The Alchemyst turned and placed the box on the bed. Its sides had been etched with a triple spiral, and he allowed his fingers to trace the curls. He’d bought the box in a backstreet in Delhi in India, just over three hundred years ago, and then sketched the spiral design on it with a stick of charcoal. A local craftsman had cut the shape into the four sides of the box, and then on the lid and the base. “In my country, this is an ancient powerful symbol of protection,” the tiny wizened man had muttered in Hindi, not expecting the foreigner to understand him. He had been shocked when the Westerner had lifted the box from his hands and replied in the same language, “In mine too.”
There was neither lock nor clasp on the box, and Nicholas carefully lifted off the carved lid and placed it on the bed. A hint of jasmine and exotic spices touched the air: the unmistakable odor of India. He was reaching into the cloth-packed interior, when Perenelle suddenly grabbed his arm, her fingers biting into his flesh. He watched as she carefully lifted her hair and tilted her head to one side. She was listening.
And then Nicholas heard it: someone was moving stealthily through the shop below.
CHAPTER TEN
None of the late-evening tourists crowding noisily into Covent Garden in London paid any attention to the tall slender woman with the cascade of jet-black hair. She had taken up a position between two of the pillars in front of the Punch amp; Judy Pub and placed a square of soft leather painted with red curling spirals on the cobbles at her feet. Finally, she unwrapped a carved wooden flute from a leather cover, put the flute to her lips, closed her eyes, and blew gently.
The sound was extraordinary.
Magnified by the stone pillars, the haunting, ethereal music drifted out across Covent Garden, washing over the cobbles stopping everyone in their tracks. Within minutes a crowd had gathered in a half circle around the woman.
Standing perfectly still, she played with her eyes closed. It was a tune none of the listeners recognized, though many found it vaguely familiar and discovered that their fingers or toes were tapping along with the beat. A few were even moved to tears.
Then, finally, the ancient-sounding wordless music ended with a single high-pitched note that sounded like distant birds flying overhead. There was a long moment of silence and the musician opened her eyes and bowed slightly. The crowd applauded and cheered, and most immediately started to drift away toward the Apple Market. A few dropped money-British sterling, American coins and euros-onto the leather cloth and two people asked if the musician had a CD of her music for sale, but she shook her head and explained that every performance was different and unique. She thanked them for their interest in a soft whispering voice that had just the hint of an American East Coast accent.
Finally, only one listener remained: an older man who watched her intently, gray eyes following her every movement as she wiped down the flute and slid it back into what was obviously a handmade leather case. He waited until she had stooped to gather up the red leather cloth with its scattering of coins and then stepped forward and dropped a fifty-pound note onto the ground. The woman picked it up and looked at the man, but he had positioned himself so that the light was behind his head, leaving his face in shadow. “There is another fifty if you’ll spare me a few minutes of your time.”
The woman straightened. “Now, there’s a voice from my past.” She was taller than the man, and while her elegant fine-boned face remained expressionless, her slate-gray eyes danced with amusement. “Dr. John Dee,” she murmured in an accent that had not been heard in England since the time of Queen Elizabeth in the sixteenth century.
“Miss Virginia Dare,” Dee replied, slipping easily into the same accent. He moved his head and the evening light ran across his face. “It is good to see you again.”
“I cannot say the same.” The woman glanced quickly left and right, nostrils flaring. Her tongue flickered, like a snake’s, almost as if she was tasting the air. “I’m not sure I want to be seen with you. You have been marked for death, Doctor. The same mercenaries who only yesterday hunted the Alchemyst are now looking for you.” There was nothing friendly about the smile that curled her lips. “How do you know I will not kill you and claim the reward?”
“Well, two reasons, really. First, I know my masters want me alive, and second, because there is little our Dark Elder masters could offer you that you do not already have,” Dee said, smiling easily. “You are already immortal, and you have no one to call master.”
“There is a very big reward on your head,” Virginia Dare said, shoving the money into the pockets of her long denim maxi coat. She pushed the leather cloth into another pocket and slung the flute over her shoulder, carrying it like a rifle.
“I can offer you more,” Dee said confidently. “Much more.”
“John,” Virginia said almost affectionately, “you always were a terrible braggart.”
“But I never lied to you.”
Virginia seemed surprised by the statement. She took a moment before answering. “No, you did not,” she finally admitted.
“Are you not in the least bit curious?” he asked.
“John, you know I have been curious all my life.”
Dee smiled. “What do you want most in the world?”
A look of terrible loss flickered across Virginia Dare’s face and her eyes clouded. “Even you cannot give me what I most desire.”
The Magician bowed slightly. He had known Virginia Dare for over four hundred years. There had been a time when they had talked seriously of marriage, but even he admitted that he knew little about this mysterious immortal human.
“Can you offer me a Shadowrealm?” she asked lightly.
“I think I can do one better than that. I might be able to offer you the world.”
Virginia Dare stopped in the middle of Covent Garden. “Which world?”
“This one.”
The young-looking woman slipped her arm through Dee’s and maneuvered him toward a cafe on the opposite side of the square. “Come and buy me a cup of tea, and we can talk about this. I’ve always rather liked this world.”
But Dee froze, eyes fixed to the left.
Virginia slowly turned, nostrils flaring again. A trio of shaven-headed young men had entered the square. They were dressed in a uniform of faded, dirty T-shirts, jeans and heavy work boots. Their arms and shoulders were heavily tattooed, and one, the shortest of the three, had an intricate red and black spiral tattoo curling up around his throat and across the top of his head.
“Cucubuths,” the Magician murmured. “We just might be able to slip away without them noticing…” Dee paused as one of the three men turned to look at the couple. “Or then again, we might not,” he added with a sigh.
Virginia Dare took one step backward and then another, leaving him standing alone. “You’re on your own, Doctor.”
“I see you haven’t changed, Virginia,” he muttered.
“That’s how I’ve survived for so long. I never get involved. I never take sides.”
“Maybe you should.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
The two huge ravens, Huginn and Muninn, arrived over London. Although they looked like birds, these were creatures almost as old as the race of humani and were neither living nor dead, but something caught in between. Practically immortal, they possessed the power of human speech and had been created by the three-faced goddess, Hekate, as a gift to the one-eyed Elder, Odin.
But now Hekate was no more-for the first time in generations an Elder had been slain-and her Shadowrealm and the adjoining realms of Asgard and Niflheim destroyed.
And Dee was to blame.
Many Elders had called for the Magician’s death, but in the days immediately following the destruction of the Yggdrasill and the Shadowrealms, Dee’s powerful Elder masters had protected him. Following the carnage in Paris and the escape of the Alchemyst and the twins from England, however, that protection had been revoked. When Dee was declared utlaga, he became fair game for all.
Od
in had sworn to wreak terrible vengeance on Dee, whom he blamed for the death of Hekate, the woman he had once loved. The one-eyed Elder knew that his foul rival Hel had escaped the destruction of her own Shadowrealm, Niflheim, and was also now chasing Dee, but Odin was determined to find and deal with the Magician first. So he sent his messengers into the humani Shadowrealm.
The birds scoured the city with eyes that saw beyond the physical, alert for any unusual activity. They noted and reported back to the Elder the myriad creatures that now moved through the city’s busy streets. Floating over the smoldering ruins of a used car yard in London, drifting in the oily wind, they felt the gossamer traces of extraordinary and ancient powers. Soaring across Salisbury Plain, they circled the ancient site of Stonehenge, where the air was heavy with orange and vanilla and the ground churned to mud by a host of hooves and claws.
Then they flapped back into the city and floated lazily on currents and eddies in the air, almost too high to be seen, looping in huge circles, waiting, waiting, waiting…
And because they did not know the meaning of time, they were endlessly patient.
CHAPTER TWELVE
The three shaven-headed men closed in on Dee.
“There’s a reward for you,” the figure with the tattooed skull announced, walking right up to the doctor. Although the Magician was not tall, this man was at least an inch shorter, but broad and muscular. His lips moved, trying to mimic how the humani smiled, yet his mouth merely twisted into a savage snarl that revealed short pointed yellowed teeth. “A big reward.”
“Alive,” another added. He had taken up a position to Dee’s right.
“Though not necessarily unharmed,” the third said from the left. He was the biggest of the three, and wore a dirty green camouflage T-shirt that strained across a heavily muscled chest.
“Funny how the world turns,” the leader said. His accent was a curious mixture of North London and Eastern European. “Yesterday we were working for you, hunting the Alchemyst. Today we are hunting you.” He rubbed his hands briskly together. “For double the money, too. I think you might have been underpaying us for Flamel and the children.” The short man smiled again. “You always were cheap, Dr. Dee.”
“I prefer the term frugal,” Dee said calmly.
“Frugal. That’s a good word. I bet it means ‘cheap.’” He looked at his companions, and they both nodded.
“Cheap,” one repeated.
“Miserly,” the largest added.
“Frugal does not buy loyalty. Maybe if you’d paid us a little extra, we might have been encouraged to look the other way just now.”
“If I had paid you more, would you?” Dee wondered out loud, curiously.
“Probably not,” the creature said. “We are hunters. We usually catch what we hunt.”
The Magician’s thin lips twisted in a nasty smile. “But you failed to capture Flamel and the children yesterday,” he said.
The small man shrugged uncomfortably. “Well, yes…”
“Failed,” Dee reminded him.
The tattooed man stepped closer, lowering his voice as he glanced quickly left and right. “We tracked their scent as far as St. Marylebone Church. Then the Dearg Due turned up,” he added, a touch of horror in his voice.
Dee nodded, careful to keep his face impassive. The stink coming off the creatures was appalling-a mixture of old meat, stale clothes and unwashed bodies. The cucubuths were hunters, the children of a vampire and a Torc Madra, more beast than man, and he was guessing that at least one of the figures standing around him had a tail tucked in the back of its pants. But even the savage mercenaries were terrified of the Dearg Due, the Red Blood Suckers. “How many were there?” he asked.
“Two,” the cucubuth leader whispered. “Female,” he added with a grim nod.
Dee nodded again; the females were far deadlier than the males. “But they didn’t catch Flamel or the twins either,” he said.
“No.” The creature grinned again, showing his appalling teeth. “They were too busy chasing us. We lost them in Regent’s Park. It was a little embarrassing to be chased through the park by what looked like two schoolgirls,” he admitted. “But capturing you will more than make up for it,” he said.
“You haven’t captured me yet,” Dee murmured.
The cucubuth stepped back and spread his arms wide. “What are you going to do, Doctor? You dare not use your powers. Your aura will bring everything-and I do mean everything -that is now in London down on you. And if you do use it and manage to escape, the sulfurous stink will linger about you for hours. You’ll be easily tracked to your lair.”
The cucubuth was correct, Dee knew. If he used his aura, then every Elder, Dark Elder and immortal human in London would know his whereabouts.
“So you can come quietly with us…,” the cucubuth suggested.
“Or we can carry you out of here,” the larger creature added.
Dr. John Dee sighed and glanced at his watch. He was running out of time.
“In a hurry, Doctor?” the cucubuth asked with a toothy grin.
Dee’s right hand moved. It started low on his hip, palm up, rising at an angle, twisting in midair, so that the palm caught the creature under the chin. The tattooed cucubuth’s teeth snapped together, and the force of the blow lifted him off his feet and sent him sprawling across the cobblestones. Dee’s right leg shot out, catching the biggest creature high on the inside of the thigh, numbing his entire leg, dropping him to the ground into a puddle of dirty water, a look of shocked surprise on his broad brutish face.
The third cucubuth darted away from Dee. “Mistake, Doctor,” he snarled, “big mistake.”
“I’m not the one who made the mistake,” Dee whispered. He took a step closer, hands loose at his sides. The Magician had survived for centuries because people always underestimated him. They looked and saw a slight gray-haired man. Even those who knew his reputation imagined him to be nothing more than a scholar. But Dee was more-much, much more. He had been a warrior. When he had still been fully human, and later when he had become immortal, Dee had traveled across Europe. It was a lawless time, when brigands and outlaws roamed the roads, and even the cities themselves were not safe. If a man was to survive, he had to be able to protect himself. Many people had made the mistake of underestimating the English doctor. It was a mistake he never allowed them to repeat. “I don’t need to use my aura to hurt you,” the Magician said softly.
“I am cucubuth,” the creature said arrogantly. “You may have surprised my brothers, but you will not be able to use the same trick on me.”
The Magician heard groaning behind him and glanced over his shoulder to find the cucubuth leader scrambling to his feet. He was holding his jaw in both hands and his eyes looked unfocused.
“You have injured my little brother.”
“I’m sure he’ll make a full recovery,” Dee said. Cucubuths were almost impossible to kill, and even possessed the vampire ability to regenerate injured limbs.
The largest of the three came slowly and painfully to his feet. He stood awkwardly balanced on his left leg, rubbing his right furiously, trying to bring feeling back into it. “And you’ve ruined my jeans,” he growled. The seat and legs of his jeans were black with water.
“What are you going to do now, Doctor?” the unharmed skinhead asked.
“Come a little closer and I’ll show you.” Dee’s smile was as ugly and inhuman as the cucubuth’s.
The creature suddenly threw back his head and his mouth formed a sound that could never have come from a human throat. It was a cross between a bark and a howl. All the pigeons gathered on the Covent Garden roofs took to the air in an explosion of flapping wings. From somewhere nearby, what sounded like a wolf howl echoed across London’s rooftops. It was joined by another, and then another until the air trembled with the terrifying primeval sounds. All traces of humanity left the cucubuth’s face as he laughed. “This is our city, Doctor. We have ruled Trinovantum since before the Romans clai
med it as their own. Have you any idea how many of us are here now?”
“I’m guessing it’s more than a few.”
“Many, many more,” the creature snarled. “And they’re coming. All of them.”
From the corner of his eye, Dee saw movement. Glancing up, he saw a shape move on the triangular roof of St. Paul’s Church opposite. A skinhead appeared, silhouetted against the evening sky, then another, and another. There was a commotion on the other side of the square as six skinheads appeared, and then, at the opposite entrance, another three appeared.
The human tourists, seeing the sudden influx of skinheads and fearing a brawl, began to scatter. Shops hastily closed. Within moments, only the ugly shaven-headed cucubuths were left in Covent Garden’s cobbled square.
“So what are you going to do now, Dr. Dee?”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
The noise echoing across the London rooftops and up into the skies alerted the ravens: the primeval howling of cucubuths that had once terrified primitive humani huddling in caves.
Huginn and Muninn dipped toward the sounds.
Blackbirds and crows streamed past them, the simple creatures radiating raw fear. Doves whirled in the air almost directly below; frightened, but incapable of doing anything about their fear, they settled back onto the rooftops around a broad cobbled square, only to immediately rise into the air again as another howl broke through the night.
The ravens flew low across the Thames River, over Victoria Embankment and the Royal Opera House. They spotted the first of the cucubuths in the streets below, seeing through its almost-human guise to reveal the beast-man beneath, with its tusks and ragged claws. Each cucubuth was swathed in a dark aura. And there were hundreds of them, running, loping, jogging, singly and in pairs, converging on the enclosed space of Covent Garden.
Instantly, the ravens knew that they must have found the English Magician. As one, their beaks worked to form a single word: “Dee.”
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