The Sorceress (18 page)

The Alchemyst opened his mouth again but then closed it, saying nothing.

“And then Dr. Dee appeared in Stratford. You should know that he was famous then. He had served two queens, Mary and Elizabeth, and survived with his head still on his shoulders, which was no mean feat in those days. He was
close to Elizabeth—it was said that he had even chosen the date for her coronation. He was reputed to have the largest library in England,” Shakespeare continued, “so it was entirely natural that he called upon the Flemings’ bookshop. Surprisingly, the Flemings, who rarely left the premises and never the town, were not at home that day. The shop was in the charge of one of their assistants, a horse-faced man whose name I have never been able to remember.”

“Sebastian,” Flamel said softly.

Shakespeare’s damp eyes fixed on the Alchemyst’s face and he nodded. “Ah yes, Sebastian. But Dee was not interested in him. He spoke to me, in English first, then Latin, then Greek. He asked me to recommend a book—I suggested Ovid’s
Medea
, which he purchased—and then he asked me if I was happy in my present position.” Shakespeare’s pale blue eyes locked onto Flamel’s. “I told him I was not. So he offered me an apprenticeship. Given the choice between a lowly position as a bookseller’s assistant and an apprenticeship with one of the most powerful men in England, how could I refuse?”

Josh nodded. He would have made the same choice himself.

“So I became Dee’s apprentice. More than that, perhaps: I came to believe that he even regarded me as a son. What is undeniable is that he created me.”

Sophie leaned forward over the table, confused. “What do you mean, he created you?”

Shakespeare’s eyes clouded with sadness. “Dee saw something in me—a hunger for sensation, a yearning for adventure—and offered to train and educate me in ways the
Flemings—the
Flamels
—either would not or could not. True to his word, the Magician showed me wonders. He took me to worlds beyond comprehension, he fed my imagination, allowed me access to his incredible library, which gave me the language to shape and describe the worlds I had experienced. Because of Dr. John Dee I
became
William Shakespeare the writer.”

“You’ve missed the bit where he asked you to creep into our home at dead of night and steal the Codex,” Nicholas Flamel said icily. “And when you failed, he accused us of being Spanish spies. Fifty of the Queen’s Men surrounded the bookshop and attacked without warning. Sebastian was injured and Perenelle was struck with a musket ball in the shoulder, which almost killed her.”

Shakespeare listened to the words and nodded very slowly. “Dee and I were not in Stratford when that happened, and I only learned about it much, much later,” he said in a raw whisper. “And by then it was too late, of course. I was deep under Dee’s spell: he had convinced me that I could become the writer I wanted to be. Even though it sounded impossible, I believed him. My father was a glove maker and wool merchant; there were no writers, no poets or playwrights or even actors in my family.” He shook his head slightly. “Perhaps I should have followed my father into the family business.”

“The world would have been a poorer place,” Palamedes said quietly. The Saracen Knight was watching Shakespeare and the Alchemyst closely.

“I married. I had children,” Shakespeare continued,
speaking more quickly now, focused only on Flamel. “A girl first, my beautiful Susanna, then two years later, the twins, Hamnet and Judith.”

Sophie and Josh straightened, glancing quickly at one another; they hadn’t ever heard about Shakespeare’s twins.

There was a long pause and finally the immortal Bard sucked in a deep shuddering breath. He spread his long-fingered hands on the wooden table and stared hard at them. “I discovered then why Dee was interested in me. He had somehow known that I would have twins, and he believed that they were the legendary twins prophesied in the Codex. In 1596, I was in London and no longer living at home in Stratford. Dee visited my wife and offered to educate the twins. She foolishly agreed, even though by that time, ugly rumors were beginning to circulate about the doctor. A few days later, he attempted to have Hamnet Awakened. The Awakening killed him,” he finished simply. “My son was eleven years old.”

No one spoke into the long silence that followed, the only sound the pattering of rain on the metal roof.

Finally, Shakespeare looked up and stared at Flamel. His eyes were brimming and there were tears on his cheeks. He came around the table until he was standing directly in front of the Alchemyst. “A foolish boy betrayed you out of ignorance and stupidity. Ultimately, I paid for that action with the life of my son. Nicholas, I am not your enemy. I hate Dee in ways you cannot even begin to understand.” Shakespeare gripped the Alchemyst’s arm, fingers tightening. “I have waited a long time to meet you. Between us, we know more
about the Magician than anyone else on this planet. I am tired of running and hiding. It is time to pool our knowledge, to work together. It is time to take the fight to Dee and his Dark Elders. What say you?” he demanded.

“It’s a good strategy,” Josh said, before Flamel could answer. He was aware, even as he spoke, that he had no idea what he was talking about. It was Mars speaking. “You’ve spent a lifetime running; Dee won’t expect you to change tactics.”

Palamedes rested his huge forearms on the table. “The boy is right,” he sighed. “The Magician has effectively trapped you here in London. If you run, he will capture you.”

“And if we stay here, he’ll capture us,” Josh said quickly.

Nicholas Flamel looked around the table, obviously troubled by what he’d heard. “I’m not sure …,” he said finally. “If only I could speak to Perenelle; she would know what to do.”

Shakespeare grinned delightedly for the first time since they’d arrived. “I think we can arrange that.”

erenelle Flamel stood framed in the doorway and stared down into the gloom. The heavy metal door that had once sealed this opening lay on the ground behind her, battered and twisted, ripped off its hinges by the weight of the spiders that had surged out of the prison cells below. With Areop-Enap’s retreat to its cocoon, the surviving arachnids had vanished, and all that remained on the surface of Alcatraz were the dried-up husks of dead flies and the shells of spiders. She wondered who—or what—had sent the flies. Someone powerful, certainly; someone who was probably even now plotting their next move.

Perenelle tilted her head to one side and pushed her long black hair back over her ear, closed her eyes and listened. Her hearing was acute, but she could pick up nothing moving. And yet the Sorceress knew the cells were not empty. The
island’s prison was full of blood drinkers and flesh eaters, vetala, minotaur, Windigo and oni, trolls and cluricauns—and, of course, the deadly sphinx. The sunlight had recharged Perenelle’s aura, and she knew she could handle the lesser creatures—though the minotaur and the Windigo would give her some problems—but she was fully aware that she could not deal with the sphinx. The eagle-winged lion fed off magical energy; just being close to it would drain her aura, leaving her helpless.

Perenelle pressed her hand to her growling stomach. She was hungry. The Sorceress rarely needed to eat anymore, but she recognized that she was burning a lot of energy and needed calories to fuel it. If Nicholas were there it would not be a problem; many times on their travels, he had used his alchemical skills to transmute stones into bread, and water into soup. She knew a couple of horn-of-plenty spells she’d learned in Greece that would give her enough to eat, but casting them would mean using her aura, whose distinctive signature would draw the sphinx upon her.

She’d encountered no humans on the island—she doubted any could have survived a single night on Alcatraz with their sanity or body intact. She remembered reading a newspaper report recently—about six months ago—that had said Alcatraz had been acquired by a private corporation and was closing to the public. The state park was going to be turned into a multimedia living history museum. Now that she knew Dee owned the island, she guessed that that wasn’t the truth. Worse, though, with no humans having been on
the island for at least six months, it was looking less and less likely she’d discover anything edible left behind. It wouldn’t be the first time she’d gone hungry in her long life.

The Magician had gathered an army in the cells, creatures from every nation and the myths of every race. Without exception, they were the monsters who had been the source of human nightmares for millennia. And if there was an army, that meant a war was coming. Perenelle’s full lips curled in a wry smile. So it looked as if she was the only human on Alcatraz … along with assorted mythical beasts, nightmare monsters, vampires and werebeasts. There were Nereids in the sea, a vengeful Crow Goddess locked up in a cell deep below the island and an incredibly powerful Elder or Next Generation attacking her from somewhere on the mainland.

Perenelle’s smile faded; she was sure she’d been in worse situations at some time in her past, but right now she couldn’t remember when. And she’d always had Nicholas with her. Together, they were unbeatable.

The tiniest breeze blew up from below, ruffling her hair, and then dust motes whirled and a shape flickered in the gloom. Perenelle darted back out into the sunlight, where she was strongest. She doubted it was the sphinx; she would have smelled its unmistakable odor: the musky scent of lion, bird and serpent.

A shape materialized in the doorway, taking on depth and substance as the light hit it, a figure composed of red rust particles and the shining scraps of spiderweb: it was the ghost, Juan Manuel de Ayala, the discoverer and Guardian of Alcatraz. The specter bowed deeply.
“It is good
to see you hale and well, madame,”
he said in archaic, formal Spanish.

Perenelle smiled. “Why, did you think I would be joining you as a spirit?”

A semitransparent de Ayala floated in the air and considered the question carefully; then he shook his head.
“I knew that if you had fallen on the island, you would not have remained here. Your spirit would have gone wandering.”

Perenelle nodded in agreement, eyes clouding in sorrow. “I would have gone to find Nicholas.”

The perfect teeth that the ghost sailor had never possessed in life flashed in a grin.
“Come, madame, come: I think there is something you should see.”
He turned and floated back down the stairs. Perenelle hesitated; she trusted de Ayala, but ghosts were not the brightest creatures and were easily fooled. And then, thinly and faintly, Perenelle caught the scent of mint—little more than a suggestion—on the damp salty air. Without a second’s hesitation, the Sorceress followed the ghost into the shadows.

icholas Flamel sat in front of the two matching LCD computer screens. William Shakespeare sat on his left while Josh hovered over their shoulders, trying to keep as far away from the English immortal as possible and breathe only through his mouth. When Shakespeare moved, he trailed an odor in his wake, but when he sat still, the stink gathered around him in a thick cloud. Palamedes and Sophie had gone outside to feed the dogs.