Alchemist Academy: Book 2 (18 page)

“Glad to see you back, but what the hell’s going on?” Bridget said.

I started jogging toward the teachers’ hall and Bridget and Mark kept up with me. “We found my mom,” I said as we jogged, “and found a way to get back in here. It all went wrong when Deegan caught us.” I fixated on the doors at the end of my line of sight.

“Good,” Bridget said. “I’ve got something I want to personally deliver to Deegan. That scumbag has made it his life’s goal to use and abuse me in the name of making stones.” She was the one with a creaky voice now. “And I made a few, Allie. They forced me. I just wanted it to all end.”

I didn’t know what Bridget had gone through, but I could see the change in her; she was meeker and weaker. I didn’t like it. I liked things constant in my life. Seeing her beaten into a compliant sack of bones made my blood boil. Yet another thing the dark alchemists had taken.

“You’ll get the chance. I doubt they’ll be expecting this,” I said as we passed the statue of Clymene.

A lot of Blues and Reds caught up with us. I looked back to see a mass of them keeping pace. I recognized many of the faces and hoped I wasn’t heading them into slaughter. I knew my mom couldn’t keep all the teachers at bay, and that by now she’d most likely succumbed to a stone or two. They’d want to keep her alive, though. That was what kept me going. I’d seen the look on the bald man’s face—he knew her. Maybe they all did. They’d want to keep her, prod her, make her spill her secrets, much in the same way I had with Verity. Maybe they’d have Bridget make the stone.

We reached the door and everyone stilled into silence.

“No one falter. We have the bodies and the stones to end this. Fight dirty. Fight to win.” I held up my two stones and handed one to Mark.

Bridget brought out a black-looking stone. I’d never seen one like it, but I hoped it would hurt.

I heard distant screams behind the door. Could it be possible my mom was still fighting? I gripped the iron handle and shoved the door as hard as I could. Swinging open, it slammed against the wall. The teachers had amassed near the end of the hall with their backs to us. Jackie and Carly were still lying where I’d seen them last.

I couldn’t find my mom, but I saw the teachers’ faces as they looked back at us. They divided their glares between us and whatever was in Verity’s office. As we flooded into the hall, their glares turned to fear. It was simple math—how many students does it take to revolt? Their fear gave me the strength to show my teeth and stomp toward them. The teachers huddled closer and glanced at one another. Not one of them had an answer for us.

One step forward and a battle cry from me, and the mass of students moved with a vengeance. Some of the guys were faster, running ahead by a few paces. One threw a brick and another a stone. The brick ended up doing more damage, hitting a frail, older teacher in the chest.

I threw my one stone at Deegan’s back. It hit the portly man’s jacket and flew off to the side, striking a woman in the face. The stone broke and a cloud burst open. Everyone but Deegan screamed and fell to the floor, covering their faces, while he ran farther into Verity’s office.

Deegan gathered something off the floor and turned to face me with my mother’s limp body in his arms. His hand shook as he jerked a knife close to her throat. “Stay back.” He took a few steps deeper into Verity’s office.

I neared Verity’s door and took a quick inventory. The mist had disappeared, but some of the teachers were still trembling, rubbing their eyes and moaning. The others had lost consciousness entirely, and lay on the floor blocking the doorway.

The crowd of students pushed me from behind. They wanted Deegan.

“Hold back!” I yelled. Mark and Bridget held them back as best they could.

“I’m going to leave you all, and if you don’t give me trouble, I won’t kill this woman.” Deegan shook my mom in his arms. A trail of blood dripped from her neck and I felt the real threat of losing her all over again. The thought of it was unbearable.

My mom’s hand twitched, but Deegan didn’t notice.

I concentrated on his face. “Let my mother go. We can’t let you leave, but I promise to take you as a prisoner and treat you better than you have these prisoners.” I pointed to the crowd of students behind me. Many of them protested, some of them yelling out for me to kill him. I knew Bridget wanted to; she sneered at him and gripped her stone tight.

“She’s your mother?” Deegan laughed. “That sure as hell explains some things. Why don’t you tell your people to leave this hall, and I’ll disappear into the morning air.”

“You know I can’t let you leave.”

Deegan’s eyes narrowed, and he pushed the knife against Mom’s neck. More blood trailed over the steel. “I’ll give you five seconds to close those doors.” He stepped back until his butt hit Verity’s desk.

Both of my mom’s hands had moved on their own by this point. Then she opened her eyes, saw Deegan and me, and closed them.

“Five,” Deegan said.

“Give me a second. Pull the teachers’ bodies back.”

Some of the students took great effort to make the move as forceful as possible, pulling the teachers away from the door and slamming them back onto the floor, heads cracking against the tile. We backed up toward the door.

“Four,” Deegan continued.

“Maybe we can make another arrangement,” I said.

“Three.” He made his way around the desk and pulled a drawer open. “Two.”

“Mark,” I whispered. “Get ready.” He was the best thrower in the class, and he was holding a stone in his gloved hand.

Deegan fished around in the desk—and then shock spread over his face. He yanked the drawer out, letting it fall to the floor. Lowering down, he pulled on the next drawer. My mom must have felt the shift in his weight, because her eyes popped open. She gripped his arm, pulling it down with all her weight. Deegan tried to correct, but his robust size didn’t allow for such a balance shift.

Falling to the floor, my mom pushed his arm over her head and snapped his hand, pulling the knife free. Then she plunged the knife into Deegan’s side. He fell down the rest of the way behind the desk. The desk blocked most of my view, but there was a struggle until I saw Deegan’s legs stop moving.

My mom rose from behind the desk, spatters of blood on her face and hands. She breathed hard and looked around the room. Then she dropped the blade to the floor and looked disgustedly at her red hands.

I ran to her as she rounded the desk. Already crying, I couldn’t help myself; the idea of her dying had sent me to the edge. We embraced as if for the first time and I sobbed against her shoulder. She smelled of blood and sweat. Not the olfactory memory I wanted of my mom, but I’d take it over no memory.

I turned back to the other students. Many of them had moved into the room and were staring between Mom and me and Deegan’s dead feet.

I wiped my face with my sleeve. “We won!”

They cheered and yelled incoherent things. The crowd flooded into the room and they tore at the picture of Verity on the wall. I looked at her face before their hands scratched it out. I wanted to sear this moment in my mind. The moment we took down this terrible Academy.

“There’s no way we can leave,” my mom whispered.

“What?”

“Deegan was searching for a portal stone, but there isn’t one. They didn’t have a way to leave any more than we do.”

Fear swelled inside me. The air around me felt heavy, and I had trouble breathing. Grasping at my chest, I tried to think of what we needed to do as the rest of the students kept celebrating. The Academy wouldn’t be a safe place to stay; it was only a matter of time before Verity and Axiom came back.

“We need to fill the portal room with stuff,” I said, but no one heard me. I raised my voice. “We need to fill the portal room. They could be on us at any moment.”

Many of the students looked up at my yell.

“I’m on it,” Mark said. He pulled five people with him and out of the room.

Good. I’d known he’d take care of it. We couldn’t allow Verity and Axiom to attack from within. We had to be smart if we were ever going to get out. I looked at the ceiling. L.A. was directly over us, the heart of the dark alchemists. Axiom and Verity would be united soon, if they weren’t already.

“What else do we need to do?” I asked my mom.

She favored her right side as she walked next to me. “Secure the elevator.”

Leo stepped into the room, holding a limping Jackie.

“Jackie,” I said.

She smiled and let go of Leo to hug me. Carly was right behind her, stepping into our hug.

“We did it,” I said.

Jackie laughed. “Yeah, well, now what?”

“We have to secure this building,” Mom continued. “Lock it down while we figure out an escape plan. Mark’s filling the portal room. Do you think you could get the elevator locked down?” She looked to Leo.

He nodded and turned to Jackie. She raised her brows and said, “Don’t be looking at me. I’m not your keeper.”

He smiled and kissed her on the side of the head.

“Brett, Armando, stop looking at that dead body and come with me.” Leo and the others rushed out of the room. Many more were clambering near the door and the teachers lying in the hallway. I had seen a couple of stones being dropped on the pile of bodies, so I knew we didn’t have to worry about the teachers coming to and seeking revenge.

“I’ll go too,” a girl said. I recognized her from the Red house. A few more Reds followed suit.

“Good. Just make sure no one goes up or comes down,” I said, walking up to the pile of teachers lying on the floor. My mom walked next to me. “Are they dead?” I asked.

“No.”

I breathed out in relief.

“But when they come to, they’ll be dangerous. Does this place have any alchemist cells?”

“I wanted to forget about that, but no. That sick place is unique to you, I’m sure.”

“You’d be surprised,” my mom said. “Storing an alchemist improperly is a very dangerous venture.”

“There’s a service locker,” Carly said. “Pretty small. We could clear it out and put them in there.”

“Fine, but bind them with solid knots and cover their mouths with tape. And make sure there isn’t one other thing in that closet,” my mom said.

Carly nodded with a smile. She gathered a few people and they were gone, off to complete another task.

“What do you want us to do?” I asked.

“Haven’t we done enough?” Jackie said.

“You two can help me make some stones we’ll need in case they make a rush on this place.” My mom walked toward the door, but I didn’t follow.

I looked at Deegan’s feet. “What are we supposed to do with him?”

My mom stopped and turned to me. “We’ll incinerate him,” she said, as if that was obvious.

“Where are you going?” I asked.

“Room five.” She lifted Deegan’s key ring and shook it. “You coming?”

I looked back at Deegan. I didn’t like being part of a group who had killed a man, and it didn’t escape me that my mom had done the actual killing. But I didn’t have time to think about it now. I needed to suck it up and make stones. “Yeah, we’re coming.”

“Holy shit,” my mom said as she entered room five. She glanced back at me. “Sorry.”

I was getting used to the curse words coming from her. I couldn’t say I liked it, but now I knew my mom used foul language.

She moved to the first bookshelf while I looked at the vacant desks, remembering the last time I’d seen this room. “Here it is,” she said, holding a small book in her hands. “If she only knew what she had.”

I looked over my mom’s shoulder to see the cover. It displayed an alchemist’s circle with a triangle on the inside, wrapped with symbols. The title on the book said
A Practical Guide to Herbal Stones
.

Mom sat down at the nearest desk and opened the book.

“What are you looking for? You think the philosopher’s stone is in that?” Jackie asked.

“Don’t be daft. This is just a part of it. The author of this book is our very own Blane.”

Jackie squinted. “Blane wrote that?”

“How do you know?” I asked.

Mom looked up at me from the book. “The stone I used to make Jackie fade in and out six times—”

“Seven,” Jackie corrected.

“Seven. Well, when I used the stone, I was able to have a quick conversation with him and he divulged the whereabouts of this book.” She tapped her finger on it. “He said this was the key. However, when we got to the library he’d mentioned, it had already been raided by Axiom. His sister is a well-known book collector, so it didn’t take long to learn that she’d left it in here. We only hoped she would take it at face value and store it without much consideration.” She smiled. “And we were lucky.”

“Well, what’s it say?” Jackie asked.

“Give me a minute.”

With my mom deep in the book, I left the room and stood in the doorway. Carly walked by with a large group. They were dragging the teachers’ bodies to room seventeen—a small storage locker. All of the stuff that had been in the room sat in a pile outside, near the door. They had the teachers stripped down to their underwear, tied up and gagged, and were pushing each one into the room.

I smiled at their progress and thought of Mark. He should be packing the portal room with whatever he’d found. I missed having him at my side, though. I hadn’t been far from him for this long of a time before, and I resisted the urge to go find him and offer help. I didn’t need to be some doting girlfriend. He probably had his hands full anyway.

A chair screeched behind me and I turned to see my mom holding the book near her face.

“This is it,” she said. “We need to make stones. A
lot
of stones. Can you two gather everyone around the statue? With all this help, we couldn’t have ended up in a better place.”

I frowned and looked back out to the hub. A few students were mingling around, but how would we go about rounding them all up? They were sprawled all around the complex.

“The intercom. We can use it,” Jackie said.

“Brilliant.” I gave her a thumbs-up. “It’s in the teachers’ hall.”

“Go, go. I’ll meet you at the statue,” my mom said, and pushed the small book into her pocket.

We found the intercom in the teachers’ hall, just where I’d remembered seeing it. It looked much like an old phone hanging on the wall. Jackie held the handset and cleared her throat before pushing the button.

“Hey, bitches, this is Jackie.” Her voice boomed over the speakers. “We’ve got some major shit to talk about, so all hands on deck. The statue, five minutes. Peace.” She released the button and hung the phone back up, all smiles.

“Eloquent,” I said.

“Hey, I didn’t want them mistaking me for Verity.”

I laughed. There’d been no chance of that.

The students gathered around the statue. When I saw Mark and Carly, I waved them over and they made their way through the crowd. Mark looked sweaty, but had a big grin on his face. I loved seeing him happy. I’d never thought I’d see that sight in this place.

Bridget walked up next to us and nodded. She’d been helping with the transportation of the teachers, and I hoped she’d gotten a few digs in during the process.

“We got the portal hall filled with some desks and chairs, floor to ceiling,” Mark said.

“Eesh. I hope no one portals in there.” The thought of it gave me the willies.

“I do,” Jackie said.

“The teachers are in their place,” Carly said. “They were coming to when we were gagging them, though, so I left a few guards at the door. Oh, and we put Deegan’s body in his own room. Even got some Blues to help me with that one.”

“The Blues are gone. So are the Reds,” I said, shivering at the thought of what Carly had just done.

“Attention! We may not have much time,” Mom called out.

I turned to see my mom standing on the fountain wall. She paced the wall and took in the hundred students looking up at her. I noticed the faces of the Blues on their side and realized the Reds were on my side, except Bridget and Leo. Some things were hard to change, I guessed—friends were friends. At least I didn’t see any colors.

“I wish I could say we’re going home, but the truth of it is that we’re stuck here for the time being.”

The crowd turned on her quickly, angry chatter filling the hub.

“Silence, please.” My mom gathered herself and faced the Blue side. The chatter slowed to a murmur. “Thank you. Is there a person here capable of making a portal stone?”

More chatter, until Carly spoke up. “You think we’d be here if we knew how?” The crowd laughed.

Mom nodded. “I won’t lie to you. Directly above us is an army of dark alchemists. It won’t take long for them to figure out what happened down here. I hope you’ve already made your defensive stones, because I need you to make several other stones in large quantities to help get us out of here.”

The crowd rumbled with questions.

“Believe me, I want to get out of here as soon as possible, but if we just run outside without the proper preparations, many of us won’t make it out alive. Now, I’ve drawn out the three stone circles I need. Who can read alchemist circles?”

I couldn’t, but Jackie, Leo, and Carly raised their hands.

“You three, Jackie and the other two, get over here.” She handed down a piece of paper to Carly and then to Jackie and Leo.

Jackie looked at the paper and shook her head. “You’re serious?”

“Oh, yeah. I want you to take as many students as you can into a classroom and start making stones right now. Same goes for you two.”

Mark laughed. “Just when they thought they wouldn’t be making any more stones for someone.”

“This is different,” I said.

Jackie jumped up on the small wall around the fountain. “Listen, I don’t give a shit about your colors. In fact, if I see them, I’m going to kick you in the balls or punch a tit. You got it?” She held the paper in front of her face. “I need a group of people to break down the doors to rooms twenty-one to twenty-five. Those are the material storage rooms. I’ll be by to direct the materials for the stones we’re making.”

The crowd stood quiet and looked at each other as much as Jackie.

“Move, people. We have the damned dark alchemists standing over our heads.” Jackie jumped from the wall, and she and Leo herded people in the general direction of the storage rooms. They kicked in the storage room doors, and soon Jackie was barking orders like a shopping list while Leo pushed students into different rooms. “Sulfur, pewter dust, tons of solvent, pitch, wood shavings….”

Mom called out to the remaining crowd, “I need another group of students to go to room ten. There has to be a portal maker among you, and I aim to find out who it is.” When they didn’t move, she yelled, “Go on, get there!”

They scattered.

She hopped off the fountain and walked over to me. “I need your help, Allie.”

“What do you need me to do?”

“There’s something missing, and I bet it’s in Verity’s office.” She tapped her chin and looked at the statue above us. “This statue is pretty brilliant. The perfect circle would concentrate an essence stone.”

“It killed people. People I cared for.”

My mom sighed. “Their stones should be here. I’m going to need them, all of them. I want you and Mark to go through her office. She must have a safe in there. Just be very careful with the essence stones. Don’t drop them.” She didn’t say another word as she turned around, heading back toward room ten.

“I see where you got some of that spirit,” Mark said.

“Yeah, well, I’m starting to see where I get a lot of things.” I stared at my mom’s back and let out a long breath. At least Mark wasn’t telling me he had a bad feeling about this, because I was starting to. If he started in on me, I might start agreeing with him.

I looked at the open doors to the storage rooms. “Come on. I need to make a few stones before we get to Verity’s office.”