"Will this take long?" the sphinx asked.

"Why, you in a hurry to go somewhere?" Billy asked.

The creature's mouth opened to reveal a maw of needle-sharp teeth. "I've not had breakfast yet." The sphinx looked at Machiavelli. "Arrogance always tastes sweet, like chicken. If you will not give him to me, then let me buy him from you. I will give you a fortune for this humani."

"How much of a fortune?" Machiavelli asked with a smile.

"Hey!" Billy said indignantly.

"How much do you want?" the sphinx asked seriously.

"I'm not for sale!" Billy snapped.

"We'll talk about it later," Machiavelli said to the sphinx. "We must hurry; time is moving on. Our masters want these creatures loose in the city by noon."

The sphinx turned and padded away. "Go through these doors. I will meet you downstairs," she said, and then Billy realized that the creature was too big to fit through the double doors. Her head turned at an unnatural angle and she flicked her long black tongue at Billy. He stuck out his tongue in return. "Like chicken..." She padded away, claws clicking on the stones.

"That wasn't funny," Billy hissed to the Italian. "You know these Elders and Next Generation have no sense of humor. She thought you were serious."

"How do you know I wasn't?" the Italian asked.

"I knew you were going to say that," Billy said. He watched as Machiavelli stopped in the doorway and turned to look at the city across the bay. "Having second thoughts?" he asked.

Machiavelli shook his head. "Just taking a last look." He turned to Billy. "Once we do this, nothing will ever be the same again. We will be outlaws."

Billy the Kid grinned. "I've been an outlaw all my life. It's not so bad."

CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO.

"Coatlicue..."

The word rippled through the s.p.a.ces between the Shadowrealms.

"Coatlicue..."

The word vibrated and trembled, pulsed and throbbed.

"Coatlicue..."

A single voice, calling, calling, calling.

All she had left were dreams.

Dreams of a golden age.

Dreams of a golden time.

Of a time when she was beautiful.

Of a time when she was young.

Of a time when she ruled the world.

And now those dreams were disturbed.

"Coatlicue..."

Josh Newman took a deep breath and focused on the four swords, which Dee had arranged in a square on the floor. They were each glowing softly, steaming red and white, green and brown smoke into the air.

"Coatlicue..."

"All you have to do is to call her," Dee had said. "There is a magic in names, a power in them. She will hear you and she will come. The unique combination of the swords and your powerful aura will draw her here."

"And she will teach me necromancy?" Josh asked.

"Yes," Dee had said, and for a single instant, Josh had thought he'd heard Nicholas and Perenelle screaming "No!" Then he realized that that was what they probably would say. If he could learn necromancy, he would be able to find out the truth about the Flamels and the Elders and more, much, much more. He'd be able to talk to all the great men and women of history, ask them questions, discover their secrets, find out where they had hidden their treasures. He could resurrect dinosaurs from single bones, even-and the thought was shocking-re-create primitive men so that his parents could study them firsthand. And somewhere, at the back of his mind, he wondered why, if Dee was a necromancer, he had not used the power in the same way. Just what had the Magician used necromancy for?

"Coatlicue..." Josh focused on the swords. Clarent was at the bottom of the square, the blade pointing to the left. Durendal was on the left-hand side, its blade pointing up; Excalibur was on top, its blade pointing right, toward Joyeuse, whose blade was pointing down. The stone swords were trailing fire into the air, and the colors had started to weave and entwine in the middle of the square.

She slept.

And her sleep lasted eons.

She dreamt.

And her dreams lasted centuries.

But the nightmares lasted millennia.

And in this place without light, without sound, without sensation, she did not know whether she woke or slept. She simply existed.

Red. A spot of color.

But in this foul prison, there was no light.

Another speck: white. Tiny, distant.

The Elders had bound her in utter darkness. There had never been light. Until now.

A third spot: brown.

And now a fourth light, and it was green.

She turned toward the lights.

The smoke from the blades wavered, twisted, as if blown by a breeze.

Virginia's fingers bit deeply into Dee's arm. "Something's happening."

"When she comes we'll have to be quick," the Magician said. "As soon as she appears in the square, we shove the boy in with her. So long as the square is not broken, she'll be trapped within."

"And if it is broken?" Virginia asked.

"That would not be good," he said.

"Is she not hideous?"

"In the Nahuatl language, she is called the One with the Skirts of Serpents."

"Nice!" Virginia said. "How's he going to react to that?"

"When I touched him a moment ago, I implanted a simple spell. He will see only a beautiful young woman. I'm not sure how long the spell will last, but even if he hesitates, I want you to push him in with her. Once she feeds, we'll be able to deal with her."

"And if she refuses?" Virginia asked quietly.

"You lull her to sleep with your flute and we send her back to her prison," he said calmly.

"You've thought of everything, haven't you, Doctor?" she asked sarcastically.

"Yes."

Vague, frightening thoughts had started to crowd at the back of Josh's head. Images of a snake-headed monster wearing a skirt of writhing serpents, leading a monstrous army across the muddy battlefield.

And facing her: the figure of a hooded man who had a hook in place of his left hand, and alongside him, a red-haired pale-skinned female warrior.

"Coat-" he began, but his voice faltered.

Dee stepped forward out of the shadows. "Josh, is everything all right?"

"I'm... I'm not sure," he said, pressing his hand to his forehead. "I suddenly have a splitting headache. This Coatlicue..." He licked his lips. "What is she like?"

"When she was an Archon, she was considered extraordinarily beautiful," Dee said carefully. "Why do you ask?"

"I keep thinking about snakes, and I hate snakes, I really do." Josh pressed both hands to his throbbing head and squeezed his eyes shut. He'd never experienced agony like it before. It felt as if his head were about to explode. Was this a migraine? Even doing something as simple as moving his eyes sent daggers of pain into his skull.

"How bad is the headache?" Dee asked, glancing at Virginia. "Have you any painkillers?"

"I am an Awakened immortal, don't be ridiculous," she said with a roll of her eyes. "I'll wager that headache is not natural."

"Migraine," Josh whispered. "I'll have to stop. Can you take over?" he gasped.

"Coatlicue will only deal with whoever calls her," Dee muttered. He put his hand under Josh's chin and tilted it up so that he could look into the boy's eyes. "You can trust me. I am a doctor." The boy's eye color had started to change, the red beginning to fade, traces of white and the original blue returning. "Do you suffer from migraines normally?"

"No. Never had one before in my life. Aunt Agnes gets them all the time. But these aren't normal times, are they?" Josh said through gritted teeth. His stomach had started to turn and he thought he might throw up.

"No, they're certainly not," Dee said very softly, looking deep into Josh's eyes...

Seventy miles away, in Point Reyes, Nicholas and Perenelle reared back as Dee looked directly at them.

Prometheus had pressed both hands onto the crystal skull, which was now pulsing like a giant beating heart. The Elder's eyes were squeezed tightly shut; his lips moved, and they heard him whisper in a dozen languages, "I can see wonders... and horrors... wonders and horrors."

Nicholas and Perenelle looked at Dee and watched his lips move. Half a second later, they heard him speak as if he were standing in the same room.

"Josh," Dee said. "I think I have a cure for your headache. Say goodbye, Nicholas; goodbye, Perenelle," he directed.

The Alchemyst and the Sorceress heard Josh numbly repeat the words. "Goodbye, Nicholas; goodbye, Perenelle."

And abruptly the image vanished.

The skull went black and Prometheus shuddered and slid off his chair to lie in a heap on the floor. Perenelle looked at her husband. They were both haggard and exhausted. "What happened?"

"Dee knew we were watching. He must have thrown up a Warding spell. Josh is on his own now. Let's hope he can hold out until the others get there."

CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE.

A uniformed guard came to the door and looked at the odd trio standing outside. A slender, impeccably dressed j.a.panese man in a black suit, a red-haired woman, also in a tailored black suit, and a wild-haired teenager. Behind them, an antique Volkswagen van was haphazardly parked at the curb.

The blond teenager had her finger on the intercom, and the incessant chiming was starting to get on the guard's nerves. He jabbed a stubby finger at the sign pasted to the door.

NO ADMITTANCE WITHOUT APPOINTMENT.

The girl took her finger off the bell and rummaged through her pockets. She produced a tube of lip balm and wrote in greasy letters across the gla.s.s: YCNEGREME.

The guard shook his head, turned his back and stepped over to his desk in the foyer of Enoch Enterprises. Tourists. Every day, people knocked on the door, looking for directions, wondering if they could get onto the roof to take photos. No one got in. Ever.

Before he was able to sit, however, a blast of heat seared all the small hairs on the back of his neck, and he caught the fleeting impression of the heavy door sailing across the lobby and smashing into the wall before something struck him at the base of the skull and the world turned black.

"You could have just opened the door," Aoife suggested, looking at the smoldering ruin of metal and gla.s.s. "Or even melted the lock."

Sophie shook her hands to cool them. "Sometimes I don't know my own strength."

Niten shrugged out of his black suit coat and strapped two swords, a katana and the shorter wakizashi, around his waist, so that they hung over his left hip.

Aoife settled two matched short swords over her shoulders on her back, and a pair of nunchaku dangled from each hand. She wore her broad-bladed knife strapped to her leg.

And Sophie uncoiled the silver and black leather whip Perenelle had given her before they had left Prometheus's Shadowrealm. "This is woven from snakes pulled from the Medusa's hair," the Sorceress had explained. "It will slice through stone and cut metal. Be careful with it."