The Warlock Page 13

  “We should kill them now and be done with it,” Anubis said. The Change was also beginning to claim his body. Like his brother, Anubis had once been extraordinarily handsome, but now his teeth had lengthened to resemble those of the creatures he created in his underground laboratories, and the texture and hue of his copper-colored skin was coal black in places, etched through with tiny red veins. Speaking was becoming difficult, and both brothers knew that soon it would become impossible. Unlike Aten, who attempted to conceal the Change, Anubis—like so many of the Elders—exhibited his as a badge of honor.

  “Kill them?” Aten said in surprise.

  “Kill them. Always, the quickest solution to a problem is to remove it.”

  “But if we kill them, brother,” Aten said, “then we lose the most extraordinary opportunity of our lives. Abraham says they are from the future.”

  Anubis attempted to spit but failed and ended up hissing between his teeth. “We should kill him, too.” He joined his brother and they looked across the circular city toward the volcano.

  “Where is your scientific curiosity?” Aten asked lightly. “I remember when you were little, you were endlessly curious.”

  Anubis spread his hands. His fingers were curling into claws, the nails long and black. “And look where it got me. I am becoming a monster. I am convinced my experiments have somehow poisoned me and affected my Change. Surely we should look alike, brother?”

  “Abraham claims that the Change is simply a revelation of our true selves,” Aten said mildly.

  “So what does that make me?” Anubis growled.

  Aten turned away from the low wall that ran around the edge of the roof and stepped onto the first level of the huge hanging garden of the royal palace. He did not want to tell Anubis that he was indeed becoming like the dog-headed monsters he had first created a thousand years previously. “Walk with me,” he commanded.

  The roof garden—the Garden of the Moon—was divided into seven distinct circular areas, each one a different color and filled with different species of flora. Aten stepped into the first circle, pulled his heavy cloak tighter around his body, closed his eyes and breathed deeply. Within this circle, which completely encompassed the entire roof of the palace, were the lotuses—over one thousand different kinds collected from across the earth—and he could identify each one by its own distinctive scent.

  “Little brother, nothing must happen to our visitors,” he said, allowing some of his authority to seep into his voice. He knew Anubis was quite capable of acting behind his back. “They will be fed and watered. They will not be questioned—I will do that myself.”

  “Aten, is that wise?”

  Without turning around, the Lord of Danu Talis said quietly, “Do not challenge me again, little brother. Remember what happened to our other brother. You will do as I say, without question. If anything happens to the visitors, I will hold you personally responsible.” He turned quickly and caught the arrogant mocking expression on his brother’s face. “You think I’ve become weak, don’t you?” Aten asked mildly.

  Anubis strode forward. He was wearing a long sleeveless chain-mail robe that came to just above his knees. It swirled around him when he walked, and the edges of the woven metal sliced into the delicate lotus blossoms in the beds surrounding him, destroying them. He dropped to one knee before Aten and bowed his head. “I’ve seen you fight the Ancients and the Archons. I’ve hunted Earthlords with you. You rule an empire that stretches from horizon to horizon, from pole to pole. Only a fool would think you a coward or weak.”

  “Then don’t be a fool!” Aten leaned down to catch his brother’s muscular shoulder and draw him to his feet. The pupils in his flat yellow eyes narrowed from circles to horizontal lines. “What you didn’t add, however, was that all of those deeds were done a long time ago. I have not ridden to battle in eight hundred years.”

  “Why should we fight, now that we have the anpu to battle for us?” Anubis asked shakily, struggling to keep his voice even, though his eyes had flared in fear.

  “You think living here has softened me,” Aten continued as if he hadn’t heard him. “You think the Change has weakened me,” he added, and then his fingers tightened on his brother’s shoulder, pinching the nerves, driving him back to his knees on the quartz crystal path. “And a soft, weak ruler could easily be removed and replaced by a stronger man. Someone such as yourself. But you forget, brother, that I have as many spies in the city as there are flowers on this roof. I know what you’ve been saying, I know what you’ve been plotting.” Wrapping his fist in the chain mail, Aten dragged Anubis back over to the low wall and pushed him up against it. “Look down,” he snarled. “What do you see?”

  “Nothing …”

  “Nothing? Then you are blind. Look again.”

  “I see the people, made tiny with distance. Insignificant people.”

  “Insignificant people, yes, but they are my people, my subjects. Not yours. Never yours.” Aten dragged his brother closer to the edge. “If you question me again, I will kill you. If I find you are plotting against me, I will kill you. If you speak about me or my queen in public again, I will kill you. Do I make myself clear?”

  Anubis nodded. “You will kill me,” he mumbled.

  Aten flung Anubis aside, sending him sprawling into a pool of pure white lotus blossoms. Their perfume was sickening. “You are my brother, and surprising as this may sound, I love you. And that is the only thing that has kept you alive today. Now bring me the hook-handed man.”

  he two greasy-haired youths leaning against the wall of the Esmiol Building in San Francisco watched the large bulky man lurch from the narrow street opposite and steady himself, before turning left and heading down Broadway. Normally, they avoided big men or obviously fit and healthy young men, preferring to rob women, old men or children, but they made an exception for someone who looked like he might be drunk. Drunks were easy. Without looking at one another, they pushed away from the wall and kept pace with the man from across the street.

  “See how he’s walking? He’s had a hip operation,” said Larry, an unnaturally skinny teenager with a spiderweb tattooed across his ear. “My granny walks like that.”

  “Or a knee replacement,” his friend Mo said. Mo was stocky and muscular, with a bodybuilder’s broad chest and narrow waist. He wore a gold-plated razor blade in his right ear as an earring. “He can’t straighten his legs. Look at the size of him; I bet he used to play football. Probably busted his knees.” He grinned, showing a mouthful of bad teeth. “Which means he can’t run, either.”

  Larry and Mo hurried up the road, taking pleasure from the way people looked away or moved aside to allow them to pass. Most of the pedestrians in this part of town knew the youths’ reputation.

  The two teens hurried ahead of their mark and then stopped outside a small beauty salon and looked back across the road to assess the value of their quarry. They had been doing this a long time, and they only mugged people who had something worth stealing. Anyone else was an unnecessary risk and a waste of time.

  “He’s big,” Larry said.

  Mo nodded. “Very big,” he agreed. “But old …”

  “Nice leather jacket for an old man,” Larry continued. “Retro, biker style.”

  “Very nice. Worth some money.”

  “Good boots, too. They look new.”

  “Nice leather belt, great belt buckle,” Mo said. “Looks like some sort of helmet design. I’m keeping that,” he added.

  “Hey, that’s not fair, you kept the last guy’s watch.”

  “And you gave the woman’s leather purse to your grandma as a birthday present. We’re even.”

  Suddenly the big man turned and lurched across the road, ignoring the oncoming cars, heading directly for Larry and Mo. The two young men spun around and stared into the window of the beauty salon, watching the drunk’s reflection in the glass. Now that he was closer, they got a clearer impression of his size. He was huge, and looked even bigger beca
use of his overlarge clothes: blue jeans and a loose T-shirt that might once have been white but was now an indefinable shade of gray, worn under an enormous metal-studded black leather motorcycle jacket. A black and white bandana was tied tightly across his head and knotted at the back of his skull, and his eyes were hidden behind aviator-style sunglasses.

  “Are those Ray-Bans?” Larry asked, trying to see if the man’s sunglasses had the distinctive signature logo on the right lens.

  “Knockoffs, I bet. But we’ll take them anyway. Might get a couple of bucks from some tourist.”

  They turned as the man staggered past with his stiff-legged gait. The silver metal studs on the back of his jacket picked out a war helmet similar in design to his belt buckle. One red and one blue stud made eyes peering out from either side of the long nose guard.

  “He’s a biker,” Larry said, starting to shake his head. “And bikers are trouble. I think we should let him go.”

  “So where’s his bike?” Mo asked. “I don’t think he’s anything more than a fat old man who likes to dress tough.”

  “Could still be a biker, and even old bikers are tough.”

  “Yeah, but we’re tougher.” Mo reached under his T-shirt and touched the length of lead pipe tucked into the top of his jeans. “And no one’s tougher than our little metal friend here.”

  Larry nodded dubiously. “We’ll follow, but we’ll only take him if we get a chance to come at him from behind. Agreed?”

  “Agreed.”

  They watched as the man suddenly jerked to the right onto Turk Murphy Lane, a narrow laneway connecting Broadway with Vallejo Street.

  “Aw, man, some people are just asking for it.” Mo grinned. “This is our lucky day.” He high-fived Larry and they hurried down Broadway after the man in the leather jacket. They didn’t even have to discuss a plan. They would mug the old man on the quiet street, grab his coat, boots, belt and money if he had any, and then run the length of the lane. They’d slow to a casual walk before they turned onto Vallejo Street, though—Turk Murphy Lane came out directly facing the central police station. Larry and Mo knew the streets in and around Chinatown like the backs of their hands, and they’d be a couple of blocks away before anyone even spotted the crumpled body and raised the alarm.

  “Remember,” Mo said, “the belt buckle is mine.”

  “Okay—I get first pick next time, though.…”

  But when they rounded the corner, they found the big man waiting for them, standing squarely in the middle of the sidewalk.

  A giant fist shot out and grabbed Larry by the front of his filthy T-shirt. The man lifted him straight up in the air and then flung him twenty feet to land in a sprawling heap on the hood of a parked car. The windshield spiderwebbed and the alarm started to sound.

  None of the passersby even glanced down the side street.

  Mo reached under his T-shirt for the lead pipe, but suddenly an enormous hand closed on the top of his head. And squeezed. The pain was extraordinary. Black spots instantly danced before his eyes and his legs buckled beneath him. He would have fallen, but the man continued to hold him up by the head. Mo watched as the old man—who suddenly didn’t look quite so old—lifted the lead pipe, looked at it, smelled it, licked it with a coal-black tongue and then crushed it like a tin can and tossed it aside. The man spoke, but whatever he said was incomprehensible. He tried again and again, using several different languages, until … “Can you understand me now?”

  Mo managed a strangled squawk.

  “You should be happy that I’m in a good humor today,” the man said. “I’m looking for directions.”

  “Directions?” Mo whispered.

  “Directions.” The man released his grip and Mo staggered and fell back against a wall. He pressed both hands against his skull, convinced that he’d find the impressions of enormous fingers in his flesh.

  “Directions,” the man repeated. “I have the address written down somewhere,” he mumbled, and then reached into his leather jacket. Mo instantly attacked, trying for a karate blow to the stranger’s throat. Lightning fast, the man caught Mo’s arm, squeezed and then slapped the heel of his hand into the youth’s chest. The force of the blow propelled Mo back into the wall, his head smacking off the brickwork. “Don’t be stupid,” the big man rumbled. He produced a scrap of paper and turned it toward the teenager. “Do you know where this place is?”

  It took Mo a few seconds to focus, but finally the address printed in childish block letters on the lined notepaper swam into view. “Yes.” His voice was a terrified whisper. “Yes.”

  “Tell me.”

  “Walking or driving?”

  “Do I look like I’m driving?” the man growled. “Did you see a chariot anywhere around here?”

  Mo swallowed hard. His chest was aching, he was finding it difficult to breathe and his head was still ringing from the blow against the wall. He could have sworn the man had just said “chariot.”

  “Directions.”

  “You follow this street, Broadway, until it comes to Scott Street—it’ll be on your left. This address is down there somewhere.”

  “Is it far?”

  “It’s not close,” Mo said, attempting to smile. “You’re going to let me go, mister, aren’t you? I haven’t done anything to you.”

  The big man folded the scrap with the address and shoved it into the back pocket of his baggy jeans. “Not to me you haven’t, but you and your partner have robbed others. You have terrorized this neighborhood.”

  The youth opened his mouth to lie, but the man took off his Ray-Bans and folded them into an inside pocket. Astonishingly blue eyes locked onto the teen’s face. “You tell your friends—or those others like you, because I am sure you have no friends—that I have returned, and that I will not tolerate these attacks.”

  “Returned? Who are you? You’re crazy.…”

  “Not anymore.” The man smiled, and Mo discovered that his mouth was filled with huge incisors that curled like savage vampire fangs. A black forked tongue slid out between the fangs. “Tell your friends that Mars Ultor has returned.” Then he grabbed Mo by the front of his shirt, lifted him off the ground and tossed him the length of the alleyway to land on top of his friend. The car alarm died with a squawk.

  And Mars Ultor shuffled back onto Broadway, in search of Scott Street and Tsagaglalal.

  ophie knew instinctively that what Perenelle was asking of her was wrong, though she was not entirely sure why. The vaguest of thoughts and memories flickered and danced in her mind, but with the Sorceress’s bright green eyes focused on hers, it was hard to concentrate. “You want me to give you my aura?”

  “Yes, just a little.…”

  “How … why?” Sophie made no move to take the Sorceress’s outstretched hand.

  “You are Silver, Sophie, and immensely powerful,” Perenelle explained. “You will put your hand in mine and I will draw upon the strength of your aura to supplement mine while I transfer some of my life force into my husband. I could probably do it on my own, but there are some dangers that my aura could overwhelm me and I would spontaneously combust. With you and Tsagaglalal by my side, supporting me, I will be safe.”

  “Sophie,” Tsagaglalal said very softly, “do it. It is for the best.”

  “What will you do?” the young woman asked, still wary.

  “Wrap Nicholas in my aura.”

  Sophie struggled to focus. She was reminded of how the Witch of Endor had wrapped her in air. Although she’d never thought of it before, she realized now that it must have been more than air—Zephaniah had blanketed Sophie in her aura and had transferred not just a portion of her powers, but her knowledge and memories as well.

  “Sophie, we do not have much time,” Perenelle said, a hint of annoyance in her voice. “I cannot do this alone.”

  “Sophie,” Tsagaglalal said evenly. “Nicholas is dying.”

  Still uncomfortable with the idea, Sophie stretched out her right hand and Perenelle took it in her
s. Her grip was strong, and there were calluses on her fingertips and palm.

  Instantly Sophie experienced a rush of memories she knew were not hers, and it hit her that this was why she’d been reluctant to allow Perenelle to tap into her aura. After the events of the past few days, Sophie did not completely trust the Sorceress. And while there was a lot she wanted to know about Perenelle, there were certain memories, thoughts and ideas that the Witch of Endor had shared with her that she didn’t want the immortal to have access to. There was no reason not to tell her. But if the events of the last few days had taught her anything, they had taught her to trust her instincts.

  “The scarab, Tsagaglalal,” Perenelle said.

  Sophie turned to watched Aunt Agnes lift the incredibly detailed carved scarab beetle from the wooden shelf and cup it in both hands. The moment she touched it, the object started to glow with a warm green light and Tsagaglalal’s white aura shimmered, streaked with threads of luminescent jade. The beetle throbbed emerald-green and suddenly all traces of age fell away from the old woman and she was once more young and extraordinarily beautiful. It pulsed again and Tsagaglalal reverted to the person Sophie knew as Aunt Agnes.

  Sophie looked at the woman, and remembered …

  … Tsagaglalal sitting across a checkered table from a man wearing a golden mask over half of his face … except this was no mask. His flesh was hardening to metal. Cupped in his hands—one of flesh, the other gold—was the scarab. He placed it gently into Tsagaglalal’s hands, folding her fingers over it. “You are Tsagaglalal,” he said, his voice a deep rumble, “She Who Watches. Now and forevermore. The future of the humani is here in your hands. Guard it well.”

  Sophie blinked and saw …

  … Tsagaglalal standing before two almost identical red-haired and green-eyed teenage girls: Aoife and Scathach. The girls were dressed as warriors, in the decorated buckskin of the Great Plains. Behind them, smoke rose over a huge battlefield, which was littered with the bodies of creatures that were neither man nor beast but something caught in between. One of the girls, smaller than her sister, with a sprinkling of freckles across her nose, stepped forward to accept the jade scarab from the woman known to the tribe as She Who Watches. Then the girl turned and raised the scarab high, and the gathered army screamed her name: “Scathach!”