Michael Scott - The Magician

“Not me, Alchemyst, not anymore, and not for a very long time.” Machiavelli stopped and indicated the police and heavily armed black-clad French special forces gathering at the bottom of the steps. “Come now. Surrender. No harm will come to you.”

“I cannot tell you how many people have said that to me,” Nicholas said sadly. “And they were always lying,” he added.

Machiavelli’s voice hardened. “You can deal with me or with Dr. Dee. And you know the English Magician never had any patience.”

“There is one other option,” Flamel said with a shrug. His thin lips curled in a smile. “I could deal with neither of you.” He half turned, but when he looked back at Machiavelli, the expression on the Alchemyst’s face made the immortal Italian take a step back in shock. For an instant something ancient and implacable shone through Flamel’s pale eyes, which flickered a brilliant emerald green. Now it was Flamel’s voice that dropped to a whisper, still clearly audible to Machiavelli. “It would be better if you and I were never to meet again.”

Machiavelli attempted a laugh, but it came out sounding shaky. “That sounds like a threat…and believe me, you are in no position to issue threats.”

“Not a threat,” Flamel said, and stepped back from the top steps. “A promise.”

The cool damp Parisian night air was abruptly touched with the rich odor of vanilla, and Niccolo Machiavelli knew then that something was very wrong.

Standing straight, eyes closed, arms at her sides, palms facing outward, Sophie Newman took a deep breath, attempting to calm her thundering heart and allow her mind to wander. When the Witch of Endor had wrapped her like a mummy with bandages of solidified air, she had imparted thousands of years of knowledge into the girl in a matter of heartbeats. Sophie had imagined she’d felt her head swelling as her brain filled with the Witch’s memories. Since then, her skull had throbbed with a headache, the base of her neck felt stiff and tight and there was a dull ache behind her eyes. Two days ago she had been an ordinary American teenager, her head filled with normal everyday things: homework and school projects, the latest songs and videos, boys she liked, cell phone numbers and Web addresses, blogs and urls.

Now she knew things that no person should ever know.

Sophie Newman possessed the Witch of Endor’s memories; she knew all that the Witch had seen, everything she had done over millennia. It was all a jumble: a mixture of thoughts and wishes, observations, fears and desires, a confusing mess of bizarre sights, terrifying images and incomprehensible sounds. It was as if a thousand movies had been mixed up and edited together. And scattered throughout the tangle of memories were countless incidences when the Witch had actually used her special power, the Magic of Air. All Sophie had to do was find a time when the Witch had used fog.

But when and where and how to find it?

Ignoring Flamel’s voice calling down to Machiavelli, blanking out the sour smell of her brother’s fear and the jingle of Scathach’s swords, Sophie concentrated her thoughts on mist and fog.

San Francisco was often wrapped in fog, and she’d seen the Golden Gate Bridge rising out of a thick layer of cloud. And only last fall, when the family had been in St. Paul’s Cathedral in Boston, they’d stepped out onto Tremont Street to find that a damp fog had completely obscured the Common. Other memories began to intrude: mist in Glasgow; swirling damp fog in Vienna; thick foul-smelling yellow smog in London.

Sophie frowned; she had never been to Glasgow, Vienna or London. But the Witch had…and these were the Witch of Endor’s memories.

Images, thoughts and memories-like the strands of fog she was seeing in her head-shifted and twisted. And then they suddenly cleared. Sophie clearly remembered standing alongside a figure dressed in the formal clothing of the nineteenth century. She could see him in her mind’s eye, a man with a long nose and a high forehead topped with graying curly hair. He was sitting at a high desk, a thick sheaf of cream-colored paper before him, dipping a simple pen into a brimming inkwell. It took her a moment to realize that this was not one of her own memories, nor was it something she had seen on TV or in a movie. She was remembering something the Witch of Endor had done and seen. As she turned to look closely at the figure, the Witch’s memories flooded her: the man was a famous English writer and was just about to begin work on a new book. The writer glanced up and smiled at her; then his lips moved, but there was no sound. Leaning over his shoulder, she saw him write the words Fog everywhere. Fog up the river. Fog down the river in an elegant curling script. Outside the writer’s study window, fog, thick and opaque, rolled like smoke against the dirty glass, blotting out the background in an impenetrable blanket.

And beneath the portico of Sacre-Coeur in Paris, the air turned chill and moist, rich with the odor of vanilla ice cream. A trickle of white dribbled from each of Sophie’s outstretched fingers. The wispy streams curled down to puddle at her feet. Behind her closed eyes, she watched the writer dip his pen into the inkwell and continue. Fog creeping…fog lying…fog drooping…fog in the eyes and throats…

Thick white fog spilled from Sophie’s fingers and spread across the stones, shifting like heavy smoke, flowing in twisting ropes and gossamer threads. Coiling and shifting, it flowed through Flamel’s legs and tumbled down the steps, growing, thickening, darkening.

Niccolo watched the fog flow down the steps of Sacre-Coeur like dirty milk, watched it condense and grow as it tumbled, and knew, in that moment, that Flamel was going to elude him. By the time the fog reached him it was chest high, wet and vanilla scented. He breathed deeply, recognizing the odor of magic.

“Remarkable,” he said, but the fog flattened his voice, dulling his carefully cultivated French accent, revealing the harsher Italian beneath.

“Leave us alone,” Flamel’s voice boomed out of the fog.

“That sounds like another threat, Nicholas. Believe me when I tell you that you have no idea of the forces gathered against you now. Your parlor tricks will not save you.” Machiavelli pulled out his cell phone and hit a speed dial number. “Attack. Attack now!” He raced up the steps as he spoke, moving silently on expensive leather-soled shoes, while far below, booted feet thumped on stone as the gathered police charged up the steps.

“I’ve survived for a very long time.” Flamel’s voice didn’t come from where Machiavelli expected it to, and he stopped, turning left and right, trying to make out a shape in the fog.

“The world moved on, Nicholas,” Machiavelli said. “You did not. You might have escaped us in America, but here, in Europe, there are too many Elders, too many immortal humans who know you. You will not be able to remain hidden for long. We will find you.”

Machiavelli dashed up the final few steps that brought him directly to the entrance of the church. There was no mist here. The unnatural fog started on the top step and flowed downward, leaving the church floating like an island on a cloudy sea. Even before he ran into the church, Machiavelli knew he would not find them in there: Flamel, Scathach and the twins had escaped.

For the moment.

But Paris was no longer Nicholas Flamel’s city. The city that had once honored Flamel and his wife as patrons of the sick and poor, the city that named streets after them, was long gone. Paris now belonged to Machiavelli and the Dark Elders he served. Looking out over the ancient city, Niccolo Machiavelli swore that he was going to turn Paris into a trap-and maybe even a tomb-for the legendary Alchemyst.