by Anton Strout
Despite what I had just accomplished, I felt tremendously stupid. I stared at the stone-still creature a moment longer as the sounds of Caleb’s splashing away down the tunnel rose behind me. Turning, I ran to catch up, careful not to fall.
“I’m still learning,” I protested. “Caleb, you have to understand. So much of what I can do is literally textbook—notes from Alexander—but there’s no school for this. You’re the only other practitioner I know!”
“Lucky me,” he said, softening a bit. “And look at all this quality time we’re getting to spend together reeking of sewage.”
“Maybe this Witch and Bitch club can help us with making another gargoyle,” I suggested, trying to ignore the smells all around us. “They’re freelancers, after all. They did some work for Desmond Locke. Why not us?”
Caleb stopped and spun around to face me. “No!” he shouted.
“Well, why not?”
Caleb looked like he was biting his tongue as he composed himself, and I waited, with more patience than I expected to have considering I was knee deep in a river of filth.
“First of all,” he said, “I’m the freelancer you need to be working with. Do you really want to work with some group whose security system you just defeated?”
“That was more you than me,” I said.
Caleb sighed, running his fingers through his hair before he realized how gross it was and gave up. “It was both of us,” he said. “We work well together. I don’t want to bring in outsiders when I know we can do this ourselves. You’ll learn quickly that the fewer people you get involved in something, the less chance of other people’s messing it up.”
All this talk of us working together, it was almost romantic. Again, if not for where we were standing.
“Okay,” I said, holding up my newfound secret book of Alexander’s. “We have this to work from and a bunch of test gargoyle subjects to animate and all that, so no witches for now.”
I started sloshing my way toward him. “But I would like to know more about this Witch and Bitch club,” I added. “We might have defeated their sentry, but we didn’t have an easy time of it.”
Caleb looked down at his clothes in disgust and turned away, heading off down the sewer tunnel.
“Oh, I plan on seeing them again,” he said. “And when I do? I’m going to really give them something to bitch about.”
“Tough words for a guy covered in shit,” I said, hoping this tunnel actually led the hell out of the sewer system before I found myself having to fight mutant turtles of the teenage variety.
Caleb did not seem amused by my comment. “If we succeed in animating another gargoyle, I may have to borrow it for a bit,” he said. “Call it a vengeance loaner.”
“We’ll see about that,” I said. I couldn’t muster the strength for vengeance just then. I wasn’t even sure if I could muster it to shower before collapsing from exhaustion.
I just hoped I didn’t collapse while I was still down here.
Twenty
Stanis
Time had not always been kind to the copper of the large female statue that stood towering over what the humans called Liberty Island. Now, standing atop it, it was clear that at some point the humans had intervened to preserve her form, which gave me immense satisfaction, even amid my own current turmoil. I found her constant vigil over the city I had come to love soothing, her presence helpful in centering my thoughts.
I always gave thanks for her presence, even during the years of her restoration, when she was inaccessible and surrounded by scaffolding. At the moment it was most especially welcome as I attempted to sort out the mix of sensations that overwhelmed my mind. I always found a sadness in its face that matched my own. If only it, too, could come to life, I would gladly have welcomed discourse with it.
My newfound freedom had come at a price. Alexandra now worked with the very man who had tortured me at Kejetan’s command. I wasn’t sure what to do now that I was free, but I reasoned that my presence would be missed by my father if I should not return from the work he had tasked me with.
Worse, I imagined that Alexandra might then become a more specific target of Kejetan. In order to ensure her safety, I knew what I had to do and leapt into the night sky, heading out to sea.
It always took some navigation to find the freighter, but the farther out I flew, the higher I went, the sense of perspective making it easier to spy the ship in the darkness of the sea. I spiraled down toward its deck, alive with a handful of stone men and human Servants of Ruthenia, but it was not their activity that caught my eye. A familiar face lurked among the shadows of the shipping containers stacked on the deck of the ship.
Correcting my course, I aimed for the figure, and, before he could notice my approach, I had the alchemist’s head in one of my hands, lifting. Doubling the speed of my wings, I rose into the air as Caleb wrapped both his arms around the one holding his head, clinging on for his fragile human life. I came down on one of the more deserted upper decks of the ship, throwing open the door that led into one of the empty storage compartments there, then closing it behind us once we were inside.
“What are you doing here?” I asked, still holding him. “And where is Alexandra? She was with you when last I saw her.”
“Ow, ow, ow,” he said, pounding his fists against arm and clawed hand. “Let go of my head, and I’ll tell you.”
I unclenched my fist from around his skull and lowered my arm.
“Alexandra’s fine,” he said.
Now that we were no longer moving, a noxious odor filled the air around us and I stepped back from him. “What is that smell?”
“That would be me,” he said, raising his hand. “The oh-so-pleasant and hard-to-get-out scent of raw sewage.”
I leaned over him, my voice a growl. “You took Alexandra to the sewers?”
The alchemist raised his hands between the two of us and backed away.
“Technically, she took me,” he said. “But long story short, we found the spells we needed. She went home to sleep and study up on them, so that maybe we can build you a girlfriend or whatever, but she’s fine.”
“I am not in need of a girlfriend,” I said. “I am in need of allies.”
“I’m an ally,” he said.
“Are you?” I asked, unsure. “Back to my question, Caleb. Why exactly did you come back here?”
The alchemist shifted in place, full of nerves behind the bravado he was trying to convince me he had.
“I’m just trying to tie up some loose ends,” he said, rubbing the sides of his face where my claws had been digging in. “I’ve got unfinished business here that needs some discussion with the big man. I planned to cover my ass. What are you doing here?”
“Protecting Alexandra,” I said.
“Shit,” he said. “Can I change my answer? That sounds a lot less selfish than mine.”
“You are selfish,” I said.
“Yeah, yeah,” he said, dismissing it. “Hey, my plan was going to cover yours, too. Now I answered you, so you answer me. What are you doing here? What do you even mean by ‘protecting Alexandra’?”
“I had thought to make an appearance,” I said. “Kejetan would think it strange if neither of us showed ourselves around here anymore. I wanted him to believe that, as you humans say, it is busy-ness as usual.”
Caleb laughed. “Close enough. You really think you’re up for pulling one over on Kejetan the Accursed? You’re pretty easy to read. Your wings betray you. Right now, they’re twitching, meaning I’m annoying you. If I can see through you, maybe you should fly away now while you still can. I don’t need your ruining this.”
His attitude over the last few minutes, mixed with his laughter, struck a chord in me, one of anger. “And do you think you will do any better manipulating my father?”
“Don’t think I don’t know what this is all about,” he said, wagging a finger in my face.
“I do not know what you mean.”
“Bullshit,” he s
aid. “If you had your way, you’d actually crush my head.”
It was true the desire was strong in me, but I did not wish to give the human satisfaction.
“I wish no such thing,” I said. “But would it be such a stretch, human? You did torture me.”
Caleb sighed. “I told you I didn’t even think there was a lick of humanity to you,” he said, throwing his arms up the air, his voice filled with exasperation.
I knew that particular feeling all too well and stepped up to him, staring down into his eyes.
“That does not change the fact that it happened.”
The human looked ready to burst, but he had no immediate answer for that and fell silent for a moment. It was a petty victory, but a victory nonetheless. The sensation felt most gratifying.
Caleb walked off in silence and moved about ten feet away before turning back to me. He looked around the empty hold, making sure we were alone.
“You know what?” he said. “I don’t think any of this is about what I did to you.”
My wings fluttered in reaction, and I cursed myself for it, but his words caught me off guard. “No?”
“No,” he said, marching back up to me. “I think this is all about Lexi. She spoke about the connection you two once shared when you were bound to her family. I think you want that back, and it kills you a little to see her wrapped up in me.”
It was strange to hear this person I knew so little of speak of private matters that were only the business of the Belarus bloodline, and I raised my voice.
“The affairs of this family are none of your concern.”
“Lexi’s made them my concern,” he said, rapping his knuckles against the stone of my chest, scraping them against it until the skin tore and a hint of blood rose to the surface. He held his bloody fingers up to my face. “And, really, what can you offer her? Abrasions? A skinned knee?”
The sight of human flesh torn due to me in any capacity filled my thoughts of Alexandra coming to harm from contact with me, and I forced myself to keep control of the darkness rising within me. “You know nothing of the bond between Alexandra and me.”
“I know it’s broken,” he said. “What she feels for me is there because it happened naturally, not because someone wove a spell over me to make that connection happen.”
My arm shot out as I grabbed him by the edges of his coat and lifted him.
“Perhaps you have woven your magic over her,” I said. “Perhaps you poisoned Alexandra’s better judgment with your elixirs, your potions, your magic that lives in your tiny bottles. But its power never lasts too long, does it? It is only a matter of time before she sees you as you truly are.”
Anger coursed through me, but was it because he was antagonizing me or because he spoke the truth about a jealousy I had of mortal man? I stared at Caleb in contemplation of this, raging within, but the eyes that met mine had become calm.
“Let’s face facts,” he said bluntly. “The lovely Miss Belarus prefers my company to yours. You’re nothing more than a family heirloom.”
His words stung, but I put him down and turned away before I did something impulsive. Regardless of the truth of the matter, I needed to keep my calm aboard Kejetan’s freighter.
Caleb straightened the edges of his coat, tugging the fabric into place until it was once more smooth against his form.
“And even if there was something more between you and her,” he said, circling around to meet my eye, “what could there ever truly be between the two of you? Think about it. She’s human. What kind of a life would that be with her? With me she stands a chance of being a part of humanity, of actually being happy.”
As much as I did not want to admit it, the alchemist had a point, but that did not mean it sat well within me. I fumed over it in silence until he shook his head and headed for the door out of the room.
“Where are you going?” I asked, blocking his way.
He met my eye, his gaze unwavering. “Move, Stanis,” he said. “There is work to be done here on this ship. I need to talk to Kejetan if I’m going to keep him unaware that his stone ‘Dobbie’ is a free gargoyle now.”
I did not know what this Dobbie was, but I stayed in front of the door, unmoving. “I can handle that myself,” I said.
Caleb sighed. “No, you can’t,” he said, stuffing his hands down into the pockets of his coats. “You don’t have the practice at lying that I do. Trust me. You go in to your father, in front of your own kin—”
“He is not my kin,” I growled.
Caleb stepped back and pointed at me with both hands. “You see? You get so agitated at even the mention of him, and that’s what’s going to ruin it. You don’t stand a chance of convincing that mad pile of rocks that you’re still under his sway gathering statues for him. Go home, Stanis. Go back to the Belarus Building and let me handle this.”
I could not argue with him and stepped aside, though it hurt my soul to give this man anything. “You will never have the bond that Alexandra and I share.”
Caleb did not look back. He simply walked out the door. “Get out of here, Stan,” he said, his voice flat. “Leave the lying to the professionals.”
The alchemist turned out of sight, and by the time I went out through the same door moments later, he had already disappeared into the freighter.
I flew off, frustrated, but knowing the human had probably been right in handling the situation himself. I could have stayed and argued, but I had not, choosing instead the chill of the night against my body as I shot across the night sky.
The heaviest question that lay across my heart, however, was not about dealing with my father.
Was I fighting with this Caleb to keep Alexandra safe or was it because of his connection with her? And what if Caleb was correct, saying that my bond to her had only existed because the last practicing Spellmason from centuries ago had put it there?
It left a hole within me that, for the moment, I could only fill with the joy that flight brought me, but the question still lingered.
How could I trust that my feelings were my own?
Twenty-one
Alexandra
The threat of rain hung in the night air as the group of us worked atop my family’s building. Caleb had moved his mixing station from the other night just inside the covered doorway leading back downstairs. In his hands, colorful concoctions flew from one vial to another while flasks and beakers foamed with other mixtures. Very mad-scientist. All the while, Caleb consulted his notes, adjusted volumes with a care and precision that boggled my mind. He had even been set up and hard at work before the rest of us got here.
The ever-wary Rory leaned on the wall next to him, arms crossed, watching, while Marshall played lab assistant, applying the last batch of Caleb’s home brew to the one statue I was going to attempt to animate. Going over my notes next to Caleb, I noticed Alexander’s newfound book lying closed on the worktable.
“How do you know what you need to do to prepare the statue for tonight?” I asked. “You’re not even consulting the book.”
Caleb kept his face down in his work, producing a tiny vial from within the shoulder bag he wore that night, pouring it into a large beaker on the table.
“I told you I was a Spellmason fan,” he said. “I’m an avid reader when it comes to it.”
I looked down at my notebook in my hands. “I took a ton of notes,” I said. “I couldn’t memorize anything that quick.”
Caleb smiled. “Trust me. When you end up ingesting as many of these alchemical elixirs and potions as I do, you learn to pay attention very quickly.”
“Let’s hope you finish all this without accidentally killing yourself,” Rory said, drawing a look from him. She gave a pained smile.
I was finding both her and Marshall’s mistrust of Caleb a bit unfounded lately, but then again, they hadn’t been working as closely as I had with him. I chalked it up to maybe a bit of jealousy that there was someone around who I needed more than them right now, but that was a discu
ssion for another time.
“I don’t plan on drinking this,” Caleb said, looking up to her. “You don’t have to watch over me, you know.”
“Yes,” she said, not moving. “Yes, I do.”
Caleb took a moment, kept silent, then turned back to his work. He grabbed a reddish brown jug of our own attempt of Alexander’s Kimiya recipe and added some of it to the flask in his hand, filling it with about three inches of the mixture. He put the jug down with care, then slowly stirred the contents of the flask with a glass rod.
Marshall came back over to us from the statue, a brush in one hand and an emptied beaker in the other.
“Ready for another,” he said, a little damp from the few drops of rain that had begun to fall. He wiped his forehead with the forearm of his left sleeve. “I didn’t realize there would be so much arts and crafts. How am I supposed to learn what you’re mixing there?”
Caleb smiled but didn’t look up. “Consider this the hazing part of your education,” he said. “You get the grunt work.”
“Great,” Marshall said with a long, slow sigh. “Just like high school. Yay.”
“Here come the traumatic flashbacks,” Rory added.
Caleb lifted the beaker with care, but when Marshall reached out for it, he shook his head.
“I’d better do this one,” Caleb said.
“Why?” Marshall asked, looking a little hurt. “Is it my painting? Am I not leaving the right brushstrokes?”
Caleb held up the beaker with painstaking slowness.
“This mixture here is what I call active,” he said. “Right now, it’s a volatile liquid. And no offense, I still don’t know you that well, so I’m going to trust me not to kill anyone with it over you. Is that a suitable enough answer for you?”
Marshall’s face fell, and he raised his arm slowly, holding up the brush. “Sure,” he said, stammering. “No problem. You take this one. I’ll just watch, and, you know, not blow my hands off or anything.”
“Great,” Caleb said, grabbing the brush from Marshall’s hand. “A little goes a long way.”