Michael Scott - The Alchemyst

We ve been looking for you for a very long time, Nicholas. You ve gotsomething of ours. And we want it back.

A sliver of yellow smoke bit into the ceiling above Fleming s and Josh sheads. Bubbling, rotten black plaster drifted down like bitter snowflakes.

I burned it, Fleming said, burned it a long time ago. He pushed Josh evenfarther into the cellar, then pulled the sliding door closed, sealing them both in. Don t ask, he warned, his pale eyes shining in the gloom. Not now. Catching Josh by the arm, Nick pulled him into the darkest corner ofthe bookstore cellar, caught a section of shelving in both hands and jerkedit forward. There was a click, and the shelving swung outward, revealing aset of steps hidden behind it. Fleming urged Josh forward into the gloom.

Quickly now, quickly and quietly, he warned. He followed Josh into the opening and pulled the shelves closed behind him just as the cellar doorturned into a foul black liquid and flowed down the stairs with the mostappalling stench of sulfur.

Up. Nick Fleming s voice was warm against Josh s ear. This comes out in the empty shop next door to ours. We have to hurry. It ll take Dee only a fewmoments to realize what s happened.

Josh Newman nodded; he knew the shop. The dry cleaner s had been empty allsummer. He had a hundred questions, and none of the answers that ran throughhis mind was satisfactory, since most of them contained that one awful wordin them: magic. He had just watched two men toss balls and spears ofsomething of energy at each other. He had witnessed the destruction those energies had caused.

Josh had just witnessed magic.

But of course, everyone knew that magic simply did not and could not exist.

What was that disgusting smell?

Sophie Newman was just about to press the Bluetooth headset back into her earwhen she breathed deeply and paused, nostrils flaring. She d just smelledsomething awful. Closing her phone and pushing her headset into a pocket, sheleaned over the open jar of dark tea leaves and inhaled.

She had been working in The Coffee Cup since she and her brother had arrivedin San Francisco for the summer. It was an OK job, nothing special. Most ofthe customers were nice, a few were ignorant and one or two were downrightrude, but the hours were fine, the pay was good, the tips were better and theshop had the added advantage of being just across the road from where hertwin brother worked. They had turned fifteen last December and had alreadystarted to save for their own car. They estimated it would take them at leasttwo years if they bought no CDs, DVDs, games, clothes or shoes, which wereSophie s big weakness.

Usually, there were two other staff on duty with her, but one had gone homesick earlier, and Bernice, who owned the shop, had left after the lunchtimerush to go to the wholesalers to stock up on fresh supplies of tea andcoffee. She had promised to be back in an hour; Sophie knew it would take atleast twice that.

Over the summer, Sophie had grown used to the smells of the different exoticteas and coffee the shop sold. She could tell her Earl Grey from herDarjeeling, and knew the difference between Javanese and Kenyan coffee. Sheenjoyed the smell of coffee, though she hated the bitter taste of it. But sheloved tea. In the past couple of weeks she had been gradually sampling allthe teas, particularly the herbal teas with their fruity tastes and unusualaromas.

But now something smelled foul and disgusting.

Almost like rotten eggs.

Sophie brought a tin of loose tea to her face and breathed deeply. The crispodor of Assam caught at the back of her throat: the stench wasn t coming fromthere.

You re supposed to drink it, not inhale it.

Sophie turned as Perry Fleming came into the shop. Perry Fleming was a tall,elegant woman who could have been any age from forty to sixty. It was clearthat she had once been beautiful, and she was still striking. Her eyes werethe brightest, clearest green Sophie had ever seen, and for a long time shehad wondered if the older woman wore colored contact lenses. Perry s hair hadonce been jet-black, but now it was shot through with strands of silver, andshe wore it in an intricate braided ponytail that lay along her back almostto the base of her spine. Her teeth were small and perfect, and her face wastraced with tiny laugh lines at the corners of her eyes. She was always muchmore elegantly dressed than her husband, and today she was wearing a mintgreen sleeveless summer dress that matched her eyes, in what Sophie thoughtwas probably pure silk.

I just thought it smelled peculiar, Sophie said. She sniffed the tea again.

Smells fine now, she added, but for a moment there, I thought it smelledlike like like rotten eggs.

She was looking at Perry Fleming as she spoke. She was startled when thewoman s bright green eyes snapped wide open and she whirled around to lookacross the street just as all the little square windows of the bookshopabruptly developed cracks and two simply exploded into dust. Wisps of greenand yellow smoke curled out into the street and the air was filled with thestench of rotten eggs. Sophie caught another smell too, the sharper, cleanersmell of peppermint.

The older woman s lips moved, and she whispered, Oh no not now not here.

Mrs. Fleming Perry?

The woman rounded on Sophie. Her eyes were wild and terrified and her usuallyfaultless English now held a hint of a foreign accent. Stay here; whateverhappens, stay here and stay down.

Sophie was opening her mouth to ask a question when she felt her ears pop.She swallowed hard and then the door to the bookshop crashed open and one ofthe big men Sophie had seen earlier was flung out onto the street. Now he wasmissing his hat and glasses, and Sophie caught a glimpse of his dead-lookingskin and his marble black eyes. He crouched in the middle of the street for amoment, then he raised his hand to shield his face from the sunlight.

And Sophie felt something cold and solid settle into the pit of her stomach.

The skin on the man s hand was moving. It was slowly flowing, shiftingviscously down into his sleeve: it looked as if his fingers were melting. Aglob of what appeared to be gray mud spattered onto the street.

Golems, Perry gasped. My God, he s created Golems.

Gollums? Sophie asked, her mouth thick and dry, her tongue suddenly feelingfar too large for her mouth. Gollum, from Lord of the Rings?

Perry was moving toward the door. No: Golems, she said absently, Men of Clay.

The name meant nothing to Sophie, but she watched with a mixture of horrorand confusion as the creature the Golem on the street crawled out of the sun and under the cover of the awning. Like a huge slug, he left a wet muddytrail behind him, which immediately dried in the fierce sunlight. Sophiecaught another glimpse of his face before he staggered into the bookshop. Hisfeatures had flowed like melted wax and a fine web of cracks covered the skin. It reminded her of the floor of a desert.

Perry dashed out into the street. Sophie watched as the woman pulled her hairfree of its intricate braid and shook it loose. But instead of lying flatagainst her back, her hair flowed out about her, as if it were blown in agentle breeze. Only there was no breeze.

Sophie hesitated a moment; then, grabbing a broom, she dashed across the roadafter Perry. Josh was in the bookstore!

The once-neat shelves and carefully stacked tables were scattered and tossedabout the room in heaps. Bookcases were shattered, shelves snapped in half,ornate prints and maps lay crushed on the floor. The stench of rot and decayhung about the room: pulped paper and wood turned dry and rotting, even theceiling was scored and torn, plaster shredded to reveal the wooden joists anddangling electrical wires.

The small gray man stood in the center of the floor. He was fastidiouslybrushing dust off the sleeve of his coat while two of his Golems explored thecellar. The third Golem, damaged and stiff from exposure to the sun, leanedawkwardly against a crushed bookcase. Flakes of gray mudlike skin werespiraling off what remained of his hands.