by Anton Strout
“It just seemed like this might be a better place for you and me to talk privately,” I said. “I love Rory and Marshall, and they’re a huge help—even though they don’t have to help me at all. But they don’t really get what I’m going through all the time. Outside of fighting the good fight and prepping for whatever’s coming, Rory’s got her dance, and Marshall’s got his store. I’ve got . . . Well, I’ve got this. The family’s true legacy. It’s a singular focus, you know.”
Caleb nodded. “Mastering any art is a commitment,” he said.
I found comfort in his understanding of it.
“I thought maybe if I brought you here,” I said, “we could get away from all that noise and maybe find ourselves in a place where we could each work with someone who’s just as like-minded. Until meeting you, I hadn’t really thought that there’d be others out there who dealt in the things Alexander practiced. As far as I knew, he had locked those secrets away as part of protecting not just his family but the rest of the world. When I began uncovering them, it just felt like my own family burden to bear. It’s just, I don’t know . . . nice to have someone to talk shop with . . . ? Does that come across as insane? Does that even sound normal?”
Caleb laughed. “As normal as that can sound, yes.” His focus shifted past me. “May I ask what that is?”
I spun on my stool to face the draped drop cloth rising up in the middle of the far end of the art studio.
“Come with me,” I said, taking his hand. He didn’t resist my hand in his, holding tight as we crossed the room. I guided him carefully through the mess on the floor until we were standing by the draped cloth.
“Voila!” I shouted, pulling it free like a magician revealing his latest and greatest of tricks. The mannequin form stood there with the giant set of giant bat wings I had been sculpting onto it, impressively spanning nearly eight feet across.
“Holy shit,” he said, running his hand along the interior side of the left one. “Are these stone?”
I laughed. “Hardly. If they were, given their size, I think they’d have snapped the dummy form in two and crashed through several stories of the building.”
Caleb put one hand to either side of the form, slipped his fingers under the wing’s lower edge, and lifted. “They’re light.”
“They should be,” I said. “It’s clay over chicken wire. They’re hollow, but they hold their shape.”
“You plan on going all Icarus?” he asked.
I laughed. “No,” I said. “But sculpting comes hard to me, and if I’m ever going to master it for the sake of Spellmasonry, I need the practice. This is a study in building a gargoyle, working off the human form and adding to it. Once I figure out the right sense of proportion, I’ll move the full statue carving over to stone.”
“Could you animate these?” he asked, letting his hands trace over the arcs and ridges of the wings themselves. “If you attached them to a harness or something?”
“It’s just a prototype,” I reiterated. “An experiment. With all this broken stuff around here and needing to step up my art game, I just wanted to model them first before ordering a freight elevator’s worth of solid stone to go full dimension.”
“I get that, but could you animate just these?” he asked again.
I thought a moment before answering.
“It’s possible,” I said. “I’ve used clay on parts of Bricksley for the hands and feet, and he seems to be operating just fine.”
“What is a ‘Bricksley’?” he asked.
“You’ll probably meet him,” I said with a smile. “In due time.” I ran my hands over the top of the wings up to the sharpened claws I had modeled onto the tips, which gave them an extra-creepy Gothic touch. “In theory, I suppose I could animate these full-scale like this. It’s a lot more clay than I’m used to exerting control over, but I think it could work. The minerals in clay are those of broken-down rock for the most part, so if I could enchant them . . . sure, why not?”
“These are truly fantastic,” he said, his hands pressing against the faux-leathery texture I had tried to replicate in my sculpting of them.
“Thank you,” I said, hoping that the dim light of the room hid my burning red face, but by the way Caleb was looking at me, it probably wasn’t.
“You’re blushing,” he said.
I sighed. “It’s one thing when my friends or family compliment my work, but it’s uniquely refreshing to hear a compliment from someone who actually does what I do.”
“I could never do something like this,” he said, running his hand along the edge of the wings up to the clawed tips. “I mix and fill vials. I’m no artist—more of a bartender, really.”
“Maybe not with stone or canvas,” I said, “but from what you know of alchemy alone, you are an artist.”
He smiled at me, then gave a deep bow. “Well, thank you.”
“My pleasure,” I said, meeting his smile with my own.
Our eyes locked in the dimly lit studio, the moment lingering longer than I found comfortable. His shifted his eyes away for a second, no doubt in reaction to my discomfort. When he looked back at me, it was his turn to look uncomfortable because I was still staring at him, delighting in the discomfort I was causing him.
He stepped toward me, but I didn’t move away, instead welcoming his advance as his hands slipped around my body, one to the base of my neck and the other to the small of my back. The strong press of his lips met mine. The scruff of his face rubbed hard against my cheek, and although the suddenness of it all caught me off my guard, I found myself wrapping my arms over his shoulders, welcoming all of it, meeting his passion.
My mind shut down all rational thought as I fell into the moment. Sharing more than just a mutual passion for the arcane felt more than right, and I would have gladly shared more given the reaction my body was having to him, but Caleb pushed away from me, showing a restraint I certainly wasn’t. My eyes opened, but his were still closed a moment longer before they opened and a slow, deliberate smile overtook his face.
“Sorry,” he said. “I needed to do that.”
“Needed to, huh?” I smiled. “Was it a chore?”
“Wanted to,” he corrected.
“That’s better,” I said, my smile widening, but I couldn’t help but notice a bit of reluctance in his eyes now. “Is that not a good thing?”
“Oh no,” he said. “Don’t get me wrong. It was very good. But I needed to do that because . . . I’m not sure if I’m ever going to get to do it again.”
My smile wavered. Was I that bad a kisser? It had been a while for me, sure, and I was definitely out of practice, but I wasn’t that bad, was I?
“We could give it another chance,” I suggested.
“That’s not it,” he said, looking down at the rubble around his feet. “Working with you this past week has been fantastic. And kissing you . . . Well, it’s just that I’m afraid after what I have to tell you, you won’t let me do it again.”
“Awesome,” I said, my heart already sinking. “That’s what I get for living in the moment. Out with it. What is it?”
“You remember back at Roll for Initiative when you were talking about Stanis?”
I nodded. “Yeah, and . . . ?”
He stepped back from me, and held his hands up in front of him. “You sound irritated already,” he said. “I don’t think going into this irritated is going to help.”
“You know what’s even more irritating?” I asked, the pit of my stomach twisting up on me. “Being told not to be irritated.”
“Fine, fine!” he rushed out, clasping his hands together as if in prayer. “It’s just that I’ve seen him—Stanis. Like, recently.”
I fell silent, making sure my jaw hadn’t dropped open. “I’m sorry—what?”
“Stanis,” he said. “Remember how Desmond Locke and I both told you I was a free
lancer? Well, some of my projects outside the Libra Concordia are more freelance than others.”
I stepped toward him, my tone rising. “Meaning what, exactly?”
“Look, Lexi . . .”
“Nuh-uh,” I said. “Alexandra. ‘Lexi’ is reserved for my friends.”
He smiled. “We were pretty friendly a moment ago,” he said, trying to soften the situation, but I wasn’t about to let that happen.
“Funny how that’s gone away,” I said, suddenly furious. “What do you know about Stanis?”
“Well, Alexandra,” he started, choosing his words carefully now. “That’s the thing. I didn’t know much about him. From my side of the freelance experience, there wasn’t too much to know. He was a job that came in.”
“Caleb,” I said, grabbing him by his shoulders. “What are you trying to tell me here?”
“As I said, he was one of my freelance jobs,” he said, unable to meet my eyes, looking down at his feet instead. “A lot of what I do isn’t pretty. I was hired to help break down his will and gain control of him.”
“Jesus, Caleb. Did you ever stop to consider what you might be doing or to whom?”
“The pay was good,” he said with no pride in his word. “Great, actually, and when it’s that high, you learn not to ask too many questions, all right? I did what they paid me for. I brought Stanis back in line with what my employer, Kejetan, wanted.” Caleb broke away from me and stepped back, slipping on one of the broken statues, his arms pinwheeling before he righted himself.
“If you’re working for Kejetan, then you’ve met Devon,” I said.
“He’s a charmer, that one,” he said.
“My brother wasn’t any more charming when he was alive, believe me,” I said.
“I’m proud to say I don’t see any family resemblance,” he said.
I fell silent for a minute, going over everything he had said, my mind sticking on one point.
“What do you mean when you said ‘brought in line’?” I asked, feeling sick.
Caleb paused before reluctantly answering. “When you’re trying to bind something into servitude, you need to break down its natural resistances,” he said. “Stone, being the strongest, is the most stubborn of materials when it comes to a golem. You need to hammer away at its natural strength, breaking what I thought was its base animal will, then replace it with another ruling will.”
“You know what that sounds like?” I shouted at him, shaking. “That sounds like torture . . .”
“It was,” he said, finally meeting my eye.
“So, what?” I asked. “You tortured his soul right out of his body? Is that why he’s acting the way he is?”
Caleb shook his head. “No,” he said. “He’s in there still. You can’t quite force something that strong to give up its form, but you can repress it.”
“Who are you?” I said. “Does Desmond Locke approve of all this? He’s watched over my father and this family for decades. He says it’s to monitor us, to keep balance in the name of the Libra Concordia, which is supposedly a good thing if I’m supposed to believe him, but you—”
“The Libra Concordia has no idea of my other affairs,” Caleb said quickly, his eyes full of worry. “A good freelancer learns not to let his activity with one group of clients get in the way of profiting off another. I would prefer that my other freelance work not be something the Libra Concordia take notice of. I’m trying to come clean here with you after wronging Stanis the way I have. Jesus.”
“So you’ll do just about anything for money?” I spat out.
Caleb’s eyes sharpened, and he straightened up. “If I have to,” he said. “Yes.”
“Unbelievable,” I said.
“Don’t you judge me,” he said, defensive. “I have a talent. A skill. So I get paid for using it. I’m sorry I don’t have a guild hall downtown and a spare alchemical research library in Gramercy at my disposal.”
“There are more honest ways of making a living than working for madmen,” I suggested.
“Honesty is a luxury afforded to the rich,” he said, his anger matching mine now. “Yes, I have a pride in the skills I have. I live for the challenge of answering the question can I pull this arcane trick off? Everything I earn goes into my survival. Supplies for what I do, the thrill of the next great job . . . That’s where my money goes. I offer services most don’t, that most can’t, and sometimes those services go to those who pay the most. So, yes, I try not to ask too many questions because then that makes me a liability to my clients. One that might make them want me dead. But I keep it nice and clean. I go in, I do my job, and I get my money.”
“It makes you an accomplice to their crimes,” I said.
“When you don’t have the luxury of taking the moral high road, it’s better to think of it like this: If someone runs somebody over, you don’t go after the guy who made the car, do you? No. It’s simply a thing. How people use it is where it gets all ambiguous. So somebody comes to me wanting to be stronger or to cure something that ails them or whatever they want to do with what I can provide them, so I sell it to them. I don’t ask what they plan to do with it.”
“Oh that is such bullshit,” I said. “You know what they’re going to do with it. You just choose to turn a blind eye to it.”
Caleb shrugged. “I won’t deny that I’ve probably got a good idea sometimes, sure. In that case, I tend to charge a little higher to burden them more and maybe ease my conscience a little.”
“So noble,” I said, shaking my head.
“Nobility is for those who can afford it, too,” he said. “I won’t apologize for who I am or what I do, but I’m telling you all this because I am trying to help you here.”
I resisted the urge to shake him or drop the ceiling on him. “How is any of this helpful? And why now?”
“Because helping you helps me,” he said, his voice calming now. “Yes, I do jobs that I don’t particularly like, okay? But knowing you and your friends . . . knowing what Stanis means to you all now . . . I can’t do it anymore. If I can fix this, maybe I can not feel as shitty as I do right now about what I’ve done to Stanis. About what I am still doing.”
“So you’re just going to go back on your deal with the Servants of Ruthenia?” I asked. “Good luck with that.”
Caleb shook his head.
“I know these people, this Kejetan,” he said. “I can’t just drop him and his rocky friends as clients. That would get me killed in a heartbeat, but I can find out some things that might help you out. There may be a way that I can help your Stanis without their knowing about it if I play this smart.”
“I can help him myself,” I said, bitterness in my voice. “I just need more information from you.”
Caleb shook his head.
“I can’t tell you anything more than I have just now,” he said. “You know how dangerous Kejetan and the Servants of Ruthenia can be. The less you know, the greater chance we all get out of this alive.”
“How do I know you won’t just turn around and give everything we’ve discovered together this week right over to Kejetan?”
Caleb thought for a moment. “Honestly, you don’t,” he said. “But if that were what I was going to do, why would I even bring any of this up to you?”
As frustrating as it was to admit, he had a point. He could have just kept his mouth shut. Still, I needed answers.
“Tell me where they are, Caleb,” I pleaded.
“I can’t,” he said. “Not just yet. I don’t need you exacting justice in your own special way. Not with the friends you have. Rory’s got a temper. She’d want to meet them head-on, and right now, for your safety and especially for mine, I can’t have that.”
“I could beat it out of you,” I threatened.
Caleb grabbed for the trim of his coat, pulling it back while his other hand poised over the vials
within like a gunslinger over his gun.
“I don’t think you want to do that,” he said. “We know how that turned out the last time you tried to win against me.”
The image of Rory unconscious on the floor of my great-great-grandfather’s guild hall filled my mind’s eye, as well as my pained helpless memory of the situation. “Maybe I’m willing to take that chance on a rematch.”
“Easy, easy,” he said, backing away another foot, his hands staying poised. “We were getting along so well, too.”
I stood there for a moment longer, the two of us staring at each other in a game of chicken. Given the smile beneath his half-crazed eyes, I could tell the bastard was enjoying this just a bit too much, which only angered me.
Pissed as I was, I had to play this smart myself, so, breaking my gaze away from him as I slumped onto the stool behind me, I crossed my arms, then rubbed my eyes.
“So now what?” I asked.
Caleb let go of his coat and dropped his hands to his side, walking back over to me.
“I could have kept quiet,” he reminded. “I could have kept pretending about who I am and what I know. You never would have known where Stanis is or the things I have done to him, but listen . . . that’s not how I want this. Working with you these past few days . . . This makes so much sense to me, and I think you’re of a similar mind, yes?”
“I still think you should tell me everything you can,” I said.
“I can’t,” he said. “As it stands, it’s bad enough that you know anything. And remember, you can’t tell anyone at the Libra Concordia about this.”
Despite the warm fuzzies I had been feeling a few moments ago, I had to shut all that down.
“If I even get a hint of your screwing me over, Caleb, Desmond Locke will be the first to hear of your extracurricular activities. I can promise you that.”
“Believe me, I don’t want any undue attention from either side of things,” he said, backing away toward the rear of the studio. “I’d hate to get a bad rep for my bad rep.”
