The twins’ Awakened hearing clearly picked up the knock on the door. Unconsciously, they both increased their pace.
Aunt Agnes opened the door. She was a slight, bony woman, all angles and planes, with knobby knees and swollen arthritic fingers. Josh knew that in her youth she had been considered a great beauty. He was guessing that her youth had been a long time ago. She had never married, and there was a family story that she had been left at the altar when she was eighteen.
“Something’s not right,” Josh muttered. He broke into a jog, Sophie easily keeping up.
The twins saw the driver’s hand move and Aunt Agnes take something from him. She leaned forward, squinting at what looked like a photograph. When the woman had looked down, the driver had slipped around behind her and darted into the house.
“Don’t let the car leave!” Josh shouted at Sophie, racing across the street and darting up the steps and into the house. “Hi, Aunt Agnes, we’re home,” he called as he ran past her.
The old woman turned in a complete circle, the photograph fluttering from her fingertips.
Sophie raced across the road, stooped down and pressed her fingertips against the rear passenger tire. Her thumb brushed the circle on the back of her wrist and her fingers glowed white-hot. She pushed, and with five distinct popping sounds, they punctured the rubber tire. Air hissed out and the car sank onto the metal rim.
“Sophie!” the old woman shrieked as the girl darted up the steps and grabbed her confused aunt. “What’s going on? Where have you been? Who was that nice young man? Was that Josh I just saw?”
Without a word Sophie drew her aunt away from the door just in case Josh or the driver came rushing out and she was pushed down the steps.
Josh stepped into the darkened hallway and then pressed flat against the wall, waiting until his eyes had adjusted to the light. Last week he wouldn’t have known to do that, but then last week he wouldn’t have run into a house after an intruder. He would have done the sensible thing and dialed 911. He reached into the umbrella stand behind the door and lifted out one of his aunt’s thick walking sticks. It wasn’t Clarent, but it would have to do.
Josh remained still, head tilted to one side, listening. Where was the intruder?
There was a creak on the landing, and then a slender young man in a simple black suit, white shirt and narrow black tie came hurrying down the stairs from the second floor. He slowed when he spotted Josh, but kept coming. He smiled, but it was a reflex and didn’t move past his lips. Now that the man was closer, Josh saw that he was Asian; Japanese, maybe.
Josh stepped forward, the walking stick held out in front of him like a sword. “Where do you think you’re going?”
“Past you or through you, makes no difference to me,” the young man said in perfect English, but with a strong Japanese accent.
“What are you doing here?” Josh demanded.
“Looking for someone.”
The intruder stepped off the bottom stair into the hall and went to walk out the front door. Josh barred the man’s route with the stick. “You owe me an answer.”
The black-suited young man grabbed the stick, yanking it from Josh’s grip, and snapped it across his knee. Josh grimaced; that had to hurt. The man tossed the two pieces on the floor. “I owe you nothing.”
He swept from the house and moved swiftly down the steps, but stopped when he spotted the punctured back tire. Sophie smiled and waggled her fingers at him.
The rear passenger window eased down a fraction and the Japanese man spoke urgently into it, gesturing toward the tire.
Abruptly, the door opened and a young woman climbed out. She was dressed in a beautifully tailored black suit over a white silk shirt. She was wearing black gloves, and there were tiny round black sunglasses perched on her nose. But it was her spiky red hair and pale freckled skin that gave her away.
“Scathach!” both Sophie and Josh cried in delight.
The woman smiled, revealing a mouthful of vampire teeth. She pushed down the glasses to reveal brilliant green eyes. “Hardly,” she snapped. “I am Aoife of the Shadows. And I want to know what you have done with my twin sister.”
To acknowledge everyone would be to create a list of names longer than the book. The Sorceress would not have happened without the help, support, guidance, cajoling and understanding of so many people.
Especially and particularly:
Beverly Horowitz, Krista Marino and Colleen Fellingham at Delacorte Press
And
Barry Krost at BKM and Frank Weimann at The Literary Group
Then are the others who make it possible:
Claudette Sutherland and Michael Carroll
Those who make it easier:
Patrick Kavanagh, Libby Lavella and Sarah Baczewski
Those who make it interesting:
Simon and Wendy Wells, Hans and Suzanne Zimmer, Kelli Bixler, Kristofer Updike and Richard Thompson
And of course:
Julie Blewett-Grant, Tammy Weisensel, Marci Kennedy, Jeffrey Smith, Sean Gardell, Jamie Krakover, Roxanne Renaud-Coderre and Kristen Winsko-Nolan
An authority on mythology and folklore, Michael Scott is one of Ireland’s most successful authors. A master of fantasy, science fiction, horror, and folklore, he has been hailed by the Irish Times as “the King of Fantasy in these isles.” The Sorceress is the third book in the series The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel. The first two books, The Alchemyst and The Magician, are also available from Delacorte Press. You can visit Michael Scott at www.dillonscott.com.
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