The Alchemyst by Michael Scott Read Free Book Online Page A

standing still in the alleyway. A third scuttled out of the gloom and settled down to watch them.
    “OK,” Josh said evenly, “I’ve seen men made of mud, I guess I can accept spying rats. Do they talk?” he wondered aloud.
    “Don’t be ridiculous,” Flamel snapped. “They’re rats.”
    Josh really didn’t think it was such a ridiculous suggestion.
    “Has Dee sent them?” Sophie asked.
    “He’s tracking us. The rats have followed our scent from the shop. A simple scrying spell allows him to see what they see. They are a crude but effective tool, and once they have our scent they can follow us until we cross water. But I’m more concerned about those.” He tilted his chin upward.
    Sophie and Josh looked up. Gathering on the rooftops of the surrounding buildings were an extraordinary number of black-feathered birds.
    “Crows,” Flamel said shortly.
    “That’s bad?” Sophie guessed. From the moment Dee had stepped into the shop, there hadn’t been a whole lot of good news.
    “It could be very bad. But I think we’ll be OK. We’re nearly there.” He turned to the left and led the twins into the heart of San Francisco’s exotic Chinatown. They passed the Sam Wong Hotel, then turned right into a cramped back street, then immediately left into an even narrower alleyway. Off the relatively clean main streets, the alleyways were piled high with boxes and open bins that stank with that peculiarly sweet-sour odor of rotten food. The narrow alley they had turned into was especially foul-smelling, the air practically solid with flies, and the buildings on either side rose so high that the passage was in gloomy shadow.
    “I think I’m going to be sick,” Sophie muttered. Only the day before, she’d said to her twin that the weeks working in the coffee shop had really heightened her sense of smell. She’d boasted that she was able to distinguish odors she’d never smelled before. Now she was regretting it: the air was rancid with the stink of rotten fruit and fish.
    Josh just nodded. He was concentrating on breathing through his mouth, though he imagined that every foul breath was coating his tongue.
    “Nearly there,” Flamel said. He seemed unaffected by the rank odors whirling about them.
    The twins heard a rasping, skittering sound and turned in time to see five jet-black rats scramble across the tops of the open bins behind them. A huge black crow settled on one of the wires that crisscrossed the alleyway.
    Nicholas Flamel suddenly stopped outside a plain, unmarked wooden door so encrusted with grime that it was virtually indistinguishable from the wall. There was no handle or keyhole. Spreading his right hand wide, Flamel placed his fingertips at specific locations and
pressed.
The door clicked open. Grabbing Sophie and Josh, he pulled them into the shadow and eased the door shut behind them.
    After the bitter stench of the alleyways, the hallway smelled wonderful: sweet with jasmine and other subtle exotic odors. The twins breathed deeply. “Bergamot,” Sophie announced, identifying the orange odor, “and Ylang-Ylang and patchouli, I think.”
    “I’m impressed,” Flamel said.
    “I got used to the herbs in the tea shop. I loved the odors of the exotic teas.” She stopped, suddenly realizing that she was talking as if she would never go back to the shop and smell its gorgeous odors again. Right about now, the first of the early-afternoon crowd would be coming in, ordering cappuccinos and lattes, iced tea and herbal infusions. She blinked away the sudden tears that prickled at her eyes. She missed The Coffee Cup because it was ordinary and normal and
real.
    “Where are we?” Josh asked, looking around now that his eyes had become accustomed to the dim light. They were standing in a long, narrow, spotlessly clean hallway. The walls were covered in smooth blond wood, and there were intricately woven white reed mats on the floor. A simple doorway covered in what looked like paper stood at the