The Alchemyst

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

N icholas Flamel's hands were already beginning to glow with green light when

he pulled open the door of the small shop, grimacing in annoyance as the bell

jangled merrily.

The sun had dipped below the horizon while the Witch worked with Sophie, and

a chill fog had rolled down the valley. It swirled and rolled the length of

Ojai Avenue, curling and twisting through the trees, leaving everything it

touched beaded with moisture. Cars crept along, their headlights outlined in

huge halos of light barely able to penetrate the gloom. The street was

completely deserted; the people outside had all been dressed for summer

weather and had fled indoors away from the damp.

Scatty joined Flamel at the door. She carried a short sword in one hand, a

nunchaku in the other, dangling loosely on its chain. This is not good, not

good at all. She breathed deeply. Smell that?

Flamel nodded. Sulfur. The odor of Dee.

Scatty rattled the nunchaku. He s really starting to annoy me.

Somewhere in the distance there was a metallic bang as two cars collided. A

car alarm echoed forlornly behind them. And there was a scream, high-pitched

and terrifying, and then another and another.

It s coming. Whatever it is, Nicholas Flamel'said grimly.

We don't want to be trapped here, Scatty said. Let s find Josh and get

back to the car.

Agreed. He who retreats lives longer. He turned to look back into the shop.

The Witch of Endor had Sophie by the arm and was whispering urgently to her.

Wisps of white smoke still curled off the girl, and tendrils of white air

dripped from her fingers like unwound bandages.

Sophie leaned forward and kissed the old woman on the cheek, then she turned

and hurried down the length of the shop. We have to go, she said

breathlessly, we have to get away from here. She had no idea what lay

outside, but her newfound knowledge enabled her imagination to populate the

fog with any number of monstrous creatures.

And close the door behind you, the Witch called out.

And at that moment all the lights flickered and died. Ojai was plunged into

darkness.

The bell jangled as the trio stepped out into the now-deserted street. The

fog had become so thick that drivers had been forced to pull off the road and

there was no longer traffic moving on the main street. An air of unnatural

silence had fallen. Flamel turned to Sophie. Can you pinpoint Josh?

He said he d wait for us in the park. She squinted, trying to penetrate the

fog, but it was so thick that she could barely see a foot in front of her

face. With Flamel and Scatty on either side of her, she stepped off the

sidewalk and made her way to the middle of the empty road. Josh? The fog

swallowed her words, muffling them to little more than a whisper. Josh, she

called again.

There was no response.

A sudden thought struck her and she flung out her right hand, fingers

splayed. A puff of air curled from her hand, but did nothing to the fog

except make it swirl and dance. She tried again, and an icy gale whipped

across the street, cutting a neat corridor through the fog, catching the rear

wing of an abandoned car in the middle of the road, leaving a ragged

indentation in the metal. Whoops. I guess I have to practice, she muttered.

A shape stepped into the opening in the fog, and then a second and a third.

And none of them were alive.

Closest to Sophie, Flamel and Scatty was a complete skeleton, standing tall

and straight, wearing the ragged remains of the blue uniform coat of a U.S.

cavalry officer. It carried the rusted stump of a sword in bony fingers. When

it turned its head toward them, the bones at the base of its skull popped and

cracked.

Necromancy, Flamel breathed. Dee s raised the dead.

Another figure loomed out of the fog: it was the partially mummified body of

a man carrying a huge railroad hammer. Behind it came another dead man, whose

remaining flesh was tanned to the consistency of leather. A pair of withered

leather gun belts was slung low across his hips, and when he saw the group,

he reached for the missing guns with skeletal fingers.

Sophie stood frozen in shock, and the wind died away from her fingers.

They re dead, she whispered. Skeletons. Mummies. They re all dead.

Yep, Scathach said matter-of-factly, skeletons and mummies. It depends on

what type of ground they were buried in. Damp soil, you get skeletons. She

stepped forward and swept out with a nunchaku, knocking the head clear off

another gunslinger, who d been attempting to raise a rusted rifle to his

shoulder. Dry soil, you get the mummies. doesn't stop them from hurting you,

though. The skeletal cavalry officer with the broken sword lashed out at

her, and she parried with her own sword. His rusted blade dissolved into

dust. Scatty s sword swung again and separated the head from the body, which

then immediately crumpled to the ground.

Although the shambling figures moved in complete silence, there were screams

all around now. And even though they were muffled by the fog, fear and abject

terror were clearly audible in them. The ordinary citizens of Ojai had become

aware that the dead were walking through their streets.

The fog was now thick with the creatures. They came from all sides, crowding

in on the trio, encircling them in the center of the road. As the twisting

sheets of dampness eddied and flowed, more and more skeletal and mummified

remains were revealed in brief glimpses: soldiers in the tattered blues and

grays of Civil War uniforms; farmers in rags of old-fashioned overalls;

cowboys in worn chaps and torn denim; women in long, sweeping skirts, now

moldy and ragged; miners in threadbare buckskins.

He s emptied a boot hill graveyard from one of the old abandoned towns!

Scatty exclaimed, standing with her back to Sophie, striking out around her.

No one here s in clothes made after 1880. Two skeletal women wearing

matching bonnets and the rags of their Sunday best clicked their way on bony

feet across Ojai Avenue toward her, arms outstretched. Scatty s sword whipped

around, slicing away the arms, but that didn't even slow them down. She

shoved her nunchaku back into her belt and pulled out her second sword. She

struck out again, both swords forming an X in the middle of the air, and

lopped off both heads, sending them bouncing back into the fog. The skeletons

crumpled into a disarray of bones.

Josh, Sophie called again, her voice high in desperation. Josh. Where are

you? Maybe the mummies and skeletons had gotten to him first. Maybe he was

going to loom up out of the fog any minute now, eyes blank and staring, head

twisted at an awkward angle. She shook her head, trying to clear the ghoulish

thoughts.

Flamel's hands burned with cold green fire, and the damp fog was rich with

the odor of mint. He snapped his fingers and sent a sheet of virescent fire

blazing into the fog. The fogbanks glowed emerald and aquamarine, but

otherwise, the magic had no effect. Flamel next threw a small ball of green

light directly in front of two lurching skeletons who loomed up before him.

Fire blazed over the creatures, crisping the remains of their gray

Confederate uniforms. They continued forward, bones clacking on the street,

closing in on him, and there were hundreds more behind them.

Sophie, get the Witch! We need her help.

But she Can't help us, Sophie said desperately. There s nothing more she

can do. She has no power left: she s given everything to me.

Everything? Flamel gasped, ducking beneath a swinging fist. He placed his

hand on the center of the dead man s rib cage and pushed, sending the

skeleton flying back into the crowd, where it fell in a tangle of bones.

Well then, Sophie, you do something!

What? she called. What could she do against an army of the undead? She was

a fifteen-year-old girl.

Anything!

A mummified arm shot out of the fog and cracked her across the shoulder. It

was like being hit by a wet towel.

Fear, revulsion and anger lent her strength. Right at that moment, however,

she couldn t remember anything the Witch had taught her, but then her

instincts or maybe the Witch s imparted knowledge took over. She deliberately

allowed her anger to surge into her aura. Abruptly, the air was filled with

the richness of creamy vanilla as Sophie s aura blazed pure silver. Bringing

the palm of her right hand up to her face, she blew into her cupped fingers,

then tossed the captured breath into the middle of the dead. A six-foot-tall

whirlwind, a miniature twister, appeared, growing up out of the ground. It

sucked the dead nearest to it into its core, grinding and shattering the

bones, then spitting out the splintered remains. Sophie threw a second and

then a third ball of air. The three twisters danced and moved among the

skeletons and mummies, cutting a swath of destruction through them. She found

she could direct the twisters by simply looking in a particular direction,

and they would obediently drift that way.

Suddenly, Dee s voice echoed out of the fog. Do you like my army, Nicholas?

The fog flattened the sound, making it impossible to locate. The last time I

was in Ojai oh, over a hundred years ago I discovered a marvelous little

graveyard just below the Three Sisters Peaks. The town it was built alongside

is long gone, but the graves and their contents remain.

Flamel was fighting frantically as fists punched, fingernails scratched, feet

kicked. There was no real strength to the skeletons blows or the mummies

slaps, but what they lacked in force they made up for in numbers. There were

simply too many of them. There was a bruise beginning to darken beneath his

eye and a long scratch on the back of his hand. Scatty moved around Sophie,

defending her while she controlled the whirlwinds.

I don't know how long that graveyard was in use. A couple of hundred years,

certainly. I ve no idea how many corpses it holds. Hundreds, maybe even

thousands. And, Nicholas, I ve called them all.

Where is he? Flamel'said through gritted teeth. He s got to be close very

close to be able to control this number of corpses. I need to know where he

is to do anything.

Sophie felt a wave of exhaustion wash over her, and suddenly, one of the

twisters wobbled and then vanished. The two that remained were weaving from

side to side as Sophie s physical strength ebbed. Another died, and the one

that remained was rapidly losing power. This exhaustion was the price of

performing magic, she realized. But she needed to keep going for just a

little longer; she had to find her brother.

we've got to get out of here. Scathach caught Sophie and held her upright.

The skeletal dead surged forward, and Scatty beat them back with neat,

precise movements of her sword.

Josh, Sophie whispered tiredly. Where s Josh? we've got to find Josh.

The fog robbed Dee s voice of much of its emotion, but the glee in his tone

was evident when he said, And do you know what else I discovered? These

mountains have been luring creatures other than humans for the past

millennia. The land here is littered with bones. Hundreds of bones. And

remember, Nicholas, I am, first and foremost, a necromancer.

The bear that loomed up out of the gray fogbank was at least eight feet tall.

And even though patches of fur remained on its skeleton, it was clear that it

had died a long time before. The snow-white bones only emphasized its huge

daggerlike claws.

Behind the bear, the skeleton of a saber-toothed tiger appeared. And then a

cougar, and another bear smaller this time, and not quite as decomposed.

A word from me stops them, Dee s voice boomed. I want the pages of the

Codex.

No, Flamel'said grimly. Where is he? Where is he hiding?

Where s my brother? Sophie called desperately, and then screamed as a dead

hand wrapped itself in her hair. Scathach chopped it off at the wrist, but it

still hung tangled in her hair like a bizarre hair clip. What have you done

with my brother?

You brother is considering his options. Yours is not the only side in this

battle. And now, since I have the boy, all I need are the pages.

Never.

The bear and the tiger charged through the crowd of bodies, brushing them

aside, trampling them in their eagerness to get to the trio. The

saber-toothed tiger reached them first. Its gleaming skeletal head was

massive, and the two downward-jutting teeth were at least eight inches long.

Flamel placed himself between Sophie and the creature.

Hand over the pages, Nicholas, or I will loose these undead beasts on the

town.

Nicholas frantically hunted through his memory for a spell that would stop

the creature. He bitterly regretted now not studying more magic. He snapped

his fingers and a tiny bubble of light popped onto the ground in front of the

tiger.

Is that all you can manage, Nicholas? My, you re weakening.

The bubble burst and spread across the ground in a cool emerald stain.

He s close enough to see us, Nicholas said. All I need is one glimpse of

him.

The skeletal tiger s massive right front paw stepped into the green light.

And stuck. It attempted to lift its leg, but thick strands of sticky green

threads connected it to the road. And now its left paw stepped into the light

and stuck.

Not quite so weak, eh, Dee? Flamel'shouted.

But the press of bodies behind the saber-toothed tiger kept pushing it

forward. Suddenly, its bony legs snapped off, sending the huge beast lunging

forward. Flamel managed to throw up his arms before the monster collapsed on

top of him, jaw gaping, teeth wide and savage.

Good-bye, Nicholas Flamel, Dee called. I'll just take the pages from your

body.

No, Sophie whispered. No, it was not going to end like this. She had been

Awakened, and the Witch of Endor had imbued her with all her knowledge. There

had to be something she could do. Sophie opened her mouth and screamed, her

aura blazing with silver incandescence.