Michael Scott - The Sorceress

"Even without the Codex, the Dark Elders could begin the process if they had the twins," Gilgamesh said, voice calm and even. "The Final Summoning is designed to open all the doors to the Shadowrealms simultaneously."

"What would happen to us afterward?" Josh asked, breaking the long silence that followed. He pressed his hands against his chest, feeling beneath his T-shirt, where he carried the two pages he'd torn from the Book of Abraham.

"There is no afterward, not for you or for any other human."

Palamedes drove for nearly ten minutes in silence, and then Gilgamesh cleared his throat and said, "I will train you in the Magic of Water on one condition."

"What condi-" Josh began.

"Agreed," Sophie interrupted. She turned to look at her brother. "There are no conditions."

"When all of this is over, and if we have survived, then I want you to promise that you will return here to me with the Book of Abraham," the king told them.

Josh was about to ask another question, but Sophie squeezed his fingers as hard as she could. "We'll come back, if we can."

"There is a spell in the Codex right on page one." The king closed his eyes and tilted his head back. His words were precise, his voice little more than a whisper. "I stood by Abraham's shoulder and watched him transcribe it. It is the formula of words that confers immortality. Bring that to me."

"Why?" Josh asked, puzzled. "You're already immortal."

Gilgamesh opened his eyes and looked at Sophie and she suddenly realized why he wanted the Book. "The king wants us to create the formula in reverse," she said softly. "He wants to become mortal again."

Gilgamesh bowed. "I want to live out my life and die. I want to be human again. I want to be normal."

Sitting facing him, Sophie Newman nodded in silent agreement. ven though the late-afternoon sun was warm on her face, Perenelle suddenly felt chilled. "What do you mean, you're not with Nicholas and the children?" she asked in alarm, staring intently into the flat metal plate filled with faintly discolored water. Wisps of her white aura crawled across the surface of the liquid.

Grass green eyes, huge, magnified and unblinking, stared out of the water. "We got separated." Even though it was barely audible, Scathach's voice sounded miserable. "I had a spot of bother," she admitted, embarrassment thickening her Celtic accent.

The Sorceress was sitting with her back to the warm stones of the Alcatraz lighthouse, staring into the liquid in front of her. Taking a deep breath, she raised her head to look at the city across the bay. The realization that Nicholas and the children were unprotected had set her heart thumping. When she'd been talking to him earlier, she'd just assumed Scathach was there, somewhere in the background, but she'd been distracted talking to William Shakespeare and then the vetala had attacked. She looked down again. Scathach had stepped back from whatever reflective surface was carrying the image and Perenelle was able to see more of her face. There was a quartet of long scratches like claw marks on Scatty's forehead, and one cheekbone looked bruised. "A spot of bother. Are you all right?" she asked. She had trouble trying to decide what the Shadow might call bother.

The Shadow's vampire teeth appeared in a savage inhuman smile. "Nothing I could not handle."

Perenelle knew she needed to remain calm and focus her aura. She was concentrating so hard on scrying and keeping the connection with Scathach that her other defenses were failing, and already she could see the flickering movement of the ghosts of Alcatraz in the air around her. As more and more of the protective layers of colors fell away from her aura, the ghosts would start to flock around her, disturbing her, and she'd lose the link with the Warrior Maid. "Scathach, tell me," she said calmly, staring hard at the water, "where are Nicholas and the twins?"

The Shadow's bright red hair swam into view. "London."

"I know that. I spoke to him earlier." Perenelle had picked up on the slightest hesitation in the Warrior's voice. "But…?"

"Well, we think they are still in London."

"Think!" The Sorceress drew in a deep breath and bit back a wave of anger. A tremor of white light curled across the surface of the water and the image rippled and fragmented. She was forced to wait until the image re-formed. "What's happened? Tell me everything you know."

"There have been some reports on the news channels of odd disturbances in the city last night…"

"Last night?" Perenelle asked, confused. "What time is it? What day?"

"It's Tuesday here in Paris. A little after two in the morning."

Perenelle did the calculation, working out the time difference: it was still Monday on the West Coast, and now around five p.m. "What sort of odd disturbances?" she continued.

"Sky News reported a thunderstorm and torrential downpour over one tiny section of North London. Then euronews and France24 carried a story about a huge fire in a derelict car yard, also in North London."

"That could be nothing," Perenelle said, though she instinctively knew it was somehow connected to Nicholas and the twins.

On the other side of the Atlantic, Scatty shook her head. "Flint arrowheads, bronze spears and crossbow bolts were found all around the burning yard. One of the news reporters showed a handful of the arrowheads to the camera. They looked brand-new. Some local historian dated them back to the Neolithic Period, but said the bronze spears were Roman and the crossbow bolts were Medieval. He claimed they were all genuine."

"There was a fight," Perenelle said curtly. "Who was involved?"

"Impossible to say, but you know what lives in and around that city."

Perenelle knew only too well. Scores of creatures had settled on the British Isles, drawn there by the abundance of ley lines and the Shadowrealms. And most were loyal to the Dark Elders.

"Were there any bodies found at this car yard?" she asked grimly. If anything had happened to Nicholas or the twins, she would tear the city apart looking for Dee. The hunter would discover what it was like to be hunted. And she had more than six hundred years of sorcerous knowledge to draw upon.

"The car yard was deserted. What looked like a moat of oil had been set alight, and everything was covered in a thick layer of gray ash."

"Ash?" Perenelle frowned. "Have you any idea what left it?"

"There are several creatures who turn to ash when they are killed," Scatty said slowly.

"Including immortal humans," Perenelle added.

"I do not believe Nicholas was killed," Scatty said quickly.

"Nor do I," the Sorceress whispered. She would know if anything had happened to him, she would feel it.

"Could you try to contact him?" Scatty asked.

"I could try, but if he's on the run…"

"You found me." The Warrior smiled. "Though you did give me quite a start." The Warrior had been standing before a bathroom mirror, rubbing antiseptic cream on her cuts, when the glass had fogged over, then cleared to reveal Perenelle Flamel. Scatty had almost stuck her finger in her eye.

Perenelle had got the idea to try scrying from the immortal human with the Anasazi bowl she'd caught spying on her earlier. She'd chosen the warmest spot on the island, where the white stones of the lighthouse were baked by the sun. Filling a shallow plate with water, she'd sat down and allowed the afternoon sun to charge her aura. Then she'd asked de Ayala to keep the rest of the ghosts of Alcatraz away from her as she lowered her defenses. She'd also asked him to warn her if the Crow Goddess approached. Perenelle didn't entirely trust the creature.

Creating the link with the Shadow had proven to be surprisingly easy. Perenelle had known Scathach for generations. She could clearly visualize everything about her: her bright red hair and brilliant green eyes, her round face and the dusting of freckles across her straight nose. Her fingernails were always ragged and chewed. She looked to be a girl around seventeen years old; in truth she was more than two thousand five hundred years old and was the finest martial artist in the world. She had trained most of the great warriors and heroes of legend and had saved the Flamels' lives on more than one occasion. They had returned the favor. Even though the Shadow was more than eighteen hundred years her senior, Perenelle had come to think of her if not as a daughter, then certainly as a niece. "Tell me what happened, Scatty," Perenelle demanded.