effect and the rats could have been trained. But not the birds: there were
too many of them, and they ripped the car to shreds. The birds were what had
finally convinced her that she and Josh were in very real danger because if
the birds were real, then everything else was real too.
Josh dug his hands into the back pockets of his jeans and stood by the open
window. The dense foliage came right up to the window ledge, and although
there was no glass in the opening, none of the myriad bugs that flitted
through the late-evening air entered the room. He recoiled as a bright blue
snake as thick as his wrist appeared out of the canopy of leaves and
flickered a tongue that was easily six inches long in his direction. The
snake vanished as a ball of tiny buzzing lights appeared, darting smoothly
through the trees. As they shot past the window, Josh could have sworn that
the entire swarm was composed of about a dozen tiny winged women, none of
them bigger than his forefinger. The lights came from within their bodies. He
licked dry lips. Okay, let s assume that this is real all of it the magic,
the ancient races then that brings me back to my original thought: we've got
to get out of here.
Sophie walked to the window, stood behind her brother and put her arm on his
shoulder. She was older than he was by twenty-eight seconds less than half a
minute, Josh always reminded her but with their mother and father away so
much, she had assumed the role of a much older sister. Although he was
already a good two inches taller than she was, he would always be her baby
brother. I agree, she said tiredly. We should try and make a run for it.
Something in his sister s voice made Josh turn to look at her. You don't
think we ll get away, he said evenly.
Let s try, she said, not answering his question. But I m sure they ll come
after us.
Flamel'said that Dee would be able to track us. I m sure Flamel or
Scathach can do that too.
Flamel has no reason to follow us, Sophie pointed out.
But Dee does, Josh said. What happens if we go home and Dee and his people
follow us there? he wondered aloud.
Sophie frowned. I ve been thinking about that. Flamel'said that we ll be
able to see the magical aura that surrounds people.
Josh nodded.
Hekate hasn t Awakened our magical powers. She frowned again, trying to
remember exactly what Nicholas Flamel had said. Flamel'said we smelled of
wild magic.
Josh sniffed deeply. But I Can't smell anything. No fruit or oranges or
vanilla ice cream. Maybe we don't smell until that happens.
If we managed to make it back home, we could head out to Utah to Mom and
Dad. We could stay with them for the rest of the summer until all this blows
over.
That'snot a bad idea, Josh said. No one would find us in the desert. And
right now, the hot, boring, sandy desert sounds really attractive.
Sophie turned to look at the door. There s only one problem. This place is a
maze. Do you think you can find the way back to the car?
I think so. He nodded. Actually, I m sure of it.
Let s go, then. She checked her pocket for her dead cell phone. Let s get
your stuff.
The twins paused by the door of Sophie s room and peered up and down the
corridor. It was deserted and in almost total darkness except where irregular
clumps of arm-length crystals emitted a milky white light.
Somewhere in the distance, a sound that was caught between laughter and
screaming echoed down the corridors. With their rubber-soled sneakers making
no sound on the floor, they darted across the corridor into Josh s room.
How did we ever get into this mess? Josh wondered out loud.
I guess we were just in the wrong place at the wrong time, Sophie said. She
had remained standing by the door, watching the corridor. But even as she was
saying the words, she was beginning to suspect that there was more to it than
that. There was something else going on, something to do with the prophecy
that Flamel had referred to, something to do with them. And the very idea
terrified her.
The twins slipped into the corridor and moved through the circular rooms,
taking their time, peering into each one before entering. They kept stopping,
listening as snatches of conversations in almost recognizable languages or
music played on unidentifiable instruments floated down the corridor. Once, a
high-pitched howl of maniacal laughter sent them ducking into the nearest
room as it seemed to approach, then disappear again. When they crept back out
of the room, they noticed that all the light crystals in the corridor had
dimmed to a bloodred glow.
I m glad we didn't see what passed by, Josh said shakily.
Sophie grunted a response. Her brother was in the lead; she followed two
steps behind, her hand on his shoulder. How do you know where we re going?
she whispered, bringing her mouth close to his ear. All the rooms looked
identical to her.
When we first came into the house, I noticed that the walls and floor were
dark, but as we moved down the corridors, they became lighter and paler in
color. Then I realized that we were walking through different shades of wood,
like the rings of a tree trunk. All we have to do is to follow the corridor
that leads to the dark wood.
Smart, Sophie said, impressed.
Josh glanced over his shoulder and grinned. Told you those video games
weren t a waste of time. The only way not to get lost in the maze games is to
watch for clues, like patterns on the walls or ceilings, and to keep a note
of your steps so you can retrace them if you need to. He stepped out into a
corridor. And if I m right, the main door should be there! he finished
triumphantly.
The twins fled across the vast open field in front of the huge tree house,
and made their way to the tree-lined pathway that led back to the car. Even
though night had fallen, they had no problem seeing. The moon hung bright and
low in the heavens, and the sky was filled with an extraordinary number of
brilliant stars, which combined with a swirling band of silvery dust high in
the sky to give the night a peculiar grayish luminescence. Only the shadows
remained pitch black.
Although it wasn't cold, Sophie shivered: the night felt wrong. Josh pulled
off his hooded sweatshirt and draped it over his sister s shoulders. The
stars are different, she muttered. They re so bright. Craning her neck,
she looked up into the heavens, trying to peer through the branches of the
Yggdrasill. I Can't see the Big Dipper, and the North Star is missing.
And there was no moon last night, Josh said, nodding to where the full moon
was rising huge and yellow-white over the treetops. No moon in our world,
he added solemnly.
Sophie stared hard at the moon. There was something about it something wrong.
She tried to identify the familiar craters, and then felt her stomach lurch
with a sudden realization. Her hand, when she pointed upward, was trembling.
That'snot our moon!
Josh looked hard, squinting against the glare. Then he saw what his sister
was talking about. The surface is different. Smoother, he said softly.
Where are the craters? I Can't see Kepler, Copernicus or even Tycho.
Josh, Sophie said quickly, I think we re looking at the night sky as it
was thousands of years ago, maybe hundreds of thousands of years ago. Sophie
tilted her head and looked up. Josh was startled to see that the moonlight
gave her face a skeletal appearance, and he quickly looked away, disturbed.
He had always been close to his sister, but the last few hours had served to
remind him just how important she was to him.
didn't Scathach say that Hekate had created this Shadowrealm? Josh asked.
I bet it s modeled on the world she remembered.
So this is the night sky and the moon as they were thousands of years ago,
Sophie said in awe. She wished she had her digital camera with her, just to
capture the extraordinary image of the smooth-faced moon.
The twins were looking into the heavens when a shadow flickered across the
face of the moon, a speck that might have been a bird except that the
wingspan was too wide, and no bird had that serpentlike neck and tail.
Josh grabbed his sister s hand and pulled her toward the car. I m really
beginning to hate this place, he grumbled.
The SUV was where they had left it, parked in the center of the path. The
moon washed yellow light across the shattered windshield, the broken patterns
in the starred glass picked out in shadow. The brilliance also highlighted
the scars on the car s body, the scratches and gouges in sharp relief. The
roof was studded with hundreds of tiny holes where the birds had pecked
through the metal, the rear window wiper dangled by a thread of rubber and
the two side mirrors were completely missing.
The twins regarded the SUV silently, the full realization of the bird attack
beginning to sink in. Sophie ran a finger down a series of scratches in the
window on the passenger side of the car. Those few millimeters of glass were
all that had protected her flesh from the birds claws.
Let s go, Josh said, pulling open the door and sliding into the driver s
seat. The keys were where he had left them, in the ignition.
I feel a little bad, running out on Nicholas and Scatty without saying
anything, Sophie said as she pulled open the door and climbed in. But the
immortal Alchemyst and the Warrior would be better off without them, she
reckoned. They were more than able to defend themselves; the last thing they
needed was two teenagers slowing them down.
We ll apologize if we ever see them again, Josh said. He privately thought
he would be happy never to see either of them again. Playing video games was
all fine and well. When you were killed in a game, you just started again. In
this Shadowrealm, though, there were no second chances, and a lot more ways
to die.
Do you know how we get out of here? Sophie asked.
Sure. Her brother grinned, his teeth white in the moonlight. We reverse.
And we don't stop for anything.
Josh turned the key in the ignition. There was a metallic click and a whining
sound, which quickly descended into silence. He turned the key again. This
time there was only the click.
Josh ? Sophie began.
It took him just a moment to figure out what had happened. The battery s
dead. Probably drained by the same force that drained our phones, Josh
murmured. He swiveled around in the seat to stare through the scarred rear
window. Look, we came down that path behind us; we didn't turn left or
right. Let s make a run for it. What do you think? He turned back to look at
his sister, but she wasn't looking at him, she was staring through the
windshield in front of her. You re not even listening to me.
Sophie reached over, took her twin s face in her hand and turned his head
toward the windshield. He looked, blinked, swallowed hard, then reached over
to push down the locks on the doors. What now? he asked.
Crouching directly in front of them was a creature that was neither bird nor
serpent, but something caught in between. It stood about the size of a tall
child. Moonlight dappled its snakelike body and shone weakly through
outstretched batlike wings, the tiny bones and veins etched in black. Clawed
feet dug deeply into the soft ground, and a long tail lashed to and fro
behind it. But it was the head that held their attention. The skull was long
and narrow, eyes huge and round, the gaping mouth filled with hundreds of
tiny white teeth. The head tilted first to one side and then the other, and
then the mouth snapped open and closed. The creature took a hop closer to the
car.
There was movement in the air behind it, and a second creature, even bigger
than the first, dropped from the night skies. It folded its wings and stood
upright as it turned its hideous head toward the car.
Maybe they re vegetarians, Josh suggested. Leaning over the driver s seat,
he rummaged in the back of the car, looking for something he could use as a
weapon.
Not with those teeth, his sister said grimly. I think they re pterosaurs,
she said, remembering the huge suspended skeleton she had seen in the Texas
Natural Science Center.
Like pterodactyls? Josh asked, turning back. He had found a small fire
extinguisher.
Pterosaurs are older, Sophie said.
A third pterosaur dropped from the night sky, and like three hunched old men,
the creatures began to advance on the car.
We should have stayed in the tree, Sophie muttered. They d been warned,
hadn't they? Stay in your rooms, don't leave and after everything they d seen
so far, they should have guessed that Hekate's Shadowrealm at night was a
dangerous and deadly place. Now they were facing something out of the
Cretaceous period.
Josh opened his mouth to reply, then closed it again. He pulled the retaining
pin out of the fire extinguisher, arming it. He wasn't sure what would happen
if he fired off a blast of the gas at them.
The three creatures split up. One approached from the front of the car; the
remaining two moved toward the driver and passenger windows.
Wish we knew some magic now, Sophie said fervently. She could feel her
heart tripping in her chest and was aware that her tongue seemed far too
large for her mouth. She felt breathless and light-headed.
The largest pterosaur leaned across the hood of the car, resting its huge
wings on the scarred metal to support itself. Its long, snakelike head darted
forward to peer into the body of the car, and it slowly looked from Sophie to
Josh and then back to Sophie. Seen this close, its mouth was enormous, its
teeth endless.
Josh positioned the nozzle of the fire extinguisher against one of the many
holes in the windshield and aimed it at the pterosaur. His eyes were darting
left and right, watching the approach of the other two creatures, and his
hands were sweating so heavily that he was finding it difficult to hold the
fire extinguisher.
Josh, Sophie whispered, do something. Do something now!
Maybe the gas in the extinguisher will scare them away, Josh replied,
unconsciously lowering hi
s voice to a whisper. Or poison them or something
And why would you want to do that? The pterosaur tilted its head to look at
Josh, mouth working, teeth glinting. The words were full of clicking pops and
stops, but the language was English. We are not your enemy.
CHAPTER TWENTY
E ven for Bel Air, the area of L.A. renowned for its extravagant properties,
the house was extraordinary. Vast and sprawling, built entirely of white
travertine marble, and accessible only by a private road, it occupied a
sixty-acre estate surrounded by a twelve-foot wall topped by an electric
fence. Dr. John Dee had to wait for ten minutes outside the closed gates
while an armed security guard checked his identity and another guard examined
every inch of the car, even scanned beneath it with a small camera. Dee was
glad he d chosen a commercial limousine service, with a human driver; he
wasn't sure what the guards would have made of a mud Golem.
Dee had flown in from San Francisco late in the afternoon on his private jet.
The limousine, booked by his office, had picked him up from Burbank now
renamed Bob Hope Airport, he noted and driven him down to Sunset Boulevard
through some of the most appalling traffic he had encountered since he d
lived in Victorian London.
For the first time in his very long life, Dee felt as if events were slipping
out of his control. They were moving too quickly, and in his experience, that
was when accidents happened. He was being rushed by people well, not people,
exactly, more beings too eager for results. They had made him move against
Flamel today, even though he d told them he needed another few days of
preparation. And he d been right. Twenty-four more hours of planning and
surveillance would have enabled him to snatch Nicholas as well as Perenelle,
and the entire Codex. Dee had warned his employers that Nicholas Flamel could
be tricky indeed, but they hadn't listened to him. Dee knew Flamel better
than anyone. Over the centuries he had come close to catching him very
close but on every occasion, Flamel and Perenelle had managed to slip away.
Sitting back in the air-conditioned car while the guards continued their
inspections, he recalled the first time he had met the famous Alchemyst,
Nicholas Flamel.
John Dee was born in 1527. His was the world of Queen Elizabeth I, and he had
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