Michael Scott - The Magician

“Not Excalibur,” Dee said shortly.

“It was definitely a gray stone blade.”

“It wasn’t Excalibur.”

“How do you know?” Machiavelli demanded.

Dee reached under his coat and pulled out a short stone sword, a match of the weapon Josh was carrying. The blade was trembling, vibrating almost imperceptibly. “Because I have Excalibur,” Dee said. “The boy was holding its twin, Clarent. We always suspected Flamel had it.”

Machiavelli closed his eyes and raised his face to the sky. “Clarent. No wonder Nidhogg fled from the house.” He shook his head. Could this night get any worse?

Dee’s cell buzzed again and both men jumped. The Magician almost snapped the phone in two opening it. “What?” he snarled. He listened for a moment, then closed the phone very gently, and when he spoke again, his voice was barely above a whisper. “Perenelle has escaped. She’s free on Alcatraz.”

Shaking his head, Machiavelli turned and walked down the alleyway, heading back toward the Champs-Elysees. His question was answered. The night had just gotten worse-much worse. Nicholas Flamel frightened Machiavelli, but Perenelle terrified him.

“I ’m no little girl!” Sophie Newman was furious. “And I know more than just Fire magic. Disir.” The name popped into her head, and suddenly Sophie knew everything the Witch of Endor knew about the creatures. The Witch despised them. “I know who you are,” she snapped, her eyes glowing an ugly silver. “Valkyries.”

Even amongst the Elders, the Disir were different. They had never lived on Danu Talis but had kept to the frozen northlands at the top of the world, at home in the bitter winds and sleeting ice.

In the terrible centuries after the Fall of Danu Talis, the world had shifted on its axis and the Great Cold had gripped most of the earth. From the north and south ice sheets flowed across the landscape, pushing humani into the thin unfrozen green belt that existed around the equator. Entire civilizations vanished, devastated by changing weather patterns, disease and famine. Sea levels rose, flooding the coastal cities, altering the landscape, while inland the encroaching ice wiped away all traces of towns and villages.

The Disir soon discovered that their skills at surviving in the bitter northern climate gave them a special advantage over races and civilizations who could not cope with the deadly, never-ending winter. Gangs of savage female warriors quickly claimed most of the north, enslaving the cities that had escaped the ice. They ruthlessly destroyed anyone who stood against them, and soon the Disir had a second name: Valkyries, the Choosers of the Dead.

Very quickly the Valkyries controlled a frozen empire that encompassed most of the Northern Hemisphere. They forced their humani slaves to worship them as gods and even demanded sacrifices. Uprisings were brutally suppressed. As the Ice Age gripped harder, the Disir began to look farther south, setting their sights on the struggling remnants of civilization.

Images tumbling and dancing in her head, Sophie watched as the reign of the Disir was ended in a single night. She knew what had happened millennia past.

The Witch of Endor had worked with the repulsive Elder, Chronos, who could move through time itself. It had been necessary to sacrifice her eyes in order to see the twisting strands of time, but it was a sacrifice she had never regretted. Scouring ten thousand years of time, she had chosen a single warrior from each millennium, and then Chronos had dipped into each era to pull the warriors back to the age of the Great Cold.

Sophie knew that the Witch had especially requested that her own granddaughter, Scathach, be brought back to fight the Disir.

It was the Shadow who had led the attack on the Disir stronghold, a city of solid ice close to the top of the world. She had slain the Valkyrie queen, Brynhildr, casting her into the heart of a flaming volcano.

By the time the sun had risen low over the horizon, the power of the Valkyries had been broken forever, their frozen city had lain in melted ruins, and less than a handful had survived. They fled into a terrifying icy Shadowrealm that even Scathach would not venture into. The surviving Disir called that night Ragnarok, the Doom of the Gods, and swore eternal vengeance on the Shadow.

Sophie brought her hands together and a miniature whirlwind appeared in her palms. Fire and ice had destroyed the Disir in the past. What would happen if she used a little Fire magic to heat up the wind? Even as the thought crossed Sophie’s mind, the Disir leapt forward, her sword raised high over her head in a two-handed grip. “Dee wants you alive, but he didn’t say unharmed…,” she snarled.

Sophie brought her hands to her mouth, pressed the thumb of her left had against the trigger on her wrist and blew hard. The whirlwind spiraled onto the floor and grew. It bounced once, twice…then hit the Disir.

Sophie had superheated the air until it was hotter than a furnace. The blistering whirlwind grabbed the Valkyrie, spun her around, rolled her over and tossed her high into the air. She crashed into the crystal chandelier, smashing all the bulbs save one. In the sudden gloom, the whirlwind dancing across the floor glowed with shimmering orange heat. The Valkyrie crashed to the ground but was immediately on her feet, even as shards of crystal crashed about her like glass rain. Her pale skin was bright red and looked badly sunburned, her blond eyebrows completely singed off. Without a word, she slashed out with her sword, the heavy blade cutting right through the banister rail at Sophie’s hand.

“Scatty!”

Sophie heard her brother’s voice calling from the kitchen. He was in trouble!

“Scatty!” she heard him call again.

The Valkyrie surged forward. Another superheated whirlwind caught her, ripping the sword from her hand and spinning her away, sending her tumbling into her sister, who had trapped Joan in a corner and battered her to her knees with a ferocious onslaught. The two Disir crashed to the floor in a clatter of weapons and armor.

“Joan-get back!” Sophie shouted.

Fog flowed from the girl’s fingers and curled across the floor; thick ribbons and ropes of smoky air wrapped around the women, swathing them in chains of scalding hot air. It took an enormous effort of will, but Sophie managed to thicken the fog, spinning it faster and faster around the struggling Disir until they were shrouded in a thick mummylike cocoon, similar to the one the Witch had enfolded her in.

Sophie could feel herself weakening, leaden exhaustion making her eyes gritty and her shoulders heavy. Drawing upon the remnants of her power, she clapped her hands and lowered the temperature of the air in the foggy cocoon so quickly that it flash-froze into a crackling lump of solid ice.

“There. You should feel right at home,” Sophie whispered hoarsely. She slumped, then forced herself to her feet and was about to dart into the kitchen when Joan stretched out her arm, stopping her. “Oh no you don’t. Me first.” The woman took a step toward the kitchen door, then glanced over her shoulder to the block of ice, with the two Disir partially visible within. “You saved my life,” she said softly.

“You would have beaten her,” Sophie said confidently.

“Maybe,” Joan conceded, “and maybe not. I’m not as young as I once was. But you still saved my life,” she repeated, “and that’s a debt I’ll never forget.” Stretching out her left hand, she placed it flat against the kitchen door and applied a gentle pressure. The door clicked open.

And then fell off its hinges.

T he Comte de Saint-Germain strolled downstairs from his studio, tiny noise-canceling earphones pushed into his ears, eyes fixed on the screen of the MP3 player in his hands. He was trying to create a new playlist: his top ten favorite sound tracks. Gladiator, naturally… The Rock…Star Wars, the first one only… El Cid, of course… The Crow, maybe…