Michael Scott - The Magician

“Come.” Joan snapped her phone shut, caught Sophie’s hand and dragged her down the alleyway toward the street. “Francis is on the way.”

Flamel took one final look at the manhole cover, then tucked Clarent under his coat and hurried after them.

Joan led them out of the narrow side street onto the Avenue du President Wilson, then quickly turned left onto Rue Debrousse and headed back toward the river. The air was filled with the sounds of countless police and ambulance sirens, and in the skies overhead police helicopters buzzed low over the city. The streets were almost completely empty, and no one paid any attention to three people running for shelter.

Sophie shivered; the whole scene was so surreal. It was like something she’d see in a war documentary on the Discovery Channel.

At the bottom of the Rue Debrousse, they found Saint-Germain waiting in a nondescript black BMW badly in need of washing. The front and rear passenger doors were open slightly, and the tinted driver’s window hummed down as they approached. Saint-Germain was grinning delightedly. “Nicholas, you should come home more often; the city is in chaos. It’s all terribly exciting. I’ve not had so much fun in centuries.”

Joan slid in beside her husband, while Nicholas and Sophie climbed into the back. Saint-Germain gunned the engine, but Nicholas leaned forward and squeezed his shoulder.

“Not so fast. We don’t need to draw any attention to ourselves,” he warned.

“But with the panic on the streets, we shouldn’t be driving slowly, either,” Saint-Germain pointed out. He eased the car away from the curb and set off down the Avenue de New York. He drove with one hand on the steering wheel, the other draped over the seat as he kept twisting around to talk to the Alchemyst.

Completely numb, Sophie slumped against the window, staring out at the river flashing by on her left. In the distance, on the opposite side of the Seine, she could make out the now familiar shape of the Eiffel Tower rising over the rooftops. She was exhausted and her head was spinning. She was confused about the Alchemyst. Nicholas couldn’t be bad, could he? Saint-Germain and Joan-Scatty, too-obviously respected him. Even Hekate and the Witch liked him. Flickering thoughts that she knew were not hers hovered at the very edge of her consciousness, but when she tried to focus, they drifted away. They were the Witch of Endor’s memories, and she knew instinctively that they were important. They were something to do with the catacombs, and the creature who lived in the depths…

“Officially, the police are reporting that a portion of the catacombs has caved in and brought down some houses with it,” Saint-Germain was saying. “They’re claiming that the sewers have ruptured and that methane, carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide gas have escaped into the city. The center of Paris is being sealed off and evacuated. People are being advised to remain indoors.”

Nicholas leaned back against the leather seats and closed his eyes. “Has anyone been injured?” he asked.

“A few cuts and bruises, but nothing more serious has been reported.”

Joan shook her head in amazement. “Considering what’s just tromped through the city, that’s a minor miracle.”

“Any sightings of Nidhogg?” Nicholas asked.

“Not on any of the main news channels yet, but some grainy cell phone images have turned up on blogs, and Le Monde and Le Figaro are both claiming to have exclusive images of what they are calling ‘The Creature from the Catacombs’ and ‘The Beast from the Pit.’”

Sophie leaned forward, following the conversation. She looked from Nicholas to Saint-Germain and then back at the Alchemyst. “Soon the whole world will know the truth. What happens then?”

“Nothing,” the two men said simultaneously.

“Nothing? But that’s not possible.”

Joan swiveled around in the passenger seat. “But that is what is going to happen. This will be covered up.”

Sophie looked at Flamel. He nodded in agreement. “Most people simply won’t believe it anyway, Sophie. It will be dismissed as a hoax or a prank. Those who do think it true will be called conspiracy theorists. And you can be sure that Machiavelli’s people are already working to confiscate and destroy every image.”

“Within a couple of hours,” Saint-Germain added, “the events of this morning will simply be reported as an unfortunate accident. Sightings of a monster will be laughed at and dismissed as hysteria.”

Sophie shook her head in disbelief. “You can’t hide something like that forever.”

“The Elders have been doing it for millennia,” Saint-Germain said, tilting the rearview mirror so that he could look at Sophie. In the dark interior of the car, she thought his bright blue eyes were glowing slightly. “And you have to remember that humankind really does not want to believe in magic. They don’t want to know that myths and legends were almost always based on the truth.”

Joan reached over and laid her hand gently on her husband’s arm. “But I do not agree; humans have always believed in magic. It is only in these last few centuries that the belief has fallen away. I think that they really want to believe, because in their hearts they know it to be true. They know that magic really exists.”

“I used to believe in magic,” Sophie said very quietly. She had turned to look out at the city again, but reflected in the glass, she saw a brightly painted child’s bedroom: her bedroom, five, perhaps six years ago. She had no idea where it was-the house in Scottsdale, maybe, or it might have been Raleigh; they’d moved around so much then. She was sitting in the middle of her bed, surrounded by her favorite books. “When I was younger, I read about princesses and wizards and knights and magicians. Even though I knew they were just stories, I wanted the magic to be real. Until now,” she added bitterly. She moved her head to glance at the Alchemyst. “Are all the fairy tales true?”

Flamel nodded. “Not every fairy tale, but just about every legend is based on a truth; every myth has a basis in reality.”

“Even the scary ones?” she whispered.

“Especially the scary ones.”

A trio of news helicopters buzzed low overhead, the noise of their rotors vibrating the interior of the car. Flamel waited until they had passed and then leaned forward. “Where are we going?”

Saint-Germain pointed straight ahead and to the right. “There’s a secret entrance to the catacombs in the Trocadero Gardens. It leads straight down into the forbidden tunnels. I’ve checked the old maps; I think Dee’s route will take them through the sewers first and then down into the lower tunnels. We’ll make up some time this way.”

Nicholas Flamel sat back in the seat and then reached over and squeezed Sophie’s hand. “It’s going to be all right,” he said.

But Sophie didn’t believe him.

The entrance to the catacombs was through a rather ordinary-looking metal grate set into the ground. Partially covered in moss and grass, it was hidden in a stand of trees behind a richly carved and beautifully painted carousel at one end of the Trocadero Gardens. Usually, the stunning gardens would have been overrun with tourists, but this morning they were deserted, and the carousel’s empty wooden horses bobbed up and down below their blue and white striped awning.

Saint-Germain cut across a narrow path and led them into a patch of grass burned brown by the summer sun. He stopped over an unmarked rectangular metal grate. “I haven’t used this since 1941.” He knelt down, grabbed the bars and tugged. It didn’t move.

Joan glanced sidelong at Sophie. “When Francis and I fought with the French Resistance against the Germans, we used the catacombs as a base. We could pop up anywhere in the city.” She tapped the metal grate with the toe of her shoe. “This was one of our favorite spots. Even during the war the gardens were always full of people, and we could mingle easily with the crowds.”