Nicholas Flamel 1 - The Alchemyst

focused which, in an alleyway filled with rotten food, was no easy task. Dee

was momentarily grateful that he had not used the full force of the scrying

spell, which would have allowed him to hear, to taste and this was a

terrifying thought to smell everything the rat encountered.

It was like looking at a badly tuned black-and-white television. The image

shifted, pitched and lurched with the rat s every movement. The rat could go

from running horizontally on the ground, to running vertically up a wall,

then upside-down across a rope, all within a matter of seconds.

Then the image stabilized.

Directly in front of Dee, outlined in purple-tinged gray and glowing in

grayish black, were the two humans he had seen in the bookshop. A boy and a

girl in their midteens, perhaps and similar enough in appearance for them to

be related. A sudden thought struck him hard enough to break his

concentration: brother and sister, possibly or could they be something else?

Surely not!

He looked back into the scrying dish and concentrated with his full will,

forcing the rat he was controlling to stand absolutely still. Dee focused on

the young man and woman, trying to decide if one was older than the other,

but the rat s vision was too clouded and distorted for him to be sure.

But if they were the same age that meant they were twins. That was curious.

He looked at them again and then shook his head: they were humans. Dismissing

the thought, he unleashed a single command that rippled through every rat

within a half-mile radius of the twins position. Destroy them. Destroy them

utterly.

The gathering crows took to the air, cawing raucously, as if applauding.

Josh watched openmouthed as the huge rat leapt from the roof opposite,

effortlessly bridging the six-foot space. Its mouth was wide and its teeth

were wickedly pointed. He managed a brief Hey! and jerked away from the

window just as the rat hit the glass with a furry, wet thump. It slid down to

the alley one floor below, where it staggered around in stunned surprise.

Josh grabbed Sophie s hand, and dragged her out of the kitchen and onto the

balcony. we've got a problem, he shouted. And stopped.

Below them, three huge Golems, trailing flaking dried mud, were pushing their

way through the wide-open alley door. And behind them, in a long sinuous

line, came the rats.

CHAPTER NINE

T he three Golems moved stiffly into the corridor, spotted the open door at

the far end of the hallway and moved toward it. The finger-length metal darts

hissed from the walls and stuck deeply into their hardened mud skin, but

didn't even slow the creatures down.

The half-moon blades close to the floor were a different matter altogether.

The blades clicked out of their concealed sheaths in the walls and sliced

into the ankles of the clay men. The first creature crashed to the floor,

hitting it with the sound of wet mud. The second tottered on one foot before

it slowly toppled forward, hit the wall and slid down, leaving a muddy smear

in its wake. The semicircular blades click-clacked again, slicing the

creatures completely in two, and then the Golems abruptly reverted to their

muddy origin. Thick globules of mud spattered everywhere.

The third Golem, the largest of the creatures, stopped. Its black stone eyes

moved dully over the remains of its two companions, and then it turned and

punched a huge fist directly into the wall, first to the right, then to the

left. A whole section of the wall on the left-hand side gave way, revealing

the space beyond. The Golem stepped into the dojo and looked around, black

eyes still and unmoving.

The rats meanwhile raced toward the open door at the end of the corridor.

Most of them survived the scything blades .

In the speeding limousine, Dr. John Dee released his control of the rats, and

now concentrated his attention on the surviving Golem. Controlling the

artificial creature was much easier. Golems were mindless beings, created of

mud mixed with stones or gravel to give their flesh consistency, and brought

to life by a simple spell written on a square of parchment and pressed into

their mouths. Sorcerers had been building Golems of all shapes and sizes for

thousands of years: they were the source of every zombie and walking-dead

story ever created. Dee himself had told the story of the greatest of all the

Golems, the Red Golem of Prague, to Mary Shelley one cold winter s evening

when she, Lord Byron, the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley and the mysterious Dr.

Polidori were visiting his castle in Switzerland in 1816. Less than six

months later, Mary created the story of The Modern Prometheus, the book that

became more commonly known as Frankenstein. The monster in her book was just

like a Golem: created of spare parts and brought to life by magical science.

Golems were impervious to most weapons, though a sudden fall or blow could

shatter their mud skin, especially if it was dry and hardening. In a damp

climate, their skins rarely dried out and could absorb incredible punishment,

but this warm climate made them brittle which was why they had fallen so

easily to the concealed blades. Some sorcerers used glass or mirrors for

their eyes, but Dee preferred highly polished black stones. They enabled him

to see with almost razor-sharp clarity, albeit in monochrome.

Dee caused the Golem to tilt his head upward. Directly above him, on a narrow

balcony overlooking the dojo, were the pale and terrified faces of the teens.

Dee smiled and the Golem s lips mimicked the movement. He d deal with Flamel

first; then he d take care of the witnesses.

Suddenly, Nicholas Flamel's head appeared, followed, a moment later, by the

distinctive spiky hair of the Warrior Maid, Scathach.

Dee s smile faded and he could feel his heart sink. Why did it have to be

Scathach? He d had no idea that the red-haired warrior was in this city, or

even on this continent, for that matter. Last he d heard of her, she was

singing in an all-girl band in Berlin.

Through the Golem s eyes, Dee watched both Flamel and Scathach leap over the

railing and float down to stand directly in front of the mud man. Scathach

spoke directly to Dee but this particular Golem had no ears and couldn t

hear, so he had no idea what she had just said. A threat probably, a promise

certainly.