The Warlock (The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel #5) (20 page)

“Abraham claims that the Change is simply a revelation of our true selves,” Aten said mildly.

“So what does that make me?” Anubis growled.

Aten turned away from the low wall that ran around the edge of the roof and stepped onto the first level of the huge hanging garden of the royal palace. He did not want to tell Anubis that he was indeed becoming like the dog-headed monsters he had first created a thousand years previously. “Walk with me,” he commanded.

The roof garden—the Garden of the Moon—was divided into seven distinct circular areas, each one a different color and filled with different species of flora. Aten stepped into the first circle, pulled his heavy cloak tighter around his body, closed his eyes and breathed deeply. Within this circle, which completely encompassed the entire roof of the palace, were the lotuses—over one thousand different kinds collected from across the earth—and he could identify each one by its own distinctive scent.

“Little brother, nothing must happen to our visitors,” he said, allowing some of his authority to seep into his voice. He knew Anubis was quite capable of acting behind his back. “They will be fed and watered. They will not be questioned—I will do that myself.”

“Aten, is that wise?”

Without turning around, the Lord of Danu Talis said quietly, “Do not challenge me again, little brother. Remember what happened to our other brother. You will do as I say, without question. If anything happens to the visitors, I will hold you personally responsible.” He turned quickly and caught the arrogant mocking expression on his brother’s face. “You think I’ve become weak, don’t you?” Aten asked mildly.

Anubis strode forward. He was wearing a long sleeveless chain-mail robe that came to just above his knees. It swirled around him when he walked, and the edges of the woven metal sliced into the delicate lotus blossoms in the beds surrounding him, destroying them. He dropped to one knee before Aten and bowed his head. “I’ve seen you fight the Ancients and the Archons. I’ve hunted Earthlords with you. You rule an empire that stretches from horizon to horizon, from pole to pole. Only a fool would think you a coward or weak.”

“Then don’t be a fool!” Aten leaned down to catch his brother’s muscular shoulder and draw him to his feet. The pupils in his flat yellow eyes narrowed from circles to horizontal lines. “What you didn’t add, however, was that all of those deeds were done a long time ago. I have not ridden to battle in eight hundred years.”

“Why should we fight, now that we have the anpu to battle for us?” Anubis asked shakily, struggling to keep his voice even, though his eyes had flared in fear.

“You think living here has softened me,” Aten continued as if he hadn’t heard him. “You think the Change has weakened me,” he added, and then his fingers tightened on his brother’s shoulder, pinching the nerves, driving him back to his knees on the quartz crystal path. “And a soft, weak ruler could easily be removed and replaced by a stronger man. Someone such as yourself. But you forget, brother, that I have as many spies in the city as there are flowers on this roof. I know what you’ve been saying, I know what you’ve been plotting.” Wrapping his fist in the chain mail, Aten dragged
Anubis back over to the low wall and pushed him up against it. “Look down,” he snarled. “What do you see?”

“Nothing …”

“Nothing? Then you are blind. Look again.”

“I see the people, made tiny with distance. Insignificant people.”

“Insignificant people, yes, but they are
my
people,
my
subjects. Not yours. Never yours.” Aten dragged his brother closer to the edge. “If you question me again, I will kill you. If I find you are plotting against me, I will kill you. If you speak about me or my queen in public again, I will kill you. Do I make myself clear?”

Anubis nodded. “You will kill me,” he mumbled.

Aten flung Anubis aside, sending him sprawling into a pool of pure white lotus blossoms. Their perfume was sickening. “You are my brother, and surprising as this may sound, I love you. And that is the only thing that has kept you alive today. Now bring me the hook-handed man.”

he two greasy-haired youths leaning against the wall of the Esmiol Building in San Francisco watched the large bulky man lurch from the narrow street opposite and steady himself, before turning left and heading down Broadway. Normally, they avoided big men or obviously fit and healthy young men, preferring to rob women, old men or children, but they made an exception for someone who looked like he might be drunk. Drunks were easy. Without looking at one another, they pushed away from the wall and kept pace with the man from across the street.

“See how he’s walking? He’s had a hip operation,” said Larry, an unnaturally skinny teenager with a spiderweb tattooed across his ear. “My granny walks like that.”

“Or a knee replacement,” his friend Mo said. Mo was stocky and muscular, with a bodybuilder’s broad chest and narrow waist. He wore a gold-plated razor blade in his right
ear as an earring. “He can’t straighten his legs. Look at the size of him; I bet he used to play football. Probably busted his knees.” He grinned, showing a mouthful of bad teeth. “Which means he can’t run, either.”

Larry and Mo hurried up the road, taking pleasure from the way people looked away or moved aside to allow them to pass. Most of the pedestrians in this part of town knew the youths’ reputation.

The two teens hurried ahead of their mark and then stopped outside a small beauty salon and looked back across the road to assess the value of their quarry. They had been doing this a long time, and they only mugged people who had something worth stealing. Anyone else was an unnecessary risk and a waste of time.

“He’s big,” Larry said.

Mo nodded. “Very big,” he agreed. “But old …”

“Nice leather jacket for an old man,” Larry continued. “Retro, biker style.”

“Very nice. Worth some money.”

“Good boots, too. They look new.”

“Nice leather belt, great belt buckle,” Mo said. “Looks like some sort of helmet design. I’m keeping that,” he added.

“Hey, that’s not fair, you kept the last guy’s watch.”

“And you gave the woman’s leather purse to your grandma as a birthday present. We’re even.”

Suddenly the big man turned and lurched across the road, ignoring the oncoming cars, heading directly for Larry and Mo. The two young men spun around and stared into the window of the beauty salon, watching the drunk’s reflection
in the glass. Now that he was closer, they got a clearer impression of his size. He was huge, and looked even bigger because of his overlarge clothes: blue jeans and a loose T-shirt that might once have been white but was now an indefinable shade of gray, worn under an enormous metal-studded black leather motorcycle jacket. A black and white bandana was tied tightly across his head and knotted at the back of his skull, and his eyes were hidden behind aviator-style sunglasses.

“Are those Ray-Bans?” Larry asked, trying to see if the man’s sunglasses had the distinctive signature logo on the right lens.

“Knockoffs, I bet. But we’ll take them anyway. Might get a couple of bucks from some tourist.”

They turned as the man staggered past with his stiff-legged gait. The silver metal studs on the back of his jacket picked out a war helmet similar in design to his belt buckle. One red and one blue stud made eyes peering out from either side of the long nose guard.

“He’s a biker,” Larry said, starting to shake his head. “And bikers are trouble. I think we should let him go.”

“So where’s his bike?” Mo asked. “I don’t think he’s anything more than a fat old man who likes to dress tough.”

“Could still be a biker, and even old bikers are tough.”

“Yeah, but we’re tougher.” Mo reached under his T-shirt and touched the length of lead pipe tucked into the top of his jeans. “And no one’s tougher than our little metal friend here.”

Larry nodded dubiously. “We’ll follow, but we’ll only take him if we get a chance to come at him from behind. Agreed?”

“Agreed.”

They watched as the man suddenly jerked to the right onto Turk Murphy Lane, a narrow laneway connecting Broadway with Vallejo Street.

“Aw, man, some people are just asking for it.” Mo grinned. “This is our lucky day.” He high-fived Larry and they hurried down Broadway after the man in the leather jacket. They didn’t even have to discuss a plan. They would mug the old man on the quiet street, grab his coat, boots, belt and money if he had any, and then run the length of the lane. They’d slow to a casual walk before they turned onto Vallejo Street, though—Turk Murphy Lane came out directly facing the central police station. Larry and Mo knew the streets in and around Chinatown like the backs of their hands, and they’d be a couple of blocks away before anyone even spotted the crumpled body and raised the alarm.

“Remember,” Mo said, “the belt buckle is mine.”

“Okay—I get first pick next time, though.…”

But when they rounded the corner, they found the big man waiting for them, standing squarely in the middle of the sidewalk.

A giant fist shot out and grabbed Larry by the front of his filthy T-shirt. The man lifted him straight up in the air and then flung him twenty feet to land in a sprawling heap on the hood of a parked car. The windshield spiderwebbed and the alarm started to sound.

None of the passersby even glanced down the side street.

Mo reached under his T-shirt for the lead pipe, but suddenly an enormous hand closed on the top of his head. And
squeezed. The pain was extraordinary. Black spots instantly danced before his eyes and his legs buckled beneath him. He would have fallen, but the man continued to hold him up by the head. Mo watched as the old man—who suddenly didn’t look quite so old—lifted the lead pipe, looked at it, smelled it, licked it with a coal-black tongue and then crushed it like a tin can and tossed it aside. The man spoke, but whatever he said was incomprehensible. He tried again and again, using several different languages, until … “Can you understand me now?”

Mo managed a strangled squawk.

“You should be happy that I’m in a good humor today,” the man said. “I’m looking for directions.”

“Directions?” Mo whispered.

“Directions.” The man released his grip and Mo staggered and fell back against a wall. He pressed both hands against his skull, convinced that he’d find the impressions of enormous fingers in his flesh.

“Directions,” the man repeated. “I have the address written down somewhere,” he mumbled, and then reached into his leather jacket. Mo instantly attacked, trying for a karate blow to the stranger’s throat. Lightning fast, the man caught Mo’s arm, squeezed and then slapped the heel of his hand into the youth’s chest. The force of the blow propelled Mo back into the wall, his head smacking off the brickwork. “Don’t be stupid,” the big man rumbled. He produced a scrap of paper and turned it toward the teenager. “Do you know where this place is?”

It took Mo a few seconds to focus, but finally the address
printed in childish block letters on the lined notepaper swam into view. “Yes.” His voice was a terrified whisper. “Yes.”

“Tell me.”

“Walking or driving?”

“Do I look like I’m driving?” the man growled. “Did you see a chariot anywhere around here?”

Mo swallowed hard. His chest was aching, he was finding it difficult to breathe and his head was still ringing from the blow against the wall. He could have sworn the man had just said “chariot.”

“Directions.”

“You follow this street, Broadway, until it comes to Scott Street—it’ll be on your left. This address is down there somewhere.”

“Is it far?”

“It’s not close,” Mo said, attempting to smile. “You’re going to let me go, mister, aren’t you? I haven’t done anything to you.”

The big man folded the scrap with the address and shoved it into the back pocket of his baggy jeans. “Not to me you haven’t, but you and your partner have robbed others. You have terrorized this neighborhood.”

The youth opened his mouth to lie, but the man took off his Ray-Bans and folded them into an inside pocket. Astonishingly blue eyes locked onto the teen’s face. “You tell your friends—or those others like you, because I am sure you have no friends—that I have returned, and that I will not tolerate these attacks.”