by Matt Ryan
The English pub smelled of beer and stale air. I stared across the wooden table at my mom and Niles. Mark sat next to me and raised his hand at a passing waitress.
“Excuse me—can we all get some water?”
“Speak for yourself,” Niles said. “Bring me a pint of your best bitter, please.”
The waitress nodded and walked off toward the bar.
Mom leaned forward and whispered, “You’re sure you told no one?”
“Yes, for the tenth time,” I said.
“This is the biggest step forward. I don’t want to get anything wrong.”
“If they try anything, I’ll make quick work of it, I assure you,” Niles said.
A group of men sitting at the bar laughed and patted each other on the back. They were wearing some kind of sports jersey and were watching a soccer match on TV. I scanned the rest of the room, looking for a suspicious person, but no one stood out. Even so, I couldn’t shake the feeling we were being watched.
The waitress returned and set three glasses of water on the table and then slid the beer closer to Niles.
“Thank you,” Mark said.
“Aye, thanks,” Niles said, and took a swig. “Oh, that is good. You know how hard it is to get a decent bitter where we’re at?”
My mom rolled her eyes. “Just take it easy. I want us all to be lucid for what’s coming next.”
“I told ya, I got it,” Niles said.
“The last time I heard that, we lost half of the Intrepid.”
Niles lowered his head and got lost in his beer.
“You think we’ve been here long enough?” I asked.
“Just a bit longer, I’d say.” Mom regarded me. “You sure this is the place?”
The memories Blane had donated to my consciousness stirred up and I saw the field not far from here, the path leading to it from this very spot. This pub had been a horse corral a few hundred years ago. I could even smell the horse dung and feel the sweltering summer breeze. They were Blane’s memories, and I felt his paranoia. He feared somebody would get the stone before him.
Among the memories he had spilled into me, not one contained how to make the stone. He had kept those memories to himself. In fact, all of his alchemy memories were blank to me. He hadn’t wanted to give me an ounce of them.
“I know we’ve discussed this, but you guys didn’t see into this man’s mind like Mark and I did. You have to know we can’t trust him. Anything he does will be for his benefit, furthering his chances of getting the stone. He’s obsessed with it.”
“She’s right. I felt it in him. He’s totally mental,” Mark said.
“We know, and it’s not like we’re going to just spring him free into the world. There are ways to deal with unruly alchemists,” Mom said.
“Yeah, I spent a day in your alchemist summer camp of hell,” Mark said.
Just hearing him mention those holding cells made me gag.
“This is a bit different,” she explained. “We’ll have to find a way to work with him and still get what we want.”
“And if he doesn’t comply?” I asked, knowing full well he wouldn’t.
“We’ll kill him,” Niles said.
“What?” My head spun as I took in his nasty sneer.
“Niles is being extreme, as is his way,” Mom soothed, shooting Niles a glare. “But we’ll have to lie to him—do whatever it takes to get him to help us. But if it all fails, we can’t leave a person with that kind of knowledge loose in the world. Quinn would suck him up and might have better luck with information extraction. I’ve heard Quinn has made advancements with a compulsion stone. So, yes, in that scenario, it’d be best to kill him.”
Mark blew out a long breath and leaned back.
“Mom, we aren’t murderers,” I said.
“I think it’s time,” Mom said, staring at the door to the pub.
Annoyed, I slid out of the booth behind Mark. Niles led the way toward the front door, with Mom bringing up the rear. The men at the bar cheered again, pounding on the bar with their fists, rattling their drinks and getting dirty looks from the bartender.
I eyed each person as we passed through the pub. There must have been twenty people in there, and what was it, two in the afternoon? A guy sitting by himself at the bar gazed at me as I walked by. He gave me a smile and a tiny nod. I looked away, realizing he might have been flirting with me, taking my staring as an invitation to do so. I grasped Mark’s hand to eliminate any such notions.
“If they do it, it’ll be just outside,” Mom whispered.
I took a deep breath and followed Niles through the door. I brought a stone into my hand and felt my heart racing up into my throat as we all stepped into the bright daylight.
I searched the small parking lot for any motion. A couple of guys wearing the same sports jerseys as the guys inside were walking toward the bar. Niles faced them as they approached.
“What’s your problem, mate?” one of the guys asked.
“Nothing.”
“Then back off.”
Niles stepped back and I saw the stone in his hand. Those guys were smart enough not to press the big man, and walked into the bar.
Something slapped the back of my neck. I tried to lift my arm but it wouldn’t move. I was frozen in place. Niles was frozen too, closing his eyes in frustration before looking up at the roof behind us. My eyes could still move and I saw Mark and Mom also stuck in place. Standing in front of the pub like statues . . . we’d already lost, and we hadn’t even seen who had bested us yet.
Axiom jumped off the roof and landed next to Niles. His bright white hair looked disheveled and his face was contorted with a mixture of lunacy and pleasure. Two more guys jumped from the roof and I recognized one of them: Leo. How perfect for him to be here. But he didn’t look happy walking behind Axiom. I didn’t recognize the third guy, but his face looked like stone—emotionless, with a piercing gaze.
“You really thought we wouldn’t find you?” Axiom taunted.
A woman exited the bar and stopped, staring at the frozen display in front of her.
“Brady,” Axiom said.
Brady tossed a stone that struck her neck. She collapsed to the ground.
“Come on, guys. She’s just a rube,” Leo said, and Axiom shot him a look. Leo held it for a second and then looked at the ground.
Brady pulled the woman away, toward a group of cars. I heard a door open and then slam shut.
Axiom moved closer to me. I smelled a mixture of sweat and cologne. His platinum hair clashed with his brown eyebrows. He grabbed my face with both hands and squeezed. I would have screamed, but my throat was seized.
“It’s in here.” He tapped on my forehead with a heavy finger. “Everything we need to know. You resisted my stone the first time. Good on you. But when we’re done this time around, you’ll be begging to tell us everything you know. And if you’re good, I’ll let you tell me at that point.”
“Axiom?” Leo called.
“What?” he said from behind clenched teeth.
“Brady hasn’t come back.”
“Shit. Spread out.” Axiom ran away from me, putting a stone in his hand, looking in all directions.
“He might just be messing with that woman. He’s done it before—” Leo collapsed to the ground before he could finish his sentence.
“Come on out!” Axiom yelled. “Show yourself, coward!”
Jackie appeared from behind a car. She was holding a black stone in her hand as she moved toward Axiom.
He laughed and tossed a stone into the sky and another right behind it. They struck each other with perfect precision and burst open in a solid black cloud. It rapidly permeated the area and blacked out the sky around us. I couldn’t see anything, and I suddenly felt as if I was floating in the void between places. Panic filled me as I thought of our plan failing. Axiom would take me and do terrible things to me. I wanted to scream into the blackness.
I closed my eyes and listened, hearing footsteps
off to my left. The noise grounded me and I sighed in relief. Come on, Jackie, kick his ass.
A bright light flashed on the ground, lighting up Axiom’s location a few feet from me. Shock filled his face and he turned to the bright light. A stone flew at him and he batted it down, then returned one with fervor, but it was too late; another stone had already struck him in the back of the neck. He groaned and slumped to the asphalt.
The blackness vanished and the blazing light of the sun returned, temporarily blinding me. I squinted, searching for Jackie. I felt a hand on the back of my neck, then a stone pressing against it. My body was released from its frozen grip and I stumbled forward, looking at my functioning hands. I turned to see Jackie, and rushed to throw my arms around her in a bone-crushing bear hug.
“Blimey hell, what’s going on out here?” A man was standing at the pub door, looking at the sky and the mixture of people lying on the ground and standing frozen like statues.
“It’s a flash mob. We do these improv spectacles for fun. What do you think?” Jackie asked.
The man gazed at her as if she were an alien. “Kids,” he grunted. Shaking his head, he went back into the pub.
Jackie moved around, unfreezing us. Mom, once released, ran to Axiom. She knelt down and rummaged through his pockets, yanking out stones and several vials. She then took off his shoes. “Strip them down,” she instructed.
I saw a girl lying on the ground. “Carly!” I ran to her and lifted her head. “Is she going to be okay?” I put my ear next to her mouth and felt a faint breath blowing into my ear.
“I don’t know,” Mom said. “Did anyone see what she was hit with?”
“It was kind of dark,” Jackie said, walking over to Leo.
Mom had Axiom stripped down to his underwear. She pulled out a stone and dropped it on his chest.
His body disappeared.
“So we meet again, Leo.” Jackie paced near his body. “The pleasure’s all mine, I’m sure.” She kicked him in the ribs and his body shifted from the impact. She knelt down and grabbed his shirt, then pulled him closer to her face as she whispered to him. I couldn’t hear the words, but watched as spit flew from her mouth. I knew that in that moment, Jackie could’ve made any stone in the world.
She dropped him to the ground and his head thumped with a sickening, hollow sound. She slapped his face. Not satisfied, she slapped it again. She then went into a rage on his face and chest.
Mom pulled her off. “Help me you daft, nit,” she said, and went to pull off Leo’s shoes.
Jackie took some pleasure in being the most abusive clothes remover in history. When Leo was down to just his boxers, Mom dropped a stone on his chest—and he disappeared.
“Jackie, where’s Brady?”
She didn’t respond, but I spotted tears in her eyes as she stared at the ground where Leo had been. She shook her head and looked at my mom. “Behind the black Mini Cooper over there.”
“Jackie, take Carly back to Chang. He should know how to help her,” Mom said.
“Fine. But I want to know where you put Leo.”
“Not now. Carly needs your help.”
Jackie knelt next to Carly and grasped her hand. Before I could blink, they were gone.
Mom ran to the Mini Cooper and looked around. “He’s gone. We don’t have much time, then. Come on, let’s go.” She stormed toward the end of the parking lot.
Applause sounded from the pub. I jerked at the noise and turned to the group of four guys standing in the doorway.
“That was great!” one cheered.
“How the hell did you guys do that?” another said, looking toward the sky. “Those freaking guys just disappeared.”
“Thank you,” Jackie said. “Support your local theater.”
We left the pub with four new fans and rushed across the parking lot, hopped over a wood split-rail and into the meadow beyond.
“You lead the way,” Mom said.
I nodded and closed my eyes, seeing the path Blane had laid out for me. “This way.”
We walked far enough away from the pub to have disappeared over the rolling hills. Then I spotted it, a bunch of trees forming an odd circle in the middle of a grassy field.
“He’s in that one.”
Mom’s eyes brightened and she darted ahead, toward the cluster of trees.
I jogged behind her, and Niles and Mark followed close by. Under any other circumstances, I might have been able to enjoy a beautiful English day in Ashdown Forest. But I felt sluggish moving toward Blane. I didn’t even have time to process what we’d just done in front of the pub. We’d captured Axiom, taking him out of the equation, and Leo, for that matter, as well.
We slowed down as we approached the wall of trees.
My mom paced near it and waved us over. “Be prepared for another attack,” she said, and then stepped into the forest.
We followed her in, and the canopy shaded us as a cool breeze swept by. A few birds chirped at the strangers entering their domain. I couldn’t believe we were actually going to do this.
Mark took my hand in his. “We’ve got this,” he said.
I nodded and walked into the circular clearing in the middle of the trees. “There.” I pointed to the center of the circle.
“Here?” Mom asked.
“Yes, about six feet down.”
“Dissolve the first few feet,” Mom said to Niles.
Niles pulled out a stone and dropped it on the ground. It hissed and then melted into the dirt. The dirt fell into a hole created by the liquid. Niles dropped a few more stones on the dirt and they all formed an even larger hole in the ground. I peered over the edge and crinkled my nose at the pungent sulfur smell.
“We’ll have to dig the rest,” Niles said, and took out two tiny shovels from his pocket. “Stand back.” He placed a stone on each shovel and they grew to normal size.
“That’s pretty cool,” I said. Alchemy never ceased to amaze me, with all of its endless possibilities. If I’d had my way, I would have studied it constantly, trying to find out how to make, or even develop, every stone possible.
Mark and Niles jumped down into the hole and started digging. Dirt was flung out for the next twenty minutes, until we all heard a thud.
I rushed to the edge. Mark’s head barely cleared the top of the hole as he plunged his shovel back into the soil. It clanked again, and he frantically dug a hole to the top of the object. He knelt down and used his hands to spread away the last of the dirt covering the dark brown and green surface.
“Copper top,” Niles said, and tapped the copper. “Don’t worry, Grandpa, we’re getting you out.”
Niles worked like a madman to remove the rest of the dirt from the coffin. I staggered back when a scoop of dirt struck me in the chest. Mark worked in unison with him and soon the sound of shovels striking copper became rhythmic and steady.
Suddenly, the sound stopped and the shovels flew outside the hole. I felt safe to return to the edge with Mom—but she kept going closer. One more inch, and I thought she would fall into the hole with them.
“You see him?” Mom asked.
“We’ve got the top, Cathy, but this lid weighs a ton.” Niles grunted as he and Mark grasped the edges, trying to pull it up.
“Clear the sides. Maybe it’s caught.”
They spent the next few minutes pulling dirt out with their hands. “Get this side with me, Mark,” Niles said. They gave it their full effort, but the top still wouldn’t move.
“We thought this might happen. We’ll need a tractor or a winch to get this thing open,” Mom said.
“I can portal, get some stuff—” I started to say, then the birds all scattered and flew away.
“Someone must have portaled nearby. I’d bet my life,” Mom said, looking at the sky.
“We don’t have time, then. Toss me the stone,” Niles said, holding out his hand.
“It’s too dangerous. We can deal with them and then take this lid off.”
“You know
they’re coming better prepared this time. And we don’t have a Jackie up our sleeves anymore.”
Mom took a stone out of her pouch and stared at the green swirls wrapping around braids of brown. When she tossed the stone down, Niles caught it with his bare hand.
“Get out, Mark,” he said.
Mark jumped up and pulled himself out of the hole.
“What did you give him?” I asked.
“Strength stone,” Mom said, staring at Niles.
Niles bent down and grasped the edge of the copper lid. He pulled with all his might, and the metal lid rolled back like a top of a sardine can.
“This is the last chance,” a girl’s voice said.
I turned to see Iggy standing by herself at the edge of the clearing. Her eyes looked glazed and her skin was pale. She took a step closer and stopped, batting down a stone my mom threw at her.
“Please don’t do that.”
“They’ve turned her,” Mom said, her voice cracking. “Iggy, you can fight it. Don’t let them take over your body.”
Iggy laughed. “I’m in control of my body. I’ve been shown the future. If you get the stone, Cathy, our world will become bleak and dark. Your thirst for stones will become unquenchable. You will go to any and all extremes to possess the stones. You will lose your daughter.”
“What stone did they use? A hallucination stone?” Mom asked. “This is ridiculous. I’m going to bring order to the world. There will be no wars, and we can all finally live in peace.”
“It was a seer stone,” Iggy said. “I’m the furthest thing away from hallucinating.”
My mom’s eyes went wide in surprise.
“You will bring death,” Iggy continued. “Quinn has shown me the future if he gets the stone, and it’s a utopia. You can both live out your lives in freedom.” She turned her attention to me. “Don’t you want to live in peace with Mark, Allie?”
I didn’t answer and looked to my mom.
The copper lid flew out of the hole and landed near Iggy. She didn’t flinch.
“You’re too late,” Mom said.
Iggy pulled out a knife and held it to her throat. “If you don’t leave Blane in that hole, I will end my life.”
