“Anyone.” Dee nodded. “All you need is the smallest fragment of bone.”

“Or a piece of clothing or jewelry,” Virginia Dare said quietly from the shadows. “Or a sword they carried,” she added, indicating the sword lying at his feet.

“Is that how you raised the creatures in Ojai?” Josh asked Dee.

“Yes.”

“You animated animals. Could I bring back dinosaurs?”

“Yes. Anything dead you can bring back to life. It is an awesome power,” Dee said. “Do you want to learn it?”

“Yes,” Josh said eagerly, “what do I have to do?”

“Well, first you can help me push this furniture out of the way. Apparently Miss Dare does not move furniture.”

Josh helped Dee shove a heavy sofa up against the wall. “What’s this magic called, and why are we clearing the floor?”

“I am going to make you a necromancer, Josh.” Dee smiled. “Normally, it would take decades to train you, but there is someone who can grant you this gift instantaneously. All you have to do is summon her.” He indicated the cleared floor. “She’s traveling through a distant Shadowrealm, but we can call her back here.”

“An Elder?”

“Better than an Elder: an Archon. We are going to call Coatlicue, the Mother of All the Gods.”

CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE

CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE

“Coatlicue! What madness is this?” Prometheus cried. He pulled his hand away from the pulsing red skull and pressed it close to his chest. The skin was pale and wrinkled, veins and bones prominent.

Nicholas was ashen-faced. “What is Dee doing? Coatlicue cannot train Josh in necromancy.”

“Coatlicue hates the Elders,” Prometheus whispered. “In ages past she gathered an army of Archons and their creations and rampaged through the Shadowrealms, destroying all in her path. She cannot be killed, so she was banished to the most distant and inhospitable Shadowrealm ever created-little more than a flat disc of rock. She has been there for tens of millennia.”

“Dee is no fool,” Nicholas said. “He knows he cannot bring Coatlicue into this world. He would not be able to control her.”

“I don’t think he intends to loose Coatlicue on the earth,” Perenelle said quietly, looking at Prometheus. “You told us Dee had been declared utlaga. I think Dee has declared war on the Dark Elders,” she whispered. “He’s going to set her on them: if they are fighting her, they will have no time for him.”

“But this Archon, she is like no other,” Prometheus said. He tapped the crystal skull. “I have seen the records of the battles she fought with the Great Elders.” He tried to laugh, but it came out as a croak. “If Dee calls her and manages to bring her through to this world, she will be ravenously hungry. She will eat him.”

“Of course!” Flamel whispered urgently. “That’s why he’ll not call the Archon himself. He’ll get Josh to do it!”