Nicholas Flamel 2 - The Magician

The line crackled and an English-accented voice responded in the same

language, using a dialect that had not been heard in Europe for more than

four hundred years. I need your help.

The man on the other end of the line didn't identify himself, nor did he need

to; Machiavelli knew it was the immortal magician and necromancer Dr. John

Dee, one of the most powerful and dangerous men in the world.

Niccolo Machiavelli strode out of the small hotel into the broad cobbled

square of the Place du Tertre and stopped to breathe in the chill night air.

What can I do for you? he asked cautiously. He detested Dee and knew the

feeling was mutual, but they both served the Dark Elders, and that meant they

had been forced to work together down through the centuries. Machiavelli was

also slightly envious that Dee was younger than he and looked it. Machiavelli

had been born in Florence in 1469, which made him fifty-eight years older

than the English Magician. History recorded that he had died in the same year

that Dee had been born, 1527.

Flamel is back in Paris.

Machiavelli straightened. When?

Just now. He got there through a leygate. I ve no idea where it comes out.

He s got Scathach with him .

Machiavelli s lips curled into an ugly grimace. The last time he'd

encountered the Warrior, she d pushed him through a door. It had been closed

at the time, and he d spent weeks picking splinters from his chest and

shoulders.

There are two humani children with him. Americans, Dee said, his voice

echoing and fading on the transatlantic line. Twins, he added.

Say again? Machiavelli asked.

Twins, Dee added, with pure gold and silver auras. You know what that

means, he snapped.

Yes, Machiavelli muttered. It meant trouble. Then the tiniest of smiles

curled his thin lips. It could also mean opportunity.

Static crackled and then Dee s voice continued. The girl s powers were

Awakened by Hekate before the Goddess and her Shadowrealm were destroyed.

Untrained, the girl is no threat, Machiavelli murmured, quickly assessing

the situation. He took a breath and added, Except perhaps to herself and

those around her.

Flamel took the girl to Ojai. There, the Witch of Endor instructed her in

the Magic of Air.

No doubt you tried to stop them? There was a hint of amusement in

Machiavelli s voice.

Tried. And failed, Dee admitted bitterly. The girl has some knowledge but

is without skill.

What do you want me to do? Machiavelli asked carefully, although he already

had a very good idea.

Find Flamel and the twins, Dee demanded. Capture them. Kill Scathach if

you can. I m just leaving Ojai. But it s going to take me fourteen or fifteen

hours to get to Paris.

What happened to the leygate? Machiavelli wondered aloud. If a leygate

connected Ojai and Paris, then why didn't Dee ?

Destroyed by the Witch of Endor, Dee raged, and she nearly killed me, too.

I was lucky to escape with a few cuts and scratches, he added, and then

ended the call without saying good-bye.

Niccol Machiavelli closed his phone carefully and tapped it against his

bottom lip. Somehow he doubted that Dee had been lucky if the Witch of Endor

had wanted him dead, then even the legendary Dr. Dee would not have escaped.

Machiavelli turned and walked across the square to where his driver was

patiently waiting with the car. If Flamel, Scathach and the American twins

had come to Paris via a leygate, then there were only a few places in the

city where they could have emerged. It should be relatively easy to find and

capture them.

And if he could capture them tonight, then he would have plenty of time to

work on them before Dee arrived.

Machiavelli smiled; he d only need a few hours, and in that time they would

tell him everything they knew. Half a millennium on this earth had taught him

how to be very persuasive indeed.

CHAPTER TWO

J osh Newman reached out and pressed the palm of his right hand against the

cold stone wall to steady himself.

What had just happened?

One moment he d been standing in the Witch of Endor s shop in Ojai,

California. His sister, Sophie, Scathach and the man he now knew to be

Nicholas Flamel had been in the mirror looking out at him. And the next thing

he knew, Sophie had stepped out of the glass, taken his hand and pulled him

through it. He d squeezed his eyes shut and felt something icy touch his skin

and raise the small hairs on the back of his neck. When he d opened his eyes

again, he was standing in what looked like a tiny storage room. Pots of

paint, stacked ladders, broken pieces of pottery and bundled paint-spattered

cloths were piled around a large, rather ordinary-looking grimy mirror fixed

to the stone wall. A single low-wattage lightbulb shed a dim yellow glow over

the room. What happened? he asked, his voice cracking. He swallowed hard

and tried again. What happened? Where are we?

We re in Paris, Nicholas Flamel said delightedly, rubbing his dusty hands

against his black jeans. The city of my birth.

Paris? Josh whispered. He was going to say Impossible, but he was

beginning to understand that that word had no meaning anymore. How? he

asked aloud. Sophie? He looked to his twin sister, but she had pressed her

ear against the room's only door and was listening intently. She waved him

away. He turned to Scathach, but the red-haired warrior just shook her head,

both hands covering her mouth. She looked as if she was about to throw up.

Josh finally turned to the legendary Alchemyst, Nicholas Flamel. How did we

get here? he asked.

This planet is crisscrossed with invisible lines of power sometimes called

ley lines or cursus, Flamel explained. He crossed his index fingers. Where

two or more lines intersect a gateway exists. Gates are incredibly rare now,

but in ancient times the Elder Race used them to travel from one side of the