The Alchemyst (29 page)

The charity auction hadn’t started until well after midnight, once the gala dinner had ended. It was almost four in the morning, and the auction was only now drawing to a close. A digital display behind the celebrity auctioneer—an actor who had played James Bond on-screen for many years—showed the running total at more than one million euro.

“Lot number two hundred and ten: a pair of early nineteenth-century Japanese Kabuki masks.”

A ripple of excitement ran through the crowded room. Carved from solid jade, the Kabuki masks were the highlight of the auction and were expected to fetch in excess of half a million euro.

The tall, thin man with the fuzz of close-cropped snow-white hair standing at the back of the room was prepared to pay twice that.

Niccolò Machiavelli stood apart from the crowd, arms lightly folded across his chest, careful not to wrinkle his Savile Row–tailored black silk tuxedo. Stone gray eyes swept over the other bidders, analyzing and assessing them. There were really only five he needed to look out for: two private collectors like himself, a minor European royal, an American movie actor who had been briefly famous in the eighties and an antiques dealer who was probably bidding on behalf of a client. The remainder of the audience—a mixture of celebrities from the worlds of entertainment and sports, a sprinkling of politicians and the usual people who turned up to support every charity event—were tired, had spent their budget or were unwilling to bid on the vaguely disturbing-looking masks.

Machiavelli had been collecting masks for a very long time, and he wanted this pair to complete his group of Japanese theater costumes. These masks had last come up for sale in 1898 in Vienna, and he had then been outbid by a Romanov prince. Machiavelli had patiently bided his time; he knew they would be put on the market again when the prince and his descendents died. Niccolò knew he would still be around to buy them; it was one of the many advantages of being immortal.

“Shall we start the bidding at one hundred thousand euro?”

Machiavelli looked up, caught the auctioneer’s attention and nodded.

The auctioneer nodded in return. “I am bid one hundred thousand euro by Monsieur Machiavelli. Always one of this charity’s most generous supporters and sponsors.”

Applause filled the room, and several people turned to look at him and raise their glasses. Niccolò acknowledged them with a polite nod.

“Do I have one hundred and ten?” the auctioneer asked.

One of the private collectors raised his hand slightly.

“One-twenty?” The auctioneer looked back at Machiavelli, who immediately nodded.

Within the next three minutes, a flurry of bids brought the price up to two hundred and fifty thousand euro. There were only three serious bidders left: Machiavelli, the American actor and the antiques dealer.

Machiavelli’s thin lips twisted into a rare smile; the masks would be his! And then the smile faded as he felt his cell phone buzz silently in his back pocket. For an instant he was tempted to ignore it; he’d given his staff strict instructions that he was not to be disturbed unless it was an absolute emergency. He pulled out the ultraslim Nokia and glanced down.

A picture of a sword pulsed gently on the large LCD screen.

Machiavelli’s smile vanished completely. In that second he knew he was not going to be able to buy the Kabuki masks this century. Turning on his heel, he strode out of the room and pressed the phone to his ear. Behind him, he could hear the auctioneer’s gavel hit the lectern. “Sold. For two hundred and sixty thousand euro.”

“I’m here,” Machiavelli said, reverting to the Italian of his youth.

The connection popped and crackled, and then, from the other side of the world, in the city of Ojai, north of Los Angeles, an English-accented voice responded in the same language, using a dialect that had not been heard in Europe for more than four hundred years. “I need your help.”

The man on the other end of the line didn’t identify himself, nor did he need to; Machiavelli knew it was the immortal magician and necromancer Dr. John Dee, one of the most powerful and dangerous men in the world.

Niccolò Machiavelli hurried out of the small hotel into the broad cobbled square of the Place du Tertre and stopped to breathe in the chill night air. “What can I do for you?” he asked cautiously. He detested Dee and knew the feeling was mutual, but they both served the Dark Elders, and that meant they had been forced to work together through the centuries. Machiavelli was also slightly envious that Dee was younger than he—and looked it. Machiavelli had been born in Florence in 1469, which made him fifty-eight years older than the English Magician.

“Flamel is back in Paris.”

Machiavelli straightened. “When?”

“Just now. He got there through a leygate. I’ve no idea where it comes out. He’s got Scathach with him.”

Machiavelli’s face twisted into an ugly grimace. The last time he’d encountered the Warrior, she’d pushed him through a door. It had been closed at the time, and he’d spent nearly a month picking splinters from his chest and shoulders. He hadn’t been able to sit down for a week.

“There are two humani children with him. Americans,” Dee said, voice echoing and fading on the transatlantic line. “Twins,” he added.

“Say again?” Machiavelli asked.

“Twins,” Dee snapped, “with pure gold and silver auras. You know what that means,” he said.

“Yes,” Machiavelli muttered. It meant trouble.

“The girl’s powers were Awakened by Hekate before the goddess and her Shadowrealm were destroyed. I believe the Witch of Endor has instructed the girl in the Magic of Air.”

“What do you want me to do?” Machiavelli asked carefully, although he already had a very good idea.

“Find them,” Dee snapped. “Capture them. I’m on my way over there, but it’s going to take me fourteen or fifteen hours to get to Paris.”

“What happened to the leygate?” Machiavelli wondered aloud.

“Destroyed by the Witch of Endor,” Dee said bitterly, “and she nearly killed me, too. I was lucky to escape with a few cuts and scratches,” he added, and then ended the call without saying good-bye.

Niccolò Machiavelli closed his phone carefully and tapped it against his bottom lip. Somehow he doubted that Dee had been lucky—if the Witch of Endor had wanted him dead, then even the legendary Dr. Dee would not have escaped. Machiavelli turned and walked across the square to where his driver was patiently waiting with the car. If Flamel, Scathach and the American twins had come to Paris via a leygate, then there were only a few places in the city where they could have landed. It should be relatively easy to find and capture them.

If he could do it tonight, then he would have fifteen hours to work on his captives before Dee arrived.

And in that time they would tell him everything they knew. Half a millennium on this earth had taught Niccolò Machiavelli how to be very persuasive indeed.

“Where exactly are we?” Josh Newman demanded, looking around, trying to make sense of what had just happened. One second he’d been in the Witch of Endor’s shop in Ojai…and the next Sophie had pulled him
through
a mirror. There had been a chill of disorientation and he’d squeezed his eyes shut. When he’d opened them again, he’d found he was standing in what looked like a tiny storage room. Pots of paints, stacked ladders, broken pieces of pottery and bundled paint-spattered cloths were piled around a large, rather ordinary-looking, grimy mirror fixed to the stone wall. A single low-wattage bulb shed a dim yellow light over the room.

“We’re in Paris,” Nicholas Flamel said delightedly. “The city of my birth.”

“How?” Josh asked. He looked at his twin sister, but she had pressed her head to the room’s only door and was listening intently. She waved him away. He looked at Scathach, but she just shook her head, both hands pressed to her mouth. She looked as if she was about to throw up. “How did we get here?” he said to Flamel.

“This earth is crisscrossed with invisible lines of power sometimes called ley lines or cursus,” Flamel explained. “Where two or more lines intersect, a gateway exists. Gates are incredibly rare now, but in ancient times the Elder Race used them to travel from one side of the world to the other in an instant—just as we did. The Witch opened the leygate in Ojai and we ended up here, in Paris.”

“I hate them,” Scatty mumbled. Even in the gloomy light, she looked green. “You ever been seasick?” she asked.

Josh shook his head. “Never.”

Sophie lifted her head from the door. “Josh gets seasick in a swimming pool.” She grinned, then pressed the side of her face back against the door “Seasick. That’s exactly what it feels like. Only worse.”

Sophie lifted her head to look at the Alchemyst. “Do you have any idea where we are in Paris?”

“Someplace old,” Flamel said, joining her at the door.

Sophie shook her head and stepped back. “I’m not so sure,” she said. With her Awakened powers and the Witch of Endor’s knowledge, she was struggling to make sense of the countless emotions and impressions surging within her. The building they were in didn’t feel old, but if she listened carefully enough, she could actually hear the murmurs of countless ghosts. She touched the wall with the palm of her hand and was immediately able to distinguish gossamer threads of voices, whispered songs, distant organ music. She lifted her hand and the sounds in her head faded. “It’s a church,” she said, then frowned. “But it’s a new church…modern, late nineteenth century, early twentieth. But it’s built on a much, much older site.”

Flamel paused at the wooden door and looked over his shoulder. In the dim overhead light, his features were suddenly sharp and angular, disturbingly skull-like, his eyes completely in shadow. “There are many churches in Paris,” he said. “Though there is only one, I believe, that matches that description,” he added, reaching for the door handle.

“Hang on a second,” Josh said quickly. “Don’t you think there could be some sort of alarm?”

“Not at all,” Nicholas Flamel said confidently. “Who would put an alarm in a church?” He pulled the door open.

Immediately an alarm began to warble, the sound echoing off the flagstones and stone walls. Red security lights began to strobe.

“Let’s get out of here!” Flamel shouted over the shrieking alarm.

Sophie and Josh followed close behind. Scatty took up the rear, moving slowly and grumbling with every step.

The door opened onto a narrow corridor that led to a second door. Without pausing, Flamel pushed through the second door—and immediately another alarm began to shriek. He turned left into a huge open space that smelled of old incense and wax. Banks of lit candles shed a golden yellow light over walls and floor, and these, combined with the security lights, revealed a pair of enormous doors with the word
EXIT
above them. Flamel raced toward it.

“Don’t touch…,” Josh started to say, but Nicholas Flamel grabbed the door handles and pulled hard.

A third alarm went off and a red light above the door began to wink on and off.

“I don’t understand—why is it not open?” Flamel asked. “This church is always open.” He turned and looked around. “Where is everyone? What time is it?” he asked.

“How long does it take to travel from one place to another through the leygate?” Sophie asked.

“It’s instantaneous.”

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

Flamel nodded.

“It’s now about four a.m.; that’s why the church is closed.”

“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.

“I could try and blast the doors apart with my wind magic,” Sophie suggested.

“I forbid it,” Flamel shouted, his face shadowed and painted in shades of crimson by the light. He turned and pointed across rows of wooden pews to an ornate altar picked out in a tracery of white marble. Candlelight hinted at a 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 could make out the outlines of small side altars, statues in nooks and banks of candles. They could distinguish the columns soaring high into the shadow overhead. The building was huge.

“This is the basilica 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. Its 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 leylines met.

Machiavelli hit a keystroke, which laid down a pattern of leylines over the map of the city. He knew he needed a line that connected with the United States. After eliminating all the lines that didn’t run east to west, 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 ended at the great cathedral of Notre Dame, the other in the more modern but equally famous basilica of the Sacré-Coeur in Montmartre.

But which line had Flamel used?

Suddenly the Parisian night was broken by a series of howling alarms. Machiavelli hit the control for the electric window and the tinted glass whispered down. Cool night air swirled into the car. In the distance, visible over the rooftops on the opposite side of the Place du Tertre, the lights around Sacré-Coeur painted the imposing domed building in stark white light. 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.