The Alchemyst, page 29
Josh shook his head. “Never.”
Sophie lifted her head from the door. “Josh gets seasick in a swimming pool.” She grinned, then pressed the side of her face back against the door “Seasick. That’s exactly what it feels like. Only worse.”
Sophie lifted her head to look at the Alchemyst. “Do you have any idea where we are in Paris?”
“Someplace old,” Flamel said, joining her at the door.
Sophie shook her head and stepped back. “I’m not so sure,” she said. With her Awakened powers and the Witch of Endor’s knowledge, she was struggling to make sense of the countless emotions and impressions surging within her. The building they were in didn’t feel old, but if she listened carefully enough, she could actually hear the murmurs of countless ghosts. She touched the wall with the palm of her hand and was immediately able to distinguish gossamer threads of voices, whispered songs, distant organ music. She lifted her hand and the sounds in her head faded. “It’s a church,” she said, then frowned. “But it’s a new church…modern, late nineteenth century, early twentieth. But it’s built on a much, much older site.”
Flamel paused at the wooden door and looked over his shoulder. In the dim overhead light, his features were suddenly sharp and angular, disturbingly skull-like, his eyes completely in shadow. “There are many churches in Paris,” he said. “Though there is only one, I believe, that matches that description,” he added, reaching for the door handle.
“Hang on a second,” Josh said quickly. “Don’t you think there could be some sort of alarm?”
“Not at all,” Nicholas Flamel said confidently. “Who would put an alarm in a church?” He pulled the door open.
Immediately an alarm began to warble, the sound echoing off the flagstones and stone walls. Red security lights began to strobe.
“Let’s get out of here!” Flamel shouted over the shrieking alarm.
Sophie and Josh followed close behind. Scatty took up the rear, moving slowly and grumbling with every step.
The door opened onto a narrow corridor that led to a second door. Without pausing, Flamel pushed through the second door—and immediately another alarm began to shriek. He turned left into a huge open space that smelled of old incense and wax. Banks of lit candles shed a golden yellow light over walls and floor, and these, combined with the security lights, revealed a pair of enormous doors with the word EXIT above them. Flamel raced toward it.
“Don’t touch…,” Josh started to say, but Nicholas Flamel grabbed the door handles and pulled hard.
A third alarm went off and a red light above the door began to wink on and off.
“I don’t understand—why is it not open?” Flamel asked. “This church is always open.” He turned and looked around. “Where is everyone? What time is it?” he asked.
“How long does it take to travel from one place to another through the leygate?” Sophie asked.
“It’s instantaneous.”
Sophie looked at her watch and did a quick calculation. “Paris is nine hours ahead of Ojai?” she asked.
Flamel nodded.
“It’s now about four a.m.; that’s why the church is closed.”
“The police will be on their way,” Scatty said glumly. She reached for her nunchaku. “I hate fighting when I’m not feeling well,” she muttered.
“What do we do now?” Josh demanded.
“I could try and blast the doors apart with my wind magic,” Sophie suggested.
“I forbid it,” Flamel shouted, his face shadowed and painted in shades of crimson by the light. He turned and pointed across rows of wooden pews to an ornate altar picked out in a tracery of white marble. Candlelight hinted at a mosaic in glittering blues and golds in the dome over the altar. “This is a national monument; I’ll not let you destroy it.”
“Where are we?” the twins asked together, looking around the building. Now that their eyes had adjusted to the gloom, they could make out the outlines of small side altars, statues in nooks and banks of candles. They could distinguish the columns soaring high into the shadow overhead. The building was huge.
“This is the basilica of Sacré-Coeur.”
Sitting in the back of his limousine, Niccolò Machiavelli tapped coordinates into his laptop and watched a high-resolution map of Paris wink into existence on the screen. Paris was an incredibly ancient city. Its first settlement went back more than two thousand years, though there had been humans living on the island in the Seine for generations before that. And like many of the earth’s oldest cities, it had been sited where groups of leylines met.
Machiavelli hit a keystroke, which laid down a pattern of leylines over the map of the city. He knew he needed a line that connected with the United States. After eliminating all the lines that didn’t run east to west, he finally managed to reduce the number of possibilities to six. With a perfectly manicured fingernail, he traced two lines that directly linked the west coast of America to Paris. One ended at the great cathedral of Notre Dame, the other in the more modern but equally famous basilica of the Sacré-Coeur in Montmartre.
But which line had Flamel used?
Suddenly the Parisian night was broken by a series of howling alarms. Machiavelli hit the control for the electric window and the tinted glass whispered down. Cool night air swirled into the car. In the distance, visible over the rooftops on the opposite side of the Place du Tertre, the lights around Sacré-Coeur painted the imposing domed building in stark white light. Red alarm lights pulsed around the building That one.
Machiavelli’s smile was terrifying. He called up a program on the laptop and waited while the hard drive spun. Enter Password. His fingers flew over the keyboard as he typed: Discorsi sopra la prima deca di Tito Livio. No one was going to break that password. It wasn’t one of his better-known books.
A rather ordinary-looking text document appeared, written in a combination of Latin, Greek and Italian. At one time, magicians had had to keep their spells and incantations in handwritten books called grimoires. Machiavelli had always used the latest technology. These days, he preferred to keep his on his hard drive.
Now he just needed a little something to keep Flamel and his friends busy….
“I hear sirens,” Josh said, his face pressed against the wooden door.
“There are twelve police cars headed this way,” Sophie said, her head tilted to one side, eyes closed as she listened intently. Her brother was suddenly reminded of the extent of his sister’s Awakened powers. All of her senses were enhanced; she could see and hear beyond the range of ordinary humans. Ordinary humans like him.
“We cannot be captured by the police,” Flamel said desperately. “We have no passports, no money and no alibi. We’ve got to get out of here!”
“How?” the twins asked simultaneously.
Flamel shook his head. “There has to be another entrance…,” he began, and then stopped, nostrils flaring.
Josh watched both Sophie and Scatty react to something he could not smell. “What…what is it?” he demanded, and then he suddenly caught the faintest whiff of something musky and rank. It was the sort of smell he associated with a zoo.
“Trouble,” Scathach said grimly, pushing away her nunchaku and drawing her swords. “Big trouble.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
An authority on mythology and folklore, Michael Scott is one of Ireland’s most successful authors. A master of fantasy, science fiction, horror, and folklore, he was hailed by the Irish Times as “the King of Fantasy in these isles.” He lives and writes in Dublin. Visit him at www.dillonscott.com.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Only one name usually appears on the cover of a book, but behind that name there are dozens of people involved in the creation of the work. Of equal importance, but in no particular order, I must thank…
Krista Marino, the most patient of editors, who said, “A little more perspective…”
Frank Weimann, at the Literary Group, who said, “I can sell this.” And did.
Michael Carroll, who read it first and last and said, “We need to talk about…”
O. R. Melling, who said, “Have you finished it yet?”
Claudette Sutherland, who said, “You really should think about…”
And finally, of course: Barry Krost, at BKM, who is surely the Alchemyst’s grandfather, which would probably make John Sobanski his nephew!
Published by Delacorte Press an imprint of Random House Children’s Books a division of Random House, Inc. New York
This is a work of fiction. All incidents and dialogue, and all characters with the exception of some well-known historical and public figures, are products of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Where real-life historical or public figures appear, the situations, incidents, and dialogues concerning those persons are entirely fictional and are not intended to depict actual events or to change the entirely fictional nature of the work. In all other respects, any resemblance to persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.
Text copyright © 2007 by Michael Scott
All rights reserved.
Delacorte Press and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
www.randomhouse.com/teens
Educators and librarians, for a variety of teaching tools, visit us at
www.randomhouse.com/teachers
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Scott, Michael Dylan.
The alchemyst: the secrets of the immortal Nicholas Flamel / Michael Scott.—1st ed.
p. cm.
Summary: While working at pleasant but mundane summer jobs in San Francisco, fifteen-year-old twins, Sophie and Josh, suddenly find themselves caught up in the deadly, centuries-old struggle between rival alchemists, Nicholas Flamel and John Dee, over the possession of an ancient and powerful book holding the secret formulas for alchemy and everlasting life.
(Gibraltar lib. bdg.)
1. Flamel, Nicolas, d. 1418—Juvenile fiction. 2. Dee, John, 1527–1608—Juvenile fiction. [1. Flamel, Nicolas, d. 1418—Fiction. 2. Dee, John, 1527–1608—Fiction. 3. Alchemists—Fiction. 4. Magic—Fiction. 5. Supernatural—Fiction. 6. Brothers and sisters—Fiction. 7. Twins—Fiction. 8. San Francisco (Calif.)—Fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.S42736Alc 2007
[Fic]—dc22
2006024417
eISBN: 978-0-375-84317-4
v3.0
Michael Scott, The Alchemyst
(Series: # )
