Incarnate (A Spellmason Chronicle) (18 page)

“And I take it he wouldn’t take no for an answer?” Alexandra asked.

“Let’s just say it wasn’t so much him asking as it was him
telling
me I had to join his cause,” he said. “And me? Well, I’m not much of a joiner.”

“What did he tell you about his cause?” I asked.

“Our conversation didn’t quite get down to that level of detail,” he said. “I figured if I was being told to serve someone called the Butcher of the Bowery, it wasn’t exactly going to prove to be all rainbows and sunshine.”

“So you took his life in stone from him,” I said.

“This minion of the Butcher was crafty,” he said. “He was the sort to draw things out of you. In his case, he was seeking out . . . I believe
cronies
would be the best term for it.”

“And just why did he think you would fit the bill for cronyism?” Alexandra asked.

If stone could blush, I was sure it would have on Crane, given his sheepish look.

“Despite my current appearance,” he said, “let’s just say that in my previous life I was a bit of a . . . problem child.”

“What were you?” I asked.

He pressed a hand to his chest as if deeply offended I even had to ask. “Nothing as gruesome as a murderous butcher, I assure you,” he said. “But I had earned a bit of a reputation at what I would call being a purloiner of other people’s goods.”

Alexandra laughed. “A thief,” she said. “Let me guess: stealing form the rich, giving to the poor?”

“I wish I could say I was that noble,” he said with a smile, “but no. I was far more self-serving than that, I’m afraid.” He flourished his wings to their full and impressive span, showing off the majesty of his angelic form. “It would seem this stone life I’ve been led to wishes me to atone for those crimes.”

“These are interesting times in this city,” I said. “I would prefer the violence among my kind to be kept to a minimum.”

“Yeah,” Alexandra added. “Humanity is already freaked-out about the amount of gargoyle action going on out there.”

“We must police ourselves,” I said.

“I did not do what I did idly,” the angel Nathaniel said.

“Fine,” Alexandra said but sounded unsatisfied with his answer. “Then if you have to do something, could you maybe make sure there’s not a human standing in the alley below you before crumbling a body to bits?”

The angel thought it over for a moment, as still as a statue in contemplation.

“A fair and reasonable request,” he said with a deep bow.

“Good,” Alexandra said, relaxing a little. Her face shifted, a look of reluctance overtaking it. She pointed to the head in his hands. “Do you think maybe we could have that?”

“This?” the angel said, twisting the demonic head back and forth in his hand. “I do hope this is not how you spend your nights, collecting souvenirs of the dead.”

“No,” I said with a shake of my head. “My father was the kind to mount the heads of his enemies on pikes as a warning to others. I prefer diplomacy to violence . . . when possible.”

“To each his own,” the angel said, and tossed the head in our direction. I reached out and caught it in one hand, the dead stone eyes staring up at me.

“Thank you,” Alexandra said, turning to me. “We can gather the rest up from the alley.”

“Am I free to go?” the angel asked, making it clear he was not really asking for our permission.

“This is not a police state,” I said. “You are free to do as you choose, as long as it does not interfere with the freedom of others. I am sorry to hear that you were put upon by this group that would wish harm upon the people of this city. However, if you hear from any more of the Butcher’s recruits, you can find me and my people by flying to the southern tip of Manhattan.”

Alexandra nodded. “I’m sure you would be more than welcome at Sanctuary,” she added with a hopeful look at me.

“Of course,” I said.

The angel gave us a tight-lipped smile. “As I mentioned before,” he said, “I’m not much of a joiner.” He spread his wings and leapt into the sky. “I wish you luck in your endeavors. And who knows? Perhaps I will pay your Sanctuary a visit sometime.”

I watched in silence as he flew away, the heaviness of the head in my hands growing every moment.

“You okay?” Alexandra asked, resting a cool hand on my shoulder.

“I will be,” I said, staring into the lifeless eyes of the demon, then looked to her, only to find Alexandra’s eyes locked on it as well.

“What is it?” I asked.

“Look at it,” she said. “Stone. So lifeless. This could be you, Stanis. It makes a woman think.”

Lost in her own thoughts, it was difficult for me to read her face. “About what?”

“About how short life could be,” she said.

“I have had more than my fair share of a lifetime.”

She smiled and shook her head. “That’s not what I meant,” she said, then let out a long, slow breath. “With all we’ve been through, sometimes I forget it could end at any moment, and I don’t want things to go unsaid, especially when they need saying.”

“I hope you know you can always speak your mind with me,” I said.

“Okay,” she said, nerves in her voice. “Here it is. I’m sorry if I’ve been short with you . . . when talking about Emily. I think it comes from a place of . . . jealousy. I mean, she gets to be with you practically all the time.”

“You do not approve of her?” I asked, taken aback by her admission.

Her face twisted with frustration. “No,” she said. “It’s just . . . Well, why did you never try with me?”

I cocked my head at her. “Try?”

“I miss more than just the protection you provided when you watched over the Belarus family,” she said. “It’s a dark thought, but since we’re being honest, I wonder sometimes if I should have released you from it. I know once you were freed of the bond, you went with your father to protect us, but part of me thought . . .”

She could not finish what she had started to say, but I thought I understood.

“You thought I would choose you once I was freed,” I said.

She nodded in silence.

“But you have Caleb,” I reminded her.

“I know,” she said, “and he’s great. I just wanted to know why you never tried?”

I gave her question careful consideration as I thought back on it. I had long held a deep affection for Alexandra, but I searched my soul for the answer.

“Strangely enough it was Caleb who convinced me,” I said.

It was Alexandra’s turn to cock her head at me. “I’m sorry; what?”

“On my father’s floating palace barge,” I said with a nod. “We had both gone there to contend with Kejetan. It was there he convinced me he would be a better fit for you.”

“Frankly, I don’t think that’s something for him to decide,” she said, anger rising in her voice.

“He made a convincing argument,” I said. “He is of your kind, can walk in the day with you, live out a mortal life by your side . . .”

“What if you could do all that?” she said, shaking with rage, but her face full of earnestness now. “What if you could be the one at my side?”

“That is not possible,” I reminded her.

“But what if it was?” she pressed.

I entertained the idea, as fruitless as it was. Could I imagine myself enjoying a life at Alexandra’s side, not as a construct made to serve her but as a companion. Yes, but still, reality kept me from speaking my mind on it.

“I am not sure,” I said, my mind turning to thoughts of Sanctuary. “There are my people to think of . . .”

“Unbelievable,” Alexandra said with a shake of her head, then looked up into my eyes. “Caleb conned you, Stanis. He took advantage of you to get what he wanted. Me. Stupid, Lex. This is what I get for trusting a reformed freelance criminal.”

Had Caleb talked me out of my feelings for Alexandra? I was not sure. It was something I needed to think about, and judging by the severed stone head in my hands, there were more pressing issues to concern ourselves with. I lifted the head up.

“Will this suffice for your needs?” I asked, focusing on the task at hand. “Will this please this Fletcher of yours?”

“Let’s hope so,” she said, calming herself, even though I could sense her brooding underneath it all. “Who knows what’s going to impress an immortal hippie?”

I grabbed her in my free arm, and started our descent to the body in the alley below. “Is that another idiom of yours that I fail to understand?”

“Pretty much,” she said, “but we can go over that later. Right now I need to keep from shaking Caleb to death until his friend Fletcher gets us to the cemetery.”

I descended in silence, surprised to find the idea brought a smile to the corner of my mouth.

Alexandra

H
aving grown up in Manhattan, I was used to the city at night, but the dark twists and turns of deepest Central Park took on such an eerie calm compared to the bustle of the streets that I couldn’t hold back a shiver and stopped in my tracks.

Caleb stopped on the dimly lit wooded path. He turned back to me, grabbing my hand and squeezing it in his, which normally would have given me a bit of joy out here in the darkness had I not just heard what Stanis had told me. Still, now was not the time to get into it, especially when there was work to be done.

“You okay?” he asked as we stood alone on the dirty pathway under trees that arched high overhead.

I nodded, suppressing the urge to shiver again. “Get a grip, Lexi,” I said out loud, for my benefit more than his.

Caleb laughed. “You’ve fought stone golems in abandoned subway tunnels,” he said, “not to mention that weird water dragon thingie we faced at the
Libra Concordia
before it became Sanctuary. And
this
is what gets to you?”

I slid my hand out of his and wrapped my arms around me. “I know it’s ridiculous, but being isolated out here in Central Park . . . Well, once I started dealing with arcana and
grotesques
, mundane things like muggings in the park or human-on-human violence seem to freak me more, okay?”

“I can do this alone,” he said. “I’m sure Fletch can tour-guide me to this burial ground no problem.”

“No,” I said, adamantly steeling myself. “Warren asked for
my
help. I need to do this. Besides, I can’t be letting you have all the secret cemetery fun. Fletcher has had that broken gargoyle to look over for days. It’s time your hippie madman lives up to his end of the bargain and takes us to that secret cemetery.”

Caleb crossed his arms. “You want to tell me how you came by that stone body, by the way? Let me guess. The Rock helped you.”

“Hey,” I said, surprised at his sudden jealousy and a little pissed off by it, given how he had talked Stanis out of showing his true emotions toward me. Even though this wasn’t the time to get into it, I couldn’t help but needle him a little bit to release some of the tension I felt in his presence now. “When you grow wings, I’ll let you fly me around the city hunting gargoyles. Fair enough?”

“I can work on that,” he said, pulling out a notebook.

“Now?!” I asked, stern this time. “How about we focus on finding Fletcher first and getting to that cemetery?”

A rustling rose up behind me off in the foliage and I spun, my spell book already pulled free from my backpack. I reached to open it, but a hand shot out of the bushes and came down hard on top of mine.

“Did someone say my name?” Fletcher asked, looking even more wild-eyed than when I had last seen him during the day. Hopefully it was just a trick of the moonlight and he hadn’t gone feral since then.

“You okay?” I asked.

“Huh?” he said, his eyes fixing on the stone book I held in my hands.

I slowly eased it away from him, but his hand was reluctant to slide off the book. Eventually it came free and I stuffed the book back into my pack.

“You sure you’re up to this, Fletch?” I asked. “It was pretty freaky last time we were here,
and
we had greater numbers.”

Fletcher nodded. “Absolutely,” he said with a jovial laugh. “If I can’t find the cemetery in the middle of my own park, who can?”

“So what’s the plan?” I asked.

“What I promised you,” he said. “I lead you to the cemetery.”

“Wait, wait,
wait
,” I said, holding up a hand. “We already
tried
that, and you’re just going to try and walk us back in there? That didn’t work out so well for me and my friends. I’m pretty sure we pissed off your forest.”

“That’s because you didn’t have me with you,” he said with a prideful laugh. “Relax, lady.”

I tried to, but I couldn’t shake my doubt, even if I was dealing with some sort of forest spirit in Fletcher form.

“You’re sure you’re up for this?” I asked once more.

Fletcher nodded with vigor over and over. “Don’t worry,” he said. “If I seem out of sorts, it’s just that I’ve been a wee bit distracted examining that broken stone creature you acquired for me.”

“Will it work for your purposes?” I asked. “Has it given you any deeper meaning into the magic of Spellmasonry or living stone?”

“Fascinating stuff,” he said, nodding over and over to the point he reminded me of a bobblehead. “I’ve never seen stone quite like it. It’s both a natural element and yet . . . not.”

I wasn’t quite sure what he meant, but before I could ask he patted me on the shoulder.

“I’ll get you to your cemetery,” he said. “Fear not.” He turned to go, then spun back around to us. “Oh, I almost forgot.” He reached into the brown hippie satchel he wore slung over one shoulder and pulled out several bundles of leaves wrapped in twine, handing one to each of us. “After studying the stone creature you brought me, I discovered that the spirits within are not wholly bonded with the stone. It would appear that while the stonework of your great-great-grandfather can be a vessel for the spirit, they are always tied back to their original bodies.”

I held up my bundle, the smell of it somewhat familiar but not one I could readily place.

“Sage,” Caleb said when he saw me sniffing at it.

“So what are we supposed to do?” I asked. “Season him to death? I hope you brought the parsley, rosemary, and thyme to finish the Butcher off.”

“You want us to smudge him?” Caleb asked.

Fletcher nodded.

“Smudge?” I asked.

“We light these,” Caleb said. “To purify the remains of the Butcher.”

“What good will that do?”

“It’s the only way to be sure that his body is properly disposed of,” Fletcher said. “It’s part of why his restless spirit was still able to linger here in the mortal realm. We destroy his body, and his ties to this world are severed. When we find his remains, we burn them.
If
I can find the cemetery, that is.”

Without another word, Fletcher spun back around and dashed up the path ahead with a speed and agility I wouldn’t have expected from so hippie-ish a figure.

Caleb and I continued down the path in pursuit of him. I glanced over to see whether Caleb was feeling my vibe, but by the passive look on his face he seemed completely oblivious.

“You sure this is a good idea?” I asked. “Trusting this . . . forest spirit or whatever he is.”

Caleb thought about it for a good ten seconds, then shrugged. “Pretty sure.”

“Only
pretty
sure?” I asked, a sense of dread filling me. “Great.”

Caleb stopped while Fletcher scampered off farther ahead.

“Listen,” he said, sounding a bit put out by my questions. “I don’t know what to tell you, Lexi. I’m working my connections as hard as I can. Fletcher is who I’ve got for this.”

“Tell me we’re going to be fine,” I said. Nights of dealing with gargoyles, cops, and witches and warlocks who wanted me dead had me craving reassurance.

“Oh,” he said. “So you want me to lie?”

“No, but . . .” I stopped myself. Truthfully, I didn’t know what was going to make me feel better.

“I can’t say that, Alexandra,” Caleb said. “I don’t know if it’s going to be fine. Nothing in life is certain, especially in the matters we deal in. What I can tell you is that Fletch is good people. He’s always helped me out . . . He grows a lot of things out here in his woods that are near impossible to get.”

“Oh, I can imagine what he grows, all right. The man looks like he’s been following the Grateful Dead for decades, despite his youthful appearance. And knowing him, he probably knew Jerry Garcia, too.”

“That’s
not
what I was talking about him growing,” Caleb said, but then he nodded. “Okay,
maybe
that, too, but Fletch has always come through for me and I trust him.”

“Even all alone out here in the middle of the night?” I shuddered again, unable to control it.

“Now you’re just spooking yourself,” Caleb said. “Come on.” He started off down the path again, but I wasn’t budging just yet. He looked back at me, his eyes full of frustration.

“Hey, Fletch!” he called out at full volume, causing things in the darkness at the sides of the path to scatter off into the trees.

“Yeah, man?” our guide called back after a moment, much farther from us than I imagined he could have gone.

“You’re not planning on killing us out here tonight or something along those lines, are you?”

The forest fell silent for a long, drawn-out moment, and for a second I imagined the wild-eyed bearded man sneaking up behind me, but then he called back down the path.

“I don’t think so, man.”

“Okay, thanks,” Caleb called back, still looking at me. “Satisfied?”

“No,” I said, although I
did
relax a bit, “but I suppose it will have to do. I just wish there was more stonework around out here so I could better defend us if I had to.”

“I don’t think that would work on someone like Fletcher,” Caleb said.

“No?”

Caleb shook his head. “Whatever Fletcher is, he’s more powerful than you or I can imagine. We’re in his domain, his grass and leaves and roots . . . I say we tread softly and speak kindly.”

“Such a sensible approach,” I said. “And coming from you even!”

“I’m not just a pretty face,” he said. “And I’ve learned the advantages of being polite, especially when I’m dealing with someone or some
thing
I don’t fully understand.”

A moment later we came upon Fletcher once again, this time sitting cross-legged on the ground in the middle of the dirt path.

“Is it break time already?” Caleb asked. “What’s up, buddy?”

Fletcher combed his hands though his bushy mane of hair, then ran them down to his beard, pulling at it.

“I don’t get it, man,” he said. “The path
should
go through here, but the forest is acting all weird and jumpy. I tried being reasonable with it, but no go. It’s a dead end.”

Caleb stepped past him, examining the end of the trail.

“Come on,” he said after a moment. “We can make our
own
path.”

He pressed himself in between two clumps of still, leafy branches, forcing his way forward.

Fletcher scrambled to his feet. “Hey, man, I wouldn’t do tha—”

Despite there being no wind, the branches rustled all around Caleb, who gave a shocked cry as they parted farther apart and then seemed to swallow him. He grunted from within the mass of leaves, no doubt struggling to free himself, and I panicked because all I could see of him was his legs.

“Help him!” I cried out.

“Whoa, now,” Fletcher said, with a mix of surprise, wonder, and curiosity all at once. “Take it easy there, old girl.”

In response the bushes and trees rose up higher into the night air as if a giant was waking from its slumber.

“Fletch, what the hell is that?” I called out, backing away from it.

“Hmm,” he said, nodding slowly at the creature as the two of us watched Caleb’s legs kicking like mad from its “mouth.”

“Beats me,” he said after a moment. “It’s not one of mine, man.”

“Well,
do
something!”

Fletcher stood there, continuing to look the monster over, but made no move against it.

“I’ve got this one,” Caleb’s muffled voice called out from within its body. “If it’s green and leafy, it can burn.”

A warm glow sprung to life within the tangle of branches, the hiss and crackle of flame coming to life. The creature twisted around in reaction to it and before I could worry for Caleb’s safety—despite having known him to be fireproof from our previous adventures together—the creature spat him free. Caleb flew like a shot through the air until he slammed into the ground, rolling past me as I dodged out of his way. A column of smoke trailed after him, and once he came to rest at the base of one of the trees, his lungs erupted in a fit of coughing.

I ran to Caleb, helping him up as he regained his composure.

“Told you,” he wheezed, “I . . . had . . . it.”

“Better than what your hippie friend’s been able to do.”

Caleb started to nod, but stopped and pointed past me back over my shoulder.

I spun around in a quick circle to see the roots of the creature pulling free from the ground all along the path, clouds of dirt erupting into the night air. The tangle of bushes, branches, and trunks rose up to its full height, towering at least twenty feet higher than anything around it. It lumbered forward through the dirt cloud, and although dried bits of old leaves still sparked in flares from within, the cloud damped the fire as the creature shambled down the path toward us.

“Hey, Father Nature,” I called out to Fletcher, who simply looked on with fascination at the creature. “You can jump into action at any time, really . . .”

Vines crawled in advance of the creature, snaking down the path toward us, and before Caleb or I could run, they ensnared us. I dropped my bundle of sage, tearing them off me while Caleb fought to pull more and more vials from his jacket in his struggle with the vines. For every one he burned, withered, or slimed away with a concoction, another replaced it.