There was something terribly wrong here.
Perenelle rounded a corner and felt a breeze ruffle her hair. She turned her face to it, nostrils flaring, smelling salt and seaweed. With a quick glance over her shoulder, she hurried down the corridor.
Dee had to be collecting these creatures, had to be gathering them together, but why? And more importantly, how? Capturing a single vetala was unheard of, but a dozen? And how had they managed to get a baby minotaur away from its mother? Even Scathach, as fearless and deadly as she was, would never face down one of the bull-headed race if she could help it.
Perenelle came to a flight of steps. The smell of salt air was stronger now, the breeze cooler, but she hesitated before putting her foot down and bent to check the stair for silver strands. There were none. She still hadn’t spotted whatever had spun the webs that festooned the lower cells, and it was making her incredibly nervous. It suggested that the web creators were probably sleeping…which meant that they would wake up sooner or later. When they did, the entire prison would be swarming with spiders—or maybe worse—and she didn’t want to be out in the open when that happened.
A little of her power had returned—certainly enough to defend herself, though the moment she used her magic, it would draw the sphinx to her and simultaneously weaken and age her. Perenelle knew she would only get one chance to face down the creature, and she wanted—needed—to be as powerful as possible for that encounter. Darting up the creaking metal stairs, she stopped at the rust-eaten door. Pushing back her hair, she placed her ear against the corroded metal. All she could hear was the dull pounding of the sea as it continued to eat away at the island. Gripping the handle in both hands, she gently bore down on it and pushed the door open, gritting her teeth as old hinges squeaked and squalled, the sound echoing through the corridors.
Perenelle stepped out into a broad courtyard surrounded by ruined and tumbled buildings. To the right the sun was sinking in the west, and it painted the stones in a warm orange light. With a sigh of relief, she spread her arms wide, turned her face to the sun, threw her head back and closed her eyes. Static crackled and ran along the length of her black hair, lifting it off her shoulders as her aura immediately began to recharge. The wind whipping in off the bay was cool, and she breathed deeply, ridding her lungs of the stench of rot, mildew and the monsters below.
And then she suddenly realized what all the creatures in the cells had in common: they were monsters.
Where were the gentler spirits, the sprites and fey, the huldra and the rusalka, the elves and the inari? Dee had only gathered the hunters, the predators: the Magician was assembling an army of monsters.
A savage howling shriek ripped through the island, vibrating the very stones beneath her feet. “Sorceress!”
The sphinx had discovered Perenelle was missing.
“Where are you, Sorceress?” The fresh sea air was suddenly tainted with the stink of the sphinx.
Perenelle was turning back to close the door when she spotted movement in the shadows below. She’d looked into the sun too long, and the golden ball had left burning afterimages on her retina. She squeezed her eyes shut for a moment; then she opened them again to peer into the gloom.
The shadows were moving, flowing down the walls, gathering at the bottom of the steps.
Perenelle shook her head. These were no shadows. This was a mass of creatures, thousands, tens of thousands of them. They flowed up the stairs, slowing only as they approached the light.
Perenelle knew what they were then—spiders, deadly and poisonous—and knew why the webs were so different. She glimpsed a seething mass of wolf spiders and tarantulas, black widows and brown recluses, garden spiders and funnel webs. She knew they should not exist together…which probably meant that whatever had called them, and now controlled them, probably lurked below.
The Sorceress slammed the metal door shut and wedged a lump of masonry against the base. Then she turned and ran. But she had only taken a dozen steps before the door was ripped off its hinges by the weight of the massed spiders.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Josh wearily pushed open the door to the kitchen and stepped into the long low room. Sophie turned away from the sink and watched her brother slump into a chair, drop the stone sword onto the floor, lay his arms on the table and rest his head on them.
“How was it?” Sophie asked.
“I can barely move,” he mumbled. “My shoulders ache, my back aches, my arms ache, my head aches, I have blisters on my hands and I can barely close my fingers.” He showed her his raw palms. “I never realized just holding a sword would be so hard.”
“But did you learn anything?”
“I learned how to hold it.”
Sophie slid a plateful of toast across the table and Josh immediately straightened up, grabbed a piece and shoved it in his mouth. “At least you can still eat,” she said. Catching hold of his right hand, she turned it over to look at his palm. “Ouch!” she said in sympathy. The skin at the base of his thumb was red, bubbling up in a painful-looking water blister.
“Told you,” he said through a mouthful of toast. “I need a Band-Aid.”
“Let me try something.” Sophie quickly rubbed her hands together, then pressed the thumb of her left hand against her right wrist. Closing her eyes, she concentrated…and her little finger popped alight, burning with a cool blue flame.
Josh stopped chewing and stared.
Before he could object, Sophie ran her finger over his blistered flesh. He attempted to pull away, but she held his wrist with surprising strength. When she finally let it go, he jerked his hand back.
“What do you think you’re…,” he began, looking at his hand. Then he discovered that the blister had vanished, leaving only the faint hint of a circle on his skin.
“Francis told me that fire can heal.” Sophie held up her right hand. Wisps of gray smoke curled off her fingers; then they snapped alight. When she closed her hand into a fist, the fire extinguished.
“I thought”—Josh swallowed hard and tried again—“I didn’t know you’d even started to learn about fire.”
“Started and finished.”
“Finished?”
“All done.” She brushed her hands together; sparks flew.
Chewing his toast, Josh looked at his sister critically. When she’d first been Awakened and when she’d learned the Magic of Air, he’d seen the differences in her immediately, especially around her face and eyes. He’d even noted the new subtle shading of her eye color. He couldn’t see any changes this time. She looked the same as before…but she wasn’t. And the Fire magic distanced her even further from him. “You don’t seem any different,” he said.
“I don’t feel any different either. Except warmer,” she added. “I don’t feel cold.”
So this was his sister now, Josh thought. She looked just like any other teenager he knew. And yet…she was unlike anyone else on the planet: she could control two of the elemental magics.
Maybe that was the scariest part of all this: the immortal humans—people like Flamel and Perenelle, Joan, flamboyant Saint-Germain and even Dee: they all looked so ordinary. They were the type of people you would pass in the street and not give a second glance to. Scathach, with her red hair and grass green eyes, was always going to attract attention. But she wasn’t human.
“Did it…did it hurt?” he asked, curious.
“Not at all.” She smiled. “It was almost disappointing. Francis sort of washed my hands with fire…oh, and I got this,” she said, holding up her right arm and allowing her sleeve to fall back to reveal the design burned into her flesh.
Josh leaned forward to look closely at Sophie’s arm. “It’s a tattoo,” he said, envy clearly audible in his voice. The twins had always talked about getting tattoos together. “Mom is going to freak when she sees that.” Then he added, “Where did you get it? And why?”
“It’s not ink, it was burned on with fire,” Sophie explained, twisting her wris
t to show off the design.
Josh suddenly caught her hand and pointed at the red dot surrounded by the gold circle on the underside of her wrist. “I’ve seen something like that before,” he said slowly, and frowned, trying to remember.
His twin nodded. “It took me a while, but then I remembered that Nicholas has something like it on his wrist,” Sophie said. “A circle with a cross through it.”
“That’s right.” Josh closed his eyes. He’d first noted the small tattoo on Flamel’s wrist when he’d started working for him in the bookshop, and though he’d wondered why it was in such an unusual place, he’d never asked about it. He opened his eyes again and looked at the tattoo, and he suddenly realized that Sophie was branded by magic, marked as someone who could control the elements. And he didn’t like it. “What do you need it for?”
“When I want to use fire, I press on the center of the circle and focus my aura. Saint-Germain called it a shortcut, a trigger for my power.”
“I wonder what Flamel needs a trigger for,” Josh wondered aloud.
The kettle pinged and Sophie turned back to the sink. She had asked herself the same question. “Maybe we can ask him when he wakes up.”
“Any more toast?” Josh asked. “I’m starving.”
“You’re always starving.”
“Yeah, well, the sword training made me hungry.”
Sophie stuck a fork through a slice of bread and held it out in front of her. “Watch this,” she said. She pressed on the underside of her wrist and her index finger burst into flame. Frowning hard, concentrating, she focused the wavering flame into a thin blue fire and then ran it over the bread, gently toasting it. “Do you want this done on both sides?”
Josh watched with a mixture of fascination and horror. He knew from science class that bread toasted around 310 degrees Fahrenheit.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Machiavelli was sitting in the back of his car alongside Dr. John Dee. Facing them were the three Disir. Dagon sat in the driver’s seat, eyes invisible behind his wraparound glasses. The car smelled faintly of his sour fishy odor.
A cell phone buzzed, breaking the uncomfortable silence. Machiavelli flipped it open without looking at the screen. He closed it again almost immediately. “All clear. My men have pulled back and there is a security cordon in place around all the connecting streets. No one will accidentally wander into the area.”
“Whatever happens, do not enter the house,” the Disir with violet eyes said. “Once we free Nidhogg, we shall have very little control until it feeds.”
John Dee leaned forward, and for a moment, it looked as if he was about to tap the young woman on the knee. The look on her face prevented him. “Flamel and the children must not be allowed to escape.”
“That sounds like a threat, Doctor,” the warrior sitting on the left said. “Or an order.”
“And we do not like threats,” her sister sitting to the right added. “And we don’t take orders.”
Dee blinked slowly. “It is neither a threat nor an order. Simply a…request,” he said eventually.
“We are here only for Scathach,” the warrior with violet eyes said. “The rest of them are not our concern.”
Dagon climbed out of the car and opened the door. Without a backward glance, the Valkyries stepped out into the first glimmers of predawn light, spread out and moved slowly down the back street. They looked like three young women coming home from an all-night party.
Dee shifted position, taking the seat facing Machiavelli. “If they succeed, I will ensure that our masters know that the Disir were your idea,” he said pleasantly.
“I’m sure you will.” Machiavelli didn’t look at the English Magician and continued to follow the progress of the three girls as they walked down the street. “And if they fail, you can tell our masters that the Disir were my idea, and you can absolve yourself of any blame,” he added. “Shifting the blame: I believe I originally came up with that concept about twenty years before you were born.”
“I thought you said they were bringing Nidhogg?” Dee asked, ignoring him.
Niccolò Machiavelli tapped the window with his manicured fingernails. “They did.”
As the Disir moved down the narrow, cobbled, high-walled alley, they changed.
The transformation occurred as they passed through a patch of shadow. They entered as young women, dressed in soft leather jackets, jeans and boots…and a moment later they were Valkyries: warrior maidens. Long coats of ice white chain mail fell to their knees, knee-high metal boots with spiked toes covered their feet, and they wore heavy leather-and-metal gauntlets on their hands. Rounded helmets protected their heads and masked their eyes and noses but left their mouths free. White leather belts around their waists held their sword and knife sheaths. The Valkyries each carried a wide-bladed sword in one hand, but each also had a second weapon strapped to her back: a spear, a double-headed axe and a war hammer.
They stopped before a rotting green gate set into the wall. One of the Valkyries turned to look back at the car and pointed a gloved hand at the gate.
Machiavelli hit a button and the window rolled down. He raised his thumb and nodded. Despite its decrepit appearance, it was the back gate to Saint-Germain’s house.
Each of the Disir reached into a leather pouch that hung from her belt. Taking out a handful of flat stonelike objects, they tossed them at the base of the door.
“They’re Casting the Runes,” Machiavelli explained. “They’re calling Nidhogg…the creature you released, a creature the Elders themselves locked away.”
“I didn’t know it was trapped by the World Tree,” Dee muttered.
“I’m surprised. I thought you knew everything.” Machiavelli shifted in the seat to look at Dee. In the gloomy half-light, he could see that the Magician was looking pale and there was the faintest sheen of sweat on his forehead. Centuries of controlling his emotions ensured that Machiavelli didn’t smile. “Why did you destroy the Yggdrasill?” he asked.
“It was the source of Hekate’s power,” Dee said quietly, eyes fixed on the Valkyries, watching them intently. They had stepped back from the stones they’d dropped on the ground and were talking quietly amongst themselves, pointing out individual tiles.
“It was as old as this planet. And yet you destroyed it without a second thought. Why did you do that?” Machiavelli wondered aloud.
“I did what was necessary.” Dee’s words were ice. “I will always do whatever is necessary to bring the Elders back to this world.”
“But you didn’t consider the consequences,” Niccolò Machiavelli said softly. “Every action has a consequence. The Yggdrasill you destroyed in Hekate’s kingdom stretched into several other Shadowrealms. The topmost branches reached the Shadowrealm of Asgard, and the roots stretched deep into Niflheim, the World of Darkness.” He saw Dee stiffen. “Not only did you release Nidhogg, but you also destroyed at least three Shadowrealms—maybe more—when you destroyed the World Tree.”
“I didn’t know….”
“You made a lot of enemies,” Machiavelli continued smoothly, ignoring him, “dangerous enemies. I have heard that the Elder Hel escaped the destruction of her kingdom. I understand she is hunting you.”
“She does not frighten me,” Dee snapped, but there was a quaver in his voice.
“Oh, she should,” Machiavelli murmured. “She terrifies me.”
“My master will protect me,” Dee said confidently.
“He must be a powerful Elder indeed to protect you from Hel; no one has stood against her and survived.”
“My master is all-powerful,” Dee snapped.
“I look forward to learning the identity of this mysterious Elder.”
“When all this is over, maybe I’ll introduce you,” Dee said. He nodded down the alleyway. “And that could be very soon.”
The runestones hissed and sizzled on the ground.
They were irregular pieces of flat black stone, each etched with a series of angular li
nes, squares and slashes. Now the lines were glowing red, crimson smoke coiling into the still predawn air.
One of the Disir used the tip of her sword to move three of the runestones together. A second nudged a stone out of the way with the steel toe of her boot and then dragged another into place. The third found a single runestone at the edge of the pile and eased it into position at the end of the string of letters with her sword.
“Nidhogg,” the Disir whispered, calling the nightmare whose name they had spelled out in the ancient stones.
“Nidhogg,” Machiavelli said very quietly. He looked over Dee’s shoulder to where Dagon sat staring straight ahead, apparently disinterested in what was happening to his left. “I know what the legends say about it, but Dagon, what exactly is it?”
“My people called it the Devourer of Corpses,” the driver said, voice sticky and bubbling. “It was already here before my race claimed the seas, and we were amongst the first to arrive on this planet.”
Dee quickly swiveled in the seat to look at the driver. “What are you?”
Dagon ignored the question. “Nidhogg was so dangerous that a council of the Elder Race created a terrible Shadowrealm, Niflheim, the World of Darkness, to contain it, and then they used the unbreakable roots of the Yggdrasill to wrap around the creature, chaining it for eternity.”
Machiavelli kept his eyes fixed on the red-black smoke coiling from the runestones. He thought he saw the outline of a shape beginning to form. “Why didn’t the Elders kill it?”
“Nidhogg was a weapon,” Dagon said.
“What did the Elders need a weapon for?” Machiavelli wondered aloud. “Their powers were almost limitless. They had no enemies.”
Although he sat with his hands resting lightly on the steering wheel, Dagon’s shoulders shifted and his head turned almost completely around so that he was facing Dee and Machiavelli. “The Elders were not the first upon this earth,” he said simply. “There were…others.” He pronounced the word slowly and carefully. “The Elders used Nidhogg and some of the other primordial creatures as weapons in the Great War to completely destroy them.”