from the top steps. “A promise.”

  The cool damp Parisian night air was abruptly touched with the rich odor of vanilla, and Niccolò Machiavelli knew then that something was very wrong.

  Standing straight, eyes closed, arms at her sides, palms facing outward, Sophie Newman took a deep breath, attempting to calm her thundering heart and allow her mind to wander. When the Witch of Endor had wrapped her like a mummy with bandages of solidified air, she had imparted thousands of years of knowledge into the girl in a matter of heartbeats. Sophie had imagined she’d felt her head swelling as her brain filled with the Witch’s memories. Since then, her skull had throbbed with a headache, the base of her neck felt stiff and tight and there was a dull ache behind her eyes. Two days ago she had been an ordinary American teenager, her head filled with normal everyday things: homework and school projects, the latest songs and videos, boys she liked, cell phone numbers and Web addresses, blogs and urls.

  Now she knew things that no person should ever know.

  Sophie Newman possessed the Witch of Endor’s memories; she knew all that the Witch had seen, everything she had done over millennia. It was all a jumble: a mixture of thoughts and wishes, observations, fears and desires, a confusing mess of bizarre sights, terrifying images and incomprehensible sounds. It was as if a thousand movies had been mixed up and edited together. And scattered throughout the tangle of memories were countless incidences when the Witch had actually used her special power, the Magic of Air. All Sophie had to do was find a time when the Witch had used fog.

  But when and where and how to find it?

  Ignoring Flamel’s voice calling down to Machiavelli, blanking out the sour smell of her brother’s fear and the jingle of Scathach’s swords, Sophie concentrated her thoughts on mist and fog.

  San Francisco was often wrapped in fog, and she’d seen the Golden Gate Bridge rising out of a thick layer of cloud. And only last fall, when the family had been in St. Paul’s Cathedral in Boston, they’d stepped out onto Tremont Street to find that a damp fog had completely obscured the Common. Other memories began to intrude: mist in Glasgow; swirling damp fog in Vienna; thick foul-smelling yellow smog in London.

  Sophie frowned; she had never been to Glasgow, Vienna or London. But the Witch had…and these were the Witch of Endor’s memories.
/>   Images, thoughts and memories—like the strands of fog she was seeing in her head—shifted and twisted. And then they suddenly cleared. Sophie clearly remembered standing alongside a figure dressed in the formal clothing of the nineteenth century. She could see him in her mind’s eye, a man with a long nose and a high forehead topped with graying curly hair. He was sitting at a high desk, a thick sheaf of cream-colored paper before him, dipping a simple pen into a brimming inkwell. It took her a moment to realize that this was not one of her own memories, nor was it something she had seen on TV or in a movie. She was remembering something the Witch of Endor had done and seen. As she turned to look closely at the figure, the Witch’s memories flooded her: the man was a famous English writer and was just about to begin work on a new book. The writer glanced up and smiled at her; then his lips moved, but there was no sound. Leaning over his shoulder, she saw him write the words Fog everywhere. Fog up the river. Fog down the river in an elegant curling script. Outside the writer’s study window, fog, thick and opaque, rolled like smoke against the dirty glass, blotting out the background in an impenetrable blanket.

  And beneath the portico of Sacré-Coeur in Paris, the air turned chill and moist, rich with the odor of vanilla ice cream. A trickle of white dribbled from each of Sophie’s outstretched fingers. The wispy streams curled down to puddle at her feet. Behind her closed eyes, she watched the writer dip his pen into the inkwell and continue. Fog creeping…fog lying…fog drooping…fog in the eyes and throats…

  Thick white fog spilled from Sophie’s fingers and spread across the stones, shifting like heavy smoke, flowing in twisting ropes and gossamer threads. Coiling and shifting, it flowed through Flamel’s legs and tumbled down the steps, growing, thickening, darkening.

  Niccolò watched the fog flow down the steps of Sacré-Coeur like dirty milk, watched it condense and grow as it tumbled, and knew, in that moment, that Flamel was going to elude him. By the time the fog reached him it was chest high, wet and vanilla scented. He breathed deeply, recognizing the odor of magic.

  “Remarkable,” he said, but the fog flattened his voice, dulling his carefully cultivated French accent, revealing the harsher Italian beneath.

  “Leave us alone,” Flamel’s voice boomed out of the fog.

  “That sounds like another threat, Nicholas. Believe me when I tell you that you have no idea of the forces gathered against you now. Your parlor tricks will not save you.” Machiavelli pulled out his cell phone and hit a speed dial number. “Attack. Attack now!” He raced up the steps as he spoke, moving silently on expensive leather-soled shoes, while far below, booted feet thumped on stone as the gathered police charged up the steps.

  “I’ve survived for a very long time.” Flamel’s voice didn’t come from where Machiavelli expected it to, and he stopped, turning left and right, trying to make out a shape in the fog.

  “The world moved on, Nicholas,” Machiavelli said. “You did not. You might have escaped us in America, but here, in Europe, there are too many Elders, too many immortal humans who know you. You will not be able to remain hidden for long. We will find you.”

  Machiavelli dashed up the final few steps that brought him directly to the entrance of the church. There was no mist here. The unnatural fog started on the top step and flowed downward, leaving the church floating like an island on a cloudy sea. Even before he ran into the church, Machiavelli knew he would not find them in there: Flamel, Scathach and the twins had escaped.

  For the moment.

  But Paris was no longer Nicholas Flamel’s city. The city that had once honored Flamel and his wife as patrons of the sick and poor, the city that named streets after them, was long gone. Paris now belonged to Machiavelli and the Dark Elders he served. Looking out over the ancient city, Niccolò Machiavelli swore that he was going to turn Paris into a trap—and maybe even a tomb—for the legendary Alchemyst.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  The ghosts of Alcatraz awoke Perenelle Flamel.

  The woman lay unmoving on the narrow cot in the cramped icy cell deep beneath the abandoned prison and listened to them whisper and murmur in the shadows around her. There were a dozen languages she could understand, many more she could identify and a few that were completely incomprehensible.

  Keeping her eyes closed, Perenelle concentrated on the languages, trying to make out the individual voices, wondering if there were any she recognized. And then a sudden thought struck her: how was she able to hear the ghosts?

  Sitting outside the cell was a sphinx, a monster with a lion’s body, an eagle’s wings and the head of a beautiful woman. One of its special powers was the ability to absorb the magical energies of another living being. It had drained Perenelle’s, rendering her helpless, trapping her in this terrible prison cell.

  A tiny smile curled Perenelle’s lips as she realized something: she was the seventh daughter of a seventh daughter; she had been born with the ability to hear and see ghosts. She had been doing so long before she had learned how to train and concentrate her aura. Her gift had nothing to do with magic, and therefore the sphinx had no power over it. Throughout the centuries of her long life, she had used her skill with magic to protect herself from ghosts, to coat and shield her aura with colors that rendered her invisible to the apparitions. But as the sphinx had absorbed her energies, those shields had been wiped away, revealing her to the spirit realm.

  And now they were coming.

  Perenelle Flamel had seen her first ghost—that of her beloved grandmother Mamom—when she was seven years old. Perenelle knew that there was nothing to fear from ghosts; they could be annoying, certainly, were often irritating and sometimes downright rude, but they possessed no physical presence. There were even a few she had learned to call friends. Over the centuries certain spirits had returned to her again and again, drawn to her because they knew she could hear, see or help them—and often, Perenelle thought, simply because they were lonely. Mamom turned up every decade or so just to check up on her.

  But even though they had no presence in the real world, ghosts were not powerless.

  Opening her eyes, Perenelle concentrated on the chipped stone wall directly in front of her face. The wall ran with green-tinged water that smelled of rust and salt, the two elements that had ultimately destroyed Alcatraz the prison. Dee had made a mistake, as she had known he would. If Dr. John Dee had one great failing, it was arrogance. He obviously thought that if she was imprisoned deep below Alcatraz and guarded by a sphinx, then she was powerless. He could not be more wrong.

  Alcatraz was a place of ghosts.

  And Perenelle Flamel would show him just how powerful she was.

  Closing her eyes, relaxing, Perenelle listened to the ghosts of Alcatraz, and then slowly, her voice barely above a breathed whisper, she began to talk to them, to call them and to gather them all to her.

  CHAPTER SIX

  “I’m OK,” Sophie murmured sleepily, “really I am.”

  “You don’t look OK,” Josh muttered through gritted teeth. For the second time in as many days, Josh was carrying his sister in his arms, one arm under her back, the other beneath her legs. He moved cautiously down the steps of Sacré-Coeur, terrified he was going to drop his twin. “Flamel told us every time you use magic it will steal a little of your energy,” he added. “You look exhausted.”

  “I’m fine…,” she muttered. “Let me down.” But then her eyes flickered closed once more.

  The small group moved silently through the thick vanilla-scented fog, Scathach in the lead with Flamel taking up the rear. All around them they could hear the tramp of boots, the jingle of weapons, and the muted commands of the French police and special forces as they climbed the steps. Some of them came dangerously close, and twice Josh was forced to crouch low as a uniformed figure darted by.

  Scathach suddenly loomed up out of the thick fog, a short, stubby finger pressed to her lips. Water droplets frosted her spiky red hair, and her white skin looked even paler than usual. She pointed to the right wi
th her ornately carved nunchaku. The fog swirled and suddenly a gendarme was standing almost directly in front of them, close enough to touch, his dark uniform sparkling with beads of liquid. Behind him, Josh was able to make out a group of French police clustered around what looked like an old-fashioned merry-go-round. They were all staring upward, and Josh heard the word brouillard murmured again and again. He knew that they were talking about the strange fog that had suddenly descended over the church. The gendarme was holding his service pistol in his hand, the barrel pointed skyward, but his finger was lightly curled over the trigger and Josh was once again reminded just how much danger they were in—not only from Flamel’s nonhuman and inhuman enemies, but from his all-too-human foes as well.

  They walked perhaps another dozen steps…and suddenly the fog stopped. One moment Josh was carrying his sister through the thick mist; then, as if he had stepped through a curtain, he was standing in front of a tiny art gallery, a café and a souvenir shop. He turned to look behind him and found that he was facing a solid wall of mist. The police were little more than indistinct shapes in the yellow-white fog.

  Scathach and Flamel stepped out of the murk. “Allow me,” Scathach said, catching hold of Sophie and lifting her from Josh’s arms. He tried to protest—Sophie was his twin, his responsibility—but he was exhausted. The backs of his calves were cramping, and the muscles in his arms burned with the effort of carrying his sister down what had felt like countless steps.

  Josh looked into Scathach’s bright green eyes. “She’s going to be OK?”

  The ancient Celtic warrior opened her mouth to reply, but Nicholas Flamel shook his head, silencing her. He rested his left hand on Josh’s shoulder, but the boy shrugged it off. If Flamel noticed the gesture, he ignored it. “She just needs to sleep. The effort of raising the fog so soon after melting the tulpa has completely drained the last of her physical strength,” Flamel said.