The Warlock Read online

  But without the Elder’s tremendous will keeping the world and its inhabitants alive, their mud skin cracked and chunks began to break away, disintegrating to dust before hitting the ground. Watching the last of the First People dissolving into nothingness, Prometheus wept, bloodred tears leaking from the corners of his eyes. “Forgive me,” he whispered in the ancient language of Danu Talis.

  One of the mud creatures stepped onto the road directly behind the car and raised an unnaturally long arm in what might have been a salute or a farewell. The Elder tilted the rearview mirror to watch the figure. He had never given them names, but he knew this one by the scarred pattern across his chest. This was one of the first creatures his aura had brought to life in the desolate Earthlord city. Black nothingness blossomed behind the figure, and brown mud turned the color of salt as the creature spilled away into oblivion. “Forgive me,” Prometheus begged once more, but by then the last of the First Race, the race he had brought to unnatural life, were gone, all traces of their existence wiped away.

  The interior of the car blossomed with the Elder’s aura, and tiny sparking flames danced across every metal surface. His burning fingertips left deep impressions in the rearview mirror as he tilted it down to look at the two figures in the back of the car. “Scathach was right,” he snarled. “She always said that death and destruction followed Nicholas Flamel.”

  alk—don’t run,” Niten commanded. Iron-hard fingers bit into Sophie’s shoulder and pulled her to a halt.

  She shook herself free. “We’ve got to—”

  “We have to avoid attracting attention,” the slender Japanese man said evenly. “Hide the whip under your coat.”

  Sophie Newman hadn’t realized she was still holding Perenelle’s silver and black leather whip in her right hand. Coiling it tightly, she shoved it under her left arm.

  “Look around you,” Niten continued. “What do you see?”

  Sophie turned. They were standing at the bottom of Telegraph Hill. An oily black plume of smoke, shot through with dancing flames, rose high into the heavens. Sirens and car horns blared while all around them people struggled to look at the fire blazing through one of the elegant buildings just below Coit Tower.

  “I see fire … smoke.…”

  There was a dull thump from inside the building and shards of glass and pieces of masonry cascaded across the red and white Volkswagen Microbus parked outside. All the windows on the right side of the van shattered to powder. A shadow of dismay flickered over Niten’s normally impassive face. “Look at the people,” he said. “A warrior needs to be aware of her surroundings.”

  Sophie studied the faces. “Everyone is looking at the fire,” she said quietly.

  “Just so,” Niten agreed. “And so must we, if we are to blend in. Turn and look.”

  “But Josh …”

  “Josh is gone.”

  Sophie started to shake her head.

  “Turn and look,” Niten insisted. “If you are arrested, then you will be in no position to assist your brother.”

  The girl turned and glanced back toward the fire. Niten was right, but standing still and not chasing after her twin felt wrong. Every second they delayed meant that Josh was slipping further and further away from her. The image of the burning building fragmented and disappeared as her eyes filled with tears. Blinking hard, she rubbed them away with the heels of her hands, leaving sooty black streaks across her cheeks. The smell of burning rubber and the acrid tang of oil and scorched metal mingled with other noxious odors and drifted over the gathering crowd, making everyone back away. Niten and Sophie flowed with them.

  Josh is gone.

  Sophie tried to make sense of the words but it was almost impossible. He had left her. Minutes ago he had been close enough to touch, and yet when she’d tried to help him, he’d turned away from her with a look of horror and disgust on his face and followed Dee and Virginia Dare.

  Josh is gone.

  A feeling of absolute despair washed over her; her stomach churned and her throat ached. Her twin, her little brother, had done what he had sworn he would never do: he had left her. The tears came then, deep wracking sobs that shuddered through her body, leaving her breathless.

  “You will attract attention,” Niten said softly. He stepped closer to Sophie and gently rested the fingers of his left hand on her right forearm. Instantly the girl was enveloped in the spicy, woody odor of rich green tea, and a sense of calm washed over her. “I need you to be courageous, Sophie. The strong survive, but the courageous triumph.”

  The girl drew in a deep breath and looked into Niten’s brown eyes. She was suddenly and shockingly aware that they were swimming with unshed tears. The Swordsman blinked and the blue-tinged liquid rolled down his cheeks.

  “You are not the only one who lost someone you loved today,” Niten continued softly. “I’ve known Aoife for over four hundred years. She was …” He paused and his face softened. “She was infuriating and outrageous, demanding, selfish and arrogant … and very, very dear to me.” Blue-green smoke twisted from the burning building and swirled through the crowd.

  Sophie watched the spectators turn away from the smoke, coughing as it caught in their throats. Most people started to cry as the smoke and ash stung their eyes. Niten’s tears went unnoticed.

  “You loved her,” Sophie whispered.

  His head moved in the tiniest nod. “And in her fashion, she loved me, though she would never admit it.” The Swordsman’s fingers tightened on the girl’s arm, and when he spoke, it was in the precise and elegant Japanese of his youth. “But she is not dead,” he said fiercely. “Even the Archon will find it impossible to kill Aoife of the Shadows. Two centuries ago, she single-handedly fought her way through the Jigoku Shadowrealm when I was kidnapped by servants of the Shinigami, the Death God. She found me. I will find her.” He paused and added, “Just as you will find and rescue your brother.”

  Sophie nodded. She would find Josh, and she would rescue him, no matter what. “Yes, yes I will. What do I have to do?” she asked, unaware that she had replied in perfect Japanese.

  “Follow me,” Niten said, and eased through the rapidly dispersing crowd, hurrying down Telegraph Hill Boulevard toward Lombard Street.

  Sophie ran after him, staying as close behind as she could. She didn’t want to lose him in the crowd. Niten moved effortlessly around the tourists and onlookers, not even touching them. “Where are we going?” She had to shout to be heard above the noise of the converging fire trucks and police sirens.

  “To see Tsagaglalal.”

  “Tsagaglalal,” the girl repeated, the name triggering the Witch of Endor’s memories. “She Who Watches.”

  eserve your anger for those who deserve it,” Perenelle Flamel snapped. “This is not my husband’s fault.”

  “He is the catalyst,” Prometheus said.

  “That has always been his role.” Perenelle was sitting in the backseat of the car, Nicholas stretched out beside her. She was stroking her husband’s forehead. The Alchemyst was unconscious, his skin ashen, cheeks speckled with broken veins and purple threads. The bags beneath his eyes were bruised purple, and each time her hand ventured over his skull, strands of his short hair came away beneath her fingers. Nicholas was unmoving, his breathing so shallow it was barely perceptible. The only way the Sorceress could tell that he was still alive was by pressing her fingertips lightly against his throat to feel the weak pulse.

  Nicholas was dying and she felt …

  She felt …

  Perenelle shook her head; she wasn’t sure how she felt. She had met and fallen in love with this man in the middle of the fourteenth century, in Paris. They had married on the eighteenth of August in 1350, and she could probably count on the fingers of one hand the number of months they’d been apart over the following centuries. She was ten years older than Nicholas and he was not her first husband, though they had been married for a century before she’d told him she was a widow.

  She’d loved hi
m from the moment she’d met him and she loved him still, so surely she should feel more … surely she should be more upset … angry … saddened that he was now dying?

  But she didn’t.

  She felt … relieved.

  Unconsciously, she nodded. She was relieved that it was coming to an end.

  The bookseller who had become an alchemist—almost by accident—had taught her wonders and shown her marvels. They had traveled all across this world and into the adjacent Shadowrealms. Together they had fought monsters and creatures that should not have existed outside of nightmares. And although they had made many friends—humani and immortal, some Elders and even a few Next Generation—bitter experience had taught them that they could only depend on one another. They could only fully trust one another. Perenelle’s fingers gently traced the lines of her husband’s cheekbones and the shape of his jaw. If he was to die now, he would die in her arms, and it was some consolation that she would not survive very much longer, because she did not think that after more than six hundred years living with him, she could bear to live without him. But he couldn’t die yet—she would not allow it; she would do everything she could to keep him alive.

  “I apologize,” Prometheus said suddenly.

  “You have nothing to apologize for,” Perenelle said. “Scathach was correct: death and destruction have followed us through the centuries. People have died because of us—died saving us, protecting us, died because they knew us.” Her face suddenly creased in pain. Over the years she had created a shell around herself to keep her from feeling all the death and suffering, but there were times—like now—when the shell cracked and she felt responsible for every single loss.

  “But you saved many, Perenelle, so very many.”

  “I know that,” the Sorceress agreed, her eyes on Nicholas’s face. “We kept the Dark Elders at bay, we frustrated Dee and Machiavelli and the others like them for centuries.” She twisted in the seat to watch the roiling nothingness race ever closer to the car. “And we are not done yet. Prometheus, you cannot allow us to die here.”

  “I’m driving as fast as I can.” A light sheen of blood-colored sweat covered the Elder’s face. “If I can only hold the world together for just a few moments longer …” Outside, the salty-smelling clouds thickened, wrapping the car in a damp cocoon, and Prometheus turned on the wipers, clearing the windshield. “We’re nearly there,” he said, and then, as they left the Shadowrealm and returned to Point Reyes, the fog lifted and the world exploded into colors so bright they were almost painful to look upon. The Elder slammed on the brakes and the heavy Wagoneer skidded to a halt on the dirt road. He turned off the engine and climbed out of the car. Standing with one arm on the roof, he turned to look back at the fog banks, watching as they swirled and shifted, paling to gossamer threads.

  He had spent an eternity creating this world, shaping it. It was part of him. But now his own Shadowrealm was collapsing into nothing, and his aura was so depleted, his memories stripped and ravaged by the crystal skull, that he knew he would never be able to re-create it. There was a moment when the fog twisted away, giving him a last image of his beautiful and serene Shadowrealm.…

  It was gone.

  Prometheus climbed back into the car and swiveled around to look at Perenelle and Nicholas. “So the end is upon us? Abraham spoke of this time.”

  “Soon,” Perenelle said, “but not yet. There is one thing more we must do.”

  “You have always known it would end this way,” Prometheus said.

  “Always,” she said confidently.

  The Elder sighed. “You have the Sight.”

  “Yes,” Perenelle agreed, “but more than that. Some of this I was told about.” She looked at Prometheus, her green eyes glowing in the shadows. “My poor Nicholas. He never really had a chance: his destiny was shaped the moment the one-handed man sold him the Codex. The book changed the course of his life—of both our lives—and together we changed the course of human history. When I was still a child, and before Nicholas was even born, the same man who would eventually sell him the book let me see my future and the future of the world. Not an absolute future, but a possible future, one of many possibilities. And over the years, I’ve watched many of those possibilities come true. The one-handed man told me what must happen—what I had to do, what my future husband would have to do—if the human race was to survive. He has been the puppeteer down through the millennia, nudging, shifting, moving us—all of us—toward this point. Even you, Prometheus.”

  The Elder shook his head. “I don’t think so.”

  “Even you. Who do you think encouraged your friend Saint-Germain to steal fire from you; who do you think taught him its secrets?”

  The Elder opened his mouth to speak but closed it again without saying a word.

  “The hook-handed man told me he was there at the beginning and said that he would be there at the end.” Perenelle leaned forward. “You were there, Prometheus; you were on Danu Talis for the Final Battle. He claimed he was there—you must have seen him.”

  Prometheus slowly shook his huge head. “I cannot recall him.” He smiled ruefully. “The crystal skull fed off my oldest and earliest recollections. I am sorry, Sorceress, but I have no memory of the hook-handed man.” His smile faded, turning bitter. “But there is so much about that day that was lost or confused to me even before the skull took my memories.”

  “Have you no recollection of him—bright blue eyes, a silver hook replacing his left hand?”

  Prometheus shook his head again. “I’m sorry. I remember the faces of the good friends I lost, though I no longer recall their names. I remember those who stood against me, and those whom I slew.” He frowned and his voice grew soft and distant. “I remember the screams and shouts, the sounds of battle, the clash of metal, the stink of ancient magic. I remember there was fire in heaven … and then the world was split asunder and the sea roared in.”

  “He was there.”

  “This was the Final Battle, Sorceress. Everyone was there.”

  Perenelle sat back into the seat. “When I first met him, I was little more than a child. I asked his name. He said he was called Marethyu,” she said softly.

  “It is not a name. It is a title: it means Death. But it can also mean ‘man,’ ” the Elder said, translating the ancient word.

  “I thought he was an Elder.…”

  Prometheus frowned, sudden fragments of memories catching him by surprise. His fingers tightened on the back of the seat. “Marethyu,” he murmured, nodding. “Death.”

  “You remember him?”

  He shook his head. “Shadows of memories. Marethyu was not one of us. He was neither Elder nor Next Generation, neither Archon nor Ancient. He was—and is—something more and less than all of us. I believe he is humani.” Prometheus swiveled around and rested his huge hands on the steering wheel. “Where do you want to go, Sorceress?”

  “Take me to Tsagaglalal.”

  h man, it stinks down here.” Billy the Kid sneezed loudly. “I mean really stinks.” He pressed the heels of his hands against his watering eyes and sneezed again.

  “Actually, it’s not too bad. I’ve smelled worse,” Niccolò Machiavelli said softly.

  The two men were standing in a tunnel deep beneath Alcatraz prison. Water dripped from the low ceiling and small waves lapped around their ankles. The air reeked of rotting fish and fetid seaweed, mingled with the pungent tang of bird droppings and the acid odor of bat guano. The only light came from the opening high above their heads, a startling square of blue against the blackness.

  The tall elegant man in the dust-stained suit breathed deeply. “Actually, it reminds me of home.”

  “Home?” Billy coughed. He pulled a patterned red bandana out of the back pocket of his jeans and tied it over his nose and mouth. “Does your home usually smell like a wild animal’s bathroom?”

  Machiavelli’s teeth flashed in a quick smile. “Well, Rome and Venice—ah, sweet Venice—in the fifteenth
and sixteenth centuries were smelly … though not as bad as Paris in the eighteenth century or London in the middle of the nineteenth. I was there in 1858; the air was so foul it was virtually unbreathable. It was called the Great Stink.”

  “Can’t say I’d like that,” Billy said. “I like fresh air, and lots of it.” He snapped his fingers and the rancid air was filled with the exotic odor of red pepper. A wispy curl of deep reddish-purple smoke wrapped around his fingertips, and then a globe of translucent red fire rose from his hands to bob at head height. It bounced and floated like a soap bubble as it was pulled by the salty sea air that whistled down the tunnel. “An Apache medicine man taught me that,” Billy said proudly. “Not bad, eh?”

  “Not bad at all.” Machiavelli brought his hands together and the scent of Billy’s aura was swept away with the stench of serpent. A blaze of stark white light lit up the tunnel in sharp relief. The red bubble popped and burst. “My master, Aten, taught me that,” Machiavelli said.

  Billy the Kid quickly rubbed his hands together, tendrils of his purple-red aura dripping into the water at his ankles. “Nice,” he admitted, his voice muffled behind the bandana.

  Machiavelli glanced sidelong at the younger man. “You look like a bandit, wearing that bandana.”

  “I think it suits me.”

  The two men, one in a ruined suit and expensive Italian shoes, the other in jeans and beat-up boots, splashed down the corridor. The white light kept pace with them, sending red-eyed rats skittering into the darkness.

  “I hate rats,” Billy muttered.

  “They have their uses,” Machiavelli said softly. “They make excellent spies.”

  “Spies?” Billy the Kid stopped. He sounded confused. “Spies?”