Nicholas Flamel 1 - The Alchemyst sotinf-1

by Michael Scott

  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