men, identically dressed in sleeveless shirts, long shorts, white socks and
sandals, gathered on a shady bench. One of the men was feeding bread crumbs
to a quartet of fat and lazy pigeons. Josh sat down on the edge of the low
fountain and leaned over to trail his hand in the water. After the oppressive
heat, it felt deliciously cool, and he ran his wet fingers through his hair,
feeling water droplets roll down his neck.
What was he going to do?
Was there anything he could do?
In just over twenty-four hours, his life and his sister s life too had
changed utterly and incomprehensibly. What he had once believed to be merely
stories now turned out to be versions of the truth. Myth had become history,
legends had become facts. When Scatty had revealed earlier that the
mysterious Danu Talis was also called Atlantis, he had almost laughed in her
face. To him, Atlantis had always been a fairy tale. But if Scathach and
Hekate and the Morrigan and Bastet were real, then so was Danu Talis. And so
his parents life work archaeology was suddenly worthless.
Josh knew deep down that he had also lost his twin, the constant in his life,
the one person he could always count on. She had changed in ways he could not
even begin to comprehend. Why hadn't he been Awakened too? He should have
insisted that Hekate Awaken him first. What would it be like to have those
powers? The only thing he could compare it to was being a superhero. Even
when Sophie s newly Awakened senses were making her sick, he was jealous of
her abilities.
From the corner of his eye, Josh became aware that a man had sat down on one
of the other edges of the fountain, but he ignored him. He absently picked at
a broken fragment of one of the blue tiles that ran around the fountain.
What was he going to do?
And the answer was always the same: what
Are you a victim too?
It took him a moment before he realized that the figure sitting to his right
was talking to him. He started to stand up, the golden rule with creeps being
that you never responded, and you never ever entered into any conversation
with them.
It seems we are all victims of Nicholas Flamel.
Startled, Josh looked up and found he was staring at Dr. John Dee, the man
he d hoped never to see again. The last time he d seen Dee had been in the
Shadowrealm. Then, he d held the sword Excalibur in his hands. Now he sat
facing him, looking out of place in his impeccably tailored gray suit. Josh
looked around quickly, expecting to see Golems or rats, or even the Morrigan
lurking in the shadows.
I am alone, Dee said pleasantly, smiling politely.
Josh s mind was racing. He needed to get to Flamel, he needed to warn him
that Dee was in Ojai. He wondered what would happen if he simply got up and
ran. Would Dee try to stop him with magic in front of all these people? Josh
looked over at the three old men again, and it dawned on him that they
probably wouldn't even notice if Dee changed him into an elephant right in
the middle of downtown Ojai.
Do you know how long I ve been chasing Nicholas Flamel, or Nick Fleming, or
any of the hundreds of other aliases he s used? Dee continued quietly,
conversationally. He leaned back and trailed his fingers through the water.
At least five hundred years. And he s always given me the slip. He s tricky
and dangerous that way. In 1666, when I was closing in on him in London, he
set a fire that nearly burned the city to the ground.
He told us you caused the Great Fire, Josh blurted. Despite his fear, he
was curious. And now he suddenly remembered one of the first pieces of advice
Flamel had given them: Nothing is as it seems. Question everything. Josh
found himself wondering if that advice also applied to the Alchemyst himself.
The sun had set, and there was a definite chill in the evening air. Josh
shivered. The three old men shuffled away, none of them even glancing in his
direction, leaving him alone with the magician. Strangely, he didn't feel
threatened by the man s presence.
Dee s thin lips flickered in a smile. Flamel never tells anyone everything,
he said. I used to say that half of everything he said was a lie, and the
other half wasn't entirely truthful either.
Nicholas says you re working with the Dark Elders. Once you have the
complete Codex, you will bring them back into this world.
Correct in every detail, Dee said, surprising him. Though no doubt
Nicholas has twisted the story somewhat. I
continued, and yes, I am looking for the last two pages from the Book of
Abraham the Mage, commonly called the Codex. But only because Flamel and his
wife stole it from the original Biblioth que du Roi in the Louvre.
He
Let me tell you about Nicholas Flamel, Dee said patiently. I m sure he s
told you about me. He has been many things in his time: a physician and a
cook, a bookseller, a soldier, a teacher of languages and chemistry, both an
officer of the law and a thief. But he is now, and has always been, a liar, a
charlatan and a crook. He stole the Book from the Louvre when he discovered
that it contained not only the immortality potion, but also the philosopher s
stone recipe. He brews the immortality potion each month to keep Perenelle
and himself at exactly the same age they were when they first drank it. He
uses the philosopher s stone formula to turn cheap copper and lead into gold
and chunks of common coal into diamonds. He uses one of the most
extraordinary collections of knowledge in the world purely for personal gain.
And That'sthe truth.
But what about Scatty and Hekate? Are they Elders?
Oh, absolutely. Hekate was an Elder and Scathach is Next Generation. But
Hekate was a known criminal. She was banished from Danu Talis because of her
experiments on animals. I suppose you would call her a genetic engineer: she
created the Were clans, for example, and loosed the curse of the werewolf
onto humanity. I believe you saw some of her experiments yesterday, the boar
people. Scathach is nothing more than a hired thug, cursed for her crimes to
wear the body of a teen for the rest of her days. When Flamel knew I was
closing in, they were the only people he could go to.
Josh was now hopelessly confused. Who was telling the truth? Flamel or Dee?
He was cold now. Night had not yet fully fallen, but a low mist had crept in
over the town. The air smelled of damp earth and just the faintest hint of
rotten eggs. What about you? Are you really working to bring back the
Elders?
Of course I am, Dee said, sounding surprised. It is probably the single
