Dark Alchemy (13 page)

Petra ran the GPR cart until the battery indicator ran low, then turned to take the soil samples designated in her instructions. She should have allowed the cart to charge thoroughly overnight, but she couldn't resist taking it out for a test run.

The soil samples were boring, entry-­level work: augur out a sample at a fixed depth, place the sample in a jar, record the exact location, label the jar. Wash, rinse, repeat. But Petra was grateful not to have work that was critically important. She never wanted the responsibility of life and death ever again. She'd be happy to be a drone for the rest of her life.

Petra set her augur to the ground while Sig busied himself with marking his territory. No respect for history. She carefully chiseled samples of the petrified trees into her bottles. She ran her fingers over the spider tendrils of roots. They were gorgeous in their asymmetry, a once-­fragile living thing transformed to eternal stone. The wood itself wasn't part of her USGS work, but the samples might make for a fascinating paper. She could imagine the roots of these dead trees winding down into the primordial darkness she'd glimpsed before. She was one of the few to see the entirety of such an ancient tree. She imagined how she could assemble the data in a descriptive portrait. Show the world what a strange and eternal place this was.

She worked her assignment until the sun lowered on the horizon, and hefted her full pack of sample bottles. Bored, Sig was making a pest of himself by attempting to chew the wheels on the GPR cart. Petra wrested the cart away from him. She'd have to come back tomorrow with a full battery and more bottles. She descended the ridge from the northwest, to come directly back to the parking lot. The path was little-­used, barely more than a footpath.

Light slanted through the pines as she descended. Squirrels flung pinecones from the trees at Sig, and he growled and snapped at them. They squeaked and chattered furiously in the trees.

Petra hurried through the assault, covering her head with one arm and thrusting the squeaking cart ahead of her with the other. She tripped over a rut in the trail and fell sprawling to the pine needle-­covered ground. She swore, hoping that none of the plastic sample containers had broken. She sat up, grumbling at her skinned palms. Sig was beside her, casting a dirty look at the originators of the air raid behind them.

Petra's back pocket rang. She rolled over and dug her phone out of her pocket. Leave it to Mike to not trust her on a stroll through the woods.

“Yeah.” She cradled the phone in the crook of her neck. “This is Petra.”

A thin hiss echoed from her phone.

“Hello?”

She glanced at the caller ID:
UNKNOWN NUMBER
. Her grip tightened on the phone. Maybe someone had seen her flyer and had some information about her father. She was terrified to scare the caller away.

A voice echoed from what seemed to be a very far distance:

“
Get away. Now, while you can.
”

“Dad?” She sucked in her breath. God, it sounded like him. Just like him. It—­

A dial tone echoed in her ear.

“Dad, don't . . .”

It was him. It had to be. With shaking fingers that smeared sap all over the keypad, she scrolled for the last incoming call and hit the
CALL
button. It rang exactly twice and went dead.

“Damn it.” Yet hope flared within her. She'd heard her father's voice, she was certain of it. He'd called her, and that meant he
had
to be alive, somewhere. Maybe she could get Mike to trace the number.

“Huh.”

She paused in climbing to her feet, squinting at something pale and splintered below the pines. Her GPR cart had rolled away into the soft bed of pine needles. The shape beyond it looked like a piece of the petrified forest. Had the ridge eroded on this slope enough to reveal another, older incarnation of the forest?

Her curiosity piqued, Petra crawled forward on her hands and knees. Pinesap stuck dried needles to her palms.

Sig growled. Petra looked back at him. His fur bristled, and he crouched close to the ground.

“You need to get over the squirrels. Really.”

But Sig wasn't looking up. He was looking past her, at the petrified specimen. His nose flared and shivered.

Petra reached into her pack for a pick. Was Sig sensing a snake . . . or . . . God forbid, a larger predator? A bear?

A thin, reedy moan echoed from the foot of the pine.

Petra scrambled back, heart hammering. She dropped the pick and reached for the bear spray.

The moan sounded again. It didn't sound like a bear. It sounded . . .
human
.

Petra crept toward the sound, expecting to find an injured hiker. The pine needles were soft underfoot, muffling her steps. Sig slunk before her. But he didn't go beyond the tree. He stopped at the jagged piece of petrified wood, whimpered, circled it.

Petra peered at what she'd assumed to be a centuries-­old tree. Something dead and silent. She pressed her hand to her mouth. “Oh, my God . . .”

It wasn't a tree.This thing was horribly, horribly alive. Bones were warped and twisted, calcified around what was unmistakably a human face. She saw no evidence of eyes in the sockets, but she did see teeth in a jagged, frozen jaw. A thin, wordless keening flexed the ribs.

Her hands scrabbled in the pine needles for her pick. “Hang on. I'll get you out of there.” She swung awkwardly with the pick, splintering away pieces of petrified material and summoning blood to the jagged surface. The thing shrieked.

Petra recoiled. This wasn't someone encased in a prison of petrified wood—­the prison was the person. A prison of bone.

She dug through her pack for her walkie-­talkie.

“Mike, this is Petra. Are you out there?”

Static crackled. “
Hey, Petra. See the sights?
”

“I need paramedics, now.”

“
What's your twenty?
”

“Huh?”

“
Where are you?
”

“Back side of Specimen Ridge.” She read her GPS coordinates off her handheld device. She dropped it twice before she gave him a complete reading.

“
Sending out help now.
” There was a burst of silence, as she could imagine Mike working the radio panel at the ranger station. “
What happened?
”

Petra stared stupidly at the warped figure before her, wound around the roots of the pine tree. “I don't know,” she whispered. “Just get here.”

M
ike sent the complete cavalry. Within fifteen minutes, a helicopter was in the sky above her, scaring the squirrels from their perches. A rescue ranger dropped down a line with a basket. There wasn't enough room to land in this cover. Sig disappeared into the underbrush, terrified of the noise.

“Ma'am,” the ranger shouted over the sound of the blades overhead. “Where are you hurt?”

Petra pointed to the shape under the tree. The man wriggled out of his harness, clomped toward the bent figure. He knelt before it, and Petra could see him pale under his helmet visor. He spoke into his radio for what seemed to be a long time.

The helicopter sound receded, and Sig glided out of the underbrush to lean against Petra's leg.

“What the hell is going on?” Petra shouted to the ranger.

He held up his hand. “Stay back, ma'am.”

Petra obliged. She retreated down the track along with Sig, away from the tree. Soon, the sound of engines could be heard. Mike and a phalanx of other rangers appeared on four-­wheelers. She breathed a sigh of relief at seeing him.

“What's going on?” he asked, brow creased. “They said you found a body.”

Petra shook her head. “It's not a body. I don't know what it is. But it's alive.” She looked back at the pine tree, where medics had erected an oxygen tent.

“Barely.” A female medic stood up and approached them. “I could hear a breath, but I lost it. And I don't know how to do CPR on . . . on that.”

“What the hell happened to him . . . her? Is this a hazmat or biohazard situation?”

“I don't know. I . . . I've got nothing on this.”

“Time to move up the food chain, then.” Mike keyed his radio. “Get me the Department of the Interior. Tell them we have a situation.”

T
he adrenaline didn't fade gracefully.

Petra stewed in her own adrenaline juices for hours. After hiking down the ridge on shaking legs, she stowed Sig, her guns, and the gear in the Bronco. Following Mike's stern instructions to wait at the ranger station, she busied herself with scrubbing the skin on her hands raw and plugging in her GPS cart to charge. She'd made it to her third cup of coffee before the National Guard showed up.

They'd questioned her for two hours before letting her go. Petra kept having to go to the bathroom, and she was sure that they thought that she was on drugs. But, damn it, she had to pee. And the coffee wasn't helping.

They kept wanting to know if the victim had said anything. Petra couldn't tell them anything that made any sense, and they eventually seemed to decide that she was an idiot. At least since there wasn't any immediate evidence of radiological or biological threat, there was no need to be stripped and hosed down in the parking lot as she'd feared. But they gave no information whatsoever about what they thought was happening.

The Guard cleared out after midnight, trucks rumbling away in the night. Petra wondered if one of them held the body. She hadn't seen an ambulance pass the windows.

Mike leaned tiredly on the front counter when she came out of the ladies' room. “Trouble follows you.”

“Yeah, I know.” Petra rubbed her eyes. “What happened? Did they take it—­him, her—­to a hospital?”

“They tried to dig it up, but it didn't survive. At least, that's what they tell me. The Guard took it with them to have it analyzed at the state lab.”

“Do we know who it was?”

Mike frowned. “There was a hiker who went missing. His family called and said that he hadn't checked in for several days. Some guy who showed up in spring and was determined to hike the whole area before winter. They're gonna do a DNA test. I'm hoping that it wasn't him, but your guess is as good as mine. And . . . I wonder if there's any connection to what Jeff said he saw before he recanted and got driven off into the night.”

“On Rutherford's property?”

“Yeah. I've asked the Feds to put an APB out for Jeff, see if they can find him. I want to talk to that guy without the goon squad looming over him.” Mike drummed his fingers on the countertop, his gaze unfocused.

“Um. Not to add to your workload, but . . . I was wondering if you could do me a favor?”

“Favor?” he echoed.

“I got a call on my cell right before I called you. Came up as an unknown number. I wonder if it would be possible to trace it.”

“It would probably be possible.” His eyes narrowed. “Are you getting prank calls from those flyers you put up?

“Gah. I don't think so . . . I don't know. It sounded a lot like my dad. He told me to get away, while I still could.”

“Sounds like good paternal advice.” Mike stared at the ceiling, as if thinking. “We have a guy. We could justify the trace as part of an ongoing investigation—­either as part of your dad's disappearance, or potentially associated with that body you found. But it might take some time.”

“Thank you. I really appreciate all you're doing to help me. Really.” Petra sighed. “I'm going to go get some sleep. I'll touch base with you in the morning?” It came out as a question, not a statement. She really wanted to leave, and didn't want to have to wrest permission from the Guard.

“Yeah. Just don't leave the area. Not that you were planning on running off, since you're having a slumber party with Maria, but I'm required to tell you that.”

“Sure,” Petra said. But she didn't know if she meant it.

She kicked gravel across the parking lot to the Bronco. Her jeans squeaked on the pleather seat as she got inside and slammed the door. She fished her cell phone out to dial Maria's number and announce that she was inviting herself over. Fog had formed on the inside of the glass, frosting the interior in the dim light of the ranger station. Coyote nose smears decorated the glass.

“Sig?”

She expected to find him snoring on the floorboards, but nothing furry moved in the darkness. She looked over her shoulder into the backseat.

“Sig, you'd better not be chewing on my shit . . .” If he'd torn up the USGS equipment, she'd be fucked.

A low growl emanated from behind the backseat. It sounded like something truly feral, not the semi-­tame dog that the coyote had been pretending to be.

“Sig? Are you okay?”

She saw a pair of ears silhouetted against the back window and the glint of Sig's golden glare. Something shuffled and squeaked in the back, kicking against metal. Petra reached up for the dome light and craned to view the backseat. Her other hand hovered above the Bronco's horn. A whole nest of rangers would come running if she leaned on it.

The yellow light illuminated Sig perched on a dark heap of limbs. Holy fuck—­it was a person. Sig's teeth were wound in a black hooded sweatshirt, and lanky cargo pants-­covered legs bent at an odd angle.

“It's me. Cal.” A frightened eye peeped up over an elbow. Sig snarled and nipped at his earring.

“Cal. What the hell are you doing here?”

“I rode my motorbike.”

“No . . . what are you doing here, in my truck?”

Sig chewed on his hoodie cord, and Cal whimpered. “I was gonna ask for your help. I saw the note that said you were gonna be at the station.”

“You broke into my trailer. And my truck. And you want my help with
what,
exactly?” Petra's eyes narrowed.

“Look, that wasn't my idea. That was the Alchemist—­uh, Stroud. I was just along for the ride.”