01_-_The_Alchemyst

The couple spent the next twenty years traveling to every country in
Europe, heading east into the land of the Rus, south to North Africa, even into
Araby in an attempt to decipher and translate the curious manuscript. They
came into contact with magicians and sorcerers of many lands, and studied
many different types of magic. Nicholas was only vaguely interested in
magic; he was more interested in the science of alchemy. The Codex, and
other books like it, hinted that there were very precise formulas for creating
gold out of stone and diamonds out of coal. Perenelle, on the other hand,
learned as much as she could about all the magical arts. But it had been a
long time since she had seriously practiced them.
Now, trapped in the limo, she recalled a trick she had learned from a
strega—a witch—in the mountains of Sicily. It was designed for dealing with
knights in armor, but with a little adjustment…
Closing her eyes and concentrating, Perenelle rubbed her little finger in
a circle against the car seat. Dee was absorbed in his phone call and didn’t
see the tiny ice white spark that snapped from her fingertip into the finegrained
leather. The spark ran through the leather and coiled around the
springs beneath. It shot, fizzing and hissing, along the springs and into the
metal body of the car. It curled into the engine, buzzing over the cylinders,
circled the wheels, spitting and snapping. A hubcap popped off and bounced
away…and then abruptly, the car’s electrics went haywire. The windows
started opening and closing of their own accord; the sunroof hummed open,
then slammed shut; the wipers scraped across the dry windshield, then beat
so fast they snapped off; the horn began to sound out an irregular beat.
Interior lights flickered on and off. The small TV unit in the left-hand wall
popped on and cycled dizzyingly through all its channels.
The air tasted metallic. Tendrils of static electricity now danced around
the interior of the car. Dee flung his cell phone away, nursing suddenly numb
fingers. The phone hit the carpeted floor and exploded into shards of melted
plastic and hot metal.
“You…,” Dee began, turning to Perenelle, but the car lurched to a halt,
completely dead. Flames leapt from the engine, filling the back of the car
with noxious fumes. Dee pushed the door, but the electric locks had engaged.
With a savage howl, he closed his hand into a fist and allowed his rage to