The Sorceress

by Michael Scott

  Josh turned his head again, ignoring the traffic and the myriad other noises of the city. Suddenly, he found that by focusing on the two businessmen, he could pick up individual words. His hearing was so acute that he could even hear the tinny voices on the other end of the cell phone. Neither man was speaking English. “How can you understand?” he asked.

  “It’s the Witch of Endor’s knowledge,” Nicholas said. He had stepped out of the shop in time to hear Josh’s question. He pulled two pairs of identical cheap sunglasses from a paper bag and handed them over. “Not designer, I’m afraid.”

  Sophie slipped the dark glasses onto her face. The relief was immediate, and she could see by her brother’s expression that he felt the same. “Tell me,” she said. “I thought it was just a lot of ancient stuff she passed on to me. I didn’t realize any of it would be useful.”

  Nicholas handed over two bottles of water, and the twins fell into step beside him as he hurried down the street toward St. Marylebone Church. “The Witch passed on all her knowledge to you when she wrapped you in the shroud of air. It was, I’ll admit, too much for you to handle. But I’d no idea she was going to do it,” he added quickly, seeing the scowl appear on Josh’s face. “It was totally unexpected and completely out of character. Generations ago, priestesses would study with the Witch all their lives to be rewarded with only the tiniest fragment of her knowledge.”

  “Why did she give it all to me?” Sophie asked, confused.

  “It’s a mystery,” he admitted. Spotting a gap in the traffic, the Alchemyst hurried the twins across Marylebone High Street. They were close enough now to see the elegant fa¸ade of the church ahead of them. “I know Joan helped sift through the Witch’s knowledge for you.”

  Sophie nodded. In Paris, while she’d slept, Joan of Arc had taught her techniques for controlling the jumble of arcane and obscure information that washed through her brain.

  “I believe that what is happening now is that the Witch of Endor’s memories and knowledge are gradually being absorbed into your own memories. Rather than simply just knowing what the Witch knows, you will also know how she knows it. In effect, her memories are becoming yours.”

  Sophie shook her head. “I don’t understand.”

  They had finally reached the church. Nicholas climbed two steps and looked up and down the road, quickly scanning the passersby, twisting to look out toward Regent’s Park before turning back to the twins. “It’s like the difference between watching a game and playing the game. When you met Saint-Germain,” he added, “you instantly knew what the Witch knows about him, right?”

  Sophie nodded. It had come to her in a flash that the Witch of Endor neither liked nor trusted the Comte de Saint-Germain.

  “Think about Saint-Germain now,” the Alchemyst suggested.

  She looked at her brother, who shrugged, eyes invisible behind his own dark glasses. Sophie turned over her right wrist. On the underside of her arm was a gold circle with a red dot in the center. Saint-Germain had painlessly burned the tattoo into the flesh of her wrist when he’d taught her about the Magic of Fire. Thinking of Saint-Germain brought a sudden flood of memories: brilliantly intense physical memories. Sophie closed her eyes and in an instant she was in another time, another place.

  London, 1740.

  She was standing in an enormous ballroom, wearing a gown that was so heavy it felt as if it was pressing her into the ground. It was amazingly uncomfortable, biting and pinching, squeezing, constricting and contracting everywhere. The air in the ballroom stank of candle wax and too many perfumes, of overflowing toilets, cooked food and unwashed bodies. A crowd of people swirled around her, but as she moved forward, they unconsciously moved out of her way, clearing a path to the somberly dressed young man with the startling blue eyes. It was Francis, the Comte de Saint-Germain. He was speaking in Russian with a nobleman from the court of the infant emperor, Ivan VI. She found she understood what he was saying. The nobleman was hinting that Peter the Great’s youngest daughter, Elizabeth, might soon seize power and that there would be business opportunities for a man of Saint-Germain’s skills in St. Petersburg. The count slowly turned to look at her. Taking her hand in his, he bowed over it and said in Italian, “It is an honor to finally meet you, madam.”

  Sophie’s eyes blinked open and she swayed. Josh’s arm shot out to catch hold of her. “What happened?” he demanded.

  “I was there …,” Sophie whispered. She shook her head quickly. “Here, in London. More than two hundred fifty years ago. I saw everything.” She reached out to squeeze his arm. “I could feel the clothes I was wearing, smell the stink of the room, and when Saint-Germain spoke in Russian I understood him, and then, when he talked to me in Italian, I understood that, too. I was there,” she repeated still awed by her new memories.

  “The Witch of Endor’s memories are becoming your memories,” Nicholas said. “Her knowledge is becoming yours. Eventually, all that she knows, you will know.”

  Sophie Newman shivered. Then she suddenly thought of something disturbing. “But what happens to me?” she asked. “The Witch has thousands of years of memories and experiences; I’ve only got fifteen and a half years, and I don’t remember all of them. Could her memories crowd mine out?”

  Nicholas blinked hard. Then he slowly nodded. “I hadn’t thought of that, but yes, you’re right, they could,” he said very quietly. “We’ll have to ensure that that does not happen.”

  “Why?” the twins asked together.

  Nicholas came down the steps to stand beside them. “Because we are nothing more than the sum of our memories and experiences. If the Witch’s memories crowd out yours, then you will in effect become the Witch of Endor.”

  Josh was horrified. “And what happens to Sophie?”

  “If that happens, there will be no more Sophie. There will only be the Witch.”

  “Then she did it deliberately,” Josh said, anger raising his voice enough to attract the attention of a group of tourists photographing the church’s clock face. His twin nudged him and he lowered his voice to a hoarse whisper. “That’s why she gave Sophie all her knowledge!” Nicholas started to shake his head, but Josh pressed on. “Once her memories take over completely, then she has a newer, younger body, rather than her old blind body. You can’t deny it.”

  Nicholas closed his mouth and turned away. “I have to … I have to think about this,” he said. “I’ve never heard of anything like this happening before.”

  “But you never heard of the Witch giving all her knowledge to one person before, did you?” Josh demanded.

  Sophie caught the Alchemyst’s arm and stepped in front of him. “Nicholas, what do we do?” she asked.

  “I’ve no idea,” he admitted with an exhausted sigh. And in that moment, he looked ancient, with lines etched deeply onto his forehead and around his eyes, creases alongside his nose, deep grooves between his eyebrows.

  “Then who would know?” she snapped, a note of fear in her voice.

  “Perenelle,” he said, and then nodded fiercely. “My Perenelle will know what to do. We’ve got to get you back to her. She’ll be able to help. In the meantime, you’ve got to concentrate on being Sophie. You’ve got to focus on your own identity.”

  “How?”

  “Think about your past, your parents, your schools, people you’ve met, friends, enemies, places you’ve visited.” He turned to Josh. “You’ve got to help. Ask your sister questions about the past, about everything you’ve done together, the places you’ve been. And Sophie,” he added, turning to look at the girl, “every time you begin to experience one of the Witch of Endor’s memories, deliberately focus on something else, a memory of your own. You have to fight to keep the Witch’s memories from overwhelming yours until we find a way to control this.”

  Suddenly, a black London cab pulled up to the curb and the passenger window slid down. “Get in,” a voice commanded from the shadows.

  No one moved.

  “We don’t have all
day. Get in.” There was a hint of North Africa in the rich timbre of the voice.

  “We didn’t call a cab,” Flamel said, desperately glancing up and down the road. St Germain had said he was sending someone to them, but the Alchemyst had never imagined it was going to be anything as ordinary as a London taxi. Was this a trap? Had Dee caught up with them? He looked over his shoulder at the church. The door was open. They could dart up the steps into the sanctuary of the church, but once inside, they would be trapped.

  “This car was specially ordered for you, Mr. Flamel.” There was a pause and the voice added, “The author of one of the most boring books I have ever read, The Philosophic Summary.”

  “Boring?” Nicholas yanked the door open and pushed the twins into the gloom. “It’s been acknowledged for centuries as a work of genius!” Climbing in, he slammed the door. “Francis probably told you to say that.”

  “You’d better buckle up,” the driver commanded. “We’ve got all sorts of company heading this way, none of it friendly and all of it unpleasant.”

  he man’s enormous bulk filled the front seat. He swiveled around to look at them through the glass separating the driver from the passengers, and the twins realized that it wasn’t fat that made him so large, it was muscle. A sleeveless black-and-white striped shirt stretched tightly across his massive chest, and he was so tall that his smooth-shaven head brushed the top of the car’s cabin. His skin was a deep rich brown, matching the color of his eyes, and his teeth looked almost too white to be natural. There were three short horizontal scars on each cheek just below his eyes. “You’re barely in the country and you’ve managed to stir up quite a hornets’ nest,” he said, his voice a deep rumble. “On the way down here, I spotted some things that haven’t walked this earth for generations.” He grinned. “I’m Palamedes, by the way.” Then he shook his head. “And don’t ever call me Pally.”

  “Palamedes?” Flamel asked in astonishment, leaning forward to get a better look at the driver. “Palamedes? The Saracen Knight?”

  “The same,” the driver said, turning away, locking the steering wheel and screeching back into traffic without signaling. Car horns blared and tires squealed behind him. He held up his cell phone. “Francis gave me just the barest details. Usually, I don’t get involved in the disputes between the various Elder factions—it’s safer that way—but once he told me it was to do with the legendary twins”—his eyes watched them in the rearview mirror—“then I knew I had no choice.”

  Josh reached down and squeezed his sister’s hand hard. He wanted to distract her; he didn’t want her thinking about Palamedes. Even though Josh had never heard of him, he had no doubt that the Witch’s knowledge would tell Sophie about their driver. The man was huge, built like a linebacker or a professional wrestler, and he spoke English with a strange accent. Josh thought it might even be Egyptian. Four years ago, the entire Newman family had traveled to Egypt. They’d spent a month touring the ancient sites, and the man’s lilting accent was similar to the ones he’d heard then. Josh leaned forward for a closer look at the man. Massive short-fingered hands gripped the steering wheel—and then he noticed that the man’s wrists were thickened and his knuckles swollen and hard with calluses. Josh had seen similar hands on some of the sensei he’d trained with; they were usually signs of someone who had studied karate, kung fu or boxing for years.

  “Hang on.” Palamedes made an illegal U-turn and headed back the way they’d come. “Just sit back and stay in the shadows,” he warned. “There are so many cabs on the street that they’re practically invisible; no one even looks at them. And besides, they won’t be expecting you to return this way.”

  Josh nodded. It was a clever strategy. “Who are ‘they’?” he asked.

  Before Palamedes could answer, Nicholas suddenly stiffened, staring out the window.

  “You see them?” Palamedes asked in a deep rumble.

  “I see them,” the Alchemyst whispered.

  “What?” Sophie and Josh said simultaneously, sitting forward, following the Alchemyst’s gaze.

  “The three men on the opposite side of the street,” he said shortly.

  A trio of shaven-headed, pierced and heavily tattooed young men swaggered down the center of the road. In their stained blue jeans, dirty T-shirts and construction boots, they looked threatening, but not particularly otherworldly.

  “If you squint,” Flamel explained, “you should be able to see their auras.”

  The twins closed their eyes to little more than slits, and they immediately saw the ugly gray tendrils of smoky light that flowed off the trio. The gray was shot through with purple.

  “Cucubuths,” Palamedes explained.

  The Alchemyst nodded. “Very rare. They are the offspring of a vampire and a Torc Madra,” Flamel told the twins. “They often have tails. They’re mercenaries, hunters. Blood drinkers.”

  “And as dumb as dirt.” Palamedes pulled up beside a bus, shielding the car from the cucubuths. “They’ll trace your scent as far as the church; then it will vanish. That will confuse them. With luck, they’ll end up arguing with one another and start fighting.”

  The car slowed, then stopped as the lights changed.

  “There, at the traffic lights,” Nicholas whispered.

  “Yes, I passed them on the way down here,” Palamedes said.

  The twins scanned the intersection but saw nothing out of the ordinary. “Who?” Sophie asked.

  “The schoolgirls,” Palamedes rumbled.

  Two red-haired and pale-skinned young women were chatting, waiting for the lights to change. They were alike enough to be sisters and seemed to be wearing school uniforms. Both were carrying expensive-looking handbags.

  “Don’t even look at them,” Palamedes warned. “They’re like beasts; they can sense when they’re being watched.”

  Sophie and Josh stared hard at the floor, concentrating fiercely on not thinking about the two girls. Nicholas picked up a newspaper he’d found on the backseat and held it open in front of his face, focusing on the most boring item he could find, the international exchange rates.

  “They’re crossing right in front of the car,” Palamedes murmured, turning to look back into the cabin, hiding his face. “I’m sure they wouldn’t recognize me, but I don’t want to take the risk.”

  The lights changed and Palamedes pulled away with the rest of the traffic.

  “Dearg Due,” Flamel said, before the twins could ask the question. He swiveled to look through the rear window. The girls’ red hair was still visible as they disappeared into the crowd. “Vampires who settled what became the Celtic lands after the Fall of Danu Talis.”

  “Like Scatty?” Sophie asked.

  Nicholas shook his head. “Nothing like Scatty. These are most definitely not vegetarian.”

  “They were heading toward the church too,” Palamedes said, chuckling. “If they encounter the cucubuths, that should make for an interesting meeting. They hate one another.”

  “Who would win?” Sophie asked.

  “Dearg Due, every time,” Palamedes said with a cheery smile. “I fought them in Ireland. They’re vicious fighters, impossible to kill.”

  They continued down Marylebone Road before turning left onto Hampstead Road. Traffic slowed to a crawl, then finally ground to a halt. Somewhere ahead of them horns blared, and an ambulance wail started up. “We might be here for a while.” Palamedes pulled the emergency brake and twisted in his seat once again to look at the twins and Flamel. “So you’re the legendary Nicholas Flamel, the Alchemyst. I’ve heard a lot about you over the years,” he said. “None of it good. Do you know, there are Shadowrealms where your very name is used as a curse?”

  The twins were startled by the vehemence in the man’s voice. They were unsure whether he was joking.

  Palamedes focused on the Alchemyst. “Death and destruction follow in your wake—”

  “The Dark Elders have been ruthless in their attempts to stop me,” Flamel said slowly, with a d
efinite chill in his voice.

  “—as do fires, famines, floods and earthquakes,” Palamedes rumbled on, ignoring the interruption.

  “What are you suggesting?” Nicholas asked pointedly, and for an instant there was a whiff of mint in the back of the taxi. He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees, hands clasped in a tight knot.

  “I am suggesting that perhaps you should have chosen less populated places to live out your long life. Alaska, maybe, or Mongolia, Siberia, the Outback or some far reaches of the Amazon. Places without people. Without victims.”

  An icy silence descended on the back of the car. The twins looked at one another, and Josh raised his eyebrows in silent question, but Sophie shook her head imperceptibly. She pressed her index finger to her earlobe; Josh got the message: listen, say nothing.

  “Are you suggesting I’ve caused the deaths of innocent people?” Flamel asked very softly.

  “Oh yes.”

  Color flushed Flamel’s pale face. “I have never—” he began.

  “You could have disappeared from this world,” Palamedes pressed on, deep voice vibrating through the cab. “You faked your own death once, you could have done it again, and made a home someplace remote and inaccessible. You could even have slipped into one of the Shadowrealms. But you didn’t; you choose to remain in this world. Why is that?” Palamedes asked.

  “I have a duty to protect the Codex,” the Alchemyst snapped, genuine anger in his voice, the scent of mint stronger now, filling the air.

  Car horns started to blare again, and Palamedes swiveled in the seat, released the brake and drove on.

  “A duty to protect the Codex,” he repeated, staring straight ahead. “No one forced you to become the Guardian of the book. You took that role gladly and without question … just like all the other Guardians before you. But you were different from your predecessors. They went into hiding with it. But not you. You stayed in this world. And because of that, many humani have died: a million in Ireland alone, more than one hundred and forty thousand in Tokyo.”