The Sorceress (47 page)

“That’s how I feel.” Sophie opened her eyes and looked at her brother. “With every magic I learn, I feel more and more complete. It’s as if parts of me have been missing all my life and now I’m becoming whole again, piece by piece.”

Josh tried a laugh, but it came out sounding shaky. “I guess by the time you learn the last magic you won’t need me anymore.”

Sophie reached out and squeezed her brother’s arm. “Don’t be silly. You’re my twin. We are the two that are one.”

“The one that is all,” he finished.

“I wonder what it means,” Sophie whispered.

“I have a feeling we’ll find out—whether we want to or not,” Josh said.

aint-Germain was a rock star, famous throughout Europe, and the young police officer recognized him immediately. He came forward, snapped a quick salute and then pulled off his leather glove as the count stretched out his hand. Behind the smoked glass in the car the two women—Next Generation and human immortal—watched as Francis shook the man’s hand and then deftly turned him so that he was facing away from the road.

“Let’s go.” Joan eased open the car door and slipped out into the warm afternoon air. A heartbeat later, Scathach joined her, gently pressing her door closed behind her. Side by side the two young-looking women walked toward the cathedral. They passed close enough to Francis and the gendarme to hear part of the conversation.

“… a disgrace, a national tragedy. I was thinking I should
have a concert to raise money for the repair of the cathedral ….”

“I’d go,” the gendarme said immediately.

“I would insist on free entrance for our brave police, ambulance and fire officers, of course.”

Joan and Scathach slipped under the flapping police tape and started to step through the piles of stone. Much of the rubble was dust, but some of the larger fragments still retained ghostly images of the figures they’d been before the twins had unleashed their elemental magic. Scatty saw traces of claws and beaks, sweeping horns and curling tails. A stone ball lay alongside a weathered hand. She glanced at Joan and both women turned to look at the front of the cathedral. The devastation was incredible: huge chunks of the building were missing, scraped or torn off, and portions looked as if it had been attacked by a wrecking ball.

“In all my years, I’ve never seen anything like it,” Scathach murmured, “and that was only with two powers.”

“And only one twin had those powers,” Joan reminded her.

“Can you imagine what would happen if they possessed all the elemental magics?”

“They would have the power to destroy the world or remake it,” Joan said.

“And that’s the prophecy,” Scathach said simply.

“Hey, you! You two. Stop there!”

The voice came from directly ahead of them.

“Stop. Stop right there.” The second voice came from behind them.

“Keep going,” Scatty muttered.

Joan glanced over her shoulder to see the young police officer attempting to extricate himself from Francis’s viselike grip. Suddenly, the count released him and the man tumbled to the ground. In attempting to help him to his feet, Francis stepped on the hem of his long black coat, stumbled and fell on top of the man, pinning him down.

“You two. You don’t belong here.” A shaven-headed, shaggy-bearded middle-aged academic jumped to his feet before them. He’d been lying on the ground, piecing together tiny fragments of an eagle’s wing. He came forward, waving a clipboard in their faces. “You are trampling over priceless historical artifacts.”

“I’m not sure we could damage them any further if we tried.” Without breaking stride, Scatty snatched the plastic clipboard from the man’s grasp and tore it in two as easily as if it were a sheet of paper. She tossed the pieces at his feet. The man looked at what had been his clipboard lying on the ground, then turned and ran off, shouting.

“Very subtle, very discreet,” Joan said.

“Very effective,” Scatty said, and strode onto Point Zero.

Point Zero was in the middle of the square. Set into the cobbles was a circle of flat gray stone, divided into four parts. In the center was a circle of brighter stone with a sunburst design cut into it. The sunburst had eight arms radiating from its middle, though two were worn smooth by the passage of
countless feet and rubbing fingers. The words
Point Zero Des Routes De France
were cut into the outer stones. There was plenty of space for Scathach and Joan to stand within the circle back to back, a foot on each section. “What happens …,” Scathach began.

ow?” Scathach finished.

Then she squeezed her eyes shut, pressed one hand to her stomach and the other to her mouth and collapsed to her knees. Scathach felt the world tilt and fought the urge to throw up, until she suddenly realized she was kneeling on soft earth. With her eyes still tightly shut, she patted the ground and felt long grass beneath her fingers. Then strong arms pulled her to her feet and cool hands cupped her face. Scathach opened her eyes to find Joan’s face inches from her own. There was a smile on the Frenchwoman’s elegant mouth.

“How do you feel?” Joan asked in French.

“Seasick.”

“You’ll live,” Joan laughed. “I used to tell my troops that if they could still feel pain, they were alive.”

“I bet they loved you,” Scatty grumbled.

“Actually, they all did,” Joan said.

“So we didn’t fall into the sun.” Scathach straightened and looked around. “We made it,” she sighed. “Oh, it’s good to be back home.”

“Home?” Joan asked.

“I’ve lived on the West Coast for a long time; San Francisco is as much of a home to me as any other place. I was once told I would die in a desert, so I’ve always chosen to live on the coasts.”

The two women were standing on the side of a gently sloping mountain. After the humid pollution-tainted air of Paris, the cool breeze was sweet, rich with the smell of vegetation, and although it had been early afternoon when they’d left Paris a heartbeat ago, the sun had not yet risen on the West Coast of America. “What time is it?” Scatty wondered aloud.

Joan checked her watch and then reset it. “It’s ten minutes to five in the morning.” She nodded toward the east, where the heavens were beginning to lighten to purple, though the sky over their heads was black, speckled with misty distant stars. Thick gray-white fog had settled farther down the mountain. “The sun will rise in about an hour.” The Frenchwoman turned to look up the slopes of the mountain, which was barely visible in the gloom. “So this is Mount Tamalpais. I thought it would be … bigger.”

“Welcome to Mount Tam,” Scatty said with a flash of white teeth, “one of my favorite spots in America.” She pointed into the blanket of thick mist. “We’re about fifteen miles north of San Francisco and Alcatraz.” The Shadow
settled her knapsack more comfortably on her back. “We can jog ….”

“Jog!” Joan laughed. “The last thing Francis said to me was that you would probably want to jog into the city. We’re hiring a car,” she said firmly.

“It’s really not that far …,” Scatty protested, and then stopped.

Directly below them, a huge shape moved through the fog, sending it swirling and curling. “Joan …,” she began.

More figures moved, and abruptly the mist parted like a torn curtain to reveal an enormous herd of woolly mastodons grazing at the foot of the mountain. Then the Warrior spotted two saber-toothed cats lying flat in the tall grass, watching the herd intently, black-tipped tails twitching.

Joan was still looking up the mountains. She pulled her cell from her pocket and hit a speed dial. “I’ll just let Francis know we’ve arrived ….” She held the phone to her ear and then checked the screen. “Oh, no signal. Scatty, how long will it take us to get to …?” The shocked expression on her friend’s face made her turn to see what she was looking at.

It took a heartbeat for Joan’s eyes to adjust to the sheer scale of the mastodon herd that was now moving slowly through the shreds of predawn mist. A suggestion of movement caught her attention and she looked up: floating silent and high on invisible thermals, a trio of giant condors soared directly overhead.

“Scathach?” Joan breathed in a horrified whisper. “Where are we?”

“Not where, but
when
.” The Shadow’s face turned sharp
and ugly, eyes glittering green and pitiless. “Leygates. I hate them!” One of the huge cats raised its head to look in the direction of the voice and yawned, savage seven-inch-long teeth glinting. The Warrior stared it down. “We may be on Mount Tamalpais, but this is not the twenty-first century.” She indicated the mastodons, tigers and condors with a sweep of her hand. “I know what these are: they’re megafauna. And they belong to the Pleistocene Epoch.”

“How … how do we get back … to our own time?” Joan whispered, clearly upset.

“We don’t,” Scathach said grimly. “We’re trapped.”

Joan’s first thoughts were for the Sorceress. “And what about Perenelle?” She started to cry. “She’s expecting us. She’s waiting on us.”

Scatty drew Joan into her arms and held her close. “She might have a long wait,” she said grimly. “Jeanne, we’ve gone back in time maybe a million years. The Sorceress is on her own.”

“And so are we,” Joan sobbed.

“Not really.” Scatty grinned. “We’ve got one another.”

“What are we going to do?” the immortal Frenchwoman wondered, angrily brushing her tears away.

“We will do what we have always done: we will survive.”

“And what about Perenelle?” Joan asked.

But Scathach had no answer to that.