Michael Scott - The Magician

“What did you do?” Josh asked, curious now.

Flamel’s teeth flashed in a quick smile. “I sought an audience with Cardinal Richelieu and presented him with the book.”

“You gave it to him? Did he know what it was?”

“Of course he did. The Book of Abraham is famous, Josh-or maybe infamous might be a better word. Next time you go online, look it up.”

“Did the cardinal know who you were?” he asked. Listening to Flamel talk, it was easy-so easy-to believe everything he said. And then he remembered how believable Dee had been back in Ojai.

Flamel smiled, remembering. “Cardinal Richelieu believed I was one of the descendants of Nicholas Flamel. So we presented him with the Book of Abraham and he put it in his library.” Nicholas laughed softly as he shook his head. “The safest place in all of France.”

Josh frowned. “But surely when he looked at it, he saw that the text moved?”

“Perenelle put a glamour over the book. It’s a particular type of spell-astonishingly simple, apparently, though I could never master it-so when the cardinal looked at the book, he saw what he expected to see: pages of ornate Greek and Aramaic writing.”

“Did Dee catch you?”

“Almost. We escaped down the Seine on a barge. Dee himself stood on the Pont Neuf with a dozen musketeers and fired scores of shots at us. They all missed; despite the musketeers’ reputation, they were terrible shots,” he added. “And then, a couple of weeks later, Perenelle and I returned to Paris, broke into the library and stole our book back. So I suppose you could say that Dee is right,” he concluded. “I am a thief.”

Josh walked on in silence; he had no idea what to believe. He wanted to believe Flamel; working in the bookshop alongside the man, he’d grown to like and respect him. He wanted to trust him…and yet he could never forgive him for putting Sophie in danger.

Flamel glanced up and down the street; then, putting his hand on Josh’s shoulder, he guided him through the stalled traffic and across the Rue de Dunkerque. “Just in case we’re being followed,” he said softly, his lips barely moving as they darted through the early-morning traffic.

Once they were across the road, Josh shrugged off Nicholas’s hand. “What Dee said made a lot of sense,” he continued.

“I’m sure it did,” Flamel said with a laugh. “Dr. John Dee has been many things in his long and colorful life, a magus and a mathematician, an alchemist and spy. But let me tell you, Josh, he was often a rogue and always a liar. He is a master of lies and half-truths, and he practiced and perfected his craft in that most dangerous of times, the Elizabethan Age. He knows that the best lie is one that is wrapped around a core of truth.” He paused, his eyes flickering over the crowd streaming past them. “What else did he tell you?”

Josh hesitated for a moment before replying. He was tempted not to reveal all of his conversation with Dee but then realized that he’d probably said too much already. “Dee said that you only used the spells in the Codex for your own good.”

Nicholas nodded. “It’s a fair point. I use the immortality spell to keep Perenelle and myself alive, that is true. And I use the philosopher’s stone formulation to turn ordinary metal into gold and coal into diamonds. There’s no money in bookselling, let me tell you. But we only make as much wealth as we need-we’re not greedy.”

Josh hurried ahead of Flamel, then turned around to face him. “This isn’t about the money,” he snapped. “There is so much else you could be doing with what’s in that book. Dee said it could be used to turn this world into a paradise, that it could cure all disease, even repair the environment.” He found it incomprehensible that someone would not want to do that.

Flamel stopped in front of Josh. His eyes were almost on a level with the boy’s. “Yes, there are spells in the Book which would do all that and much, much more,” he said seriously. “I’ve glimpsed spells in the Book that could reduce this world to a cinder, others that would make the deserts bloom. But Josh, even if I could work those spells-which I cannot-the material in the Book is not mine to use.” Flamel’s pale eyes bored into Josh’s, and Josh had no doubt now that the Alchemyst was telling the truth. “Perenelle and I are only the Guardians of the Book. We are simply holding it in trust until we can pass it on to its rightful owners. They will know how to use it.”

“But who are the rightful owners? Where are they?”

Nicholas Flamel put both hands on Josh’s shoulders and stared into his bright blue eyes. “Well, I was hoping,” he said very softly, “that it might be you and Sophie. In fact, I’m gambling everything-my life, Perenelle’s life, the survival of the entire human race-that you are.”

Standing on the Rue de Dunkerque, looking into the Alchemyst’s eyes, reading the truth in them, Josh felt the people fade away until it was as if they were standing alone on the street. He swallowed hard. “And you believe that?”

“With all my heart,” Flamel said simply. “And everything I have done, I’ve done to protect you and Sophie and to prepare you for what is to come. You have to believe me, Josh. You must. I know you’re angry because of what has happened with Sophie, but I would never let her come to harm.”

“She could have died or fallen into a coma,” Josh muttered.

Flamel shook his head. “If she were an ordinary human, then yes, that could have happened. But I know she isn’t ordinary. Nor are you,” he added.

“Because of our auras?” Josh asked, digging for as much information as he could get.

“Because you are the twins of legend.”

“And if you’re wrong? Have you thought about that: what happens if you’re wrong?”

“Then the Dark Elders return.”

“Would that be so bad?” Josh wondered aloud.

Nicholas opened his mouth to reply and quickly pressed his lips tightly together, biting back whatever he had been about to say, but not before Josh saw the quick flash of anger that darted across his face. Finally, Nicholas forced his lips into a smile. Gently, he turned Josh around so that he was facing the street. “What do you see?” he asked.

Josh shook his head and shrugged. “Nothing…just a bunch of people heading off to work. And the police looking for us,” he added.

Nicholas caught Josh’s shoulder and urged him down the street. “Don’t think of them as a bunch of people,” Flamel admonished sharply. “That’s how Dee and his kind see humankind: what they call the humani. I see individuals, with worries and cares, with family and loved ones, with friends and colleagues. I see people.”

Josh shook his head. “I don’t understand.”

“Dee and the Elders he serves look at these people and see only slaves.” He paused, then quietly added, “Or food.”

L ying flat on her back, Perenelle Flamel stared at the stained stone ceiling directly above her head and wondered how many other prisoners incarcerated on Alcatraz had done the same. How many others had traced the lines and cracks in the stonework, seen shapes in the black water marks, imagined pictures in the brown damp? Almost all of them, she guessed.

And how many had heard voices? she wondered. She was sure that many of the prisoners had imagined they heard sounds in the dark-whispered words, hushed phrases-but unless they possessed Perenelle’s special gift, what they were hearing did not exist outside their imaginations.

Perenelle heard the voices of the ghosts of Alcatraz.

Listening intently, she could distinguish hundreds of voices, maybe even thousands. Men and women-children, too-clamoring and shouting, muttering and crying, calling out for lost loved ones, repeating their own names again and again, proclaiming their innocence, cursing their jailers. She frowned; they weren’t what she was looking for.