Alchemystic (38 page)

Only it wasn’t the stone men or my parents. My friends stood there—Rory with her pole arm at the ready and Marshall holding one of my great-great-grandfather’s statues from the back hallway—a centaur. The figure exploded into a cloud of dust as my spell hit it and the two of them jumped.

“Christ!” Marshall cried out, counting his fingers. They were covered with a fine gray dust, but other than that, they all seemed to be accounted for. “Watch it with that stuff, will you?”

Rory ran across the kitchen and hugged me. “We got here as quick as we could,” she said. “We were worried.”

“I still am,” I said, hugging her back just as hard. “I went through the three new books, though. There’s a lot to learn, but I think I know where the fourth soul stone is. I was piecing it together when those things tried to come up the outside of the building, but Stanis here knocked them off.”

“What does the Heart of the Home even mean?” Rory asked.

“I have an idea,” I said.

“Your front doors were smashed in,” Marshall said, joining us.

“So much for the warding on the house,” I said. “Not that it would have stopped Devon from finding his way here.”

Rory stopped hugging me and stepped back. “There was a smoke cloud pouring out of the elevator into the lobby so
we followed a different path of destruction up the stairs past all the offices.”

“We were following a path of our own from the elevators around this floor,” I said, “but we didn’t see anything, other than you two.”

“So where are they if not here?” Stanis asked.

“There’s only one other way
to
go,” I said, and ran off to the back hall, the last piece of my great-great-grandfather’s puzzle falling into place. “To the Heart of the Home, of course.”

Stanis

A
lexandra, Marshall, and Rory led the way into the depths of the building.

“Where are you taking us?” I asked. “I do not feel much comfort in going into a more confined space. I cannot protect you as well.”

Aurora tapped the end of her weapon on one of the stone steps. “We stand a fair chance of protecting ourselves, you know.”

“If you think to take down these men of stone with a mere bladed stick, then you are in for a harsh awakening,” I said. “I was hard-pressed to hold my own against Alexandra’s brother.”

“For the record,” Marshall said back over his shoulder, “I’m okay with the gargoyle trying to keep us safe as a first line of defense.”

“Shh!” Alexandra whispered from up ahead of us. “We need to stay quiet from now on. We’re going to need the element of surprise if we stand any chance of getting my parents away from them.”

“If they’re down here,” Marshall added.

“Trust me,” she said. “If my parents heard intruders, they
would have run for the catacombs. Especially my father. At any time of stress, he’d prefer a place to pray, and what better place than in our own private cemetery?”

“Catacomb?” I asked. “Cemetery?”

Alexandra looked up at me in wonder. “It’s where we bury those of us who have passed on,” she explained. “You’ve never been down here, have you?”

“Actually,” I said. “I have.”

Alexandra stopped. “You have?”

“Yes,” I said. “I do not fully understand your custom of burial, but sometimes I would come and rest here among the carvings of
grotesques
. There was a comfort in it. Other times I merely came down here to watch over you.”

Alexandra smiled, the warmth of it filling me; then she turned and continued on.

The stairs continued farther, but we did not follow them lower, instead walking out among the graves on the first floor down. Voices came from farther along, Alexandra motioning for our group to slow as we approached. Up ahead I saw many of the creatures from my first visit to the freighter; among them were Alexandra’s father and mother, the woman looking horror-struck, but not the father. Alexandra’s brother was in the crowd, but he remained still, only watching the exchange going on between the humans and them.

“Your father does not look afraid,” I said.

“Of course he doesn’t,” Alexandra said. “Why would he? He’s been visited by an
angel
, remember? He believes in a better place. He’s not afraid to die.”

While most of the creatures made sure the two humans stayed where they were, there was a clear leader of the pack, a larger monstrosity whom I recognized. “Kejetan,” I said.

“Hail, hail, the gang’s all here,” Marshall said, unenthused.

“We need to help your parents,” Aurora said. “We need to strike!”

“Very well,” I said, and moved to pass them, but Alexandra’s hand on my arm stopped me.

“No,” she said. “Not yet. We have to go.”

Aurora looked at her in disbelief.

“Go? Now?” she whispered. “We have to help them, Lexi!”

“And we will,” she said, looking through the new book of Alexander’s she had brought down with us. “But the Heart of the Home isn’t up here. I need to keep my promise to Stanis. I need to restore him…because it’s important not just to him, but to me.” She paused, almost unable to speak, as if the words were catching in her throat, tears at the corners of her eyes. She wiped at them, then turned to smile at me. “And hopefully we get the added advantage of Stanis returning to his full power.”

My wings gave an involuntary flutter against my back, and I took a moment to still them. “I pray you are right,” I said.

“I think I know where the final stone is,” she said, then snuck her way past me back the way we had come, heading farther down the set of stairs there.

Aurora looked unsure, but nodded and followed after her friend, pole arm at the ready.

“I hope she’s right,” Marshall said before also heading down.

I hoped they were right as well. I did not relish the fight to come without being as whole as I could be.

When I reached the bottom of the stairs, the three of them were in conversation, waiting.

“I can be the bait,” Marshall said. “I’ve got the skills for that. Annoying people, running away…”

“Maybe you should just stay out of harm’s way,” Aurora offered. “I don’t want to look for another roommate…you know, if you get killed or anything.”

“Touching,” Marshall said, “but hear me out. We can’t take these things on one by one,
but
we can outsmart them.”

Aurora nodded. “Makes sense,” she said. “They do have rocks for brains, after all.”

“
I
have rocks for brains,” I reminded her, unable to help the low, gravelly tone of my words.

Aurora rolled her eyes, then clapped me on the shoulder. “Yes, darlin’, but you’re refined. Not at all like those brutes. No offense meant.”

“No offense taken,” I said with a smile. “Thank you.”

Alexandra smiled at me. “Let’s get moving, Mr. Sophisticated,” she said, and started off through this older section of the catacombs.

Aurora took off after her oldest friend and I did the same, Marshall running to catch up with us.

Marshall cleared his throat. “Very touching, really,” he said, “but listen up. At least if you want to get through this…As I started to say, we don’t have to match their brute force. We’ve got several advantages here.”

“Such as…?” Alexandra called back.

He stretched his arms to the side of the narrow walkway between the tombs. “We’re in a confined space, which hopefully makes it harder for those big boys to fight.”

“Me as well,” I said, flexing my wings, which hit two of the columns near me, scraping against them.

“I’d rather we be able to slow a dozen of them down if we can,” he said. “Sorry.”

I looked across the space leading farther back into the catacombs. This bottom floor was different from the one above it, the construction older, the ceilings higher. I pointed up at them. “I may still be able to use this to my advantage,” I said.

“Excellent,” Marshall said before turning and grabbing for Aurora’s pole arm, but her grip on it was strong. Unable to take it from her, he instead shook it in her hands for emphasis. “This is more than just a striking weapon. It can be used to trip them up by going for the legs, using it to throw their leverage off, to unbalance them. And when they’re going down, maybe a few of them crack their skulls. I doubt the pointy end will do much good.”

Aurora nodded. “Noted,” she said. “Go for the legs.”

“Hurry up,” Alexandra called back to us from her now-considerable lead through the catacombs. “If my hunch is right, that’s going to be awesome, but it still won’t leave us much time.”

The three of us picked up our pace as she led us deeper into the catacombs. The farther back we went, the more spaced
out the tombs were until she stopped at one of them that sat along what I sensed was the back wall of the building.

“Welcome to the heart of the building,” she said, and slapped her hand down on top of one of the tombs. The carving on the top of it was of a man at rest, lying with hands folded together at his waist. He wore an elaborately carved breastplate with knot work similar to that of his secret tome, and at the center of his chest was a single red gem resting above his heart. “Meet your maker.”

I stood in silence, staring, expecting him to sit up, the carving so lifelike. Seeing his face next to Alexandra’s, the resemblance was even stronger than my mind’s eye had imagined it to be. Without opening any of the books, she laid her hand over the gem, whispered out an incantation, and the stone came free.

“Ready?” she asked. “This might be too much to bear, judging by how the other ones went.”

The sounds of approach grew in my ears, but the humans registered no signs of hearing it. “They are coming,” I said. “We must hurry.” Alexandra turned her head to listen, but I touched her face with the smooth stone of my hand. “Now, Alexandra.”

She pressed the stone in place against my chest, and without bothering to look to the notebook, she incanted the words as if she had always known them. The coil in my chest unwound one last time, her hands moving the gem quickly in place and letting the coil wind back around the last stone, something wild rising up in my body in response. The stones wove themselves into a new pattern, fresh pain filling me as the coiled stone paths within me changed. The shock of it drove me to my knees, and I dug my claws into the side of my maker’s tomb to keep from falling over completely. A searing bolt rose from my chest to the center of my head, a white heat and light rising in me until I could no longer see. My sight was replaced by a flood of images at the center of my mind, rushing back in time to my earliest memories—those of my time with Alexander in old New York. The pain
in my chest grew, tearing at the center of my thoughts, and a veil that lay across my memories lifted, pushing my mind further back to a time I had never recalled before, long before my time in Manhattan or even America.

Images of a green, foreign land washed over me. The trees and rolling hills were different from the ones of the city and its parks, a land of massive stone castles, lords, and servants. This, I could now recall, was Alexander Belarus’s homeland, and at the thought of him, a specific memory hit me. Deep within the stone walls of a castle, my maker’s face rose up before me, still wrinkled at the edges of his eyes but younger than I had ever seen before. I struggled to recall the circumstance of our meeting. So much was strange and new that I was having trouble sorting out all the differences, but before I could process all of it, the now-world forced itself back upon me, a familiar voice filling my ears.

“You ready for a rematch?” Devon, Alexandra’s brother.

The voice was close, somewhere in front of me. I focused my mind past the wave of flooding memories to see his bulky stone form standing just on the other side of where Alexandra knelt before me. A rocky swarm of his fellow creatures was pouring into view every which way through the maze of tombs and columns all around us, but my eyes stayed on Devon, his rough and rocky face giving a sinister smile. “What? My first beating wasn’t enough for you?”

“It is true I cannot hope to beat you on strength alone,” I said, forcing myself back onto my feet through the still-burning pain of the last stone’s placement in my chest. Alexandra stood as well, smart enough to step out of the way. “However, strength alone is not part of my plan.”

Finding it difficult to concentrate through my fresh swirl of memories, I staggered. As I struggled to find my balance, Devon laughed. “No?”

“No,” I said, then dashed toward him, spreading my wings as I went. Devon swung at my approach, but I was already rising above him. I grabbed his wrist, his arm still extended from the swing, and I pushed my wings for momentum as
I forced myself up. His feet left the ground and we rose despite his efforts to struggle free from my grip.

His free hand slammed against my shoulder, whole new levels of pain I was unfamiliar with filling me, but I pressed us higher to the top of the catacombs.

“You confuse me,” I said. “You say you are Alexandra’s family yet you do not act the part.”

“Enough, Boy Scout,” he said. “What do you know about mortals, anyway? You’re just pissed that you’re not unique anymore. You’re not the only one who gets to live forever.”