Nicholas Flamel 1 - The Alchemyst sotinf-1

by Michael Scott

  Sophie looked up to find her brother staring hard at her, eyes wide with

  concern. Flamel'said the Witch will be able to help you, he said.

  What if she Can't, Josh? What if she Can't?

  He had no answer to that.

  Sophie and Josh crossed Ojai Avenue and stepped under the arched promenade

  that ran the length of the block. The temperature immediately dropped to a

  bearable level, and Sophie realized that her shirt was sticking to the small

  of her back, ice cold against her spine.

  They caught up with Nicholas Flamel, who had stopped in front of a small

  antiques shop, a dismayed look on his face. The shop was closed. Without

  saying a word, he tapped at the paper clock taped to the inside of the door.

  The hands were set to two-thirty and a handwritten scrawl beneath it said

  Gone to lunch, back at 2:30.

  It was now close to three-thirty.

  Flamel and Scatty leaned against the door, peering inside, while the twins

  looked through the window. The small shop seemed to sell only glassware:

  bowls, jugs, plates, paperweights, ornaments and mirrors. Lots of mirrors.

  They were everywhere, and in all shapes and sizes from tiny circles to huge

  rectangles. Much of the glass looked modern, but a few of the pieces in the

  window were obviously antiques.

  So what do we do now? Flamel wondered. Where can she be?

  Probably wandered out to get lunch and forgot to come back, Scatty said,

  turning to look up and down the street. Hardly busy today, is it? Even

  though it was late Friday afternoon, traffic was light on the main street,

  and there were fewer than a dozen pedestrians moving slowly beneath the

  covered promenade.

  We could check the restaurants, Flamel'suggested. What does she like to

  eat?

  don't ask, Scatty said quickly, you really do not want to know.

  Maybe if we split up , Nicholas began.

  On impulse Sophie leaned forward and turned the handle: a bell jangled

  musically and the door swung open.

  Nice one, Sis.

  Saw it done in a movie once, she muttered. Hello? she called, stepping

  into the shop.

  There was no response.

  The antiques shop was tiny, little more than a long rectangular room, but the

  effect of the hundreds of mirrors some of which even dangled from the

  ceiling made it look much bigger than it actually was.

  Sophie threw back her head and breathed deeply, nostrils flaring. Do you

  smell that?

  Her twin shook his head. The number of mirrors was making him nervous; he

  kept catching reflections of himself from all sides, and in every mirror, his

  image was different, broken or distorted.

  What do you smell? Scatty asked.

  It s like Sophie paused. Like woodsmoke in the fall.

  So she has been here.

  Sophie and Josh looked at her blankly.

  That'sthe odor of the Witch of Endor. That'sthe scent of eldritch magic.

  Flamel'stood by the door looking up and down the street. She Can't have gone

  far, if she left the shop unlocked. I m going to go look for her. He turned

  to Scatty. How will I recognize her?

  She grinned, eyes bright and wicked. Trust me; you ll know her when you see

  her.

  I'll be back shortly.

  As Flamel'stepped out into the street, a big motorcycle pulled up almost

  directly outside the shop. The rider sat there for a moment and then gunned

  his engine and roared away. The noise was incredible: all the glassware in

  the tiny shop shivered and vibrated with the sound. Sophie pressed both hands

  to her ears. I don't know how much more of this I Can'take, she whispered

  tearfully.

  Josh led his sister to a plain wooden chair and made her sit down. He

  crouched on one side, wanting to hold her hand, but frightened of touching

  her. He felt utterly useless.

  Scatty knelt down directly in front of Sophie, so that their faces were

  level. When Hekate Awakened you, she didn't have a chance to teach you how

  to turn your Awakened senses on and off. Your senses are stuck on at the

  moment, but it won t be like that all the time, I promise you. With a little

  training and a few basic protective spells, you ll learn to turn your senses

  on for just the briefest of periods.

  Josh looked at the two girls. Once again, he felt apart from his twin: truly

  apart. They were fraternal twins, and therefore not genetically identical.

  They didn't share those feelings that identical twins often spoke

  about feeling pain when the other twin was hurt, knowing when they were in

  trouble but right now he could feel his sister s distress. He only wished

  there was something he could do to ease her pain.

  Almost as if she could read his mind, Scatty said suddenly, There is

  something I can do that might help. The twins picked up on the note of

  hesitation in her voice. It will not hurt, she added quickly.

  It Can't hurt more than what I m feeling now, Sophie whispered. Do it,

  she said quickly.

  I need your permission first.

  Soph Josh began, but his sister ignored him.

  Do it, Sophie repeated. Please, she begged.

  I ve told you I am what you humani call a vampire .

  You are not drinking her blood! Josh yelled, horrified. His stomach flipped

  over at the thought.

  I ve told you before, my clan do not drink blood.

  I don't care

  Josh, Sophie interrupted angrily, her aura winking into existence for a

  second with her anger, filling the interior of the shop with the sudden

  sweetness of vanilla ice cream. A display of glass wind chimes tinkled and

  rattled in an unfelt breeze. Josh, be quiet. She swiveled in the seat to

  look at Scatty. What do you want me to do?

  Give me your right hand.

  Sophie immediately stretched out her hand and Scatty took it in both of hers.

  Then she carefully matched the fingers of her left hand to the girl s

  fingers, thumb to thumb, index finger to index finger, little finger to

  little finger. Blood drinking vampires, she said absently, concentrating on

  aligning their hands, are really the weakest, the lowliest of our clan. Have

  you ever wondered why they drink blood? They re actually dead their hearts do

  not beat, they have no need to eat, so the blood provides no sustenance for

  them.

  Are you dead? Sophie asked the question Josh was just about to ask.

  No, not really.

  Josh looked into the mirrors, but he could clearly see Scathach s reflection

  in the glass. She caught him looking and smiled. don't believe that old

  rubbish about vampires not casting a reflection: of course we do; we are

  solid, after all.

  Josh watched intently as Scathach pressed her fingers to his sister s.

  Nothing seemed to be happening. Then he caught a sparkle of silver in a

  mirror behind Scatty and he realized that in the glass, Sophie s hand had

  begun to glow with a pale silver light.

  My race, the Clan Vampire, Scatty continued very softly, staring at

  Sophie s palm, were of the Next Generation.

  In the mirror Josh saw that the silver light had begun to pool in Sophie s

  palm.

  We were not Elders. All of us who were born after the fall of
Danu Talis

  were completely unlike our parents; we were different in incomprehensible

  ways.

  you've mentioned Danu Talis before, Sophie murmured sleepily. What is it,

  a place? There was a warm, soothing feeling flowing up her arm, not unlike

  pins and needles, but tingling and pleasant.

  It was the center of the world in the Elder Times. The Elder Race ruled this

  planet from an island continent known as Danu Talis. It stretched from what

  is now the coast of Africa to the shores of North America and into the Gulf

  of Mexico.

  I ve never heard of Danu Talis, Sophie whispered.

  Yes, you have, Scathach said. The Celts called it the De Danann Isle; this

  modern world knows it as Atlantis.

  In the mirror, Josh could see that Sophie s hand was now glowing

  silver-white. It looked as if she were wearing a glove. Tiny sparking

  tendrils of silver wrapped themselves around Scatty s fingers like ornate

  rings, and she shuddered.

  Danu Talis was ripped apart because the Ruling Twins the Sun and Moon fought

  on top of the Great Pyramid. The incredible magical forces they released

  upset the balance of nature. I ve been told that that same wild magic

  swirling around the atmosphere caused the changes in the Next Generation.

  Some of us were born as monsters, others were caught between shapes, a few

  possessed extraordinary powers of transformation and could become beasts at

  will. And others, like those of us who eventually formed the Clan Vampire,

  found that we were unable to feel.

  Josh looked sharply at Scathach. What do you mean, feel?

  The Warrior smiled and looked at him. Suddenly, her teeth seemed very long in

  her mouth. We had little or no emotion. We lacked the capacity to feel fear,

  to experience love, to enjoy the sensations of happiness and delight. The

  finest warriors are not only those who do not know fear, but those who are

  without anger.

  Josh stepped back from Scatty and breathed deeply. His legs were beginning to

  cramp, and pins and needles were tingling in his toes. But he also needed to

  get away from the vampire. Now all the mirrors and polished glass surfaces in

  the shop showed the silver light flowing from Sophie s hand up Scatty s arm.

  It disappeared into her flesh before it reached her elbow.

  Scatty turned her head to look at Josh, and he noticed that the whites of her

  eyes had turned silver. Bloodsucking vampires don't need the blood. They

  need the emotions, the sensations carried in the blood.

  You re stealing Sophie s feelings, Josh whispered, horrified. Sophie, stop

  her .

  No! his twin snapped, eyes opening wide. The whites of her eyes, like

  Scatty s, had turned reflective silver. I can actually feel the pain flowing

  away.

  The sensations are too much for your sister to bear. They are becoming

  painful, and this makes her afraid. I m just taking away that pain and fear.

  Why would anyone want to feel pain or fear? Josh wondered aloud, both

  intrigued and repelled by the very idea. It seemed somehow wrong.

  So they can feel alive, Scatty said.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  E ven before she opened her eyes, Perenelle Flamel knew she had been moved to

  a much more secure prison. Someplace deep and dark and sinister. She could

  feel the old evil in the walls, could almost taste it on the air. Lying

  still, she tried to expand her senses, but the blanket of malevolence and

  despair was too strong, and she found she couldn t use her magic. She

  listened intently, and only when she was absolutely sure that there was no

  one in the room with her did she open her eyes.

  She was in a cell.

  Three walls were solid concrete, the fourth was metal bars. Beyond the bars

  she could see another row of cells.

  She was in a prison block!

  Perenelle swung her legs out of the narrow cot and came slowly to her feet.

  She noticed that her clothes smelled slightly of sea salt, and she thought

  she could detect the sounds of the not-too-distant ocean.

  The cell was bare, little more than an empty box, about ten feet long by four

  feet wide, with a narrow cot holding a thin mattress and a single lumpy

  pillow. A cardboard tray lay on the floor just inside the bars. It contained

  a plastic jug of water, a plastic cup and a thick chunk of dark bread on a

  paper plate. Seeing the food made her realize just how hungry she was, but

  she ignored it for the moment and crossed to the bars and peered out. Looking

  left and right, all she could see were cells, and they were empty.

  She was alone in the cell block. But where

  And then a ship s horn, plaintive and lost, sounded in the distance. With a

  shiver, Perenelle suddenly knew where Dee s men had taken her: she was on the

  prison island of Alcatraz, The Rock.

  She looked around the room, paying particular attention to the area around

  the metal gate. Unlike in her previous prison, she couldn t see any magical

  wards or protective sigils painted on the lintel or the floor. Perenelle

  couldn t resist a tiny smile. What were Dee s people thinking? Once she had

  recovered her strength, she d charge up her aura, and then bend this metal

  like putty and simply walk out of here.

  It took her a moment before she realized that the click-click she d first

  assumed to be dripping water was actually something approaching, moving

  slowly and deliberately. Pressing herself against the bars, she tried to see

  down the corridor. A shadow moved. More of Dee s faceless simulacra? she

  wondered. They would not be able to hold her for long.

  The shadow, huge and misshapen, moved out of the darkness and stepped down

  the corridor to stand before her cell. Perenelle was suddenly grateful for

  the bars that separated her from the terrifying entity.

  Filling the corridor was a creature that had not walked the earth since a

  millennium before the first pyramid rose over the Nile. It was a sphinx, an

  enormous lion with the wings of an eagle and the head of a beautiful woman.

  The sphinx smiled and tilted her head to one side, and a long black forked

  tongue flickered. Perenelle noticed that her pupils were flat and horizontal.

  This was not one of Dee s creations. The sphinx was one of the daughters of

  Echidna, one of the foulest of the Elders, shunned and feared even by her own

  race, even the Dark Elders. Perenelle suddenly found herself wondering who,

  exactly, Dee was serving.

  The sphinx pressed her face against the bars. Her long tongue shot out,

  tasting the air, almost brushing Perenelle s lips. Do I need to remind you,

  Perenelle Flamel, she asked in the language of the Nile, that one of the

  especial skills of my race is that we absorb auric energy? Her huge wings

  flapped, almost filling the corridor. You have no magical powers around me.

  An icy shiver ran down Perenelle s spine as she realized just how clever Dee

  was. She was a defenseless and powerless prisoner on Alcatraz, and she knew

  that no one had ever escaped The Rock alive.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  T he bell jangled as Nicholas Flamel pushed open the door and stepped back to

  allow a rather ordinary-looking elderly woman in a neat g
ray blouse and gray

  skirt to precede him into the shop. Short and round, her hair tightly permed

  and touched faintly with blue, only the overlarge black glasses covering much

  of her face set her apart. A white cane was folded in her right hand.

  Sophie and Josh immediately realized that she was blind.

  Flamel cleared his throat. Allow me to introduce He stopped and looked at

  the woman. Excuse me. What do I call you?

  Call me Dora, everyone else does. She spoke English with a decided New York

  accent. Scathach? she suddenly said. Scathach! And then her words

  dissolved into a language that seemed to consist of a lot of spitting

  sounds which Sophie was surprised to find she could understand.

  She wants to know why Scatty hasn t come to see her in the past three

  hundred and seventy-two years, eight months and four days, she translated

  for Josh. She was staring intently at the old woman and didn't see the fear

  and envy that flickered across his face.

  The old woman moved quickly around the narrow room, head darting left and

  right, never looking directly at Scatty. She continued to speak, seemingly

  without stopping for breath.

  She s telling Scatty that she could have been dead and no one would have

  known. Nor cared. Why, only last century she was desperately ill, and no one

  called, no one wrote

  Gran , Scatty began.

  don't Gran me, Dora said, dropping into English again. You could have

  written any language would have done. You could have phoned .

  You don't have a phone.

  And what s wrong with e-mail? Or a fax?

  Gran, have you got a computer or a fax machine?

  Dora stopped. No. What would I need one of them for?

  Dora s hand moved and suddenly her white stick extended to its full length

  with a snap. She tapped against the glass of a simple square mirror. Have

  you got one of these?

  Yes, Gran, Scatty said miserably. Her pale cheeks were flushed red with

  embarrassment.

  So you couldn t find the time to look in a mirror and talk to me. You re so

  busy these days? I ve got to hear it from your brother. And when was the last

  time you spoke to your mother!

  Scathach turned to the twins. This is my grandmother, the legendary Witch of

  Endor. Gran, this is Sophie and Josh. And you've met Nicholas Flamel.

  Yes, such a nice man. She kept turning her head, her nostrils flaring.