Keepers & Killers (The Alchemy Series)

by Augustine, Donna

  Cormac was standing over it right now answering his phone while he stared at it. I could see the lust for knowledge in his eyes.

  "You going to forgive him?" Dodd asked.

  "I don't know."

  "He almost died for you the other night."

  "I'm sure he knew he'd be fine."

  "No, I don't think he did. Snipers have taken out more of us than all other things combined. We can only take on so much damage before we shut down. We aren't invincible."

  "I know that."

  "So when you pranced into the senator's office, you knew what could have happened?"

  "I had my reasons."

  "Yeah, reasons. You are one fucked up chick."

  Before I could reply, I was distracted by Buzz walking into the living room with the ugliest, rattiest dog I'd ever seen. It looked like he had just come from a crazy groomer that didn't know how to handle an electric razor. If the hair wasn't matted, it was bald.

  "What is that?" Kever asked.

  "This is Abby," Buzz replied, holding onto the wolf's leash. It was the canine equivalent of the Charlie Brown Christmas tree. "I got her from Sue over at the Vegas Zoo. She's very docile but they don't like to let her run in the yard because of her hair disorder. She gets sunburned."

  I was thinking it was more along the lines of they were embarrassed of her - I'd want a refund if I had paid to see this wolf.

  "Ugh, she smells!" Ben chimed in. "Are you going to give her a bath?"

  Abby was also quite intelligent, if not as docile as Buzz claimed, because at the mention of that word she raised her lip and growled at Ben.

  "Let her off the leash," Cormac said. I wasn't sure if that was a great idea or not, but Buzz did it without hesitation. Cormac made a clicking noise and Abby trotted right over to him, tongue practically hitting the floor, and gave him the sloppiest lick I'd ever seen. Even the God damn dog? Was there no female immune to him? No wonder his ego was out of control.

  "You're a smart girl, aren't you?" Cormac spoke to the raggedy looking wolf and darned if she didn't yelp back in reply.

  Even for a small wolf, she was a decent sized animal. When Cormac tapped the table, she jumped up and put her two front paws on it. He took one of her paws in his hand, which she licked again, and moved it toward the book.

  "Wait," I yelled, stopping him. "Is that going to hurt her?"

  "I'm only going to brush her near it. I'm not going to hold her paw there."

  I cringed but nodded. I watched as he took her paw and glanced the book with it. Nothing. No yelps of pain, Abby was completely unfazed. Next, he took her paw and lifted the front cover. Again, all was fine.

  "And we're in," he said as the cover thudded onto the table, making a much louder noise than something that weighed less than a pound should've.

  We all rushed in closer and crowded around the table. I inadvertently ended up squeezing next to Cormac, and I swear Abby gave me the evil eye. Which I, of course, returned.

  I looked down at the title page that read gibberish, gibberish, blah blah…KEEPERS.

  "Can anybody here read this?"

  "A couple of words, but I'm not going to make heads or tails of this," Dodd said and laughed over his own goofy joke.

  "I'll stop by Burrom's on the way back from Vitor's and get someone there. It's getting late. I gotta be at Vitor's by midnight."

  Cormac grabbed his keys and I ran and grabbed my purse.

  He looked at me as I went to leave with him. "What are you doing?"

  "I'm coming with you."

  Dodd stepped over quickly. "Boss, you think that's a good idea? That place is crawling with wolves and they're pretty pissed off right now."

  "Dodd, stay out of this. I'm going."

  Cormac opened his mouth, and I saw the beginning of a 'no' form on his lips.

  "Oh, I don't think so. I either go with you or I go and do my own investigating. Your choice." I stood, hands on hips, daring him to say no now.

  "Fine."

  "Do you want me to come with?" Dodd asked.

  "No, stay and try to figure out as much as you can until I get back."

  I could see he was uneasy about taking me but I didn't care. If he took my trailer for cooperation then I better get full access to stuff to cooperate on.

  It took a while for us to get over to Vitor's, and when we got there, we were the only visitors. We walked into the place like we owned it to find Vitor lounged on his couch in the great room. When he turned to see us, I thought I saw a twinkle of surprise when I stepped out from behind Cormac.

  "Are you ready?" he asked as he stood and walked toward us, dressed elegantly in dark grey slacks and a linen shirt.

  Neither of us replied. Me? I thought it was pretty obvious since we were standing in his house. I have no idea why Cormac ignored him. No, actually, I think I do.

  "I'm surprised you brought Jo. It's a little dangerous, isn't it?"

  "He brought Jo because she makes her own decisions, and she is also not a precious creampuff that will deflate," I told him.

  "Okay then. Follow me."

  He walked out the glass doors at the back of the house as we followed him out. We didn't stop outside but kept going about another five hundred feet, to where a circle of candles stood. There had to be about a hundred of them, all blazing a little stronger than was natural.

  "We need to open up access to the other planes of existence to do this. The magic that binds the contracts is leaked into this plane from the others that we can't normally see."

  I looked around, feeling like I should be able to see something that existed all around us. "So, there is another plane of existence right here, right now?"

  "Yes, and that is where all magic stems from."

  "You can't step out of this circle while we are canceling the contract," Cormac said, as we stepped into the center. "In this circle, we will penetrate some of the boundaries that keep the different planes separated."

  "Where is the contract?" Looking at the both of them, I figured it would be here.

  "We don't have it." Vitor answered.

  "I don't know much, but wouldn't that make it harder?"

  "Yes. A lot." Cormac's voice told me more than his words. This was going to be a heavy scene. "Stay close."

  That didn't sound good. "What should I do? I mean, other than possibly running."

  To Cormac's credit, he still smiled at my bad joke even though he was tense.

  He held his hand out to me. "We could use the extra juice, now that you've offered."

  "You two ready?" Vitor asked.

  Both Cormac and I nodded. Then he tugged my hand to get my attention. "Don't get freaked out if you see anything…odd. It can't touch us."

  "What would I be seeing?"

  "It's usually just a haze, nothing too freaky."

  "What exactly is going to happen?"

  Vitor answered as he stepped closer to us. "Since we don't have the physical contract, we have to reach out and try to find its energy thread. All energy has a trail and all spells are connected here, and in the other planes of existence, by a link. Think of it like an umbilical cord of sorts. The other planes feed the magic to this side. We just have to find it."

  "Why does that sound sort of iffy?" I looked at the two of them and neither instilled any real sense of confidence in me. "I know The Keepers were crap historians, but what about your people, Vitor? Did they leave you any idea how to locate this connection?"

  "You mean the people that are about to get the shaft and be completely shut off from Earth?"

  "Yeah, those people. I'm sure they'd want to pitch in," I said in a mocking tone, feeling ridiculous that I hadn't thought that one out better.

  Cormac looked at his watch. "Eleven fifty-nine. Let's get this going before it's that much harder."

  I nodded and Vitor started to count down. When he hit one, they both started chanting in a language I didn't understand. At least I thought it was a language. I could feel the air become charged wit
h energy. Just like when I was going to a new planet, I felt exhilaration wash over me. Hmmm, maybe it isn't a hero trait. Am I becoming an adrenaline junky?

  I looked upward as the sky shimmered and the stars looked a little brighter, and the candles started to burn more intensely. As I looked upward again, I saw tendrils of silver smoke start to snake along above us. Vitor raised his hands and they moved as his did, not touching, but parallel to his motions; it was a mesmerizing dance that I could've watched all night.

  It seemed a gentle give and take, as he probed and played with the ribbon and the strands became more abundant, creating a marble swirl of sky above us.

  "I've got it," Vitor said, his hands stilling. Cormac stepped closer to him, beneath the strand he had indicated and raised his right hand, still holding my hand in his left.

  I didn't know exactly how they did it, but that one strand started to dissipate into the sky, until it left a clear spot where it had been.

  "Do you think that's it?" Cormac asked Vitor.

  "I think so," he replied, still swirling his hand around the haze. "I don't feel anything else, do you?"

  "No. Let's shut it down then." Just as Cormac said that, he lowered his arm and several of the swirls followed lower than any of them had dipped before. "What's going on? Did you do something?" He turned accusingly toward Vitor.

  "No, you've seen everything I've done."

  "Hurry up. Shut it down." The swirls didn't touch Cormac at all, just traveled several inches away from his body, all the way down his left arm. Cormac instantly dropped my hand, not wanting them to get to me, but it was too late. They traveled the path between us.

  "Don't worry. They can't touch you."

  Don't worry? Swirls of an unknown entity were circling around me as he again yelled at Vitor to close it off. Vitor, equally panicked, screamed back that he was trying. Yeah, no worries. Sure.

  The silver tendrils came closer and then glided along my skin.

  Cormac came and started to swat them away.

  "Wait. Stop. They aren't hurting me and I think you are making them angry."

  "We don't know what they are doing."

  "They're checking me out. Smelling me, almost like a dog would."

  "How do you know that?"

  "I'm not sure. It's just a feeling I have."

  They swirled around and I forced myself to relax even as they circled around my neck. They did this for several minutes more, and then suddenly they floated up toward the rest of them as they all dissipated.

  "What the hell was that?" Vitor said, not really asking either of us.

  "Probably just a fluke," Cormac answered. "You want to draw up the new contract?"

  "No, not tonight. I think we should give it a few days."

  Cormac agreed and Vitor couldn't have ushered us off his land any quicker without being downright rude, but I didn't care. I still felt a tingling over my arms. Even though I was acting calm, it had startled me and the quiet ride home soothed my nerves.

  "You good with stopping at Burrom's? I can drop you off first," Cormac said, disturbing the perfect calm of the car. I'd always loved driving at night. Just the interior lights on and soft music.

  "No, I'm good." He didn't say anything else and I leaned my head back and watched the stars twinkle as we headed back to town. As we pulled into the familiar alleyway, memories flooded back. I wasn't sure now which was more disturbing, seeing Cormac bleeding out onto the dirty pavement, or my encounter with the senator.

  We walked into Burrom's place, which was even more crowded than last time. I was slightly taken aback by all the new faces; all decidedly angry looking. Faces I knew I hadn't helped come over. Where were they all coming from, if I hadn't brought them and we were shut down?

  I turned to Cormac, a silent question in my eyes. He gave me a single nod in acknowledgment. Sometimes, in times like these, I found it odd how I could find myself so in sync with someone so different to me.

  We moved toward Burrom, who sat in the exact same place as the last time I had come here. It appeared that perhaps this was just the little man's spot, so to speak. As we navigated through the equivalent of an angry hornet's nest, temporarily lulled by smoke, I eyed up the angry beasts and tallied their numbers in my head.

  It wasn't too long ago that I would've felt a bit overwhelmed by taking on more than two of them, but something had honed in me while I had worked the wormhole. I still had my issues and I seriously lacked control, but I felt it. 'It' being the raw, undiluted power that welled up in me the more I tapped into it. It made me heady. I wonder if that was what made the senator retreat from me that night. I didn't know what he was, but had he sensed it?

  "Why should I speak with you?" were the words that greeted us when we reached Burrom.

  "Not here," Cormac replied in a peremptory manner.

  The little man folded quickly and we joined him in the back.

  "Burrom, you know I had to do that," Cormac said, relenting a bit now that he had asserted his dominance.

  "How am I supposed to keep this crew calm?"

  "You don't have to. I'll handle anyone that gets out of line."

  "Who are the new faces?" I asked, with an uncomfortable feeling.

  "I don't know. There has been a steady stream of them lately. I thought you guys had ushered them in before the shut down."

  "No," I replied, knowing the faces that had come over lately better than anyone else. The craziest part, and the thing that freaked me out the most, about what Burrom had just said wasn't the strange new faces. When had I become part of 'you guys?' When had operating the wormhole occasionally morphed into a full time gig, morphed into being one of you guys? I was a one woman show.

  "We need a translator. We have one of their books."

  "That's a tough order."

  "I know. I also know that you can get one. Price doesn't matter and you know the benefits working with us brings."

  "It might take a while."

  Cormac held the office door open for me as he turned back to Burrom. "Send them to my penthouse tomorrow at eight."

  Chapter Nine

  "How long have you been at it? Any progress?" I asked Dodd as I walked into the living room in Cormac's penthouse, where he sat with Abby beside him. My temporary home until I located where he had hidden my trailer. So far it wasn't going so well. I hadn't managed to get anyone to leak even a hint about its location.

  "A little bit. You got someone coming tonight, right?"

  "In about twenty minutes. Why? What did you find?" Something in his tone caught my attention.

  "I might be wrong, so I don't want to say anything."

  "Dodd, you can't say something like that and not say it."

  "I'm just not sure I'm right. I only have a rudimentary knowledge of this language, from some girl I dated way back when. I don't want to freak you out."

  I grabbed a coffee and sat on the couch opposite him. "You've already scared me. Spill it."

  "Abby," he said and pointed to the left side of the book. I watched the wolf take her paw and turn the page back.

  "Wow, did you just teach her that?"

  "She's quite smart." He leaned over the book page with a scowl.

  "Just tell me, already."

  "If I'm correct, it says something about a monster for good that was contained but not destroyed."

  "Which is probably the senator. We already knew that. What's got you out of sorts?"

  "If this book is correct and I'm reading it right, it says we created it and that it is indestructible." He took a long breath in between clenched teeth before he continued. "It might also say it's going to wreak havoc on the world, cause mass destruction, and kill a large portion of mankind."

  At first I just sat there with my mouth gaping open. I sat there for probably a good minute, as Dodd just nodded his head in silent commiseration.

  The next feeling I had was a desire to get up and run around the room screaming 'oh God, oh God, God.' Then I got a handle on my emo
tions. It was a book. Who the hell knew if the thing was even accurate and I said as much to Dodd.

  "Yes, I agree. What makes me nervous is Cormac told me about the note that was left with the priest. The same thing is written in here."

  "You mean the Golden Child Omen?" That was the name I'd given the omen that had been given to me by the priest.

  "Yep. It's got an extra couple of lines but I can't figure out what they say. If it got those things right, how many more things are correct?"

  "What do you think it says, if you had to guess?"

  "We both know the first part, 'A golden child born and left will be the hope of those bereft. When eternal lilies bloom after a torturous night, the giver of gifts will stand for the right. The one who's sought is suddenly found, it will come time to stand their ground. So comes the reckoning where many fall. Tis not the end, but the start of it all.' But then, there are a couple more lines afterward. I can't understand most of it, but the end of the first sentence is 'all grown' and then all I can make out in the next sentence is 'throne'."

  "Basically, you have no idea what it says?"

  "Pretty much."

  "It doesn't matter. It's wrong. Nothing is indestructible."

  "I hope you're right." Dodd stood and stretched, as if his muscles were cramped. They probably were. He didn't look like the type to be hunched over a book for that long, but I was starting to suspect there might be a bit of nerd buried underneath all those muscles.

  I sat on the soft leather sofa for a few minutes, letting my brain digest the possibilities. They were looking really bad; maybe even worse than I'd thought.

  I'd tried to throw myself on the bomb to protect everyone. That hadn't worked out well. In bad times, your brain has a way of becoming crystal clear on priorities. There weren't many people I cared about, although the list was starting to get longer lately. The wall around me was showing cracks in the mortar. You know what happens when you try to fix cracks in cement? Shit. Give it a try, sometime. You think you're fixed - solid and as good as new. Then a chip appears and from there on out, it just keeps falling apart. It's a losing battle.