“Why? What are you up to, John?” Niccolò demanded.
“That’s none of your business.”
The Italian patted his jacket pocket. Paper rustled. “I have the spells to awaken the creatures; I won’t do it. Moreover, I’ll contact the Flamels and warn them what’s coming across the bay. We both know just how dangerous Perenelle can be. She’ll stop the Lotan.”
“I don’t think so,” Dee whispered. “Remember, this creature drinks auras. I’m sure the Sorceress would taste sweet indeed.” He looked from Billy to Machiavelli and then back to Billy. “And you’re in this with him?”
The American took a step closer to the Italian immortal. “Sure am.”
“Last chance,” Dee warned.
“Oh, should I be scared?”
“So you’ve finally betrayed your masters,” Dee said, speaking so softly that the words were barely audible over the breeze. “You have broken your oaths of service to them. Warlocks.”
“You’re hardly one to talk,” Machiavelli said.
“Yes, but now your decision compromises my plans,” the Magician said. He looked at Josh. “And where do you stand?” he demanded. “With me or with the Italian?”
Josh looked blankly from Dee to Machiavelli, mouth opening and closing in confusion. Of course he didn’t want the monsters released into San Francisco; that was just wrong. He felt a sudden surge of heat on his shoulder and he reached around to pull Clarent free. As soon as it settled into his hand, warmth bloomed along the length of his arm and something shifted in his mind. The doubts eased, washed away with the certainty that it was absolutely right that the creatures be released in the streets. In fact, it was necessary. He remembered a phrase his father had used during a lecture he had given at Brown University the previous Christmas. He’d quoted Charles Darwin: “It is not the strongest of the species that survive, not the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.”
A little death and destruction, a little hysteria and fear, would be good for the humani. The thought of the Lotan wandering along the Embarcadero was kind of funny. He started to grin at the image. And the more he thought about it, the more he saw it was necessary for the Lotan to be released—that would bring the Elders back, and that was what this was all about.
“Think of the destruction, Josh,” Machiavelli said.
Buildings crumbling; people running, screaming … The sword throbbed with each image.
“You’ve lived in San Francisco, Josh,” Billy said. “You don’t want that to happen there, do you?”
Virginia Dare stepped forward and put her arm around Josh’s shoulder. “Josh knows where he stands,” she said, her steely gray eyes locking onto his. “He stands with us. Isn’t that right?”
Josh turned bright red, blinking as the musky sage scent of Dare’s aura caught at the back of his throat. Disappointing Virginia Dare was the last thing he’d ever want to do. “Well, yes, I think so. I’m not sure.…” The sword’s hilt grew warmer and his fingers were pulled in tightly against it. He was suddenly so hot that he thought he was going to pass out. Images of destruction and chaos danced at the edge of his consciousness. Flames blossomed, and he was entranced by their beauty; he heard screams, but the sounds were almost musical.
“Where do you stand?” the Magician repeated.
“Think a moment before giving an answer,” Billy warned.
“Oh, that is rich, coming from you,” Dee said. “Josh, are you with me or with the Italian? And if you are with Machiavelli,” he added contemptuously, “notice that moments ago he threatened to betray us to the Flamels. Here is someone else who will do everything possible to remain in control, even if it means condemning the world to a long, slow, lingering destruction.”
“There are over eight hundred thousand people living in the city of San Francisco,” Billy said angrily. “A lot of them—maybe even most of them—will die. You don’t want that, Josh, do you?”
“Remember when we talked in Ojai last week?” Dee asked before Josh could answer. “Remember when I showed you the world as it could be, as it would be if the Elders returned—with clear air, pure water, unpolluted seas …” As the Magician spoke, images flickered before Josh’s eyes.
… an island set under cloudless azure skies. Endless fields of golden wheat marching into the distance. Trees laden with an assortment of exotic fruit.
… huge wind-blown desert dunes turning green with lush grass.
… a hospital ward with a long row of empty beds.
Josh nodded, mesmerized by what he saw. “A paradise.”
“A paradise,” Dee agreed. “But that is not what the Italian and the outlaw want. They want the world as it is: dirty and damaged, so they can work in the shadows.”
“Josh,” Billy said firmly, “don’t listen to him. This is Dee, remember—a prince of liars.”
“Flamel lied to you also,” Dee quickly reminded him. “And remember what he and his wife did to your sister.”
“Turned her against you,” Virginia whispered. She reached over and rested her fingertips against the back of Josh’s hand as if in sympathy. “And there is one thing I can teach you that neither Machiavelli nor Billy can,” she said, lowering her voice and leaning in so that only he could hear her. “I will train you in the Magic of Air. The most useful of all the magics,” she added persuasively.
The Magic of Air. The words had gotten his attention. “Sophie knows the Magics of Air, Fire and Water. I only know Water and Fire.” As Josh spoke he was suddenly aware of how close Dare stood, of the heat from Clarent burning through his body. He was sweating, but the wind off the sea chilled the moisture on his flesh. He shivered.
“The Magic of Air,” Virginia repeated. “It would make you the equal of your sister,” she murmured. Then she leaned forward. “And maybe, one day, you will even be more powerful.”
Josh turned away from Virginia and looked at Dee. “I’m with you,” he said.
Dee grinned. “You’ve made the right decision, Josh.”
“You’ve made the biggest mistake of your life,” Niccolò said quietly, and Josh found that he could no longer look the Italian or Billy the Kid in the eye.
Out of the blue, Billy moved, launching himself at Dee, while Machiavelli turned toward Dare, but the immortal woman already had her flute to her lips. “Too slow,” she breathed into the flute, and as the words turned to music, Niccolò Machiavelli and Billy the Kid crashed to the ground, unconscious.
Virginia rolled Machiavelli over with her foot and then stooped to pluck an envelope from his inside pocket. She tossed it to Josh, who handed it over to the Magician. “The instructions for awakening the monsters,” Dare said.
The Magician clapped Josh on the shoulder. “Well done,” he said sincerely. “Now let’s get this pair into cells before they wake up.”
“Aren’t you forgetting something?” Virginia said, nodding toward the Lotan.
Dee smiled, eyes dancing wildly. He looked at the creature and then waved both hands in front of it. “Go. Shoo.” He pointed at the city less than a mile away. “Go and feed.”
The Lotan turned, waddled over the rocks and splashed into the water. The seven heads bobbed above the waves for a moment before dipping below the surface, and then a curled bow wave headed toward the city.
“I wonder what the tourists on the Embarcadero will make of that,” Dare said.
“Oh, I would imagine we’ll hear the screams from here.” The English Magician tapped the envelope against his leg impatiently. “Come, let us awaken some very hungry creatures.” He looked down at the unconscious and bruised Machiavelli and Billy. “Hmm, maybe they’d like a little snack first.” Then he turned to Josh, who was standing watching the trail of the Lotan as it headed toward San Francisco. “You’ve made the right decision, Josh,” he said again.
Josh nodded. He hoped so. He sincerely hoped so. He looked at Dare and she smiled at him, and the young man felt easier. Even if he didn’t entirely trust Dee, he did
trust Virginia Dare.
ophie raised her gaze from the emerald tablet. Her eyes were swimming and her throat felt raw, as if she’d been screaming. She had a hundred questions, but no answers. Even the Witch of Endor’s knowledge was no help: she didn’t know how Abraham had foreseen all that he did.
Sophie looked around the group and immediately noticed that no one was speaking. Some had finished reading, while others were still concentrating on their tablets. Judging by their reactions, they had all received deeply personal messages written by a man—no, surely Abraham was more than just a man—who had lived ten thousand years ago.
Hel was crying, black tears dripping onto the emerald block, burning into the stone and sending gray smoke sizzling toward the sky. Sophie watched as she lifted the tablet and pressed her lips to it. For an instant her beastlike features faded, revealing her as she had once been: young and very beautiful.
Perenelle put down her green slab and rested her hands on it. She looked over at Sophie and nodded. Her eyes were huge with tears that reflected the emerald of the stone, and her expression was inexpressibly sad.
Prometheus and Mars simultaneously looked up from reading their own messages. Without speaking, they reached across the table to grasp one another’s arms.
Niten’s face had settled into an unreadable mask, but Sophie noticed that his index finger kept moving in what looked like a figure eight over the stone.
Odin shoved the tablet into his pocket and then stretched out to pat his niece’s hand. He whispered something in her ear that made her smile.
Black Hawk’s face was expressionless, but his fingers tapped an irregular beat on the back of the block of emerald.
Nicholas slipped his tablet into a trouser pocket and took his wife’s hand, and when he looked at her, Sophie thought she saw something like awe in his eyes, as he if were seeing her for the first time.
“I have no idea what my husband wrote to any of you,” Tsagaglalal said suddenly, breaking the deep silence that had fallen over the group. “Each message is unique to you, keyed to your DNA and your aura.” The old woman was sitting at the head of the wooden picnic table. She was carefully slicing the skin off a vibrant green apple with a triangular sliver of black stone that resembled an arrowhead.
Sophie noticed that Tsagaglalal had arranged the green skin into shapes not dissimilar to those that had formed the words on her tablet when she’d first looked at it. She frowned: she’d seen someone else do that, though she couldn’t remember where or when … maybe it was one of the Witch’s memories rather than her own.
Tsagaglalal indicated the empty chairs. “Join me,” she said, and one by one, the group settled around the table. Nicholas and Perenelle sat side by side, facing Odin and Hel, while Mars and Prometheus sat facing one another, as did Niten and Black Hawk. Sophie sat alone at the end of the table, looking directly at Tsagaglalal.
“Some of you here knew my husband personally,” she began. “Some of you,” she added, looking at Prometheus and Mars, “he counted among his closest friends.” She looked down the table at Odin and Hel. “And while some of you would never have sided with him, I would like to think that you respected him.”
All the Elders sitting around the table nodded in agreement.
“Even before the destruction of Danu Talis, our world was beginning to fragment. The Elders were masters of the world. There were no more Earthlords, the Ancients had vanished and the Archons had been defeated. The new races, including the humani, were still looked upon as little more than slaves, and so, with no one else to defeat, the Elders started to fight among themselves.”
“It was a terrible time,” Odin rumbled.
Tsagaglalal looked up and down the table. “Some of you were with me on the island when it fell. You know what it was like then.”
The Elders nodded.
“Well, now Dr. John Dee intends to ensure that it never happened.”
Hel looked up. “Is that a bad thing?” she asked, and then the realization of what she was saying seemed to sink in. “Where does that leave us?”
Tsagaglalal nodded. “This world, and the ten thousand years of history that created it, will simply cease to exist. But, more importantly, if Danu Talis does not fall, then the warring Elders will destroy it. And not just the island—the entire planet.”
“So Dee must be stopped,” Odin said simply. He nodded to his niece. “But that is why we are here. We have come to kill Dee for his crimes.”
“It is why I am here too,” Mars said.
“And we know he is on Alcatraz,” Hel said. “Let us go there and finish this.”
“I can take you,” Black Hawk offered quickly. “I’ve got a boat.”
“And I’m going too,” Sophie added. “Josh is there.”
“No, you’re not,” Tsagaglalal said firmly. “You are staying here.”
“No.” There was no way the old woman—no matter who she was—would be able to keep Sophie off Alcatraz.
“If you ever want to see your brother again, you will stay with me.”
Prometheus leaned forward and tapped the emerald tablet he still held in his hand. “I too was told to remain here.”
“And I,” Niten added. The Swordsman looked at Tsagaglalal. “Do you know why?”
She shook her head.
“I do,” Perenelle whispered. She held up her own tablet. “There was no message to me from the past. When I looked at it, I saw Alcatraz, and I saw the ghost of Juan Manuel de Ayala, the man who named the island and who now stands guardian over it. He helped me escape when Dee held me there. De Ayala spoke to me through the tablet, and I floated high over the island and saw through his eyes.”
“And what did you see?” Nicholas asked.
“Dee and Dare, Josh, Machiavelli and Billy the Kid. And the Lotan.”
“The Lotan,” Odin rumbled uneasily. “Fully grown?”
“Fully grown. But there is dissension among the immortals,” Perenelle continued. “I could not hear what was happening, could only see the images, but it seemed to me that Machiavelli and the Kid did not want the Lotan released onto the city. There was an argument, and Dare rendered them both unconscious.”
“And the Lotan?” Odin asked. “I have seen its work before. It is a terrifying creature.”
“Dee sent it into the water. It is heading toward the city right now.” She turned to Prometheus and then to Niten across the table. “This is why both of you were asked to remain here. You must stand against the monster and protect the city. The creature is heading toward the Embarcadero. It will come ashore within the hour.”
“Take my car,” Tsagaglalal said immediately. “It’s parked in the front.” She pushed her keys across the table, and Niten snatched them up and was already hurrying away when Nicholas stood.
“We’ll come with you,” he called after the man, and Perenelle nodded.
Suddenly everyone was moving. Prometheus scrambled to his feet, then leaned over to kiss Tsagaglalal’s cheek. “Just like old times, eh?”
She pressed her hand against his face. “Be safe,” she whispered.
Mars came around the table and embraced his former enemy. Their auras crackled and fizzed, and for a moment, the image of two warriors in matching exotic red armor appeared. “Fight and live,” Mars said. “And when all this is over, there will be time for many adventures. Just like the old days.”
“Just like the old days.” Prometheus squeezed the Elder’s shoulders. “Fight and live.”
“I’ll get my jeep,” Black Hawk said. He left, whistling tunelessly.
“Wait,” Sophie said. “Perenelle, what about Josh? What about my brother?”
Everyone turned to look at the Sorceress, and Sophie suddenly knew the meaning of the expression she’d seen earlier in her eyes. “He chose Dee and Dare again. Sophie, your brother is truly lost to us.”
he triangular vimana was so wide it almost completely filled the mouth of the volcano. It struck two of the smaller craft as it droppe
d down. One exploded in a ball of fire; the other spun into the side of the sheer cliff face and detonated in a splash of flame and metal that sent red-hot shrapnel in every direction.
All the prisoners ducked back into the safety of the caves as metal ricocheted off the walls. Only Scathach remained in the cave mouth, watching the approaching Rukma vimana. She moved her head to one side as a piece of burning fuselage as long as her arm screamed off the rock over her head. Another vimana was struck a glancing blow by the huge warship and the circular craft spun too close to the volcano wall. It struck an outcropping of rock, ripping open the side of the craft. As it sailed past her cell, Scathach caught a glimpse of the two anpu within desperately attempting to correct the plummeting ship. When it hit the lava, it erupted in a massive fireball that shot a plume of magma high into the air. The molten rock stuck to the cliff face, then slowly dribbled back down.
The wide Rukma vimana dropped slowly, its pointed nose and wing tips barely clearing the walls. The Shadow nodded in approval: a master pilot was at the controls. The craft edged lower and lower, passing Shakespeare’s and Palamedes’s cells.
The remaining smaller vimana darted in and around the bigger craft, taking care not to get too close. Scathach desperately tried to remember what she knew about the machines, but that was precious little. She didn’t think the smaller ships were armed, but she guessed that at least one had headed back to the capital to bring reinforcements. The big vimana was so close now that Scathach could see that, unlike the smaller craft, which were metal, this one was made of polished crystal and gleaming ceramics. It was almost completely transparent, and she could make out a single figure moving within the craft.
The air was buzzing with the hum of the vimana’s electromagnetic engine, a high-pitched whine that set her teeth on edge and shot crackling static through her spiked red hair. The vibrations pulsed off the volcano’s black walls, and she watched as tiny cracks spiderwebbed along the surface. Suddenly a chunk of rock at her feet fell away and slid down into the lava below. Scathach danced back as the edge of the cave crumbled to dust.