“Why?” Sophie whispered, completely confused.
“So we can try to see your brother. See if he’s gone of his own accord or if he’s been kidnapped.”
Aoife rested her hand on the girl’s shoulder. “If you possess my grandmother’s memories, then you know just how dangerous the skull is, Sophie.” She lowered her voice. “While you’re looking into the skull, it is looking into you. Stare too long into its crystal depths and you can—quite literally—lose your mind. You don’t have to do this.”
“Yes I do,” Sophie said simply. She looked into the vampire’s eyes. “You said yourself that you would do everything in your power to get Scathach back.…”
Aoife started to nod.
“I’ll do the same for Josh.”
The warrior stared at her, and then she pulled out a chair. “That I truly understand. Sit. I will stand guard over you.” For an instant the hard lines of her face softened, and she was the image of her sister.
“Go raibh maith agat,” Sophie whispered in Irish, a language she had never learned. “Thank you.” She looked into the warrior’s face.
Aoife nodded. “Scathach would have done the same,” she murmured.
“Put your hands on the crystal skull,” Perenelle commanded.
CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE
Josh knew it was a dream, nothing more than a particularly vivid dream.
He dreamt that he was driving Niten’s black limousine north along Sir Francis Drake Boulevard. It was still night overhead, though the sky to his right was already starting to lighten.
It was one of those dreams that were perfect in every detail. Sometimes he dreamt in black-and-white and without sound, but this was in color, and he could even smell the polished leather interior of the car and the vaguely floral scent from some hidden air conditioner. He sniffed. There was another odor too: the smell of burning plastic. A curl of gray smoke drifted past his eyes and he looked down. At first he thought he was wearing red-gold gloves; then he realized that his hands were glowing hot and actually melting into the steering wheel. As he pulled them away, threads of sticky rubber and plastic, like chewing gum, stretched from the wheel.
It wasn’t a scary dream. It was just … odd.
He wondered where he was going.
“Think of your brother,” Perenelle commanded.
Sophie took a deep breath and rested both hands on the skull. Instantly the crystal turned a rich metallic silver, making it appear as if it had been carved out of metal.
“Think of Josh,” Nicholas said.
Sophie concentrated on visualizing her brother, determined to see him in every detail. The skull’s empty eye sockets turned dark, then mirror bright, and abruptly an image formed in the air above the crystal, but it was vague and fragmented, little more than a smear of colors.
Sophie felt Aoife’s fingers tighten on her shoulders, and a cool strength soaked into her flesh. She realized that the warrior was giving her some of the strength of her gray aura, and then she felt the woman’s breath warm against her right ear. “Think of your twin,” Aoife commanded.
Her twin brother: the same blond hair, the same blue eyes. Twenty-eight seconds her junior. Until they were three, no one had been able to tell them apart.
And suddenly the shifting colors floating above the skull whirled and settled, taking on shape and definition. They were looking at the image of a melting steering wheel. They were seeing through Josh’s eyes.
After a while, the dream became boring.
Josh wished he could wake himself up.
He drove for a long time on Sir Francis Drake Boulevard, then turned right onto Highway 1 and then Shoreline Highway. It was a narrow two-lane road, wreathed in early-morning mist that bounced off his headlights, but he wasn’t concerned. Nothing could happen to him in a dream. If he crashed, he’d wake up. Still, it was a shame it was a driving dream; it would have been much better if it had been a flying dream. He loved those.
“How is he doing this?” Sophie whispered. “Is he awake or asleep?”
Nicholas leaned forward, put his elbows on the table and rested his chin in his cupped hands. He stared hard at the images hovering in the air over the skull. “He is probably aware on some level, but something has taken control of him. I believe that something—someone—has called to him.”
Prometheus eyed the skull with an expression of profound disgust. “If I’d known you had that abominable thing, I would not have allowed you to bring it into this Shadowrealm. My sister spent most of her life and squandered the family fortune destroying these Archon toys.”
Nicholas glanced sidelong at Perenelle before looking up at Prometheus. “Archon? I thought these were Elder.”
Prometheus ignored the question, concentrating his attention on the perfect three-dimensional image floating above the skull. “We could possibly shock him awake.”
“No!” Sophie said immediately, instinct warning her that it would be the wrong thing to do.
“No,” Aoife agreed. “He could lose control of the car.”
“So we sit and wait for him to reach his destination?” Prometheus asked.
“Well.” Perenelle spoke without removing her gaze from the image above the skull. “I believe our first duty is to try to ensure that he reach his destination safely. If he crashes, he could be badly injured or killed. Sophie”—the tone of the Sorceress’s voice softened—“concentrate on your brother, make him focus on his driving.”
“How?” she asked desperately. She was having a hard time controlling the panic that threatened to overwhelm her. “How do I do that?”
Perenelle looked blank. She turned to Nicholas, but he shook his head. “I don’t know,” she admitted. “Just don’t let him do anything stupid.”
“This is Josh we’re talking about,” Sophie muttered. “He does stupid things all the time.” And always when she wasn’t there.
He was thinking about driving really fast.
This section of Shoreline Highway was relatively straight, and the fog wasn’t too thick. He could put his foot to the floor and just roar down the road.
Sophie wouldn’t like that.
The thought popped into his head even as his foot was pressing on the accelerator.
This was a dream.
Sophie wouldn’t like that.
His foot eased off the accelerator. He shook his head. Even in his dreams, she still tried to be the boss.
The group had been sitting around the table for more than ninety minutes, and Sophie was shaking with fatigue.
Aoife stood over her, both hands on her shoulders, pouring strength into her, but Sophie’s silver aura was now almost entirely the same pewter gray as the warrior’s, and the images hovering over the skull had faded and become almost transparent. “I’m not sure … how much longer … I can keep this up,” Sophie whispered. Her head was thumping and there were solid bars of pain across her taut shoulders and down her spine.
“Where is he now?” Flamel rasped, trying to make sense of the images, the snatched glimpses of streets and landmarks.
Niten leaned over Aoife’s shoulder, squinting at the flickering color image. “Turning off Van Ness Avenue onto Bay Street.”
Perenelle looked up at Prometheus. “Who is he going to? There must be some Dark Elders in San Francisco.”
“Several,” he said matter-of-factly. “Quetzalcoatl, the Feathered Serpent, keeps a house here, but this is too subtle for him. Eris is here; she used to hang out in Haight-Ashbury and still keeps an apartment there, but her glory days are over. She hasn’t got this sort of power.” The Elder suddenly leaned forward. “Sophie, have you any control over your twin?”
She looked at him, her eyes dull with fatigue.
“Can you make him turn or look in a certain direction?”
“I don’t know. Why?”
“See if you can get him to adjust the mirror. I want to see his eyes.”
Josh fiddled with the heater.
He turned on the radi
o but there was only static, so he rooted through the collection of CDs, but they were all by people he’d never heard of: Isao Tomita, Kodo and Kitaro. He adjusted the seat back and forth, up and down, checked the glove compartment, found a tin of mints that were two years past the expiration but ate them anyway, fiddled with the air conditioner, adjusted the electric side mirrors and then, finally, reached for the rearview mirror.…
His eyes were bloodred.
Reflected in the mirror, they hung in the air over the crystal skull, unblinking, unmoving, without a trace of pupil.
The wave of horror that struck Sophie was palpable. She was looking at her brother’s face, but these were the eyes of …
“Mars Ultor,” Prometheus said firmly. “The boy is in thrall to the Sleeping God.”
“Mars Awakened Josh,” Nicholas whispered, aghast.
“And so he controls him,” the Elder said.
“But where is he taking him?” the Alchemyst said.
“They’ve just turned onto Lombard Street,” Niten announced. “He’s going to Telegraph Hill.”
“Dee’s company, Enoch Enterprises has offices just below Coit Tower,” Perenelle said quickly, then added, as if she was thinking out loud, “but Dee is trapped in England. There is no way he could have gotten here.…”
“Are you sure?” Prometheus asked. “This is Dee we’re talking about now.”
Nicholas nodded. “Even if he booked a flight this morning, he’d still be in the air. He’s not in the city.”
“What about a leygate?” Aoife asked.
“There are only a few that could bring him here. And he hasn’t got the power to charge up the Stonehenge gate. Also, using his power would betray his location to his Dark Elder masters. And I’m not sure he’d want to do that.”
“He’s turned up Telegraph Hill,” Niten said. “That’s a dead end.”
In his dream state, Josh really had no idea where he was.
He’d driven through San Francisco, turning left and right, only vaguely aware of the street names—Van Ness Avenue, Bay Street, Columbus and Lombard. Some were almost familiar, but when he finally turned the car onto Telegraph Hill, he suddenly realized where he was: close to Coit Tower. Although the tower was within walking distance of Aunt Agnes’s house, he and Sophie had never managed to find the time to visit it. To his left, he could see the Bay Bridge, while on his right he saw expensive-looking houses and apartments. He drove on, and as the road rose, he could see the city, which was beginning to appear out of the fog.
The view was stunning, but he was completely bored with this dream. He wanted it to end so he could wake up. He was half tempted to drive the car off the road just to see what would happen.
Sophie wouldn’t like that.
Josh shook the thought from his head. When he looked back to the road, however, a woman had appeared. The instant he saw her, Josh knew she was there to meet him, and he was already slowing and turning into the curb as she raised a hand and smiled. He stopped and hit the switch that rolled down the window. She was young and pretty and was dressed in jeans and a fringed black suede jacket. A thick mane of jet-black hair flowed to the small of her back. And when the woman leaned in the window and smiled at him, Josh noticed that her eyes were the same color as his aunt Agnes’s, the same color as Dr. John Dee’s. He took a deep breath and was overwhelmed by the distinctive odor of sage.
And because this was a dream, the woman knew his name. “Hello, Josh Newman. We’ve been waiting for you.”
“Virginia Dare,” Prometheus said grimly. “The killer.”
Sophie was the only one not to turn to look at the Elder. She focused on the woman’s face, seeing it through Josh’s eyes.
“Her master was a friend of mine,” Prometheus continued. “Because of her, he is dead.”
Nicholas looked at his wife. “Wasn’t Dare once associated with Dee?” he asked.
“A long time ago, but I don’t believe they’ve seen one another in centuries. Still, it cannot be a coincidence that she is here.”
“I agree,” the Alchemyst answered grimly. “There are no such things as coincidences.”
The images were flickering wildly now, fading in and out like a badly tuned television set. “I’m losing the connection,” Sophie whispered. She turned her head to look up at Aoife. “Help me. Please.”
The warrior’s strong hands tightened on the girl’s shoulders, holding her upright, pouring strength into her.
Josh followed the woman up to a smoked-glass door with the words Enoch Enterprises in fancy gold script on the glass. He saw her reach for the intercom button, but the door swung open wide before she had a chance to press it. And because this was still a dream, he was unsurprised to find a smiling Dr. John Dee waiting for him.
“Josh Newman, it is good to see you again. You’re looking well, and I understand you’re a Master of Fire now.” Dee stepped back. “Enter freely and of your own will.”
Without hesitation, Josh stepped through the door.
Nearly seventy miles away, in the last flickering ghostlike images, the silent watchers heard Dee ask, “So, Josh, how would you like to learn one of the most powerful of all the magics—something not even the legendary Nicholas Flamel could teach you?”
“That would be cool,” Josh said.
And then the door clicked shut and the image died.
Sophie drew in a deep shuddering breath and peeled her hands off the now-warm crystal skull. She slumped forward and would have fallen if Aoife had not been holding her. She looked at the Alchemyst. “What can Dee teach him that you can’t?” she rasped hoarsely, sick with worry.
Nicholas shook his head. “I’ve no idea. We studied very similar disciplines: alchemy, mathematics, astronomy, astrology, biology, medicine—” He stopped suddenly.
“Except?” Sophie asked.
“There is one.” All the color had drained from Nicholas’s face, and the dark rings under his eyes were pronounced. “There was one art I refused to learn—but one which Dee mastered and excelled in.”
“No!” Perenelle drew in a quick shocked breath.
“Necromancy,” the Alchemyst said. “The art of raising the dead.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR
Standing at the prow of a speedboat bouncing across the icy waters of San Francisco Bay, Niccolò Machiavelli closed his eyes and allowed the salt spray to hide the sudden tears on his face.
When Machiavelli had still been mortal, his wife, Marietta, had once accused him of being an uncaring inhuman monster. “You will die lonely and alone, because you don’t care for anyone,” she’d screamed at him, and thrown an antique Roman plate at his head. He’d long since forgotten what the argument was about, but he’d never forgotten the words. And whenever he thought of them, he remembered Marietta, whom he had loved dearly and still missed, and he wept for her. He never minded the tears: they reminded him that he was still human.
He’d once thought that being immortal was an extraordinary gift.
And in the beginning it was. He had all the time in the world to plot and scheme, to lay plans that would take generations to complete. Working behind the scenes, he had shaped the destinies of a dozen European and Russian nations, had organized wars and revolutions and arranged peace treaties. He had backed leaders, funded inventors, invested in artists and designers. Then he had sat back and watched his grand plans unfold. But somewhere amid all the scheming and plotting, he had stopped thinking about the individuals he was manipulating. He thought of the humani—the humans—merely as objects to be pushed about like pieces on a chessboard.
He had served his Elder master devotedly, doing as he was told even when he disagreed with his orders. Initially, he had believed—because it was the logical conclusion—that the earth would be a better place if the Dark Elders returned.
Now he was not so sure.
He hadn’t been sure for the past two hundred years.
And today … today everything had changed. The turning point had
come when he had sat facing Quetzalcoatl the Feathered Serpent and listened while the arrogant Elder almost casually determined whether Machiavelli should live or die. Shockingly, the only reason he had been allowed to live was because Quetzalcoatl felt that he owed Machiavelli’s master a favor. No consideration was given to the centuries of loyal service Machiavelli had performed for the Elders. His skills, his knowledge, his experience, were all dismissed.
His life had been spared by nothing more than chance.
And sitting in that chair, arguing for his life, it had struck him that on far too many occasions he had acted just like Quetzalcoatl. He had passed judgment on the lives of countless men, women and children he had never met and would never know. He had made decisions that would shape their lives and the lives of their descendants for generations to come.
Marietta was right: he didn’t care for anyone.
But she was also wrong. He had always cared for her and adored his children, especially his son Guido, who had been born a few short years before Machiavelli’s “death.”
What had happened? What had changed him?
It all came back to the same answer: immortality.
Immortality had transformed him utterly, had warped his thinking, had made him the uncaring inhuman monster Marietta had accused him of being long before he actually was. He had stopped thinking of humans as individuals—he thought of them as masses of people, as either enemies or friends.
He had become blinded by his own ambition. In his arrogance he had thought that he was different from the humans, that he was, in some way, like the Elders. But today, he had realized that the Elders thought as much of him as he thought of the rest of the human population.
And now he was on another mission for the Elders, one that would affect the lives of millions of people all across the globe. He had tinkered with the destiny of nations; now he was about to reshape the future of the world.
“I’m not liking what I’m seeing,” Billy the Kid drawled, taking up a position alongside the Italian.
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