The Sorceress (15 page)

The twins stood in silence, trying to comprehend it all.
The very idea was terrifying: it was almost incomprehensible that the world they knew could end. Back on Wednesday they would have laughed at the idea. But now? Now they both knew that it could have happened. And worse—they knew it might still happen.

“Or at least, that’s what Nicholas says,” Josh added, unable to keep the bitterness out of his voice.

“And you believe him?” Sophie asked, curious. “I thought you didn’t trust him.”

“I don’t,” Josh said firmly. “You heard what Palamedes said about him. Because of Flamel, because of what he did and didn’t do, hundreds of thousands of people have died.”

“Nicholas didn’t kill them,” Sophie reminded him. “Your
friend
,” she said sarcastically, “John Dee, did that.”

Josh turned away and looked at the metal hut. He had no answer to that because it was the truth. Dee himself had admitted to setting fire and plague loose on the world in an attempt to stop the Flamels. “All we know is that Flamel has lied to us right from the very beginning. What about the other twins?” he asked. “Palamedes said Flamel and Perenelle had been
collecting
twins for centuries.” Even saying the word
collecting
made him feel queasy and uncomfortable. “Whatever happened to them?”

A gust of icy wind whipped across the junkyard, and Sophie shivered, though not because of the cold air. Staring hard at the metal hut, not looking at her brother, she spoke very slowly, picking her words with care. She could feel herself growing angry. “Since the Flamels are
still
looking for
twins, that means all the others … what?” She spun around to look at her brother and found he was already nodding in agreement.

“We need to know what happened to the other twins,” he said firmly, voicing exactly what she was thinking. “I hate to ask, but does the Witch know?” he said carefully. “I mean, do you know if the Witch knew?” He still found it hard to grasp that the Witch of Endor had somehow passed all her knowledge on to his sister.

Sophie paused for a second, then shook her head again. “The Witch doesn’t seem to know a lot about the modern world. She knows about the Elders, the Next Generation and some of the oldest human immortals. She’d heard about the Flamels, for instance, but she’d never met them before Scatty brought him there with us. All I know is that she’s been living in and around Ojai for years, without a phone, a TV or radio.”

“OK, then forget about it, don’t even think about her again.” Josh picked up a pebble and tossed it against the wall of crushed cars. It rattled and bounced and a shape flickered behind the metal. The red-eyed dogs raised their heads and watched him carefully. “You know, I just had a thought …,” he said slowly.

Sophie watched him, silent.

“How did I end up working for the Flamels, a couple who collect twins, and you end up in the coffee shop across the road? It can’t be a coincidence, can it?”

“I guess not.” Sophie nodded, the tiniest movement of
her head. She’d started thinking the same thing the second Palamedes had mentioned the other twins. It couldn’t be a coincidence. The Witch didn’t believe in coincidence, nor did Nicholas Flamel, and even Scatty said she believed in destiny. And then of course there was the prophecy …. “Do you think you got the job because he
knew
you had a twin?” she asked.

“After the battle in Hekate’s Shadowrealms, Flamel told me that he’d only started to suspect that we were the twins mentioned in the prophecy the day before.”

Sophie shook her head. “I hardly remember anything about that day.”

“You were asleep,” Josh said quickly, “exhausted after the battle.” The memory of the fight chilled him; it was the first time he had seen how alien his sister had become. “Scatty said that Flamel was a man of his word and told me that I should believe him.”

“I don’t think Scatty would lie to us,” Sophie said but even as she was speaking, she wondered if these were her thoughts or the Witch’s.

“Maybe she didn’t.” Pressing both hands to his face, Josh rubbed his fingers over his forehead, pushing back his overlong blond hair. He was trying to remember exactly what had happened last Thursday. “She wasn’t agreeing with him when he said he hadn’t known
who
we were. He said that everything he’d done had been for our own protection: I’m thinking she was agreeing with
that
,” he finished. “And the last thing Hekate said to me before the World Tree burned was ‘Nicholas Flamel never tells anyone everything.’”

Sophie closed her eyes, trying to blank out the sights and sounds of the junkyard, concentrating hard now, thinking back to early April, when they’d both started the part-time jobs. “Why did you go for that particular job?” she asked.

Josh blinked in surprise, then frowned, remembering. “Well, Dad saw an ad in the university newspaper.
Assistant Wanted, Bookshop. We don’t want readers, we want workers.
I didn’t want to do it, but Dad said he’d worked in a bookshop when he was our age and that I’d enjoy it. I sent in a résumé and was called for an interview two days later.”

Sophie nodded, remembering. While Josh was in the bookshop, she’d gone across the road to wait for him in a small coffee shop. Bernice, the owner of The Coffee Cup, had been there talking to a striking-looking woman who Sophie now knew was Perenelle Flamel. “Perenelle,” Sophie said so suddenly that Josh looked around, half expecting to see the woman behind him. He would not have been surprised.

“What about her?”

“On the day we got our jobs. You were being interviewed in the bookshop and I was having a drink. Bernice was talking to Perenelle Flamel. While Bernice was making my chai latte, Perenelle started a conversation with me. I remember her saying that she hadn’t seen me in the neighborhood before, and I told her I’d come along because you’d been called for an interview in the bookshop.” Sophie closed her eyes, thinking back. “She didn’t say then that she was one of the owners of the shop, but I remember her asking me something
like, ‘Oh, I saw you with a young man outside. Was that your boyfriend?’ I told her no, it was my brother. Then she said, ‘You look very alike.’ When I told her we were twins, she smiled, then she quickly finished her drink and left. She crossed the street and went into the bookstore.”

“I remember when she came in,” Josh agreed. “I didn’t think the interview was going particularly well. I got the impression that Nicholas—or Nick … whatever his name is—was looking for someone older for the job. Then Perenelle came in, smiled at me, and called him to the back of the shop. I saw them both looking at me. Then she left the store as quickly as she’d arrived.”

“She came back into The Coffee Cup,” Sophie murmured. Then she stopped as memories and events slotted into place. When she spoke again, her voice was barely above a whisper. “Josh, I just remembered something. She asked Bernice if she was still looking for staff. She suggested that if my brother was working across the street, it would be perfect if I was working at The Coffee Cup. Bernice agreed and offered me the job on the spot. But you know what, when I turned up for work the next day it was the strangest thing. I could swear that Bernice looked a little surprised to find me there. I even had to remind her that she’d offered me the job the day before.”

Josh nodded. He remembered his sister telling him that. “Do you think Perenelle somehow made her give you the job? Could she do that?”

“Oh yes.” Sophie’s eyes turned briefly silver. Even the Witch of Endor acknowledged Perenelle as an extraordinarily
powerful Sorceress. “So do you think we got the jobs because we’re twins?” she asked again.

“I have no doubt about it,” Josh said angrily. “We were just another set of twins to be added to the Flamels’ collection. We’ve been tricked.”

“What are we going to do, Josh?” Sophie asked, her voice as hard as her brother’s. The thought that the Flamels had somehow used them made her feel sick to her stomach. If Dee hadn’t showed up in the shop, then what would have happened to them? What would the Flamels have done to them?

Catching Sophie’s hand, Josh pulled his sister behind him toward the stinking metal hut, stepping carefully around the potholes. The dogs sat up, heads swiveling to follow them, red eyes glowing. “There’s no going back. We have no choice, Soph: we have to see this through to the end.”

“But what is the end, Josh? Where does it end …
how
does it end?”

“I have no idea,” he said. He stopped and turned to look directly into his sister’s blue eyes. He took a deep breath, swallowing his anger. “But you know what I do know? This is all about us.”

Sophie nodded. “You’re right. The prophecy is about us, we’re gold and silver, we’re special.”

“Flamel wants us,” Josh continued, “Dee wants us. It’s time to get some answers.”

“Attack,” Sophie said, hopping over a muddy puddle. “When I knew him—I mean, when the Witch knew him—Mars always said that attack was the best form of defense.”

“My football coach says the same thing.”

“And your team didn’t win a single game last season,” Sophie reminded him.

They had almost reached the hut when a wild-eyed William Shakespeare appeared, a blazing frying pan clutched in both hands.

ithout a second thought Josh shrugged the map tube off his shoulder and shook out the sword. It settled easily into his hand, his fingers wrapping around the stained leather hilt. He took a step forward, putting himself between Shakespeare and his sister.

The immortal didn’t even look at them. He turned the blazing pan upside down and shook out the contents. What looked like half a dozen blackened sausages dropped onto the muddy ground. They hissed and sizzled but continued to burn, spiraling sparks into the air. One of the red-eyed dogs came out from beneath the hut, and a long forked tongue snatched up a chunk of still-burning meat and swallowed it whole. The flames turned its eyes to rubies, and when it licked its lips, curls of gray smoke leaked from the corner of its mouth.

Shakespeare bent down and roughly patted the dog’s
head. He was about to turn and climb the steps when he spotted the twins. The dull evening light reflected off his overlarge glasses, turning them to silver mirrors. “There was a little mishap with our evening meal,” he said, a quick smile revealing his bad teeth.

“That’s OK. We weren’t that hungry,” Sophie said quickly. “And I’m trying to give up meat.”

“Vegetarians?” Shakespeare asked.

“Sort of,” Sophie said, and Josh nodded in agreement.

“There might be some salad inside,” the immortal said vaguely. “Neither Palamedes nor I are vegetarians. There’s fruit,” he added. “Lots of fruit.”

Josh nodded. “Fruit would be perfect.” Even the thought of meat set his stomach churning.

Shakespeare seemed to notice the sword in Josh’s hand for the first time. “Keep up your bright swords,” he murmured. Stepping forward, he produced a surprisingly pristine white handkerchief, pulled off his glasses and started to polish them. Without the thick lenses, Sophie noticed, he looked more like the image of the famous playwright she’d seen in her textbooks. He put his glasses back on and looked at Josh. “It is Clarent?”

Josh nodded. He could feel it tremble slightly in his hands and was aware of a slow warmth soaking into his flesh.

Shakespeare leaned forward, his long narrow nose inches from the tip of the blade, but he made no attempt to touch it. “I saw its twin many times,” he said absently. “The blades are identical, but the hilts are slightly different.”

“Was this when you were with Dee?” Sophie asked shrewdly.

Shakespeare nodded. “When I was with the doctor,” he agreed. He reached out and tentatively touched the tip of the blade with his index finger. The dark stone sparkled and rippled with a tracery of pale yellow, as if a liquid had been poured down the blade, and there was a hint of lemon in the air. “Dee inherited Excalibur from his predecessor, Roger Bacon, but this was really the weapon he wanted to find. The twin blades are older than the Elders and were ancient long before Danu Talis was raised from the seas. Individually, the swords are powerful, but legend has it that together they have the power to destroy the very fabric of the earth itself.”