The Magician Read online

  “It’s instantaneous.”

  “And you’re sure we’re in Paris, France?”

  “Positive.”

  Sophie looked at her watch and did a quick calculation. “Paris is nine hours ahead of Ojai?” she asked.

  Flamel nodded, suddenly understanding.

  “It’s about four o’clock in the morning; that’s why the church is closed,” Sophie said.

  “The police will be on their way,” Scatty said glumly. She reached for her nunchaku. “I hate fighting when I’m not feeling well,” she muttered.

  “What do we do now?” Josh demanded, panic rising in his voice.

  “I could try and blast the doors apart with wind,” Sophie suggested hesitantly. She wasn’t sure she had the energy to raise the wind again so soon. She had used her new magical powers to battle the undead in Ojai, but the effort had completely exhausted her.

  “I forbid it,” Flamel shouted, his face painted in shades of crimson and shadow. He turned and pointed across rows of wooden pews toward an ornate altar picked out in a tracery of white marble. Candlelight hinted at an intricate mosaic in glittering blues and golds in the dome over the altar. “This is a national monument; I’ll not let you destroy it.”

  “Where are we?” the twins asked together, looking around the building. Now that their eyes had adjusted to the gloom, they realized that the building was huge. They could distinguish columns soaring high into the shadows overhead and were able to make out the shapes of small side altars, statues in nooks and countless banks of candles.

  “This,” Flamel announced proudly, “is the church of Sacré-Coeur.”

  Sitting in the back of his limousine, Niccolò Machiavelli tapped coordinates into his laptop and watched a high-resolution map of Paris wink into existence on the screen. Paris was an incredibly ancient city. The first settlement went back more than two thousand years, though there had been humans living on the island in the Seine for generations before that. And like many of the earth’s oldest cities, it had been sited where groups of ley lines met.

  Machiavelli hit a keystroke, which laid down a complicated pattern of ley lines over the map of the city. He was looking for a line that connected with the United States. He finally managed to reduce the number of possibilities to six. With a perfectly manicured fingernail, he traced two lines that directly linked the West Coast of America to Paris. One finished at the great cathedral of Notre Dame, the other in the more modern but equally famous Sacré-Coeur basilica in Montmartre.

  But which one?

  Suddenly, the Parisian night was broken by a series of howling alarms. Machiavelli hit the control for the electric window and the darkened glass whispered down. Cool night air swirled into the car. In the distance, rising high above the rooftops on the opposite side of the Place du Tertre, was Sacré-Coeur. The imposing domed building was always lit up at night in stark white light. Tonight, however, red alarm lights pulsed around the building

  That one. Machiavelli’s smile was terrifying. He called up a program on the laptop and waited while the hard drive spun.

  Enter password.

  His fingers flew over the keyboard as he typed: Discorsi sopra la prima deca di Tito Livio. No one was going to break that password. It wasn’t one of his better-known books.

  A rather ordinary-looking text document appeared, written in a combination of Latin, Greek and Italian. Once, magicians had had to keep their spells and incantations in handwritten books called grimoires, but Machiavelli had always used the latest technology. He preferred to keep his spells on his hard drive. Now he just needed a little something to keep Flamel and his friends busy while he gathered his forces.

  Josh’s head snapped up. “I hear police sirens.”

  “There are twelve police cars headed this way,” Sophie said, her head tilted to one side, eyes closed as she listened intently.

  “Twelve? How can you tell?”

  Sophie looked at her twin. “I can distinguish the different locations of the sirens.”

  “You can tell them apart?” he asked. He found himself wondering, yet again, at the full extent of his sister’s senses.

  “Each one,” she said.

  “We must not be captured by the police,” Flamel interjected sharply. “We’ve neither passports nor alibis. We’ve got to get out of here!”

  “How?” the twins asked simultaneously.

  Flamel shook his head. “There has to be another entrance…,” he began, and then stopped, nostrils flaring.

  Josh watched uneasily as both Sophie and Scatty suddenly reacted to something he could not smell. “What…what is it?” he demanded, and then he suddenly caught the faintest whiff of something musky and rank. It was the sort of smell he’d come to associate with a zoo.

  “Trouble,” Scathach said grimly, putting away her nunchaku and drawing her swords. “Big trouble.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  “What?” Josh demanded, looking around. The smell was stronger now, stale and bitter, and almost familiar….

  “Snake,” Sophie said, breathing deeply. “It’s a snake.”

  Josh felt his stomach lurch. Snake. Why did it have to be snakes? He was terrified of snakes—though he’d never admit it to anyone, especially not his sister. “Snakes…,” he began, but his voice sounded high-pitched and strangled. He coughed and tried again. “Where?” he asked, looking around desperately, imagining them everywhere, sliding out from under the pews, curling down the pillars, dropping down from the light fixtures.

  Sophie shook her head and frowned. “I don’t hear any…. I’m just…smelling them.” Her nostrils flared as she drew a deep breath. “No, there’s just one….”

  “Oh, you’re smelling a snake, all right…but one that walks on two legs,” Scatty snapped. “You’re smelling the rank odor of Niccolò Machiavelli.”

  Flamel knelt on the floor in front of the massive main doors and ran his hands over the locks. Wisps of green smoke curled from his fingers. “Machiavelli!” he spat. “Dee didn’t waste any time contacting his allies, I see.”

  “You can tell who it is from the smell?” Josh asked, still surprised and a little confused.

  “Every person has a distinctive magical odor,” Scatty explained, standing with her back to the Alchemyst, protecting him. “You two smell of vanilla ice cream and oranges, Nicholas smells of mint…”

  “And Dee smelled of rotten eggs…,” Sophie added.

  “Sulfur,” Josh said.

  “Which was once known as brimstone,” Scatty said. “Very appropriate for Dr. Dee.” Her head was moving from side to side as she paid particular attention to the deep shadows behind the statues. “Well, Machiavelli smells of snakes. Appropriate too.”

  “Who is he?” Josh asked. He felt as if he should know the name, almost as if he’d heard it before. “A friends of Dee’s?”

  “Machiavelli is an immortal allied to the Dark Elders,” Scatty explained, “and no friend to Dee, though they are on the same side. Machiavelli is older than the Magician, infinitely more dangerous and certainly more cunning. I should have killed him when I had the chance,” she said bitterly. “For the past five hundred years he has been at the heart of European politics, the puppet master working in the shadows. The last I heard, he had been appointed the head of the DGSE, the Direction Générale de la Sécurité Extérieure.”

  “Is that like a bank?” Josh asked.

  Scatty’s lips curled in a tiny smile that exposed her overlong vampire incisors. “It means the General Board of External Security. It is the French secret service.”

  “The secret service! Oh, that’s just great,” Josh said sarcastically.

  “The smell is getting stronger,” Sophie said, her Awakened senses acutely aware of the odor. Concentrating hard, she allowed a little of her power to trickle into her aura, which bloomed into a ghostly shadow around her. Crackles of lustrous silver threads sparkled in her blond hair, and her eyes turned to reflective silver coins.

  Almost unconsci
ously, Josh stepped away from his sister. He’d seen her like this before, and she’d scared him.

  “That means he’s close by. He’s working some magic,” Scatty said. “Nicholas…?”

  “I just need another minute.” Flamel’s fingertips glowed emerald green, smoking as they traced a pattern around the lock. A solid click sounded from within, but when the Alchemyst tried the handle, the door didn’t move. “Maybe more than a minute.”

  “Too late,” Josh whispered, raising an arm and pointing. “Something’s here.”

  At the opposite end of the great basilica, the banks of candles had gone out. It was as if an unfelt breeze was sweeping down the aisles, snuffing out the flickering circular night-lights and thicker candles as it passed, leaving curls of gray-white smoke hanging on the air. Abruptly, the smell of candle wax grew stronger, much, much stronger, almost obliterating the odor of serpent.

  “I can’t see anything…,” Josh began.

  “It’s here!” Sophie shouted.

  The creature that flowed up off the cold flagstones was only marginally human. Standing taller than a man, broad and grotesque, it was a gelatinous white shape with only the vaguest hint of a head set directly onto broad shoulders. There were no visible features. As they watched, two huge arms separated from the trunk of the body with a squelch and grew handlike shapes.

  “Golem!” Sophie shouted in horror. “A wax Golem!” She flung out her hand and her aura blazed. Ice-cold wind surged from her fingertips to batter the creature, but the white waxy skin simply rippled and flowed beneath the breeze.

  “Protect Nicholas!” Scathach commanded, darting forward, her matched swords flickering out, biting into the creature, but without any effect. The soft wax trapped her swords, and it took all her strength to pull them free. She struck again and chips of wax sprayed into the air. The creature struck at her, and she had to abandon her grip on her swords as she danced backward to avoid the crushing blow. A bulbous fist thundered into the floor at her feet, spattering globules of white wax in every direction.

  Josh grabbed one of the folding wooden chairs stacked outside the gift shop at the back of the church. Holding it by two legs, he slammed it into the creature’s chest…where it stuck fast. As the wax shape turned toward Josh, the chair was wrenched from his hands. He grabbed another chair, darted around behind the creature and slammed the chair down. It shattered across the creature’s shoulders, leaving scores of splinters protruding like bizarre porcupine spines.

  Sophie froze. She desperately tried to recall some of the secrets of Air magic that the Witch of Endor had taught her only a few hours ago. The Witch said it was the most powerful of all magics—and Sophie had seen what it had done to the undead army of long-deceased humans and beasts Dee had raised in Ojai. But she had no idea what would work against the wax monster before her. She knew how to raise a miniature tornado, but she couldn’t risk calling it up in the confined space of the basilica.

  “Nicholas!” Scatty called. With her swords stuck in the creature, the Warrior was using her nunchaku—two lengths of wood attached by a short chain—to batter at the Golem. They left deep indentations in its skin but otherwise seemed to have no effect. She delivered one particularly fierce blow that embedded the polished wood in the creature’s side. Wax flowed around the nunchaku, trapping them. When the creature twisted toward Josh, the weapon was ripped from the Warrior’s hands, sending her spinning across the room.

  A hand that was only thumb and fused fingers, like a giant mitten, caught Josh’s shoulder and squeezed. The pain was incredible and drove the boy to his knees.

  “Josh!” Sophie screamed, the sound echoing in the huge church.

  Josh tried to pull the hand away, but the wax was too slippery and his fingers sank into the white goo. Warm wax began to flow off the creature’s hand, then curl and wrap around his shoulder and roll down onto his chest, constricting his breathing.

  “Josh, duck!”

  Sophie grabbed a wooden chair and swung it through the air. It whistled over her brother’s head, the wind ruffling his hair, and she brought it down hard—edge-first—on the thick wax arm where the elbow should have been. The chair stuck halfway through, but the movement distracted the creature and it abandoned Josh, leaving him bruised and coated in a layer of candle wax. From his place kneeling on the ground, Josh watched in horror as two gelatinous hands reached for his twin’s throat.

  Terrified, Sophie screamed.

  Josh watched as his sister’s eyes flickered, the blue replaced with silver, and then her aura blazed incandescent the moment the Golem’s paws came close to her skin. Immediately, its waxy hands began to run liquid and spatter to the floor. Sophie stretched out her own hand, fingers splayed, and pressed it against the Golem’s chest, where it sank, sizzling and hissing, into the mass of wax.

  Josh crouched on the ground, close to Flamel, his hands thrown up to protect his eyes from the brilliant silver light. He saw his sister step closer to the creature, her aura now painfully bright, arms spread wide, an invisible unfelt heat melting the creature, reducing the wax to liquid. Scathach’s swords and nunchaku clattered to the stone floor, followed, seconds later, by the remains of the wooden chair.

  Sophie’s aura flickered and Josh was on his feet and by her side to catch her as she swayed. “I feel dizzy,” she said thickly as she slumped into his arms. She was barely conscious, and she felt ice cold, the usually sweet vanilla scent of her aura now sour and bitter.

  Scatty swooped in to gather up her weapons from the pile of semiliquid wax that now resembled a half-melted snowman. She fastidiously wiped her blades clean before she slipped them back into the sheaths she wore on her back. Picking curls of white wax off her nunchaku, she slipped them back into their holster on her belt; then she turned to Sophie. “You saved us,” she said gravely. “That’s a debt I’ll not forget.”

  “Got it,” Flamel said suddenly. He stood back, and Sophie, Josh and Scathach watched as curls of green smoke seeped from the lock. The Alchemyst pushed the door and it clicked open, cool night air rushing in, dispelling the cloying odor of melted wax.

  “We could have done with a little help, you know,” Scatty grumbled.

  Flamel grinned and wiped his fingers on his jeans, leaving traces of green light on the cloth. “I knew you had it well under control,” he said, stepping out of the basilica. Scathach and the twins followed.

  The sounds of police sirens were louder now, but the area directly in front of the church was empty. Sacré-Coeur was set on a hill, one of the highest points in Paris, and from where they stood, they had a view of the entire city. Nicholas Flamel’s face lit up with delight. “Home!”

  “What is it with European magicians and Golems?” Scatty asked, following him. “First Dee and now Machiavelli. Have they no imaginations?”

  Flamel looked surprised. “That wasn’t a Golem. Golems need to have a spell on their body to animate them.”

  Scatty nodded. She knew that, of course. “What, then—?”

  “That was a tulpa.”

  Scatty’s bright green eyes widened in surprise. “A tulpa! Is Machiavelli that powerful, then?”

  “Obviously.”

  “What’s a tulpa?” Josh asked Flamel, but it was his sister who answered, and Josh was once again reminded of the huge gulf that had opened up between them the moment her powers had been Awakened.

  “A creature created and animated entirely by the power of the imagination,” Sophie explained casually.

  “Precisely,” Nicholas Flamel said, breathing deeply. “Machiavelli knew there would be wax in the church. So he brought it to life.”

  “But surely he knew it would not be able to stop us?” Scatty asked.

  Nicholas walked out from under the central arch that framed the front of the basilica and stood at the edge of the first of the two hundred and twenty-one steps that led down to the street far below. “Oh, he knew it wouldn’t stop us,” he said patiently. “He just wanted to slow us down, to
keep us here until he arrived.” He pointed.

  Far below, the narrow streets of Montmartre had come alive with the sounds and lights of a fleet of French police cars. Dozens of uniformed gendarmes had gathered at the bottom of the steps, with more arriving from the narrow side streets to form a cordon around the building. Surprisingly, none of them had started climbing.

  Flamel, Scatty and the twins ignored the police. They were watching the tall thin white-haired man in the elegant tuxedo slowly make his way up the steps toward them. He stopped when he saw them emerge from the basilica, leaned on a low metal railing and raised his right hand in a lazy salute.

  “Let me guess,” Josh said, “that must be Niccolò Machiavelli.”

  “The most dangerous immortal in Europe,” the Alchemyst said grimly. “Trust me: this man makes Dee look like an amateur.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  “Welcome back to Paris, Alchemyst.”

  Sophie and Josh jumped. Machiavelli was still far away to be heard so clearly. Strangely, his voice seemed to be coming from somewhere behind them, and both turned to look, but there were only two stained green metal statues over the three arches in front of the church: a woman on a horse to their right, her raised arm holding a sword, and a man holding a scepter on their left.

  “I’ve been waiting for you.” The voice seemed to be coming from the statue of the man.

  “It’s a cheap trick,” Scatty said dismissively, picking strips of wax off the front of her steel-toed combat boots. “It’s nothing more than ventriloquism.”

  Sophie smiled sheepishly. “I thought the statue was talking,” she admitted, embarrassed.

  Josh started to laugh at his sister and then immediately reconsidered. “I guess I wouldn’t be surprised if it did.”

  “The good Dr. Dee sends his regards.” Machiavelli’s voice continued to hang in the air around them.

  “So he survived Ojai, then,” Nicholas said conversationally, not raising his voice. Standing tall and straight, he casually put both hands behind his back and glanced sidelong at Scatty. Then the fingers of his right hand started dancing against the palm and fingers of his left.