by Anton Strout
Going with my better judgment, I let go of my will over the stone and quickly slipped the empty vial I was still holding in my hand into the pocket of my coat. Locke’s eyes darted down, but I was pretty sure I had been fast enough.
“Mr. Locke,” I said. “Nice to see you, but umm . . . what are you doing here? Everyone’s been moved downtown to the new place on Saint Mark’s while we’re . . . renovating.”
“Yes, yes, of course,” he said, looking a bit out of sorts. “I must say, I find it more than passing strange that you have to vacate the entire premises simply for the sake of renovation.”
Renovation had sounded a lot better than trying to explain to one of the “normals” that stone-men golems and a gargoyle had been the cause of all the damage.
“Just dealing with some structural things on the lower floors,” I said. “You know old buildings. My great-great-grandfather was a fantastic architect and stonemason, but nothing lasts forever, right?”
“How right you are,” he said, then crossed himself. “Except, of course, the Eternal.”
“Right,” I said after an all-too-long pause.
I didn’t know what I believed in, more so after being exposed to the world of Spellmasonry, but I never liked broaching into theology with the man who had been guiding my father along what I considered a pretty weak divine path all these years. His oddness always left me feeling uneasy.
“Well . . .” I said. “I really should get inside. Just need to grab a couple of things.”
I tried to step around Mr. Locke, but he stayed where he was, eyes lowered and raising a hand as if to grab my shoulder but stopping inches away from it.
“May I speak with you a moment about something personal?” he asked, keeping his hand hovering there.
I tried to think fast, but having just dispatched that creature and being stuck in this small space with him had me unnerved, and I came up short on excuses.
“Sure . . .” I said, shouldering my bag. “What’s up?”
“Long have I cared for your father’s spiritual well-being, and I would like to think that it extends to the rest of the Belarus kin as well. For instance, I would like to think your brother’s soul was prepared for the afterlife at the time of his . . . accident.”
I fought back a pained laugh, recalling the events earlier this year. Devon had been far from spiritual, and his death had been no accident. Hell, it hadn’t even been his death. Kejetan’s search for the Belarus family and the arcane secrets of our great-great-grandfather led the mad lord first to Devon. Devon—ever the pitchman and promising the secrets he eventually couldn’t deliver—bargained his human life for that of an eternal stone one. The building collapse on Saint Mark’s had merely proven the cover for ending his human life.
Still, I didn’t think it was the time to broach that conversational hurdle.
“No offense to you and your beliefs, Mr. Locke, but I don’t really think that was Devon’s bag . . . or really my bag, either.”
He gave a pressed-lip smile indicating the kind of patience one might have when dealing with a child. “Fair enough,” he said. “Fair enough. That is perhaps a discussion for another day . . .”
Not if I can help it, I thought, literally biting my tongue to the point it hurt.
“But I wonder if I could discuss your father with you for a moment,” he continued.
“Okay,” I said, curiosity getting the better of me.
He paused, taking his time as if carefully trying to choose his words. “Have you noticed anything strange in his behavior lately?”
“You’re going to have to be more specific,” I said. “My dad is strange in a lot of ways.”
“Spoken like a true daughter,” he said with that smile again.
I once more resisted the urge to crush him with the keystone above us. “Have you noticed something strange?” I asked him back.
“I have simply noticed a change in our weekly discussions.”
“What sort of change?”
“You know of his belief in angels, yes?”
I nodded, tensing a little. Everyone who had ever met my father knew about his belief in angels. Before he learned of Stanis only a few months back, he had met him as his “angel” decades ago when being pulled from the freezing water of the reservoir in Central Park. It had been the singular event that had turned him into a Holy Roller, and even after having met Stanis, knowing him for the grotesque he was, it somehow only further affirmed his belief in angels. The logic was rather circular, but there was no talking him out of it.
“As of late,” Desmond Locke continued, “he seems more and more insistent on their existence.”
“Don’t you believe in angels?” I asked. “I mean, isn’t that in your job description? Isn’t it your thing?”
“Yes and no,” he said. “Did you know that in Fatima, Portugal, up to one hundred thousand people witnessed unusual solar activity that took the shapes of Jesus, Mary, and several saints? Thirteen years later, the Roman Catholic Church accepted it as a genuine miracle from those reports. Then you have the people who claim to see statues of Jesus on the Cross weeping or see angels visit them in times of need. Do I believe those people? Well, I do believe their faith colors their world and that the human mind is a wonderful and powerful tool, but do I believe your father has empirical proof of angels, as he’s been claiming lately? No, I am surprised to say, I do not. I do not believe He means for people to see actual proof of His divinity. Proof, after all, takes away faith, if you ask my opinion of it.”
“What has my father said?” I asked, my stomach tightening. If the Church found out about our family legacy, I could only imagine some papal SWAT team taking over our home.
Mr. Locke shrugged, but his eyes stayed locked on me. “He hasn’t said anything exact. He just seems more and more convinced of their physical manifestation. That isn’t the focus of his belief. Faith does not require hard evidence; faith is believing for the sake of belief.”
I was ready to start arguing what a load of crap that was, that belief in anything should come from proof, but what good would that do? Politics, religion, and the series finale of Lost were just a few of the things it did no good talking about with someone who opposed the views you had.
The mischievous part of me wanted to take my great-great-grandfather’s master tome out of my backpack and transform it from its stone form just to give Mr. Locke something that would shake his very foundation, but I thought better of it.
Again, what would the Church do with that kind of information? I imagined some kind of hotline phone in Mr. Locke’s home that dialed straight to the Vatican. The Pope would answer it, and suddenly I’d be dragged in and kept on display in some vast underground papal prison. Or maybe burned as a witch, which I guess, technically, I was.
I pulled out my phone and checked the time. “I really should get moving,” I said, stepping past him. “But I’ll keep an eye on my father. In fact, I’ll even keep two eyes on him.”
He smiled, folding his hands together. “Very cute,” he said. “I would greatly appreciate that. Thank you.”
“No problem,” I said, and keyed into the first-floor business-office lobby of our building. I headed for the elevators up to our empty living quarters, which included my great-great-grandfather’s library and art studio at the very top.
“And Alexandra,” Mr. Locke said from behind me, my name echoing in the empty hallway. I turned to see him holding the door open with one hand. “We really should have that talk one of these days.”
I paused for a moment, then gave him a thumbs-up before turning and heading toward the elevators once more. The gesture was all I allowed myself—I was afraid of whatever words I might have let loose on the creep otherwise.
Four
Alexandra
I felt bad about how I had left things the other night with Rory and Marshall, so when I got back downtown, I texted them about swinging by the new place for dinner. When the buzzer rang, I ran down several fl
ights of stairs to greet them at the door instead of just buzzing them in.
“Welcome to Belarus Building South!” I said, throwing my arms around the both of them. Rory had been here plenty of times already, but Marshall had been so busy lately, he hadn’t had time. Rory fell instantly into the hug, but Marshall hesitated before joining it. After a moment he stepped back, looking up and down Saint Mark’s Place.
“This looks a lot different than it did the last time I was here,” he said.
“Yes,” Rory said to him. “Much less collapsed building-y.”
“At least it’s probably not haunted,” he said.
I cocked my head at him, screwing up my face. “That’s an odd sort of compliment,” I said.
“I mean, this is where your brother died,” he said, emphasizing the last word with air quotes. “But since technically he’s a villainous rock man instead, his spirit wouldn’t be haunting the space. So see? Probably not haunted!”
Rory pushed him past me into the building. “In you go,” she said, forcing him up the stairs. “Before we get uninvited.”
“Is it livable now?” he asked, calling back down the stairs.
“It better be,” I said, following them up. “I just moved my parents in the other day. Actually, just on the lower floors for now. I’m still deciding how to set up the top. I’d kind of like an art studio and library of my own.”
“How are Doug and Julie handling the new digs?” Rory asked.
“They’re adjusting,” I said, pointing ahead to turn left at the next landing up, “but if I don’t get them back into the Belarus Building soon, I might lose my mind. I’ve even set up their real-estate company on the first two floors here—high-speed Internet, the latest technology for their meetings and dealings, but they’re used to doing things the way they do them on Gramercy. They miss their rut. In the meantime, I just need to not kill them.”
“No one wants to have their parents as roommates,” Marshall said, entering the kitchen, slowing as he took in the clean, modern style I had gone for. “And this is coming from a guy who spent maybe one or three too many years set up at home. But that was mostly so I didn’t have to move my gaming stuff out of the basement.”
Rory hopped on a stool behind the counter bar and simply stared at him.
“What?” he asked.
“Do you not even hear what you are saying sometimes?” she asked back. “On behalf of all women everywhere, I think my reproductive organs literally just crawled farther up inside me.”
Marshall was on the verge of responding, but startled as he looked down at floor level.
“Bricksley!” he said with a nervous laugh. “You scared the crap out of me.”
My tiny brick golem looked up at Marshall, his face ever the happy, painted-on smile and wide-eyed expression.
“Sorry,” I said, heading to the ingredients I had laid out on the counter earlier. “I’m a sloppy cook and set him about Roomba-ing.”
Rory joined me the way she used to when we took over the kitchen on Gramercy from my mother. As usual, it quickly turned into me fighting her on overspicing everything.
“It’s my Latina heritage!” she protested, slamming her spoon-clenching fist against her chest.
“I like spice,” I said, “but don’t blame your heritage on the atrocity you’re committing in my kitchen. You just have a bad palate and overdo it.”
She started to argue, but she knew I was right, and gave in to the evening and just had fun with it.
After stowing Bricksley away, I invited my parents up from downstairs to join us for dinner, where we avoided talking about both the arcane and my run-in with my father’s spiritual counselor. The former was a subject they were aware of but chose to avoid, and the latter simply gave me the wiggins that I simply didn’t want to mention his name.
Marshall cleaned, claiming it was the least he could do although the least-that-could-be-done award went to my father, who headed back downstairs to attend to more of his business right after the meal. But Marshall’s contribution was welcome.
The whole affair warmed me, reminding me of a simpler time—one before men of stone, mad cultists, and Rory’s mastering medieval French weapons.
After my mother left, the three of us sat around the partially furnished living room enjoying each other’s company, and, for a second, I felt normal, but eventually all spells must be broken, and all good things must come to an end.
“I’ve another surprise,” I said. “I thought we might go over our notes from the last couple of outings. If I’m ever going to master Spellmasonry, I need to be able to not only control stone, I need to be able to do all the things that Alexander Belarus did. I still can’t seem to control any stone creature larger than Bricksley, and I’m light-years away from figuring out how to build something like Stanis. There’s something that I’m missing in the process. We just need to figure out what that is. And it wouldn’t hurt to stumble across how to make a lot of Alexander’s concoctions that we’ve been using up. The Kimiya is starting to look like a very finite supply these days. We need to step up our experimentation.”
Rory sighed, sitting up in her chair. “You want to head up to Gramercy now?”
I shook my head.
“That’s the surprise,” I said. “I thought we might do it here.”
“But what about the experiments and equipment?” Marshall asked. “What about your supplies?”
“We have a lot of the alchemical mixes on the premises,” I said, “and I’ve been moving some of the other supplies down here. I thought it might be nice to have a change of venue.”
Rory sat forward. “You mean . . . ?”
I nodded. “My great-great-grandfather’s guild hall,” I said. “I know how hard you’ve both been working on this with me. I appreciate it, but the idea of dragging the two of you back to the haunting emptiness of Gramercy again just seemed cruel. I thought a change of venue might help. It took a lot of doing. Clearing away the debris of the building collapse was fairly easy, but trying to build this place on top of Alexander’s secret laboratory? I filed and refiled plans until I was blue in the face, changed construction companies at least half a dozen times. By the time it was done, I don’t think anyone working on Belarus South knows what truly lies beneath this building.”
“I am so jealous,” Marshall said. “Think of the game setup I could do down there with all that creepy, dungeony, carved stone.”
I smiled at Marshall. “If we can figure out how to create something like Stanis, you can throw your weekly games down here.” A twinkle of approval lit up in his eyes, and I turned my head back to address both my friends. “So . . . we know that I can’t sustain bringing anything larger than Bricksley to life, but we know it’s possible. How do we know it’s possible? Stanis, wherever he is, is living proof that an autonomous creature of human proportions can be brought to life. I don’t know how to unlock that level of power. My grandfather was clever about those arcane secrets.”
I pulled my backpack closer to me from where it lay on the floor and reached for the solid stone book within it, finding Bricksley nestled in there. I took the book from under him, breathed out the words of power that transformed it to leather and paper, then pulled my own notebook out. “We’ve got his work and my own lame-ish start at a spell book of my own.” I held up my own notebook. “We need to make this as powerful as his.”
“There are too many missing pieces,” Marshall said.
“That’s why we compare notes, then,” I said. “Do you think Einstein gave up just because he had too many questions?”
“This isn’t science,” argued Rory.
“Maybe it’s more of a science than we think,” I offered.
“Maybe it’s more of a science than we can think,” Marshall said.
I looked to see if he was mocking me, but he was serious.
“This hurts my brain,” Rory said. “Can we go back to dinner conversation?”
“No,” Marshall said. A second
ago I wouldn’t have thought him capable of it, but he looked riled up. “Lexi’s right. We’re all just frustrated, but that’s no excuse. We need to continue to be analytical, keep experimenting, keep refining.”
“Exactly,” I said, standing. I gathered up my books and a few of the others I had been reading through. “Let me show you the cool stuff I’ve rigged up, then.”
Rory stood, and we were halfway to the stairs when Marshall stopped.
“Go on without me,” he said. “I’ll be down to the Bat Cave in a couple minutes.”
“Where’s he going?” I asked, as Rory and I started down the steps.
“Excitement pee,” she said, taking some of my books from me to carry. “He gets this way when he talks about Comic Con, too.”
Five
Alexandra
Rory and I headed down to the finished basement of our new building, not wanting to wait around for Marshall while he hit the little boys’ room. The sooner we got to work sorting through our comparative notes from the brick-man incident, the sooner I might get to sleep. Pillowy thoughts of slumber filled my head as we walked along the half-finished basement hall, following the series of bookcases off to my left.
“I’m glad you took Marshall’s suggestion months ago when he tried to talk you into the library motif,” Rory said.
I nodded, counting off the bookcases as I went. “‘Very Wayne Manor,’ he had said. Apparently, Batman liked secret doors, too.”
“I still don’t get why you call it Alexander’s guild hall, though,” Rory said. “I mean, he was a guild of one.”
“My guess is that Alexander built it in the hopes of using it for a higher purpose,” I said. “For finding other Spellmasons, for educating others to his way, but I think having a madman hunting down that power made him think the better of it. Some things, it would seem, were better kept secret. Which, conversely, is why we’re so busy playing arcane Nancy Drews.”