return the planet to that paradise. They would reverse the effects of global
warming, repair the hole in the ozone layer and bring the deserts to life.
The Sahara would bloom; the polar ice caps would melt away, revealing the
rich land beneath. Dee thought he would found his capital city in Antarctica
on the shores of Lake Vanda. The Elders could reestablish their ancient
kingdoms in Sumer, Egypt, Central America and Angkor, and with the knowledge
contained in the Book of Abraham, it would be possible to raise Danu Talis
again.
Of course, Dee knew that the human population would become slaves, and some
would become food for those Elders who still needed to eat, but that was a
small price to pay for the many other benefits.
The jet leveled and he felt his stomach settle. Opening his eyes, he breathed
deeply and checked his watch again. He found it hard to believe that he was
hours literally hours away from finally capturing the Alchemyst, Scathach
and, now, the twins. They were an added bonus. Once he had Flamel and the
pages from the Codex, the world would change.
He would never understand why Flamel and his wife had worked so hard to
prevent the Elders from bringing civilization back to earth. But he d be sure
to ask him just before he killed him.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
scanning the street. He didn't think he was being followed, but he needed to
be certain. He d taken the train to the Saint-Michel Notre-Dame station and
crossed the Seine on the Pont d Arcole, heading in the direction of the
glass-and-steel monstrosity that was the Pompidou Center. Taking his time,
stopping often, darting from one side of the road to the other, pausing at a
newsstand to buy the morning paper, stopping again for some foul coffee in a
cardboard cup, he kept checking for anyone paying close attention to his
movements. But as far as he could determine, there was no one following him.
Paris had changed since he d last been in the city, and though he now called
San Francisco home, this was the city of his birth and would always be
city. Only a couple of weeks ago, Josh had loaded Google Earth onto the
computer in the bookshop s back room and shown him how to use it. Nicholas
had spent hours looking down on the streets he d once walked, finding
buildings he d known in his youth, even discovering the location of the
Church of the Holy Innocents, where he d supposedly been buried.
He had been particularly interested in one street. He d found it on the map
program and
so in reality.
Nicholas Flamel turned left off the Rue Beaubourg onto the Rue de
Montmorency and stopped as suddenly as if he had walked into a wall.
He drew a deep shuddering breath, conscious that his heart was pounding. The
wash of emotions was extraordinarily powerful. The street was so narrow that
the morning sunlight didn't reach it, leaving it in shadow. It was lined on
both sides with tall, mostly white-and-cream-colored buildings, many of them
with hanging baskets spilling flowers and greenery across the walls.
Round-topped black metal poles had been inserted into the sidewalk on both
sides of the street to prevent cars from stopping.
Nicholas walked slowly down the street, seeing it as it had once been.
Remembering.
More than six hundred years ago, he and Perenelle had lived on this street.
Images of medieval Paris flickered behind his eyes, a jumbled mismatched mess
of wooden and stone houses; narrow winding lanes; rotten bridges; tumbled
listing buildings and streets that were little better than open sewers. The
noise, the incredible, incessant noise, and the foul miasma that hung over
the city a mixture of unwashed disease-ridden humans and filthy animals were
things he would never forget.
At the bottom of the Rue de Montmorency, he found the building he had been
looking for.
It hadn't changed much. The stone had once been cream; now it was ancient,
chipped and weathered, stained black with soot. The three wooden windows and
doors were new, but the building itself was one of the oldest in Paris.
Directly above the middle door was a number in blue metal 51 and above that
was a tired-looking stone sign announcing that this had once been the MAISON
DE NICOLAS FLAMEL ET DE PERENELLE, SA FEMME. A red sign in the shape of a
shield announced that this was the AUBERGE NICOLAS FLAMEL. Now it was a
restaurant.
Once it had been his home.
Stepping up to the window, he pretended to read the menu as he peered inside.
The interior had been completely remodeled, of course, countless times
probably, but the dark beams that stretched across the white ceiling appeared
to be the same beams he d so often looked up at more than six hundred years
ago.
He and Perenelle had been happy here, he realized.
And safe.
Their lives had been simpler then: they hadn't known about the Elders or the
Dark Elders; they d known nothing of the Codex, or of the immortals who
guarded and fought over it.
And both he and Perenelle had still been fully human.
The ancient stones of the house had been carved with an assortment of images,
symbols and letters that he knew had puzzled and intrigued scholars down
through the ages. Most were meaningless, little more than the shop signs of
their day, but there were one or two that had special significance. Quickly
glancing left and right and finding the narrow street empty, he reached up
with his right hand and traced the outline of the letter N, which was cut
into the stone to the left of the middle window. Green power curled around
the letter. Then he traced the ornate
leaving a shimmering outline of the letter in the air. Catching hold of the
window frame with his left hand, he hauled himself up onto the ledge and
reached over his head with his right hand, his fingers finding the shapes of
letters in the ancient stone. Allowing the tiniest trickle of his aura to
flow through his fingers, he pressed a sequence of letters and the stone
beneath his flesh turned warm and soft. He pushed and his fingers sank
the stone. They wrapped around the object he had secreted within the solid
