Dark Alchemy (11 page)

She reached down to try to collect them. Perhaps she could gather the pieces, find some way help him . . .

But the image of her father shattered and exploded into gold splinters. Petra flinched, shielding her eyes with her arm.

He was gone. All that remained was a fine metallic dust and bits of weightless gold leaf on the sand, already scattered by waves and wind. She dug her fingers into it, choking back a sob.

“It's not real,” she reminded herself, rocking back on her heels. Her hands were covered in glittering dust. She scraped her shaking hand through her hair. This was her imagination. It could not be real. Could not . . .

But if this was all in her head, what other terrible things could be here?

As if in answer, a hot wave enveloped her foot. She looked down to see something churning in the grease and the gold specks. Something living.

She reached down, trying to free herself. But something held her fast—­a blackened hand.

She cried out, stumbling backward, trying to haul herself back along the sparkling beach. But the hand would not let go—­it was hot and oily, and it singed the leather of her boot. She tried to pull it apart in the hissing seawater.

Another hand grasped her wrist, burning her. Petra cried out, feeling that familiar heat around her forearm, that smell of sizzling flesh.

A face emerged from the water. Charred black lips pulled back around white teeth, a shock of blond hair crowning raw flesh and sinew.

Petra stumbled forward, slamming to her elbow and one knee in the surf. For an instant, she thought that she might willingly go under, into the oily silence. And she felt she understood this place. That maybe there was a hell. An afterlife, and she was in it.

But she fought. The desire to live surged in her belly, and she struggled, shouting.

A shadow passed over her with a harsh caw. Black feathers flickered in her vision. And she realized that a raven had flown between her and the grasping oil. Not just one—­more. Dozens. They swarmed in a cacophony, like black smoke, howling, forcing her and the creature that was and wasn't Des apart.

She felt the grip on her wrist slacken, and she struggled with all her might. She pulled free, scrambled back on the beach, crab-­like, away from the seething mass of black. Gratitude rose in her throat. The birds had saved her. The birds . . .

They plucked at the oil creature, devouring him, piece by piece. The only sound that came from the ruined lips was a soft hiss as it sank beneath the waves.

 

Chapter Eleven

The Sacred Androgyne

P
etra felt warmth on her face.

Not the stinging heat of oil and fire, but a soft warmth, like sunshine.

She opened her eyes to see blue sky above her. The scar on her wrist was old and white and didn't ache. Something shifted beside her, and she glanced down. Sig lay at her hip, kicking at her in his sleep.

She turned her head, spying the rocky edge of the pool. Her clothes were dry, and her face felt sunburned. Her head throbbed, like a bad hangover. She wondered how long she'd lain here; the sun was descending toward the mountains, kissing just the edge of them.

Struggling up to a sitting position, she howled, “
Frankie!
” The motion made her queasy. Something shiny dropped from her chest down into her lap—­her lion charm. She clutched it, fingering the broken chain.

Frankie perched at the edge of the pool, crouching. His skin glistened, and he was naked. He poured water into one hand from the other, seemingly transfixed by the play of the tinted liquid as it spilled from palm to fingers.

Only . . . Frankie was a woman. Frankie's breasts hung low over his chest, and he had an old woman's hips. Even his face seemed softer as Petra saw Frankie for who he was.

“Frankie.” Petra stabbed her thumb at the pain in her temple, trying to rub it away. “What the hell?”

Frankie's eyes were distant. “You went on a spirit journey.”

“Damn it. I don't believe in that stuff.” She tried to sound certain. Something prickly was caught in her hair. She ran her fingers through the crusty dried mess and came up with a glossy black raven feather.

“Doesn't matter if you believe. You went.”

“You didn't tell me.” She felt confused and betrayed, but also a little awestruck. She turned the feather over in her hands.

Frankie shrugged. “You needed to go. And you weren't alone.”

Sig rolled over, displaying his belly. His eyes were slightly crossed, and Petra worried about the effects of hallucinogenic algae on canines.

Frankie took another drink of the water. He didn't fall over. He remained rooted in place like a tree that had grown at the edge of the spring for decades.

“To paraphrase Maria: Frankie, you're drunk.”

Frankie snorted. “I've built up a tolerance to the water.”

“You're naked, perched on the edge of the pool.” Petra wanted to say the obvious: And you're a woman. But she restrained herself.

Frankie looked down at his arms, plucking at the liver-­marked flesh like it was a suit with a stain on it. “Huh.”

“You gonna put some clothes on so we can go back to the house?”

“In a minute.” Frankie took another deep sip. Water trickled down his chin, between his breasts.

“It's hungry,” he gurgled.

“Huh?”

Frankie rocked forward and backward on his heels. His gaze fell into the water, unfocused. “It's hungry. The hungry ghost. Devouring.”

A figure stalked across the field. Maria. Her back was ramrod-­straight in rage, and her hair flew about her like a dark miasma. “Frankie!”

Frankie pretended not to hear her. Or maybe he really didn't. He stared into the pool, at the blue algal bloom churning under the surface. “It's hungry.”

Maria stomped up and snatched Frankie's shirt from the rocks. “What happened?”

Petra instinctively scuttled back, away from Maria's wrath. “I'm not sure. I drank out of the spring and . . . I don't know.”

“Jesus. Look, I'm sorry. He does this sometimes. Thinks he's a proper shaman. Even though he's white as vinegar.”

“And a woman?”

Maria winced. “Yeah. That, too. He started out as Francine, married to one of my uncles. And then, when my uncle died, it's like he took on his identity, literally stepped into his shoes. Something about needing to be a man to be a proper shaman.”

“The sacred androgyne,” Frankie mumbled. “Male and female. The alchemical marriage.”

Petra started at the mention of alchemy, but Maria had already reached him and was wrapping his shirt around his shoulders. He shrugged against her, pushing the shirt away like a two-­year-­old who didn't want to be dressed.

“Frankie, damn it, where did you get the booze?” She turned to Petra in frustration. “I did a sweep of the house earlier today, thought I'd hit all of Frankie's usual hiding places: the toilet tank, under the workbench in the basement, behind the oil cans in the garage, even the fucking mailbox, for Christ's sake.”

“It's not the alcohol. It's the water,” Petra said. Sig leaned up close against her, just as wary of Maria's anger as she was.

“Yeah. He says that. But I've drunk the water, and not a damn thing has happened.” Maria went in search of Frankie's boots, tried to jam them on his feet.

Frankie stared at Petra, stared through her. In spite of herself, it made her shudder. Maybe in an earlier time he would have been a shaman. Today, he was just a drunk old man.

“The spirit of the bones is moving. Like the White Buffalo Woman.” His eyes glistened with tears. “Do you remember her?”

Maria grunted, tying his shoelaces.

“Do you remember?” He gripped Maria's sleeve fiercely.

Maria's brow furrowed, as if sorting through the old stories that a younger, more sober Frankie had told her as a child. “She was the woman who turned all her suitors to skeletons.”

“All alone. Incomplete.”

Maria squatted before him and brushed the hair from his eyes. She kissed his forehead. “It's okay, Frankie.” She put his arms through the shirtsleeves and began buttoning him up.

“It's not okay. It's killing. It will keep killing. They want it, what she has. That peace.”

Maria clasped the old man's shaking hands. “It's okay, Frankie. Nothing will hurt you.”

“Forgotten . . .” Frankie mumbled. His eyes swept the horizon outside. “That timeless peace . . . immortal.”

Petra looked away, to the water. She had the sense of intruding upon a terribly intimate scene. She was a stranger, and this was not her family.

A blue, smokelike shadow swirled in the water. She tried to focus on it, imagining that it was some aftereffect of the hallucinogen. The shadow curved and curled, and took the shape of a form with claws and teeth, growing more solid and grey.

Sig hid behind Petra's thigh and growled, the fur on his back standing up. It wasn't just her imagination; Sig sensed it, too.

“Go away,” Frankie hissed, while Maria struggled with his pants. He, too, stared into the blue depths. He threw a rock at the smoke creature, and the splash and ripples caused the shape to dissipate.

Sig gazed up at her. The fur along his back had calmed, but the coyote still was tense as a spring, tail twitching. Petra wished that she could see what the coyote had seen, to know if it wasn't just Frankie who was hallucinating. Just her and Frankie.

“Something is coming,” Frankie announced. “Something hungry.”

Petra shivered. Whatever it was that she'd seen, she didn't want to have anything to do with feeding it.

C
al was striking out today. Big time.

Stroud had taken Cal and Justin and a ­couple other tweakers to run an “errand.” After he'd run like a little girl from Stroud the other night, he was surprised the stringy old dude had dragged him along this time. Cal had scrunched up in the backseat of the Monte Carlo, wishing that there was some way that the torn upholstery could reach out and devour him. He didn't like it when Stroud got that cold, metallic glint in his eye that changed color from blue to grey. And Stroud was wearing gloves and a coat in the late summer swelter. That never boded well.

The others didn't seem to notice. Promised all the Elixir they could smoke for taking out Stroud's garbage, they were now taking turns trying to see how many bullets could be crammed into handgun ammo clips before the springs gave out.

“What's the mission, boss?” Cal croaked from the backseat. “Are we gonna go look for Adam and Diana?”

Stroud looked back at him with eyes the color of mercury. Fucking creepy. A bead of sweat formed on the old man's upper lip. “I already sent someone to look for Adam and Diana. We're going to search the trailer on Lascaris's old land, for an artifact. It's gold. About the size of your fist. Looks like a compass.”

Cal sunk down in his seat. Great. Back there, again.

One of the tweakers, Kyle, asked, “Anybody living there?”

Stroud's metallic gaze flicked back at him. “A woman. Her name's Petra Dee. A geologist.”

Justin looked up from thumbing bullets into the magazine. He lost count, swore, had to empty the clip and start over. “Hey. That's the new bitch. The snotty one we saw on the road the other day.”

Curiosity lit in Stroud's voice. “You met her? You didn't mention that.”

“Yeah.” Justin punched Cal in the arm. “Would've gotten a decent piece of ass if Cal hadn't fucked it up.” Bullets spilled on the floorboards and rolled under the seats. “Damn it.”

Stroud looked back at Cal more intently, and he squirmed. “Was there anything . . . special about her?”

Cal blinked. “Special? She's kind of cute. In a MILFy way.” He decided against telling Stroud about what he'd seen at the Compostela last night. Petra was special in terms of that ballsy standing up to Rutherford's men, sure, but . . . he was pretty sure that wasn't what Stroud was asking about.

“No. I mean . . . magical.” A cataract of silver licked up over Stroud's right eye, momentarily obliterating the white and iris.

Cal shook his head. “No. Nuh-­uh. Not like you.”

“Did she have that coyote with her?”

Cal shook his head. “She was alone.”

Stroud frowned.

He didn't say anything more until they pulled up in front of the trailer. Cal hoped to God that Petra had enough sense or luck to be gone. He sighed with relief when he didn't see any cars around.

The men piled out of the Monte Carlo. Justin and the two others were armed. Cal brought up the rear, nervously examining the blade of the tactical knife he'd never used for anything but cleaning gravel out of his boots. Only Stroud appeared unarmed beneath his black coat.

But Cal knew better.

Stroud opened the screen door, tried the doorknob. “Check the windows. See if the back one's open.”

Justin always liked to go first. He sprinted to the back of the trailer with the other two young men in tow. Cal moved to follow.

“Not you.” Stroud's hand clapped down on Cal's shoulder. Cal obeyed, though he squirmed at the hot, churning feeling in the palm of Stroud's glove. He could feel it through the cotton of his T-­shirt, and he tried not to shudder. “Wait.”

Justin sprinted back around the corner. “Locked. Looks like no one's home.”

“We'll see.”

Stroud climbed up the steps and kicked in the door, then motioned for the armed men to go ahead first. Justin and the other two tweakers tumbled all over themselves to get inside. Stroud stepped back. He stripped off his glove, and mercury slid over his knuckles, as if anticipating something.

Cal fought a queasy feeling. Why this regular chick, who ran from them like a freaked-­out rabbit on the road? What did she have that Stroud wanted? What could she do that made her powerful enough to both defy Rutherford's men and piss Stroud off?

“No one's here,” Justin called from inside.

But Stroud was still careful. He walked into the trailer as though it might be booby-­trapped, mindful not to so much as brush the doorframe. He looked at the shabby surroundings, nodding to them. “Take it apart.”

And they did. Cal and the young men ripped through Petra's bags, tore the racks out of the oven, even peeled the paneling from the walls. And found nothing more thrilling than women's underwear, a cardboard box with a razor blade jammed in it, and a note.

Cal found the note. It mentioned that some equipment was waiting for Petra at the ranger station. He balled it up and chucked it among the litter on the floor without telling anyone, filing that information away for later. Maybe he could use it, warn her somehow that one seriously pissed-­off alchemist was after her.

They left empty-­handed. Stroud wasn't happy, but dispensed enough Elixir to each one of them to make the evening pass quickly.

Cal had gratefully accepted his share. Instead of building a bonfire with the others at the Garden, he slipped away. Confident that no one would miss him, he dragged his old dirt bike out of the shed and walked it down the road until he was sure that no one could hear the engine start. It took three tries to get it going, and it buzzed loud as a lawn mower in his ears until he picked up speed.

Night wind and miles slid past him.

Adam and Diana were still gone.

He knew that they wouldn't have just run off, not without him. They were like his family, protecting him against Justin and the rest of the morons. Cal had run away from his last foster home two years ago, and his friends were all he had. He had to find them.

They wouldn't leave him at the Garden, not all alone. They had to know that they were the only reason he stayed . . . didn't they? His vision blurred.

The hired hand at the bar had said a body had been found on Rutherford's land. Hope and fear churned in Cal's stomach as he turned down the dark dirt roads to Rutherford's ranch. He switched off his headlight, bouncing over ruts and rills that shook his teeth until he was nearly out of gas.

He walked his bike along the edge of a freshly mown field that smelled of hay and dew. A few half-­finished bales lay scattered about. This had to be where the field hands stopped work, the spot he'd heard about at the Compostela. He propped his bike up against a fence post and clambered over the barbed wire fence. He paced along the edge of it, fear gnawing his chest. He saw no sign of upturned earth that he could identify as a grave. But it was dark, and Rutherford's land was vast. Going alone into enemy territory was fucking stupid.