by Matt Ryan
“We want the same thing as you, Quinn,” I said. “To stop Cathy.”
“That may be true, but you will fail. Your mother will wash over you like a wave to a sand castle. You know she’s still searching for you?”
“Just let us finish the job, and then we can deal with each other another day.”
“Allie, there’s nothing I want more than for me and you to go at it again,” Quinn said suggestively.
“You know nothing happened between us.”
“Maybe it did, maybe it didn’t,” Quinn said. “Only I have those memories. And let me tell you—”
“What do you want, Quinn?” Jackie interrupted.
“It’s simple. You give up the Lotus, scarab, and canyon stones, and I’ll let you take these two and run away.”
“We can’t let that happen,” Mark said. “You’d make Cathy look like a saint.”
He was right of course. As much as I would love to give another person the task of dealing with my mother, it was up to me. I was the only one able to get close to my mother without causing a war.
“You toss us your stone and we will let you live,” I countered.
Quinn laughed and reached into his pocket and pulled out the stone I had made for Jin’s father. At least now I knew he had it on him. “This stone?” he said. “I take it, this is the last stone you need to make the breaker stone, right? Wait. Don’t answer. I already know. And I could easily take those stones from you. So, let’s just keep you and your friends safe, and give me the stone without confrontation.”
I scooted closer to Mark.
“It could be our way out of this,” he said.
“And worst-case scenario is what? Quinn kills my mom, and makes a philosopher’s stone for himself. That stone will want to be fed, and we are two of the biggest meals out there.”
“Yeah, but maybe your mom kills him. Then, at least, we are rid of one evil in the world. We might even be able to make some kind of agreement with your mom.”
“Like what? Take everyone else and leave us alone?”
“Yes, something like that.”
“Until, one day, the stone takes her over entirely and it comes to get us, using my mom as nothing more than a vessel.”
“Then our only option is to fight Quinn, right here and now?”
“Yes.” I look to Jackie, and we nod in agreement. “We make our stand here.”
“And what about Wes, David, and Kylie? They’re out there somewhere. We kill Quinn, and there’s a good chance we’ll never find them.”
“Shit.” I moved to the edge of the ticket booth. “Quinn?”
“Yes?”
“You tell us where our friends are, and we’ll give you one stone,” I said.
“Not that it matters, but they are in a familiar place to you. The cages at my house.”
A place I knew well. I dreaded the idea of going back there. “Give me the scarab stone,” I said to Mark and he handed it over to me.
“I hope you know what you’re doing,” he mumbled just loud enough for only me to hear.
I tossed the stone to Quinn and he caught it. Gazing at it in open wonder, he then placed it in a small pouch and put it in his pocket.
“One down, two more to go,” he said. “I’m running out of time here, so either give me the stones, or I’m going to take them from you.”
“I want you to promise to never hurt me or my friends for the rest of time. Even if you get the philosopher’s stone.”
Quinn laughed. “Okay, I promise to never hurt you or your friends again,” he said as if talking to a two-year-old.
“You have to promise to do everything you can to keep my mother alive.”
“Oh, I promise. Cross my heart and hope to die,” Quinn said with a snicker.
“We can’t do this,” Mark said holding the Lotus and Canyon stones.
“We aren’t,” I said, holding the deadliest stone I had ever made in my hands. A stone I made in the alchemist room under the pyramid. It looked just like the Lotus stone, but what it did was nothing like any other stone.
Mark nodded and said, “I will toss mine right after.”
I got Jackie’s attention and showed her the stone in my hand. She nodded and got a stone ready in hers.
“Okay,” I said and took a deep breath. I knew once he realized what this stone was, there was no turning back. I tossed the stone and watched it arch across the blue sky.
Quinn raised his hand to catch it. The stone started moving down, right toward him. Then the twins jumped up and grabbed it from midair. The stone exploded when it reached their gloved hands. The black liquid wrapped around the twins and in less than a second, crushed them to nothingness. The black liquid splattered to the ground, creating a pool that Quinn took a few steps back from.
“Very cunning,” he said. “What was that stone, a mixture of a compression stone and a splatter stone? Very interesting indeed. I guess this has to end badly. So sad,” Quinn said.
I got closer to Mark and we looked at our stones, coming up with a good combination. Then we hurried back to the edges and got ready to throw, but Quinn had moved to the far end of the platform. He had hidden behind a wall with the man he came with.
I glanced back at Mark and nodded. We both threw our stones in the air. They landed next to the wall and broke open, spewing out a cloud. In a matter of a few seconds, a howling sound came from the growing cloud. But the cloud . . . it was growing too much. I’d made the stone too powerful and it was coming toward us.
Mark grabbed my arm. “We’ve got to run,” he said pulling me.
Jackie ran to us, but I looked back at Bridget and Carly. “We have to get them. That cloud will kill them.”
I disregarded the danger to myself and ran toward Bridget. I grabbed her by the arms and Jackie picked her up by the feet. Mark hefted Carly over his shoulder, and we jogged away from the cloud. Small parts of it hit my eyes and I breathed it in. I coughed and nearly dropped Bridget, but we kept moving. Jackie and Mark were coughing as well, yet we were out running the cloud.
We got to the fence, found an opening, and pulled them through. Then we ran into the town of Williams. We must have been an odd sight for the old lady walking down the street. She asked if we needed help, but we assured her we were fine.
“There’s a motel over there, we can leave them in there,” Mark said.
We entered the motel and sat Bridget and Carly on the couch in the lobby.
“They okay?” the woman behind the counter asked as she put on her glasses and stood up from behind her desk.
“Yes,” Mark answered.
She shook her head in disgust. “We aren’t that kind of motel.”
Mark ignored the woman and started searching Carly’s pockets. Then he pulled out a set of portal stones.
“I love you, Carly.” Jackie kissed the top of her head.
“We should go now,” Mark said. “We still have the Lotus and Canyon stone. Your mother can’t find us, and Quinn can’t make the breaker stone.”
“Yeah, or we can end it here and now,” I said. “No matter where we go, we’re going to be hunted. If we can ever have a life together, a real life, we can’t have this hanging over us.”
“He could kill us.”
“You don’t think I know that?”
He nodded once. “If you think this is our best option, I’m with you, Allie, to the end.”
We looked to Jackie. “Me? I’m all for chaos and mayhem. Besides, this is the only chance I have to get Leo back. You know I’m in,” Jackie said. “And hey, maybe Quinn died in that cloud.”
“Unlikely, but at least we bought enough time to get Bridget and Carly,” I said.
“What’s going on here?” the hotel clerk came around the counter.
Jackie tossed a stone at her and I gasped as she fell to the floor. “Just a knock out stone,” she said. “No biggie.”
The glass windows in front of the motel exploded in. Glass shards hit me and I fell to the flo
or, covering my face.
“Come on out, my pretty,” Quinn called.
I popped up enough to see him standing out in the street with a stone in his hand. “Crap.” A green stone landed next to me, and before it broke open, I grabbed it and tossed it back out the window.
Quinn laughed. “We could play this game all day. Just give me the Lotus stone and I’ll leave you alone. I’ll still honor all my promises.”
“No deal,” I yelled.
“We’re trapped in here.” Jackie had some blood on her face from the shattered glass.
“We’ve got to use these stones,” Mark said holding the portal stones.
“Not yet, we don’t.” I gripped a stone and threw it through the window at Quinn.
Jackie was right behind me with a stone of hers. Then Mark.
My stone missed, but Jackie’s hit the man standing next to Quinn in the chest and exploded. The shockwave sent the man flying backward, and knocked Quinn to his knees. Mark’s stone hit the asphalt directly in front of Quinn and broke open, creating a loud reverberation of sound that shook the ground like an earthquake. Quinn fell back to his hands and knees as a second stone thrown by Jackie hit last.
A great gust of air circled around Quinn like a tornado. It ripped parts of his jacket off and lifted him from the ground. I threw another stone, while Quinn threw one at us. His struck the front of the building we were in. The window tore in half and the ceiling began to collapse in on us. Debris rained down, as the building screeched and cracked.
I grabbed Bridget by the hands and dragged her across the orange tile floor, while Mark took Carly, and Jackie covered us by throwing stones. We got outside as more of the building collapsed to the ground.
“That clerk’s still in there,” I said.
Mark turned to go back in, but the front of the building collapsed and pushed a dust cloud out toward us.
“She’s behind that collapse,” Mark said. “She’s probably okay.”
I turned to Quinn, still stuck in the tornado. My stone had landed right below him and the sticky foam was growing rapidly. When the tornado stopped, he fell to the street, getting stuck in the goo.
Quinn laughed as he struggled to move. “You think you’ve won?” With his one free hand, he slapped a stone against his neck.
“Oh shit,” Jackie said.
“What?” I asked.
Quinn doubled in size. He roared and broke away from the sticky foam.
“I’m getting low on kick-ass stones,” Jackie said.
“Ice him,” I said and Mark nodded.
I threw the water stone and it hit him in the chest, encasing him in water. An instant later, Mark’s stone hit, turning the water into ice.
Quinn broke through the ice like a wet paper bag, and rushed toward us like an angry rhino.
I threw another stone at him and he blocked it with his arm, sending it careening to a row of parked cars. When the stone landed, it melted a section of the nearest car.
Mark threw a stone at the same time as Jackie. They both hit Quinn not ten feet in front of us and stopped him in his tracks.
He stood there, frozen in time.
“What was that?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” Jackie said looking at her hand. “I thought it was a shock stone, but it should have sent a lightning bolt through him.” Jackie looked to Mark.
He shrugged. “I threw a smoke stone. I was going to use the distraction to use the portal stones.”
Quinn’s eyes were open, but they weren’t moving.
“Maybe both your stones interacted with each other. At the moment, I don’t care.” I rushed to Quinn and searched his pockets until I found the three stones. First, the Dragon stone I’d made for Kang. Then I found the Scarab stone in his inside pocket. His body felt firm and sweaty as I dug around for the Lotus stone. When I had it in hand, I turned to find Mark and Jackie right behind me.
Mark glanced down at the stones in my hand. “Great, now let’s get out of here.”
“We can’t leave him like this,” I said and went back to Quinn. “This has to end here.” I took out a death stone, and without any fanfare, placed it on his neck. Mark and Jackie both placed theirs on him as well. No matter what, Quinn would be dead soon, and the world would be better off for it.
We ran to Bridget and Carly and took the portal stones out.
“These go to a specific location,” Jackie said. “Could be anywhere.”
Mark put his hand out. “Anywhere is better than here.”
“Wait, I have to see it. I have to know he’s gone.” I glared at Quinn.
We waited thirty seconds and he came back to life. The three stones absorbed into him and he fell face first on the asphalt.
“Okay, he’s dead, can we go now?” Jackie asked.
I took Bridget’s hand in mine and Mark’s. Jackie took Carly’s in hers and we dropped the portal stones.
Chapter Twenty
Our feet landed on a wooden porch of a cabin in the woods. I scanned the surroundings, but there was only a sea of trees and the noise of the forest. Birds sang and insects chirped. The soft breeze pushed through the canopy above, giving off a calming sound.
“Ha, should have figured this was their default location. Lot of shit’s gone down in this place. But it is well-known to your mother,” Jackie said.
“Great.” Mark groaned.
I pulled out the stones I’d taken back from Quinn. “Let’s just make this breaker stone and leave.”
“Agreed, the less time we’re here the better.” Jackie went to Carly’s prone form on the porch. She went through her pockets and pulled out a few more stones, including another portal stone. “Well, we have one more unknown place, I guess.” She held the stone up.
“Or it could be a third stone for here,” I said.
“Maybe,” Jackie said and put the stone away. “How long do you think they’re going to be out for?”
“I don’t know, but I hate seeing them like this. Is there any stone we can use?”
“Heal stone, but I don’t have one. We had some supplies in the cabin, though. We could check there.” Jackie walked into the cabin.
The inside looked exactly as I would expect a cabin in the woods to look, with a pot belly stove in the corner of the room, a wooden countertop in the kitchen, and some wicker chairs scattered around. The only thing that seemed out of place was the barrel of water sitting near the kitchen table. A stone floated in the middle of the water. A locater stone. If someone created or used a stone nearby, the stone in the water would move toward it. The more powerful the stone, the greater the reaction.
Mark went to the barrel and ran his hand along the edge. “You think that locator stone will work with the Lotus stone around?”
“Probably not,” Jackie said, pulling out a few ingredients from the kitchen cabinets. She carried them over and set them on the rustic dining room table, along with a mixing bowl. I made my way over, and she put up a hand. “Sit down and relax. I can make these.” She went back to arranging the ingredients.
Good, I really didn’t want to make a stone right then. The things I had just done in Williams were setting in. I’d killed people, and those weren’t the only people I had killed since becoming an alchemist. The whole notion of killing becoming second nature, terrified me. I wasn’t a killer, but could I honestly say that anymore? Even killing someone as terrible as Quinn felt awful. I saw it in Mark as well. He was trying to hide it from me, but I saw it in his eyes. Weariness, with a pinch of pity.
I plopped on the couch and Mark sat next to me, as Jackie made the healing stones.
“We’re almost to the end,” he reminded me.
“I know.” I reached out for his hand. “I could have never made it through any of this without you.”
“Please, you’re the strongest woman I’ve ever seen, and that’s including my mother.”
His words brought a smile to my face. I pulled out the stones I’d taken from Quinn and set them on t
he coffee table.
“I guess the Lotus stone does work,” Jackie said, holding two healing stones and looking into the barrel. “Tracker stone didn’t move an inch.”
I got up from the couch with Mark, and we gathered around Bridget and Carly. Jackie placed the healing stone on each of their necks and stood back. “I hope this—”
Bridget gasped and sat up, looking around. Then Carly moaned and rolled onto her side.
“Holy shit. Allie? What the hell happened back there?” Bridget got to her feet.
Carly slowly got up as well, and rubbed her head.
“Quinn attacked us,” I said.
“And you got away?” Bridget looked down at her own body and back up. “You got us all out of there?”
“Yeah, we did.” I smiled.
“And we won’t have to worry about Quinn ever again,” Jackie added.
Carly blinked, looking astonished. “You killed him?”
“Three kill stones on his neck,” Jackie said. “No one’s living through that.”
“God, I hope he’s dead. That guy is almost as bad as . . .” Bridget stopped her sentence and stared at me with wide eyes.
I held up my hands. “It’s okay, I know my mother is a terrible person.”
“Oh my God, it’s good to see you guys,” Carly said and hugged me, then grabbed for Mark. “You have no idea.”
“We know where the other Mini’s are too,” I said. “We should get them and finish this.”
“I was thinking the same thing,” Mark said. “I owe a lot to the Mini’s. They helped me find you, Allie.”
I remember the moment Mark revealed himself to me as my savior against Quinn. Him and his band of Minitrepids. It hadn’t been long ago for us, but it felt like another life now. So much had happened, and now the weight of the world was crushing down on me. If I thought about it for too long, I’d hyperventilate.
“We can’t go find them yet,” Jackie said. “We have to make this breaker stone first; it’s not worth walking into another trap. We finish this task first, then free our friends.”