Michael Scott - The Alchemyst

Only if the crows catch us, Flamel said with a tight smile. Could I borrow your cell phone?

Sophie pulled her cell out of her pocket and flipped it open. Aren t yougoing to work some magic? she asked hopefully.

No, I m going to make a call. Let s hope we don t get an answering service.

Security gates opened, and Dee s black limousine swerved into the driveway,the Golem chauffeur expertly maneuvering the car through barred gates into anunderground parking garage. Perenelle Flamel lurched sideways and fellagainst the sodden Golem sitting on her right-hand side. Its body squelchedwith the blow, and spatters of foul-smelling mud squirted everywhere.

Dr. John Dee, sitting directly opposite, grimaced in disgust and scooted asfar away from the creature as he could. He was on his cell phone, talkingurgently in a language that had not been used on earth in more than threethousand years.

A drop of Golem mud splashed onto Perenelle s right hand. The sticky liquidran across her flesh and erased the curling symbol Dee had drawn on her skin.

The binding spell was partially broken. Perenelle Flamel dipped her headslightly. This was her chance. To properly channel her auric powers shereally needed both hands, and unfortunately, the ward Dee had drawn on herforehead prevented her from speaking.

Still

Perenelle Delamere had always been interested in magic, even before she metthe poor bookseller who later became her husband. She was the seventhdaughter of a seventh daughter, and in the tiny village of Quimper in thenorthwest corner of France, where she had grown up, she was consideredspecial. Her touch could heal not only humans, but animals, too she couldtalk to the shades of the dead and she could sometimes see a little of the future. But growing up in an age when such skills were regarded with deepsuspicion, she had learned to keep her abilities to herself. When she firstmoved to Paris, she saw how the fortune-tellers working in the markets thatbacked onto the great Notre Dame Cathedral made a good and easy living.Adopting the name Chatte Noire Black Cat because of her jet-black hair, sheset herself up in a little booth in sight of the cathedral. Within a matterof weeks she built a reputation for being genuinely talented. Her clientschanged: no longer were they just the tradespeople and stall holders, nowthey were also drawn from the merchants and even the nobility.

Close to where she had her little covered stall sat the scriveners and copiers, men who made their living writing letters for those who couldneither read nor write. Some of them, like the slender, dark-haired man withstartling pale eyes, occasionally sold books from their tables. And from thefirst moment she saw that man, Perenelle Delamere knew that she would marryhim and that they would live a long and happy life together. She just neverrealized quite how long.

They were married less than six months after they first met. They d beentogether now for over six hundred years.

Like most educated men of his time, Nicholas Flamel was fascinated withalchemy a combination of science and magic. His interest was sparked becausehe was occasionally offered alchemical books or charts for sale or asked tocopy some of the rarer works. Unlike many other women of her time, Perenellecould read and knew several languages her Greek was better than herhusband s and he would often ask her to read to him. Perenelle quickly became familiar with the ancient systems of magic and began to practice in smallways, developing her skills, concentrating on how to channel and focus theenergy of her aura.

By the time the Codex came into their possession, Perenelle was a sorceress,though she had little patience for the mathematics and calculations ofalchemy. However, it was Perenelle who recognized that the book written inthe strange, ever-changing language was not just a history of the world thathad never been, but a collection of lore, of science, of spells andincantations. She had been poring over the pages one bitter winter s night,watching the words crawl on the page, when the letters formed and re-formed,and for a heartbeat she had seen the initial formula for the philosopher sstone, and realized instantly that here was the secret to life eternal.

The couple spent the next twenty years traveling to every country in Europe,heading east into the land of the Rus, south to North Africa, even into Arabyin an attempt to decipher and translate the curious manuscript. They cameinto contact with magicians and sorcerers of many lands, and studied manydifferent types of magic. Nicholas was only vaguely interested in magic; hewas more interested in the science of alchemy. The Codex, and other bookslike it, hinted that there were very precise formulas for creating gold outof stone and diamonds out of coal. Perenelle, on the other hand, learned asmuch as she could about all the magical arts. But it had been a long timesince she had seriously practiced them.

Now, trapped in the limo, she recalled a trick she had learned from astrega a witch in the mountains of Sicily. It was designed for dealing withknights in armor, but with a little adjustment

Closing her eyes and concentrating, Perenelle rubbed her little finger in acircle against the car seat. Dee was absorbed in his phone call and didn tsee the tiny ice white spark that snapped from her fingertip into thefine-grained leather. The spark ran through the leather and coiled around thesprings beneath. It shot, fizzing and hissing, along the springs and into themetal body of the car. It curled into the engine, buzzing over the cylinders,circled the wheels, spitting and snapping. A hubcap popped off and bouncedaway and then abruptly, the car s electrics went haywire. The windows startedopening and closing of their own accord; the sunroof hummed open, thenslammed shut; the wipers scraped across the dry windshield, then beat so fastthey snapped off; the horn began to sound out an irregular beat. Interiorlights flickered on and off. The small TV unit in the left-hand wall poppedon and cycled dizzyingly through all its channels.

The air tasted metallic. Tendrils of static electricity now danced around theinterior of the car. Dee flung his cell phone away, nursing suddenly numbfingers. The phone hit the carpeted floor and exploded into shards of meltedplastic and hot metal.

You, Dee began, turning to Perenelle, but the car lurched to a halt,completely dead. Flames leapt from the engine, filling the back of the carwith noxious fumes. Dee pushed the door, but the electric locks had engaged.With a savage howl, he closed his hand into a fist and allowed his rage toboil through him. The stench of smoke, burning plastic and melting rubber wasabruptly concealed beneath the stink of sulfur, and his hand took on theappearance of a golden metal glove. Dee punched straight through the door,practically ripping it off its hinges, and flung himself out onto the cementfloor.

He was standing in the underground car park of Enoch Enterprises, the hugeentertainment company he owned and ran in San Francisco. He scrambled back ashis hundred-and fifty-thousand-dollar custom-made car was quickly consumed byfire. Intense heat fused the front of the car into irregular clumps of metal,while the windshield flowed like candle wax. The Golem driver was still sitting at the wheel, unaffected by the intense heat, which did nothing butbake its skin to iron hardness.

Then the garage s overhead sprinkler system came on, and bitterly cold watersprayed down onto the fire.

Perenelle!

Soaked through, doubled over and coughing, Dee wiped tears from his eyes,straightened and used both hands to douse the flames with a single movement.He called up a tiny breeze to clear the smoke, then ducked his head to peerinto the blackened interior of the car, almost afraid of what he would find.