De Ayala’s arm appeared, ghostly white, directly in front of her, pointing to the left. She realized that she was standing at the mouth of a tall, roughly hewn tunnel that sloped gently downward. De Ayala’s ghostly luminescence lit up the coating of spiders’ webs that sheathed the walls. They were so thick that it looked as if the walls were painted silver.
“I cannot go any farther,” the ghost said, his voice rasping around the walls. “Dee has placed incredibly powerful warding spells and sigils in the tunnel; I cannot get past. The cell you are looking for is about ten paces ahead and on your left-hand side.”
Although Perenelle was reluctant to use her magic, she knew she had no choice. She was certainly not going to wander into a tunnel in pitch-darkness. She snapped her fingers and a globe of white fire winked to life over her right shoulder. It shed a soft opalescent glow over the tunnel, picking out each spider’s web in intricate detail. The webs stretched in a thick curtain right across the opening. She could see webs woven on top of webs and wondered how many spiders were down here.
Perenelle stepped forward, the light moving with her, and she suddenly saw the first of the Wards and protections Dee had placed along the tunnel. A series of tall metal-tipped wooden spears had been implanted deep in the muddy floor. The flat metal head of each spear was painted with an ancient symbol of power, a square hieroglyph that would have been familiar to the ancient Maya peoples of Central America. She could see at least a dozen spears, each painted with a different symbol. She knew that individually the symbols were meaningless, but together they set up an incredibly powerful zigzagging network of raw power that crisscrossed the corridor with invisible beams of black light. It reminded her of the complicated laser alarms banks used. The power had no effect on humans—all she could feel was a dull buzzing and a tension at the back of her neck—but it was an impenetrable barrier to any of the Elder Race, the Next Generation and the Creatures of the Were. Even de Ayala, a ghost, was affected by the barrier.
Perenelle recognized some of the symbols on the spearheads; she had seen them in the Codex and etched onto the walls of the ruins at Palenque in Mexico. Most of them predated mankind; many of them were even older than the Elders and belonged to the race that had inhabited the earth in the far-distant past. They were the Words of Power, the ancient Symbols of Binding, designed to protect—or trap—something either incredibly valuable or extraordinarily dangerous.
She had a feeling this was going to be the latter.
And she also wondered where Dee had discovered the ancient words.
Sloshing through the thick mud, Perenelle took her first step into the tunnel. All the spiderwebs rustled and trembled, a sound like the whispering rustle of leaves. There must be millions of spiders in here, she thought. They didn’t frighten her; she’d come up against creatures much more frightening than spiders, but she was aware that there were probably poisonous brown recluses, black widows or even South American hunting spiders amongst the mass of arachnids. A bite from one of them would certainly incapacitate her, possibly even kill her.
Perenelle jerked one of the spears out of the mud and used it to swipe away the web. The square symbol on the spearhead glowed red and the gossamer webs hissed and sizzled where the spear touched them. A thick shadow that she knew was a mass of spiders flowed backward into the gloom. Advancing slowly down the narrow tunnel, she knocked over each spear she came to, allowing the filthy mud to wash away the Words of Power, gradually dismantling the intricate pattern of magic. If Dee had gone to all this trouble to trap something in the cell, it meant that he couldn’t control it. Perenelle wanted to find out what it was and free it. But as she drew nearer, the globe over her shoulder throwing a flickering light across the corridor, another thought crossed her mind: had Dee imprisoned something that even she should be afraid of, something ancient, something horrible? Suddenly, she didn’t know if she was making a terrible mistake.
The doorposts and the entrance to the cell had been painted with symbols that hurt her eyes to look at. Harsh and angular, they seemed to shift and twist on the rock, not unlike the writing in the Book of Abraham. But whereas the letters in the ancient book formed words in languages she mostly understood, or at least recognized, these symbols twisted into unimaginable shapes.
She bent down, scooped up some of the mud and splashed it over the letters, erasing them. Only when she had completely cleaned away the primeval Words of Power did she step forward and send the globe of light twisting and bobbing into the cell.
It took Perenelle a single heartbeat to make sense out of what she was seeing. And in that moment, she realized that dismantling the protective pattern of power might indeed have been a terrible mistake.
The entire cell was a thick cocoon of spiders’ webs. In the center of the cell, dangling from a single strand of silk no thicker than her index finger, was a spider. The creature was enormous, easily the same size as the huge water tower that dominated the island above her head. It vaguely resembled a tarantula but bristling purple hair tipped with gray covered its entire body. Each of its eight legs was thicker than Perenelle. Set in the center of its body was a huge, almost human head. It was smooth and round, with no ears, no nose and only a horizontal slash for a mouth. Like a tarantula, it had eight tiny eyes set close to the top of the skull.
And one by one, the eyes slowly opened, each the color of an old bruise. They fixed on the woman’s face. Then the mouth widened, and two long spearlike fangs appeared. “Madame Perenelle. Sorceress,” it lisped.
“Areop-Enap,” she said in wonder, acknowledging the ancient spider Elder. “I thought you were dead.”
“You mean you thought you’d killed me!”
The web twitched and suddenly the hideous creature launched itself at Perenelle.
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
Dr. John Dee leaned across the backseat of the police car. “Turn here,” he said to Josh. He saw the expression on the young man’s face and added, “Please.”
Josh hit the brakes and the car slid and screeched, the front tire now completely torn away and the wheel running on the metal rim, kicking up sparks.
“Now here.” Dee pointed to a narrow alleyway lined on both sides with rows of plastic trash cans. Watching him in the rearview mirror, Josh could see that he kept twisting in the seat to look behind him.
“Is she following?” Machiavelli asked.
“I can’t see her,” Dee said crisply, “but I think we need to get off the streets.”
Josh struggled to control the car. “We won’t get much farther in this,” he began, and then hit the first trash can, which toppled into a second and then a third, scattering rubbish across the alley. He turned the steering wheel sharply to avoid running over one of the fallen bins and the engine began to bang alarmingly. The car wobbled and then suddenly stopped, smoke billowing from the hood. “Out,” Josh said quickly. “I think we’re on fire.” He scrambled out of the car, Machiavelli and Dee exiting on the other side. Then they turned and ran down the alley, away from the car. They had taken perhaps half a dozen steps when there was a dull thump and the car burst into flames. Thick black smoke began spiraling upward into the sky.
“Wonderful,” Dee said bitterly. “So now the Disir definitely knows where we are. And she’s not going to be happy.”
“Well, not with you, that’s for sure,” Machiavelli said with a wry smile.
“Me?” Dee looked surprised.
“I’m not the one who set fire to her,” Machiavelli reminded him.
It was like listening to children. “Enough, already!” Josh rounded on the two men. “Who was that…that woman?”
“That,” Machiavelli said with a grim smile, “was a Valkyrie.”
“A Valkyrie?”
“Sometimes called a Disir.”
“A Disir?” Josh found that he wasn’t even surprised by the response. He didn’t care what the woman was called; all he cared about was that she’d tried to slice him in two with a sword. Maybe this was
a dream, he thought suddenly, and everything that had happened from the moment Dee and the Golems had stepped into the bookshop was nothing more than a nightmare. And then he moved his right arm and his bruised shoulder protested. He winced in pain. The skin on his burned face felt tight and stiff, and when he licked his dry, cracked lips, he realized that this was no dream. He was wide awake—this was a living nightmare.
Josh stepped back from the two men. He looked up and down the narrow alley. There were tall houses on one side, and what looked like a hotel was on the other. The walls were daubed with layers of cursive and ornate graffiti, some of which had even been sprayed onto the trash cans. Standing on his toes, he tried to see the skyline, looking for the Eiffel Tower or Sacré-Coeur, something to give him an idea where he was. “I’ve got to get back,” he said, edging farther from the two disheveled men. According to Flamel, they were the enemy—especially Dee. And yet Dee had just saved him from the Disir.
Dee turned to look at him, gray eyes twinkling kindly. “Why, Josh, where are you going?”
“Back to my sister.”
“And Flamel and Saint-Germain too? Tell me; what are they going to do for you?”
Josh took another step backward. He had seen Dee throw spears of fire on two occasions—in the bookshop and at the Disir—and he was unsure how far the Magician could actually toss them. Not far, he figured. Another step or two and he would turn and run down the alleyway. He could stop the first person he met and ask directions to the Eiffel Tower. He thought the French for “where is?” was “où est?” or maybe it was “qui est?” Or did that mean “who is?” He shook his head slightly, regretting not having paid attention in French class. “Don’t try and stop me,” he began, turning away.
“What did it feel like?” Dee asked suddenly.
Josh slowly turned to look at the Magician. He knew instantly what he was talking about. He found that his fingers had automatically curled, as if he were holding the hilt of a sword.
“What was it like holding Clarent, feeling that raw power running through you? What was it like knowing the thoughts and emotions of the creature you’d just stabbed?” Dee reached under his tattered suit coat and pulled out Clarent’s twin: Excalibur. “It is an awe-inspiring feeling, is it not?” He turned the blade in his hand, a blue-black trickle of energy shivering across the stone sword. “I know you must have experienced Nidhogg’s thoughts…emotions…memories?”
Josh nodded. They were still fresh—startlingly vivid—in his head. The thoughts, the sights, were so alien, so bizarre, that he knew he’d never have been able to imagine them himself.
“For an instant you knew what it was to be godlike: to see worlds beyond imagination, to experience alien emotions. You saw the past, the very distant past…you might even have seen Nidhogg’s Shadowrealm.”
Josh nodded slowly, wondering how Dee knew.
The Magician took a step closer to the boy. “For an instant, Josh, the merest instant, it was like being Awakened—though nowhere near as intense,” he added quickly. “And you do want to have your powers Awakened?”
Josh nodded. He felt breathless, his heart hammering in his chest. Dee was right; in those moments he’d held Clarent, he’d felt alive, truly alive. “But it can’t be done,” he said quickly.
Dee laughed. “Oh yes, it can. It can be done here, today,” he finished triumphantly.
“But Flamel said…,” Josh began, and then stopped, realizing what he’d just said. If he could be Awakened…
“Flamel says many things. I doubt even he knows what is the truth anymore.”
“Do you?” Josh snapped.
“Always.” Dee jerked his thumb over his shoulder at Machiavelli. “The Italian is no friend of mine,” he said quietly, staring directly into Josh’s troubled eyes. “So ask him the question: ask him if your powers could be Awakened this very morning.”
Josh turned to regard Niccolò Machiavelli. The tall white-haired man looked vaguely troubled, but he nodded in agreement. “The English Magician is correct: your powers could be Awakened today. I imagine we could probably find someone to do it within the hour.”
Smiling triumphantly, Dee turned back to Josh. “It’s your choice. So, give me your answer—do you want to go back to Flamel and his vague promises, or do you want to have your powers Awakened?”
Even as he was turning to follow the black threads of dark energy that drifted off Excalibur’s stone blade, Josh knew the answer. He remembered the feelings, the emotions, the power, that had coursed through his body when he’d held Clarent. And Dee had said those feelings were nowhere near as intense as being Awakened.
“I need an answer,” Dee said.
Josh Newman took a deep breath. “What do I have to do?”
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
Joan swung the battered Citroën into the mouth of the alleyway and eased the car to a halt, blocking the entrance. Leaning over the steering wheel, she scoured the alley, looking for movement, wondering if this was a trap.
Following Josh had been remarkably easy; all she’d had to do was to follow the gouge cut into the street by the metal rim of his car’s front wheel. She’d had a brief moment of panic when she’d lost him in a maze of back streets, but then a thick plume of black smoke rose over the rooftops and she’d followed that: it had led her to the alley and the burning police car.
“Stay here,” she commanded the exhausted Flamel and the ashen-faced Sophie as she climbed out of the car. She carried her sword loosely in her right hand as she walked down the alley, tapping the blade gently against the palm of her left hand. She was fairly sure that they were too late and that Dee, Machiavelli and Josh were gone, but she wasn’t prepared to take any risks.
Padding silently down the center of the alley, wary of the piles of trash cans that could be hiding an assailant, Joan realized she was still in a state of shock following Scatty’s disappearance. One moment Joan had been standing in front of her old friend, and the next, the creature that was more fish than man had reared up out of the water and dragged Scatty down with him.
Joan blinked away tears. She had known Scathach for more than five hundred years. In those early centuries they’d been inseparable, adventuring together across the world into countries yet to be explored by the West, encountering tribes that still lived as their ancestors had thousands of years in the past. They’d discovered lost islands, hidden cities and forgotten countries, and Scatty had even taken her into some of the Shadowrealms, where they had fought creatures that had long been extinct on the earth. In the Shadowrealms, Joan had seen her friend fight and defeat creatures that existed only in the darkest human myths. Joan knew that nothing could stand against the Shadow…and yet Scatty herself had always said that she could be defeated, that she was immortal but not invulnerable. Joan had always imagined that when Scatty finally laid down her life it would be in one final dramatic and extraordinary event…not by being dragged into a dirty river by an overgrown fish-man.
Joan grieved for her friend, and she would weep for her, but not now. Not yet.
Joan of Arc had been a warrior from the time she was barely a teenager, riding into battle at the head of a massive French army. She had seen too many friends fall in battle and had learned that if she concentrated on their deaths she would be incapable of fighting. Right now she knew she needed to protect Nicholas and the girl. Later, there would be time to grieve for Scathach the Shadow, and there would also be time to go in search of the creature Flamel had called Dagon. Joan hefted the sword in her hand. She would avenge her friend.
The petite Frenchwoman walked past the blazing remains of the police car and crouched on the ground, expertly reading the traces and signs on the damp stones. She heard Nicholas and Sophie climb out of the battered Citroën and walk down the alley, stepping around puddles of oil and dirty water. Nicholas was carrying Clarent. Joan distinctly heard it buzz as he approached the burning car, and she wondered if it was still connected to the boy.
“They ran f
rom the car and stopped here,” she said, without looking up, as they stopped beside her. “Dee and Machiavelli were facing Josh. He stood over there.” She pointed. “They ran through the water back there; you can clearly see the outlines of their shoes on the ground.”
Sophie and Flamel leaned over and looked at the ground. They nodded, though she knew they could see nothing.
“Now, this is interesting,” she continued. “At one stage Josh’s footsteps are pointing down the alley, and he’s on the balls of his feet, almost as if he was thinking about running. But look here.” She pointed to traces of heel prints on the ground that only she could see. “The three of them walked off together, Dee and Josh first, Machiavelli following behind.”
“Can you track them?” Flamel demanded.
Joan shrugged. “To the end of the alley, maybe, but beyond that…” She shrugged again and straightened up, dusting off her hands. “Impossible; there will be too many other prints.”
“What are we going to do?” Nicholas whispered. “How are we going to find the boy?”
Joan’s eyes drifted from Flamel’s face to Sophie. “We can’t…but Sophie can.”
“How?” he asked.
Joan moved her hand in a horizontal line in front of her. It left the faintest tracery of light in the air, and the foul alley briefly smelled of lavender. “She’s his twin: she’ll be able to follow his aura.”
Nicholas Flamel caught both of Sophie’s shoulders, forcing the girl to look into his eyes. “Sophie!” he snapped. “Sophie, look at me.”
Sophie raised red-rimmed eyes to look at the Alchemyst. She was completely numb. Scatty was gone, and now Josh had vanished, kidnapped by Dee and Machiavelli. Everything was falling apart.
“Sophie,” Nicholas said very quietly, his pale eyes catching and holding hers. “I need you to be strong now.”
“What’s the point?” she asked. “They’re gone.”
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