Ancient Illusions

by Joanne Pence

  A moment later, the SUV tore out of the lot.

  “Damn,” Michael shouted into the phone. “They’re getting away.” He handed the phone back to Ceinwen, who was so surprised to find it in her hand that she accidentally cutting off the connection.

  "Just wait, Michael. The cops will find them."

  "We can't take that chance." He shoved the car into gear and as he sped around the corner. At the same time, he noticed the Bentley backing slowly and carefully out of the CVS parking space. His father and Steadman appeared to be in no hurry at all, but Michael was. Steadman and William Claude were no doubt going back home; Michael and Ceinwen were going after the SUV.

  He tried to follow at a reasonable distance, but few other cars were on the road and it wasn't long before the SUV's odd maneuvering made him pretty certain they'd been noticed.

  “Ceinwen, reach in the back. There’s a gun case.”

  She did as told and opened the case to see a nine millimeter automatic. “Where did you get—?”

  “The Remparts have always kept a small arsenal at the house. And from the time we first arrived there, I figured if the trigger-happy guys from Idaho showed up, I wanted to be prepared.”

  He turned once more, but this time, he didn’t see the lights of the SUV up ahead.

  “Michael, behind us!” Ceinwen cried.

  He looked in the rearview mirror to see the SUV bearing down on them. A passenger reached out the window, gun in hand, and fired.

  “Shoot back!” Michael ordered as he swerved the rental from side to side.

  Ceinwen eased off the safety and fired toward the SUV as best she could. Her first shots missed as both vehicles twisted trying to outmaneuver the other.

  Michael had to slow to turn at the corner and when he did the SUV rammed his back bumper. Ceinwen fired again, and this time they heard a “plunk” as the bullet hit steel.

  But the SUV didn’t stop. Its bumper once more slammed into the back of Michael’s smaller, lighter rental. The SUV’s size and strength overwhelmed the rental car and pushed it forward. Michael turned the steering wheel, but the SUV was powerful enough to give him little chance to control the direction they were going. The car shuddered as the front tires were unable to stop the forward momentum.

  A barrage of shots flew at them. Ceinwen was forced to duck down as the back window shattered into a thousand shards. Michael stomped hard on the brakes. The tires locked with a shriek that slowed but didn’t stop the car’s forward progress.

  He could hear the wail of police sirens, but up ahead, the street curved, and they were headed straight at a row of parked cars. He feared they would be crushed between the parked cars and the SUV. Airbags did little good in that type of accident.

  “We’ve got to jump, Ceinwen,” he shouted as he unfastened his seatbelt. “Get out and run before we hit.”

  She looked stricken but disconnected her seatbelt. With one more glance at him, she opened the passenger door.

  “Wait!” he shouted. Through the rearview mirror he saw that the SUV had braked and then turned into an intersection.

  As he pulled the rental car to a stop, safe at the side of the street, they saw a stream of police cars, their sirens blaring, in hot pursuit of the SUV.

  Michael reached out for Ceinwen's hand, holding it tightly, as they waited for the police activity to quiet down around them. "You okay?"

  "I've fought demons. A big black SUV doesn't hold a candle to that."

  Michael laughed softly. As soon as he no longer saw any police cars near, he shoved the battered, bruised, and dented car into gear and pulled away from the curb. It would be hell to pay when they returned the rental, but he'd worry about that later. Also later, he suspected they’d need to give statements to the Hyannis Police.

  But right now, they needed to return to Wintersgate.

  Chapter 61

  Wintersgate was dark when Michael and Ceinwen arrived, but as soon as they entered, something felt very wrong.

  “Do you think we beat them home?” Ceinwen asked.

  Michael opened the door to the breakfast room. A candle burned near the windows, which was a surprise. Candles were never used in that room—never anywhere in the old house for fear of fire.

  Michael was about to blow it out when other candles suddenly lit all around him. “What the hell?”

  With the entire room ablaze, William Claude and Stedman entered. William Claude placed the Shang dynasty bronze on the table.

  “Look familiar?” he asked Michael with a sly grin.

  Michael’s lips pursed. “I knew you were behind its theft. Do you know you’re also responsible for the death of a deputy and others in Idaho?”

  “Nonsense. Now, about this little bronze object, I’m sure there’s a trick to opening it,” he said, glaring at Michael. “Do it, or I’ll break it open.”

  Michael knew he wasn’t joking. “By removing the bronze vessel from the rare-earth elements in its lead container, you’ve already strengthened the demons trapped inside it,” Michael said. “They were once strong enough to bring down an entire dynasty in China, and whenever they were out and about could manipulate much of world history. Are you sure you want to let them loose on the world again?”

  “I’m in control of them now, so I’m safe,” William Claude said. “All I want is for you to help me use the pearl to create immortality, then I’ll give it back for you to use however you wish.”

  Michael shook his head. “The harm would have been done, and the demons unleashed.”

  “If I destroy the container, the demons will certainly be released. I suspect they’re already very angry with you. They’ll want you to pay. And all demons love to watch people suffer.” William Claude then faced Ceinwen. “Don’t they?”

  The bite on her neck began to burn. She put her hand to it, crying out at the sharp pain. She grabbed hold of a chair to stay upright, the pain nearly blinding her. Tears filled her eyes and her breath came in short gulps. “Stop, please.”

  “Leave her alone!” Michael lunged at William Claude, but Stedman grabbed his arm and held him back. He had no idea Stedman had that kind of strength—superhuman strength. But he couldn’t think about that now, he had to help Ceinwen who had crumbled to the floor. “You’re killing her. Stop this!”

  “Open the bronze,” William Claude commanded. “And then go with me to the laboratory where we will create immortality.”

  “Only if you stop torturing her.”

  “Open the bronze, and I will stop … and if you don’t assist me in the following steps, the next pain she feels will make this seem like child’s play.”

  Michael couldn’t bear seeing Ceinwen suffer. He opened the bronze.

  A cloud of black smoke streamed upward from the pearl and hovered over the room.

  At the same moment, Ceinwen fainted.

  “You are my demons now,” William Claude cried as he snatched the pearl from the bronze and held it high in his hand.

  Michael grabbed the bronze vessel and then ran to Ceinwen. But Stedman had already reached her. He lifted her in his arms as if she were no more than a doll.

  “Let her go!” Michael ordered.

  “We’re taking her to the laboratory with us,” William Claude said. “I wouldn’t want you to forget the reason you’re helping me. After all, I couldn’t harm the flesh of my flesh. But I could certainly harm his cheap little girlfriend.”

  “You’ll pay for this,” Michael warned. “You’re a sadistic bastard. No wonder you fear death’s judgment.”

  William Claude only smirked as they went up to the laboratory. There, with a thick black pen, he drew a squared circle, a symbol of alchemy, on his laboratory table:

  * * *

  Around each point of the triangle, and at each point of the square, he place a potion. Then he stopped and studied the pearl. “Those demons you so feared, Michael, are amazingly quiet after their first minor outburst.”

  “That’s because they’re curious about you.
They won’t stay quiet for long.”

  William Clark chuckled. “We’ll see. You really should have tried some alchemy with them.”

  “Why should I waste my time?” Michael replied. “Why should I be like you?”

  “It does take a great deal of time,” William Claude said. He sounded almost jovial now. “We will begin with the potions I’ve already created, and hope one of them works. If not, we will start over. That, I’m sorry to say, could take days.”

  Michael was filled with anger and self-loathing as his curiosity began getting the better of him. What was the old bastard trying to conjure? Then he glanced at Ceinwen, who had awakened but was pale and dazed from her ordeal. Stedman was all but holding her upright. “Let her sit down,” Michael demanded.

  William Claude nodded, and Stedman led her to a chair and seated her in a sweeping, effortless move. Michael went over to her and squatted down, meeting her at eye level. “How are you feeling now?”

  “Do what you need to," she murmured. "Don’t worry about me.”

  “But I do.”

  “I know,” she whispered, and lightly touched the side of his face.

  He kissed her forehead as he stood, and then walked back to a scowling William Claude. He could sense Steadman behind him, ready to pounce if he appeared at all threatening.

  “Now that you’ve shown us how disgustingly pussy-whipped you are,” William Claude said with a sniff, “we can proceed. Here, you see four stages. Each stage purifies the mercury more than the last, and at each stage the fire is twice as intense as that preceding it. The fire awakens the inner spirit that also must purify the alchemist without interruption throughout the process.”

  It was all Michael could do not to object to what his father was attempting. “So where are you in these four stages?”

  William Claude picked up a flask, and then spoke like a lecturer to a slow student. “This first one is calcination, resulting in dark ashes, and so it is often called the Raven. Here, you see the Peacock’s Tail, an explosion of colors. As I mix in other substances, all the black matter becomes white—a sign the work is moving in the right direction—and so it's called the Swan. It’s also a symbol of the moon, or female. Last, are those potions that symbolize the sun. This final chemical wedding should create the philosopher’s stone. I have created many such stones, but none has been strong enough to transmute me into immortality. Each stone only has a finite amount of power which can be used up. At that point, the stone dies.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Alchemy gathers and concentrates energy to make its transformations. It amplifies and dramatically speeds up what happens naturally over eons but still, it must follow physical rules. Those rules can be bent and skewed as needed, but never broken."

  Michael grimaced with boredom. "That's nothing new."

  “Creating gold is simple, merely increasing the speed of a natural process. But to bend the process of mortality to create immortality, the stone must be massively powerful—as this one is.” William Claude all but caressed the stone in his hand.

  “So, now that you have the stone, what will you do with it?”

  “For years, every day, I have taken a small portion of a philosopher’s stone—one I created using my formula, dissolved the stone's shavings in wine and ingested a teaspoonful. The elixir energizes me, retards aging, and increases my psychic powers to an extraordinary degree, as I believe you’ve come to realize. When I take a tablespoon or two, I’m greatly invigorated, but only for a short time.

  “Now, I intend to ingest a generous portion of this most powerful pearl. And doing so will, finally, make me more than human.”

  “Or,” Michael said, “the increased physical energy in your body will cause you to go mad, if not kill you. The pearl has contained three powerful demons for centuries. How could you dare to ingest it?”

  “I don’t care about those demons.” William Claude snorted with contempt. “This pearl is so powerful it will not only heal diseased, aged organs, but will allow such repair to continue time and again. It will be as if I am immortal. After one thousand or two thousand years, I won’t really care.” With that, he took the pearl and placed it in a vice. He picked up a diamond tipped chisel and solid gold hammer.

  Immediately, the mist that had floated to the ceiling when the stone was removed from the bronze, now congealed into a black cloud. As William Claude studied the best place to strike the stone, the cloud began to swirl around the room.

  “Stop!” Michael shouted. “Don’t do it. You don’t know what you’re dealing with. If you strike it wrong and break the stone, those demons will no longer be drawn to it. They might escape both of our controls and wreak havoc on everything around them.”

  William Claude laughed. “As I expected, you want to protect the stone. That means, as much as you say you hate it, it has a power over you. With that connection, it draws the life-giving power of an alchemist from you. And now, as its new owner, it will be able to draw that power from me as well, making it even more powerful than I ever dreamed.”

  “Impossible.”

  “Is it?” As his father stared at him, his eyes turned bright red. “Clearly, you have no idea who you are dealing with.”

  Michael gasped at his eyes. “What have you done to yourself?”

  “It’s not what I’ve done, but what I’ve allowed. My elixirs have given me a sense of immortality, but it fades quickly. I want more. I want true immortality.”

  “You’re beyond mad,” Michael said. “You’re evil.”

  He smirked and then glanced at Ceinwen. “She didn’t find me evil the other night.”

  “My God,” Ceinwen whispered. “You disgusting son of a bitch.”

  Michael felt sick at what his father was implying. “You attacked her, somehow using the bite of a demon. That’s the only way you’d ever control her or anyone—make them sick and weak so they can’t act on how disgusted they are by you!”

  His expression turned smug. “And how would I know about such a bite?”

  Horror struck at those words. “What do you mean?”

  William Claude chuckled. “I never could watch you directly, but your sheriff friend was easy. That was your mistake. When he joined you to unearth the pearl, I concentrated on your location and invited some demons there to create havoc and weaken your defenses. You were right, Michael, the pearl did draw them. For a while, I could make them attack, but they were weak and easily scared off.” He stopped bothering to explain as he, again, struck the pearl.

  The sharp diamond chisel sliced off a piece that was the size of an eyelash. Claude picked it up and swallowed it. The black clouds swirled faster and faster around the room.

  Scarcely a moment passed before William Claude clutched at the laboratory table. Holding it tight as he stared at Michael and gasped for breath. He seemed to swell; his face grew black and his features blurred and altered. The lights in the laboratory flickered on and off as half the time he looked like a man, and the other half he was a demon, a hulking creature with scales and wings.

  “It can’t be,” Michael shouted.

  “It wasn’t a dream,” Ceinwen murmured. “It was him.”

  Even Stedman backed up to the far wall in shock and horror.

  The demonic Claude flicked a long tongue in Ceinwen’s direction, causing a wad of spittle to fly from its tip onto her shoulder, hitting the bite wound. She screamed with pain.

  “Do you want to continue with this argument, Michael?” Claude’s voice filled the room, boomed in their heads, but the demonic Claude stood before them.

  “You’re a coward,” Michael shouted. He had gone to Ceinwen, and was helplessly trying to comfort her. But then, remembering a gesture his father had made, calling on his innate power as an alchemist he pressed the palm of his hand against the neck wound. Immediately it seemed to give her some relief. “Take me on, not her!”

  Claude once again turned human. “No. I may need you. Help me, or you’ll watch more t
han one painful wound appear on her body.” He took up the hammer and chisel and struck the pearl. The chisel slid off it, leaving the pearl unmarked.

  The cloud of demons shrieked. Claude struck the pearl again, and once more, the chisel slid over it, leaving not a mark. The demons whirled around them, crashing into shelves, knocking over flasks, and causing beakers to fall to the floor and shatter.

  “William Claude, father, by all you’ve ever held dear in your life, stop this!” Michael shouted over the hubbub. He pulled Ceinwen to a corner of the room and tried to shield her.

  William Claude paid no attention to him or anything else. He aimed the chisel to strike more deeply into the pearl. He hit it and it left a tiny mark, but it was enough for the swirling demons to shriek even louder. The laboratory windows blew out.

  But then William Claude’s demon self took over, and with the creature’s stronger strength, he hit the pearl again, cutting into it.

  Michael drew on his power as protector of the pearl, and as an alchemist, and shouted at the demons. “He’s going to destroy the pearl’s beauty—make it a thing of ugliness and horror, just like he is! I’ve protected you. Not him. Look at the creature he is! He’ll destroy you, use you. Do you want that thing to have power over you?”

  The swirling demons' roar grew louder.

  The demonic Claude again attempted to attack Ceinwen, but Michael was ready, and thrust out his arm between the monster’s snake-like tongue and Ceinwen’s body. It struck him and left not so much as a scratch. Michael felt power surge through him.

  The demonic Claude focused again on the pearl. He chipped off a piece larger than the last, put it in his mouth and swallowed.

  A roar filled the room, a roar so loud it caused the walls to shake and crack. Michael and Ceinwen covered their ears for fear of their eardrums exploding.

  “Stop him!” Michael ordered, his voice strong as he used his authority over the unleashed entities. The battle for control was now between him and his father.

  A small tornado-like cloud, what Michael called a “dust devil” as a child, suddenly appeared near William Claude. Where it spun, the floor caught on fire. The fire quickly sprang up and widened, soon reaching the wooden desk filled with stacks of research papers. The legs of the desk burned as the fire rose, reaching and igniting the papers. William Claude slapped at them, trying to extinguish the flames.