vanilla on the air, crisp, clear and pure: the scent of raw untrained power.
And in that moment, Machiavelli knew beyond a doubt that Dee was correct:
this was the odor of one of the legendary twins.
I want the entire area sealed off, Machiavelli snapped to the semicircle of
high-ranking police who had gathered at the bottom of the steps in the Square
Willette. Cordon off every street, alleyway and lane from the Rue Custine to
the Rue Caulaincourt, from the Boulevard de Clichy to the Boulevard de
Rochechouart and the Rue de Clignancourt. I want these people found!
You are suggesting closing down Montmartre, a deeply tanned police officer
said in the silence that followed. He looked to his colleagues for support,
but none of them would meet his eye. It s the height of the tourist season,
he protested, turning back to Machiavelli.
Machiavelli rounded on the captain, his face as impassive as the masks he
collected. His cold gray eyes bored into the man, but when he spoke his voice
was even and controlled, barely above a whisper. You know who I am? he
asked mildly.
The captain, a decorated veteran of the French Foreign Legion, felt something
cold and sour at the back of his throat as he looked into the man s stony
eyes. Licking suddenly dry lips, he said, You are Monsieur Machiavelli, the
new head of the Direction G n rale de la S curit Ext rieure. But this is a
police matter, sir, not an external security matter. You have no authority
I am making this a DGSE matter, Machiavelli interrupted softly. My powers
come directly from the president. I will shut down this entire city if
necessary. I want these people found. Tonight, a catastrophe was averted. He
waved his hand vaguely in the direction of Sacre -Coeur, now beginning to
appear out of the thinning mist. Who knows what other terrors they have
planned? I want a progress report on the hour, every hour, he finished, and
without waiting for a response turned and marched over to his car, where his
dark-suited driver waited, arms folded across his massive chest. The driver,
face half hidden behind wraparound mirrored sunglasses, opened the door and
then closed it gently behind Machiavelli. After he had climbed into the car,
the driver sat patiently, black gloved hands resting lightly on the leather
steering wheel, and awaited instructions. The sheet of privacy glass that
separated the driver s section from the back of the car buzzed down.
Flamel is in Paris. Where would he go? Machiavelli asked without preamble.
The creature known as Dagon had served Machiavelli for close to four hundred
years. It was the name by which he had been known for millennia, and despite
his appearance, he had never been even remotely human. Turning in the seat,
he pulled off his mirrored sunglasses. In the dim car interior, his eyes were
bulbous and fishlike, huge and liquid behind a clear, glassy film: he had no
eyelids. When he spoke, two rows of tiny ragged teeth were visible behind his
thin lips. Who are his allies? Dagon asked, shifting from deplorable French
to appalling Italian before dropping back to the bubbling, liquid language of
his long-lost youth.
Flamel and his wife have always been loners, Machiavelli said. That is why
they have survived for so long. To the best of my knowledge, they have not
lived in this city since the end of the eighteenth century. He pulled out
his slender black laptop and ran his index finger over the integrated
fingerprint reader. The machine blipped and the screen blinked to life.
If they came through a leygate, then they came unprepared, Dagon said
wetly. No money, no passports, no clothes other than those they were
wearing.
Exactly, Machiavelli whispered. So they re going to need to find
themselves an ally.
Humani or immortal? Dagon asked.
Machiavelli took a moment to consider. An immortal, he said finally. I m
not sure they know many humani in this city.
So which immortals are currently living in Paris? Dagon asked.
The Italian s fingers hit a complicated series of keystrokes and the screen
scrolled to reveal a directory called Temp. There were dozens of .jpg, .bmp
and .tmp files in the directory. Machiavelli highlighted one and hit Enter. A
box appeared in the center of the screen.
Enter Password.
His slender fingers clicked across the keyboard as he typed in the password
Del modo di trattare i sudditi della Val di Chiana ribellati, and a database
encoded with unbreakable 256-bit AES encryption, the same encryption used by
most governments for their top-secret files, blinked open. Over the course of
his long life, Niccol Machiavelli had amassed a huge fortune, but he
considered this single file to be his most valuable treasure. It was a
complete dossier on every immortal human still living in the twenty-first
century, compiled by his network of spies across the globe most of whom
didn't even know they were working for him. He scrolled through the names.
Not even his own Dark Elder masters knew he possessed this list, and he was
sure some would be very unhappy if they were to discover that he also knew
the locations and attributes of almost all the Elders and Dark Elders still
walking the earth or in the Shadowrealms that bordered this world.
Knowledge, as Machiavelli well knew, was power.
Although there were three screens devoted to Nicholas and Perenelle Flamel,
hard information was scarce. There were hundreds of entries, each one a
reported sighting of the Flamels since their supposed deaths in 1418. They
had been seen on just about every continent in the world except Australia.
For the past 150 years, they had lived on the North American continent, with
the first confirmed and verified sighting of the last century taking place in
Buffalo, New York, in September 1901. He skipped to the section marked Known
Immortal Associates. It was blank.
Nothing. I have no records of the Flamels associating with other
immortals.
But now he is back in Paris, Dagon said, bubbles of liquid forming on his
lips as he spoke. He will seek out old friends. People behave differently at
home, he added; their guard comes down. And no matter how long Flamel has
lived away from this city, he will still consider it his home.
Niccol Machiavelli looked over the top of the computer screen. He was
reminded yet again of how little he knew about his faithful employee. And
where is your home, Dagon? he asked.
Gone. Long gone. A translucent skin flickered across the huge globes of his
eyes.
Why have you remained with me? Machiavelli wondered aloud. Why have you
not sought out others of your kind?
They too are gone. I am the last of my kind, and besides, you are not that
dissimilar to me.
But you are not human, Machiavelli said softly.
Are you? Dagon asked, eyes wide and unblinking.
Machiavelli took a long moment before finally nodding and returning to the
screen. So we re looking for someone the Flamels would have known when they
were still living here. And we know they haven t been in the city since the
eighteenth century, so let us limit our search to immortals who were around
then. His fingers tapped the keys, filtering the results. Seven only. Five