The Alchemyst (27 page)

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

J
osh awoke, his sister’s scream ringing in his ears.

It took him several seconds before he realized where he was: sitting on the edge of the fountain in Libbey Park, while all around him thick, foul-smelling banks of fog shifted and twisted and crawled with half-glimpsed skeletons and mummified bodies clothed in rags.

Sophie!

He had to get to his sister. To his right, in the middle of the gray-black fog, green light sparkled and silver flared, briefly illuminating the mist from within, casting monstrous shadows. Sophie was there; Flamel and Scathach, too, fighting these monsters. He should be with them.

He came shakily to his feet and discovered Dr. John Dee standing directly in front of him.

Dee was outlined in a sickly yellow aura. It sparked and spat and hissed like burning fat and gave off the rancid odor of rotten eggs. The man had his back to him. He was leaning both forearms against the low stone wall next to the drinking fountain Josh had used earlier. Dee was staring intently at the events taking place in the street, concentrating so hard he was shaking with the effort of controlling the seemingly endless line of skeletons and mummified humans shuffling past. Now that he was on his feet, Josh noticed that there were other creatures in the fog too. He could see the remains of bears and tigers, mountain cats and wolves.

He heard Flamel shout and Sophie scream, and his first thought was to rush at Dee. But he doubted he’d even get close. What could he do against this powerful magician? He wasn’t like his twin: he had no powers.

But that didn’t mean he was useless.

Sophie’s scream sent out a shock wave of icy air that shattered the saber-toothed tiger to powder and knocked back the nearest skeletons. The huge bear crashed to the ground, crushing a dozen skeletons beneath its bulk. The blast of air had also cleared away a patch of fog, and for the first time, Sophie realized the enormity of what they were facing. There weren’t dozens or even hundreds, there were thousands of the Old West’s dead marching down the street toward them. Dotted through the mass were the bony remains of the animals that had hunted in the surrounding mountains for centuries. She didn’t know what else she could do. The final use of magic exhausted her, and she slumped against Scathach, who caught her in her left arm while holding one sword in her right hand.

Flamel climbed tiredly to his feet. Using magic had drained his reserves of energy as well, and even in the past few minutes he had aged. The lines around his eyes were deeper, his hair thinner. Scathach knew he could not survive much longer.

“Give him the pages, Nicholas,” she urged.

He shook his head stubbornly. “I will not. I cannot. I’ve spent my life protecting the Book.”

“He who retreats lives longer,” she reminded him.

He shook his head. Flamel was bent over, breathing in great heaving gulps of air. His skin was deathly pale, with two spots of unnaturally bright red on his cheeks. “This is the exception, Scathach. If I give him the pages, then I’ve condemned all of us—Perry, too, and the entire world—to destruction.” He straightened and turned to face the creatures for what they all knew would be the last time. “Could you get Sophie away from here?”

Scathach shook her head. “I cannot fight them and carry her.”

“Could you get away on your own?”

“I could fight my way out,” she said carefully.

“Then go, Scatty. Escape. Get to the other Elders, contact the immortal humans, tell them what happened here, start fighting the Dark Elders before it is too late.”

“I’ll not leave you and Sophie here,” Scathach said firmly. “We’re in this together to the end. Whatever that may be.”

“It’s time to die, Nicholas Flamel,” Dee called out of the gloom. “I’ll make sure to tell Perenelle about this moment in every little detail.”

A rustle ran through the mass of skeletal human and animal bodies, and then, as one, they surged forward.

And a monster came out of the fog.

Huge and black, howling savagely, with two huge yellow-white eyes and dozens of smaller eyes blazing, it drove straight through the Libbey Park fountain, crushing it to powder, shattering the ornamental vases, and bore down on Dr. John Dee.

The necromancer managed to fling himself to one side before the black Hummer crashed into the wall, pounding it to dust. It stuck nose-down against the remains of the wall, back wheels caught in the air, engine screaming. The door opened and Josh climbed out and carefully lowered himself to the ground. He was holding his chest where the seat belt had cut into it.

Ojai Avenue was littered with the remains of the long dead. Without Dee to control them, they were just so many bones.

Josh staggered into the street and picked his way through the bones and scraps of cloth. Something crunched beneath his feet, but he didn’t even look down.

Suddenly, the dead were gone.

Sophie didn’t know what had happened. There had been a tremendous roar, a scream of tortured metal and a crunch of stone and then silence. And in the silence, the dead had fallen down like windblown grass. What had Dee summoned now?

A shape moved in the twisting fog.

Flamel gathered the last of his energy into a solid sphere of green glass. Sophie straightened and tried to muster the dregs of her energy. Scathach flexed her fingers. She’d once been told that she’d die in an exotic location; she wondered if Ojai in Ventura County qualified as exotic enough.

The shape loomed closer.

Flamel raised his hand, Sophie gathered the winds and Scathach lifted her notched sword. Josh stepped out of the night. “I’ve wrecked the car,” he said.

Sophie screamed with delight. She ran to her brother, and then her scream turned to one of horror. The skeletal bear had risen from the ground behind him, paws poised to strike.

Scathach moved, hitting Josh hard, shoving him out of the way, and sent him tumbling into a mess of bones. The Warrior’s swords parried the bear’s sweeping blow, sparks blinking in the fog. She struck out again, and a bear claw as long as her hand tumbled through the air.

One by one the skeletal animals were climbing to their feet. Two huge wolves, one little more than bones, the other merely shriveled flesh, loomed out of the fog.

“This way. Here! This way.” The Witch’s voice sounded flatly across the street, and a rectangle of light from an open door lit up the night. With Scatty supporting Flamel and Josh half carrying his twin, they raced across the street toward the shop. The Witch of Endor was standing in the doorway, looking blindly into the night, an old-fashioned oil lantern held high. “We’ve got to get you out of here.” She pulled the door closed and pushed the bolts home. “That won’t hold them long,” she muttered.

“You said…you said you have no powers left,” Sophie muttered.

“I don’t.” Dora flashed a quick grin, revealing perfect white teeth. “But this place has.” She led them through the shop and into a tiny back room. “Do you know what makes Ojai so special?” she asked.

Something thumped against the door and all the glassware in the shop rattled and tinkled.

“It is built on an intersection of ley lines.”

Josh opened his mouth and was actually forming the word
ley
when his sister spoke. “Lines of energy that crisscross the globe,” Sophie whispered in his ear.

“How do you know that?”

“I don’t know; I guess the Witch taught me. Many of the most famous buildings and ancient sites across the world are built where the ley lines meet.”

“Exactly,” Dora said, sounding pleased. “Couldn’t have put it better myself.” The little storeroom was bare except for a long rectangle propped up against the wall, covered in yellowed back issues of the
Ojai Valley Times.

More blows shook the shop window, the sound of bone against glass setting them on edge.

Dora swept the papers to the ground to reveal a mirror. It stood seven feet tall, four feet wide, the glass dirty, speckled and warped, the images it showed slightly distorted and blurred. “And do you know what drew me to Ojai in the first place?” she asked. “Seven great ley lines meet here. They form a leygate.”

“Here?” Flamel whispered. He knew about ley lines and had heard about the leygates used by the ancients to travel across the world in an instant. He hadn’t thought any still existed.

Dora tapped the ground with her foot. “Right here. And do you know how you use a leygate?”

Flamel shook his head.

Dora reached for Sophie. “Give me your hand, child.” The Witch took Sophie’s hand and put it on the glass. “You use a mirror.”

The mirror immediately came to blazing life, the glass flaring silver and then clearing. When they looked into the glass, it no longer showed their reflections, but rather the image of a bare, cellarlike room.

“Where?” Flamel asked.

“Paris,” Dora said.

“France.” He smiled. “Home.” And without hesitation, he stepped right through the glass. Now they could see him within the mirror. He turned and waved them through.

“I hate leygates,” Scatty muttered. “Make me nauseous.” She hopped through the gate, and rolled to her feet beside Flamel. When she turned back to face the twins, she did look as if she was about to throw up.

The skeletal bear lumbered straight through the shop door, ripping it off its hinges. The wolves and the cougars followed. Glassware tumbled, mirrors cracked, ornaments shattered as the beasts lumbered about.

A bruised and cut Dee raced into the shop, pushing the skeletal beasts aside. A cougar snapped at him and he smacked it on the snout. If it had had eyes, it would have blinked in surprise.

“Trapped,” he called gleefully. “Trapped and nowhere to go!”

But when he stepped into the storeroom, he knew they had escaped him once more. It took him a single heartbeat to take in the tall mirror, the two figures
in
the glass staring out, the old woman standing next to the girl, pressing her hand to its surface. The boy stood alone, holding on to the frame. Dee instantly knew what it was. “A leygate,” he whispered in awe. Mirrors always acted as the gates. Somewhere at the other end of the ley line was another mirror linking them.

The old woman caught the girl and shoved her
through
the mirror. Sophie tumbled to the ground at Flamel’s feet, then crouched to turn and look back. Her mouth moved, but there was no sound.
Josh.

“Josh,” Dee commanded, staring at the boy, “stay where you are.”

The boy turned to the glass. Already the image in the mirror had blurred.

“I’ve told you the truth about Flamel,” Dee said urgently. All he had to do was to keep the boy distracted for another moment or two and the mirror would lose its power. “Stay with me. I can Awaken you. Make you powerful. You can help change the world, Josh. Change it for the better!”

“I don’t know….” The offer was tempting, so tempting. But he knew if he sided with Dee, he would lose his sister altogether. Or would he? If Dee Awakened him, then they would be alike again. Maybe this was a way he could reconnect with his twin.

“Look,” Dee said triumphantly, pointing to the fading image in the glass, “they’ve left you, deserted you again, because you are not one of them. You’re no longer important.”

The mirror flared silver…and Sophie stepped back through the glass. “Josh? Hurry,” she said urgently, not looking at Dee.

“I…,” he began. “You came back for me.”

“Of course I did! You’re my brother. I’ll never abandon you.” Then, catching his hand, wrapping her fingers around his, she pulled him into the glass.

And Dora pushed the mirror, sending it shattering to the floor. “Whoops.” She turned to face Dee and pulled off her dark glasses to reveal the mirrors of her eyes. “You should go now. You’ve got about three seconds.”

Dee didn’t quite make it out of the shop before it exploded.

CHAPTER FORTY

MOVIE COMPANY CAUSES MAYHEM IN SCENIC OJAI

The latest in a long line of horror movies from Enoch Studios caused traffic mayhem and more than a little confusion in downtown Ojai yesterday. The special effects were a bit too realistic for some locals, and emergency services were inundated with calls from people who claimed that the dead were walking the streets.

John Dee, chairman of Enoch Films, a division of Enoch Enterprises, apologized profusely for the confusion, blaming it on a power outage and an unseasonable fog that swept in as they were about to shoot a scene from their new movie. “It certainly made the extras look
extra
-scary,” his spokesperson said. In a related incident, a drunk driver smashed through the historic Libbey Park fountain and into the recently restored pergola. Dee has promised to restore the fountain and pergola to their former glory.

Ojai Valley News

LOCAL ANTIQUES SHOP DEVASTATED BY EXPLOSION

A gas explosion destroyed the shop of longtime Ojai resident Dora Witcherly late last night. An electrical fault ignited solvents used by the owner to clean, polish and restore her antiques. Miss Witcherly was in the shop’s back room when the explosion occurred and was unharmed and apparently unconcerned by her brush with death. “When you’ve lived as long as I have, nothing much surprises you.” She has promised to reopen the shop in time for the holidays.

Ojai Online