Brimstone (19 page)

“Yes. It’s another organic compound. It binds to the blood cells so tightly that the malarial parasite cannot.”

My mind was spinning, drawing a strange sort of picture. I flipped over the printout and sketched a flat, vaguely bowl-like shape. “Let’s say I’m an alchemist.”

“Okay,” said Dr. Smyth, in a humoring-the-nutcase sort of voice. “Why are we saying that?”

What could I say that wouldn’t get us tossed out of her lab so fast we bounced? She already suspected that Professor Blackthorne had set her up. I glanced at Justin, but he was no help. My next accomplice was going to be a much better liar.

“I’m working on a project.” Dr. Smyth continued to gaze at me, bemused. “A creative writing project,” I said with sudden inspiration.

The corner of her mouth lifted. I still got the feeling she was humoring me, but she said, “Okay, I’ll bite.” She leaned her elbows on the lab bench and looked at my drawing. “Is that your cauldron, then?”

“It’s more of a brazier. For a fire, you know?”

“What is it made out of?”

“Does it matter?”

“Certain metals may be reactive with your potion.” She seemed intrigued now. My dad was the same way, a sucker for an intellectual discussion, no matter how off the wall. “I assume that’s where this exercise is headed.”

I took up the gauntlet. “Say I start a fire, then add sulfur, which burns blue, right?”

“Yes.” Dr. Smyth gave me a quizzical look. “But what purpose does it serve? It can’t be just for aesthetics.”

I considered the question. Professor Blackthorne is my favorite teacher, but chemistry is not my strongest subject. “Fire supplies the energy for the chemical reaction, right? What if the sulfur—or brimstone, since we’re thinking like alchemists—is meant to evoke the energy of the earth?”

“Or of Hell,” Justin added. I frowned at him, but he didn’t back down.

Dr. Smyth nodded. “Right.” She wrote “Fire and Brimstone” on the sketch and then, “Energy source.” “If we allow for supernatural in your plot, then we allow for Hell.”

“Can’t we leave that out of the equation for the moment?” I could rationalize alchemy. It was, in its way, a science. “ ‘Hell’ sounds so melodramatic.”

“Let’s say the power of the underworld for now,” said Dr. Smyth, writing it in parenthesis. “That covers the physical and spiritual possibilities. Now, what are we trying to accomplish with our spell?”

Their eyes went to me expectantly. I had been chewing on the idea for a while, but it was a struggle to voice. Talk about melodrama. “A curse. We’re trying to curse someone.”

Justin held my gaze for a silent moment. It was the first time I had acknowledged out loud that this wasn’t a random spirit or undirected supernatural event. The thought that someone could have meant to kill or injure Karen or Jeff was an uncomfortable one.

“Excellent!” The professor continued with a brisk enthusiasm that drew me back to humor. We bent over the table to watch her scribble notes. “Wormwood—the bitter truth. We want to teach the cursee a lesson. The quinine …”

“It binds to the blood,” I said. “Binds the curse to the victim.” A thought distracted me: Or binds the servant spirit to the summoner.

Dr. Smyth continued. “Right. Putrescine and cadaverine. Well, those are harder.”

“Not really,” said Justin. “Eye of newt, toe of frog. Or whatever else is handy.”

Dr. Smyth looked at him. “But why? Literary tradition? If the character goes to the trouble of putting this formula together, everything must have a purpose.”

“A burnt offering,” he suggested.

“Toe of frog?” she scoffed. “Not much of a sacrifice.”

I straightened. “Decay is a kind of breaking down. Maybe we’re trying to break down our victim, reduce him.”

Dr. Smyth tapped the pen. “Seems a bit of a stretch metaphorically.”

“So is ‘bitter truth,’ ” I protested.

“That has a folklore precedent. But then, so does eye of newt and toe of frog.” She jotted down “newt & frog.” “But of course, it’s your story, so you can write it any way you want.”

Didn’t I wish.

She and Justin squabbled amiably over what icky rotting things could be added, for what metaphorical or alchemical purpose. To Dr. Smyth it was an academic exercise, an amusement, and for a little while, listening to them, I let myself think of it that way, too.

But I realized what she didn’t. The organic compounds, the nasty ones, didn’t have to be part of the formula. They could be intrinsic to the thing that the spell had called.

I thanked Dr. Smyth again as we left. “I appreciate all your help.” We stood at the door of her office and I had the printout, with all our notes on it, folded in my hand.

“Not at all,” she said. “I enjoy an esoteric puzzle, now and again. Good luck with the project.” It took me a blank moment to realize she meant my very fictional fiction assignment. She pushed her hands into the pockets of her lab coat and continued. “The main thing to remember is that the supernatural has rules, just like the natural world. You simply have to figure out what they are.”

“Right. Well. Thanks again.”

We turned to go, but her voice called me back before we’d gone more than a few steps. “Maggie?”

“Yes, Professor?”

“I’m still curious. This substance that seems to have inspired your story. You never said where you came across it.”

“The school gym,” I said, because I was out of lies.

“Hmm.” Her expression was doubtful, but she let it go. “Well, that would definitely convince me to wear flip-flops in the shower.”

“y
ou’re quiet,” Justin said once we were in the car.

“I’m trying to banish the mental image of Drs. Smyth and Blackthorne playing McGonagal and Snape in their off-duty hours.”

He chuckled. “I’d like to meet Professor Blackthorne someday.”

“He’s a trip. I wish he taught English.”

“It probably wouldn’t be the same.”

“It would have to be better than what I’ve got. Ms. Vincent has no sense of humor.”

“I’ll bet that’s hard on you.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Only that you sort of live and die by the wisecrack.”

I wondered if that was a good or bad thing in his eyes, and how much it mattered to me. “I like to keep my tongue honed to a sharp edge. I never know when I’ll need it in a fight.”

He navigated the left turn onto Beltline before he spoke again. “Want to get some lunch?”

“Don’t you have to study?”

“I have to eat, too.” Taking my silence for assent, he pulled into one of the restaurants on the strip. The Cadillac Grill had been a diner in the fifties. Back when
Grease
and
American Graffiti
were hot, someone had refurbished the building to all its
Rock Around the Clock
glory. Kitschy, but the food was good. We got one of the last tables without a wait.

I ordered a Coke, a cheeseburger, and fries without looking at the menu. Justin had iced tea and the chicken finger basket.

“Did they have chicken fingers back in the fifties?” I asked. “And what kind of name is that for food? Chickens don’t have fingers and if they did, I wouldn’t want to eat them.”

His brows screwed up in the center. “I’m not really supposed to answer when you do that, am I?”

“No. I’m just showing you how clever I am.”

“By mocking my food? Not very.”

The waitress brought our drinks; I took a deep gulp of mine, and settled back in the vinyl seat. “So. What’s your deal? You know practically everything about me, and I know almost nothing about you.”

He clearly couldn’t decide whether to be amused or not. “What do you want to know?”

I started with, “How long have you been at Bedivere?”

After a sip of his iced tea, he answered, “I transferred here last fall. I’m finishing my bachelor’s and taking some grad-level courses.”

“Are you in a big hurry to tackle that ivory tower?”

He smiled sheepishly. “There’s a graduate internship I want to do this summer, and I had to have some preliminary courses to apply.”

“Why Anthropology of the Bizarre? I mean, that wasn’t something they really talked up at
our
Career Day.”

An odd reserve entered his expression. “It’s a long story.”

I leaned forward, elbows on the table. “I hear the service here is slow.”

He seemed to be considering things on some deep level, and I realized this was not something I could tease him about. But before he could tell me—or not—I heard my name.

“Maggie?” Instinctively, I turned.

“Oh hi, Jennifer.” Great. The town crier, here at my table. “What are you doing here?” Besides spying on people.

“Eating, same as you.” She addressed me, but her avidly curious gaze was on my tablemate. “Having a nice time?”

“Yes.” I gave in to the inevitable. “Jennifer, this is Justin. Jennifer and I work on the school paper together.”

“Nice to meet you.” He smiled amiably.

“Same here.” She beamed back, her shining brown curls falling over her shoulder as she turned her head. I couldn’t decide if she had assumed he was my date, or assumed he wasn’t, or which notion annoyed me more.

I shoved an unruly chunk of my own hair behind my ear. “So what’s up?” I intended only distraction. I didn’t expect her to pull up a chair and make herself comfortable, but that’s what she did.

“I had to come tell you what I just heard, since we were talking about her the other day.”

“Who?” A lot had happened in the last twenty-four hours.

“Jess Michaels. She was arrested for shoplifting a D&B bag.”

Justin glanced at me curiously, and I mouthed “Minor” to clarify. I couldn’t help him out with “D and B” though. I assumed it was a designer, and expensive. “But I thought she had money.”

“
Everyone
thought so. As it turns out, her mother has the moolah, and she buys Jess stuff on her custody visits. But her dad can’t afford the newest Prada, I guess, so she took a five-finger discount.”

My mind circled back to the day I’d played tabloid reporter in the bathroom. “With Jessica Prime telling everyone her clothes were fakes, maybe she felt she had to have something new to save face.”

“I know. But here’s the thing.” Jennifer leaned in close, as if revealing a secret. “I saw her wearing that blue Ralph Lauren sweater in September, and I swear it was the real label. But when I saw her yesterday, it was such an obvious copy I couldn’t believe I’d ever been fooled.”

“How strange.” I spoke noncommittally, disinterested.

“Maybe Jess had to sell her good clothes,” she mused, “and bought cheap replacements so no one would know.”

“That’s one explanation.” A perfectly unnatural alternative
occurred to me, but why would a phantom care about fashion? “But that’s just speculation, Jennifer,” I cautioned. “I wouldn’t spread it around.”

She pantomimed locking her lips, but I didn’t feel reassured. “I’ll get back to my friends. Just had to say hi! Nice to meet you, Justin.”

She fluttered off while the server put our lunch on the table. I sagged back in the booth, smacking the lump on my head on the wall behind me. “Ow. What just happened?”

“You were hypothesizing.” Justin kept his voice neutral. “In unwise company.”

“Just say it.” I sat up and began to take the lettuce, tomato, and onion off my burger. “I was gossiping.”

“I didn’t know you were interested in fashion.” He tested a poultry digit and found it too hot to handle.

“I’m not.” I picked at my burger a moment longer. “It occurred to me this morning that all these people are losing what’s most important to them. Image is extremely important to Jess Minor. She’s always trying to keep up with the others. Losing status is the worst thing that could happen to her. Maybe there’s some kind of illusion on her stuff.”

He chewed a french fry thoughtfully. “That’s why you suggested the chemistry experiment might be a curse.”

I nodded. “I think that’s why the Shadow leaves behind that stuff. If the—recipe, spell, whatever—creates it …”

“Or summons it,” he said, ignoring his food now.

I didn’t much like where that thought was headed, but a good journalist stays open-minded. “Or summons it,” I allowed.

“So the question remains, what
is
the Shadow.”

“Some kind of agent,” I hypothesized, “fulfilling the curse. Like a messenger spirit.”

Justin caught my gaze. “Like a demon, you mean.”

“Well, I was trying to avoid that word.” Especially in a crowded restaurant.

“Why can you say ‘ghost’ or ‘spirit’ without flinching, but not ‘demon’?”

Good question. I tucked my hair behind my ears. “I don’t know. Too many of those melodramatic connotations. Horns and pitchforks and things.”

Leaning his elbows on the table, he gave me a long look. “That’s a relatively modern, Western caricature, and not what I’m talking about at all.”

“I know.” I shook my head. “But I have to wrap my brain around this in stages.”

The one thing I knew was this: If I was right, and someone had summoned some
thing
to bring down the Jocks and Jessicas, then regardless of the source, of the justness of the targets, the intent was Evil. With a capital E.