The Magician (The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel #2) Read Online Free PDF Page A

sights, terrifying images and incomprehensible sounds. It was as if a thousand movies had been mixed up and edited together. And scattered throughout the tangle of memories were countless incidences when the Witch had actually used her special power, the Magic of Air. All Sophie had to do was find a time when the Witch had used fog.
    But when and where and how to find it?
    Ignoring Flamel’s voice calling down to Machiavelli, blanking out the sour smell of her brother’s fear and the jingle of Scathach’s swords, Sophie concentrated her thoughts on mist and fog.
    San Francisco was often wrapped in fog, and she’d seen the
Golden Gate
Bridge
rising out of a thick layer of cloud. And only last fall, when the family had been in St. Paul s Cathedral in Boston, they d stepped out onto
Tremont Street
to find that a damp fog had completely obscured the Common. Other memories began to intrude: mist in Glasgow; swirling damp fog in Vienna; thick foul-smelling yellow smog in London.
    Sophie frowned; she had never been to Glasgow, Vienna or London. But the Witch had and these were the Witch of Endor’s memories.
    Images, thoughts and memories like the strands of fog she was seeing in her head shifted and twisted. And then they suddenly cleared. Sophie clearly remembered standing alongside a figure dressed in the formal clothing of the nineteenth century. She could see him in her mind s eye, a man with a long nose and a high forehead topped with graying curly hair. He was sitting at a high desk, a thick sheaf of cream-colored paper before him, dipping a simple pen into a brimming inkwell. It took her a moment to realize that this was not one of her own memories, nor was it something she had seen on TV or in a movie. She was remembering something the Witch of Endor had done and seen. As she turned to look closely at the figure, the Witch’s memories flooded her: the man was a famous English writer and was just about to begin work on a new book. The writer glanced up and smiled at her; then his lips moved, but there was no sound. Leaning over his shoulder, she saw him write the words Fog everywhere. Fog up the river. Fog down the river in an elegant curling script. Outside the writer’s study window, fog, thick and opaque, rolled like smoke against the dirty glass, blotting out the background in an impenetrable blanket.
    And beneath the portico of Sacre -Coeur in Paris, the air turned chill and moist, rich with the odor of vanilla ice cream. A trickle of white dribbled from each of Sophie’s outstretched fingers. The wispy streams curled down to puddle at her feet. Behind her closed eyes, she watched the writer dip his pen into the inkwell and continue. Fog creeping fog lying fog drooping fog in the eyes and throats
    Thick white fog spilled from Sophie’s fingers and spread across the stones, shifting like heavy smoke, flowing in twisting ropes and gossamer threads. Coiling and shifting, it flowed through Flamel’s legs and tumbled down the steps, growing, thickening, darkening.

    Niccol watched the fog flow down the steps of Sacr -Coeur like dirty milk, watched it condense and grow as it tumbled, and knew, in that moment, that Flamel was going to elude him. By the time the fog reached him it was chest high, wet and vanilla scented. He breathed deeply, recognizing the odor of magic.
    “Remarkable”, he said, but the fog flattened his voice, dulling his carefully cultivated French accent, revealing the harsher Italian beneath.
    “Leave us alone”, Flamel’s voice boomed out of the fog.
    “That sounds like another threat, Nicholas. Believe me when I tell you that you have no idea of the forces gathered against you now. Your parlor tricks will not save you.” Machiavelli pulled out his cell phone and hit a speed dial number. “Attack. Attack now!” He raced up the steps as he spoke, moving silently on expensive leather-soled shoes, while far below, booted feet thumped on stone as the gathered police charged up the