Michael Scott - The Necromancer

Dee nodded again. He could see himself and Virginia reflected in the dark glass. They looked as if they were floating over the city. “You killed your master… and yet no one came after you,” he said.

Virginia laughed, but the sound was brittle and false. “I did not kill my master. The fool became both arrogant and careless in his old age. He made the mistake of challenging the authority of a Deer Woman and then insulted her and her tribe of Shapeshifters.”

“What happened?”

Virginia laughed again. “What do you think happened? There were Deer Women on this land long before the Elders fled Danu Talis. They know every hidden trail, secret pathway and leygate, and how and where they all connect. One moment my Elder was in Oklahoma, threatening the woman… the next he was in Badwater, in the heart of Death Valley at the height of summer. I believe he used his aura to keep himself cool for the first few days… until he had no aura left.” She clapped her hands together suddenly and the Magician jumped. “His own aura finally consumed him in a ball of flame. There wasn’t even dust left.”

“How do you know all this?” Dee wondered.

“Because I was there,” Dare said lightly. “Who do you think led the Deer Woman to him?” She patted Dee’s shoulder. “I was tired of him: he had lied to me once too often, made me promises he had no intention of keeping.” Her voice dropped to a whisper and her fingers curled slightly. “Don’t make the same mistake.”

“I won’t,” Dee answered, watching Dare’s reflection the whole time.

“So tell me, what you are going to do, Doctor?” Virginia demanded.

Dee came stiffly to his feet. Without saying a word, he crossed the room and stepped into a small private elevator. Dare hesitated a moment, then followed him. The elevator was uncomfortably small, obviously designed for only one person. With great care, the Magician pushed his burnt thumb against a button marked Emergency Stop. The button glowed a dull blue and then the doors hissed closed.

“The latest in fingerprint recognition,” Dee explained. “If anyone else pushed the button, the lift would fill with gas.”

“Very clever,” the woman said sarcastically.

Although there had been no sense of movement, the lift door suddenly opened. Virginia stepped out, followed by Dee. “Where are we?” she asked, looking around.

They had stepped out into a vast open-plan living room. All four walls were glass and featured panoramic views of the city. Various configurations of leather couches and chairs were scattered around the room, and four enormous flat-screen television sets arranged in a square hung from the ceiling. They were all tuned to the History Channel. At the far end of the space was a kitchen, and at the other end, behind a series of ornate painted screens, was a sleeping area centered around a Japanese futon.

“We’re on the thirteenth floor.”

“Your building does not have a thirteenth floor,” Dare snapped.

“Not on the floor plans,” Dee agreed, “but there is a thirteenth floor, accessible via this lift and a narrow maintenance stairway. Welcome to my home,” he said with a broad sweep of his arms. “It is built between the twelfth and fourteenth floors and steals square footage from both. The windows are one way and the entire floor is completely soundproofed.”

Virginia looked around. “It needs a woman’s touch,” she said, unimpressed. “You do know that couches come upholstered in material other than leather, and metal and glass tables haven’t been chic since the nineteen eighties.” She turned and stopped, suddenly speechless. “Artificial flowers? John, you can’t be serious.”

“The real ones kept dying,” Dee said. “And when did you become an interior decorator? The last time I met you, you lived in a tent.”

“Still do,” she said. “You’re never homeless in a tent.”

Dee crossed the floor to the area that served as a kitchen and pulled open the fridge door.

“If you ate, I’d wager you’d have paper plates,” Virginia said, following him. “I suppose it would be pointless asking you for milk?” she asked as he reached into the fridge.

“Pointless,” he agreed. “You can have water, flat or sparkling,” Dee pulled out two bottles and then, from the back of the fridge, a short narrow object wrapped in a rag. He laid it on the table before Dare, and then reached back into the fridge to pull out two more similarly shaped objects. One was wrapped in red silk, the other in green leather.

Virginia Dare felt the tickling crawl of ancient power across her skin and stepped back, automatically brushing her tingling hands along the length of her jacket. She felt as if ants were crawling across her skin.

Dee then pulled open the oven and extracted a rectangular wooden box, which he also laid on the table.

“I’m not going to even ask you why you store things in the fridge and the oven,” Dare muttered. “Are these what I think they are?” she asked.

“What do you think they are?” he asked.

“Dangerous. Powerful. Deadly.”

“That they are.” The Magician carefully unwrapped the object in red silk, slowly peeling back the wafer-thin cloth. “I was thinking earlier that I’ve been a fool.”

Virginia Dare squeezed her lips tightly shut and resisted the temptation to comment.

“Why did I spend centuries working for the Elders, doing their errands like a servant or a trained dog?”

“Because they made you immortal?” Virginia reminded him.

“Others have become immortal without an Elder,” Dee pointed out. “The Flamels, Saint-Germain and Shakespeare, too. Maybe if I had searched for the secret of immortality, I would have found it myself.”

“Maybe you would have died before you’d found it,” Virginia suggested.

“I gave the Elders centuries of service…”

“I know, I know, I know. I’m becoming bored with this self-pitying nonsense,” Dare snapped, deliberately goading him. She knew the Magician well enough to know that he hated to be interrupted. If Dee had a failing, it was that he loved the sound of his own voice. “Tell me what you intend to do.”

“First, I am going to summon Coatlicue from her prison and set her loose into the Shadowrealms,” he said, burnt fingers fumbling with the red silk.

Dare watched him closely but made no attempt to help him.

“The Elders will be forced to draw most of their forces on earth back into the Shadowrealms to battle the Mother of All the Gods. They will not care what happens here. In the meantime, Machiavelli should have released the monsters on Alcatraz into the city.”

Dare blinked in surprise but knew better than to interrupt him now.

The red silk fell away, revealing a simple stone sword. The hilt was unadorned and the gray blade polished so that it looked like metal. Dee looked over at Virginia, his eyes sparkling. “Do you recognize it?” he asked.

“One of the swords of power,” she breathed. “Which one?”

“Durendal,” he whispered.

“The indestructible.” Dare stepped closer to look at the ancient weapon. “You’ve always been fascinated with these toys, haven’t you, Doctor?”

“A one-handed man once read my fortune; he told me that my destiny lay entwined with the swords.”

“I thought it would look more impressive,” Virginia said.

The Magician pulled at the thick string knotted tightly around the green-leather-wrapped object. “San Francisco will quickly fall to the beasts,” he continued, ignoring her comment. “The humani armies will not be able to stand against the monsters. The fear factor alone gives us a tremendous advantage. And there are similar caches of creatures in all the major cities around the globe. The world will dissolve into chaos in a matter of days.”