The SUV rolled into the bushes and trees, and for a single instant everything went dark and chill, and the air was touched with something bittersweet like burnt sugar…and then the path appeared again, curving off to the right.
“How…,” Josh began.
“It was an illusion,” Flamel explained. “Nothing more. Light twisted and bent, reflecting the images of trees and bushes in a curtain of water vapor, each drop of moisture acting as a mirror. And just a little magic,” he added. He pointed ahead with a graceful motion. “We’re still in North America, but now we’ve entered the domain of one of the oldest and greatest of the Elder Race. We’ll be safe here for a while.”
Scatty made a rude sound. “Oh, she’s old, all right, but I’m not so sure about great.”
“Scathach, I want you to behave yourself,” Flamel said, turning to the young-looking but ancient woman sitting beside him.
“I don’t like her. I don’t trust her.”
“You’ve got to put aside your old feuds.”
“She tried to kill me, Nicholas,” Scatty protested. “She abandoned me in the Underworld. It took me centuries to find my way out.”
“That was a little over fifteen hundred years ago, if I remember my mythology,” Flamel reminded her.
“I’ve got a long memory,” Scatty muttered; for an instant she looked like a sulky child.
“Who are you talking about?” Sophie demanded, and then Josh hit the brakes, bringing the heavy car to a halt.
“Wouldn’t be a tall woman with black skin, would it? windshield” Josh asked.
Sophie spun around to look through the cracked, while Flamel and Scatty leaned forward.
“That’s her,” Scatty said glumly.
The figure stood in the path directly in front of the car. Tall and broad, the woman looked as if she had been carved from a solid slab of jet-black stone. The merest fuzz of white hair covered her skull like a close-fitting cap, and her features were sharp and angular: high cheekbones; straight, pointed nose; sharply defined chin; lips so thin they were almost nonexistent. Her pupils were the color of butter. She was wearing a long, simple gown made of a shimmering material that moved gently in a wind that didn’t seem to touch anything around her. As it shifted, rainbow colors ran down its length, like oil on water. She wore no jewelry, though Sophie noticed that each of her short blunt fingernails was painted a different color.
“Doesn’t look a day over ten thousand years old,” Scatty muttered.
“Be nice,” Flamel reminded her.
“Who is it?” Sophie asked again, staring hard at the woman. Although she looked human, there was something different, something otherworldly about her. It showed in the way she stood absolutely still and in the arrogant tilt of her head.
“This,” Nicholas Flamel said, a note of genuine awe in his voice, “is the Elder known as Hekate.” He pronounced the name slowly, “HEH-ca-tay.”
“The Goddess with Three Faces,” Scatty added bitterly.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
“Stay in the car,” Nicholas Flamel directed, opening the door and stepping outside onto the short-cropped grass.
Scatty folded her arms over her chest and glared out through the cracked windshield. “Fine by me.”
Flamel ignored her jibe and slammed the door before she could say anything else. Taking a deep breath, he attempted to compose himself as he stepped toward the tall, elegant woman surrounded by the tall leafless trunks of sequoia trees.
The undergrowth rustled and one of the enormous Torc Allta appeared directly in front of the Alchemyst, its massive head level with his chest. Flamel stopped and bowed to the creature, greeting it in a language that had not been designed for human tongues. Abruptly, the boars were everywhere, ten of them, eyes bright and intelligent, the coarse red hair on their backs and shoulders bristling in the late-afternoon light, long strings of ropey saliva dribbling from their ornately carved tusks.
Flamel took care to bow to each one in turn. “I did not think there were any of the Torc Allta clan left in the Americas,” he said to no one in particular, dropping back into English.
Hekate smiled, the merest movement of her lips. “Ah, Nicholas, you of all people should know that when we are gone, when the Elder Race is no more, when even the humani have gone from this earth, then the Allta clans will reclaim it for themselves. Remember, this world belonged to the Were clans first.” Hekate spoke in a deep, almost masculine voice, touched with an accent that had all the hissing sibilants of Greece and the liquid consonants of Persia.
Nicholas bowed again. “I understand that the clans are strong in Europe—the Torc Madra particularly, and I hear that there are Torc Tiogar in India again, and two new clans of Torc Leon in Africa. All thanks to you.”
Hekate smiled, her teeth tiny and straight in her mouth. “The clans still worship me as a goddess. I do what I can for them.” The unseen, unfelt wind touched her robe, swirling it around her body, so that it ran with green and gold threads. “But I doubt you have come all this way to talk to me about my children.”
“I have not.” Flamel glanced back at the battered and scarred SUV. Josh and Sophie were staring intently at him, eyes wide in wonder, while Scathach’s face was just visible in the backseat. She had her eyes closed and was pretending to be asleep. Flamel knew the Warrior had no need of sleep. “I want to thank you for the Ghost Wind you sent us.”
Now it was Hekate’s turn to bow. Her right hand moved and opened, revealing a tiny cell phone cupped in her palm. “Such useful devices. I can remember a time when we entrusted our messages to the winds or trained birds. Seems like only yesterday,” she added. “I am glad the ruse was successful. Unfortunately, you have probably revealed your ultimate destination to the Morrigan and Dee. They will know who sent the Ghost Wind, and I am sure they are aware that I have an enclave here.”
“I know that. And I apologize for drawing them down on you.”
Hekate shrugged, a slight movement of her shoulders that sent a rainbow of light down her robe. “Dee fears me. He will bluster and posture, threaten me, possibly even try a few minor spells and incantations, but he will not move against me. Not alone…not even with the Morrigan’s assistance. He would need at least two or more of the Dark Elders to stand against me…and even then he would not be assured of success.”
“But he is arrogant. And now he has the Codex.”
“But not all of it, you said on the phone.”
“No, not all of it.” Nicholas Flamel drew the two pages from under his T-shirt and went to hand them to Hekate. But the woman abruptly backed away, throwing up her hand to shield her eyes, a sound like hissing steam bubbling from her lips. In an instant the boars were around Flamel, crowding him, mouths open, tusks huge and deadly against his skin.
Sophie drew breath to scream and Josh shouted and then Scathach was out of the SUV, an arrow notched to her bow, leveled at Hekate. “Call them off,” she shouted.
The Torc Allta didn’t even glance in her direction.
Hekate deliberately turned her back on Flamel and folded her arms, then she glanced over her shoulder at Scathach, who immediately pulled the bowstring taut. “You think that can harm me?” the goddess laughed.
“The arrow was dipped in the blood of a Titan,” Scathach said quietly, her voice carrying on the still air. “One of your parents, if I remember correctly? And one of the few ways left to slay you, I do believe.”
The twins watched as the Elder’s eyes turned cold and became, for a split second, gold mirrors, reflecting the scene before her. “Put the pages away,” Hekate commanded the Alchemyst.
Flamel immediately tucked the two pages back under his T-shirt. The older woman muttered a word and the Torc Allta stepped back from the Alchemyst and trotted into the undergrowth, where they immediately disappeared, though everyone knew they were still there. Hekate then turned to face Flamel again. “They would not have harmed you without a command from me.”
“I’m sure,” Nicholas
said shakily. He glanced down at his jeans and boots. They were covered with dribbles and strings of white Torc Allta saliva, which he was sure was going to leave a stain.
“Do not produce the Codex—or any portion of it—in my presence…nor in the presence of any being of the Elder Race. We have an…aversion to it,” she said, choosing the word carefully.
“It doesn’t affect me,” Scathach said, loosening her bow.
“You are not one of the First Generation of the Elder Race,” Hekate reminded her. “Like the Morrigan, you are of the Next Generation. But I was there when Abraham the Mage set down the first words of power in the Book. I saw him trap the Magic of First Working, the oldest magic, in its sheets.”
“I apologize,” Flamel said quickly. “I did not know.”
“There is no reason you should have known.” Hekate smiled, but there was nothing humorous in it. “That eldritch magic is so strong that most of my people cannot even bear to look upon the letters. Those who came after the original Elder Race, though still of our blood”—and here she gestured toward Scathach—“can look upon the Codex, though even they cannot touch it. The ape descendents—the humani—can. It was Abraham’s ultimate joke. He married one of the first humani, and I believe he wanted to ensure that only his children could handle the book.”
“We’re the ape descendents,” Josh said, his voice unconsciously dropping to little more than a whisper.
“The humani…the human race,” Sophie said, then fell silent as Flamel continued talking.
“Is that why the Book was given into my keeping?”
“You are not the first of the humani to…to care for the Codex,” Hekate said carefully. “It should never have been created in the first place,” she snapped, threads of red and green running like live wires on her robe. “I advocated that every single page should be separated from the others and dropped into the nearest volcano, and Abraham along with it.”
“Why wasn’t it destroyed?” Nicholas asked.
“Because Abraham had the gift of Sight. He could actually see the curling strands of time, and he prophesied that there would come a day when the Codex and all the knowledge it contained would be needed.”
Scatty stepped away from the SUV and approached Flamel. She was still holding the bow loosely by her side, and she noted how Hekate’s butter-colored eyes watched her closely.
“The Book of the Mage was always assigned a guardian,” Scathach explained to Flamel. “Some, history recalls as the greatest heroes of myth, while others were less well known, like yourself, and a few remained completely anonymous.”
“And if I—a human—was chosen to caretake this precious Codex, because your people cannot even look upon it, much less touch it, then it is obvious that another human must have been chosen to find it,” Flamel said. “Dee.”
Hekate nodded. “A dangerous enemy, Dr. John Dee.”
Flamel nodded. He could feel the cool, dry pages against his skin beneath his T-shirt. Although he had possessed the Codex for more than half a millennium, he knew he had barely even begun to scratch the surface of its secrets. He still had no real idea just how old it was. He kept pushing the date of its creation back further and further. When the Book first came to him in the fourteenth century, he believed it to be five hundred years old. Later, when he started to do his research, he thought it might be eight hundred years old, then a thousand years, then two thousand years old. A century ago, in light of the new discoveries coming out of the tombs of Egypt, he had reassessed the age of the Book at five thousand years. And now, here was Hekate, who was ten thousand and more years old, saying she had been around when the mysterious Abraham the Mage had composed the Book. But if the Elder Race—the gods of mythology and legend—could neither handle nor look upon the book, then what was Abraham, its creator? Was he of the Elder Race, a humani or something else, one of the many other mythical races that walked the earth in those first days?
“Why are you here?” Hekate asked. “I knew the Codex had been taken as soon as it left your presence, but I cannot help you recover it.”
“I have come to you for another reason,” Flamel continued, stepping away from the car and lowering his voice, forcing Hekate to lean close to listen to him. “When Dee attacked me, stole the Book and snatched Perry, two humani came to our aid. A young man and his sister.” He paused and then added, “Twins.”
“Twins?” she said, her voice as flat and expressionless as her face.
“Twins. Look at them: tell me what you see.”
Hekate’s eyes flickered toward the car. “A boy and a girl, dressed in the T-shirts and denim that are the shabby uniform of this age. That is all I see.”
“Look closer,” Flamel said. “And remember the prophecy,” he added.
“I know the prophecy. Do not presume to teach me my own history!” Hekate’s eyes flared and, for an instant, changed color, becoming dark and ugly. “Humani? Impossible.” Striding past Flamel, she peered into the interior of the car, looking first at Sophie, and then at Josh.
The twins noticed simultaneously that the pupils of her eyes were long and narrow, like a cat’s, and that behind the thin line of her lips, her teeth were pointed, like tiny needles.
“Silver and gold,” Hekate whispered abruptly, glancing at the Alchemyst, her accent thickening, small pointed tongue darting at her thin lips. She turned back to the twins. “Step out of the vehicle.”
They looked at Flamel, and when he nodded, both climbed out. Sophie went around the car to stand next to her brother.
Hekate reached out first toward Sophie, who hesitated momentarily before she stretched out her hand. The goddess took Sophie’s left palm in her right hand and turned it over, then she reached for Josh’s hand. He placed his hand in hers without hesitation, trying to act nonchalant, as if stretching out to touch a ten-thousand-year-old goddess were something he did every day. He thought her skin felt surprisingly rough and coarse.
Hekate spoke a single word in a language that predated the arrival of the earliest human civilization.
“Oranges,” Josh whispered, suddenly smelling—and then tasting—the fruit.
“No, it’s ice cream,” Sophie said, “freshly churned vanilla ice cream.” She turned to look at her brother…and discovered that he was staring at her in wonder.
A silver glow had appeared around Sophie. Like a thin second skin, it hovered just above the surface of her flesh, winking in and out of existence. When she blinked, her eyes turned to flat reflective mirrors.
The glow that covered Josh was a warm golden hue. It was concentrated mainly around his head and hands, throbbing and pulsing in sync with his heartbeat. The irises of his eyes were like golden coins.
But although the twins could see the glow that hovered around each other and their own bodies, they felt no different. There were only the smells in the air—oranges and vanilla ice cream.
Without a word, Hekate pulled away from the twins, and immediately the glow faded. Striding back to Flamel, she caught him by the arm and moved him farther down the path, out of earshot of the twins and Scatty.
“Do you have any idea what that was all about?” Sophie asked the Warrior. There was a distinct tremble in her voice, and she could still taste vanilla ice cream in her mouth and smell it on the air.
“The goddess was checking your auras,” Scathach said.
“That was the golden glow around Josh?” Sophie asked, looking at her brother.
“Yours was silver,” Josh said immediately.
Scathach picked up a flat pebble and tossed it into the bushes. It hit something solid, which immediately lumbered away through the undergrowth. “Most auras are a mixture of colors. Very, very, very few people have pure colors.”
“Like ours?” Sophie asked.
“Like yours,” Scatty said glumly. “Last person I knew to have a pure silver aura was the woman you know as Joan of Arc.”
“What about the gold aura?” Josh said.
“Even rarer,??
? Scatty said. “The last person I can recall having that color was…” She frowned, remembering. “The boy king, Tutankhamen.”
“Was that why he was buried with so much gold?”
“One of the reasons,” Scathach agreed.
“Don’t tell me you knew King Tut,” Josh teased.
“Never met him,” Scathach said, “though I did train dear Joan and fought by her side at Orléans. I told her not to go to Paris,” she added very softly, pain in her eyes.
“My aura is rarer than yours,” Josh deliberately teased his sister to break the somber mood. He looked at the Warrior Maid. “But what exactly does it mean to have pure-colored auras?”
When Scathach turned to look at him, her face was expressionless. “It means you have extraordinary powers. All of the great magicians and sorcerers of the past, the heroic leaders, the inspired artists, have had pure-color or single-color auras.”
The twins looked at one another, suddenly uncertain. This was just a little too weird, and there was something in Scathach’s lack of expression that was frightening. Sophie’s eyes suddenly widened in shock. “I just realized that both of those people, Joan of Arc and Tutankhamen, died young.”
“Very young,” Josh said, sobering, recalling his history. “They both died when they were nineteen.”
“Yes, they did, didn’t they?” Scathach agreed, turning away to look at Nicholas Flamel and the Goddess with Three Faces.
“Humani,” Hekate snarled. “Humani with silver and gold auras.” She sounded both puzzled and angry.
“It has happened before,” Flamel said mildly.
“You think I don’t know that?”
They were standing at the edge of a bubbling brook that cut through the trees and fed into an octagonal pond dappled with white water lilies. Huge red and albino koi moved through the perfectly clear water.
“I’ve never come across the two auras together, and never in twins. They possess enormous untapped power,” Flamel said urgently. “Do I have to remind you of the Codex? ‘The two that are one and the one that is all’—the very first prophecy Abraham speaks of.”