" I suppose calling the police is out of the question. " Soyeon leaned against a precariously listing bookcase and wrapped her arms around her body to stop herself from shaking.

She was surprised that her voice sounded so calm and reasonable.

" We've got to tell them that Hyori's been kidnapped ... "

" Hyori's not in any danger just yyet. " Rain was sitting on one of the lower rungs of a short stepladder.

He was holding his head in his hands and breathing deeply and grit. " But you're right, we're not going to the poilice. " He managed a wan smile.

" I'm not sure what we could say to the police that would make any sense to them. "

" I'm not sure that it makes much sense to us either, " Seungho said. He was sitting on the only unbroken chair left in the bookshop.

Although he'd broken no bones, he was bruised all over and knew he was going to turn several really interesting shades of purple over the next couple of days. The last time he'd felt like this was when he'd been run over by 3 guys on the football field.

Actually, this felt worse. At least then, he knew what was happening.

" I think that perhaps gas escaped into the shop, " Rain suggested cautiously, " and what we've all experienced and seen in nothing more than a series of hallucinations. " He stopped, looking at Soyeon & Seungho in turn.

The twins lifted their heads to look at him, identical expressions of disbelief on their faces, bright blue eyes still wide with shock.

" Lame," Seungho said finally.

" Very lame, " Soyeon agreed.

Rain shrugged. " Actually, i thought it was a pretty good explaination. It covered the smells, the explosion in the shop and any ... any peculiar things you thought you might have seen, " he finished hurriedly.

Adults, Soyeon had decided a long time before, were really bad at making up good excuses.

" We didn't imagine those things, " she said firmly. " We didn't imagine the Golems. "

" The what ? " Seungho asked.

" The big guys were Golems. They were made out of mud," his sister explained. " Hyori told me. "

" Ah, she did, did she ? " Rain murmured.

He looked around the devastated shop and shook his head. It had taken less than 4 minutes to completely trash it.

" I'm surprised he brought Golems. They are usually so unreliable in warmer countries. But they served his purpose. He got what he came for. "

" The book ? " Soyeon asked.

She had caught a glimpse of it in Seungho's hand before the small man pulled it free. Although she was standing in a shop full of books, and their father owned a huge library of antiquarian books, she had never seen anything like that particular one before. It looked as if it was bound in tarnished metal.

Rain nodded. " He's been looking for that for a long time," he said softly, his pale eyes lost and distant. " A very long time. "

Seungho rose slowly to his feet, his back and shoulders aching. He held out two crumpled pages to Rain.

" Well, he didn't get all of it. When he pulled the book out of my hand, i guess i must have been holding on to these. "

Rain snatched the pages from Seungho's hand with an inarticulate cry. Dropping to the floor, he brushed away the shredded books and shattered shelvin and laid the 2 pages on the floor side by side.

His long- hands were trembling slightly as he smoothed the pages flat. The twins knelt on the floor on either side of him, staring intently at the pages .. and trying to make sense of what they were seeing,

" And we're certainly not imagining that, " tapping the page with her index finger.

The thick pages were about 6 inches across by 9 inches long and were composed of what looked like pressed bark. Tendrils of fibers and leaves were clearly visible in the surface, and both were covered with 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.

Soyeon & Seungho 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.

Rain sighed. " No, you're not imagining that, " he said finally.

He reached down the neck of his T0shirt and pulled out a pair of pince-nez on a length of black cord. The pince-nex were old-fashioned glasses without arms, designed to perch on the bridge of the nose.

Using the spectacles as magnifying glasses, Rain moved them across the wriggling, shifting the words. " Ha! "

" Good news ? " Seungho asked.

" Excellent news. He's missing the Final Summoning. " He squeezed Seungho'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 fded from his face.

" And when Junhyung 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 ? " Soyeon asked. " Hyori also called him Junhyung. "

Gathering up the pages, Rain stood. Soyeon turned to look at him and realized that he suddenly looked old and tired, incredibly tired.

" The gray man was Yong Junhyung, one of the most powerful and dangerous men in the world. "

" I've never heard of him. " Seungho said.

" To remain unknown in this modern world. That, indeed, is real power. Junhyung is an alchemist, a magician, a sorcerer and a necromancer. And they are not all the same thing. "

" Magic ? " Soyeon asked.

"I thought there was no such thing as magic, " Seungho said sarcastically, and then immediately felt foolish, after what he'd just seen and experienced.

"Yet you have just fought creatures of magic. The Golems are men created of mud and clay, brought to life by a single word of power. In this century, i'll wager there are less than half a dozen people who have even seen a Golem, let alone survived an encounted with one. "

" Did Junhyung bring them to life ? " Soyeon asked.

" Creating Golems is easy. The spell is as old as humanity. Animating them is a little harder and controling them is practically impossible. " He sighed, " but not for Yong Junhyung "

" Who is he ? " She pressed.

" Yong Junhyung was Court Magician during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I in England. "

Soyeon laughed shakily, not entirely sure whether to believe Rain. " But that was centuries ago. The gray man couldn't have been older than fifty. "

Rain crawled around on the floor, pushing through books until he found the one he wanted. 

England in the Age of Elizabeth

He flipped it open. On the page facing an image of Queen Elizabeth I was an old-fashioned etching of a sharp-faced man with a triangular beard. The clothes were different, but there was no doubt that this was the man they had encountered.

Soyeon took the book from Rain's hands. "It says here that Junhyung was born in 1527, " She said very softly. " That would make him nearly five hundred years old. "

Seungho came to stand beside his sister. He stared at the picture, then looked around the romo. If he breathed deeply, he could still smell the peculiar odors of ... magic. That was what he had been smelling- not mint and rotten eggs, but the scent of magic.

" Junhyung knew you, " he said slowly, " He knew you well. " he added.

Rain moved about the shop, picking up odd items and dropping them to the floor again. " Oh, he knows me," he said. " He knows Hyori too. He's known us for a long time ... a very long time . " He looked over at the twins, his almost colorless eyes now dark and troubled.

" You're involved now, more's the pity, so the time for leis and subterfuge is past. If you are to survive, you will need to know the truth. "

Seungho & Soyeon looked at one another. They had both picked up the phrase " If you are to survive ... "

" My real name is Jung Jihoon. I was born in Korea but was raised up in France. Hyori is .. well .. Lee Hyori. She's 10 years older than me. But don't ever tell her I said that, " he added hastily.

Seungho felt his stomach churn and rumble. He was going to say "Impossible!" and laugh and be irritated with Rain for telling them such a stupid story.

But he was bruised and aching from being flung across the room by ...by what ?

He remembered the Golem that had reached for Hyori and how it had dissolved into powder at her touch.

" What .. what are you ? " Soyeon asked the question that was forming on her twins lips. " What are you and Hyori ? "

Rain smiled, but his face was cold and humorless, and for an instant, he almost resembled Junhyung. " We are legend, " he said simply. " Once- a long time ago- we were simple people, but then i bought a book, the Book of Abraham the Mage, usually called the Codex. From that moment on, things changed. Hyori changed. I changed. I became The Alchemyst.

" I became the greatest alchemyst of all time, sought after by kings and princes, by emperors and even the Pope himself. I discovered the scret of the philosopher's stone hidden deep in that book of ancient magic. I learned how to turn ordinary metal into gold, how to change common stones into precious jewels.

But more than this, much more, i found the recipe for a formulation of herds and spells that keep disease and death at bay. Hyori and I became virtually immortal. "

He held up the torn pages in his hands. " This is all that remains of the Codex. Junhyung and his kind have been seeking the Book of the Mage for centuries. Now they have it. And Hyori, too, " he added bitterly.

" But you said the Book is useless without these pages, " Seungho reminded him quickly.

" That is true. There is enough in the Book to keep Junhyung busy for centuries, but these pages are vital, " Rain agreed, " Junhyung will be coming back for them. "

" There's something else, though, isn't there ?" Soyeon asked quickly, " Something more. " She knew he was holding something back, adults always did. Their parents had taken months to tell Seungho and her that they would be spending the summer away from Korea and in San Francisco.

Rain glanced at her sharply, and once again she was reminded of the look Junhyung had given her earlier, there was something cold and inhuman in it. 

" Yes ... there is something more. " he said hesitantly. " Without the Book, Hyori & I will age. The formulation for immortality must be brewed afresh every month. Within the full cycle of the moon, we will wither and die. And if we die, then the evil we have so long fought against will triumph. The Elder Race will claim this earth again "

" The Elder Race ? " Seungho asked, his voice rising and craking.

He swallowed hard, conscious now that his heart was thumping in his chest. What had started out as just another ordinary Thursday afternoon had turned out into something strange and terrible. He played alot of computer games, read some fantasy novels, and in those, elder always meant ancient and dangerous. " Elder, as in old ? "

" Very old. " Rain agreed.

" You mean, there was more like Junhyung, like you ? " Seungho said, then winced as Soyeon kicked his shins.

Jihoon turned to look at Seungho, his colorless eyes now clouded with anger. " There are others like Junhyung, yes, and others like me, too, but Junhyung and I are not alike. We were never alike. " Jihoon added bitterly.

" We chose to follow different paths, and his has led him down some very dark roads. He too is immortal, though even i am not sure how he has retains his youth. But we are both humans. " He turned to the cash register, which was lying broken open on the floor, and started scooping out the money as he spoke. When he turned to look at the twins, they were startled by the grim expression on his face.

" Those whom Junhyung serves are not and never were from the race of man. " Shoving the money into his pockets, he grabbed a battered leather jacket off the floor.

"We've got to get out of here. "

"Where will you go ? What will you do ? " Soyeon asked.

" What about us ? " Seungho finished the thought for her, as she often did for him.

" First, i have to get you to a place of safety before Junhyung realizes that the pages are missing. Then i'll go in search of Hyori. "

The twins looked at each other. " Why do you have to get us to a safe place ? " Soyeon asked.

" We don't know anything. " Seungho said.

" Once Junhyung discovers that the Book is incomplete, he will return for the missing pages. And i guarantee you, he will leave no witnesses on this earth. "

Seungho started to laugh, but the sound died in his throat when he realized that his sister was not even smiling.

" You're ... " He his suddenly dry lips. " You're saying that he would kill us ? "

Jung Jihoon tilted his head to one side, considering,

" Ani, " he said finally, " not kill you. "

Seungho heaved a sigh of relief.

" Believe me, " Jihoon continued, " Junhyung can do much worse to you. Much worse. "

---------------------------------------------

How's it ? :D

COMMENTS APPRECIATED ^-^

So anywaiz, i'm planning to make a one-shot :D It's like, a ghost story type. But i have too many biases till i don't know who to put T__T LOL. But dw, i'll still continue with this fanfic :D

So i made tumblr :B LOL. Feel free to follow me @ http://e-logic.tumblr.com/ ^-^