“A twin blade. Why have I not heard of this before?” Bacon sounded almost irritated.

  Marethyu raised his left arm. “I have held it in this hand…well, I did when I still had a hand. Tell me, Doctor, who are your masters now?”

  “Masters?” Bacon asked. “I have no masters.”

  “You traded your human existence for an immortal life,” Marethyu noted. “Your immortality was not a gift, but part of a bargain. Who controls you now?”

  “No one.” Bacon took a step toward, the hooded man and the two gargoyles shuffled after with him.

  “Then who sent you out tonight to find me and the book?”

  The Englishman hesitated before answering. “I suppose it matters little if you know their names. You will not survive this night.”

  “You have no idea how many men and monsters have said that to me, and yet, here I am, and they are no more,” Marethyu replied.

  “They call themselves Isis and Osiris, after the Aegyptian gods,” Bacon admitted.

  Marethyu smiled. “I have met with all the Aegyptian Gods. And this pair are no more Aegyptian than you or I. In fact, they are not even human. We use the term monster very loosely, Dr. Mirabilis, but let me tell you, that pair are both monsters and monstrous.

  “There is nothing you can say to me to convince me to leave here without that book,” Bacon snapped. “I know what you are doing. You are trying to delay me to allow whomever you gave the book to escape. But you are wasting your time. I have set a trap for them.”

  The gargoyle dog suddenly lunged forward, all three heads snapping at Marethyu’s face. He carved a figure eight with his hook before him, trailing blue, then yellow light, and the room suddenly smelled of oranges. The gargoyle dissolved into an enormous pile of sand. A tiny whirlwind danced across the top of the dust, scattering it around the room.

  “Oh, your infamous mechanical man,” Marethyu answered. “You believe he will simply bring the Codex back to you like an obedient hound? I am afraid, Dr. Mirabilis, that you lost control of your metal creation a long time ago. He has his own agenda now.”

  * * *

  —

  Nicholas and Perenelle stepped away from the metal man. He moved forward in a squeak of gears, his outstretched hand unwavering. “The book.”

  “Who are you?” Nicholas asked.

  “What are you?” Perenelle said.

  Talos looked at the humans curiously. “Ah, such an interesting response,” he said. “Usually humans run screaming from me.”

  “This has already been a night of wonders,” Nicholas said. “You are just one among many, and it tends to dull the senses.”

  “My name is Talos, and I am a creation of Dr. Mirabilis,” Talos recited. “I have been instructed to retrieve the book from you.”

  “We were instructed not to part with it,” Perenelle answered. She stepped behind her husband, put her hand on his shoulder, and tugged him backward.

  Talos inched toward them. “You will not be able to outrun me. Once my master has dispatched the hook-handed man, he will loose the gargoyles. Chimeras, actually. You’ll not escape the three-headed dog or the dragon.”

  Perenelle’s fingers tightened on her husband’s shoulder, pulling him back another step.

  Talos’s three-fingered hand squeaked open and closed. “Give me the book, and I will allow you to make your escape. My master wants only the book; he has no use for you.” The mechanical man suddenly stopped, and his helmet plumed fetid yellow smoke. “Why you?” he abruptly asked. “Why did the hook-handed man give you the book?”

  “He did not give it,” Perenelle said. “We bought it.”

  “Such a valuable tome must have cost a fortune, and yet”—Talos’s metal head whined left and right, taking in the surroundings—“and yet you do not seem wealthy enough.”

  “It cost a denier,” Perenelle answered.

  “So little?”

  “Actually, that’s all I had,” Nicholas admitted.

  “So why did he give it—sell it—to you? What makes you so special?”

  Nicholas shook his head. “I have no idea.”

  “You are a magician, a necromancer, a warlock, and you, madame, must be a sorceress or an enchantress?”

  “We are none of those things,” Nicholas answered, feeling the tug on his shoulder as his wife urged him backward. “I am a scrivener, a bookseller, and an apprentice alchemyst.”

  “There is a mystery here,” Talos said. The outstretched hand rasped open and closed again. “The book. Give it to me and you can turn and run. Resist me…well, I am metal and you are but flesh.”

  “No, we’re not going to do that,” Perenelle said. “But we are going to turn and run.” Catching Nicholas’s hand, she deliberately turned her back on the monster and darted down the alley, practically dragging her husband behind her.

  In a rancid explosion of steam, Talos strode after them…and plunged his left foot ankle-deep into the stinking puddle Nicholas had trod in earlier. Heavy metal legs sank deep into the muck and splashing ice sent waves of fizzing sparks dancing up the length of the chain mail covering. Talos’s weight drove him deeper into the hole. He scrabbled on the ground, three-fingered claws attempting to find a grip on the slippery earth, but all he managed to do was to accumulate handfuls of foul mud. Dialing his volume up to full, he shouted, “You cannot escape me. I will find you. I want my book!”

  Suddenly, the entire alleyway vibrated and Nicholas, Perenelle, and Talos turned to look toward the rear of their house. In the flickering yellow light they could see that something had struck the wall hard enough to send a spiderweb of cracks from top to bottom.

  * * *

  —

  On the other side of the wall, Marethyu and Bacon heard Talos’s shout.

  “Looks like things are not going so well back there. And you will note that he said his book,” Marethyu said. “I do wonder what he wants it for?”

  “He speaks for me,” Bacon said, but there was a touch of uncertainty in his voice.

  “I will find…I want. Has he always spoken of himself in the first person?” Marethyu smiled. “Why, it is not a stretch to say that he has developed a consciousness.”

  “Impossible,” Bacon spat.

  “You created him. That should be impossible. You animated stone statues this night. That should be impossible also. I think, once you set your mind to things, nothing is impossible. Why, sometimes, I’ve done six impossible things before breakfast,” Marethyu said.

  He was focused on the dragon gargoyle. The muscles in its short, stunted legs were flexing, and he knew it was preparing to jump. Suddenly, Bacon moved, the tip of Excalibur describing an arcane circular symbol in the air. A ball of glittering blue light sped across the room and exploded in the center of Marethyu’s chest. The force of the blow drove him back against the wall. He cracked his head against the stone and the room spun to blackness as he momentarily lost consciousness. Blinking away the spots of color dancing before his eyes, while trying not to throw up, he was aware that the blue ball was still buzzing against his skin, melting down his body, encasing him in frigid ice.

  And then the stone dragon advanced.

  “You may think yourself clever, Marethyu, but I am Doctor Mirabilis,” Bacon shouted. “I am over one hundred and forty years old, and my long life has taught me much.”

  Marethyu pushed himself up against the wall. His legs felt like rubber. “My age is not measured in centuries, Doctor, but in tens of millennia, and it’s clear that I have learned nothing.” Catching the side of the glittering ball with the edge of his hook, he spun it across the room, where it shattered like glass. The ice coating his body steamed and was absorbed into his leather cloak.

  Bacon grinned. “It is clear that you are not invulnerable.”

  “Immortal only, but nothing and no one is truly invulnerable.”

  “So do you think you are quick enough to defeat the gargoyle and me?”

  Marethyu slowly sank to one knee and pressed his hand against the back of his head. It came away sticky with blood. He looked at it in something like amazement. “Do you know how long it’s been since I last saw my own blood?”

  “Prepare to see a lot more of it,” Bacon said, gripping Excalibur in both hands and striding forward. The dragon opened its stone jaws and then launched itself into the air.

  * * *

  —

  The Flamels raced down the alleyway and out into the street. It took them a moment to get their bearings. Fearnua had told them to go to the Tour de Nesle, which was on the south bank of the Seine.

  “Wait, wait, wait a moment.” Nicholas staggered to a halt and bent double, trying to catch his breath. “Do you think he’ll be able to get out of that hole?” he asked.

  “My experience with metal men is limited,” Perenelle said with a smile. “But I would imagine he is strong. He’ll pull himself out.”

  “He has no way of tracking us, has he?” Nicholas took in a deep, shuddering breath. “I cannot run another step.”

  Perenelle caught her husband’s face and turned it to look up. Standing on a nearby roof, head wreathed in swirling yellow smoke, Talos slowly scanned the streets below.

  “If we don’t move, he cannot see us,” Nicholas breathed.

  The metal head stopped, then spun to look directly in their direction. Eyes blazed and a metal claw, still dripping black filth, pointed at them.

  “Can you still not run another step?” Perenelle asked.

  Nicholas heaved a sigh and stood up and they ran, twisting and turning down the narrow Parisian streets. Nicholas led Perenelle through the oldest part of the city, where the houses on either side were so close together their first floors practically touched, and the sky overhead was little more than a starry strip.

  They crouched in doorways as the monster leapt from roof to roof, dislodging slates, smashing through chimneys and raining bricks into the street below.

  “My book…my book…”

  The words, howled across the city, sounded like the call of a wild animal, and those few Parisians brave enough to crawl from beneath their beds and peer into the night swore they saw a huge ape leaping from building to building.

  Finally, Nicholas and Perenelle reached the Seine. The river was a shimmering curl of solid dirty-gray ice. The thin black line in the middle was the narrow channel of running water. On the opposite side, they could clearly see the white stones of the imposing Tour de Nesle. Perenelle squinted. “I don’t see any driver.”

  “Now what?” Nicholas’s words were warm against Perenelle’s ear. “Nearest bridge is the Pont au Changeurs. But even if we reach it, there’s no place to hide and we’ll be exposed. How do we get across?”

  “He’s gone very quiet,” Perenelle said. “I wonder where he is?”

  The silence was even eerier than the endless wailing. Initially every dog in Paris had howled in response to the monster’s shouts, but then, one by one, the animals had fallen silent, as if sensing that this was something unnatural.

  “Maybe he’s gone back to his master?” Nicholas suggested.

  There was a click and whir and the sudden waft of rotten eggs. “And maybe he is standing behind you,” Talos snarled.

  Catching Perenelle’s hand, Nicholas pulled her out of hiding and raced toward the riverbank. They slithered down the crumbling sides and out onto the frozen river. Clinging to one another, slipping and sliding, they moved farther out onto the ice.

  Talos clambered down the riverbank and stomped onto the frozen river. Ice creaked and spiderwebbed beneath his weight, but it held. As he dragged his feet, the metal cut grooves in the surface and gave him purchase, allowing him to stride forward, claws outstretched. “You should have given me the book when you had a chance. You could have walked away, made new lives for yourselves, and pretended this night never happened. Now I will simply take the book from your corpses.”

  “You talk too much,” Perenelle snapped. She dragged Nicholas forward, moving farther away from the bank, out toward the center of the frozen river.

  “The ice is thinner toward the middle,” Nicholas said, realizing what she was trying to do. “It might not support his weight.”

  “There’s a narrow channel of water in the middle,” Perenelle said. “Maybe we’ll be able to leap across it. If he tries to, he’ll punch straight through the ice.”

  “And if he catches up with us?” Nicholas asked.

  “Then we toss the book into the river.”

  * * *

  —

  Still kneeling on the floor, Marethyu looked up and smiled. “I did mention that Excalibur was not the most powerful of the swords. And not even the most interesting.”

  He abruptly flattened himself as the dragon gargoyle leapt forward and sailed overhead, ragged claws extended and close enough to ruffle his hair. The dragon hit the floor, stone claws sliding, tearing up the wood as it slithered toward the wall. Just as it was about to hit the stone, Marethyu’s left arm shot out, his hook blazing red and blue, white and green, as he plunged it into the stone. The wall turned to almost transparent dirty gray smoke. The gargoyle slid into the smoke, and then Marethyu pulled his hand away. The wall coalesced back into stone, leaving the dragon stuck like a bizarre sculpture, its back legs trapped in the room while the head, shoulders and claws looked out over the alley.

  Bacon gripped Excalibur in both hands, raised it high over his head…

  Marethyu tapped the floor with the flat of the hook. The floorboards turned to sawdust, and Bacon plunged into the basement below. He fell onto a fat-bellied pot, dousing himself in rose-scented water. Scrambling to his feet, he grabbed Excalibur and pointed toward the gaping hole in the ceiling. But before he could bring the sword to life, Marethyu tapped the floor again, and thick white clouds boiled up in the cellar. Thunder rumbled, and a flicker of lightning worked its way across the ceiling. When the rain came, it was torrential, blinding Bacon, filling his open mouth. He coughed and waved Excalibur about. It sparkled and fizzled, and suddenly the rain turned to snow.

  Marethyu sat cross-legged over the ragged opening in the floor and looked down. Through the swirling clouds, he could see snow and ice beginning to pile up in the corner. Bacon was almost completely covered in snow, and his thin lips were starting to turn blue.

  “Using the sword of ice in the middle of a rainstorm was not a good idea,” Marethyu said. Abruptly the clouds disappeared, leaving the Flamels’ basement covered in inches of thick white powder. A man-shaped snowdrift moved, and Bacon’s head appeared.

  “Would you like me to continue?” Marethyu asked.

  Bacon was shaking so hard he could not hold his sword. It fell from frozen fingers and disappeared, instantly freezing the snow around it into a solid ball of ice.

  “It was not really a fair fight,” Marethyu offered. “You were using one element, whereas I have access to all of them.”

  “What happens now?” Bacon asked through chattering teeth.

  Marethyu stood up and dusted off his cloak before carefully touching the back of his head. “You’ve given me a headache,” he said. “I’m going to leave you to explain to your masters how you’ve lost the Codex. I can guarantee you that they’ll not be pleased.” He indicated the shattered room and the gargoyle still stuck in the wall. “This sort of thing attracts attention, and the Dark Elders do not like that.”

  “I suppose you’re going after the Codex and Talos?” Bacon asked.

  “No. The Codex is in new hands now. And Talos…well, he has no idea what he’s up against.”

  He turned to the back door and pulled it open. He tapped the gargoyle’s hindquarters. “Remember,” he called, “you owe Notre-Dame three gargoyles.”

  “Ch-ch-ch-ch-chimeras,” Bacon said.

  * * *

  —

  “Here’s what we’ll do,” Nicholas said. He looked toward the narrow band of running water, then back to where Talos was quickly gaining on them. He knew they were never going to reach the center of the river in time. “You take the book and get it to the water. I’ll stay here and see if I can slow this monster down.”

  “I’m not going to leave you,” Perenelle answered simply.

  “We have to protect the Codex at all costs.”

  “I’m not leaving you. We’ll fight it together. Maybe if the three of us fight on the one spot, the ice will crack and pull us through. We might even have a chance then; he’ll go straight down.”

  “And probably drag us with him,” Nicholas muttered. “I don’t suppose you packed any weapons?”

  “Clothes and shoes.”

  “Give me the shoes. I can use the wooden soles as a club.”

  Talos slid closer. The smoke leaking from his helmet had turned even more rancid, while the patterns of sparks on the chain mail was agitated and irregular, unlike the previous smooth washes of lights.

  “I think we’ve irritated him,” Nicholas muttered.

  “If he feels emotions, perhaps he can be reasoned with,” Perenelle said.

  “I am not deaf,” Talos snapped. “I am possessed of excellent hearing. And I cannot be reasoned with.”

  “So you are irritated,” Perenelle pointed out.

  “You have needlessly extended an encounter which should have ended in the alley behind your home,” Talos called. “You should have given me the book.”

  “Why do you want it?” Nicholas asked.

  “That is, as you humans are wont to say, none of your business.”

  “We are humans, and humans are first and foremost curious,” Perenelle said. Reaching into the satchel, she pulled out the cloth-wrapped book. “I think we know why Bacon wanted the book, but you?” She held it up. “What use is this to you?”

 

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