The Transparency Tonic

by Frank L. Cole

  His mom stopped and cocked an eyebrow. “That would be a bold move, keeping the Vessel at her own house, but I wouldn’t put it past that woman.”

  “None of us will be allowed to get close to the house without permission,” Zelda said. “And I don’t think Talia’s going to just open the door for us. Not while she’s performing an ExSpongement on your father.”

  “Maybe we could sneak in,” Gordy suggested, the formulation of a crazy idea beginning to percolate in his mind.

  Max scoffed. “You just reminded everyone about Sasha’s wards, remember? There’s no sneaking in the front door.”

  “That may be true.” Gordy grinned and looked at Adilene. “But I’m pretty sure my best friend here has something that could help.”

  Harper Hood Lane gave off an unsettling vibe. Most of the mansions had their outside lights extinguished, save for one motion-detecting bulb above the garages, the windows reflecting moonlight like square-shaped eyes gazing down upon the SUV.

  Priss pulled off to the side of the road a few houses away from the Brexils and shut off the engine. Gordy’s mom tucked vials into various belt loops and the pockets of her blue jeans. Her satchel was too big and bulky for a stealth operation, and she intended to go in as quietly and discreetly as possible. Zelda sat next to Gordy, arming herself, only the potions she selected were the type that could blast bricks from the walls.

  “Okay, kiddo,” Gordy’s mom said, peering over the top of her seat. “We’re going to form a circle, and you’ll stay in the middle, right?”

  “Right,” Gordy said. “How will I see you?”

  “Just follow our voices,” Aunt Priss instructed. “We’ll try to stick together, and if we need to, we have Cadence’s keystone that we can use to see each other.”

  “Perhaps I should take that,” Zelda suggested. “That way you can keep hold on each other without worrying about me.”

  Gordy’s mom nodded and handed Zelda the rock. She then reached back and squeezed Gordy’s hand. “You won’t throw any potions unless you have to, deal?”

  “How will I know when I have to?” he asked.

  “When all of us are either dead or disabled,” Zelda answered. “That would be the perfect opportunity for you.”

  While he had plenty of potions at his disposal, Gordy, like his mother, wasn’t going to take his satchel. He equipped himself with some Purista Powder, another Torpor Tonic, and a mini bottle of Detection Spray. Should he chance to come upon a Dire Substance inside the Brexils’ home, which was a definite possibility, the spray could come in handy. Gordy also held on to Adilene’s vial of Silt, though only a couple of drops remained. His mom had Cadence’s bottle, and between the two of them, they had just enough potion to get onto the property and past the wards. Gordy had no idea how long they would remain invisible, but a single drop of Silt couldn’t amount to much.

  After taking Max and Adilene home, even though they fiercely protested not being there, Bolter took the Subaru and transported Cadence and Carlisle—still securely tied up—to Tobias’s farm, where they would remain until Bolter got word from Gordy’s mom that all was well. If they were successful in finding Mezzarix, Gordy needed to be there along with his Clasping Cannikin to help his grandfather survive. That is, if they found him in time.

  “Do we drink this, then?” Priss asked, eyeing the vial of Silt.

  Gordy nodded. “There needs to be enough for all of us.”

  Gordy’s aunt dabbed a drop of the liquid onto her tongue. When she closed her mouth, Priss disappeared. It was as though someone had turned off a light and blinked Priss out of existence. The same thing happened with his mom and Zelda and finally with Gordy. The four of them exited the car, quietly shutting the doors behind them.

  Being invisible was weird. He didn’t feel different, but Gordy could see right through his hands as though he were a phantom come back from the dead. Staying between his mom and Priss without actually seeing them was almost impossible. Then he felt a hand reach out and latch on to his arm, and he breathed a sigh of relief.

  “It’s going to be all right,” he heard his mom whisper. “We’re going to get in, save your grandpa, and get out.”

  “I know, Mom,” he said, though he thought his heart might explode.

  The front door to the Brexils’ home opened without a hitch. It hadn’t even been locked, and Gordy didn’t feel the tug or pull of protective wards trying to push him away. Entering the grand hallway, he peered into an adjoining living room just off the stairs. Empty. The kitchen was empty too, and so was the study, the dining room, and both of the main-level bathrooms. There was a bedroom at the end of the hallway, and bluish light glowed from the slit beneath the door.

  Gordy held his breath, remembering that was the master bedroom, but as they approached the door, the bluish light flashed, and the sound of a television drifted out from the room. Principal Brexil was probably watching his evening shows. So where were the others? Where were Sasha and Madame Brexil?

  Gordy’s mom suggested going upstairs, but Priss adamantly refused.

  “They’re not like you,” Priss whispered. “They wouldn’t keep a lab upstairs.”

  “She’s right,” Gordy chimed in, remembering his conversation with Sasha. “The Brexils’ lab is in the basement.” If Madame Brexil had hidden the Vessel down there, it was no wonder they hadn’t been allowed to brew in the lab. “But there are more wards surrounding it. Powerful ones.” Earlier, Adilene had explained what she understood about the Silt and how once they passed beneath the shield of the protective wards, they could remain there even after the Silt’s spell wore off. “We have to hurry.”

  Gordy felt his mom draw close to his ear. “Stay here, and we’ll come get you if you’re needed. I don’t know what to expect down there, and until we clear the room, I need you to stay put and out of sight. I don’t care that you’re invisible. Don’t enter any rooms or touch anything. Understood?”

  Gordy nodded, but of course his mom couldn’t see the action. “I’ll stay put,” he replied.

  He heard them softly walk away, leaving him alone in the hallway. After a few moments, a door opened upon a flight of stairs leading down into the basement. For a faint moment, Gordy could hear footsteps on the stairs, but then the door closed, snuffing out all other sounds.

  The Brexils’ home was big enough that the stairs might have stretched deep into the ground. Gordy wandered over to look at the row of fancy family pictures lining the hall that he had noticed the night of the party. He looked at the images of Sasha gradually aging with each passing portrait. She was kind of cute, Gordy thought. But mean and snobby and full of herself. One of the family portraits leaned crookedly on the wall. Gordy considered straightening it but talked himself out of it. He wasn’t supposed to touch anything or go into any room.

  But that picture wasn’t the only one that was crooked. Several of them were tilting on their hooks, and beneath the picture closest to the Brexils’ bedroom was a dark, black scuff on the wall, like the kind left by dress shoes on a gymnasium floor. Gordy knelt down and rubbed his thumb against the mark. A rubbery substance came off onto his skin, and he frowned. It looked like that scuff had happened only recently.

  Then Gordy heard something that made the invisible hairs of his invisible arms stand on end. It was the muffled sound of someone trying to call out, and it was coming from the other side of the bedroom door. Gordy straightened and looked toward the door leading to the basement. He didn’t know if he should go get his mom or just leave well enough alone. They were about to take down the Chamber President, at least temporarily, but the muffled sounds had grown louder, more desperate. Perhaps it was just coming from the television, but Gordy didn’t think so. By the way the portraits hung, crooked on the wall, it looked as though there had been a struggle in the hallway.

  Unable to resist any longer, Gordy crept forward and slowly twis
ted the bedroom door open.

  Principal Brexil and Sasha both lay on the floor, along with two other men wearing suits. All of them were bound and gagged. The two men in suits appeared to be unconscious. Sasha had tears in her eyes as she tried to wriggle free from the ropes. Neither of the Brexils had noticed the door open.

  Gordy almost ran over to help them. Then he remembered he was invisible, and he didn’t think that would go over too well with the Brexils. As quietly as he had entered the room, Gordy stepped back out into the hallway.

  Why are they tied up? He shook his head in confusion. Madame Brexil had brought Mezzarix to her home. She had the Vessel. She was in charge! Why would she tie up her own husband and daughter? And who were those other two men? If they were Elixirists from B.R.E.W., there to assist the Chamber President with the ExSpongement, then why were they unconscious? Then it dawned on Gordy.

  “Someone else is here!” he whispered.

  No longer worrying about keeping quiet, Gordy raced down the hall and saw to his horror that the door to the basement was standing wide open. He remembered his mom and Aunt Priss had closed it behind them when they had gone down. Without any hesitation, and sick with anxiety, Gordy bounded down the steps toward the lab. A thick white mist gathered at his feet and swirled along the floor, lapping at Gordy’s legs as he passed through it. Bright blue light shone from beyond the opened door at the end of the corridor, but Gordy kept running, straight through the mist and right into the room. He didn’t stop until hands closed around his arms.

  “Last one to the party, but the one everyone came to see!” a man announced from behind Gordy.

  Before Gordy could react, the man with white, fluffy hair pried the potions from his fingers and forced him into the room. Gordy’s mom, Aunt Priss, and Zelda, no longer invisible, all sat in wooden chairs, their hands tied behind them, no sign of their potions anywhere. Beside them, also tied up, was Madame Brexil, her head bowed in defeat.

  In the center of the room was a pedestal, but instead of the Vessel, the keystone had been placed there, casting magnified blue light and revealing everyone in the room.

  And lying on the floor, curled into a ball and surrounded by frothy mist, was Gordy’s grandpa, Mezzarix.

  “Hang on, old friend,” the pudgy man with the white hair said to Mezzarix. “Help is on the way. Come now, boy, don’t be a stranger.” His Irish accent sounded oddly familiar, and Gordy figured out at once that this man had to be Ravian McFarland, Tobias’s father.

  Ravian forced Gordy to his knees next to his mom’s chair.

  “I ran out of seats, I’m afraid,” Ravian said. “I hope you don’t mind playing the gentleman for now.”

  Strewn about the floor were pieces of glass and a slurry of spilled potions from busted vials. Gordy wasn’t sure how it all had gone down, but there was proof of a skirmish before Ravian had somehow subdued his mom and the others.

  The Brexils’ lab looked like something straight out of an epic fantasy movie. Mossy walls, ancient oak fixtures, and a bejeweled sarcophagus lying in one corner of the room. Gordy wondered if that box contained any mummified remains; memories of his last encounter with Bawdry made him shudder. Resting on the table were two identical jars of gray, gloppy liquid. The Clasping Cannikins, one belonging to Gordy, the other to his grandfather.

  “Where did this stuff come from?” Gordy asked, raising his hands above the floor as tendrils of mist reached for him like ghostly fingers.

  “Like that, do you?” Ravian asked. “Ancient family recipe. I’ve found that while you may be invisible to my eyes, you can’t hide from the mist.”

  Having Cadence’s keystone rigged up like a spotlight had definitely helped as well, but how had Ravian taken possession of it?

  “We were ambushed,” Gordy’s mom muttered. “I don’t know how he knew we’d be here, but Ravian was waiting for us.”

  Aunt Priss spat on the floor. “Our mistake was trying to help Mezzarix. We should have never come here.”

  “Oh, don’t be so hard on yourselves.” Ravian pressed a hand to his chest. “You did the right thing. Your dear old dad is about to kick the bucket, and he would have, too, had you not arrived in the nick of time.”

  Mezzarix groaned from the floor.

  Gordy’s mom leaned toward Madame Brexil. “Is your family all right?”

  Madame Brexil glanced up, her jaw clenched. “How would I know?”

  “They’re okay,” Gordy said. “They’re tied up in the bedroom, but they’re not hurt.”

  Relief filled Madame Brexil’s face, but followed closely by a sudden burst of anger. “Why are you in my home?” she demanded. “You’ve endangered my daughter, and you are interfering with my duty as Chamber President!”

  “You don’t understand the extent of Mezzarix’s condition,” Gordy’s mom said. “We came here to make sure he made it back to his Forbidden Zone. An ExSpongement would kill him.”

  “One less Scourge to worry about,” she muttered. “One less problem for the Chamber. And how did you even know my intentions? B.R.E.W. must have spies on every floor.”

  “We read your announcement,” Priss said. “If you wanted to keep that a secret, you should’ve never sent an email.”

  “What email? What announcement?”

  “Are we finished with the banter?” Ravian asked. He turned to Gordy. “Now, son, stick out your hand and be brave.”

  Gordy winced in surprise. “What are you going to do?”

  “I’m going to give your grandfather a boost of energy so he can survive the next while. And then it’s nighty-night for all of you—after Madame Brexil leads us to the Vessel, of course.”

  “I’ll never show you,” she said. “That much I can guarantee.”

  Ravian grinned. “We’ll see.” He picked up one of the Clasping Cannikins from the table and brought it toward Gordy. “This will be tedious and painful, but it is necessary.”

  “Keep your hands off my son!” Gordy’s mom threatened.

  Mezzarix groaned again, his body jerking, his gray hair sopping wet with sweat.

  “Wait any longer and we’ll all be attending a funeral. Is that what you want?” Ravian asked. “I don’t suspect so. Now, hand please.”

  Gordy looked at his mom and then down at Mezzarix. He extended his hand toward Ravian. In one fluid motion, Ravian grasped Gordy’s wrist and punctured his index finger with the end of a sharp blade. Gordy recoiled from the instant twinge of pain. A few drops of blood dripped from his finger into the jar.

  Ravian returned to the table, where a small metal cauldron had been set up next to a Bunsen burner. As Ravian went to work concocting a potion, throwing in ingredients that made the cauldron whistle and steam, Gordy looked up at his mom. She was crying, her cheeks streaked with tears.

  “It’s okay.” Gordy held up his finger. The blood had already started to congeal. “It doesn’t hurt.”

  “This was not how I wanted it to go,” she said. “Not with Ravian, and not at such a heavy cost.”

  Madame Brexil leaned forward, glaring at Gordy. “You came here to set Mezzarix free. One of the most dangerous Scourges to have ever lived will walk out of here because of you.”

  Why did she have to be so difficult? Wouldn’t she have done the same thing for a member of her own family? Gordy looked away from her, his focus drifting over to where Zelda knelt quietly, her eyes closed as if in tranquil meditation. No one had any satchels or potions. Never had Gordy seen his mom so vulnerable. And then, like a whisper in his ears, Gordy heard Zelda’s high-pitched voice squeaking instructions from his previous training session.

  One day, you will find yourself in trouble. You will be alone and without the use of your precious satchels.

  Gordy’s eyes flashed toward the bits of potions scattered about the floor. Orange and blue liquids, smashed pieces of cork, powders, tinctures, a
nd tonics all blending together. Their ingredients, having been spent in battle, were useless. Gordy looked to his right and saw an herb-drying rack nearby and several clusters of sneezewort and honeysuckle stems. A thought struck him.

  Could he Blind Batch something out of all these spoiled substances?

  He had done it before, when the situation needed it. Once, out of desperation, Gordy had mixed together Blogu and Oighear Ointment and made an Ice Ball that took out Bawdry the mummy. If only he had access to a cauldron. Potions needed fire to blend and mix. Without it, the magic wouldn’t take.

  Zelda’s words of instruction once more entered his mind.

  You may not even have access to a fire source. The only thing standing between you and your freedom is the notion that you don’t have what you need at your disposal.

  Ravian had neglected to tie Gordy up, whether on purpose or by accident; it made no difference. Gordy could use his hands. He could make something that might work.

  Ravian finished bustling around the workstation, and he turned and knelt beside Mezzarix, who lay dormant on the floor, hardly breathing. Ravian drew blood from Mezzarix’s finger and added it to the second jar of now-agitated liquid.

  Mezzarix gasped, taking in a deep, raspy breath. Then he began to move, slowly at first.

  “There we go, Master Rook.” Ravian coaxed Mezzarix up into a sitting position. “Take all the time you need.”

  While Ravian rubbed Mezzarix’s shoulders, Gordy closed his eyes and reached out his hands. Raking them across the floor, he encountered an oily substance, hot and acidic. His fingers tingled. Coral snake venom. That was one of the key ingredients in a Latvian Dunka Draft, one of Priss’s specialties. Gordy dragged his fingers toward him and absentmindedly broke off a sprig of sneezewort from the drying rack. He spat into his hands and rubbed the venom and herb together. Nostrils flaring, taking in the scents and smells of the lab, he reached out again. Sharp pieces of sticky glass scratched his skin, and he found traces of black rat tail and clubmoss, both used in brewing a Funnel Formula. As he added the two new ingredients, the greasy mixture began to fizzle.