*Highway*San Francisco*
"I'm sorry kids, but you can't escape this now, not when Dee already saw you with us," Harry said, sitting with the children in the Jeep, Scathatch had taken the bike, "We just escaped from a man called John Dee, Nick's mortal enemy"
"Is this the same John Dee that used to serve a queen?" Josh asked.
"Yes, I won't tell you the exactly what happened to him, because I don't know," Harry answered, "But there are many ways to reach immortality, all of them with some kind of drawback"
"Magic has been around since the creation of the Earth, first by a civilization known simply as The Ancients, who achieved immortality at the price of their reason; they killed each other when changes turned them to animals.
"Centuries after the ancients went extinct came the Elders, those that became the gods of old civilizations, like Quetzalcoatl, Prometheus, Odin, Thor, and Ra. But they too underwent changes thanks to their immortality; they all looked human at first, but then changed at what people remember them as."
"From the Elders came many others: Humans, Werewolves, Werecats, Second Generation and many others, I don't doubt you'll meet some of them when we get to the Yggdrasil shadow realm. Some Second Generation also underwent the change, the three-headed crow goddess, for example, others never aged beyond their prime, like Scathatch and her sister.
"With humans, the price for immortality varies, some, like Nicholas, depend on something to keep them alive," 'The Philosopher's Stone' Josh mouthed to Sophie, "Others, like a man I met when I was fourteen, have to cut their souls into pieces to anchor it to this plain of existence, then there are those like Dee, who become slaves to those that make them immortal. Then there is Joan of Arc and the Count of Saint Germaine, married but unable to have children."
"That's awful," Sophie said, and Harry could not help but agree.
"Yet very logical, live needs to grow old, I'm going to assume that the reason those two you mentioned can't have children is because their reproductive system uses the stem cells that would normally create sex cells are used to keep them alive," Josh said, remembering his biology class.
"Something like that, but not quite, the ritual they did put any secondary organs in stasis, so that what would normally be used to keep them healthy would go to the rest of the body, as well as increasing the stem cell count in their bone marrow, as well as the flexibility."
Sophie and Josh blinked, and Nick sighed, "What? You asked, they let me make all sorts of tests on them, though Joan wasn't very friendly afterwards"
"Because you were a starting doctor," Nicholas said, looking at his passenger, "and the anesthesia you used lasted for six hours."
"I didn't know that their metabolisms would work the same."
"I doesn't matter, buckle up everyone, give your electronics to Harry, they'll be useless soon," The teens made to discuss, but a glare from Nick stopped them, "The magic of the World Tree will sap the energy from them anyway."
"Why?" Sophie asked, still reluctant to leave her iPod with Harry.
"Something to do with the three, it saps electricity and converts it into magic," Nicholas answered, looking at the dash of the jeep, "I should warn you, do not comment on Hecate's appearance, her Change forces her to appear differently depending the hour."
"How," Josh asked.
"During the morning she is a child, innocent looking but deadly, from ten to seven, she is an adult, distracting and deadly, from eight until the cycle starts again she is an elderly lady, easily angered," Nicholas said, noticing that lights were starting to flash.
Harry looked at him and he nodded. They would be using the connections of the Yggdrasil to reach the next Elder.
"Can you still ride a bike, Nicholas?" Harry asked the immortal, who was already showing the first signs of age.
"I haven't since Grindewald tried to make us join him, but I should be able to," It was then that it hit the children what Harry had told them soon after they met: There really was a world hidden from them.
"It's my godfather's; remember the London explosion shortly after Halloween '81?" Nicholas nodded, "well, he only just managed to get his bike back, and I borrowed it to modify mine."
"That would still leave one of us behind," Nicholas said.
"Nah, he built it with a side-car, and a dragon's breath booster, so you should be able to get away fast."
"You mean there actually are dragons?!" Josh exclaimed, Sophie looking just as exited.
"And basilisks, though those are regulated, werewolves, also regulated, vampires, they stay in Europe, Chupacabras here in Mexico, a friend of mine is one, dwarves, goblins, giants, though those are going extinct, too many battles between them."
The two's eyes widened further and further, until they resembled plates.
"If you go to my house sometime I'll let you borrow the most complete book that describes myths and truths of magical stuff," Harry said.
The Jeep died that moment, letting the Scathatch catch up to them, handing the motorbike to Harry, who shrunk it and put it in his satchel, where everything he had brought with him was.
"Do not show any fear or aggression, children, the Torc Alta will attack if you do," Nicholas warned the teens, Harry and Scathatch already walking towards the biggest tree in vicinity.
It was six in the afternoon, meaning that they would catch the Elder when she was at her most agreeable. This would be best if they wanted to exit her shadow realm towards one closer to the Witch of Endor, Scathatch's grandmother.
The Warthog men escorted them towards the Yggdrasil, where no doubt Hecate would be waiting for them. The twins were given more space than the adults were, but this was no surprise to any of them, as the ever-changing goddess no doubt had sensed that they had the Gold and Silver auras of legend.
It was a shame that she refused to take sides; with the control she had over the Yggdrasil it would be so easy to lock in the Dark Elders in their shadow realms, leaving them unable to do anything while the others took out their servants.
No one dared mess with her for that very reason, even if she lost a battle, a number of shadow realms would be destroyed, and even more would be blocked off from access to others.
*Alcatraz prison*
Perenelle woke up in a cell, confirming the last thought she had had before someone had knocked her out 'I am being kidnapped'
Judging by the sound of waves crashing on the shore nearby, she would say that wherever she was, it was still in San Francisco, or at least near the cost. A look through the tiny, barred window confirmed this.
She deduced that they had taken her to Alcatraz, the only prison, mundane anyway, near enough for her to be transported in less than two hours, the time she assumed she had been unconscious.
She couldn't feel her magic, which was bad, and meant that there was either a rune array nearby, though she doubted that as the drain would be localized in some part of her body, or the Sphinx.
Not the one of Egypt or one of the many that roamed the magical Mediterranean, but the Next Generation creature that had given birth to those riddle givers, it would certainly explain why she felt cut off from her magic, rather than drained.
But she was not a figure as legendary as her husband, perhaps even more, for nothing.
She sat down, legs crossed, and meditated.
*Yggrassil shadow realm*
Sophie and Josh were shown to one of the rooms upstairs in the tree while Harry, Nicholas and Scathatch pleaded their case to the three-aged goddess.
"What do you think of this?" Josh asked his twin, trying to hear something from the small opening that led to the stairs.
"What do you mean? Hecate or…?" Sophie let her response fade.
"Everything," Josh responded loudly, "Nicholas Flamel being immortal, magical people running around in hiding, gods and goddesses hidden in worlds of their creation, a shadow war being fought."
"I," Sophie tried to look for the best way to put it, "I don't know, in a way I am excited, because we could be able to do some amazing things, like summoning lightning, or healing people…"
"And on the other?" Josh egged her on.
"On the other we have the ones wanting to bring an end to the world as we know it," Sophie sighed, leaning onto her twin as he wrapped an arm around her.
"And yet we don't want to go back to how it was before," Sophie nodded, "I wonder what aunt Agnes is doing right now."
"Probably something boring," Sophie smiled.
It had been a while since they had had some twin quality time, and what better time to do so than when they were cut off from the rest of the world.
*Yggdrassil main chamber*
"You come asking for passage, when you know I have not gotten involved since I helped humans get out of Danu Talis," Hecate looked at the three before her.
"Yes, truly I know that, but the twins, they are important, and we need to get them to learn magic," Nicholas said calmly, trying not to sound desperate.
"You are the Alchemist that has killed hundreds, your companions are The Shadow and a wizard," Hecate said, looking at Nicholas only.
"And the two children upstairs are the twins of prophesy, to two that are one, one to create and one to destroy," Nicholas tried to appeal to the loyalty the elder had had to Abraham.
"All the more reason to get you out of my realm" Hecate sighed, "I will open a gateway three miles from the Witch of Endor tomorrow at noon, until then you two must provide my servants with weapons," she pointed at Nicholas and Harry, who nodded reluctantly.
"That's as good as we're getting," Scathatch said, moving to the stairs.
The two men followed her.
