01_-_The_Alchemyst

jagged, angular writing. The first letter at the top left-hand corner of each
page was beautifully illuminated in gold and red, while the rest of the words
were written in reddish black ink.
And the words were moving.
Sophie and Josh watched as the letters shifted on the page like tiny
beetles, shaping and reshaping themselves, becoming briefly almost legible
in recognizable languages like Latin or Old English, but then immediately
dissolving and re-forming into ancient-looking symbols not unlike Egyptian
hieroglyphs or Celtic Ogham.
Fleming sighed. “No, you’re not imagining that,” he said finally. He
reached down the neck of his T-shirt and pulled out a pair of pincenez on a
length of black cord. The pincenez were old-fashioned glasses without arms,
designed to perch on the bridge of the nose. Using the spectacles as
magnifying glasses, Nick moved them across the wriggling, shifting words.
“Ha!”
“Good news?” Josh asked.
“Excellent news. He’s missing the Final Summoning.” He squeezed
Josh’s bruised shoulder, making him wince. “If you had wanted to take two
pages from the book, rendering it useless, then you could not have chosen
better than these.” The broad smile faded from his face. “And when Dee
finds out, he’ll be back, and I guarantee you he will not just bring Golems
with him next time.”
“Who was the gray man?” Sophie asked. “Perry also called him Dee.”
Gathering up the pages, Nick stood. Sophie turned to look at him and
realized that he suddenly looked old and tired, incredibly tired. “The gray
man was Dr. John Dee, one of the most powerful and dangerous men in the
world.”
“I’ve never heard of him,” Josh said.
“To remain unknown in this modern world: that, indeed, is real power.
Dee is an alchemist, a magician, a sorcerer and a necromancer, and they are
not all the same thing.”