Alchemystic

by Anton Strout

  Eight

  Alexandra

  I dumped the stack of folders on a huge desk in my great-great-grandfather’s studio. I pulled off my boots and threw my shoulder bag over by my favorite couch; then, despite my adult “grounding,” I tried to be the dutiful daughter by grabbing a handful of the folders and settling in.

  Despite my best effort, I found myself too wound up from my earlier encounter to concentrate on the work. Who could pay attention to kitchen renovation costs, contractor billing disputes, and square footage when there were strange knives and disappearing attackers to concern my brain with?

  I closed the folders, pulled out one of my notebooks from my bag, and fell to sketching instead. I drew the events of my evening—the shadowy figure in the streets, the strange tattoo on his hand, the knife he had held at my throat. The occasional tear fell on the page as waves of processing emotions ebbed and flowed, but I continued on, lost in the process of it. I started one sketch of what I thought the results of the evening could have been, but stopped myself, my mind unwilling to go there.

  Instead, I pulled out my laptop and went searching for bits of inspiration in the designs and architecture of all the buildings I knew Alexander Belarus had built across the city.

  My mind must have wandered, because time passed—how much, I didn’t know—but I snapped to when a sound rose up to catch my attention above the clamor of the city seeping in through the French doors I had cracked open across the room to let in a little of the crisp late-September air. A close sound, one of footsteps on the metal grates on the fire escape rising up the far side of the terrace.

  I leapt up from the couch and quickly padded across the room. I swept up one of my great-great-grandfather’s works as I went—a great stone book, one of the heavier ones I had the strength to lift. It would work for braining anyone stupid enough to try coming in through my window, if I could raise the damn thing over my head.

  My heart pounded hard in my throat. Stupid, I thought. Had I been careless enough to have been followed home by my attacker? I didn’t think so, but at least I was ready this time. I pressed myself to the side of my window and hefted the book up, my arms already aching. Suddenly I realized the knife in my bag would have been a better choice, but it was too late for that now.

  The doors flew open and a single shadowy figure dashed into the room before I could even bring the book down on top of it, which was fortunate for me. A certain blue-haired girl twisted around when she saw me standing there with the massive stone book. She tripped over her own feet, going down with none of her dancer’s grace to help her, landing with a heavy thud on the floor.

  “Rory…?” I said, relieved. I lowered the stone book. “You know, normal people use the stairs.”

  She stood up from where she had landed on the floor, brushing herself off, her breathing a little labored. “When you make some normal friends, let me know.”

  I thought about it for a moment. “Fair enough…”

  She pushed her messed-up blue bangs out of her eyes.

  “Jesus, Lexi,” she said, eyeing the stone book in my hands. “Who were you expecting? Charles Manson?”

  I relaxed, lowering the book until it hung at the ends of my arms. “Sorry,” I said. “It’s been a night.”

  “I bet,” she said, smoothing down her shirt. “Glad to see you didn’t end it with the murder of your best friend.”

  Another sound rose up on the terrace and I spun around. Well, as quick as someone carrying a stone book half her weight could, anyway. I had the book almost over my head when Rory put her hands on mine, easing it back down.

  “Easy,” she said. “It’s just Marshall.”

  Marshall’s lanky body came into view climbing up the stairs of the fire escape. He crossed over to us at the French doors, his eyes fixed on me, full of terror.

  “Relax,” I said. “I’m not going to hit you.”

  The terror stayed on his face as he fumbled his way in through the doors, slamming them shut behind him. “That’s not it,” he said, fighting harder for each breath than Rory had. “Heights…Don’t…like them.”

  Rory patted him on the shoulder. “Funny for a guy who stands so tall.”

  “That fire escape terrifies me,” Marshall said. “It’s just bolts holding it into brick. Don’t trust it. And as to your point, dear Rory, the difference is that if I slip while just standing around, I don’t plummet several stories down, now, do I?”

  Rory shook her head and looked at me.

  I shrugged. “It’s a fair point,” I said.

  Marshall looked at the stone book in my hands, nervous now. “Is that…Were you going to…?”

  “Crush our heads in…?” Rory offered. “Yeah. What gives, Lexi? What’s got you so jacked up?”

  “Promise me you’ll be less freak-outish to my story than my parents were,” I said, going for my shoulder bag. I fished out the knife with the white carved handle and held it up. “Almost got accosted, raped, and/or stabbed tonight. So there’s that.”

  Just saying it out loud had me shaking, rage and fear rising up together as I thought about my close call.

  “Holy shit,” Rory said, coming over to me at the couch. Avoiding the knife in my hand, she came in close and hugged me tight, and with my free arm I hugged her back just as hard.

  “Are you okay?” Marshall asked. “Did you call the cops?”

  “No,” I said. “I ran until I got here; then my parents were, well…my parents. I’ve been up here the rest of the time. Just trying to process it. Besides, my attacker sort of…disappeared.”

  Rory pulled back from me, hands on my shoulders. “Um, what, now?”

  I sat down on the couch, put the knife away, and told them the story from beginning to end, showing them the few sketches I had produced—the symbol on the man’s hand, his face, the alley where he should have caught up with me but instead disappeared. Well, flew away was what it had sounded like, but I didn’t share that.

  “This is my fault,” Rory said. “If I didn’t get you these classes for your birthday, just trying to get you out of your work head space, you wouldn’t have been out there in this asshole’s path.”

  I shook my head. “Rory, are you kidding me? Outside of this whole encounter, these classes are what have kept me from falling into a full-on depression. That whole weirdness is just random, you know? You can’t live all your life in New York City without having at least one criminal act happen to you.”

  “True,” Marshall said. “Although, technically I’ve already been mugged, like, three times, which is way above the norm. I guess I look nerdy enough to have a high-paying job or something. I make a great victim.” He put his arms halfheartedly in the air. “Go me!”

  Rory laughed, but it was cut short by a cacophony of sound rising up from somewhere in Gramercy Park on the east side of the building—tree branches rustling and snapping, followed by a heavy slap-thud. All three of us jumped, turning to face the terrace.

  “What the hell was that?” Marshall asked.

  “The city that never sleeps,” I said, grabbing my boots and heading out the French doors.

  We came down the fire escape and hit the bottom of the alley at a run, lights coming on in all the buildings along the edges of Gramercy Park. I stepped out onto the sidewalk, a small crowd of passersby already gathering along the north side of it.

  “What is it?” Marshall asked, as we headed up the west side of my block.

  “I’m not sure,” I said, stopping once we hit the corner. The gathering crowd stood at the gate peering into the darkness of the park itself. “I think they see something, but they can’t get in.”

  I started toward them with Marshall, but Rory grabbed my arm and pulled me back around the corner. It took Marshall a second to notice I wasn’t next to him anymore, and he spun awkwardly in his tracks and ran back to join us, jumpy. “We don’t want to go with the crowd?”

  Rory shook her head.

  Marshall peeked back around the cor
ner of the black wrought-iron fence. “Do you think they saw me?” he asked, nervous. “That looked normal, right? I mean, people turn around and walk away all the time, right?”

  Rory hit him in the arm. “Relax, crazy pants,” she said. “You acting normal would actually draw attention.”

  “Why’d you stop us?” I asked.

  Rory gave a dark smile, then nodded down the block to the south corner before taking off at a slow jog. “I hate crowds. Come on, Lex. You still have your key?”

  “Yeah,” I said, breaking into a run after her.

  “Good,” she called back over her shoulder.

  “What key?” Marshall called out behind me.

  I spun, grabbed his arm, and pulled him after me. He stumbled forward but managed to fall in next to me as the two of us watched Rory turn the corner heading around to the south side of the park.

  “Gramercy’s a private park,” I said. “One of two left in the New York area, actually. Only the tenants living on the park itself get keys. They charge an arm and two legs if you lose them, but my family’s been here forever, so…”

  Rory was waiting for us at the southern gate, which was unoccupied, straining in the darkness to see into the park. “I can’t see anything,” she said. Her arm flashed out toward me, fingers wiggling. “The key. Give it.”

  “We’re not going in there, are we?” Marshall asked.

  “Well, I don’t know about you, Marsh,” she said, turning to the two of us, “but I am.”

  I hesitated, and Rory rolled her eyes at me.

  “I want to see what’s going on,” she said, lifting the chain from around my neck where I wore the key. I didn’t resist. “Besides, you are a key-carrying member of the privileged. That means you have every right to be in there if you want to.”

  “What if my psycho’s in there?” I asked as she slid the key into the modern lock of the ancient-looking gate. “I think I’ve had about all the crazy I can take tonight.”

  Rory flipped her blue hair back out of her eyes and gave a toothy grin, adjusting her glasses. “There’s a good chance someone called the cops about whatever made that sound, so I’d say we’re pretty safe.”

  The sigh Marshall let out indicated his flustered displeasure with her choice, but before he could actually form words, Rory cracked the gate open ever so slightly and slid her skinny body into the opening, entering the park.

  I shook my head, gave him a smile, and slid in following Rory. I heard the sounds of Marshall finally coming after us seconds later, but I had already moved on to searching through the shadows for my best friend. The ample lights outside the park barely penetrated through the trees within it, the swaying shadows in the light fall breeze making it hard to pick out Rory’s figure anywhere. The cobblestones beneath my feet were uneven and had me moving slowly or risk twisting an ankle on the ancient surface that covered most of the paths through the park.

  “Where’s Rory?” Marshall whispered as he caught up to me, grabbing onto my arm.

  “Not sure,” I said. “And let go of my arm. This isn’t a date.”

  “Sorry,” he said, pulling away. “Just nerves. I’m sure the place is lovely in the daylight, but right now it’s super creepy. Don’t worry. I’ll protect you.”

  I gave a small laugh. “That’s comforting.”

  He laughed, too. “Fine. You protect me, then.”

  “Chivalry is dead,” I said with a shake of my head. “Come on.”

  I moved with caution toward the far side of the park, continuing my snail’s pace. After a few moments, Marshall grabbed my arm again.

  “Is that the sound of a river?” he asked.

  “Yep,” I said, not stopping. “And I don’t want to fall in it. That’s why we’re going slow.”

  He cocked his head. “I can hear it, but I have no idea where it is.”

  I grabbed Marshall’s hand. It was clammier than I had imagined they’d be. “Stay close,” I said, moving to the left of the path, closer to the tree line there. The sounds of the small river increased with each step we took, so much so that I didn’t even hear the lone shadowy figure as it crashed out of the trees directly in front of me. I went to scream, but a hand clamped down over my mouth. The metallic taste of several rings filled it instantly.

  Rory.

  One of her hands was over my face and the other was raised up to cover Marshall’s mouth. Even with Rory’s speed at silencing us, a muffled cry came from him behind her fingers.

  “Shh!” Rory hissed, then whispered, “There’s someone else in the park.”

  I pulled her hand away from my face, then spat to get the taste of metal off my tongue. “Who is it? One of my neighbors?”

  Rory shook her head, looking off toward the center of the park. “I don’t think so,” she said. “I mean, I’m not sure, but he or she is hiding by the statue at the center. That doesn’t exactly sound like resident behavior, now, does it? Come on.”

  She turned, walking off with her hand still firmly planted over Marshall’s mouth, her fingers clutching his cheeks. He didn’t even bother to put up a fight. Dazed, he simply followed after her.

  Rory didn’t seem to have any trouble seeing in the dark, stepping sure-footed over the thin stream of water that I caught myself avoiding at just the last second. The center of the park was an open space surrounded by iron benches, and a lone statue sitting at the middle of it.

  Marshall pried Rory’s hand from his face. “Who is that?”

  “We don’t know yet,” I said. “Didn’t you hear Rory?”

  “I meant the statue,” he said in a hushed tone. “I doubt it’s like Superman or something.”

  “Oh,” I said. “Sorry. It’s Edwin Booth—some old-time actor—dressed as Hamlet.”

  That seemed to satisfy him and he returned to peering at the base of the statue. “So where’s this other person?” he asked Rory. “I don’t see anyone.”

  Rory pointed low. “Down there,” she said. “Hunched down by the base.”

  I couldn’t see anything abnormal about the base of the statue. It was a large rectangular block of shadow from here, but there might have been the hint of a shape just on the other side of it. Marshall moved forward first, with Rory and me falling into step right behind. The closer we got, the more obvious it became that the hidden shape was that of a man, and that he was no longer living. The shapes of a body were familiar—an arm along the left side of the base and the bend of a leg beneath it, twisted, broken. The clothes were familiar, too, as was the symbol tattooed on its left hand—the stylized but blocky demon. Thick tree branches lay scattered and torn apart all around the figure.

  My eyes rose up to what should have been the person’s head, only what was there could no longer be called one. What remained reminded me of the teen Halloween years when Rory and I used to hang with the badass boys who went around smashing pumpkins. The arrival of flashing red and blue lights drove away the shadows for a second, revealing a spill all around the body that definitely wasn’t pumpkin guts or seeds.

  “What the hell happened to his head?” I asked, but as soon as the words were out I felt my stomach rise in my throat and I turned away from the sight of it. I stumbled away as the contents of my stomach pushed their way up. It burned as I threw up and unfortunately there was no quiet way to do such a thing. Flashlight beams from outside the gates turned on me just in time to catch my dinner from hours ago splash into some of the shrubbery in front of me.

  “Hey!” a man’s voice shouted, full of authority. Cops. “Stop where you are.”

  I stood to respond, but my stomach coiled up on me once more and I doubled over, still hacking.

  “Shit,” one officer said to another, his light finally training in on me. “A bunch of drunk kids in the park. Looks like one is passed out.”

  “We’re not drunk!” Rory shouted out.

  “Shut up and don’t move!” the officer called out. “One of you get over here right the hell now and open this gate.”

&
nbsp; “Hold on! Hold on!” Rory called out as she came over to me, rubbing my back as she did best-friend duty pulling my hair out of the way. “My friend is throwing up.”

  “Stupid underage kids don’t know their tolerance,” the other officer said.

  “We’re not underage,” Rory called out. “And we’re not drunk. It’s worse than that…We think someone’s…dead.”

  “Son of a bitch,” the officer swore. Uncertainty crept into his voice. “Think the kid’s telling the truth?”

  “Only one way to find out,” the other one said. He shouted, “Get your ass over here. Now!”

  Rory gave an angered sigh. Marshall stumbled over to us. “Shut your mouth, Ror,” he said, holding his hands up like he was being robbed. “This is no time to drop attitude on anyone, especially an officer of the law.”

  “But—”

  Marshall pointed toward the bright light shining on us. “He’s got a gun,” he said. “Will that convince you?”

  “He does…?” The wind went out of her words as she spoke them.

  “Get the hell over here right now!” the officer repeated.

  Without brooking further argument, Marshall stepped carefully off in the direction of the flashing lights, raising his hands even higher. “We’re coming,” he called out, his voice wavering with obedient fear.

  Rory helped me up. I wiped the back of my coat’s sleeve across my face and allowed her to lead me toward the gates as well. My arms and legs felt like jelly, twitching and shaking as I tried to walk.

  “Easy,” Rory said, noting my weakness.

  “Open the gate, slowly,” the officer said. Up close, I could finally make them out, one younger, taller, with a short blond crew cut, and the other shorter, stockier, older. They didn’t scare me as much as the short, rectangular end of the gun Tall and Blond had pointed at the three of us.

  Rory saw it, too, and didn’t argue as she fished my key out of her front pocket and slid it into the gate, unlocking it from the inside. The blond officer pushed the gate open toward us using his foot.