Michael Scott - The Necromancer

“No, you did not dream it.” Dee stood and dusted off his hands. “There is one art that the legendary Alchemyst never learned.”

Josh stood. “Why not?” he asked.

“Because your friend Nicholas is neither as powerful nor as clever as he likes to appear.” Dee’s eyes sparkled. “Josh, I can give you the power to raise the dead, to talk to them, to command them.”

Josh blinked. “The dead…,” he began, not quite sure how he felt about that. It didn’t sound like a particularly powerful gift.

“Think about it.” Dee grabbed Josh’s arms, and threads of his yellow aura coiled like tiny serpents around the boy’s wrists. “You will be able to question any dead people, from any age, about the Flamels. Ask them whatever you wish-and they can only tell you the truth. While you animate them, you are their master and they must obey you. Find people who knew the Flamels-who knew me, even-and question them. You will be able to determine the truth for yourself. Then decide whom you want to fight for.”

The possibilities shocked Josh into silence. Finally, incredulously, he asked, “Anyone?”

“Anyone.” Dee nodded. “All you need is the smallest fragment of bone.”

“Or a piece of clothing or jewelry,” Virginia Dare said quietly from the shadows. “Or a sword they carried,” she added, indicating the sword lying at his feet.

“Is that how you raised the creatures in Ojai?” Josh asked Dee.

“Yes.”

“You animated animals. Could I bring back dinosaurs?”

“Yes. Anything dead you can bring back to life. It is an awesome power,” Dee said. “Do you want to learn it?”

“Yes,” Josh said eagerly, “what do I have to do?”

“Well, first you can help me push this furniture out of the way. Apparently Miss Dare does not move furniture.”

Josh helped Dee shove a heavy sofa up against the wall. “What’s this magic called, and why are we clearing the floor?”

“I am going to make you a necromancer, Josh.” Dee smiled. “Normally, it would take decades to train you, but there is someone who can grant you this gift instantaneously. All you have to do is summon her.” He indicated the cleared floor. “She’s traveling through a distant Shadowrealm, but we can call her back here.”

“An Elder?”

“Better than an Elder: an Archon. We are going to call Coatlicue, the Mother of All the Gods.”

“C oatlicue! What madness is this?” Prometheus cried. He pulled his hand away from the pulsing red skull and pressed it close to his chest. The skin was pale and wrinkled, veins and bones prominent.

Nicholas was ashen-faced. “What is Dee doing? Coatlicue cannot train Josh in necromancy.”

“Coatlicue hates the Elders,” Prometheus whispered. “In ages past she gathered an army of Archons and their creations and rampaged through the Shadowrealms, destroying all in her path. She cannot be killed, so she was banished to the most distant and inhospitable Shadowrealm ever created-little more than a flat disc of rock. She has been there for tens of millennia.”

“Dee is no fool,” Nicholas said. “He knows he cannot bring Coatlicue into this world. He would not be able to control her.”

“I don’t think he intends to loose Coatlicue on the earth,” Perenelle said quietly, looking at Prometheus. “You told us Dee had been declared utlaga. I think Dee has declared war on the Dark Elders,” she whispered. “He’s going to set her on them: if they are fighting her, they will have no time for him.”

“But this Archon, she is like no other,” Prometheus said. He tapped the crystal skull. “I have seen the records of the battles she fought with the Great Elders.” He tried to laugh, but it came out as a croak. “If Dee calls her and manages to bring her through to this world, she will be ravenously hungry. She will eat him.”

“Of course!” Flamel whispered urgently. “That’s why he’ll not call the Archon himself. He’ll get Josh to do it!”

Prometheus turned to the Alchemyst, mouth set in a grim line. “No, Dee wouldn’t…”

Nicholas Flamel nodded, and huge ice-white tears welled up in Perenelle’s eyes. “Yes, he would. He’s going to sacrifice the boy to the Mother of All the Gods.”

Niten fit a Bluetooth earpiece into his left ear and pressed a button. “Yes.” He listened intently while Aoife watched him closely. In the backseat, Sophie stirred.

“We’re stuck in morning traffic,” Niten said quietly. He looked out the window. “Route 101 isn’t moving. I’d say we could be at least an hour away from our destination. Maybe ninety minutes. It depends what traffic is like over the bridge.”

Sophie stretched and leaned forward over the front seat. She looked at Aoife, who mouthed, Flamel, I think.

“That’s not good…,” Niten said into the tiny microphone. “Not good at all.”

Sophie and Aoife looked at one another. The immortal’s tone was grim.

“Do you have any control over the boy? Any influence at all?” He listened, nodding. “I’ll tell her,” he said finally, and hung up.

Aoife and Sophie sat in silence, waiting for the immortal to gather his thoughts, and when he finally spoke, it was in the formal language of his youth. “There is no easy way to say this, and I would be doing you a disservice if I tried to disguise the seriousness of the situation: the English Magician intends to sacrifice Josh to an Archon. Nicholas, Perenelle and Prometheus are using the skull to see through Josh’s eyes. They can hear everything he hears, but they have no way of warning him… and even if they could, they are not sure he would believe them. Dee has been working on him, poisoning his mind. And the Magician can be very persuasive. Apparently, he has told Josh that an Archon called Coatlicue will make him a necromancer.”

“Coatlicue,” Sophie breathed. The name brought on a flood of the Witch’s memories.

And they were terrifying.

“Coatlicue!” The girl felt as if she had been struck in the chest. For a moment she couldn’t breathe; black spots danced before her eyes. She pressed both hands to her mouth to prevent herself from screaming.

“Who is this Archon?” Niten asked. He looked to Aoife for an answer.

But the warrior shook her head. “I’ve heard the name, but only vaguely. It’s long before my time. I think there was a war and she was banished…”

“She is called the Mother of All the Gods,” Sophie said, her voice shaking. “She was an Archon scientist and a great beauty. But she experimented on herself and her experiments turned her hideous and insane. Now she’s like a ravenous beast.” Sophie turned to look at Aoife. “Out of her own DNA she created the original blood drinkers who eventually became your race. Coatlicue was the first vampire.”

“D id I ever tell you,” Billy the Kid began, “that I was afraid of nothing?”

“No, I don’t believe you did,” Machiavelli said tiredly. He didn’t think he’d ever met anyone who talked as much as the American immortal.

“Good. Because that would have been a lie, and I really don’t like to lie.” The American pointed with his chin at the creature standing outside the building with the American eagle and the words Administration Building over the doors. “There’s no shame in admitting that I’m afraid of this… thing. What is it?”

“It is a sphinx,” Machiavelli said quietly. “Body of a lion, wings of an eagle, head of a beautiful young woman. And try not to irritate her, Billy. This creature would have you for a snack.”

“She is one ugly lion…”

“Billy,” Machiavelli began.