Alchemystic (17 page)

“Jesus, no kidding,” the blue-haired one said, and hugged her tight, the maker’s kin returning the embrace.

Marshall came toward me, but stopped about five feet away. “So why are people attacking Lexi and her family again?” he asked.

“I do not know,” I said. “I am unsure of a great many things. My past, for one.”

“Which,” Alexandra said, “is why I asked you two here. I’ve been reading most of last night and most of today, when I could find the time.” She held up another notebook, similar to the others but unravaged by time. “I’ve compiled notes from a bunch of sources in Alexander’s library. The man might have been a sculptural genius, but he wasn’t much on organization. There are references to material and other books all over the place. A lot of it seems to reference a master book of arcane knowledge I can’t even
find
in there, but here’s what I’ve pieced out so far.”

“Wait, wait,” the male said. “What are you trying to do here exactly?”

“My grandfather created him to watch over the family,” she said, then pointed to the half-carved block next to me on the edge of the building. “He meant to carve more. A companion, at the very least. And with people getting all stabby around me lately, I’m all for reinforcements.”

“So you’re just going to make a gargoyle?” he asked.

The maker’s kin looked down at her notebook. “Eventually,” she said. “I’m translating Slavonic and Lithuanian here, so it’s slow going. He talks a lot about willpower at the heart of art, the heart of creation. There are gestures, kind of like a karate kata, but in trying to just get an idea of
how
any of this is even possible, I decided I needed to understand how he works before I go trying to create something similar.”

“Wow,” the blue-haired woman said. “You’re really embracing this, aren’t you?”

The maker’s kin shrugged. “Are you kidding me? This sure as hell beats reading building code violations.”

“So what’s the first step?” the man added. “I could run down to our apartment and pick up my Player’s Handbook.”

“Thanks, but no,” the woman said with a forced smile. “He doesn’t seem to remember much of his past, other than having always watched over my family, so I searched through the books for something that might help restore his memory and I pieced together something my great-great-grandfather called the Revelation of the Soul. The more he remembers about
how Alexander made him and the psychos who are trying to kill me, the better.”

The blue-haired woman gave her a strange look I could not interpret. “And you needed us because…?”

“I have no idea what I’m doing here,” she said. “You’re here to…umm, spot me.”

“Awesome,” the blue-haired girl said with a slow breath and mock enthusiasm.

“We’re here for you,” the male said. His enthusiasm for this seemed to shock the maker’s kin.

“Really?”

He nodded. “I’ve been faking this stuff for years with pencils and paper and dice and the public mocking, so if there’s a chance I’m not just having some vivid hallucination and imagining all this, I say go for it.”

She looked satisfied with his answer. “All righty,” the maker’s kin said, handing the book to the other woman. “Can you hold this open for me? I think I’m going to need both hands free.”

“Sure,” she said, taking the book and positioning herself in front of the woman. “Try not to get us killed, okay?”

“Will do!”

The maker’s kin took a moment to compose herself, focused, then set herself into a series of motions with her arms and hands as words in a language I did not understand came from her. The other two humans watched in silence as she continued through them, a familiar poetry in her movement, all of us no doubt waiting for whatever was going to happen. After several minutes, the maker’s kin came to a rest and the four of us stood there in silence.

“Well?” the male asked after another long moment passed. “Did it happen? Is our large stone friend here healed?”

The three of them were looking at me. “I do not think so,” I said.

“I don’t get it,” the maker’s kin said. “I mean, I felt a little ridiculous going through it, but I really tried to focus here, push my will into it. I went through the series of somatic
motions. It’s like learning a whole new world of sign language. I spoke the words, breathing life into them, committing my very self to the art of it. If belief was a definite component here, I was believing the shit out of it. I wasn’t sure what to expect, but I was definitely expecting something more than nothing.”

“Some cinematic pyrotechnics, at least,” the blue-haired female said.

The maker’s kin stared up into my face, looking me over. “You sure you don’t you feel any different?”

I took a moment to assess myself. “I do not think so.”

“Crap,” she said. “I thought for sure I was doing it right. The words, the feelings, the gestures…”

“If I may,” the blue-haired female said. “Let me take a page from the Book of Dance. There is dance—” She pressed herself up on her toes and spread out her arms like the wings of a bird. She then lunged from side to side before spinning herself around over and over. The motion was fluid, functional.

“And there is
dance
,” she continued, and did the same moves over again. This time there was a perfect elegance to each of the moves that made her first attempt at them look clumsy in comparison. “Extension, line, poise. It’s not enough to just do the steps. You have to commit to each of them. There is a difference between dancing and
being
a dancer. If there is also an art to what you’re trying to do here, Lexi, those might be the kinds of things that matter. Try again.”

“See?” Marshall said, giving the maker’s kin a look. “You’re just doing it wrong.”

“I get it,” the maker’s kin said. “First to believe in magic, first to disparage my ability at it.”

The male held up his hands, defensive. “Are you kidding me? As a gamer, I’m eating this shit up. But truth be told, the results are a bit underwhelming.”

The maker’s kin sighed. “I can go to just about anyplace in this city for lessons in dance, singing, any instrument I like. Hell, I can take up erotic massage, but what I’m attempting here isn’t something I can go take a class in, you know? Learning something as unique as this?” She tapped the open book before her. “This is it. Notes from my family’s scattered history.
I have no idea if any part of what I am doing is actually right or if any of this even really works.”

The man went silent.

“
I
can tell you,” I said. “It does work for real. I am proof incarnate. You are of the maker’s kin, Alexandra. Do as your blue-haired friend suggested and try again. Her way.”

She nodded, the frustration in her eyes leaving as she drew her focus. Once more she went through the words and motions of her spell. This time there was commitment in every gesture, in every sound, and the build of energy that washed over me told me that something was going right.

The power reminded me of my maker, a sweet sadness flooding me as the long-lost sensation took me, driving me to my knees. His kin continued on, a shooting pain rising up in the center of my being. I fell to my hands as the stone of my chest twisted, shifting its shape, my very landscape altering.

The maker’s kin finished the last of her gestures and dropped to her knees in front of me, her eyes full of concern. “Are you all right?”

“Jesus Christ,” the male said. “You killed a gargoyle.”

“I am fine,” I said, rising to my knees. “I was not prepared for such a sensation. It has been a long time since I have felt…well, anything.”

“His chest,” the blue-haired one said, pointing. “It’s different.”

All of my pain was gone, replaced by a warm sensation. I looked down, the once-smooth carving now covered with a twisted inset pattern like vines on a wall wrapping in on themselves.

“Did it work?” the maker’s kin asked me, a nervous smile on her human lips. “Did I restore your memory?”

I concentrated my thoughts before answering. “I do not think so,” I said. “I do not recall anything new that I am aware of.”

“Dammit,” she said, slamming the book shut and rising to her feet.

“What is that?” the blue-haired one asked, pointing at my chest.

I ran my fingers over the carvings. “I do not know.”

The maker’s kin threw her book of notes down onto the rooftop at our feet.

“Easy,” the blue-haired one said. “You may not have restored his memory, but you did make
something
happen here.” She stepped right in front of me, no fear, her fingers tracing over the design.

“Alexander’s books called the whole thing Revelation of the Soul,” the maker’s kin said. “Talks about controlling his power, protecting all of us from it. We could use that power to deal with these mad men. Shouldn’t there be some soul revealing going on?”

“Maybe that’s what you did,” the male offered. The two women looked over at him, waiting. He walked over to me, pointing at areas of my chest without touching it. “What if that’s exactly what you’ve done here? There are depressions in this carving…here, here, here, and
here
. They look to me like missing pieces.”

Alexandra ran over to her discarded notebook, scooped it up, and flipped it open once more. “I noted something about gems in here when I was researching earlier,” she said, rushing through the pages. “There are sketches everywhere in my great-great-grandfather’s books. None of the writing alongside any of them made much sense, but I’ve started sketching some of them myself. There’s a reference here…”

She kept the book open in one hand and scooped up one of Alexander’s older books, flipping through it with some excitement.

“Soul stones,”
she read. “I made a note about them, that they were taken from him for his protection…and ours.”

“They must be powerful, then,” Marshall said.

“And we could use as much power as we can get if we want to get at the bottom of who’s after my family,” she said. “I wrote them down because they reminded me of some hippie-dippie healing thing my dad might get into with his spiritual leader. And later on down the page is the Slavonic word for
binding
, which I’ve already come across at least a dozen times
in searching through all the books in the library trying to unlock his memories.”

“You sure we want to even be doing that?” the male said, stepping back from my form. “Your great-great-grandfather went through a lot to keep this creature’s soul from him. You sure we should even be
trying
returning it so fast?”

“The notes I’ve compiled so far say there’s a greater power to be unleashed by the Revelation of the Soul. We’re going to need that to stop these men who are trying to kill me and my family.”

“So then where are these stones?” the blue-haired one asked.

Alexandra continued searching through the pages of the book. “That I don’t know,” she said. “There are several notations referring to specific books here, some I can’t seem to find, and a master book of sorts, but I don’t think I’ve ever come across it in his library. Not yet, anyway.”

“Maybe we shouldn’t be messing with this, ladies,” the male added.

“Don’t be ridic, Marshall,” the maker’s kin said. “People are trying to kill my family. Restoring Stanis to the full power my great-great-grandfather hints at is going to stop that from happening.”

“You don’t know what type of power you’re dealing with, Lexi,” the male said, anger in his words now.

The blue-haired girl looked up at me. “Surely you have an opinion on the matter, right, big fella?”

Foreign though the idea was to me, my mind turned the blue-haired girl’s words over and over in my head until they settled down into one desire. “My maker had created me to think, to learn,” I said. “Yet I am unsure of any instruction he meant for me to have on pursuing my own past. However, I think I should like to know more.”

The blue-haired one slapped me on the shoulder, pulling her hand away, rubbing it. “There you go, sport,” she said. “You need to start doing things for yourself there. Start spending a little ‘me’ time.”

“‘Me’ time?”

“Never mind,” she said, then looked at the maker’s kin. “We can work on idioms later. Much later.”

I did not know what an
idiom
was, but now was not the time to learn, apparently, which was fine by me. I had been standing here conversing with these creatures for too long after waking, and my body cried out for the sky. “I must fly,” I said, stepping toward the maker’s kin. “If you want to protect yourself, heal your talisman, heal the home. The power in them makes those who wish ill for your family blind to discovering you. The talismans have rendered you invisible to those with dark thoughts against you. The stone of the house keeps it hidden to them, but all are fading. It is how these men have been finding you. I do not know for how much longer the house will remain concealed from them, but for your safety, you must fix this. Your great-great-grandfather always had this master tome you spoke of, one that he kept his most sacred of words in. It is there that you will most likely find your answers.” Without waiting for a response, I leapt up into the air, wings extended and working hard to lift me higher and higher.

There had been a discomfort tonight, in revealing myself to so many, in conversing, but the strangest part, the one that got me airborne, was being asked what I desired. More so, I had been surprised to hear that I did have an answer for that. Still, I had not the will to wait while they discussed it. Their talk was of restoring my memory to better help find a motivation behind those who wished the Belarus family harm. I knew nothing of those matters, so I set myself to what I knew best how to do. I did as the master rule bid me, trying to protect, the only way I knew how—seeking out any threat to the Belarus family.

I patrolled.