Alchemystic (6 page)

Marshall laughed. “As their daughter? Can they do that?”

“That’s not the point, Marsh,” I said, wanting to slug him.

“Excuse me,” he said, still laughing, “but what is the point, then?”

Rory slapped me on the back. “The girl doesn’t really have much choice, does she? It’s very adult of her. Missing hanging out with us is just a bonus.”

“Fine, then,” he said, hurt, the laughter dying. “While we’re out making memories, she can go about making nice at home.”

I sighed. “All right, all right,” I said. “Why don’t you guys swing by my building after you hit the bar? I’m sure I’ll be done dealing with the lord and lady of the manor by then.”

Rory looked over at the other two women still standing across the far side of the room. Both of them were laughing. She looked up at Marshall. “You sure you don’t want me to beat them up for you?” she asked, then flexed her arms. “Dancer’s muscles. Hella strong.”

Marshall shook his head.

I slapped him on the back, my hand making a squelching sound. I pulled it away, my palm now red with paint, and I went for one of the rags hanging at my art station to wipe it off. “Better luck next time.”

Marshall gave a weak smile and shoved his hands into his coat pocket.

“You think things will be okay with the bosses?” Rory asked me.

I shrugged. “Who knows?” I said. “At least at home I won’t have to deal with any artistic commentary.” I slapped the plastic casing of the art tube.

Rory smiled. “That’s no reflection on what you produce,” she said. “Art is not their thing. Doug and Julie have just always been practical people.”

“Practically perfect in every way,” I said in my best Julie Andrews voice.

“Not bad,” Marshall said. “Have you been practicing?”

“Not really,” I said, heading for the door out of the art studio. “Sometimes it’s just more pleasant living in my head with dancing cartoon penguins and singing chimney sweeps than it is dealing with life at the decrepit Belarus Manor.”

“You could move out,” Marshall said.

“Not until my mom is more stable. And plus I’d have to give up my three a.m. access to my great-great-grandfather’s
library and art studio,” I said, with a small smile back over my shoulder. “I’ll manage. Besides, bitching is just my way of dealing with all the life changes. It’ll pass, I’m sure.”

“Good luck!” Rory called after me, raising an invisible glass into the air. “Tell Doug and Julie I say hi! We’ll toast to them!”

“I hate you, you know,” I reminded her, but Rory only shrugged.

“It’s okay,” she said, chipper as always. “You hate everybody these days.”

I didn’t even stop to argue. Sometimes it was better to keep your mouth shut, especially when what Rory was saying was oh, so close to the truth.

Alexandra

D
eep in thought, I discovered far too late that I had walked way east before correcting myself and turning left onto Second Avenue, heading uptown through the East Village on my way toward Gramercy Park. The walk did much to clear my head of all the annoyance that had gone down during the art session. Now if I could avoid a wave of crap on the home front, I could sneak up to my namesake’s deserted art studio in our building along the west side of the park and hopefully get back to work on the sketch rolled up in my art tube. I was excited by the breakthrough I had felt earlier tonight, my eyes becoming attuned to following some of the rules that governed the art world, and while I hated conforming to much of anything, I had to admit it really did help with producing the work I wanted to achieve.

My mind wandered off once again as I walked along East Sixteenth Street, crossing into Stuyvesant Plaza Park in front of Beth Israel, meandering along the oval stretch of walkway within. The trees there always made me feel like I was deep in the woods, despite the lights and sounds of the city all around. It reminded me of the times Rory and I would gather there as part of our own private would-be teenage coven, just
to hang and talk about love-potioning various guys from high school. I was so lost in the pleasant memory that I barely heard the quickened footsteps of someone approaching from behind me until it was too late.

Strong arms grabbed for me, one of them catching the family pendant around my neck, choking me as I dashed forward. The heavy chain snapped and I was free, but before I could take off, fingers wrapped themselves in my hair with a pained jerk while an arm wrapped hard around my waist. A man’s arm. The art tube lay pressed between us as he tugged me close, and judging from the breath on the back of my head, he had to be at least half a foot taller than me. I contorted my body to break free, but it was no use. The stranger’s grip was solid, and my body went cold in pure fear.

“At last!” the man’s voice hissed, quiet yet intimidating. He held my necklace up in front of me. “You’re oh, so weak, aren’t you?”

I pulled my pendant out of his hand, which I noticed was tattooed with an ornate symbol looking like some kind of stylized but blocky demon. I filed it away for a future police report—that was, if I ever got to make one. He pulled his hand away, tugging my hair as he settled the other around my waist.

“Where is it?” the voice hissed hot in my ear. “We’ve been looking so very long.”

The man was talking crazy.
Looking so long?
Was it someone I knew? Had someone followed me all the way from the Y in Tribeca? My mind barely had a moment to process it, adrenaline and fear taking over. My whole body shook, a combination of that fear mixed with anger and rage. “My wallet is in my purse,” I managed to stammer out. “Just take it and go.
Please.
”

“I’m not interested in your money,” he said, pulling me closer.

Panic rose in my chest, my blood pumping hard. There was only one thing someone like this guy wanted when money wasn’t the answer. I fought against his hold on my hair, even if it meant I had to lose a painful chunk of it to get free, but
his grip was too strong to break. His other arm moved out of sight, and when it came back an ornate knife with a carved white hilt was in his hand. He pressed it to my throat.

“I don’t want
that
, either,” he said, just as quiet as before. “Just tell me where it is.”

I gave up struggling. “I—I don’t know what it is you’re talking about,” I said.

“Wrong answer,” the man said. His body tensed, the knife pressing against my throat harder. How long before it would break the skin?

A quick look around the park told me there was no hope of rescue in sight, but thankfully, I rarely counted on others when it came to taking care of myself. Whatever this crazed lunatic had in mind, I had to get out of there. His increasing menace caused something to snap deep inside me, and all I knew was that I was determined not to be the victim here.

I brought the heel of my Doc Martens back up behind my body, finding its mark right between the man’s legs. A half cry, half whimper escaped his lips, his hand dropping the knife as he doubled over in pain, letting go of my hair. I ran forward, not even considering going for the knife. That was the kind of thing that got people killed in the movies. Instead, I tore across the small park toward the opening in the gate, and out onto Fifteenth Street.

I sped off, thanking my lucky stars that I wasn’t wearing typical girly-girl impractical fashionista shoes, always opting for a combat boot, occasionally going for something a bit more dressy-sexy but always comfy and low-heeled. Tonight, my Docs were fine for putting some distance between my attacker and me. Fifteenth Street was deserted this time of night, but the grid of Manhattan was too much for me to traverse if I thought I’d make it to safety without taking a shortcut to get up Irving Plaza to Gramercy Park. I glanced back over my shoulder, surprised to see the lone figure closing in much faster than I expected. Turning right, I ran up an alley in the middle of the block, dodging past recycling bins and an oversized Dumpster.

I turned left down an even tighter section of the alley.
I heard my attacker close behind, causing my skin to go cold. Rounding the next corner, my heart sank. The wire mesh of an upcoming fence blocked my way, and panic took full hold of me. There was no way I could scale the fence before my attacker caught up. Still, there was no way in hell I was just going to wait there like a helpless victim, either. Without breaking stride, I pumped my legs harder and leapt at the fence in a full-on run.

I grabbed on lower than I would have liked to, but started climbing as fast as my body could go, the wire of the fence digging cold into my palms and fingers. The sounds of my attacker farther back in the alley grew louder, although thankfully it sounded like he was still around the corner. Higher and higher I went, until I looked up at the top of the fence, stopping as my heart beat into a full panic.

“Razor wire,” I said, my toes slipping out of the holes in the fence, letting my legs dangle, the strain in my arms burning. “Shit.”

Stanis

I
n the midst of the freedom of flying, a panicked sensation overwhelmed me like lightning coursing through my stone form, catching me so off guard that my body curled in on itself, my wings folding in around me. Stunned, I fell through the clouds toward the ground far below before something deep inside kicked in once more. I extended my body fully, arms and legs stretched out to the very tips of my claws until my wings extended, catching the air and carrying me aloft as I twisted and turned to avoid the buildings I had just been plummeting toward.

The alarming buzz of the sensation stayed with me, settling into a slow burn at my center. The initial shock of it gave way to a forgotten but familiar calling, and I was struck with a memory—this was the sole purpose of what drew me to the night sky in the first place, this call to action. Without hesitation, I flew off, banking away from the glass wall of the nearest building, trying to ascertain where the pull of the sensation was strongest. A few aerial swoops in each direction told my body where the calling came from, and I followed the pull though the night sky, darting lower and lower between the buildings as I went. Even after so many years, speed
still exhilarated me, more so with a direct purpose at hand behind it.

My eyes searched the streets below, taking in the lone figure of a woman hanging at the top of a fence within the close quarters of an alley. Another figure, this one hooded, came down another section of the alley, moving toward her, the gleam of a blade in his hand. Everything about this woman called out to me, and although I did not understand why, I desperately wanted to help her, whatever the source of her distress was. The one rule screamed out all-consuming in my head.

Protect.

I pressed myself lower in flight, twenty feet off the ground now, before swooping into the tight confines of the alley. Maneuvering was difficult here, but centuries of experience were on my side. I came down in front of the blade-wielding figure, landing on my feet as the man, still running, slammed into my chest, and I sent him flying into a large metal cube along the side of the alley that stank of rotting food.

The figure stood, disoriented, until he noticed me there. He ran at me, stabbing with a shimmering blade in his hand. I did not think to move as the man lunged, sparks flying off my stone skin as the knife dragged down my chest. The gesture was futile, but it awoke something dark and furious inside me. I lashed out with my left arm, knocking the blade out of the attacker’s hand as something solid underneath the man’s skin gave way. He roared in pain, pulling his arm to his body, part of it sticking out at an odd angle from the rest of it.
How fragile these creatures are,
I thought. I had forgotten.

The sound was almost inhuman and it would no doubt draw attention, which concerned me. That would violate the second of the rules, one of many rules that came as instinct to me more than anything.
Remain hidden from humanity.
I should leave, but the first rule held a stronger sway over me, and I simply could not leave this man here for fear of harm coming to the woman.

The cries of my attacker faded, giving over to a pained whimper. I grabbed him by both his shoulders, digging my claws in, then leapt into the sky as he screamed. His added
weight forced me to correct my flight, lengthening the strokes of my wings, but it took only a second to adjust before I compensated, shooting straight up into the night sky. The pained man craned his head to look down. His whimper turned back into a fear-filled scream of panic as he wrapped his good arm around mine.