The Sorceress (4 page)

“I didn’t think—” Josh began.

“You never think,” Sophie interrupted, squeezing his arm.

“You acted,” Flamel said. “That was enough. Come; let’s get out of here before they’re discovered.”

“Aren’t they dead?” Sophie asked, stepping around the creatures.

Josh quickly wrapped Clarent in the bubble wrap and shoved it back into the cardboard tube. Then he pushed the tube into his backpack and heaved the bag onto his shoulders.
“What happened?” he asked. “That colored water. What was that?”

“A gift from an Elder,” Flamel explained, hurrying down the alleyway. “Iris is called the goddess of the rainbow because of her multicolored aura. She also has access to the Shadowrealm waters of the river Styx,” he finished triumphantly.

“And that means?” Josh asked.

Flamel’s grin was savage. “The living cannot touch the waters of the Styx. The shock overloads their systems and knocks them unconscious.”

“For how long?” Sophie asked, glancing back at what looked like a bundle of cloth in the middle of the alleyway.

“According to the legends—a year and a day.”

he
enormous dining room shimmered in the late-afternoon sunshine. Slanting sunbeams ran golden on polished wood panels and bounced off the waxed floor, sparking highlights from a full suit of armor standing in the corner and picking out spots of color from display cases of coins that traced more than two millennia of human history. One wall was entirely covered with masks and helmets from every age and continent, their empty eye sockets looking down over the room. The masks surrounded an oil painting by Santi di Tito that had been stolen from the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence centuries earlier. The painting that now hung in Florence was a perfect forgery. The center of the room was dominated by a huge scarred table that had once belonged to the Borgia family. Eighteen high-backed antique chairs were arranged around the time-stained table. Only two were occupied, and
the table was bare except for a large black phone, which looked out of place in the antique-filled room.

Dr. John Dee sat on one side of the table. Dee was a small neat Englishman, pale-skinned and gray-eyed. He was wearing his customary charcoal three-piece suit, the only touch of color in the pattern of tiny gold crowns on his gray bow tie. He usually wore his iron gray hair pulled back into a tight ponytail, but it now hung loose around his shoulders, curling down to touch his triangular goatee. His dark-gloved hands rested lightly on the wooden table.

Niccolò Machiavelli sat facing John Dee. The physical difference between the two men was startling. While Dee was short and pale, Machiavelli was tall, his complexion deeply tanned, emphasizing the one trait both men shared: cold gray eyes. Machiavelli kept his snow-white hair short and had always been clean-shaven, and his tastes tended toward a more elegant style. His black suit and white silk shirt were clearly custom-made, and his deep crimson tie was woven through with threads of pure gold. It was his portrait on the wall behind him and he looked little older now than he had when it had been painted, more than five hundred years before. Niccolò Machiavelli had been born in 1469; technically he was fifty-eight years older than the Englishman. He had actually died the year Dee was born, in 1527. Both men were immortal, and they were two of the most powerful figures on the planet. Over the centuries of their long lives, the immortals had learned to detest one another, though now circumstances required them to be uneasy allies.

The two men had been sitting in the dining room of Machiavelli’s grand town house off the Place du Canada in Paris for the past thirty minutes. In that time neither had spoken a word. They had each received the same summons on their cell phones: the image of a worm swallowing its own tail—the Ouroborus—one of the oldest symbols of the Dark Elders. In the center of the circle was the number thirty. A few years ago they would have received such summonses by fax or mail, decades ago by telegram and messenger, and earlier still on scraps of paper and parchment, and they would have been given hours or days to prepare for a meeting. Now the summons came by phone and the response was measured in minutes.

Although they were expecting the call, each jumped when the speakerphone in the center of the table buzzed. Machiavelli reached out to spin the phone around and check the caller ID before answering. An unusually long number beginning with 31415—he recognized it as a portion of pi—scrolled off the screen. When he hit the Answer button, static howled and crackled before dying away to a soft breezelike whisper.

“We are disappointed.”
The voice on the phone spoke an archaic form of Latin that had last been used centuries before the time of Julius Caesar.
“Very disappointed.”
It was impossible to tell whether the voice was male or female, and at times it even sounded as if two people could be talking together.

Machiavelli was surprised; he had been expecting to hear his own Dark Elder master’s scratchy voice—he’d never heard this speaker before. But Dee had. Although Dee’s face remained
impassive, the Italian watched as the muscles tightened in the English Magician’s jaw and he straightened almost imperceptibly. So, here was Dee’s mysterious Dark Elder master.

“We were assured that all was in readiness … we were assured that Flamel would be captured and slain … we were assured that Perenelle would be disposed of and that the twins would be apprehended and delivered into our hands ….”

The voice trailed away into static.

“And yet Flamel remains free …. Perenelle is no longer imprisoned in a cell, though she is trapped on the island. The twins have escaped. And we still do not have the complete Codex. We are disappointed,”
the disembodied voice repeated.

Dee and Machiavelli looked at one another. People who disappointed the Dark Elders tended to disappear. An Elder master had the power to grant human subjects immortality, but it was a gift that could be withdrawn with a single touch. Depending on how long the human had been immortal, sudden and often catastrophic old age raced through the body, centuries of time aging and destroying flesh and organs. In a matter of heartbeats, a healthy-looking human could be reduced to a pile of leathery skin and powdered bones.

“You have failed us,”
the voices whispered.

Neither man broke the silence that followed, fully aware that their very long lives were now hanging by a thread. They were both powerful and important, but neither was irreplaceable. The Dark Elders had other human agents they could send after Flamel and the twins. Many others.

Static crackled and popped on the line, and then a new voice spoke.
“And yet, let me suggest that all is not lost.”

Centuries of practice kept Machiavelli’s face expressionless. Here was the voice he’d been expecting, the voice of his Elder master, a figure who had briefly ruled Egypt more than three thousand years ago.

“Let me suggest that we are closer now than we have ever been. We have cause for hope. We have confirmed, that the humani children are indeed the twins of legend; we have even seen some demonstration of their powers. The cursed Alchemyst and his Sorceress wife are trapped and dying. All we have to do is to wait, and time, our greatest friend, will take care of them for us. Scathach is lost and Hekate destroyed. And we have the Codex.”

“But not all of it,”
the male-female voice whispered.
“We still lack the final two pages.”

“Agreed. But it is more than we have ever had. Certainly enough to begin the process of calling back the Elders from the most distant Shadowrealms.”

Machiavelli frowned, concentrating hard. Dee’s Elder master was reputedly the most powerful of all the Elders, and yet here was his own master arguing and debating with him or her. The line crackled, and the male-female voice sounded almost petulant.

“But we lack the Final Summoning. Without it, our brothers and sisters will not be able to take that last step from their Shadowrealms into this world.”

Machiavelli’s master responded evenly.
“We should still be gathering our armies. Some of our brethren have ventured far from this earth; they have even gone beyond the Shadowrealms into the Otherworlds. It will take them many days to return. We
need to call them back now, draw them into the Shadowrealms that border this earth, so that when the time is right, a single step will take them into this world and we can move as one to reclaim the planet.”

Machiavelli looked at Dee. The English Magician’s head had titled slightly to one side, eyes half closed as he listened to the Elders. Almost as if he felt Machiavelli’s gaze on him, Dee opened his eyes and raised his brows in a silent question. The Italian shook his head slightly; he had no idea what was happening.

“This is the time foreseen by Abraham when he first created the Codex,”
Machiavelli’s master continued.
“He had the Sight, he could see the curling strands of time. He foretold that this age would come—he called it the Time of the Turning, when order would be returned to the world. We have discovered the twins, we know the whereabouts of Flamel and the last two pages from the Codex. Once we have the pages we can use the twins’ powers to fuel the Final Summoning.”

The line crackled with static, and in the background Machiavelli clearly heard a murmur of assent. He realized that there were others listening in on the line, and he wondered how many of the Dark Elders had gathered. He bit down hard on the inside of his cheek to prevent himself from smiling at the image of the Elders, in their assorted guises and aspects—human and inhuman, beast and monster—listening intently on cell phones. Machiavelli chose his moment when there was a break in the murmuring voices and spoke carefully, stripping all emotion from his voice, keeping it neutral and professional.

“Then can I suggest that you allow us to complete our tasks. Let us find Flamel and the twins.” He knew he was playing a dangerous game now, but it was clear that there was dissension in the ranks of the Elders, and Machiavelli had always been expert at manipulating such situations. He had clearly heard the need in his master’s voice. The Elders desperately wanted the twins and the Codex: without them, the rest of the Dark Elders would not be able to return to the earth. And at that instant he recognized that both he and Dee were still valuable assets. “The doctor and I have formulated a plan,” he said, and then fell silent, waiting to see if they would take the bait.

“Speak, humani,”
the male-female voice rumbled.

Machiavelli folded his hands and said nothing. Dee’s eyebrows shot up and he pointed at the phone.
Speak
, he mouthed.

“Speak!”
the voice snarled, static howling and popping.

“You are not my master,” Machiavelli said very quietly. “You cannot command me.”

There was a long hissing sound, like steam escaping. Machiavelli turned his head slightly, trying to identify the noise. Then he nodded: it was laughter. The other Elders were amused by his response. He had been correct; there was dissension in the ranks of the Elders, and though Dee’s master might be all-powerful, that did not mean he was liked. Here was a weakness Machiavelli could exploit to his advantage.

Dee was staring at him, gray eyes wide with horror and maybe even admiration.

The line clicked, the ambient background noise changed
and then Machiavelli’s master spoke, amusement clearly audible in his gravelly voice.
“What do you propose? And be careful, humani,”
he added.
“You too have failed us. We were assured that Flamel and the twins would not leave Paris.”

The Italian leaned toward the phone, his smile triumphant. “Master. I was instructed to do nothing until the English Magician arrived. Valuable time was lost. Flamel was able to contact allies, find shelter and rest.” Machiavelli was watching Dee carefully as he spoke. He knew the Englishman had contacted his Elder master, and that master in turn had ordered Machiavelli’s master to tell the Italian to do nothing until Dee arrived. “However,” he pressed, having made his point, “this delay worked to our advantage. The boy was Awakened by an Elder loyal to us. We have some idea of the twins’ powers and we know where they’ve gone.” He could barely keep the smugness out of his voice. He looked at Dee sitting across the table and nodded quickly. The English Magician took the hint.