The Magician (The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel #2) (9 page)

“Michael Carroll,
Ojai
Valley
News.
I understand you’re calling from Paris, France?” There was a note of incredulity in the man’s voice.

“Indeed I am, Monsieur Carroll.”

“News travels fast”, the reporter said, echoing the receptionist.

“The Internet”, Flamel said vaguely, adding, “There’s a video on You Tube.” He had absolutely no doubt that there were videos of the scene in Ojai online. He turned to stare out into the Internet cafe. From where he was standing he could see half a dozen screens; each one displayed a Web page in a different language. “I’ve been asked to get a quote for our arts and culture page. One of our editors has visited your beautiful city often and bought several amazing glass pieces from an antiques shop on

“Witcherly Antiques”, Michael Carroll said immediately. “I know it well. I’m afraid it was completely destroyed in an explosion.”

Flamel felt suddenly breathless. Hekate had died because he had brought the twins into her Shadowrealm; had the Witch of Endor shared Hekate’s fate? He cleared his throat and swallowed hard. “And the owner, Mrs. Witcherly? Is she…?”

“She’s fine”, the reporter said, and Flamel felt a wave of relief wash over him. “I’ve just taken a statement from her. She’s in remarkably good spirits for someone whose shop has just blown up.” He laughed and added, “She said that when you’ve lived as long as she has, nothing much surprises you.”

“Is she still there?” Flamel asked, trying to contain the eagerness is his voice. “Would she like to make a statement for the French press? Tell her it’s Nicholas Montmorency. We spoke once before; I’m sure she’ll remember me”, he added.

“I’ll ask.”

The voice faded away and Flamel heard the reporter calling out for Dora Witcherly. In the background, he also heard the sound of countless police, fire and ambulance sirens and the fainter shouts and cries of distressed people.

And it was all his fault.

He shook his head quickly. No, it was
not
his fault. This was Dee’s doing. Dee knew no sense of proportion; he had almost burned London to the ground in 1666, had devastated Ireland with the Great Famine in the 1840s, had destroyed most of San Francisco in 1906 and now he’d emptied the graveyards around Ojai. No doubt the streets were littered with bones and bodies. Nicholas heard the reporter s muted voice and then the sound of the cellphone being handed over.

“Monsieur Montmorency?” Dora said politely in perfect French.

“Madame. You are unharmed?”

Dora’s voice fell to a whisper and she slipped into an archaic form of the French language that would be incomprehensible to any modern eavesdropper. “It’s not that easy to kill me”, she said quickly. “Dee has escaped, cut, bruised, battered and very, very upset. You are all safe? Scathach too?”

“Scatty is safe. However, we’ve had an encounter with Niccol Machiavelli.”

“So he’s still around. Dee must have warned him. Be careful, Nicholas. Machiavelli is more dangerous than you can imagine. He is even more cunning than Dee. Now I must hurry”, she added urgently. “This reporter is getting suspicious. He probably thinks I’m giving you a better story than I gave him. What do you want?”

“I need your help, Dora. I need to know who I can trust in Paris. I need to get the children off the streets. They’re exhausted.”

“Hmmm.” The line crackled with the sound of rustling paper. “I don’t know who is in Paris at the moment. But I’ll find out”, she said decisively. “What time is it there?”

He glanced at his watch and did the math. “Five-thirty in the morning.”

“Get to the
Eiffel
Tower
. Be there by seven a.m. and wait for ten minutes. If I can find someone trustworthy, I’ll have them meet you there. If no one you recognize arrives, go back at eight and then at nine. If no one is there by nine, then you’ll know there is no one in Paris you can trust, and you will have to make your own arrangements.”

“Thank you, Madame Dora”, he said quietly. “I’ll not forget this debt.”

“There are no debts between friends”, she said. “Oh, and Nicholas, try and keep my granddaughter out of trouble.”

“I’ll do my best”, Flamel said. “But you know what she’s like: she seems to attract trouble. Though right now, she’s watching over the twins in a café not far from here. At least she can’t get into any trouble there.”

S
cathach brought her leg up, pressed the sole of her foot against the seat of a chair and shoved hard. The wooden chair skipped across the floor and slammed into the two police officers as they pushed through the door. They crashed to the ground, a radio flying from the hand of one, a baton from the hand of the other. The squawking radio skidded to a halt at Josh’s feet. He leaned over and poured his hot chocolate on it. It died in a fizz of sparks.

Scathach surged to her feet. Without turning her head, she raised an arm and pointed at Roux. “You. Stay right where you are. And don’t even think about phoning for the police.”

Heart hammering, Josh grabbed Sophie and pulled her away from the table, toward the back of the shop, shielding her with his body from the police at the door.

One of the officers raised a gun. And Scatty’s nunchaku struck it in the barrel with enough force to bend the metal and send the weapon spinning from the man’s hand.

The second officer scrambled to his feet, pulling out a long black baton. Scathach’s right shoulder dipped and the nunchaku reversed direction in midair, the twelve-inch length of hardened wood striking the police baton just above its short handle. The baton shattered into ragged splinters. Scathach flipped the nunchaku back and it dropped into her outstretched hand.

“I’m in a really bad mood”, she said in perfect French. “Believe me when I tell you that you really do not want to fight me.”

“Scatty”, Josh hissed in alarm.

“Not now”, the Warrior snapped in English. “Can’t you see I’m busy?”

“Yeah, well, you’re about to get busier”, Josh shouted. “A lot busier. Look outside.”

A police riot squad, in black body armor, full-face helmets and shields, armed with batons and assault rifles, were racing down the street, straight for the cafe.

“RAID”, the shop assistant whispered in horror.

“Just like SWAT”, Scathach said in English, “only tougher.” She sounded almost pleased. Glancing sidelong at Roux, she snapped in French, “Is there a back door?”

The shop assistant was shocked into immobility, staring at the approaching squad, and didn’t react until Scathach whipped out the nunchaku and the rounded end whistled past his face, the breeze making him blink.

“Is there a back door?” she demanded again, but in English.

“Yes, yes, of course.”

“Then get my friends out.”

“No”, Josh began.

“Let me do something”, Sophie said, a dozen wind spells flickering into her consciousness. “I can help”.

“No”, Josh protested, and reached for his twin just as her blond hair crackled, sparkling silver.

“Out!” Scatty shouted, and suddenly it was as if the planes and angles of her face had altered, cheekbones and chin becoming prominent, green eyes turned to reflective glass. For an instant, there was something ancient and primeval and totally alien in her face. “I can take care of this.” She started spinning the nunchaku, creating an impenetrable shield between her and the two policemen. One officer picked up a chair and flung it at her, but the nunchaku turned it to matchwood.

“Roux get them out
now
!” Scatty snarled.

“This way”, the terrified clerk said in American-accented English. He pushed past the twins and led them down a narrow chilly corridor and out into a small foul-smelling yard piled high with trash cans, bits of broken restaurant furniture and the skeleton of a long-abandoned Christmas tree. Behind them came the sound of breaking wood.

Roux pointed to a red gate and continued in English. His face was the color of chalk. “That leads to the alleyway. Turn left for the Rue de Dunkerque; right will bring you down to the Gare du Nord Metro station.” Behind them there was a tremendous smash, followed by the sound of breaking glass. “Your friend, she is in so much trouble”, he moaned miserably. “And RAID will wreck the shop. How am I going to explain that to the owner?”

There was another crash from inside. A slate tile slid off the roof and crashed into the yard.

“Go, go now.” He spun the combination lock and tugged the gate open.

Sophie and Josh ignored him. “What do we do?” Josh asked his twin. “Go or stay?”

Sophie shook her head. She glanced at Roux and lowered her voice to a whisper. “We have nowhere to go we don’t know anyone in the city except Scatty and Nicholas. We don’t have any money and we have no passports.”

“We could go to the American embassy.” Josh turned to Roux. “Is there an American embassy in Paris?”

“Yes, of course, on the Avenue Gabriel, beside the Hotel de Crillon.” The shaven-headed youth cringed as a colossal thump shook the whole building, filling the air with minute particles of dust. The glass in the window beside them cracked from top to bottom and more tiles slid off the roof, to rain down into the yard.

“And what do we tell the embassy?” Sophie demanded. “They’ll want to know how we got here.”

“Kidnapped?” Josh suggested. And then a sudden thought struck him and he felt sick. “And what do we tell Mom and Dad? How are we going to explain it to them?”

Crockery tinkled and shattered, and then there was a tremendous crack.

Sophie cocked her head to one side and brushed her hair off her ear. That was the main window. She took a step back toward the door. “I should help her.” Wisps of mist curled off her fingers as she reached for the handle.

“No!” Josh snatched her hand, and static crackled between them. “You can’t use your powers”, he whispered urgently. “You’re too exhausted; remember what Scatty said. You could burst into flames.”

“She’s our friend we can’t abandon her”, Sophie snapped. “
I
won’t, anyway.” Her brother was a loner and had never been good at making or keeping friends in school, whereas she was intensely loyal to hers, and she had started to think of Scatty as more than just a friend. Although she loved her brother deeply, she had always wanted a sister.

Josh caught Sophie’s shoulders and turned her to face him. He was already ahead taller than she was and had to look down into the blue eyes that mirrored his own. “She’s
not
our friend, Sophie”, his voice low and serious. “She’s never going to be our friend. She’s a two- and- a- half- thousand- year- old
something.
She admitted to us that she’s a vampire. You saw the way her face changed in there: she’s not even human. And and I’m not sure she’s all Flamel makes her out to be. I know
he
isn’t!”

“What do you mean?” Sophie demanded. “What are you trying to say?”

Josh opened his mouth to reply, but a series of rattling thumps vibrated through the entire building. Whimpering with fear, Roux darted out into the alley. The twins ignored him.

“What do you mean?” Sophie asked again.

“Dee said”

“Dee!”

“I talked to him in Ojai. When you were in the shop with the Witch of Endor.”

“But he’s our enemy!”

“Only because Flamel
says
he is”, Josh said quickly. “Sophie, Dee told me that Flamel is a criminal and Scathach is basically just a hired thug. Hes aid that she was cursed for her crimes to wear the body of a teenager for the rest of her life.” He shook his head quickly and hurried on, his voice low and desperate. “Sis, we know next to nothing about these people Flamel, Perenelle and Scathach. The only thing we
do
know is that they’ve made you different dangerously different. They’ve taken us halfway across the world, and look where we are now.” Even as he was speaking, the building shook, and then a dozen more tiles slid off the roof and crashed into the yard, sending razor-sharp fragments flying around them. Josh yelped as a chunk stung his arm. “We can’t trust them, Soph. We shouldn’t.”

“Josh, you have no idea what powers they’ve given me.” Sophie caught her brother’s arm, and the air, which was foul with the stink of rotting food, was touched with the odor of vanilla, and then, a moment later, the scent of oranges as Josh’s aura flared briefly golden. “Oh, Josh, the things I could tell you. I know everything the Witch of Endor knew.”

“And it’s making you sick!” Josh yelled angrily. “And don’t forget, if you use your powers one more time, you could literally explode.”

The twins auras flared gold and silver. Sophie squeezed her eyes shut as a flood of impressions, vague thoughts and random ideas slammed into her consciousness. Her blue eyes blinked, momentarily silver, and she suddenly realized that she was experiencing her brother’s thoughts. She wrenched her hand away from him and the thoughts and sensations immediately faded.

“You’re jealous!” she whispered in amazement. “Jealous of my powers.”

Color touched Josh’s cheeks, and Sophie saw the truth in his eyes even before he spoke the lie. “I am not!”