The Alchemyst

CHAPTER TWO

J osh peered over the edge of the cellar, eyes watering with the stink of

sulfur and mint. His first impression was that the usually quiet shop was

crowded: four men facing Nick Fleming, the owner, three of them huge and

hulking, one smaller and sinister-looking. Josh immediately guessed that the

shop was being robbed.

His boss, Nick Fleming, stood in the middle of the bookshop, facing the

others. He was a rather ordinary-looking man. Average height and build, with

no real distinguishing features, except for his eyes, which were so pale that

they were almost completely colorless. His black hair was cropped close to

his skull and he always seemed to have stubble on his chin, as if he hadn't

shaved for a couple of days. He was dressed as usual in simple black jeans, a

loose black T-shirt advertising a concert that had taken place twenty-five

years earlier and a pair of battered cowboy boots. There was a cheap digital

watch on his left wrist and a heavy silver-link bracelet on his right,

alongside two tatty multicolored friendship bracelets.

Facing him was a small gray man in a smart suit.

Josh realized that they were not speaking and yet something was going on

between them. Both men were standing still, their arms close to their bodies,

elbows tucked in, open palms turned upward. Nick was in the center of the

shop, while the gray man was standing close to the door, his three

black-coated companions around him. Strangely, both men s fingers were

moving, twitching, dancing, as if they were typing furiously, thumb brushing

against forefinger, little finger touching thumb, index and little finger

extended. Tendrils and wisps of green mist gathered in Fleming s palms, then

curled in ornate patterns and drifted onto the floor, where they writhed like

serpents. Foul, yellow-tinged smoke coiled and dripped from the gray man s

gloved hands, spattering onto the wooden floor like dirty liquid.

The stench rolled off the smoke, thickening the atmosphere with the scent of

peppermint and sulfur. Josh felt his stomach twist and lurch and he swallowed

hard; the rotten-egg smell was enough to make him gag.

The air between the two men shimmered with tendrils of green and yellow

smoke, and where they touched, sparks hissed and sizzled. Fleming s fingers

moved, and a long fist-thick coil of green smoke appeared in the palm of his

hand. He blew on it, a quick hissing breath, and it spun up into the air,

twisting and untwisting at head height between the two men. The gray man s

short, stubby fingers tapped out their own rhythm and a yellow ball of energy

spun from his hands and bobbed away. It touched the coil of green smoke,

which immediately wrapped around the ball. There was a sparking snap and the

invisible explosion blew both men backward across the room, sending them

crashing across the tables of books. Lightbulbs popped and fluorescents

shattered, raining powdery glass onto the floor. Two of the windows exploded

outward, while another dozen of the small square panes shattered and

spiderwebbed.

Nick Fleming tumbled to the floor, close to the opening to the cellar, almost

landing on top of Josh, who was standing frozen on the steps, wide-eyed with

shock and horror. As Nick clambered to his feet, he pushed Josh back down the

stairs. Stay down, whatever happens, stay down, he hissed, his English

touched with an indefinable accent. He straightened as he turned and Josh saw

him turn his right palm upward, bring it close to his face and blow into it.

Then he made a throwing motion toward the center of the room, as if he were

lobbing a ball.

Josh craned his neck to follow the movement. But there was nothing to see and

then it was as if all the air had been sucked out of the room. Books were

suddenly ripped from the nearby shelves, drawn into an untidy heap in the

center of the floor; framed prints were dragged from the walls; a heavy

woolen rug curled upward and was sucked into the center of the room.

Then the heap exploded.

Two of the big men in black overcoats caught the full force of the explosion.

Josh watched as books, some heavy and hard, others soft and sharp, flew

around them like angry birds. He winced in sympathy as one man took the full

force of a dictionary in the face. It knocked away his hat and

sunglasses revealing dead-looking, muddy, gray skin and eyes like polished

black stones. A shelf of romance novels battered against his companion s

face, snapping the cheap sunglasses in two. Josh discovered that he, too, had

eyes that looked like stones.

And he suddenly realized that they were stones.

He was turning to Nick Fleming, a question forming on his lips, when his boss

glanced at him. Stay down, he commanded. He s brought Golems. Fleming

ducked as the gray man sent three long spearlike blades of yellow energy

across the room. They sliced through bookshelves and stabbed into the wooden

floor. Everything they touched immediately started to rot and putrefy.

Leather bindings snapped and cracked, paper blackened, wooden floorboards and

shelves turned dry and powdery.

Fleming tossed another invisible ball into the corner of the room. Josh

Newman followed the motion of his boss s arm. As the unseen ball sailed

through the air, a shaft of sunlight caught it, and for an instant, he saw it

glow green and faceted, like an emerald globe. Then it moved out of the

sunlight and vanished again. This time when it hit the floor, the effect was

even more dramatic. There was no sound, but the entire building shook. Tables

of cheap paperbacks dissolved into matchwood, and slivers of paper filled the

air with bizarre confetti. Two of the men in black the Golems were slammed

back against the shelves, bringing books tumbling down on top of them, while

a third the biggest was pushed so hard against the door that he was propelled

out onto the street.

And in the silence that followed came the sound of gloved hands clapping.

You have perfected that technique, I see, Nicholas. The gray man spoke

English with a curious lilt.

I ve been practicing, John, Nick Fleming said, sliding toward the open

cellar door, shoving Josh Newman farther down the stairs. I knew you would

catch up with me sooner or later.

we've been looking for you for a very long time, Nicholas. you've got

something of ours. And we want it back.

A sliver of yellow smoke bit into the ceiling above Fleming s and Josh s

heads. Bubbling, rotten black plaster drifted down like bitter snowflakes.

I burned it, Fleming said, burned it a long time ago. He pushed Josh even

farther into the cellar, then pulled the sliding door closed, sealing them

both in. don't ask, he warned, his pale eyes shining in the gloom. Not

now. Catching Josh by the arm, Nick pulled him into the darkest corner of

the bookstore cellar, caught a section of shelving in both hands and jerked

it forward. There was a click, and the shelving swung outward, revealing a

set of steps hidden behind it. Fleming urged Josh forward into the gloom.

Quickly now, quickly and quietly, he warned. He followed Josh into the

opening and pulled the shelves closed behind him just as the cellar door

turned into a foul black liquid and flowed down the stairs with the most

appalling stench of sulfur.

Up. Nick Fleming s voice was warm against Josh s ear. This comes out in

the empty shop next door to ours. We have to hurry. It ll take Dee only a few

moments to realize what s happened.

Josh Newman nodded; he knew the shop. The dry cleaner s had been empty all

summer. He had a hundred questions, and none of the answers that ran through

his mind was satisfactory, since most of them contained that one awful word

in them: magic. He had just watched two men toss balls and spears of

something of energy at each other. He had witnessed the destruction those

energies had caused.

Josh had just witnessed magic.

But of course, everyone knew that magic simply did not and could not exist.