The Warlock (The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel #5) (27 page)

“I thought you might.”

“A dangerous plan.”

“I have no doubt about it.”

Dee stopped before a jumbled pile of boulders on the narrow beach. He looked back at Josh and the approaching
immortals. “These last few days have taught me a lot. They made me realize that I should be the master and not the slave. And the week has not been a complete write-off,” he continued.

“May I remind you that your offices have burned to the ground, you have no money and there is nowhere safe for you on this Shadowrealm? Even your plan to release Coatlicue has failed.”

“But I do have the four Swords of Power and the Codex. Well, most of the Codex,” he amended. “Flamel still has the last two pages.”

“Has he?” Virginia Dare thought about that for a moment. “You could trade what you have—the four swords and the Book—to the Elders. That might be worth your freedom and your life.”

“That would be selling them far too cheaply. With the swords and the Codex … there is little I cannot do.”

“As soon as you activate the swords, you will betray your position to the Elders. Sell them the swords in return for banishment to an obscure Shadowrealm.”

“I’ve come up with a much better idea. I promised you this world,” Dee said quickly. “But I think I am in a position to offer you more, much, much more.”

“Tell me,” Dare said, suddenly interested.

“You have always been greedy. You told me you want to rule.”

“John …,” she said, a note of warning in her voice.

“Stay with me,” Dee said urgently, “believe in me, protect
and support me, and I will give you not just one world to rule, and not two or three, but all of them.”

“All?” Virginia shook her head in frustration. “John, you’re not making sense.”

Dee giggled. “How would you like to rule the myriad Shadowrealms?”

“Which ones?”

“Just as I have said—all of them.”

“That’s not possible.…”

“Oh, but it is. And I know how to do it.” The Magician laughed again, the sound high-pitched and hysterical.

“And if I get the Shadowrealms, what do you get, Dr. Dee?”

“One world—just one. I want the first world. The original.”

“You want Danu Talis?” Virginia Dare breathed.

He nodded. “Danu Talis.” His eyes glittered madly. “I want Danu Talis, but not to rule—you could rule it for me if you wished. I’ve spent my entire life in search of knowledge. But in one location, I would have the entire knowledge of four great races—Elder, Archon, Ancient and Earthlord—gathered together.”

Virginia stared at him blankly.

“I will make you the new Isis. I will make you the empress of the Shadowrealms.” He moved ahead of Dare and then swung around so that he was facing her. He walked backward, his eyes fixed on hers. “I have never lied to you, Virginia. You have said so yourself. Think about it—Virginia Dare: Empress of the Shadowrealms.”

“I like the sound of that,” Virginia said quietly. “What do you want me to do?”

“Video et taceo,”
he said.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” she said, impatient.

“It is the motto of someone I once loved. It means ‘I see and say nothing.’ So why don’t you take that advice—shut up, watch closely and say nothing.”

hat laugh is starting to freak me out,” Billy murmured.

Machiavelli nodded. “I fear the pressure is beginning to get to the doctor.”

“They’re up to something,” Billy said, looking ahead to where Dee and Dare were deep in conversation.

“You know Virginia Dare better than I do,” the Italian said. “Do you trust her?”

Billy stuck his hands in the back pockets of his jeans. “The last person I trusted shot me in the back.”

“I’ll take that as a no, then.”

“Niccolò, I like her. We’ve had some great adventures together. She’s saved my life on a couple of occasions, and I’ve saved hers.” He started to smile and then his face creased in pain. “But Virginia is … well, she’s … she’s just a little strange.”

“Billy,” Machiavelli said with a laugh, “we’re all a little strange.” He shivered in the breeze and pulled his ruined suit jacket closed.

“But Virginia’s stranger than most.” The American shook his head. “She is an immortal humani, but she is different—dangerously different. She grew up alone, running wild in the woods of Virginia. The local Native American tribes looked out for her, left her food and clothes. I think they believed she was a forest spirit or something like that. They feared her and called her a Windigo: a monster. When villagers went missing in the forest, it was said that they had been taken by the Windigo. And eaten.”

Machiavelli sucked in a breath. “Are you implying …”

Billy shook his head quickly. “I’m just telling you the story. As far as I know, she’s a vegetarian,” he added. “She’s always been vague with the dates, but she didn’t learn to speak until she was ten or eleven. At that point she could already communicate fluently with animals and her forest craft was second to none, but I don’t know how she survived, I have no idea what she had to do. And I’m not going to ask, either. What I
do
know is that those years damaged her. She doesn’t really care too much for people, though she’s never met an animal she couldn’t tame. She told me once that she was happiest when she ruled over the woods of Virginia, where all the creatures knew her, and the natives honored and feared her.”

“I had no idea,” Machiavelli said. “There isn’t much information in her file.”

“Do you know she killed her master?”

Machiavelli nodded. “I know that. And I know that she
and Dee were close. I believe they may even have been betrothed, though I am sure it was not a love match.”

“I also know this,” Billy continued, “she wants to rule. In a couple of the nearby Shadowrealms, she is revered as a goddess. She wants people to worship her and to fear her, just like the natives in Virginia did.”

“Yes. It makes her feel needed,” Machiavelli said. “Hardly surprising for a girl who was abandoned as a baby. So she is dangerous?”

“Oh, she is that. In most of those Shadowrealms, she’s worshipped as a goddess of death,” Billy said grimly. “The last mistake you will ever make is to underestimate her. The second-to-last would be to trust her.”

At that moment the Magician’s maniacal laughter was carried back on the wind. “I wonder, does Dee know that?” Machiavelli asked. “Would she be loyal to him … if anything were to happen?”

Billy looked at the Italian carefully. “And what might happen?” he said softly.

Machiavelli gazed across the bay to the city and frowned, deep lines appearing on his high forehead. “I’ve been thinking a lot about my wife, Marietta, recently. Were you ever married, Billy?”

The American shook his head. “Never had time before I became immortal; never wanted to afterward. Didn’t think it would be fair to my wife.”

“Very wise. I wish I’d been as considerate. I’ve come to the conclusion that immortals should only marry other immortals. Nicholas and Perenelle are very lucky to have lived
so long with one another.” He laughed. “Maybe Dee should have married Dare. What a couple they would have made.”

Billy grinned. “She’d have killed him within the first year. Virginia has a terrible temper.”

“My wife, Marietta, had a temper. But she had every reason to. I was not a particularly good husband. I was away at court too often and for too long, and the politics of the time meant that I lived with the constant threat of assassination. My poor Marietta put up with a lot. She once accused me of being an inhuman monster. She told me I’d stopped thinking of people as individuals. They were masses—faceless and anonymous—either enemies or friends.”

“And was she right?”

“Yes, she was,” the Italian said sadly. “And then she held up my baby son, Guido, and asked me if he was an individual.”

Billy followed the direction of Machiavelli’s stare. “So is that a city of faceless masses, or is it filled with individuals?”

“Why do you ask?”

“Because I’m thinking that you would have no problem keeping your word to your Elder master and Quetzalcoatl and unleashing creatures on the faceless masses in the city.”

“You’re right. I’ve done it before.”

“But if you see it as a city of individuals …”

“That would be different,” Machiavelli agreed.

“Who was it who said, ‘The promise given was a necessity of the past: the word broken is a necessity of the present’?”

The Italian looked quickly at the American immortal and then he dipped his head in a bow. “I do believe I said that once … a long, long time ago.”

“You also wrote that a prince never lacks legitimate reasons to break his promise,” Billy said with a grin.

“Yes, I did say that. You’re full of surprises, Billy.”

Billy looked from the city to the Italian. “So what do you see—faceless masses or individuals?”

“Individuals,” Machiavelli whispered.

“Reason enough to break your promise to your Elder master and a bird-tailed monster?”

Machiavelli nodded. “Reason enough,” he said.

“I knew you were going to say that.” The American immortal reached out and squeezed the Italian’s arm. “You’re a good man, Niccolò Machiavelli.”

“I don’t think so. Right now, my thoughts make me
waerloga
—an oath breaker. A warlock.”

“Warlock.” Billy the Kid tilted his head. “I like it. Got a nice ring to it. I’m thinking I might become a warlock too.”

very problem had a solution, Scathach knew.

The only catch was that she’d never been particularly good at problem solving. That had always been her sister’s specialty. Aoife was the strategist; Scathach preferred the direct approach. Sometimes riding straight into the heart of the enemy worked. She’d rescued Joan that way. But some problems required a subtler approach. And Scatty had never been subtle.

The Warrior sat in the mouth of her cell, her feet dangling over the edge, and looked down into the bubbling lava far below. She wished her sister were with her now. Aoife would know what to do. The Shadow swung her legs back and forth, drumming her heels against the wall, and turned her face to the circle of sky visible high above her head. Before yesterday she hadn’t thought of her sister in a very long time,
and now she’d thought of her two days in a row. Obviously, being on the island, only a few miles from where her parents and brother were living, had made her think of family. And though she would admit it to no one, Scathach was intensely lonely. She missed Aoife. Oh, she’d had humani friends, but they always aged and died; she’d had plenty of immortal friends—the Flamels were more parents to her than her birth parents had ever been—but even the oldest immortal had no idea of the things she’d done and the places she’d been. For millennia, she’d had no one to share her life with. Joan was as close as a sister to her, but Joan had been born in 1412—she was only five hundred and ninety-five years old. Scathach had spent two and a half thousand years in the earth Shadowrealm, and more than seven thousand years wandering the various other Shadowrealms. Only her twin sister knew what it was like to live for such a vast stretch of time.