Dark Alchemy (5 page)

The shift supervisor squinted at her under a receding hairline. “We should have hit it by now. I don't know whether your calculations or the buoys were off, but we're getting nothing but mud.”

“She says it's there. Keep drilling.” Des had come up behind him. Even though his jumpsuit was streaked with silt, he cut a handsome figure. Time outdoors had weathered his skin to a golden tan, and green eyes behind sunglasses crinkled at the corners when he smiled. Blond hair had been bleached by the sun to nearly the color of wheat.

“I don't like drilling this close to a fault,” the supervisor growled. “It's dangerous.”

“The fault is where the oil is,” Petra insisted.

“You're only humoring this twit for a piece of ass.” The supervisor glared at Des. It wasn't out of jealousy. The supervisor hated anything that he perceived as screwing with his crew's smooth operation. That could be anything from taking long breaks to actual screwing. In his mind, a woman was an unnecessary distraction on a rig.

Des grabbed the supervisor's lapel in his fist. Though the supervisor had at least forty pounds on him, Des was all sinew. She knew every inch of that muscle, and knew that the supervisor was on thin ice. “Shut the fuck up. Take a break. I'll watch the crew for a while.”

The supervisor glared at Des, then at Petra. Des was the lead engineer on the ship, the installation manager, and the two could only push each other so far. He shrugged out of Des's grip and stomped away across the deck. Gulls scuttled away as he approached, squeaking protests.

Des lifted his hard hat and ran his hand through his sweaty hair. “Look, I'm sorry about him.”

Petra shook her head. “Forget it.” She'd worked around roughnecks long enough to know that the bigger you made an issue, the bigger an issue it became.

The corner of Des's mouth turned down. “He needs to mind his own damn business.”

Petra resisted the urge to kiss the corner of his frown. The rest of the men were milling about, and though there were no secrets on a rig, they did their best to keep others out of their affair. Instead, she clasped her hands behind her back with her clipboard.

“I'll deal with him, later,” Des promised.

A shout from the spire of the derrick snagged Petra's attention. “Hey, we got something!”

“What is it?” Des strode to the men at the turntable. Between segments of pipe casing, a spray of dark fluid was beginning to spurt.

“It's not mud!” Des gave her the thumbs-­up, grinning, his teeth gleaming white in his tan and dirty face.

Petra let out a breath she hadn't known she'd been holding. She grinned, vindicated. Maybe the supervisor would finally shut the hell up, and they could get to work.

Before she could suck in another breath, her smile faded. The kick of oil spewing out of the casing increased. The blowout-­preventer valve must have failed. She shouted at Des, who turned in enough time to see the drill string being forcefully ejected from the hole, shooting upward with a tearing sound.

As the metal and rock sheared upward, a spark ripped through the drill string. A deafening roar rumbled through the boat, pitching the deck. An orange fireball raced through the hull of the boat and up the derrick, the heat scorching Petra's skin.

She screamed for Des in that fireball, not seeing him, buffeted by the men running and the pitching of the deck. She ran for the fire, but the blaze drove her back. Through tearing eyes, she could see the figures of burning men flailing near the stack. Shrapnel rained from the sky, and black smoke poured over the deck. Klaxons sounded, and she smelled chemical fire-­suppressant foam, charred oil, burned meat . . .

The orange plume raced high into the air, dissipating in charred black edges. The captain of the vessel was calling on the crew to abandon ship. Petra scrabbled around the edge of the fire, fell to her knees beside a smoldering lump of canvas and blood. It was so hot that she could feel the heat through her gloves when she turned it over to see a blackened face. A blackened face with the plastic of sunglasses and white hard hat melted to a shock of straw-­blond hair.

Petra turned away and retched on the deck.

Someone grabbed her wrist. Hard. Petra cried out, her vision blurring. Des had grabbed her wrist with a grip that burned like hot oil. Her skin sizzled under his touch.

“Des!” She reached to turn the ruins of his face to hers, to give him CPR. But no breath rattled from his lungs. His chest didn't rise and fall under his blackened jumpsuit. She pounded on his sternum, forced air past his seared and blackened lips.

But it was no use.

The firefighters found her sitting beside Des's body, his fingers curled around her wrist and baked into her own flesh.

She shut her eyes, sobbing. She couldn't bear to look as the medics separated them.

P
etra opened her eyes.

Cold morning light streamed through the window above the trailer futon. Her heart pounded in her throat, and she swallowed it down to her stomach, waiting for the roar of blood in her ears to recede. She scrubbed her sleeve across her eyes. The sea was gone. So was Des. No matter how potent Maria's dreamcatcher potion was, no matter how real the dreams were in the dark, they were gone in the daylight.

It had been six months since the accident. Six months of being deposed in lawyers' offices and taking walks along the beach. Vitrum Oil, the holding company that had owned the rig, quieted the press by lining the pockets of reporters. The official explanation given for the blast was a failure in the pressure seals, an engineering product failure.

But Petra knew. She knew that it had been her fault. She'd picked the spot. Even though she wasn't legally culpable, she knew that Des would be alive if it wasn't for her. As time passed, that certainty grew, sank past the shock into the marrow of her bones. Though the edges of Des's face seemed to grow fuzzier in her dreams, and her scar was fading, she still felt that hurt in her chest when she took a deep breath.

She shivered a bit in the chill, tugging the tobacco-­scented blanket closer around her. Her feet felt curiously hot, and she wiggled her toes. Her ankle seemed better. She missed the warmth of sleeping beside Des, how he let her put her cold feet in the crook of his knees in the cramped bunk.

Something moved at the foot of the bed, and it wasn't her.

Holy shit.

Petra scrambled bolt upright, reaching clumsily for the pistol on the floor. It rattled away from her fingers, skidding under the futon.

A gold-­flecked ear lifted above the blanket. Then a black one. The coyote turned his golden eyes, half-­lidded in sleep, toward her.

“What the hell are you doing here?”

The coyote yawned. He was curled up around her feet, not much larger than a big house cat.

“Okay, I get that you were asleep. But how did you get in here?”

Petra's gaze flicked to the open window. She didn't know that coyotes could jump. Hell, Maria's dreamcatcher must have knocked her entirely out for her not to have noticed a coyote scrambling into her bed. No matter how much he looked like a dog, Petra was conscious that he was a wild animal. With teeth.

The coyote stuck a foot in his ear and scratched. Jesus, she hoped he didn't have fleas.

Petra extended her hand gingerly. She had no idea if she could get a rabies shot within a hundred miles of this place. The coyote didn't
look
sick . . .

The coyote sniffed at her hand. She reached for his head to pet him, but he ducked. She didn't push it. Eventually, he let her touch the back of his head. His fur was rough and coarse, not the soft coat of a domestic animal. He was nervous; she could hear a fine whistle in his chest as his breathing quickened. She took her hand back.

“Are you sticking around, then?”

The coyote climbed to his feet, stretched. He placed his paws on the windowsill, scrambled over it with claws scraping on the metal. He landed in the dirt with a huff and vanished under the trailer.

Petra looked after him, resting her cheek on her arm. Perhaps it wasn't such a bad thing to have something to keep her toes warm, someone to watch over her. Even if it was only for want of salami.

 

Chapter Five

The Alchemist

C
al hated disturbing the Alchemist at work.

He hesitated on the basement steps, his knuckles white on the railing. He avoided coming down here, hated everything about it: the creak of the steps if he forgot and walked down the middle of the treads; the smell of sulfur; the snap and crackle of fire. It reminded him of hell. Maybe not hell with capital letters, not
the
Hell, but certainly a bit of the outer reaches of it.

He waffled, contemplating going back.

“Who's playing on my back stair?” The Alchemist's voice drifted up the steps, the craggy voice of a man who'd smoked a lot of cigarettes. Among other things.

Cal shut his eyes.
Damn.
“It's me . . . Cal.”

“Come down, Cal.”

Cal's boots clomped on the rickety wooden steps, laces flapping against the risers. He put his sweaty hands in his pockets as he reached the last step and looked around for the Alchemist.

Glass bottles lined innumerable shelves, creating a maze that flickered in blue light from a furnace in the corner. Wooden apothecaries leaned against the crumbling walls of the basement. Powders and books and bits of bone were strewn across uneven worktables made from cinder blocks, mismatched table legs of scrap wood, and doors torn from the upstairs rooms of the house. Paint peeled from the elaborate six-­panel doors. Mason jars held silvery liquid that seemed to quiver in the uneven light. A hot plate glowed red in the darkness.

“Stroud?” Cal called. He thought he spied movement in the furnace. Through the grate, a tiny salamander wriggled. It dropped to the ground and scuttled across Cal's shoe. Cal started, jumping back as the creature slipped away.

“Here, child.”

Cal saw him then, nearly motionless in this hoarder's nest. Stroud was sitting on a stool, measuring powders on a postal scale. He was old enough to be Cal's father: a stringy sinew of an ex-­hippie hunched over his work. His blond hair was fading to grey at the temples, but his eyes shone fever-­bright blue. He looked over the round rims of his glasses at Cal.

“I'm sorry to disturb you.” Instinctively, Cal took a step back.

“It's all right.” Stroud's lips peeled back over a smile. He cocked his head, observing Cal. Cal squirmed. He always tried to avoid Stroud's notice. Getting Stroud's attention usually meant trouble. For the young women, that meant being tied up in his bed. For the young men, it meant dangerous assignments that often landed them in jail.

Cal swallowed. “Adam and Diana are missing.”

Stroud took off his glasses, frowning. “How long?”

“Three days. Justin and I went out to find them . . .” Cal shrugged, his hands open. “We can't find them. All their things are still here, at the Garden.”

Stroud drummed his fingers on his makeshift workbench. A bead of mercury rolled off the edge to the floor. The bead veered around Cal's foot into spiderwebs beneath a shelf.

“I sent them to spy on Sal Rutherford.” Stroud's gaze was distant. “I hope that Rutherford didn't find them.”

Cal's fists clenched. “I'll go look for them there.”

“No.” Stroud shook his head. “Not yet. Not alone. Give them more time to come back.”

“What did—­” Cal bit his tongue. He knew better than to ask the Alchemist questions. If he asked, he got answers he would never forget, answers that would keep him awake at night.

Stroud regarded him. “Can I trust you with a secret?”

Cal bit his lip. He wanted to say “no.” He didn't like secrets. But he had no choice. “Yes.”

“Rutherford has magic.”

Cal frowned, processing. “Magic like this?” His thin fingers sketched the lab. “You're the only one who makes the aqua vitae, the Elixir.”

Stroud's gaze burned like the blue of a gas flame. “He has something else. A piece of the puzzle of eternal life.”

Cal didn't ask any more questions. He didn't want to know how Stroud had come upon this shiny bit of information.

But Stroud was going to tell him anyway. The Alchemist opened a battered leather journal that seemed to be disintegrating under the weight of mildew. His fingers flickered through the fragile pages. “I have Lascaris's journals. He left something there, on Rutherford's land, that yields immortality.”

Cal could see spidery sketches, strange symbols, and words in Latin, but could make no sense of it. “If Rutherford has the secret, why isn't he using it?”

Stroud smiled. “I don't think that he knows
how
to use it.”

Cal's fingers knotted nervously in the chain to his wallet. “I'm worried about Adam and Diana.”

“We'll find them,” Stroud said soothingly. “You've been up all night?”

Cal nodded miserably.

“And got into a fight, I see.”

Cal touched the side of his swollen face self-­consciously. “It was nothing.”

“Rest first.” Stroud handed him a glass vial.

Cal stared at it.

“Go ahead, take it. It's the Elixir.”

Cal stared morosely down at his shoes. From the corner of his eye, he could see the escaped salamander swatting around the errant mercury bead. “I haven't got any money.”

“It's okay. It's a gift.”

Cal swallowed hard and took the vial. “Thanks.” He didn't like owing the Alchemist anything.

Stroud smiled. “I'll send someone to search for your friends. You rest.”

Cal nodded. “Thank you.” The vial burned coldly in his hands.

Stroud turned back to his measurements, and Cal retreated back up the steps. Back into the light.

The kitchen of the old farmhouse was bathed in glorious golden sun, illuminating a sink full of filthy dishes. A cereal box scuttled across the floor until a turned-­around mouse emerged with his cheeks full of Froot Loops. Beer bottles were lined up against the window, casting green and amber shadows on the sticky linoleum.

Upstairs, Cal could hear somebody fucking. He banged through the torn screen door, past a limp figure in a plastic lawn chair who smelled as if he'd pissed himself.

Outdoors sprawled the Garden. At least, that was what Stroud called it. Cal thought the old man must have a secret sense of humor. Trailers were parked in uneven rows around the old farmhouse, bounded by woods, corn, and blond field grasses. A chicken wandered by, ignoring a skinny dog chained to a clothesline post. The only thing that resembled a garden here was a bit of Indian paintbrush growing wild in the field.

Cal found a downspout at the corner of the farmhouse and shimmied up it to the sheet-­metal roof of the porch. He sat down on the hot steel and fished his pipe out of his pants pocket. He tapped the contents of the vial that Stroud had given him into the bowl of the pipe, and reached for his lighter to heat it.

Cal waited impatiently for the liquid to begin to fade to vapor and crystallize against the glass. He inhaled deeply, holding his breath and staring up at the clear blue sky.

This was what Stroud called the Elixir. A piece of immortality. As the ghost of the Elixir soaked into his brain, he began to feel a sense of peace steal over him. This sensation, this presence, was what Stroud said that yogis and bodhisattvas chased.

The past—­the fight with Justin, the miserable conditions of the Garden—­fell away. The future—­worry for what had happened to Adam and Diana—­fell away.

He was one with the sky and the heat of the day radiating from the metal at his back. He was one with that clear blue. Feeling nothing but the rise and fall of his chest and the beat of his heart. Thinking nothing.

A sublime smile curled the corner of his mouth, and Cal sank into oblivion.

He didn't see the raven perched on the edge of the gutter, watching.

S
tan's Dungeon was not what Petra expected.

Bells tied to the iron-­laced door chimed as Petra pushed into the gloomy pawn shop. The shop was stacked floor to ceiling with shelves, dusty glass cases, and gun racks. It smelled of new tobacco and old gunpowder, and racks of military surplus clothing cluttered the floor.

But there was more here than just guns, old musical instruments, and militaria. Stan was apparently a collector of antiques. A cigar-­store Indian stood just inside the door. An old saddle was suspended by rope from the ceiling, and cases of coins and grainy photographs of the Old West hung from the walls.

Petra paused to look at the collection of photos in metal frames. The sepia-­toned posed shots showed wooden buildings on a dirt street and men and women in hats and bonnets. She saw some familiar contours to the buildings and layout to the streets. ­People in dresses and shiny boots stood around a building she knew. Church clothes, she realized. The Compostela's earlier incarnation as a house of worship.

“You like old photos?”

Petra turned to see a man who had appeared behind the counter. He leaned against the glass by an old-­fashioned red dial telephone. Petra hadn't felt his eyes on her, had no idea of how long he'd been sizing her up. He was stooped and wizened like a tree, albeit a tree clothed in flannel. His voice issued out from beneath a carefully waxed grey moustache that was as shiny as pewter.

“These are really fascinating. How old are they?”

“Some of those go back to 1852. Got a whole cabinet of 'em. Some wet collodion, some dry plates. Old newspapers, too.”

A smile crossed Petra's face. “This isn't just the town pawn shop, is it?”

The old man shook his head, and Petra heard bones creak and pop. “No, ma'am. I'm also the town historical society—­a society of one.”

“Then I'm in the right place.” Petra approached the counter and extended her hand. “I'm Petra Dee. I'm new to town.”

“The geologist. I heard that you were coming. I'm Stan.” Stan's moustache twitched when he smiled. “What would you like to know about Temperance?”

Petra's smile thinned. “Everything.”

Stan rubbed his moustache. “Temperance was founded in 1852. Rumor has it that it was founded by Lascaris Aldus, a self-­proclaimed alchemist.”

“Yeah, ­people have mentioned him. I didn't know that gold was mined here, though.”

Stan shrugged. “Lascaris found gold, somewhere. Or conjured enough of it to keep the town thriving for ten years. He vanished in 1862, when his house burned down. Most ­people assumed that he died in the fire, though his bones were never found. The town hung on until Yellowstone was established as a national park in 1872.”

Stan pointed at a tintype perched on the wall. “That's old Lascaris.”

Petra squinted at the disintegrating photo. A man stood before a faded, underdeveloped landscape. He was dressed in long coat and tall boots, his shirt dirty and rumpled. A battered hat perched above decidedly patrician features. His gaze was distant, faraway. Petra knew that look. She'd seen that look in her father's eyes before he'd disappeared.

Petra tore her gaze away. “He was a good-­looking man, in a sort of crazed way.”

Stan chuckled. “He was definitely thought to be a nutbar recluse. Some think that he still haunts Temperance, looking for hidden gold or the Philosopher's Stone. Depends on who's doing the telling.”

“That's a nice ghost story.”

“Lascaris was a mysterious man. If anyone had unlocked the secret of eternal life, it would have been that old alchemist.”

Petra chuckled. She'd believe ghosts when she saw them, but didn't want to go out of her way to offend the old man who was giving her the tourist spiel.

“Don't tempt them, young lady.” Stan winked at her. “Temperance is a strange place.”

Petra looked at the glass case beneath the register, full of handguns displayed on threadbare velvet. “Are those for sale?”

“Everything's for sale, for the right price.” Stan pressed his hands to the glass. “What are you looking for?”

“Something small. Manageable.” Petra had nothing to prove by carrying a bazooka on her hip.

“A girl gun?” Stan pulled out a tiny Derringer from the case that fit into his weathered palm. The handles were a pink-­tinted mother-­of-­pearl. “I've also got one that's barely bigger than a lipstick case around here, somewhere . . .”

“Cute, but I'd like something a bit more substantial. I'm thinking something like a .38.”

“Six-­shot or automatic?”

“Six-­shot.” Automatics made Petra nervous. Too many moving parts to fuss over if she needed it. And if yesterday was any indication, she'd have to become very familiar with the new toy.

Stan fiddled with his moustache and grinned. “I've got just the thing for you. Stay right there.” He disappeared into the back, leaving Petra to browse.

She pawed halfheartedly through the racks of military jackets, camo coveralls, and khaki shirts. She found a ­couple of shirts and a pair of fatigue bottoms that looked like they might fit, and heaped them on the counter. Work clothes. She picked up a sturdy-­looking military backpack and a black canvas ammo bag for her tools. It was the closest she would ever come to carrying a purse. It slung comfortably over her shoulder, and had enough loops to hold her picks.

She bypassed the musical instruments, coins, and sporting equipment. Pausing at the clothing racks, her nostrils flared at the rich scent of leather.

“Oh, my,” she breathed, in spite of herself. She pulled out a knee-­length brown leather coat, worn in to buttery softness. Unlike the other clothes she'd chosen, this was clearly a woman's coat. Probably dating from the 1970s, it was flared with a broad lapel and full skirt, studded with tortoiseshell buttons. She reached inside it, finding a zip-­out lining. She held it at arm's length, staring at it. Fall would be coming soon, and she had no coat.

“Try it on.” Stan had returned, was fussing behind the counter. “There's a mirror over there.” He gestured to a corner of the room, where a cheap door mirror had been propped up.