The Magician

CHAPTER NINETEEN

N icholas Flamel paused on the Rue Beaubourg and turned slowly, pale eyes

scanning the street. He didn't think he was being followed, but he needed to

be certain. He d taken the train to the Saint-Michel Notre-Dame station and

crossed the Seine on the Pont d Arcole, heading in the direction of the

glass-and-steel monstrosity that was the Pompidou Center. Taking his time,

stopping often, darting from one side of the road to the other, pausing at a

newsstand to buy the morning paper, stopping again for some foul coffee in a

cardboard cup, he kept checking for anyone paying close attention to his

movements. But as far as he could determine, there was no one following him.

Paris had changed since he d last been in the city, and though he now called

San Francisco home, this was the city of his birth and would always be his

city. Only a couple of weeks ago, Josh had loaded Google Earth onto the

computer in the bookshop s back room and shown him how to use it. Nicholas

had spent hours looking down on the streets he d once walked, finding

buildings he d known in his youth, even discovering the location of the

Church of the Holy Innocents, where he d supposedly been buried.

He had been particularly interested in one street. He d found it on the map

program and virtually walked down it, never realizing that he would soon do

so in reality.

Nicholas Flamel turned left off the Rue Beaubourg onto the Rue de

Montmorency and stopped as suddenly as if he had walked into a wall.

He drew a deep shuddering breath, conscious that his heart was pounding. The

wash of emotions was extraordinarily powerful. The street was so narrow that

the morning sunlight didn't reach it, leaving it in shadow. It was lined on

both sides with tall, mostly white-and-cream-colored buildings, many of them

with hanging baskets spilling flowers and greenery across the walls.

Round-topped black metal poles had been inserted into the sidewalk on both

sides of the street to prevent cars from stopping.

Nicholas walked slowly down the street, seeing it as it had once been.

Remembering.

More than six hundred years ago, he and Perenelle had lived on this street.

Images of medieval Paris flickered behind his eyes, a jumbled mismatched mess

of wooden and stone houses; narrow winding lanes; rotten bridges; tumbled

listing buildings and streets that were little better than open sewers. The

noise, the incredible, incessant noise, and the foul miasma that hung over

the city a mixture of unwashed disease-ridden humans and filthy animals were

things he would never forget.

At the bottom of the Rue de Montmorency, he found the building he had been

looking for.

It hadn't changed much. The stone had once been cream; now it was ancient,

chipped and weathered, stained black with soot. The three wooden windows and

doors were new, but the building itself was one of the oldest in Paris.

Directly above the middle door was a number in blue metal 51 and above that

was a tired-looking stone sign announcing that this had once been the MAISON

DE NICOLAS FLAMEL ET DE PERENELLE, SA FEMME. A red sign in the shape of a

shield announced that this was the AUBERGE NICOLAS FLAMEL. Now it was a

restaurant.

Once it had been his home.

Stepping up to the window, he pretended to read the menu as he peered inside.

The interior had been completely remodeled, of course, countless times

probably, but the dark beams that stretched across the white ceiling appeared

to be the same beams he d so often looked up at more than six hundred years

ago.

He and Perenelle had been happy here, he realized.

And safe.

Their lives had been simpler then: they hadn't known about the Elders or the

Dark Elders; they d known nothing of the Codex, or of the immortals who

guarded and fought over it.

And both he and Perenelle had still been fully human.

The ancient stones of the house had been carved with an assortment of images,

symbols and letters that he knew had puzzled and intrigued scholars down

through the ages. Most were meaningless, little more than the shop signs of

their day, but there were one or two that had special significance. Quickly

glancing left and right and finding the narrow street empty, he reached up

with his right hand and traced the outline of the letter N, which was cut

into the stone to the left of the middle window. Green power curled around

the letter. Then he traced the ornate F on the opposite side of the window,

leaving a shimmering outline of the letter in the air. Catching hold of the

window frame with his left hand, he hauled himself up onto the ledge and

reached over his head with his right hand, his fingers finding the shapes of

letters in the ancient stone. Allowing the tiniest trickle of his aura to

flow through his fingers, he pressed a sequence of letters and the stone

beneath his flesh turned warm and soft. He pushed and his fingers sank into

the stone. They wrapped around the object he had secreted within the solid

block of granite back in the fifteenth century. Pulling it free, he stepped

off the window ledge and dropped lightly to the ground, quickly wrapping his

copy of Le Monde around the object. Then he turned and headed down the street

without so much as a backward glance.

Before he stepped out onto the Rue Beaubourg, Nicholas turned over his left

hand. Nestled in the center of his palm was the perfect impression of the

black butterfly Saint-Germain had pressed into his skin. It will lead you

back to me, he d said.

Nicholas Flamel brushed his right forefinger over the tattoo. Take me back

to Saint-Germain, he murmured. Bring me to him.

The tattoo shivered on his skin, black wings rippling. Then it suddenly

peeled away from his flesh and hung flapping in the air before him. A moment

later, it danced and wove down the street. Clever, Nicholas muttered, very

clever. And he set off after it.