Nicholas Flamel 1 - The Alchemyst sotinf-1

by Michael Scott

  alarm. We re going home, aren't we? But even as he was asking the question,

  he knew the answer.

  Eventually, the Warrior Maid said, but not today, and definitely not

  tomorrow.

  Sophie laid her hand on her brother s arm, silencing the question he was

  about to ask. What were you saying about myths and legends? she asked.

  Somewhere deep in the house a bell chimed, the sound high and pure. It

  lingered in the still air.

  Scathach ignored it. I want you to remember that everything you know or

  think you know about myth and legend is not necessarily false, nor is it

  entirely true. At the heart of every legend there is a grain of truth. I

  suspect that much of your knowledge comes from movies and TV. Xena and

  Dracula have a lot to answer for. All minotaurs are not evil, the Gorgon

  Medusa did not turn every man to stone, not all vampires are blood drinkers,

  the Were clans are a proud and ancient race.

  Josh attempted a laugh; he was still shaken by the revelation that Scathach

  was a vampire. You ll be telling us next that ghosts exist.

  Scathach s expression remained serious. Josh, you have entered the

  Shadowrealm, the world of ghosts. I want you both to trust your instincts

  from now on: forget what you know or think you know about the creatures and

  races you will encounter. Follow your hearts. Trust no one. Except each

  other, she added.

  We Can'trust you and Nicholas, though, right? Sophie said.

  The bell rang again, flat and piercing in the distance.

  Trust no one, Scathach repeated, and the twins realized that she was not

  answering the question. She turned toward the door. I think That'sthe

  dinner bell.

  Can we eat the food? Josh asked.

  Depends, Scatty said.

  Depends on what? he asked in alarm.

  Depends on what it is, of course. I don't eat the meat myself.

  Why not? Sophie said, wondering if there was some particular ancient

  creature they should avoid.

  I m a vegetarian, Scatty answered.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  P erenelle Flamel'sat in a corner of the tiny windowless room and drew her

  knees up to her chest, then wrapped her arms around her shins. She rested her

  chin on her knees. She could hear voices angry, bitter voices.

  Perry concentrated on the sound. She allowed her aura to expand a little as

  she murmured a small spell she had learned from an Inuit shaman. The shaman

  used it to listen to the fish moving under the arctic ice sheets and the

  bears crunching across the distant ice fields. The simple spell worked by

  shutting down all other senses and concentrating exclusively on hearing.

  Perry watched as the color faded from her surroundings and darkness closed in

  until she went blind. She gradually lost her sense of smell and felt the

  pins-and-needles tingle in her fingertips and toes as her sense of touch

  dulled, then faded completely. She knew that if there were anything in her

  mouth, she would no longer be able to taste it. Only her hearing remained,

  but it was enhanced and supersensitive. She heard beetles crawling in the

  walls behind her, heard the scritch-scratch as a mouse gnawed through wood

  somewhere above her, knew that a colony of termites was munching their way

  through distant floorboards. She also heard two voices, high and thin, as if

  they were being picked up on a badly tuned radio, and coming from a great

  distance. Perry tilted her head, homing in on the sound. She heard wind

  whistling, the flap of clothing, the high crying of birds. She could tell

  that the voices she was hearing were coming from the roof of the building.

  They strengthened, warbled and bubbled, and then abruptly clarified: they

  belonged to Dee and the Morrigan, and Perry could clearly hear the fear in

  the gray man s voice and the rage in the Crow Goddess s shrill cries.

  She must pay for this! She must!

  She is an Elder. Untouchable by the likes of you and me, Dee said, trying

  unsuccessfully to calm the Morrigan.

  No one is untouchable. She has interfered where she was not wanted. My

  creatures had almost overwhelmed the car when her Ghost Wind swept them

  away.

  Flamel, the warrior Scathach and the two humani have now disappeared, Dee s

  voice echoed, and Perry frowned, concentrating hard, trying to follow every

  word. She was delighted to discover that Nicholas had sought the assistance

  of Scathach: she was a formidable ally. It s as if they have vanished off

  the face of the earth.

  They have vanished off the face of the earth, the Morrigan snapped. He s

  taken them into Hekate's Shadowrealm.

  Unconsciously, Perry nodded. Of course! Where else would Nicholas have gone?

  The entrance to Hekate's Shadowrealm in Mill Valley was closest to San

  Francisco, and while the Elder was no friend to the Flamels, she was not

  allied to Dee and his Dark Elders either.

  We must follow them, the Morrigan stated flatly.

  Impossible, Dee said reasonably. I have neither the skills nor the powers

  to penetrate Hekate's realm. There was a pause, and then he added, Nor do

  you. She is a First Generation Elder, you are of the Next Generation.

  But she is not the only Elder on the West Coast. The Morrigan s voice was a

  snap of triumph.

  What are you suggesting? Fear had touched Dee s voice with a hint of his

  original English accent.

  I know where Bastet sleeps.

  Perenelle Flamel'sat back against the cold stone and allowed her senses to

  return. Feeling came first pins and needles racing through her fingers and

  toes then her sense of smell, and finally sight. Blinking, waiting for the

  tiny colored spots of light to fade, Perry tried to make sense of what she

  had just discovered.

  The implications were terrible. The Morrigan was prepared to awaken Bastet

  and attack Hekate's Shadowrealm to retrieve the pages of the Codex.

  Perry shuddered. She had never met Bastet she didn't know anyone who had in

  the last three centuries and had lived to tell the tale but she knew her by

  reputation. One of the most powerful members of the Elder Race, Bastet had

  been worshipped in Egypt since the earliest ages of man. She had the body of

  a beautiful young woman with the head of a cat, and Perry had absolutely no

  idea of the magical forces she controlled.

  Events were moving surprisingly swiftly. Something big was happening. Many

  years before, when Nicholas and Perry had first discovered the secret of

  immortality, they had realized that their extra-long lives allowed them to

  view the world from a different perspective. They no longer planned events

  days or weeks in advance; often they would make plans decades into the

  future. Perry had come to understand that the Elders, whose lives were

  infinitely longer, could make plans that encompassed centuries. And that

  often meant that events moved with an extraordinarily deliberate slowness.

  But now the Morrigan was abroad. The last time she had walked in the World of

  Men, she had been spotted in the bitter, mud-filled trenches of the Somme;

  before that she had prowled the bloodstained battlefields of the American

  Civil War. The Crow Goddess was dra
wn to death; it hung around her like a

  foul stench. She was also one of the Elders who believed that humans had been

  placed on this earth to serve them.

  Nicholas and the twins were safe in Hekate's Shadowrealm, but for how long?

  Bastet was a First Generation Elder. Her powers had to be at least equal to

  Hekate's and if the Cat Goddess and the Crow Goddess, combined with Dee s

  alchemical magic, attacked Hekate, would her defenses hold? Perry didn't

  know.

  And what of Nicholas, Scathach and the twins?

  Perenelle felt tears prickle the back of her eyes, but blinked them away.

  Nicholas would be six hundred and seventy-seven years old on the

  twenty-eighth of September, in three months time. He was well able to take

  care of himself, though his mastery of practical spells was very limited, and

  he could be remarkably forgetful at times. Only the summer before, he had

  forgotten how to speak English and had reverted to his native archaic French.

  It had taken her nearly a month to coach him back to speaking English. Before

  that he had gone through a period when he had signed his checks in Greek and

  Aramaic characters. Perenelle s lips curled in a smile. He spoke sixteen

  languages well and another ten badly. He could read and write in twenty-two

  of them though there wasn't much chance to practice his Linear B, cuneiform

  or hieroglyphics these days.

  She wondered what he was doing right now. He would be looking for her, of

  course, but he would also need to protect the twins and the pages that Josh

  had torn from the Codex. She needed to get a message to him, she had to let

  him know that she was fine and to warn him about the danger they were in.

  One of the earliest gifts the young woman known as Perenelle Delamere had

  discovered when she was growing up was her ability to talk to the shades of

  the dead. It wasn't until her seventh birthday that she realized that not

  everyone could see the flickering black-and-white images she encountered

  daily. On the eve of her seventh birthday, her beloved grandmother, Mamom,

  died. Perenelle watched as the withered body was gently lifted from the bed

  where she had spent the last ten years of her life and laid in the coffin.

  The small girl had followed the funeral procession through the tiny town of

  Quimper and out into the graveyard that overlooked the sea. She had watched

  the little rough-hewn box as it was lowered into the earth, and then she had

  returned to her home.

  And Mamom was sitting up in the bed, eyes bright with their usual mischief.

  The only difference was that Perenelle could no longer see her grandmother

  clearly. There was no color to her everything was in black-and-white and her

  image kept flickering in and out of focus.

  In that instant Perenelle realized she could see ghosts. And when Mamom

  turned in her direction and smiled, she knew that they could see her.

  Sitting in the small windowless cell, Perenelle stretched her legs out in

  front of her and pressed both hands to the cold concrete floor. Over the

  years she had developed a series of defenses to protect herself from the

  unwanted intrusions of the dead. If there was one thing she had learned early

  on about the dead particularly the old dead it was that they were

  extraordinarily rude, popping up at the most inopportune and inappropriate

  moments. The dead particularly liked bathrooms it was a perfect location for

  them: quiet and still, with lots of reflective surfaces. Perenelle recalled a

  time she d been brushing her teeth when the ghost of an American president

  had appeared in the mirror in front of her. She d almost swallowed the

  toothbrush.

  Perenelle had quickly come to understand that ghosts could not see certain

  colors blues and greens and some tints of yellow and so she deliberately

  encouraged those colors into her aura, carefully creating a shield that

  rendered her invisible in the particular Shadowrealm where the shades of the

  dead gathered.

  Opening her eyes wide, Perenelle concentrated on her own aura. Her natural

  aura was a pale ice white, which acted like a beacon for the dead, drawing

  them to her. But over it, like layers of paint, she had created auras of

  bright blue, emerald green, and primrose yellow. Now, one by one, Perenelle

  shut off the colors yellow first, then green, then the final blue defense.

  The ghosts came then, drawn to her ice white aura like moths to a flame. They

  flickered into existence around her: men, women and children, wearing clothes

  from across the decades. Perenelle moved her green eyes over the glistening

  images, not entirely sure what she was looking for. She dismissed women and

  girls in the flowing skirts of the eighteenth century and men in the boots

  and gun belts of the nineteenth and concentrated on those ghosts wearing the

  clothing of the twentieth century. She finally picked out an elderly man

  wearing a modern-looking security guard s uniform. Gently easing the other

  shades aside, she called the figure closer.

  Perenelle understood that people particularly in modern, sophisticated

  societies were frightened of ghosts. But she knew that there was no reason to

  fear them: a ghost was nothing more than the remnants of a person s aura that

  remained attached to a particular place.

  Can I help you, ma am? The shade s voice was strong, with a touch of the

  East Coast in it: Boston perhaps. Standing tall and straight, like an old

  soldier, the ghost looked about sixty, though he could have been older.

  Could you tell me where I am? Perenelle asked.

  You re in the basement of the corporate headquarters of Enoch Enterprises,

  just to the west of Telegraph Hill. We got Coit Tower almost directly

  overhead, he added proudly.

  You seem very sure.

  Should be. I worked here for thirty years. wasn't always Enoch Enterprises,

  of course. But places like this always need security. Never one break-in on

  my watch, he informed her.

  That'san achievement to be proud of, Mr .

  It surely is. The ghost paused, his image flickering wildly. Miller. That

  was my name. Jefferson Miller. Been a while since anyone asked for it. How

  can I help you? he asked.

  Well, you've been of great assistance already. At least I know I am still in

  San Francisco.

  The ghost continued to look at her. Did you expect not to be?

  I think I may have slept earlier; I was afraid I might have been moved out

  of the city, she explained.

  Are you being held against your will, ma am?

  I am.

  Jefferson Miller drifted closer. Well, That'sjust not right. There was a

  long pause while his image flickered. But I m afraid I Can't help you I m a

  ghost, you see.

  Perenelle nodded. I know that. She smiled. I just wasn't sure if you

  knew. She knew that one of the reasons ghosts often remained attached to

  certain places was because they simply did not know that they were dead.

  The old security guard wheezed a laugh. I ve tried to leave but something

  keeps pulling me back. Maybe I just spent too much time here when I was

  alive.

  Perenelle nodded again. I can help you leave, if you would like to. I
can do

  that for you.

  Jefferson Miller nodded. I think I would like that very much. My wife,

  Ethel, she passed on ten years before me. Sometimes I think I hear her voice

  calling me across the Shadowrealms.

  Perenelle nodded. She is trying to call you home. I can help you cut the

  ties that bind you to this place.

  Is there anything I can do for you in return?

  Perenelle smiled. Well, there is one thing . Perhaps you could get a message

  to my husband.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  S ophie and Josh followed Scathach through Hekate's house. There were

  reminders everywhere that they were inside a tree: everything floors, walls

  and ceilings was wooden, and in places, little buds and shoots of green

  leaves dappled the walls, as if the wood was still growing.

  With her hand resting lightly on her brother s shoulder, Sophie looked

  around. The house seemed to be composed of a series of circular rooms that

  flowed, almost imperceptibly, into one another. She caught glimpses as she

  and Josh passed them; almost all the rooms were bare, and most of them had

  tall red-barked trees growing through the center of the floor. One room, off

  to the side and much larger than the rest, had a large oval-shaped pool in

  the middle of the floor. Startlingly large white-flowered water lilies

  clustered in the center of the pool, giving it the appearance of a huge

  unblinking eye. Another room was filled entirely with wooden wind chimes

  dangling from the branches of its red tree. Each set of chimes was a

  different size and shape, some etched and carved with symbols, others

  unadorned. They hung still and quiet until Sophie looked into the room, and

  then they slowly, melodically began to rattle together. It sounded like

  distant whispers. Sophie squeezed Josh s shoulder, trying to attract his

  attention, but he was staring straight ahead, forehead creased in

  concentration.

  Where is everyone? Josh finally asked.

  There is only Hekate, Scathach said. Those of the Elder Race are solitary

  creatures.

  Are there many still alive? Sophie wondered aloud.

  Scathach paused by an open door and turned to look back over her shoulder.

  More than you might think. The majority of them want nothing to do with the

  humani and rarely venture from their individual Shadowrealms. Others, like