Alchemystic (21 page)

“So, what?” Rory asked. “Your brother brought this place down on himself playing Harry Potter?”

I flipped through the folder, full of the type of papers and schematics I dealt with now. “I don’t know,” I said, frustrated. “He was always good at making poor life choices, so it’s possible he crushed himself to death screwing around with this.” Not like I’d been so far away from it myself.

I closed the folder, the back side of it showing now. A billing invoice from a slip at a Brooklyn shipyard sat clipped to
the back of it. A date and time written on it in my brother’s handwriting. “This is from the night he died.”

“What is it?” Marshall asked.

“A bill of lading.”

“Lading…?” Rory asked.

“It’s a legal agreement between shippers and carriers,” I said. “We deal with a lot of suppliers in renovation and construction. Devon must have had it with him, for his meeting.”

“Then we should check it out,” Rory said.

“
I
can check it out,” I said. “Back at the office. We should have all our dealings with them on file somewhere.”

Marshall sneezed.

“We should go,” I said, stuffing the folder into my backpack and flipping my own notebook back open, readying the incantation once more since there didn’t seem to be any other way out. The four of us gathered at the door. My jaw still ached slightly, but I’d have to endure it again. What other choice was there? If I had better command of this power, I probably wouldn’t be hurting myself so much attempting it…

“Just give me a second,” I said. “I swear I’ve been spending all my non–day job time reading up on all this, but it references so much else in my great-great-grandfather’s library. I need more time. But first, I’m going to sleep for a thousand years.”

“You will be dead by then,” Stanis reminded me from somewhere behind us, and I couldn’t help but smile. “That was one of your ‘idioms,’ was it not?”

“You’re learning,” I said. “I knew you were good for something other than heavy lifting.”

He smiled. And as he did, I immediately felt unbelievably guilty about what I’d said about his only purpose being to serve me.

“And flying,” Rory added.

“And that eternal-living thing,” Marshall offered.

I sighed and pressed my will against the stone spilling into the room from outside the door. I just wanted to be out of there, despite how architecturally interesting the space was.
The only thing I really cared about right now was the bliss of my bed. The spells, alchemy, the Spellmasons, searching out the documents we found…All that could wait.

If sleep was for the weak, then I was the weakest person alive right now, and I was okay with that.

Alexandra

I
slept in and I slept late, my family’s business schedule be damned. It wasn’t like contractors weren’t used to keeping people waiting, anyway, and my body had been craving rest by the time I’d gotten in last night. When I woke around noon, my jaw still ached and my very soul felt made of lead, but I forced myself out of bed. Within a half hour I pulled myself together—showered, ate, rescheduled the meetings I had missed before hitting the offices down on the public street level.

If there was an order to our current filing system, I didn’t possess a high enough education degree to figure it out, which meant it took most of my afternoon to check the bill of lading against our records.

Numb from the search, I snuck away around three and headed to the studio upstairs to get back to what was really on my mind—deciphering more of Alexander’s magic ways. By the time Rory stepped out of the elevator a few hours later, I had switched to overalls, already covered in flecks of clay that also coated both my hands like gray gloves.

Rory walked over to me and grabbed me by my forearm,
raising my hand up to look it over. “New look for you,” she said. “I like how it hides your chipped, broken nails.”

I pulled my hand away, going back to the clay I was working with a piece of brick on the table. “You took the elevator up,” I said, ignoring her comment.

“It was a dance day,” she said, throwing herself down onto the nearest couch as her bag hit the floor. “Just a little too sore to haul myself up the fire escape, which means of course I ran into your father.”

“Sorry,” I said.

“Don’t be,” she said. “I caught him in a good mood. He only blessed me three times.”

“Only three?” I asked. “Wow. That is a good day. I think he’s happy as a clam because he saw me working in the office earlier. Of course, he thought I was actually getting work done, but most of it was investigating that appointment my brother had the night he died.”

Rory stuffed one of the pillows under her head, slid her glasses off, and looked over to me, squinting now. “Anything?”

I shook my head, nodding toward the folder at the end of the worktable I was at. “I couldn’t find record of them as one of our shipping vendors,” I said, “but the address on it points to a slip at a shipping yard belonging to Varangian Freight. Strangely, it’s from the old country and arrived back at the top of July.”

“Where is this slip?”

“Out in Brooklyn.”

“Should we head out there? Do a little recon? Maybe after a little nap…?”

I laughed. “Not quite yet,” I said smoothing down the last of the clay to the project I was working on. “I have something to show you. Come here.”

Rory let out a miserable-sounding groan, but got up and shuffled over to me at the worktable I was set up at. Bits of brick, stone, statue pieces, wire, and half-packed clay blocks were strewn across my work area, my great-great-grandfather’s
secret tome laid open off to the side. I wrapped my hands around my project and stood it up. A crude statue formed from brick stood there on two clay legs reinforced by wire within, the entire thing still reeking of chemicals I found among the contents of the art supply cage in the studio. It wasn’t pretty, but it was a functional human form, if a bit stocky, reminding me of a tiny, no-necked football player.

“You ready?” I asked.

“For what?” she asked back, slipping her glasses back on.

“Watch,” I said, and turned to my crudely carved clay figure. I pressed my thoughts into it. My
will
. I stared at it, wanting it to move, the minutes passing. After several had passed, Rory cleared her throat. I broke my focus on my failed statue and looked at her.

“I appreciate your attempt at modern art there, but I have to say maybe you should stick to those art-class sketches you were working on.”

“Shush,” I said, and turned back to it. I blocked her out completely and threw my concentration into the clay, trying to wrap my mind around it. Unfortunately, all it was doing was giving me a headache right between my eyes across the bridge of my nose, but I refused to give up. If I had read my great-great-grandfather’s book correctly, half of it was belief, and I felt halfway to believing, even though each passing moment let a little bit more doubt settle in.

Then it happened. The clay wasn’t just something I was staring at. It was something I felt pressing against me, resisting me. I pushed it back and felt the space beneath it give way. Wobbling like an unstable toddler, the block of clay and brick took a step back. It teetered on the brink of falling over but I was too far away to make a grab for it. I lashed out with my mind as my body tensed to reach forward anyway, my thoughts wrapping around it, steadying it. The figure righted itself, and Rory laughed in surprise at my side.

“Are you doing that?” she asked. “For real?”

I didn’t answer. I didn’t dare for fear of losing control. Instead, I forced the clay-and-brick figure to nod.

Rory ran over to it, leaning close to it, but not
too
close,
I noticed. “Holy crap,” she said, marveling at it. She bounced in place, clapping her hands together. “What else can you do?”

I paused before answering, still fearful of speaking. “I’m not sure,” I said. The creature stayed in its place, a little uncertain on its legs still, but in no danger of falling over. “Let’s see what I can do.”

I danced the figure around in an awkward circle, my teeny Frankenstein obeying my will.

“How are you doing that?” she asked.

I laughed despite the building headache that continued to grow, piercing behind my eyes. “I’m not entirely sure,” I said. “It’s all very new to me.”

Rory gave me a sidelong glance, full of doubt. “You sure that’s wise? Isn’t your next move to make the big fella a companion…? Didn’t you say you were going to? No offense, but I don’t think this little thing here is going to provide much in the way of protection.”

Part of me held my tongue because a surprising and sudden jealous twinge rose up in me—I
didn’t
really want to make Stanis a companion, did I? Maybe I was being selfish, but I didn’t love the idea of sharing my protector with anyone, let alone someone made for him, but I wasn’t about to tell Rory, who would no doubt immediately start teasing me about sexual incompatibilities with creatures that could only chafe you. “Baby steps,” I said, avoiding the question.

“If some crazies dropped a building on
my
brother and tried to kill me…” she said. “Don’t you think two gargoyles—
grotesques
; sorry—would be better protection than one? Stanis could have a pal, and we need strength in numbers, especially since there’s a stream of tattooed psychos looking for you, whatever their reasoning is.”

“Baby steps,” I repeated, sticking to my misdirection, despite the fact she had a point. “Have to learn how the little things work before going full scale.” I wasn’t sure I was prepared to argue about my newfound jealousy of this potential stone companion for Stanis, and fell silent as I concentrated on my little living brick-and-clay man.

Rory’s face fell a little, but she stopped talking for a while
as she watched my creation until she spoke with concern in her voice. “It’s living, yes?”

“I don’t think so,” I said. “I’m controlling it.”

“Maybe you should stop,” she offered.

“Stop? Why?”

“Until you have a better idea what exactly is going on there…”

“I know it’s not a gargoyle,” I said, becoming defensive now, “but it’s a start! Frankly, I’m a little hurt that you’re not more enthusiastic.”

“I’ll grant you that it’s fantastic,” she said, “but I’d rather know exactly what’s bringing it to life.”

“
I
am,” I said, unable to hide the harsh tone in my voice.

She walked over to me and got right in my face, meeting me with as much attitude as I was giving. “Are you sure?” she asked. “Because I’m not.”

“Why not?” My clay figure continued walking in little circles on top of my art station as I pulled my focus more to dealing with Rory.

“Why not?” Rory repeated. “Because Alexander warned you in his books of trickster or malevolent spirits! Consider that
grotesque
that watches over your family. That creature isn’t just reacting to your control, your pushing and prodding of it. It acts on its own. There’s life to it. Giving something life doesn’t just happen in a vacuum. Until you figure that out, you need to stop this. Now.” She grabbed both my arms hard, as if she were trying to restrain me, which set me off.

She wasn’t wrong. There was certainly more to Stanis than stone. But I was frustrated with what felt like an interrogation. I shrugged her off and stepped back, raising my voice.

“Did you just see what I did here, Ror?” I shouted. “Did you?”

She nodded but didn’t move, only meeting me with silence.

“Jesus, can’t you just be excited for me?” I said. “I find one thing that breaks me out of the monotony of learning the real estate market in New York City, and you can’t just join in the fun for a single moment—”

“Lex,” Rory said, looking over her shoulder. Her voice was stern, but I was having none of it or her attitude.

“Let me finish!” I shouted.

Rory waved me over without turning to even look at me. “Can’t,” she said. “Too important.”

“Tough,” I said. “What I have to say is important to me.”

She grabbed my arm and pulled me to her. “You need to calm down,” she said.

“Why?”

She pointed at my art station. “
That’s
why.”

My tiny figure shook on the table, looking like a junkie going through withdrawal, the bulk of its body falling over as the brick dragged around the tabletop, and it wasn’t alone.

Every other piece of stone or clay on the table was also in motion. Bricks, lumps of clay still in the package, and even fragments of discarded stone twitched and slid around the surface, many of them threatening to tear apart the pages of my great-great-grandfather’s secret book.

The pulse of the chaos beat in time to the anger I was feeling from my argument. I tried to calm myself, but everything continued to stay in motion, a jagged chunk of broken brick dragging across the book now. I ran over to it, laid my hand on the book, and breathed out the words of power to transmute it back into its stone form. The page under my hand went cold, turning thick and heavy in seconds. I grabbed the piece of animated brick off the page and stepped back.