Alchemystic (3 page)

“Give me a break, will you?” he fired back. “There are bigger things out there than all that playing around you do.”

“If history and art are playing around,” I said, “then so be it.”

“It wouldn’t hurt you to learn the family business, Lexi,” he said, short. “I have to go. Meeting time.”

“And it wouldn’t hurt you to be a better brother,” I said. “Stay away from my stuff, Devon. We’re not kids anymore. I feel stupid even having to say it.” Tears of frustration began to pour, and before he could get in the last word as he always had to, I ended the call, slamming my phone down onto the soft leather of my bag. I ran into the library, opting for the comfort of one of the more shadowy sofas as far from the lights of the art studio as possible. The quiet darkness calmed me a little, but thinking about the ruined statue kept nagging at me.

I didn’t know how long I had been sitting there—minutes, maybe a half hour—when another sound caught my attention, this time coming from the terrace outside the set of double doors off across the far end of the floor. Footsteps. I snapped out of my funk and wiped my tears away as best I could. A
small ray of happiness welled up in me as the sight of my favorite short-haired blonde appeared at the French doors, now sporting fresh bangs that sat just above her black horn-rimmed glasses. Her dancer’s bag was thrown across her body from one shoulder to the opposite hip, and she twirled around in perfect form once through the doors.

“You going to air-condition all of Manhattan now?” Aurora Torres asked, pulling the doors shut.

“Maybe, Rory,” I said. “I thought your apartment all the way down in the Village could use it, what with your thermostat issues.”

Rory started across the room toward me. “Appreciate it. Our air conditioner
still
isn’t working. Marshall dropped it off to get fixed, but the guy is giving us the runaround. If it doesn’t get fixed by the Fourth, I’ll leave it to Marshall to set off his own fireworks. He’s used to battle, after all, what with running Roll for Initiative.”

I laughed. “See? Something good came from looking for a roommate on Craigslist.”

She nodded. “It’s amazing how Marshall spending all his college savings on his tabletop-and-role-playing-game hobby-turned-business can keep him going,” Rory said. “Plus it gives me endless things to tease him about. But conflict seems to be part of his day-to-day. They do a lot of ‘war gaming,’ or so he tells me. I don’t get any of it.”

“Let your roommate fight the battles,” I said. “Nice.”

She stopped in front of my sofa, pulling her evidently heavy bag off her shoulder and shaking it at me. “Like I’ve got time between my course load and dance rehearsals for my MFA program.”

“Your program is already one of the toughest in the city,” I said. “Which normally has you a little frantic anyway. I thought summers were for lightening all that.”

“Not when you take a summer intensive,” she said. “And it is intensive, overachiever that I am. Then there’s the workout of climbing up your fire escape to avoid the rest of the Belarus clan. My body
hurts
.” She put the bag down, bending with it, and that was when she noticed my face. “What’s wrong?”

I wiped the tears from my eyes with the back of my clay-flecked forearm, avoiding the bits of it stuck there. “Three guesses,” I said.

“Douglas Belarus,” she said, then tapped the side of her head like she was thinking. “He’s worried that his daughter doesn’t spend enough time getting holy and taking to the knee at Our Sister of Perpetual Bowing and Scraping.”

I laughed despite my tears at the truth of it, snorting through my now-running nose. “Wrong, although I’m sure he’d love it if I did join him more often. Love the parental dad unit, but not really looking to get my church on that many times a week.”

“Okay, then,” she said. “Juliana Belarus, then, caring mother but also a quiet mouse when it comes to who wears the pants in the family.”

I shook my head. “Strike two.”

“Ah,” Rory said, dropping onto the sofa next to me. She threw her arm around my shoulder and squeezed, her deceptively thin frame still well muscled enough to make it hurt a little. “Big brother strikes again. What did he do
this
time, as we continue on into the third decade of the Sibling Cold War?”

I pointed over to the art studio side of the floor. Rory’s eyes caught sight of my former masterpiece and let out a low, slow whistle.

“Wow,” she said. “Made your art his own personal punching bag, I see.”

My face went flush with embarrassment, but I couldn’t help but let a small laugh escape my lips. “Actually…that part was me.”

“Really, now?” Rory stood and walked over to the area, circling the table the tall slab of half-molded clay sat on. “I’m impressed, Lexi. You been working out? Maybe I can make a dancer out of you yet. You did some serious damage here.”

“The punches are mine. All the rest is Devon, though.”

“It’s good you got out some of your aggression there, Lexi,” she said, and I gave her a wary sidelong look. “I mean it! Look, I know he’s family and all, but some people are just born mean-spirited. He’s a natural-born asshole, my dear. Your reaction to his bullshit is
normal
.”

I stood up, walking back toward the art studio. “I knew I picked cubby partners well back in third grade,” I said. “Thanks.”

Rory gave an elaborate flourish and a bow, each motion fluid and graceful.

My phone vibrated on my bag at the table next to her. Rory snatched it up and waved it for me to see. “Speak of the devil,” she said.

“Give it,” I said, but Rory held it away from me while it kept on ringing.

“No,” she said. “I know you, Lexi. You’re just going to be the one to be all apologetic and try to make nice, as usual. And it’s not okay. The way he treats you borders on abuse. You have every right to be pissed. Say it.”

“This is stupid,” I said. “Just give me the phone.”

“Say it,” she repeated, unwavering. There was almost a pixieish glee in her eyes.

“Fine,” I said, just wanting the phone at this point. “I have every right to be pissed.”

Rory rolled her eyes. “
Mean
it.”

Whether I was exasperated with her game or the fact that I just wanted my damn phone, I wasn’t sure. I only know that it triggered something deep inside me that snapped. “I have every right to be pissed!” I shouted.

Rory jumped in surprise, then handed the phone over to me. “Excellent,” she said. “Now have at him!”

I swiped my finger across the screen, lifted the phone to my head, and screamed into it. “Go screw yourself, Devon,” I said. “Next time you see me, you’d better walk off in the opposite direction. For real.”

A pronounced silence filled the line.

“Hey there, ass!” Rory shouted with a bit of a suppressed giggle to it, apparently loving the fury I was throwing at him.

A man’s voice came on the line but it was not my brother. “Is this Lexi? Lexi Belarus?”

“Only my friends call me Lexi,” I snapped, ignoring the stranger’s butchering of my last name. It came out
Bell La Roose
, reminding me of the childhood jibes of
Bella Moose
,
not at all sounding like
Bell Air Us
. That didn’t bother me so much. I was more upset at him using the familiar version of my first name. “Which one of Devon’s friends is this? You can go screw yourself, too.”

“Sorry,” the man said. “That’s the only name that the phone shows.”

“Who the hell
is
this?”

“This is Officer Michael Lawrence of the NYPD. May I ask how you are related to Devon?”

“I’m his
sister
,” I said, my anger mixing with growing curiosity.

“We found this phone lying on the street, and you’re the last incoming call listed. I think you should know that there’s a distinct possibility your brother may be in trouble.”

“Trouble
how
, exactly?”

“Do you have any association with a building on St. Mark’s Place?”

I had to stop and think for a moment. “I think so,” I said, my blood running cold. “That’s one of my family’s properties. We’re in real estate.”

“I regret to inform you that there’s been an accident.”

“What…kind of accident?” I went to lean back against one of the drafting tables in the studio, but missed it completely. Rory caught me and didn’t let go, especially since I had just said the word
accident
.

“A building collapse, miss,” the officer said. “Your family’s building.”

“That can’t be true,” I said, feeling all the emotions of the past few minutes drain away, a little more every second. “I just spoke to him…maybe half an hour ago…? You’re mistaken.”

“I wish I were, miss,” the man said. “But it is unlikely.”

“Maybe he wasn’t there,” I said, panic filling my chest, the beat of my heart rising up into my throat. “Maybe he got out. That’s why you were able to find his phone.”

“Was he wearing a ring with a dark green stone in it on his left hand?”

“Yes,” I said, clutching at the similar one hanging around
my own neck from an old silver chain. “It’s a family thing. There should be a crest of sorts carved into it, a sigil. Kind of looks like bat wings surrounded by an octagon, stylized
B
on it.”

“Yes, miss, I see it,” he said. “Since you were the last person he talked to, we’re going to need you to come down to the Ninth Precinct and identify his hand.”

“Just his hand?” I asked, a nervous, hysterical laugh overtaking me.

“Holy hell,” Rory whispered, then clamped her hands over her mouth.

“Jesus Christ,” a man somewhere in the background on the other end of the line said. “Give me that goddamn thing. Hello?”

An older voice this time.

“Yes? What’s going on?”

“I’m sorry about that, miss. My partner shouldn’t have said that.”

“Just tell me what is going on!” I said, shaking now.
“Why was he asking me about my brother’s hand?”

“Because,” the older man said. “It’s all we found. It was still holding the phone.”

Alexandra

W
hen you have your own catacombs—in the basement of your family’s building, no less—having a funeral is a relatively quick and painless affair. Painless, I suppose, except for grief caused by the tons of bricks that had crushed my brother. Still, as I stood down there on the upper of the two levels among family and friends to bury Devon, I found just being in the space comforting, a welcome escape from the last few weeks. Ornately carved Gothic pillars rose up high above, the aisles full of stone tombs and markers where our ancestors had lain buried for well over a century, all of it dimly lit by the addition of subtle modern lighting that set a somber subterranean tone for the catacombs, keeping the solemn nature of the space intact.

Before the place had filled I had taken a moment alone to thread my brother’s ring with the family sigil on it onto a chain and left it hanging off the top of his tomb, but with the crowd down here now, I could barely see the raised stone walls of it, let alone the ring itself. The space was packed, mostly with men who smelled a bit too much like cigars and cologne. Despite the fact that everyone around me was dressed up, I still felt like I hadn’t so much come dressed for the
occasion, but had instead stepped out of a Tim Burton movie in a long black dress covered in antique lace. It was courtesy of a short-lived period Rory and I spent in our youthful Goth phase, and I had my inability to get rid of anything to thank for it. I had been happy to find a single item other than overalls covered in clay and paint, anyway.

“You okay?” Rory asked in a whisper.

My best friend stood at my right shoulder, Marshall Blackmoore at my left. Both of them were dressed to the nines. Rory’s hair was mostly hidden by the hat and short black veil she wore over her face, and I was surprised to see Marshall in a suit and tie. I hadn’t known he owned something dressier than shirts with clever sayings, superheroes, or gaming references I didn’t get on them. He put a hand awkwardly around my shoulder, but it was a welcome gesture. His kind brown eyes peeked out from under a mess of unkempt black hair, full of sincerity, so much so I wanted to cry, although at the moment I surprised myself by realizing I was slowly filling up with a building anger.

“Look at all these people,” I said, keeping my voice low. We were standing far enough away from my mother and father, who were right up by the tomb itself, that they wouldn’t hear, but I didn’t want to draw any attention from the gathered crowd, either. “Did any of these vultures even
know
my brother?”

“Maybe,” Rory said. “Your family has its fingers in a lot of pies. Delicious, real estate pies. And let’s face it…you don’t really know the business side of things all that well, Lexi, so of course they’re all strangers to you.”

“Why do I feel like
that’s
all about to change?” I said, pushing down a sudden panic that rose in my throat just picturing myself faking my way through the family business. “God, I look horrible in pantsuits.” I was trying to keep things light. Devon had been a first-degree asshole, but I was still stricken by his death, what it meant for our family. Quips helped me cope.