Michael Scott - The Alchemyst

A shape stepped into the opening in the fog, and then a second and a third.And none of them were alive.

Closest to Sophie, Flamel and Scatty was a complete skeleton, standing talland straight, wearing the ragged remains of the blue uniform coat of a U.S.cavalry officer. It carried the rusted stump of a sword in bony fingers. Whenit turned its head toward them, the bones at the base of its skull popped andcracked.

Necromancy, Flamel breathed. Dee s raised the dead.

Another figure loomed out of the fog: it was the partially mummified body ofa man carrying a huge railroad hammer. Behind it came another dead man, whoseremaining flesh was tanned to the consistency of leather. A pair of witheredleather gun belts was slung low across his hips, and when he saw the group,he reached for the missing guns with skeletal fingers.

Sophie stood frozen in shock, and the wind died away from her fingers.They re dead, she whispered. Skeletons. Mummies. They re all dead.

Yep, Scathach said matter-of-factly, skeletons and mummies. It depends onwhat type of ground they were buried in. Damp soil, you get skeletons. She stepped forward and swept out with a nunchaku, knocking the head clear offanother gunslinger, who d been attempting to raise a rusted rifle to hisshoulder. Dry soil, you get the mummies. Doesn t stop them from hurting you,though. The skeletal cavalry officer with the broken sword lashed out ather, and she parried with her own sword. His rusted blade dissolved intodust. Scatty s sword swung again and separated the head from the body, whichthen immediately crumpled to the ground.

Although the shambling figures moved in complete silence, there were screamsall around now. And even though they were muffled by the fog, fear and abjectterror were clearly audible in them. The ordinary citizens of Ojai had becomeaware that the dead were walking through their streets.

The fog was now thick with the creatures. They came from all sides, crowdingin on the trio, encircling them in the center of the road. As the twistingsheets of dampness eddied and flowed, more and more skeletal and mummifiedremains were revealed in brief glimpses: soldiers in the tattered blues andgrays of Civil War uniforms; farmers in rags of old-fashioned overalls;cowboys in worn chaps and torn denim; women in long, sweeping skirts, nowmoldy and ragged; miners in threadbare buckskins.

He s emptied a boot hill graveyard from one of the old abandoned towns!Scatty exclaimed, standing with her back to Sophie, striking out around her.

No one here s in clothes made after 1880. Two skeletal women wearingmatching bonnets and the rags of their Sunday best clicked their way on bony feet across Ojai Avenue toward her, arms outstretched. Scatty s sword whippedaround, slicing away the arms, but that didn t even slow them down. Sheshoved her nunchaku back into her belt and pulled out her second sword. Shestruck out again, both swords forming an X in the middle of the air, andlopped off both heads, sending them bouncing back into the fog. The skeletonscrumpled into a disarray of bones.

Josh, Sophie called again, her voice high in desperation. Josh. Where are you? Maybe the mummies and skeletons had gotten to him first. Maybe he wasgoing to loom up out of the fog any minute now, eyes blank and staring, headtwisted at an awkward angle. She shook her head, trying to clear the ghoulishthoughts.

Flamel s hands burned with cold green fire, and the damp fog was rich withthe odor of mint. He snapped his fingers and sent a sheet of virescent fireblazing into the fog. The fogbanks glowed emerald and aquamarine, butotherwise, the magic had no effect. Flamel next threw a small ball of greenlight directly in front of two lurching skeletons who loomed up before him.Fire blazed over the creatures, crisping the remains of their grayConfederate uniforms. They continued forward, bones clacking on the street,closing in on him, and there were hundreds more behind them.

Sophie, get the Witch! We need her help.

But she can t help us, Sophie said desperately. There s nothing more shecan do. She has no power left: she s given everything to me.

Everything? Flamel gasped, ducking beneath a swinging fist. He placed hishand on the center of the dead man s rib cage and pushed, sending theskeleton flying back into the crowd, where it fell in a tangle of bones.

Well then, Sophie, you do something!

What? she called. What could she do against an army of the undead? She wasa fifteen-year-old girl.

Anything!

A mummified arm shot out of the fog and cracked her across the shoulder. Itwas like being hit by a wet towel.

Fear, revulsion and anger lent her strength. Right at that moment, however,she couldn t remember anything the Witch had taught her, but then herinstincts or maybe the Witch s imparted knowledge took over. She deliberatelyallowed her anger to surge into her aura. Abruptly, the air was filled withthe richness of creamy vanilla as Sophie s aura blazed pure silver. Bringingthe palm of her right hand up to her face, she blew into her cupped fingers,then tossed the captured breath into the middle of the dead. A six-foot-tallwhirlwind, a miniature twister, appeared, growing up out of the ground. Itsucked the dead nearest to it into its core, grinding and shattering thebones, then spitting out the splintered remains. Sophie threw a second andthen a third ball of air. The three twisters danced and moved among theskeletons and mummies, cutting a swath of destruction through them. She foundshe could direct the twisters by simply looking in a particular direction,and they would obediently drift that way.

Suddenly, Dee s voice echoed out of the fog. Do you like my army, Nicholas?The fog flattened the sound, making it impossible to locate. The last time I was in Ojai oh, over a hundred years ago I discovered a marvelous littlegraveyard just below the Three Sisters Peaks. The town it was built alongside Flamel was fighting frantically as fists punched, fingernails scratched, feetkicked. There was no real strength to the skeletons blows or the mummies slaps, but what they lacked in force they made up for in numbers. There weresimply too many of them. There was a bruise beginning to darken beneath hiseye and a long scratch on the back of his hand. Scatty moved around Sophie,defending her while she controlled the whirlwinds.

I don t know how long that graveyard was in use. A couple of hundred years,certainly. I ve no idea how many corpses it holds. Hundreds, maybe eventhousands. And, Nicholas, I ve called them all.

Where is he? Flamel said through gritted teeth. He s got to be close veryclose to be able to control this number of corpses. I need to know where heis to do anything.

Sophie felt a wave of exhaustion wash over her, and suddenly, one of thetwisters wobbled and then vanished. The two that remained were weaving fromside to side as Sophie s physical strength ebbed. Another died, and the onethat remained was rapidly losing power. This exhaustion was the price ofperforming magic, she realized. But she needed to keep going for just alittle longer; she had to find her brother.

We ve got to get out of here. Scathach caught Sophie and held her upright.The skeletal dead surged forward, and Scatty beat them back with neat,precise movements of her sword.

Josh, Sophie whispered tiredly. Where s Josh? We ve got to find Josh.

The fog robbed Dee s voice of much of its emotion, but the glee in his tonewas evident when he said, And do you know what else I discovered? Thesemountains have been luring creatures other than humans for the pastmillennia. The land here is littered with bones. Hundreds of bones. And remember, Nicholas, I am, first and foremost, a necromancer.

The bear that loomed up out of the gray fogbank was at least eight feet tall.And even though patches of fur remained on its skeleton, it was clear that ithad died a long time before. The snow-white bones only emphasized its hugedaggerlike claws.