“No,” the god finally admitted in a ghastly whisper. “She will not.”
“Maybe someday I will learn what you did to earn such punishment.”
“Maybe. But not from me.”
“So you are trapped … or maybe not.”
“Explain yourself, Magician.”
Dee started walking counterclockwise around the frozen Elder. He kept his voice low and unemotional as he outlined his plan. “Yesterday, you Awakened Josh, the sun twin. You touched him; you are connected to him.”
“Yes, there is a connection,” Mars agreed.
“The Witch touched the moon twin, gifted her with the Magic of Air, and also poured her complete compendium of knowledge into her,” Dee continued. “Yesterday, you said that the girl must know the spell that would free you.”
“And she said she did,” Mars whispered.
Dee slapped his hand off the statue’s shoulder as he spun to crouch in front of it. Electrical energy snapped around the room. “And she refused you! But would she refuse you if her brother’s life—wait, better still, her parents’ lives—were in danger? Would she? Could she?”
The smoke curling from behind the Elder’s full-face visor turned white, then gray-black. “Even knowing me, knowing what I am, what I did, what I am capable of, she still faced me down to rescue her brother,” Mars said very slowly. “I believe she would do anything to save her brother and her family.”
“Then here is my oath to you,” Dee continued. “Find the boy for me, and I swear I will bring the girl, her brother and their parents here to stand before you. When she is faced with their deaths, I guarantee she will free you of this terrible curse.”
rom the outside, the long metal structure sitting in the middle of the muddy clearing had looked dilapidated and run-down, but like everything else in the junkyard, it was just a fa¸ade. Inside, it was neat and spotlessly clean. One end of the room was used for cooking and eating; a sink, a fridge and a stove sat next to a table. The middle section of the hut contained a tiered desk holding a desktop computer hooked up to two matching screens, while at the far end of the hut, a large flat-screen TV faced two leather couches. A trio of low metal towers held dozens of DVDs.
When the twins followed Shakespeare inside, they realized immediately that they had walked in on an argument. Flamel and Palamedes were standing at either end of the small wooden kitchen table, the knight with his arms folded across his massive chest, Flamel with his hands clenched into fists. The air was sour with their mixed auras.
“I think you should wait outside,” Nicholas said quietly, looking from Josh to Sophie, then turning back to the knight. “We’ll be done in a few moments.”
Sophie moved to leave, but Josh pushed her forward into the hut. “No. I think we should wait here,” he said firmly. He looked from Palamedes to the Alchemyst. “If you have anything to say, you should say it in front of us. After all, this is about us, isn’t it?” He glanced sidelong at his sister. “We’re the … what’s the word?” he asked.
“The catalyst,” she supplied.
Josh nodded. “The catalyst,” he said, though that wasn’t the word he had been hunting for. He looked around the room, eyes lingering on the computer, and then turned to his twin. “I just hate it when adults send you out of the room when they’re talking about you, don’t you?”
Sophie agreed. “Hate it.”
“We weren’t talking about you,” Flamel said quickly. “This has nothing to do with you, actually. This has to do with a little unfinished business between Mr. Shakespeare and me.”
“Right now,” Josh said, stepping into the room, concentrating hard on keeping his voice even and preventing it from trembling, “just about everything that happens concerns us.” He looked directly at the Alchemyst. “You’ve nearly killed us. You’ve changed our lives ir … irev … irevo …”
“Irrevocably,” Sophie said.
“Irrevocably,” Josh said. “And if you two have a problem, then it’s our problem and we need to know about it.”
Sophie put her hand on Josh’s shoulder and squeezed encouragingly.
Palamedes grinned, a quick flash of white teeth. “The boy has spirit. I like that.”
Nicholas’s face was an impassive mask, but his pale eyes were clouded. A vein throbbed on his forehead. Folding his arms across his chest, he nodded toward Palamedes. “If you must know, then, I have no argument with the Saracen Knight.” He moved his head slightly, indicating the smaller man in the stained overalls, who was now standing before an open fridge, pulling out bags of fruit. “I have a problem with this man. A major problem.”
Shakespeare ignored him. “What will you have to eat?” he asked, looking at the twins. “I know you do not want any meat, but we have plenty of fruit, fresh this morning. And Palamedes picked up some nice fish in Billingsgate Fish Market earlier.” He dumped several bags of fruit into the sink, then turned the taps on full. Water thundered into the metal sink.
“Just the fruit,” Sophie said.
Palamedes looked at the twins. “This dispute has nothing to do with you,” he said. “It goes back centuries. But yes, I agree that you are affected by it. We all are.” He turned back to the Alchemyst. “If we are to survive, then we—all of us—must put aside old arguments, old habits. However,” he rumbled, “let me suggest that we discuss this after we eat.”
“We want some answers now,” Josh said. “We’re tired of being treated like children.”
The knight bowed and looked at the Alchemyst. “They have a right to answers.”
Nicholas Flamel rubbed his hands against his face. There were bruise-colored bags under his eyes, and the wrinkles on his forehead had deepened. Sophie noticed that tiny spots had started to appear on the backs of his hands. The Alchemyst had said that he would age at the rate of at least a year for every day that passed, but she thought he looked at least ten years older than he had a week ago. “Before we go any further,” Nicholas said, his French accent more evident now that he was tired, “I must admit I am uncomfortable discussing anything in front of …” He raised his head and looked at Shakespeare. “That man.”
“But why?” Sophie asked, frustrated. She pulled out a wooden chair and collapsed into it. Josh took the chair beside her. The knight remained standing a moment longer, then he too sat. Only the Alchemyst and the Bard still stood.
“He betrayed Perenelle and me,” Flamel snarled. “He sold us out to Dee.”
The twins turned to look at the Bard, who was arranging grapes, apples, pears and cherries on plates. “This much is true,” he said.
“Because of him, Perenelle was wounded and nearly died,” the Alchemyst snapped.
The twins looked at the Bard again. He nodded. “It was in 1576,” Shakespeare said quietly, looking up from the table, his pale blue eyes magnified behind his glasses, huge with unshed tears.
Josh sat back in astonishment. “You’re arguing about something that happened more than four hundred years ago?” he asked incredulously.
Shakespeare turned to speak directly to Sophie and Josh. “I was but twelve years old, younger than you are now.” His lips moved, revealing his yellowed teeth. “I made a mistake—a terrible mistake—and I’ve spent centuries paying for it.” He glanced back to Flamel. “I was apprenticed to the Alchemyst. He was running a small bookshop in Stratford, where I grew up.”
Josh turned to look at Nicholas.
“He did not treat me well.”
Flamel’s head rose quickly and he opened his mouth to respond, but Shakespeare pressed on.
“I was not uneducated; I had attended the King’s New School, and I could read and write English, Latin and Greek. Even then, at that early age, I knew I wanted to be a writer, and I prevailed upon my father to find me a position in Mr. Fleming’s bookshop.” Shakespeare’s eyes were fixed on the Alchemyst now, and his language and even his accent were changing, becoming formal, almost archaic. “I wanted to read and learn and write; Mr. Fleming had me sweeping
floors, running errands, carrying parcels of books across town.”
The Alchemyst opened his mouth again but then closed it, saying nothing.
“And then Dr. Dee appeared in Stratford. You should know that he was famous then. He had served two queens, Mary and Elizabeth, and survived with his head still on his shoulders, which was no mean feat in those days. He was close to Elizabeth—it was said that he had even chosen the date for her coronation. He was reputed to have the largest library in England,” Shakespeare continued, “so it was entirely natural that he called upon the Flemings’ bookshop. Surprisingly, the Flemings, who rarely left the premises and never the town, were not at home that day. The shop was in the charge of one of their assistants, a horse-faced man whose name I have never been able to remember.”
“Sebastian,” Flamel said softly.
Shakespeare’s damp eyes fixed on the Alchemyst’s face and he nodded. “Ah yes, Sebastian. But Dee was not interested in him. He spoke to me, in English first, then Latin, then Greek. He asked me to recommend a book—I suggested Ovid’s Medea, which he purchased—and then he asked me if I was happy in my present position.” Shakespeare’s pale blue eyes locked onto Flamel’s. “I told him I was not. So he offered me an apprenticeship. Given the choice between a lowly position as a bookseller’s assistant and an apprenticeship with one of the most powerful men in England, how could I refuse?”
Josh nodded. He would have made the same choice himself.
“So I became Dee’s apprentice. More than that, perhaps: I came to believe that he even regarded me as a son. What is undeniable is that he created me.”
Sophie leaned forward over the table, confused. “What do you mean, he created you?”
Shakespeare’s eyes clouded with sadness. “Dee saw something in me—a hunger for sensation, a yearning for adventure—and offered to train and educate me in ways the Flemings—the Flamels—either would not or could not. True to his word, the Magician showed me wonders. He took me to worlds beyond comprehension, he fed my imagination, allowed me access to his incredible library, which gave me the language to shape and describe the worlds I had experienced. Because of Dr. John Dee I became William Shakespeare the writer.”
“You’ve missed the bit where he asked you to creep into our home at dead of night and steal the Codex,” Nicholas Flamel said icily. “And when you failed, he accused us of being Spanish spies. Fifty of the Queen’s Men surrounded the bookshop and attacked without warning. Sebastian was injured and Perenelle was struck with a musket ball in the shoulder, which almost killed her.”
Shakespeare listened to the words and nodded very slowly. “Dee and I were not in Stratford when that happened, and I only learned about it much, much later,” he said in a raw whisper. “And by then it was too late, of course. I was deep under Dee’s spell: he had convinced me that I could become the writer I wanted to be. Even though it sounded impossible, I believed him. My father was a glove maker and wool merchant; there were no writers, no poets or playwrights or even actors in my family.” He shook his head slightly. “Perhaps I should have followed my father into the family business.”
“The world would have been a poorer place,” Palamedes said quietly. The Saracen Knight was watching Shakespeare and the Alchemyst closely.
“I married. I had children,” Shakespeare continued, speaking more quickly now, focused only on Flamel. “A girl first, my beautiful Susanna, then two years later, the twins, Hamnet and Judith.”
Sophie and Josh straightened, glancing quickly at one another; they hadn’t ever heard about Shakespeare’s twins.
There was a long pause and finally the immortal Bard sucked in a deep shuddering breath. He spread his long-fingered hands on the wooden table and stared hard at them. “I discovered then why Dee was interested in me. He had somehow known that I would have twins, and he believed that they were the legendary twins prophesied in the Codex. In 1596, I was in London and no longer living at home in Stratford. Dee visited my wife and offered to educate the twins. She foolishly agreed, even though by that time, ugly rumors were beginning to circulate about the doctor. A few days later, he attempted to have Hamnet Awakened. The Awakening killed him,” he finished simply. “My son was eleven years old.”
No one spoke into the long silence that followed, the only sound the pattering of rain on the metal roof.
Finally, Shakespeare looked up and stared at Flamel. His eyes were brimming and there were tears on his cheeks. He came around the table until he was standing directly in front of the Alchemyst. “A foolish boy betrayed you out of ignorance and stupidity. Ultimately, I paid for that action with the life of my son. Nicholas, I am not your enemy. I hate Dee in ways you cannot even begin to understand.” Shakespeare gripped the Alchemyst’s arm, fingers tightening. “I have waited a long time to meet you. Between us, we know more about the Magician than anyone else on this planet. I am tired of running and hiding. It is time to pool our knowledge, to work together. It is time to take the fight to Dee and his Dark Elders. What say you?” he demanded.
“It’s a good strategy,” Josh said, before Flamel could answer. He was aware, even as he spoke, that he had no idea what he was talking about. It was Mars speaking. “You’ve spent a lifetime running; Dee won’t expect you to change tactics.”
Palamedes rested his huge forearms on the table. “The boy is right,” he sighed. “The Magician has effectively trapped you here in London. If you run, he will capture you.”
“And if we stay here, he’ll capture us,” Josh said quickly.
Nicholas Flamel looked around the table, obviously troubled by what he’d heard. “I’m not sure …,” he said finally. “If only I could speak to Perenelle; she would know what to do.”
Shakespeare grinned delightedly for the first time since they’d arrived. “I think we can arrange that.”
erenelle Flamel stood framed in the doorway and stared down into the gloom. The heavy metal door that had once sealed this opening lay on the ground behind her, battered and twisted, ripped off its hinges by the weight of the spiders that had surged out of the prison cells below. With Areop-Enap’s retreat to its cocoon, the surviving arachnids had vanished, and all that remained on the surface of Alcatraz were the dried-up husks of dead flies and the shells of spiders. She wondered who—or what—had sent the flies. Someone powerful, certainly; someone who was probably even now plotting their next move.
Perenelle tilted her head to one side and pushed her long black hair back over her ear, closed her eyes and listened. Her hearing was acute, but she could pick up nothing moving. And yet the Sorceress knew the cells were not empty. The island’s prison was full of blood drinkers and flesh eaters, vetala, minotaur, Windigo and oni, trolls and cluricauns—and, of course, the deadly sphinx. The sunlight had recharged Perenelle’s aura, and she knew she could handle the lesser creatures—though the minotaur and the Windigo would give her some problems—but she was fully aware that she could not deal with the sphinx. The eagle-winged lion fed off magical energy; just being close to it would drain her aura, leaving her helpless.
Perenelle pressed her hand to her growling stomach. She was hungry. The Sorceress rarely needed to eat anymore, but she recognized that she was burning a lot of energy and needed calories to fuel it. If Nicholas were there it would not be a problem; many times on their travels, he had used his alchemical skills to transmute stones into bread, and water into soup. She knew a couple of horn-of-plenty spells she’d learned in Greece that would give her enough to eat, but casting them would mean using her aura, whose distinctive signature would draw the sphinx upon her.
She’d encountered no humans on the island—she doubted any could have survived a single night on Alcatraz with their sanity or body intact. She remembered reading a newspaper report recently—about six months ago—that had said Alcatraz had been acquired by a private corporation and was closing to the public. The state park was going to be turned into a multimedia living history museum. Now that she knew Dee owned the island,
she guessed that that wasn’t the truth. Worse, though, with no humans having been on the island for at least six months, it was looking less and less likely she’d discover anything edible left behind. It wouldn’t be the first time she’d gone hungry in her long life.
The Magician had gathered an army in the cells, creatures from every nation and the myths of every race. Without exception, they were the monsters who had been the source of human nightmares for millennia. And if there was an army, that meant a war was coming. Perenelle’s full lips curled in a wry smile. So it looked as if she was the only human on Alcatraz … along with assorted mythical beasts, nightmare monsters, vampires and werebeasts. There were Nereids in the sea, a vengeful Crow Goddess locked up in a cell deep below the island and an incredibly powerful Elder or Next Generation attacking her from somewhere on the mainland.
Perenelle’s smile faded; she was sure she’d been in worse situations at some time in her past, but right now she couldn’t remember when. And she’d always had Nicholas with her. Together, they were unbeatable.
The tiniest breeze blew up from below, ruffling her hair, and then dust motes whirled and a shape flickered in the gloom. Perenelle darted back out into the sunlight, where she was strongest. She doubted it was the sphinx; she would have smelled its unmistakable odor: the musky scent of lion, bird and serpent.
A shape materialized in the doorway, taking on depth and substance as the light hit it, a figure composed of red rust particles and the shining scraps of spiderweb: it was the ghost, Juan Manuel de Ayala, the discoverer and Guardian of Alcatraz. The specter bowed deeply. “It is good to see you hale and well, madame,” he said in archaic, formal Spanish.
Perenelle smiled. “Why, did you think I would be joining you as a spirit?”
A semitransparent de Ayala floated in the air and considered the question carefully; then he shook his head. “I knew that if you had fallen on the island, you would not have remained here. Your spirit would have gone wandering.”