Michael Scott - The Magician

“She’s our friend-we can’t abandon her,” Sophie snapped. “ I won’t, anyway.” Her brother was a loner and had never been good at making or keeping friends in school, whereas she was intensely loyal to hers, and she had started to think of Scatty as more than just a friend. Although she loved her brother deeply, she had always wanted a sister.

Josh caught Sophie’s shoulders and turned her to face him. He was already a head taller than she was and had to look down into the blue eyes that mirrored his own. “She’s not our friend, Sophie,” his voice low and serious. “She’s never going to be our friend. She’s a two-and-a-half-thousand-year-old… something. She admitted to us that she’s a vampire. You saw the way her face changed in there: she’s not even human. And…and I’m not sure she’s all Flamel makes her out to be. I know he isn’t!”

“What do you mean?” Sophie demanded. “What are you trying to say?”

Josh opened his mouth to reply, but a series of rattling thumps vibrated through the entire building. Whimpering with fear, Roux darted out into the alley. The twins ignored him.

“What do you mean?” Sophie asked again.

“Dee said-”

“Dee!”

“I talked to him in Ojai. When you were in the shop with the Witch of Endor.”

“But he’s our enemy!”

“Only because Flamel says he is,” Josh said quickly. “Sophie, Dee told me that Flamel is a criminal and Scathach is basically just a hired thug. He said that she was cursed for her crimes to wear the body of a teenager for the rest of her life.” He shook his head quickly and hurried on, his voice low and desperate. “Sis, we know next to nothing about these people…Flamel, Perenelle and Scathach. The only thing we do know is that they’ve made you different-dangerously different. They’ve taken us halfway across the world, and look where we are now.” Even as he was speaking, the building shook, and then a dozen more tiles slid off the roof and crashed into the yard, sending razor-sharp fragments flying around them. Josh yelped as a chunk stung his arm. “We can’t trust them, Soph. We shouldn’t.”

“Josh, you have no idea what powers they’ve given me…” Sophie caught her brother’s arm, and the air, which was foul with the stink of rotting food, was touched with the odor of vanilla, and then, a moment later, the scent of oranges as Josh’s aura flared briefly golden. “Oh, Josh, the things I could tell you. I know everything the Witch of Endor knew…”

“And it’s making you sick!” Josh yelled angrily. “And don’t forget, if you use your powers one more time, you could literally explode.”

The twins’ auras flared gold and silver. Sophie squeezed her eyes shut as a flood of impressions, vague thoughts and random ideas slammed into her consciousness. Her blue eyes blinked, momentarily silver, and she suddenly realized that she was experiencing her brother’s thoughts. She wrenched her hand away from him and the thoughts and sensations immediately faded.

“You’re jealous!” she whispered in amazement. “Jealous of my powers.”

Color touched Josh’s cheeks, and Sophie saw the truth in his eyes even before he spoke the lie. “I am not!”

Suddenly, a black-clad police officer burst through the door and out into the yard. There was a long crack running down the front of his face visor, and he was missing one of his black boots. Without pausing, he limped past them and ran into the alley. They could hear the pat of his naked foot and the slap of the leather sole fade away.

Then Scatty strolled out into the yard. She was twirling her nunchaku as if she were Charlie Chaplin swinging a cane. There wasn’t a hair out of place or a mark on her body, and her green eyes were bright and alert. “Oh, I’m in a much better mood now,” she announced.

The twins looked past her into the corridor. Nothing and no one moved in the darkness beyond.

“But there were about ten of them…,” Sophie began.

Scathach shrugged. “Twelve, actually.”

“Armed…,” Josh said. He glanced sidelong at his sister, then back at the Warrior. He swallowed hard. “You didn’t…didn’t kill them, did you?”

Wood snapped and something collapsed in the shop

“No, they’re just…sleeping.” Scatty smiled.

“But how did you-” Josh began.

“I am the Warrior,” Scatty said simply.

Sophie caught a hint of movement and opened her mouth to scream just as the shape appeared out of the corridor and a long-fingered hand fell on Scathach’s shoulder. The Warrior didn’t react.

“I can’t leave you alone for ten minutes,” Nicholas Flamel said, stepping out of the shadows. He nodded at the open gate. “We’d better go,” he added, ushering them toward the alleyway.

“You missed the fight,” Josh told him. “There were ten of them…”

“Twelve,” Scathach corrected him quickly.

“I know,” the Alchemyst said with a wry smile, “only twelve: they didn’t stand a chance.”

“E scaped!” Dr. John Dee snarled into the cell phone. “You had them surrounded. How could you let them escape?”

On the other side of the Atlantic, Niccolo Machiavelli remained calm and controlled, only the tightening of his jaw muscles revealing his anger. “You are remarkably well informed.”

“I have my sources,” Dee snapped, his thin lips twisting into an ugly smile. He knew it would drive Machiavelli crazy knowing there was a spy in his camp.

“You had them trapped in Ojai, I understand,” Machiavelli continued softly, “surrounded by an army of the risen dead. And yet they escaped. How could you let them do that?”

Dee sat back in the soft leather seat of the speeding limousine. His face was lit only by the screen of his cell phone, its glow touching his cheekbones and outlining his sharp goatee in cold light, leaving his eyes in shadow. He hadn’t told Machiavelli that he’d used necromancy to raise an army of dead humans and beasts. Was this the Italian’s subtle way of letting him know that he had a spy in Dee’s camp?

“Where are you now?” Machiavelli asked.

Dee glanced out the window of the limousine, trying to read the road signs flashing past. “Somewhere on the 101, heading down to L.A. My jet is fueled and ready to go, and we’re cleared for takeoff as soon as I arrive.”

“I would anticipate having them in custody before you land in Paris,” Machiavelli said. The line crackled furiously, and he paused before adding, “I believe they will attempt to contact Saint-Germain.”

Dee sat bolt upright. “The Comte de Saint-Germain? He’s back in Paris? I heard he had died in India looking for the lost city of Ophir.”

“Obviously not. He has an apartment off the Champs-Elysees and two homes in the suburbs that we are aware of. They are all under observation. If Flamel contacts him, we’ll know.”

“Don’t let them escape this time,” Dee barked. “Our masters would not be pleased.” He snapped the phone shut before Machiavelli could respond. Then his teeth flashed in a quick smile. The net was closing tighter and tighter.

“He can be so childish,” Machiavelli muttered in Italian. “Always has to have the last word.” Standing in the ruins of the coffee shop, he carefully closed his phone and looked around at the devastation. It was as if a tornado had ripped through the cafe. Every item of furniture was broken, the windows were shattered, and there were even cracks in the ceiling. The powdery remains of cups and saucers mixed with spilled coffee beans, scattered tea leaves and broken pastries on the floor. Machiavelli bent to lift up a fork. It was curled in a perfect S shape. Tossing it aside, he picked his way through the debris. Scathach had single-handedly defeated twelve highly trained and heavily armed RAID officers. He had been vaguely hoping that perhaps she had lost some of her martial arts skills in the years since he had last encountered her, but it seemed that his hope had been in vain. The Shadow was as deadly as ever. Getting close to Flamel and the children would be difficult with the Warrior in the picture. In his long life, Niccolo had encountered her on at least half a dozen occasions, and he’d barely survived each time. They’d last met in the frozen ruins of Stalingrad in the winter of 1942. If it hadn’t been for her, his forces would have taken the city. He’d sworn then that he would kill her: maybe now was the time to keep that promise.