Michael Scott: The Sorceress

She hurried to catch up with Flamel and her brother.

"Stay close, Sophie," Nicholas said. "You have no idea of the danger we're in."

"So you keep telling us," she muttered, though right now she couldn't figure out how things could get any worse.

"Where are we going?" Josh asked. He was still dizzy after the adrenaline rush, and now he was starting to feel shaky as well.

"Just down here," Nicholas said, nodding toward a white stone church on their left.

Sophie caught up with her brother and noticed that he was pale and there was a light sheen of sweat on his forehead. She gripped his arm and squeezed lightly. "How are you doing?" She knew what he was going through: the noise, the smells, the sounds of the city were starting to overwhelm his recently Awakened senses. She'd experienced the same shocking sensory overload when Hekate had Awakened her. But while the Witch of Endor and Joan had helped her control the wash of emotions and sensations, there was no one to help her brother.

"I'm fine," Josh said quickly. "OK, not so well," he admitted a moment later, seeing the look of disbelief on his sister's face. She'd been through the same transformation; she knew what he was feeling. "It's just that everything…" He struggled to find the words.

"It's just too much," Sophie finished for him.

Josh nodded. "Too much," he agreed. "I can even taste the car exhaust."

"Everything adjusts," she promised, "and it gets easier. Or maybe you just get used to it."

"I don't think I could ever get used to this," he said, dipping his head and squinting against the brilliant sunshine breaking through the blue-black clouds. Sunlight sparkling on the wet streets sent painful daggers into his eyes. "I need sunglasses."

"That's a good idea." Sophie trotted ahead a few steps. "Nicholas, wait up," she called.

But though the Alchemyst glanced over his shoulder, he didn't stop. "We cannot delay," he snapped, and continued at a brisk pace.

Sophie stopped in the middle of the street and pulled her brother to a halt with her. Nicholas had walked half a dozen paces before he realized that the twins were no longer behind him. He stopped and turned, waving them forward. They ignored him, and when he strode back to them there was something dark and ugly about the set of his face. "I've no time for this nonsense."

"We need sunglasses for Josh, and for me too," Sophie said, "and water."

"We'll get them later."

"We need them now," she said firmly.

Nicholas opened his mouth to spit out a reply, but Josh took a step forward, bringing him close to the Alchemyst. "We need them now." There was something like arrogance in his voice. Standing on the parvis in front of the cathedral in Paris, feeling the raw power flow through his body, watching the animated stone gargoyles shatter to dust, he had realized just how powerful he and his sister were. At this moment they might need the Alchemyst, but he needed them also.

Nicholas looked into the boy's bright blue eyes, and whatever he saw in them made him nod and turn back to a row of shops. "Water and sunglasses," he said. "Any particular color sunglasses?" he asked sarcastically.

"Black," the twins answered in unison.

Sophie stood with Josh outside the shop. She was exhausted, but she knew Josh was feeling even worse. Now that the rain had blown over, the street was beginning to fill up. People of a dozen different nationalities walked past, chatting in a variety of languages.

Sophie suddenly tilted her head to one side, brow creasing in a frown.

"What's wrong?" Josh asked immediately.

"Nothing's wrong," she said slowly, "it's just that…"

"What?"

"I thought I recognized some of the words those people were speaking."

Her brother turned to follow her gaze. Two women in the long flowing abaya of the Middle Eastern countries, their heads covered and their faces hidden behind burkas, chatted together animatedly.

"They're sisters… They're going to see a doctor just around the corner in Harley Street…," Sophie said in wonder.

Josh turned to hear better and pushed his hair back off his ear. Concentrating hard, he managed to isolate the voices of the two women. "Sophie, I can't make out a word they're saying; I think they're speaking Arabic."

Two smartly dressed businessmen walked past, heading toward Regent's Park tube station. They were both on mobile phones.

"The one on the left is talking to his wife in Stockholm," Sophie continued, her voice now little more than a whisper. "He's sorry he missed his son's birthday party. The one on the right is talking to his head office, also in Sweden. He wants some spreadsheets e-mailed."

Josh turned his head again, ignoring the traffic and the myriad other noises of the city. Suddenly, he found that by focusing on the two businessmen, he could pick up individual words. His hearing was so acute that he could even hear the tinny voices on the other end of the cell phone. Neither man was speaking English. "How can you understand?" he asked.

"It's the Witch of Endor's knowledge," Nicholas said. He had stepped out of the shop in time to hear Josh's question. He pulled two pairs of identical cheap sunglasses from a paper bag and handed them over. "Not designer, I'm afraid."

Sophie slipped the dark glasses onto her face. The relief was immediate, and she could see by her brother's expression that he felt the same. "Tell me," she said. "I thought it was just a lot of ancient stuff she passed on to me. I didn't realize any of it would be useful."

Nicholas handed over two bottles of water, and the twins fell into step beside him as he hurried down the street toward St. Marylebone Church. "The Witch passed on all her knowledge to you when she wrapped you in the shroud of air. It was, I'll admit, too much for you to handle. But I'd no idea she was going to do it," he added quickly, seeing the scowl appear on Josh's face. "It was totally unexpected and completely out of character. Generations ago, priestesses would study with the Witch all their lives to be rewarded with only the tiniest fragment of her knowledge."

"Why did she give it all to me?" Sophie asked, confused.

"It's a mystery," he admitted. Spotting a gap in the traffic, the Alchemyst hurried the twins across Marylebone High Street. They were close enough now to see the elegant fa?ade of the church ahead of them. "I know Joan helped sift through the Witch's knowledge for you."

Sophie nodded. In Paris, while she'd slept, Joan of Arc had taught her techniques for controlling the jumble of arcane and obscure information that washed through her brain.

"I believe that what is happening now is that the Witch of Endor's memories and knowledge are gradually being absorbed into your own memories. Rather than simply just knowing what the Witch knows, you will also know how she knows it. In effect, her memories are becoming yours."

Sophie shook her head. "I don't understand."

They had finally reached the church. Nicholas climbed two steps and looked up and down the road, quickly scanning the passersby, twisting to look out toward Regent's Park before turning back to the twins. "It's like the difference between watching a game and playing the game. When you met Saint-Germain," he added, "you instantly knew what the Witch knows about him, right?"

Sophie nodded. It had come to her in a flash that the Witch of Endor neither liked nor trusted the Comte de Saint-Germain.

"Think about Saint-Germain now," the Alchemyst suggested.

She looked at her brother, who shrugged, eyes invisible behind his own dark glasses. Sophie turned over her right wrist. On the underside of her arm was a gold circle with a red dot in the center. Saint-Germain had painlessly burned the tattoo into the flesh of her wrist when he'd taught her about the Magic of Fire. Thinking of Saint-Germain brought a sudden flood of memories: brilliantly intense physical memories. Sophie closed her eyes and in an instant she was in another time, another place.