The Alchemyst

CHAPTER NINETEEN

S cathach stood by the door to Sophie s room and regarded the twins with her

grass green eyes. Get some rest, she said, repeating Flamel's advice. Stay

in your rooms, she added. You may hear strange sounds from outside just

ignore them. You are completely safe so long as you remain within these

walls.

What sort of sounds? Josh asked. His imagination was working overtime, and

he was beginning to regret all those hours he d spent playing Doom and Quake,

scaring himself silly.

Scathach took a moment to consider. Screams, maybe. Animal howls. Oh, and

laughter. She smiled. And believe me, you don't want to find out what s

laughing, she said, and added, without a trace of irony, Sleep tight.

Josh Newman waited until Scathach had rounded the end of the corridor before

turning to his sister. we've got to get out of here.

Sophie chewed her bottom lip hard enough to leave the impression of her two

front teeth in the flesh, and then nodded. I ve been thinking the same

thing.

I think we re in some pretty serious danger, Josh said urgently.

Sophie nodded again. Events had moved so fast that afternoon that she d

barely had time to catch her breath. One moment she d been working in the

coffee shop, the next they were racing across San Francisco in the company of

a man who claimed to be a six-hundred-year-old alchemyst and a girl who

looked no older than herself and yet who Flamel'swore was a

two-and-a-half-thousand-year-old female warrior. And a vampire. I keep

looking for the hidden cameras, she muttered, glancing around the room.

Cameras? Josh looked startled. He immediately picked up on his twin s

thoughts. You mean like Candid Camera? He looked uncomfortable and felt

color flood his face: what if he d managed to make an idiot of himself in

front of the entire nation? He d never be able to show his face at school

again. He peered up into the corners of the room, looking for the cameras.

They were usually behind mirrors. There were no mirrors in the room, but Josh

knew that didn't mean anything; the new generation of cameras were so small

that they were virtually invisible. A sudden thought struck him. What about

the birds?

Sophie nodded once more. I keep coming back to the birds. Everything else

could be special effects: the Torc Allta could be trained animals and men in

prosthetic makeup, what happened in Scathach s dojo could be some sort of

effect and the rats could have been trained. But not the birds: there were

too many of them, and they ripped the car to shreds. The birds were what had

finally convinced her that she and Josh were in very real danger because if

the birds were real, then everything else was real too.

Josh dug his hands into the back pockets of his jeans and stood by the open

window. The dense foliage came right up to the window ledge, and although

there was no glass in the opening, none of the myriad bugs that flitted

through the late-evening air entered the room. He recoiled as a bright blue

snake as thick as his wrist appeared out of the canopy of leaves and

flickered a tongue that was easily six inches long in his direction. The

snake vanished as a ball of tiny buzzing lights appeared, darting smoothly

through the trees. As they shot past the window, Josh could have sworn that

the entire swarm was composed of about a dozen tiny winged women, none of

them bigger than his forefinger. The lights came from within their bodies. He

licked dry lips. Okay, let s assume that this is real all of it the magic,

the ancient races then that brings me back to my original thought: we've got

to get out of here.

Sophie walked to the window, stood behind her brother and put her arm on his

shoulder. She was older than he was by twenty-eight seconds less than half a

minute, Josh always reminded her but with their mother and father away so

much, she had assumed the role of a much older sister. Although he was

already a good two inches taller than she was, he would always be her baby

brother. I agree, she said tiredly. We should try and make a run for it.

Something in his sister s voice made Josh turn to look at her. You don't

think we ll get away, he said evenly.

Let s try, she said, not answering his question. But I m sure they ll come

after us.

Flamel'said that Dee would be able to track us. I m sure Flamel or

Scathach can do that too.

Flamel has no reason to follow us, Sophie pointed out.

But Dee does, Josh said. What happens if we go home and Dee and his people

follow us there? he wondered aloud.

Sophie frowned. I ve been thinking about that. Flamel'said that we ll be

able to see the magical aura that surrounds people.

Josh nodded.

Hekate hasn t Awakened our magical powers. She frowned again, trying to

remember exactly what Nicholas Flamel had said. Flamel'said we smelled of

wild magic.

Josh sniffed deeply. But I Can't smell anything. No fruit or oranges or

vanilla ice cream. Maybe we don't smell until that happens.

If we managed to make it back home, we could head out to Utah to Mom and

Dad. We could stay with them for the rest of the summer until all this blows

over.

That'snot a bad idea, Josh said. No one would find us in the desert. And

right now, the hot, boring, sandy desert sounds really attractive.

Sophie turned to look at the door. There s only one problem. This place is a

maze. Do you think you can find the way back to the car?

I think so. He nodded. Actually, I m sure of it.

Let s go, then. She checked her pocket for her dead cell phone. Let s get

your stuff.

The twins paused by the door of Sophie s room and peered up and down the

corridor. It was deserted and in almost total darkness except where irregular

clumps of arm-length crystals emitted a milky white light.

Somewhere in the distance, a sound that was caught between laughter and

screaming echoed down the corridors. With their rubber-soled sneakers making

no sound on the floor, they darted across the corridor into Josh s room.

How did we ever get into this mess? Josh wondered out loud.

I guess we were just in the wrong place at the wrong time, Sophie said. She

had remained standing by the door, watching the corridor. But even as she was

saying the words, she was beginning to suspect that there was more to it than

that. There was something else going on, something to do with the prophecy

that Flamel had referred to, something to do with them. And the very idea

terrified her.

The twins slipped into the corridor and moved through the circular rooms,

taking their time, peering into each one before entering. They kept stopping,

listening as snatches of conversations in almost recognizable languages or

music played on unidentifiable instruments floated down the corridor. Once, a

high-pitched howl of maniacal laughter sent them ducking into the nearest

room as it seemed to approach, then disappear again. When they crept back out

of the room, they noticed that all the light crystals in the corridor had

dimmed to a bloodred glow.

I m glad we didn't see what passed by, Josh said shakily.

Sophie grunted a response. Her brother was in the lead; she followed two

steps behind, her hand on his shoulder. How do you know where we re going?

she whispered, bringing her mouth close to his ear. All the rooms looked

identical to her.

When we first came into the house, I noticed that the walls and floor were

dark, but as we moved down the corridors, they became lighter and paler in

color. Then I realized that we were walking through different shades of wood,

like the rings of a tree trunk. All we have to do is to follow the corridor

that leads to the dark wood.

Smart, Sophie said, impressed.

Josh glanced over his shoulder and grinned. Told you those video games

weren t a waste of time. The only way not to get lost in the maze games is to

watch for clues, like patterns on the walls or ceilings, and to keep a note

of your steps so you can retrace them if you need to. He stepped out into a

corridor. And if I m right, the main door should be there! he finished

triumphantly.

The twins fled across the vast open field in front of the huge tree house,

and made their way to the tree-lined pathway that led back to the car. Even

though night had fallen, they had no problem seeing. The moon hung bright and

low in the heavens, and the sky was filled with an extraordinary number of

brilliant stars, which combined with a swirling band of silvery dust high in

the sky to give the night a peculiar grayish luminescence. Only the shadows

remained pitch black.

Although it wasn't cold, Sophie shivered: the night felt wrong. Josh pulled

off his hooded sweatshirt and draped it over his sister s shoulders. The

stars are different, she muttered. They re so bright. Craning her neck,

she looked up into the heavens, trying to peer through the branches of the

Yggdrasill. I Can't see the Big Dipper, and the North Star is missing.

And there was no moon last night, Josh said, nodding to where the full moon

was rising huge and yellow-white over the treetops. No moon in our world,

he added solemnly.

Sophie stared hard at the moon. There was something about it something wrong.

She tried to identify the familiar craters, and then felt her stomach lurch

with a sudden realization. Her hand, when she pointed upward, was trembling.

That'snot our moon!

Josh looked hard, squinting against the glare. Then he saw what his sister

was talking about. The surface is different. Smoother, he said softly.

Where are the craters? I Can't see Kepler, Copernicus or even Tycho.

Josh, Sophie said quickly, I think we re looking at the night sky as it

was thousands of years ago, maybe hundreds of thousands of years ago. Sophie

tilted her head and looked up. Josh was startled to see that the moonlight

gave her face a skeletal appearance, and he quickly looked away, disturbed.

He had always been close to his sister, but the last few hours had served to

remind him just how important she was to him.

didn't Scathach say that Hekate had created this Shadowrealm? Josh asked.

I bet it s modeled on the world she remembered.

So this is the night sky and the moon as they were thousands of years ago,

Sophie said in awe. She wished she had her digital camera with her, just to

capture the extraordinary image of the smooth-faced moon.

The twins were looking into the heavens when a shadow flickered across the

face of the moon, a speck that might have been a bird except that the

wingspan was too wide, and no bird had that serpentlike neck and tail.

Josh grabbed his sister s hand and pulled her toward the car. I m really

beginning to hate this place, he grumbled.

The SUV was where they had left it, parked in the center of the path. The

moon washed yellow light across the shattered windshield, the broken patterns

in the starred glass picked out in shadow. The brilliance also highlighted

the scars on the car s body, the scratches and gouges in sharp relief. The

roof was studded with hundreds of tiny holes where the birds had pecked

through the metal, the rear window wiper dangled by a thread of rubber and

the two side mirrors were completely missing.

The twins regarded the SUV silently, the full realization of the bird attack

beginning to sink in. Sophie ran a finger down a series of scratches in the

window on the passenger side of the car. Those few millimeters of glass were

all that had protected her flesh from the birds claws.

Let s go, Josh said, pulling open the door and sliding into the driver s

seat. The keys were where he had left them, in the ignition.

I feel a little bad, running out on Nicholas and Scatty without saying

anything, Sophie said as she pulled open the door and climbed in. But the

immortal Alchemyst and the Warrior would be better off without them, she

reckoned. They were more than able to defend themselves; the last thing they

needed was two teenagers slowing them down.

We ll apologize if we ever see them again, Josh said. He privately thought

he would be happy never to see either of them again. Playing video games was

all fine and well. When you were killed in a game, you just started again. In

this Shadowrealm, though, there were no second chances, and a lot more ways

to die.

Do you know how we get out of here? Sophie asked.

Sure. Her brother grinned, his teeth white in the moonlight. We reverse.

And we don't stop for anything.

Josh turned the key in the ignition. There was a metallic click and a whining

sound, which quickly descended into silence. He turned the key again. This

time there was only the click.

Josh ? Sophie began.

It took him just a moment to figure out what had happened. The battery s

dead. Probably drained by the same force that drained our phones, Josh

murmured. He swiveled around in the seat to stare through the scarred rear

window. Look, we came down that path behind us; we didn't turn left or

right. Let s make a run for it. What do you think? He turned back to look at

his sister, but she wasn't looking at him, she was staring through the

windshield in front of her. You re not even listening to me.

Sophie reached over, took her twin s face in her hand and turned his head

toward the windshield. He looked, blinked, swallowed hard, then reached over

to push down the locks on the doors. What now? he asked.

Crouching directly in front of them was a creature that was neither bird nor

serpent, but something caught in between. It stood about the size of a tall

child. Moonlight dappled its snakelike body and shone weakly through

outstretched batlike wings, the tiny bones and veins etched in black. Clawed

feet dug deeply into the soft ground, and a long tail lashed to and fro

behind it. But it was the head that held their attention. The skull was long

and narrow, eyes huge and round, the gaping mouth filled with hundreds of

tiny white teeth. The head tilted first to one side and then the other, and

then the mouth snapped open and closed. The creature took a hop closer to the

car.

There was movement in the air behind it, and a second creature, even bigger

than the first, dropped from the night skies. It folded its wings and stood

upright as it turned its hideous head toward the car.

Maybe they re vegetarians, Josh suggested. Leaning over the driver s seat,

he rummaged in the back of the car, looking for something he could use as a

weapon.

Not with those teeth, his sister said grimly. I think they re pterosaurs,

she said, remembering the huge suspended skeleton she had seen in the Texas

Natural Science Center.

Like pterodactyls? Josh asked, turning back. He had found a small fire

extinguisher.

Pterosaurs are older, Sophie said.

A third pterosaur dropped from the night sky, and like three hunched old men,

the creatures began to advance on the car.

We should have stayed in the tree, Sophie muttered. They d been warned,

hadn't they? Stay in your rooms, don't leave and after everything they d seen

so far, they should have guessed that Hekate's Shadowrealm at night was a

dangerous and deadly place. Now they were facing something out of the

Cretaceous period.

Josh opened his mouth to reply, then closed it again. He pulled the retaining

pin out of the fire extinguisher, arming it. He wasn't sure what would happen

if he fired off a blast of the gas at them.

The three creatures split up. One approached from the front of the car; the

remaining two moved toward the driver and passenger windows.

Wish we knew some magic now, Sophie said fervently. She could feel her

heart tripping in her chest and was aware that her tongue seemed far too

large for her mouth. She felt breathless and light-headed.

The largest pterosaur leaned across the hood of the car, resting its huge

wings on the scarred metal to support itself. Its long, snakelike head darted

forward to peer into the body of the car, and it slowly looked from Sophie to

Josh and then back to Sophie. Seen this close, its mouth was enormous, its

teeth endless.

Josh positioned the nozzle of the fire extinguisher against one of the many

holes in the windshield and aimed it at the pterosaur. His eyes were darting

left and right, watching the approach of the other two creatures, and his

hands were sweating so heavily that he was finding it difficult to hold the

fire extinguisher.

Josh, Sophie whispered, do something. Do something now!

Maybe the gas in the extinguisher will scare them away, Josh replied,

unconsciously lowering his voice to a whisper. Or poison them or something

And why would you want to do that? The pterosaur tilted its head to look at

Josh, mouth working, teeth glinting. The words were full of clicking pops and

stops, but the language was English. We are not your enemy.