shoulder to the block of ice, with the two Disir partially visible within.
You saved my life, she said softly.
You would have beaten her, Sophie said confidently.
Maybe, Joan conceded, and maybe not. I m not as young as I once was. But
you still saved my life, she repeated, and that s a debt I ll never
forget. Stretching out her left hand, she placed it flat against the kitchen
door and applied a gentle pressure. The door clicked open.
And then fell off its hinges.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
T he Comte de Saint-Germain strolled downstairs from his studio, tiny
noise-canceling earphones pushed into his ears, eyes fixed on the screen of
the MP3 player in his hands. He was trying to create a new playlist: his top
ten favorite sound tracks. Gladiator, naturally The Rock Star Wars, the first
one only El Cid, of course The Crow, maybe
He stopped at the bottom step and automatically straightened a picture that
was hanging crooked on the wall. He took another step and realized that a
framed gold disc was also slightly askew. Looking down the corridor, he
suddenly noticed that all the pictures were at odd angles. Frowning, he
pulled out his earphones
And heard Josh call Scatty s name
And heard the clatter of metal
And realized that the air stank of vanilla and lavender
Saint-Germain raced down the stairs to the next floor. He found the Alchemyst
slumped, exhausted, in the door to his room, and slowed, but Nicholas waved
him on. Quickly, he whispered. Saint-Germain darted past him and continued
down the corridor and on to the stairs .
The hallway was in ruins.
The remnants of the hall door hung off its hinges. All that remained of the
antique crystal chandelier was a single buzzing lightbulb. Wallpaper hung in
huge curling strips, revealing the cracked plaster beneath. Banisters were
chopped through, tiles scored and chipped.
And there was a solid lump of ice sitting squarely in the center of the hall.
Saint-Germain approached it cautiously and ran his fingers down the smooth
surface. It was so cold his flesh stuck to it. He could make out two
white-clad figures entwined within the block, faces frozen in ugly snarls;
their startling blue eyes followed him.
Wood snapped in the kitchen and he turned and darted toward it, gloves of
solid blue-white flame growing on his hands.
And if Saint-Germain thought that the damage to the hallway was bad, nothing
prepared him for the devastation in the kitchen.
The entire side of the house was missing.
Sophie and Joan stood in the midst of the ruin. His wife was holding the
shaking girl tightly, supporting her. Joan was wearing shiny blue-green satin
pajamas and was still holding her sword in a metal gauntlet. She turned to
look over her shoulder as her husband stepped into the room. You missed the
fun, she said in French.
I heard nothing, he apologized, in the same language. Tell me.
It was all over in minutes. Sophie and I heard a disturbance at the back of
the house. We ran downstairs just as two women smashed their way in through
the hall door. They were Disir, they said they had come for Scathach. One
attacked me, the other turned her attention to Sophie. Even though she was
speaking an obscure variant of the French language, she dropped her voice to
a whisper. Francis this girl. She is extraordinary. She combined the magics:
she used Fire and Air to defeat the Disir. Then she wrapped them in fog and
froze it to a lump of ice.
Saint-Germain shook his head. It is physically impossible to use more than
one magic at a time , he said, but his voice trailed away to a whisper. The
evidence of Sophie s powers sat in the center of the hallway. There was a
legend that the most powerful Elders were able to use all the elemental
magics simultaneously. According to the most ancient myths, this was the
reason one of the reasons that Danu Talis sank.
Josh is gone. Sophie suddenly shook herself free of Joan s grip and spun
around to face the count. Then she looked over his shoulder to where an
ashen-faced Flamel stood leaning in the doorway. Something s taken Josh,
she said, desperately frightened now. And Scatty s gone after him.
The Alchemyst shuffled into the center of the room, wrapped his hands around
his body as if he was freezing and looked around. Then he bent to scoop up
the Shadow s matching short swords from where they lay amongst the rubble.
When he turned to look back at the others, they were all startled to see that
his eyes were bright with tears. I am sorry, he said, so terribly,
terribly sorry. I have brought this terror and destruction to your home. It
is unforgivable.
We can rebuild, Saint-Germain said airily. This will give us the excuse we
needed to remodel.
Nicholas, Joan said very seriously, what happened here?
The Alchemyst dragged up the only unbroken chair in the room and slumped into
it. He hunched forward, elbows on his knees, looking at the Shadow s gleaming
swords, turning them over and over in his hands. Those are Disir in the
block of ice. Valkyries. Scathach s sworn enemies, though she s never told me
why. I know they have pursued her down through the centuries and have always
allied themselves with her enemies.
They did this? Saint-Germain looked around the ruined kitchen.
No. But they obviously brought something with them that did.
What s happened to Josh? Sophie demanded. She shouldn't have left him alone
in the kitchen, she should have waited with him. She would have defeated
whatever had attacked the back of the house.
Nicholas held up Scathach s weapon. I think you should be asking what s
happened to the Warrior. In the centuries I ve known her, she s never let her
swords out of her grasp. I fear she s been taken .
Swords swords Sophie pulled away from Joan and began desperately searching
through the rubble. When I went to bed, Josh had just come back from sword
practice with Scatty and Joan. He had the stone sword you gave him. She
summoned a wind to raise a chunk of heavy masonry and toss it aside,
revealing the floor beneath. Where was the sword? She felt a flicker of hope.
If he d been captured, then surely the sword would be on the floor? She
straightened and looked around the room. Clarent isn't here.
Saint-Germain walked to the hole where the back door had been. The garden was
a ruin. A chunk of stone had been ripped out of the fountain and the bowl
cracked in half. It took him a moment to recognize the U-shaped hunk of metal
that had been his back gate. Only then did it sink in that the entire back
wall was missing. The nine-foot-tall wall was now little more than a stump.
There were powdered and crushed bricks scattered all across the garden,
almost as if the wall had been pushed down from outside.
Something big very big has been in the garden, he said to no one in
particular.
Flamel looked up. Can you smell anything? he asked.
Saint-Germain breathed deeply. Snake, he said firmly. But that s not
Machiavelli s odor. He stepped out into the garden and drew in a deep
lungful of cool air. It s stronger out here. Then he coughed. This stench