Usually, nothing moved in Xibalba except the bubbling lava, but now a steady stream of messengers was flitting and scrabbling from one cave mouth to the other. Some were leathery and resembled bats, others were furred and looked like rats, but they were neither, and none were truly alive. They had been created for one purpose: to carry a message from the heart of the Dark Elders’ Shadowrealm out into every connected world. Once the messengers’ task was complete, they would melt back into mud, sticks and scraps of hair and skin.

The messengers were carrying news of Dr. John Dee’s death sentence.

And none of those who heard it-Elder, Next Generation or immortal human-were surprised. There was only one price for failure, and Dr. John Dee had failed spectacularly.

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SIX

“There have been worse days,” Dr. John Dee said, though he couldn’t remember when.

Following the disaster at Stonehenge and the twins’ escape through the leygate, the Magician had spent the remainder of the night and the early part of the following day in the tumbled ruins of the barn where, only a few hours previously, Flamel and the twins had been hiding out. Helicopters buzzed overhead and police and ambulance sirens howled along the nearby A344. When all the police activity had finally died away in the early afternoon, Dee had left the barn and started walking toward London, keeping to the back roads. Beneath his coat, wrapped in a ragged cloth, he carried the single stone sword that had once been two, Clarent and Excalibur. It throbbed and pulsed against his skin like a beating heart.

There was little or no traffic on the narrow country lanes, and he was just beginning to think that he would have to steal a car in the next town or village he came to, when an elderly vicar in an equally ancient Morris Minor stopped and offered him a lift.

“You’re lucky I came along,” the old man said in a crackling Welsh accent. “Not many people use these side roads now, with the motorway so close.”

“My car broke down, and I need to get back into London for a meeting,” Dee said. “I got a bit lost,” he added, consciously shifting his accent to match the vicar’s.

“I can take you. I’m glad of the company,” the white-haired man admitted. “I’ve been listening to the radio-and all this talk about the security scare was making me nervous.”

“What’s happened?” Dee asked, keeping his voice light and casual. “I thought there was a lot of police activity.”

“Where have you been for the past twelve hours?” the vicar asked with a grin that shifted the false teeth in his mouth.

“Busy,” Dee said. “Met up with some old friends; we’d a lot of catching up to do.”

“Then you missed all the excitement…”

Dee kept his face expressionless.