The Warlock (The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel #5) (4 page)

Virginia Dare leaned forward. “Just get off the Hill first.” Even as she was speaking, a plume of green-tinged smoke erupted from the roof of the building. Immediately, all three of their auras flickered—yellow, pale green and gold. “We
need to get out of this city. That will have alerted everything on the West Coast of America. Everything is coming.”

The morning air came alive with the sounds of approaching sirens.

“And I wasn’t including the police,” she added.

he world was ending.

A dirty white 1963 Jeep Wagoneer raced across a landscape that was rapidly losing every vestige of color. Prometheus sat in the driver’s seat, huge hands locked onto the steering wheel, holding it tightly enough to crack the plastic and metal. Perenelle Flamel sat behind him, with Nicholas stretched out beside her, his head in her lap.

Prometheus’s Shadowrealm was collapsing. The robin’s-egg-blue sky had paled to chalk; clouds had taken on the appearance of curled tissue and faded to monochromatic smudges. In the space of a single heartbeat, the sea had stopped moving. Waves had peaked and frozen, blue-green dissolving to white before turning to cascades of gray dust, while the golden sands and polished pebbles had taken on the appearance of burnt paper and charred lumps of coal. A ghost wind scattered the ashes, spiraling them up into the air. They
fell on trees and grasses already losing form and definition, turning them the color of parchment; anything that grew was fading to the yellow of brittle bone before finally dissipating into chalky gray powder.

And when all traces of color had vanished, the shades of gray started to fade, and the horizon fractured into a million sparkling dust motes that fell like a dirty snow, leaving nothing but a solid impenetrable blackness behind it.

The Wagoneer bounced along a narrow coast road, engine howling, tires spinning to find purchase on the rapidly fading roadway. The interior of the car stank of anise and the Elder’s aura glowed around him, bright red and hot enough to scorch the seats and melt the roof over his head. He was desperately attempting to hold his Shadowrealm together long enough to get the car back into the earth Shadowrealm at Point Reyes. But it was a losing battle; the world he had created millennia ago was dying, returning to its Unmade state.

The events of the previous hours had exhausted Prometheus, and using the vampire-like crystal skull to help the Flamels track Josh into San Francisco had sapped his energy. He had known how dangerous the skull was—his sister, Zephaniah, had warned him about it often enough—but he’d chosen to help the Alchemyst and his wife. Prometheus had always sided with the humani.

And so he had laid his hands on the ancient object and used its powers … and in return the skull had drunk his memories and feasted off his aura. He was weakened now,
desperately weakened, and he knew he was dangerously close to being overwhelmed by his own aura, reduced to flame and ashes. In a matter of a few hours, the Elder’s oncered hair had turned snow-white, and even his brilliantly green eyes had paled.

He was close, so close to the edge of his world … but even as the thought was forming, an opaque gray mist abruptly enveloped the car.

Prometheus’s startled reaction almost sent the car off the narrow road. For a moment he thought the dissolution of the Shadowrealm had caught up with him; then he breathed in cold air and the odor of salt and realized the mist was only the natural sea fog that regularly rolled into Point Reyes in the earth Shadowrealm. Occasionally it leaked from one world into the other. It was another sign that he was close to the edge of his Shadowrealm.

Vaguely human shapes suddenly appeared out of the fog, shadows in the gloom lining the last stretch of roadway. “My children,” the Elder breathed. These were the remnants of the First People. In a distant age, in the Nameless City on the edge of the world, the Elder’s blazing aura had injected a spark into inert clay and brought it to shambling life. The clay folk had become the First People: monstrous in appearance, but not monsters—unlike anything the world had ever seen. Created from mud, ill-shaped, with bald heads too large for narrow necks and blank unfinished faces with just the vaguest impressions where a mouth or eyes would normally be, they had trailed Prometheus across the Shadowrealms,
inspiring myths, legends and terror in their wake. They had survived millennia. Now only a handful of the creatures remained, roaming Prometheus’s Shadowrealm in search of the life and the light of auras. The sound of the car’s engine had drawn them, and now, like flowers tracking the sun, their faces turned toward the rich stew of auras in the car—especially the familiar odor of aniseed, the source of their life eternal.

But without the Elder’s tremendous will keeping the world and its inhabitants alive, their mud skin cracked and chunks began to break away, disintegrating to dust before hitting the ground. Watching the last of the First People dissolving into nothingness, Prometheus wept, bloodred tears leaking from the corners of his eyes. “Forgive me,” he whispered in the ancient language of Danu Talis.

One of the mud creatures stepped onto the road directly behind the car and raised an unnaturally long arm in what might have been a salute or a farewell. The Elder tilted the rearview mirror to watch the figure. He had never given them names, but he knew this one by the scarred pattern across his chest. This was one of the first creatures his aura had brought to life in the desolate Earthlord city. Black nothingness blossomed behind the figure, and brown mud turned the color of salt as the creature spilled away into oblivion. “Forgive me,” Prometheus begged once more, but by then the last of the First Race, the race he had brought to unnatural life, were gone, all traces of their existence wiped away.

The interior of the car blossomed with the Elder’s aura,
and tiny sparking flames danced across every metal surface. His burning fingertips left deep impressions in the rearview mirror as he tilted it down to look at the two figures in the back of the car. “Scathach was right,” he snarled. “She always said that death and destruction followed Nicholas Flamel.”

alk—don’t run,” Niten commanded. Iron-hard fingers bit into Sophie’s shoulder and pulled her to a halt.

She shook herself free. “We’ve got to—”

“We have to avoid attracting attention,” the slender Japanese man said evenly. “Hide the whip under your coat.”

Sophie Newman hadn’t realized she was still holding Perenelle’s silver and black leather whip in her right hand. Coiling it tightly, she shoved it under her left arm.

“Look around you,” Niten continued. “What do you see?”

Sophie turned. They were standing at the bottom of Telegraph Hill. An oily black plume of smoke, shot through with dancing flames, rose high into the heavens. Sirens and car horns blared while all around them people struggled to look at the fire blazing through one of the elegant buildings just below Coit Tower.

“I see fire … smoke.…”

There was a dull thump from inside the building and shards of glass and pieces of masonry cascaded across the red and white Volkswagen Microbus parked outside. All the windows on the right side of the van shattered to powder. A shadow of dismay flickered over Niten’s normally impassive face. “Look at the people,” he said. “A warrior needs to be aware of her surroundings.”

Sophie studied the faces. “Everyone is looking at the fire,” she said quietly.

“Just so,” Niten agreed. “And so must we, if we are to blend in. Turn and look.”

“But Josh …”

“Josh is gone.”

Sophie started to shake her head.

“Turn and look,” Niten insisted. “If you are arrested, then you will be in no position to assist your brother.”

The girl turned and glanced back toward the fire. Niten was right, but standing still and not chasing after her twin felt
wrong
. Every second they delayed meant that Josh was slipping further and further away from her. The image of the burning building fragmented and disappeared as her eyes filled with tears. Blinking hard, she rubbed them away with the heels of her hands, leaving sooty black streaks across her cheeks. The smell of burning rubber and the acrid tang of oil and scorched metal mingled with other noxious odors and drifted over the gathering crowd, making everyone back away. Niten and Sophie flowed with them.

Josh is gone
.

Sophie tried to make sense of the words but it was almost impossible. He had left her. Minutes ago he had been close enough to touch, and yet when she’d tried to help him, he’d turned away from her with a look of horror and disgust on his face and followed Dee and Virginia Dare.

Josh is gone
.

A feeling of absolute despair washed over her; her stomach churned and her throat ached. Her twin, her little brother, had done what he had sworn he would never do: he had left her. The tears came then, deep wracking sobs that shuddered through her body, leaving her breathless.

“You will attract attention,” Niten said softly. He stepped closer to Sophie and gently rested the fingers of his left hand on her right forearm. Instantly the girl was enveloped in the spicy, woody odor of rich green tea, and a sense of calm washed over her. “I need you to be courageous, Sophie. The strong survive, but the courageous triumph.”

The girl drew in a deep breath and looked into Niten’s brown eyes. She was suddenly and shockingly aware that they were swimming with unshed tears. The Swordsman blinked and the blue-tinged liquid rolled down his cheeks.

“You are not the only one who lost someone you loved today,” Niten continued softly. “I’ve known Aoife for over four hundred years. She was …” He paused and his face softened. “She was infuriating and outrageous, demanding, selfish and arrogant … and very, very dear to me.” Blue-green smoke twisted from the burning building and swirled through the crowd.

Sophie watched the spectators turn away from the smoke,
coughing as it caught in their throats. Most people started to cry as the smoke and ash stung their eyes. Niten’s tears went unnoticed.

“You loved her,” Sophie whispered.

His head moved in the tiniest nod. “And in her fashion, she loved me, though she would never admit it.” The Swordsman’s fingers tightened on the girl’s arm, and when he spoke, it was in the precise and elegant Japanese of his youth. “But she is not dead,” he said fiercely. “Even the Archon will find it impossible to kill Aoife of the Shadows. Two centuries ago, she single-handedly fought her way through the Jigoku Shadowrealm when I was kidnapped by servants of the Shinigami, the Death God. She found me. I will find her.” He paused and added, “Just as you will find and rescue your brother.”