Michael Scott - The Magician

Dee led them into another tunnel, which was, if anything, even narrower than the first. Josh felt his stomach clench and his heart start to thump. The tunnel turned and twisted downward in a series of slender stairs. The stones here were older, the steps irregularly shaped, the walls soft and crumbling as they brushed past. In some places it was so narrow that Josh had to turn sideways to slip through. He got stuck in a particularly confined corner and immediately started to feel breathless panic bubbling in his chest. Then Dee caught one arm and unceremoniously yanked him through, tearing a long strip off the back of his T-shirt. “Nearly there,” the Magician muttered. He raised his arm slightly and the bobbing ball of silver light rose higher into the air, revealing the tunnel’s pitted brickwork.

“Hang on a second; let me catch my breath.” Josh bent over, hands on his knees, breathing deeply. He realized that as long as he concentrated on the ball of light and didn’t think about the walls and ceiling closing in on him, he was OK. “How do you know where we’re going?” he panted. “Have you been here before?”

“I was here once before…a long time ago,” Dee said with a grin. “Right now, I’m just following the light.” The harsh white light turned the Magician’s smile into something terrifying.

Josh remembered a trick his football coach had taught him. He wrapped his hands around his stomach and squeezed hard as he breathed in and straightened up. The feeling of queasiness immediately eased. “Who are we going to see?” he asked.

“Patience, humani, patience.” Dee looked past Josh to where Machiavelli was standing. “I’m sure our Italian friend will agree. One of the great advantages of immortality is that one learns patience. There is a saying: ‘good things come to those who wait.’”

“Not always good things,” Machiavelli muttered as Dee turned away.

At the end of the narrow tunnel was a low metal door. It looked as if it hadn’t been opened in decades and had rusted solid into the weeping limestone wall. In the white light, Josh saw that the rust had stained the off-white stone the color of dried blood.

The ball of light bobbed in the air while Dee ran his glowing yellow fingernail around the edge of the door, cutting it out of the frame, the stink of rotten eggs blanketing the odor of sewage.

“What’s through here?” Josh asked. Now that he’d started to get his fear under control, he was beginning to feel a little excitement. Once he was Awakened, he’d slip away and get back to Sophie. He turned to look at Machiavelli, but the Italian shook his head and pointed to Dee. “Dr. Dee?” Josh asked.

Dee broke open the low door and jerked it out of its frame. Soft stone crumbled and flaked away around it. “If I am correct-and I almost always am,” the Magician added, “then this will lead us into the Catacombs of Paris.” Dee leaned the door against the wall and then stepped through the opening.

Josh ducked to follow him. “I’ve never heard of them.”

“Few people outside Paris have,” Machiavelli said, “and yet, along with the sewers, they are one of the marvels of this city. Over a hundred seventy miles of mysterious and labyrinthine tunnels. The catacombs were once limestone quarries. And now they are filled…”

Josh stepped through the opening, straightened up and looked around.

“…with bones.”

The boy felt something twist in the pit of his stomach and he swallowed hard, a sour and bitter taste at the back of his throat. Directly ahead, as far as he could see in the gloomy tunnel, the walls, the curved ceiling and even the floor were composed of polished human bones.

N icholas had just levered up the manhole cover when Joan’s phone rang, the high-pitched warbling scale making them all jump with fright. The Alchemyst dropped the cover back into place with a clang, dancing back before it fell on his toes.

“It’s Francis,” Joan told them, flipping open the phone. She spoke to Saint-Germain in rapid-fire French and then snapped the cell closed. “He’s on his way,” she said. “He said that on no account are we to go down into the catacombs without him.”

“But we can’t wait,” Sophie protested.

“Sophie’s right. We should-” Nicholas started to say.

“We wait,” Joan said firmly in the voice that had once commanded armies. She placed her tiny foot on the manhole cover.

“They’ll get away,” Sophie said desperately.

“Francis said he knows where they’re going,” Joan said very softly. She turned to look at the Alchemyst. “He said you do too. Do you?” she demanded.

Nicholas took a deep breath and then nodded grimly. The early-morning light washed all the life from his face, leaving it the color of faded parchment. The circles beneath his eyes were bruise dark and baggy. “I believe so.”

“Where?” Sophie asked. She tried to stay calm. She’d always been better at controlling her temper than her brother was, but right now she was close to throwing back her head and screaming in frustration. If the Alchemyst knew where Josh was going, why weren’t they heading there now?

“Dee is taking Josh to have his powers Awakened,” Flamel said slowly, obviously choosing his words with care.

Sophie frowned, confused. “Is that so bad? Isn’t that what we wanted?”

“Yes, it’s what we wanted, but not how we wanted it.” Although his face was expressionless, there was pain in his eyes. “Much depends on who-or what-Awakens a person’s powers. It is a dangerous process. It can even be deadly.”

Sophie slowly turned to look at him. “And yet you were willing to allow Hekate to Awaken both Josh and me.” Her brother had been right all along: Flamel had put them both in danger. She could see that now.

“It was necessary for your own protection. There were dangers, yes, but neither of you was in any danger from the Goddess herself.”

“What sort of dangers?”

“Most of the Elders were never generous toward what they called humani. Very few of them were prepared to give without attaching some sort of conditions,” Flamel explained. “The greatest gift the Elders can bestow is that of immortality. Humans want to live forever. Both Dee and Machiavelli are in service to their Dark Elders who gifted them with immortality.”

“In service?” Sophie asked, looking from the Alchemyst to Joan.

“They are servants,” Joan said gently, “some would say slaves. It is the price of their immortality and powers.”

Joan’s phone rang again with the same ring tone and she flipped it open. “Francois?”

“Sophie,” Flamel continued quietly, “the gift of immortality can be withdrawn from a person at any time, and if that happens then all of their unnatural years will catch up with them in a matter of moments. Some Elders enslave the humani they Awaken, turn them into little better than zombies.”

“But Hekate didn’t make me immortal when she Awakened me,” Sophie argued.

“Unlike the Witch of Endor, Hekate had no interest in humani for countless generations. She always remained neutral in the wars between those of us who defend humanity and the Dark Elders.” A bitter smile twisted his thin lips. “Perhaps if she had chosen a side, she would still be alive today.”

Sophie looked into the Alchemyst’s pale eyes. She was thinking that if Flamel had not gone into Hekate’s Shadowrealm, the Elder would still be alive. “You’re saying Josh is in danger,” she said finally.

“Terrible danger.”

Sophie’s gaze never left Flamel’s face. Josh was in danger not because of Dee or Machiavelli, but because Nicholas Flamel has placed the two of them in this terrible situation. He was protecting them, he said, and once she had believed that without question. But now…now she didn’t know what to think.