CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Nidhogg’s sticky tongue unfurled through the air toward Scathach, who was still pinned against the kitchen wall, wrapped tightly in the creature’s claws. The Warrior fought in complete silence, struggling in the monster’s grip, wrenching herself from side to side, boot heels scrambling for purchase on the slippery tiled floor. With her arms pinned to her sides, she was unable to use her short swords.
Josh knew that if he even paused for thought, he was not going to be able to go through with what he meant to do. The smell of the creature was making him sick to his stomach, and his heart was thumping so hard he could barely catch his breath.
The forked tongue brushed across the table, leaving a deep burn mark on the wood. It punched right through a wooden chair as it headed straight for the Warrior’s head.
All he had to do, Josh kept reminding himself, was to think of his sword as a football. Holding Clarent high above his head in the two-handed grip Joan had shown him earlier, he launched himself forward in a move that the coach at his last school had spent an entire season trying—and failing—to teach him.
But even as he was jumping, he knew he’d miscalculated. The tongue was moving too fast, and he was too far away. With a last desperate effort, he flung the sword from his hand.
The flat of the blade struck the side of Nidhogg’s meaty tongue. And stuck fast.
Years of tae kwon do training took over as Josh crashed onto the tiled floor. He hit it hard but still managed to slap it with the palm of his hand, sending his body forward into a neat roll that brought him back to his feet…within inches of the meaty acid-dripping tongue. And the sword.
Catching hold of the hilt, he used all his strength to pull it away from the tongue—it came free with a sticky Velcro sound, and the tongue sizzled and hissed as it snapped back into the monster’s mouth. Josh knew that if he stopped, both he and Scatty were dead. He plunged Clarent point first into the serpent’s arm just above the wrist joint. As the blade sank smoothly into the alligator-like hide, it began to vibrate, a high-pitched keening sound that set Josh’s teeth on edge. He felt a rush of warmth flowing up his arm and into his chest. A heartbeat later, a surge of strength and energy wiped away his aches and pains. His aura blossomed bright blinding gold, and there was a tracery of light curling around the gray stone blade when he wrenched it out of the creature.
“The claws, Josh. Cut off a claw,” Scathach grunted as Nidhogg shook her hard. The two swords fell from her hands and clattered to the floor.
Josh lashed out at the monster, trying to cut off a claw, but the heavy stone blade turned at the last moment and bounced harmlessly off its foot. He tried again, and this time the sword struck sparks off the creature’s armored hide.
“Hey! Be careful,” Scathach yelped as the swinging blade came dangerously close to her head. “That’s one of the few weapons that really can kill me.”
“Sorry,” Josh muttered through clenched teeth. “I’ve never done anything like this before.” He slashed out at the claw again. Sparks flew into the Warrior’s face. “Why do we want a claw?” he grunted, hacking at the iron-hard skin.
“It can only be killed with one of its own claws,” Scathach said, her voice surprisingly calm. “Look out! Get back!”
Josh turned just as the thing’s huge head lunged forward, pushing into the side of the ruined house, its white tongue darting forward again. It was coming for him. It was moving too fast; there was nowhere to go—and if he did move, it would just hit Scatty. Planting his feet firmly, both hands wrapped tightly around Clarent’s hilt, he held the sword before his face. He closed his eyes at the approaching horror—and immediately opened them again. If he was going to die, he’d do it with his eyes open.
It was like playing a video game, he thought—except that this game was deadly. Almost in slow motion, he saw the two ends of the forked tongue wrap around the blade—as if it was going to wrench it from Josh’s hand. He tightened his grip, determined not to let the sword go.
When the flesh of the creature’s tongue touched the stone blade, the effect was immediate.
The creature froze, then convulsed and hissed, the sound like escaping steam. The acid from its tongue bubbled on the blade as the sword trembled in Josh’s hand, vibrating like a tuning fork, growing warm, then hot, and started to glow with a stark white light. He squeezed his eyes shut…
…and behind his closed eyes, Josh glimpsed a series of flickering images: a blasted and ruined landscape of black rock, pockmarked with pools of bubbling red lava, while overhead, the sky boiled with filthy clouds that rained ash and cinders. Spread across the sky, dangling from the clouds, were what looked like the roots of a huge tree. The roots were the source of the bitter white ash: they were dissolving, withering, dying….
Nidhogg jerked its blackened tongue free.
Josh gasped and opened his eyes just as his aura flared again, stronger—brighter—this time, blinding him. Panicked, waving the sword before him, he backed up until he felt the kitchen wall against his shoulder blades. He kept blinking furiously, wanting to rub his eyes, but he didn’t dare loosen his grip on the sword. All around him, he heard stones fall, plaster split, wood creak and snap, and he hunched his shoulders, expecting something to come crashing down on his head. “Scatty?” he called.
But there was no reply.
His voice rose. “Scatty!”
Squinting hard, blinking away the spots dancing before his eyes, he saw the monster dragging Scathach out of the house. Its tongue, now black and brown, was hanging loosely out of the side of its mouth. Holding the Warrior in a crushing grip, it turned on its own length and pushed through the devastated garden, its long tail slicing chunks out of the side of the house, smashing through the only unbroken window. Then the creature rose up on its two hind legs, like a collared lizard, and clattered down the alleyway, almost trampling underfoot the figure in white chain-mail armor standing guard. Without hesitation the figure disappeared after the creature.
Josh stumbled through the gaping hole in the side of the house and stopped. He glanced over his shoulder. The once-neat kitchen was a shredded ruin. Then he looked at the sword in his hand and smiled. He’d stopped the monster. His smile widened to a broad grin. He’d fought it off and saved his sister and everyone else in the house…except Scatty.
Taking a deep breath, Josh jumped down the steps and raced across the garden and out into the alley, following the monster. “I can’t believe I’m doing this,” he muttered. “I don’t even like Scatty. Well…not that much,” he amended.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Niccolò Machiavelli had always been a careful man.
He had survived and even thrived in the dangerous and deadly Medici court in Florence in the fifteenth century, a time when intrigue was a way of life and violent death and assassination was commonplace. His most famous book, The Prince, was one of the first to suggest that the use of subterfuge, lies and deceit was perfectly acceptable for a ruler.
Machiavelli was a survivor because he was subtle, cautious, clever and, above all else: cunning.
So what had possessed him to call upon the Disir? The Valkyries had no word for subtle in their language and didn’t know the meaning of the word caution. Their idea of clever and cunning was to bring Nidhogg—an uncontrollable primeval monster—into the heart of a modern city.
And he had allowed them.
Now the street echoed with the sounds of breaking glass, snapping wood and tumbling stone. Every car and house alarm in the district was blaring, and there were lights on in all the other houses lining the alleyway, though no one had ventured out yet.
“What is going on in there?” Machiavelli wondered aloud.
“Nidhogg is feasting off Scathach?” Dee suggested absently. His cell had started to buzz, distracting him.
“No, it’s not!” Machiavelli suddenly shouted. He pushed open the car door, leapt out, grabbed Dee by the collar and dragged him out into the night. “Dagon! Out!
”
Dee attempted to find his feet, but Machiavelli continued to drag him backward, away from the car. “Are you out of your mind?” the doctor shrieked.
There was a sudden explosion of glass as Dagon threw himself through the windshield. He slithered off the hood and landed alongside Machiavelli and Dee, but the Magician didn’t even glance in his direction. He saw what had startled the Italian.
Nidhogg raced down the narrow alley toward them, standing tall on two powerful hind legs. A limp red-haired figure hung from its front claws.
“Back!” Machiavelli shouted, flinging himself to the ground, dragging Dee with him.
Nidhogg trampled over the long black German car. One hind paw landed directly in the center of the roof, crushing it to the pavement. Windows popped, spraying glass like shrapnel as the car buckled in the middle, the front and rear wheels lifting off the ground.
The creature disappeared into the night.
A heartbeat later, a white-clad Disir practically flew over the remains of the car, clearing it in a single leap, following the creature.
“Dagon?” Machiavelli whispered, rolling over. “Dagon, where are you?”
“I’m here.” The driver came smoothly to his feet, brushing shards of sparkling glass from his black suit. He pulled off his cracked sunglasses and dropped them on the ground. Rainbow colors ran across round unblinking eyes. “It was holding Scathach,” he said, loosening his black tie and popping open the top button of his white shirt.
“Is she dead?” Machiavelli asked.
“I’ll not believe Scathach is dead until I see it for myself.”
“Agreed. Over the years there have been too many reports of her death. And then she turns up! We need a body.”
Dee climbed out of a mud-filled puddle; he suspected Machiavelli might have deliberately pushed him into it. He shook water from his shoe. “If Nidhogg has her, then the Shadow is dead. We’ve succeeded.”
Dagon’s fish eye swiveled down to look into the Magician’s face. “You blinkered, arrogant fool! Something in the house frightened away Nidhogg—that’s why it’s running, and it can’t be the Shadow because it’s got her. And remember, this is a creature beyond fear. Three Disir went into that building—and only one came out! Something terrible happened in there.”
“Dagon is right: this is a disaster. We need to completely rethink our strategy.” Machiavelli turned to his driver. “I promised you that if the Disir failed, then Scathach was yours.”
Dagon nodded. “And you have always kept your word.”
“You have been with me now for close to four hundred years. You have always been loyal, and I owe you both my life and liberty. I free you from my service,” Machiavelli said formally. “Find the Shadow’s body…and if she is still alive, then do whatever you must do. Go now—and be safe, old friend.”
Dagon turned away. Then he stopped suddenly and looked back at Machiavelli. “What did you call me?”
Machiavelli smiled. “Old friend. Be careful,” he said gently. “The Shadow is beyond dangerous, and she’s killed too many of my friends.”
Dagon nodded. He pulled off his shoes and socks to reveal three-toed webbed feet. “Nidhogg will head for the comfort of the river.” Abruptly, Dagon’s tooth-filled mouth opened in what might have been a smile. “And the water is my home.” Then he ran into the night, bare feet slapping the sidewalk.
Machiavelli glanced back toward the house. Dagon was right; something had terrified Nidhogg. What had happened in there? And where were the other two Disir?
Footsteps clattered on pavement and suddenly Josh Newman raced out of the alleyway, the stone sword in his hand streaming wisps of gold fire. Glancing neither left nor right, he ran around the destroyed car and followed the telltale trail of car alarms set off by the monster’s passing.
Machiavelli looked at Dee. “I take it that was the American boy?”
Dee nodded.
“Did you see what he was holding? It looked like a sword,” he said slowly. “A stone sword? Surely not Excalibur?”
“Not Excalibur,” Dee said shortly.
“It was definitely a gray stone blade.”
“It wasn’t Excalibur.”
“How do you know?” Machiavelli demanded.
Dee reached under his coat and pulled out a short stone sword, a match of the weapon Josh was carrying. The blade was trembling, vibrating almost imperceptibly. “Because I have Excalibur,” Dee said. “The boy was holding its twin, Clarent. We always suspected Flamel had it.”
Machiavelli closed his eyes and raised his face to the sky. “Clarent. No wonder Nidhogg fled from the house.” He shook his head. Could this night get any worse?
Dee’s cell buzzed again and both men jumped. The Magician almost snapped the phone in two opening it. “What?” he snarled. He listened for a moment, then closed the phone very gently, and when he spoke again, his voice was barely above a whisper. “Perenelle has escaped. She’s free on Alcatraz.”
Shaking his head, Machiavelli turned and walked down the alleyway, heading back toward the Champs-Elysées. His question was answered. The night had just gotten worse—much worse. Nicholas Flamel frightened Machiavelli, but Perenelle terrified him.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
“I’m no little girl!” Sophie Newman was furious. “And I know more than just Fire magic. Disir.” The name popped into her head, and suddenly Sophie knew everything the Witch of Endor knew about the creatures. The Witch despised them. “I know who you are,” she snapped, her eyes glowing an ugly silver. “Valkyries.”
Even amongst the Elders, the Disir were different. They had never lived on Danu Talis but had kept to the frozen northlands at the top of the world, at home in the bitter winds and sleeting ice.
In the terrible centuries after the Fall of Danu Talis, the world had shifted on its axis and the Great Cold had gripped most of the earth. From the north and south ice sheets flowed across the landscape, pushing humani into the thin unfrozen green belt that existed around the equator. Entire civilizations vanished, devastated by changing weather patterns, disease and famine. Sea levels rose, flooding the coastal cities, altering the landscape, while inland the encroaching ice wiped away all traces of towns and villages.
The Disir soon discovered that their skills at surviving in the bitter northern climate gave them a special advantage over races and civilizations who could not cope with the deadly, never-ending winter. Gangs of savage female warriors quickly claimed most of the north, enslaving the cities that had escaped the ice. They ruthlessly destroyed anyone who stood against them, and soon the Disir had a second name: Valkyries, the Choosers of the Dead.
Very quickly the Valkyries controlled a frozen empire that encompassed most of the Northern Hemisphere. They forced their humani slaves to worship them as gods and even demanded sacrifices. Uprisings were brutally suppressed. As the Ice Age gripped harder, the Disir began to look farther south, setting their sights on the struggling remnants of civilization.
Images tumbling and dancing in her head, Sophie watched as the reign of the Disir was ended in a single night. She knew what had happened millennia past.
The Witch of Endor had worked with the repulsive Elder, Chronos, who could move through time itself. It had been necessary to sacrifice her eyes in order to see the twisting strands of time, but it was a sacrifice she had never regretted. Scouring ten thousand years of time, she had chosen a single warrior from each millennium, and then Chronos had dipped into each era to pull the warriors back to the age of the Great Cold.
Sophie knew that the Witch had especially requested that her own granddaughter, Scathach, be brought back to fight the Disir.
It was the Shadow who had led the attack on the Disir stronghold, a city of solid ice close to the top of the world. She had slain the Valkyrie queen, Brynhildr, casting her into the heart of a flaming volcano.
By the time the sun had risen low over the horizon, the power of the Valkyries had been broken forever, their frozen
city had lain in melted ruins, and less than a handful had survived. They fled into a terrifying icy Shadowrealm that even Scathach would not venture into. The surviving Disir called that night Ragnarök, the Doom of the Gods, and swore eternal vengeance on the Shadow.
Sophie brought her hands together and a miniature whirlwind appeared in her palms. Fire and ice had destroyed the Disir in the past. What would happen if she used a little Fire magic to heat up the wind? Even as the thought crossed Sophie’s mind, the Disir leapt forward, her sword raised high over her head in a two-handed grip. “Dee wants you alive, but he didn’t say unharmed…,” she snarled.
Sophie brought her hands to her mouth, pressed the thumb of her left had against the trigger on her wrist and blew hard. The whirlwind spiraled onto the floor and grew. It bounced once, twice…then hit the Disir.
Sophie had superheated the air until it was hotter than a furnace. The blistering whirlwind grabbed the Valkyrie, spun her around, rolled her over and tossed her high into the air. She crashed into the crystal chandelier, smashing all the bulbs save one. In the sudden gloom, the whirlwind dancing across the floor glowed with shimmering orange heat. The Valkyrie crashed to the ground but was immediately on her feet, even as shards of crystal crashed about her like glass rain. Her pale skin was bright red and looked badly sunburned, her blond eyebrows completely singed off. Without a word, she slashed out with her sword, the heavy blade cutting right through the banister rail at Sophie’s hand.
“Scatty!”
Sophie heard her brother’s voice calling from the kitchen. He was in trouble!
“Scatty!” she heard him call again.