Dervishes Don't Dance: A Paranormal Suspense Novel with a Touch of Romance (Valkyrie Bestiary Book 2)

by Kim McDougall

  Susanna waited for me on the basement level.

  “Hakim told me you were coming down,” she said.

  “And I brought supper.” I held up my canvas tote with our curries inside.

  “Great. I’m starving. We can eat in my lab.”

  “Really? The security guard made it sound like one sneeze might get me arrested.”

  “Hakim’s just doing his job. Alchemists are paranoid about their labs, but this place isn’t where the real work is done. It’s mostly so they can put on a good show.”

  Susanna gave me a quick tour before we headed to her lab.

  “Everyone wants a basement office here because of the security measures,” she said. “These labs are soundproof, with fire measures put in place for any accidents. They’re top of the line. I was lucky to get a space here. That’s Gerard Golovin’s lab. Can you imagine? I’m on the same floor as the prime minister!”

  Ignoring Susanna’s fan-girl gushing, I glanced into the pristine lab full of state-of-the-art equipment. It seemed like a waste if it was mostly for show.

  Before I could do any snooping, Susanna lead me to her lab. It was much more friendly, with a lived-in look despite all the machines. One section was walled off as a cubicle and here her bright personality shone through. The desk held her computer and office supplies. The cubicle walls were made of carpeted foam that allowed easy tacking up of photos. Susanna made good use of the space, covering every inch with snapshots of family or friends, old cartoons and odd alchemical designs that made no sense to me. A row of stuffed dolls sat on her cluttered desk—seven tiny witches with colorful hair under black hats.

  She kept all her personal dirt inside the cubicle. The rest of the lab was pristine. On the counters, equipment was tucked neatly under cabinets. A steel worktable filled most of the space, and the base of a huge contraption sat on that.

  The only decoration in the lab was a shelf high enough to be nearly out of reach that ran around three walls. Terra cotta gargoyle statues lined the shelf from one end to the other. These were the traditional squatting gargoyles with round faces, thick, wide mouths and heavy brows over deep-set eyes.

  “You’re making gargoyles?” I had a bad feeling about this.

  “Not really. That magic is still lost.”

  Not to mention illegal.

  Susanna glanced at the elephant in the room, the giant, lightning-filled glass ball suspended from the ceiling over the steel table. A burner was set to heat the glass from below. A second, smaller glass globe attached to the ball at an angle. All of it hooked into a computer by a fat wire. On the counter beside the device sat a jar of shiny black stones.

  “It’s a blazing alembic,” she said. “Sort of. I modified it for my own purposes. Let’s eat first, then I’ll show you how it works.”

  *

  I devoured my curry in five minutes because I hadn’t eaten since noon. Susanna picked at hers, chatting while she ate.

  “So are you and Henry Mason a thing? How does that work? You know, with him a gargoyle most of the time.”

  I choked on the water I’d been sipping.

  “No! Not a thing.” I hesitated. “Well, maybe. But what kind of thing, I don’t know. Mason is…difficult.”

  “Aren’t they all?” Susanna looked wistful.

  “Does that mean you have a certain someone?” I glanced at the photos pinned to the cubicle, but didn’t see any that looked romantic.

  “I wish.” Susanna wiped her mouth on a napkin. “No. I’m married to my work, as they say.”

  She rose and stepped over to the massive contraption hanging above the work table.

  “The blazing alembic is a traditional alchemic device. Overly simplistic really, which is why modern alchemists tend to disregard it. But sometimes the classics work best. See here? I deposit the inert specimen into this globe, and it transforms matter into energy and back again.”

  I leaned in, fascinated.

  “First, I heat the specimen over the ritualistic flame.”

  “Ritualistic? That’s a Bunsen burner.”

  “Well, usually there’s chanting involved.” Susanna flexed her hands open and closed with nervous energy.

  “Then I invoke the spirits to distill the matter, and, voilà! Energy is born. Then if I’m careful I can reverse it. Energy back into matter.”

  “So what exactly is your purpose?” I asked, not sure I really wanted to know.

  “To create life.” She grinned.

  Of course. We all had our hobbies.

  “No, I’m just kidding. No one can create life. I’m just creating energy. But with that energy, I should be able to animate one of these little statues. Sort of like a golem or a fetch. I’ve been successful a couple of times, but I can’t get the animation to stick. Do you want to see it work?”

  I wasn’t sure that was a good idea, but Susanna was already lowering one of the clay gargoyles into the large glass ball. It hung suspended in a thick liquid, and I couldn’t help thinking it looked like a baby in a womb. Susanna tinkered with a dial on the machine, and the burner flared up with a blue flame. She opened the jar of stones the size of peas and spilled a few onto the counter. Instantly, a squirmy kind of magic shivered across my skin, like a dozen spectral voices all nagging at the same time.

  She chose one stone and gripped it between thumb and forefinger.

  “This is how gargoyles were originally made, but the exact formula was lost during the industrial revolution. Or maybe the iron infestation dampened the magic. But Terra has released these magics from the core of the earth. So we might be able to bring back gargoyles or something like them.” She had a pleased smile on her face. Then she dropped the stone into the alchemic womb with the gargoyle.

  “Now what?” I asked, almost afraid of her answer.

  “Well now, I chant.” She had the grace to look embarrassed, but then she shrugged and sat on a wooden stool before the blazing alembic. She began to chant in a low voice. I couldn’t make out the word she repeated over and over again, something like “Bah-way-mo,” but I felt the spike in power immediately. Like most alchemists, Susanna was a natural lightning rod for magic. And the Penfield Building stood right over a major ley-line, which was probably why the alchemists bought the campus in the first place.

  Magic glowed around her, building like a fog that only I could see. As the chanting continued, the magic thickened. Energy sizzled at her fingertips. Then, she laid her hands on the globe and screamed out her chant one last time. Magic burst from her in an electric blue arc, straight into the heart of the globe.

  The stone exploded. The little gargoyle shivered and opened its mouth as if to cry or suckle. Its fisted hands flailed. Then it fell still and lifeless again.

  Susanna slumped on her stool.

  “Are you all right?” I laid a hand on her shoulder and she smiled tiredly.

  “It takes a lot of juice, that’s all.”

  I stared at the massive contraption of glass and tubes. Should I tell her it was completely irrelevant? That she was the catalyst that sparked the bit of life, not the blazing alembic?

  Susanna recovered and jumped up to peer into the glass globe at the little gargoyle which was once again an inert terra cotta statue.

  “Did you see him? Wasn’t he beautiful?”

  “Uh, yeah.”

  Susanna briskly shut down the flame, removed the gargoyle and dried him with a towel as gently as if he were a real baby.

  “I can’t seem to animate them for long, but I’m working on it.”

  “Why?” I couldn’t help it. The question just burst from me.

  Susanna held the gargoyle close, her expression confused.

  “I don’t mean to criticize your work. It’s amazing. Really. But have you ever considered that just because you can do something, doesn’t mean you should?”


  Susanna frowned. Maybe that concept had never occurred to her.

  “It’s just a golem. A construct. I’m not hurting anyone with it. And besides, think of all the good we could do. The applications for science and technology!”

  Nope. I didn’t get it. But then I could sense the authentic life that Susanna had sparked in that gargoyle statue.

  “Gargoyles were imbued with life by stealing the spirit of a fae. Doesn’t that bother you?” I thought of Angus, with his off-kilter magic and Cyril, who may have jumped to his death because of this dissonance.

  “But that’s just it! My experiments don’t use fae spirits, or any spirits at all, just pure magic drawn from the source, from Terra.”

  I glanced at the jar of pea-sized stones. I wasn’t so sure of that.

  “But it doesn’t work,” she said. “Not yet, anyway. The longest I’ve been able to animate one is just over four minutes. But at least Gerard was pleased with that result. He was really excited when he saw my demonstration.”

  Gerard Golovin. Somehow it always came back to the prime minister.

  “He saw this?”

  “Yeah, last year. That’s when he offered me lab space here.

  “Is he working on the same tech?” I knew the answer already. I’d seen Golovin’s gencrew golems, and I was pretty sure they weren’t powered by any ley-line. But I wanted to see how deep Susanna was in Golovin’s schemes.

  She shrugged. “Dunno. His office here is just for show. His main lab is on the island and has ridiculous security. A low-level tech like me would never get invited to it.”

  “But he was here? He saw your…” I waved at the gargoyles, “your set up.”

  “Yep. He came, he saw, he took my notes and patted me on the head like a good girl. Gods, if I wasn’t so attracted to that guy, I’d hate him. If he figures it out before I do, he’ll get all the credit despite the fact that I did all the legwork.”

  “If Gerard figures out how to make gargoyles, your credit will be the least of our worries.”

  “What do you mean?”

  My stomach churned as I wondered how much I could tell her. I knew next to nothing about Susanna, but she seemed innocent, and I liked her. I didn’t like many people.

  “Golovin has already found away to animate golems. Did you see his latest press conference when he showed off his new gencrew?”

  Susanna’s eyes widened. “But that’s just an automaton. He promised me.” Suddenly she wouldn’t meet my eyes. “I mean when I asked him about it. He assured me the gencrew were simply mechanical.”

  “They’re not.”

  She narrowed her eyes at me. “How can you be sure? Did you test them with a thaumagauge? That’s the only way to be certain.”

  “Let’s just say, I have a taste for magic. And Golovin’s gencrew are not magically inert.”

  They also didn’t use ley-line magic, I was sure of it.

  I showed her the picture of Lorraine and Cyril.

  “Do you know her?” I asked. Susanna pressed her lips together. I was losing her. She didn’t like what I was saying, but I had to get her to listen.

  “She was killed because of something she knew. Be careful. Don’t trust Golovin. Don’t tell anyone else about your experiments. In fact, you should stop this research right away. Before someone gets hurt.”

  Susanna crossed her arms. “You should leave now.”

  I nodded. I hadn’t made a friend here tonight. But before I left, I held up one of the black stones.

  “Just do me a favor and test one of these. I think you’ll be surprised at what you find.”

  *

  Angus waited in the shadows outside the Penfield Building. I handed him the stone I’d swiped on my way out.

  “I know where Gerard learned to make golems. And I know where the missing fae went.”

  Angus held the stone in his closed hand and whistled. “That’s a live one.” He looked sad. “So it’s true then. Those damned alchemists have rediscovered the magic of gargoyles.”

  I laid a hand over his. “We’ll make them stop. I promise. But we have to tell Mason now.”

  “Aye. And it will break his heart.”

  Chapter

  20

  Every time I dreamed about a full moon, I cried. Sometimes tears flowed freely, leaving red streaks down my dream cheeks. Other times tears lodged in my chest, so tight around my heart that it could barely pump against the crush of painful memories. I’d been stuck in this dream many times before, on nights when my past lurked in the shallow layers of my subconscious.

  Aaric died under a full moon. If I wanted to wake up, I knew I had to confront it. I forced myself to look at the deceitful glowing orb, half hidden by thickening clouds. The face in the moon turned into Aaric’s with his wry smile that never quite reached his eyes. Aaric, my kissing cousin, my first love and only friend in those early days when Mom uprooted me as an awkward teen just coming into my powers and moved us, not just across the country, but to another world.

  When Mom’s illness became debilitating, Aaric came to bring her home to Asgard, where the famed Golden Apples would cure her. I was the bonus package he got to lug across continents to Bifrost, the rainbow bridge that connected our world to the realm of the Aesir.

  But this dream wasn’t about that time. This one was about the last time I saw Aaric. My last day in Asgard.

  How many years ago now? Ten? More. Twelve years since he begged me to end his life. Of course I’d said no, denied him the one thing he wanted most of all. The one thing he wanted more than me.

  But even as I begged him not to do it, my hands had not resisted. When had I ever resisted his touch? His fingers wrapped around mine, and those clasped the hilt of my blade pointed right at his heart. His touch was hot. A soft, sorrowful look filled his eyes. He loves me enough to be sad. He loves me. He loves me…His smile filled every surface of my mind. He’s shaking me…shaking and…

  “Kyra-lady, wakes up!”

  A scream stuck in my throat as awareness slammed into me. I sat bolt upright in bed. Jacoby jumped back.

  “What is it?” The lights flickered and something beeped in my kitchen. The timer on the stove? And what was that thumping noise?

  “Stop that right now!” came Gita’s raspy command. I jumped out of bed and ran for the living room, taking in the scene in an instant. The critters were all awake, rustling in their cages. Errol stood beside his bonsai tree. He held his walking twig high, and it sparked with crackling blue energy. Hunter peered over the rim of his tank, but when Gita shouted again, he dunked back into the water.

  The patio door was open and cool night air blew through the room.

  “Stop!” Gita stood over the dark form of Emil, who lay on the floor. He held my sword in one hand and drove it through his chest into the floorboards. Thunk! He pulled it out and drove it home again. Thunk!

  The flickering lights were nauseating, and I felt like I was stumbling through a horror movie. I ignored Mr. Murray’s irate banging from above.

  “Gita! Take Errol into the kitchen and make him some tea,” I said. “I’ll deal with this.”

  Gita turned to me. Her face was streaked with tears, as if the midnight commotion had jolted her back to her rightful melancholy. She scooped up Errol and disappeared into the kitchen with Jacoby following.

  Thunk! Thunk!

  I pinched the bridge of my nose until the electricity stilled. The dim light from the window fell on Emil. His face was wet with tears, his chest soaked in blood.

  Thunk!

  “Stop that!” I grabbed the sword and wrenched it away from his blood-slick hands. “That won’t work.” I didn’t tell him that the sword needed the touch of a Valkyrie to work its magic, or that I’d put it into stasis anyway. The less he knew about my magic, the better.

  “Why?” he cried. “Why can�
�t I just die?”

  I sat down beside him. I wore only light shorts and a tank top to bed and the floor was sticky under my bare legs. Emil made a grab for the blade again. We wrestled, but he was weak from his wounds even though they were already healing. I tossed the sword across the floor, and it clattered against the wall.

  “Why?” He looked like a little lost boy.

  “Maybe you’re not done yet.”

  He sniffled and laid his head on my knee. “What do you mean?”

  “Maybe you have some purpose that you’re not seeing. The gods will claim you when you’re done.”

  “You believe that?”

  I tried not to hesitate. I wasn’t sure what I believed anymore. The gods I knew were selfish. It was usually better not to be noticed by them.

  “I do.”

  He leaned on one elbow and wiped a hand across his nose, smearing blood across his face.

  “But what purpose could the gods have for me. I’m a misfit. A freak.”

  I shrugged. “Misfits change the world.”

  He lay back in the puddle of his cooling blood. Under his torn shirt, his bones and muscles were already knitting together. But he’d be hungry from all that blood loss.

  I couldn’t send him back into the night like this. But I wouldn’t leave him alone with my family either while I went out to get blood.

  I untangled myself from his grip and went for my widget. At least that was still working. Errol had been getting better at reining in his magic, and the phones and lights had been working for several days. But tonight showed me that he couldn’t stay here, not if every time he got upset, he almost blew a transformer.

  I peeked at them in the kitchen. Gita was reading Winnie the Pooh to Errol and Jacoby by candle light. I could have kissed her.

  I grabbed my widget and scrolled through my contacts. I almost called Gabe, but he was out on a date with Dutch again, and if they were patching things up, I didn’t want to ruin it for him. I hesitated for a moment at Mason’s number, then dialed Angus.

  “Is everything okay?” he asked as a greeting.

  “I have a bit of a situation here.” I explained about Emil.