The Sorceress (25 page)

“It is a good idea, but you would probably be condemning your friends to death,” Machiavelli said. “There is another way.” The line crackled. “There is an army on the island—an army of monsters. I think that rather than attacking Perenelle, we should simply awaken the slumbering beasts. Many have slept under enchantment for a month or more; they will be hungry … and will go in search of the nearest warm-blooded meal: Madame Perenelle.”

Billy the Kid nodded, and then a thought struck him. “Hey, but won’t we be on the island too?”

“Trust me,” Machiavelli said. “Once we awaken the sleeping army, we will not be hanging around. I will see you tomorrow at twelve-thirty p.m. local time, when my plane lands. If everything goes according to plan, Perenelle will not live to see out the day.”

r. John Dee was terrified.

Standing beside him, Bastet drew a sharp breath and shivered, and Dee realized that she too was scared. And that frightened him even more.

Dee had known fear before and had always welcomed it. Fear had kept him alive, had sent him running when others had stood and fought and died. But this was no ordinary terror: this was a bone-deep, stomach-churning, flesh-crawling repulsion that left him bathed in icy sweat. The cold analytical part of his mind recognized that this was not a rational fear; this was something stronger, something primal and ancient, a terror lodged deep in the limbic system, the oldest part of the human brain. This was a primeval fear.

In his long life Dee had encountered some of the foulest of the Elders, ghastly creatures that were not even vaguely human. His research and travels had led him into some of the
darkest Shadowrealms, places where appalling nightmare creatures floated in emerald skies or tentacled horrors writhed in bloodred seas. But he had never been this frightened. Black spots danced at the corners of his vision and he realized he was breathing so hard he was hyperventilating. Desperately attempting to calm his breathing, he concentrated on the source of his fear—the creature striding down the middle of the empty North London street.

Most of the streetlights were dead, and the few that were not shed a ghastly sodium glow over the figure, painting it in shades of yellow and black. It stood close to eight feet tall, with massive arms and legs that ended in goatlike hooves. An enormous rack of six-pointed antlers curled out of each side of its skull, adding at least another five feet to its height. It was wrapped in mismatched hides of animals long extinct, so that Dee found it hard to tell where the skins ended and the creature’s hairy flesh began. Resting on its left shoulder was a six-foot club shaped from the jawbone of a dinosaur, one side ragged with a line of spiky teeth.

This was Cernunnos, the Horned God.

Fifteen thousand years ago, a frightened Paleolithic artist had daubed an image of this creature on a cave wall in southwest France, an image that was neither man nor beast, but something caught in between. Dee realized that he was probably experiencing the same emotions that ancient man had felt. Just looking at it made him feel small, inconsequential, puny.

He had always believed that the Horned God was just another Elder—maybe even one of the Great Elders—but
earlier that day Mars Ultor had revealed something shocking, something quite terrifying. The Horned God was no Elder. It was something older, far older, something that existed at the very edges of myth.

Cernunnos was one of the legendary Archons, the race that had ruled the planet in the incredibly distant past. Yggdrasill had been a seed when the Horned God had first walked the world, Nidhogg and its kin only newly hatched, and it would be hundreds of millennia before the first humani appeared.

The Horned God stepped forward and light washed across its face.

Dee felt as if he had been punched in the stomach. He’d been expecting a mask of horror, but the creature was beautiful. Shockingly, unnaturally beautiful. The skin of its face was deeply tanned, but smooth and unlined, as if it had been carved out of stone, and oval amber eyes glowed within deep-sunk sockets. When it spoke, its full-lipped mouth barely opened and its long throat remained still.

“An Elder and a humani, a cat and its master, and which is the more dangerous, I wonder?” Its voice was surprisingly soft, almost gentle, though completely emotionless, and although he heard it speak in English, Dee was sure he could hear the buzzing of a hundred other languages saying the same words in his head. Cernunnos came closer and then bent on one knee, first to stare at Bastet and then to look down on Dee. The Magician looked into the Horned God’s eyes: the pupils were black slits, but, unlike a serpent’s, they
were horizontal, like flat black lines. “So you are Dee.” The buzzing voices swirled in Dee’s head.

The Magician bowed deeply, unwilling to look into the amber eyes, desperately trying to control his fear. A peculiar musky odor enveloped the Archon, the smell of wild forests and rotting vegetation. Dee was struck with the scent and realized it probably had something to do with the emotions he felt. He had seen worse creatures, certainly more shocking creatures, so what was it about the Horned God that terrified him so much? He focused on the savage-looking club the ancient creature was leaning on. It looked like the jaw of a sarcosuchus, the supercroc from the Cretaceous Period, and he found himself wondering just how old the Archon was.

“We are delighted by your presence,” Bastet hissed loudly. Dee thought he could hear the tremor of fear in her voice.

“I do not think so,” Cernunnos said, straightening.

“We—” Bastet began, but suddenly the huge club swung around and came to a stop, its teeth inches from her feline skull.

“Creature: do not speak to me again. I am not here by choice. You.” Cernunnos turned its amber eyes on Dee. “Your Elder masters have invoked an ancient debt that has existed between us going back to the dawn of time. If I assist you, then my debt to them is wiped clean. That is the only reason I am here. What do you need?”

Dee took a deep breath. He bowed again, and then bit down hard on the inside of his cheek to prevent himself from
smiling. An Archon was putting itself at his command. When he spoke, he was pleased that his voice was steady and controlled. “How much have you been told?” he began.

“I am Cernunnos. Your thoughts and memories are mine to read, Magician. I know what you know; I know what you have been, I know what you are now. The Alchemyst, Flamel, and the children are with the Saracen Knight and the Bard behind their makeshift metal fortress. You want me and the Wild Hunt to force an entrance for you.” Although the Archon’s face remained an unwrinkled mask, Dee imagined he heard what might be a sarcastic note in the Horned God’s voice.

The Magician bowed again, attempting to control his thoughts. “Just so.”

The Archon turned its huge head to look at the metal walls of the used-car lot. “Promises have been made to me,” it rumbled. “Slaves. Fresh meat.”

Dee hurried on. “Of course. You can have Flamel, and anyone else you want. I need the children and the two pages from the Codex that remain in Flamel’s possession.” Dee bowed again. With the power of the Horned God and the Wild Hunt it commanded, he could not fail.

“I am instructed to tell you this,” Cernunnos said softly, moving its head slightly, looking down on the Magician, amber eyes glowing in its dark face: “that if you fail, your Elder masters have given you to me. A gift, a little recompense for arousing me from my slumbers.” The huge horned head tilted to one side, and horizontal pupils expanded to
turn its eyes black and bottomless. “I have not had a pet in millennia. They do not tend to last long before they turn.”

“Turn?” Dee swallowed hard.

A wave of stinking fur, claws, teeth and eyes made yellow by the lights flowed down the streets, boiling out of the houses, leaping through windows, flattening fences, pushing up through sewers. Filthy foul-smelling creatures gathered in a huge silent semicircle behind the Archon. They had the bodies of enormous gray wolves … but they all had human faces.

“Turn,” Cernunnos said. Without moving its body, its head swiveled at an impossible angle to regard the silent army behind it, and then it looked back at Dee. “You are strong. You will last at least a year before you become part of the Wild Hunt.”

alamedes rounded on the Alchemyst. “See what you have done!” Anger had thickened his accent, making his words almost unintelligible.

Flamel ignored him. He turned to Shakespeare. “There is an escape route?” he asked calmly.

The Bard nodded. “Of course. There’s a tunnel directly under the hut. It comes up about a mile away in a disused theater.” He smiled crookedly. “I chose the location myself.”

Flamel turned to Sophie and Josh. “Get your stuff. Let’s go; we can be well away before the Horned God arrives.” Before either of them could object, the Alchemyst had caught the twins each by an arm and pushed them back toward the hut. Josh angrily shook off the immortal, and Sophie jerked herself free. The Alchemyst was about to object when he realized that neither Palamedes nor Shakespeare had moved. He turned to look at the smaller man. “Quickly; you know what
the Horned God is capable of, and once the Wild Hunt have tasted blood, even it will have little control over them.”

“You go,” Shakespeare said. “I will stay here. I can hold them and give you the time you need to escape.”

Nicholas shook his head. “That is madness,” he said desperately. “You will not escape. Cernunnos will destroy you.”

“Destroy my body, possibly.” Shakespeare smiled. “But my name is and will always be immortal. My words will never be forgotten as long as there is a human race.”

“And if the Dark Elders return, then that might be sooner than you think,” Flamel snapped. “Come with us,” he said, and then added gently, “Please.”

But the Bard shook his head. His aura crackled warm and pale around his body, filling the air with lemon. Modern armor flickered into plate armor and chain mail before finally settling into the ornate and grotesque armor of the Middle Ages. He was fully wrapped in shining yellow metal, smooth and curved, designed to deflect any blow, spikes jutting from his knees and elbows. He pushed back the visor on the helm that encased his head, pale eyes glowing, magnified behind the glasses he still wore. “I will stay and fight alongside the Gabriel Hounds. They have been loyal to me for centuries; now I will be loyal to them.” He smiled, his teeth a ruined mess in his mouth.