Alchemist Academy: Book 4

by Matt Ryan

  “My brother is an idiot. Is he still frozen?”

  “His lip’s twitching,” Jackie reported. “You better start talking, girl. I don’t have any friendly stones left and I will not let him thaw.”

  “Okay, don’t hurt him. I think this is all a big misunderstanding. We can help you. What stone are you trying to make?”

  “Tell your friends back there to stand up with their bare hands in the air,” Mark ordered.

  “Guys, get up,” Alya said and sidled around the growing foam.

  The two men from behind the desk stood and raised their hands.

  “You’re trying to make the breaker stone, correct?” Alya said this as if she came to a great conclusion on her own.

  “Yes, do you know where the ingredients would be for that?” I asked.

  “A breaker stone has four sides to it. You aim to break the queen’s stone, correct?”

  “We’re going to stop her, one way or another,” I said.

  Alya nodded, then spun around, flinging both hands at once. I ducked as the stone struck the wall behind us. A bright flash blinded me and I covered my eyes as I fell behind the desk.

  Mark yelled, and Jackie fell to the floor against me.

  Behind the turned-over desk, I blinked again and again, trying to regain my vision. I glanced over at Mark, who was rubbing his eyes and gazing at me.

  “You okay?” he asked.

  “Yeah.” I shook Jackie and she stirred awake.

  “What the hell?” She got to her knees, searching for a stone.

  “I really hope you’re okay, Allie,” the woman’s voice traveled over the desk. “Your mother has offered such a ridiculous purse for your capture and delivery that every person in the world is going to be hunting you now.”

  “Mix this,” Jackie said. “And use it on yourself.” She slid me a few jars.

  “On myself?” I asked, but Jackie slumped to the floor and stopped moving. Then I saw her chest expanding and retracting with each breath. She was still alive.

  I took the three ingredients and shoved them next to the bowl and through the ingredients into the bowl, stirring with my rage. I glanced to Mark and saw him hunkered down. He raised his hand up to throw a stone when another one struck the wall behind us.

  An explosion shook the room, the shockwave sending me to the floor. My ears rung and everything smelled like smoke.

  “Mark?” I called out, but he didn’t answer. Or maybe I just couldn’t hear? On top of that, there was too much smoke to see anything. “Mark?”

  “He’s not going to get back up,” Alya said as she stood over me. The smoke swirled around her.

  “What’d you do?” I asked and then felt the stone in the bowl next to me. I must have made one in the chaos. I picked the stone up and rolled it toward a bare spot on my wrist.

  “Just a concussion stone. I’m sure he’ll wake up with nothing more than a bad headache,” Alya said.

  The stone hit my wrist’s bare skin and I felt it sink in. Things were about to get interesting.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Everything slowed down, and the sounds of the room became a dull hum. The smoke swirled around me as I moved through it. I knew this experience from Quinn. He had hit me with a stone that put me in this same kind of state.

  “Mark?”

  I crawled to where he’d last been. The thick smoke obscured him, but then I spotted his hand. When I got closer, I could make out his features. His eyes were closed, but his hand was warm. He’d be fine.

  I stood up enough to look over the table, only to find Alya standing a few feet away. She held a portal stone, and I was sure it was for me. Where would she be sending me? Probably right to my mother.

  Not knowing how long this was going to last, I moved to Alya and took the portal stone from her, along with the other one she had in her pocket. Then I pulled her and the two men, shoving their hands into the foam.

  I searched out the room for the stone materials I wanted and found them. I lined up several bowls with the ingredients in them, ready to mix.

  Then I waited for the time to return. I sat next to Mark, holding his head in my lap, surrounded by bowls.

  The sounds crashed into me and the world shifted back to regular speed. I took a deep gasp at the shock of it striking me and struggled to gain my breath as if someone had been choking me the whole time.

  “Allie?” Mark whispered.

  The smoke burned my eyes and filled them with tears. “You okay?”

  “I don’t know.” He sat up and rubbed his head. “I think I’m alright.”

  I hugged him.

  “Allie, what did you do?” Mark asked.

  I looked out at the people struggling to get their arms out of the stick foam. It was elbow-deep on one of them.

  “Oh, crap,” I said and rushed to the first mixing bowl. A gelatin mix, with some boosted tar, then topped with a hardener. The mixture came together easily and the stone clunked around at the bottom of the bowl.

  I grabbed the stone and threw it right into the heart of the foam filling half the room now. It struck the mixture and sank into it. After a few seconds, I wasn’t sure if it was going to work but then the foam darkened and formed a solid crust over the top.

  “What have you done?” Alya said. “How did you move like that?”

  “She’s Allie Norton,” Jackie said, emerging from the smoke. “You don’t freaking mess with her, unless you want shit to rain upon your heads.” She squinted and shook her head. “Sorry, that sounded better in my head.”

  “Listen,” Alya said. “We were just trying to protect our land. If we had a person like you to give to the queen, we could barter for safe harbor. People keep disappearing, and we know it’s your mom’s doing.”

  I ignored Alya and moved to making the next stone. This next one didn’t give me pleasure, but it had to be done.

  Mark knelt next to me and saw the ingredients. “Are you sure we need to make this stone?”

  “It’s the only way, Mark. They’ll just lie again, or tell me they’ll help me, if only I make them a stone.” I put the spoon in the bowl and stirred.

  “Let me be the one, okay? You’ve had too much burden to carry already,” Mark said and took the stone out of the bowl. He walked over to Alya as she struggled and flailed, trying to get loose from the foam.

  “Don’t touch me,” Alya warned.

  I didn’t like this at all.

  “You know what this stone will do, right?” He held it up in front of her face.

  “It’s a forbidden stone, but I suppose that doesn’t mean much to a group like you,” Alya said.

  “If you use that on her, we will find you and kill you,” a man dressed in a black suit said.

  “Then you know if I use this, I can get whatever it is I want out of you,” Mark said.

  “Please, let’s just talk. We want the same things. You think we like having your mother grab our people in the dark, leaving no trace of them? Do you know what it’s like to have a person snatched from you?”

  “I do,” Jackie said. “I’ve had it happen more times than I could count—awesome people. And their only crimes were to lose some of their abilities to make a stone.”

  “We’ve heard rumors of that factory academy. Quinn’s doing, from what we understood. Sorry you had to go through that,” Alya said.

  “I appreciate that,” Mark stepped in. “But let’s remember that this foam is still growing, even if Allie has slowed the expansion. So, cutting to the chase, do I need to use this stone on you?”

  “No, just ask me what you want and get us out of here,” Alya said.

  “Where is the scarab stone?”

  “What?” Alya’s whipped around to look at him with the force of her incredulity.

  “You think we don’t know about it?” Mark asked. “We need that stone to help in the creation of the breaker stone. Now, where is it?”

  “You can’t have it,” Alya said.

  Mark sighed and place
d the stone on Alya’s arm. Her squirming changed to a still posture. “Now, tell me where the scarab stone is,” he demanded.

  Alya’s body shook, and I knew what she was trying to do.

  Mark asked the question again.

  “I . . .” Alya said through a clenched jaw.

  “Answer me.”

  “Damn,” Jackie said. “That girl is strong. You gotta give it to her.”

  “You’re hurting her,” Rafi said from his position on the floor, as he struggled to move his mouth.

  “Shut it, Rafi, or I’m going to drop a dick remover stone on you,” Jackie hushed.

  “It’s under . . . .” Blood trickled from Alya’s nose.

  “I don’t like this,” I said.

  “She’s going to pop,” Jackie added.

  Right then, Alya’s eyes rolled up and she fell face first into the foam. I screamed and ran to her with Jackie. By the time we got to her, Mark was pulling at her feet, but the foam was pulling her in.

  “Pull harder,” I yelled at Mark.

  He groaned as he pulled on her leg. We were losing her and the other men were screaming at us to let them go, so they could help.

  I held out the purple stone I got from her and turned to one of the men. “Is this going to send her somewhere dangerous?” I asked.

  “No, it goes to her house, use it now,” the man said.

  “Thank you,” I said and ran to the bowls I had prepared.

  “What are you doing? We’re losing her. Use it now.” Alya’s father kicked his body around, trying to free his hands.

  “What are you doing?” Mark asked me. “I can’t get her out, I need that stone.”

  “I’m making a stone.” A blue stone with yellow streaks appeared in the bowl. I rushed to the edge of the foam pit and dropped it next to Alya. The foam dissolved around her, and Mark pulled her out by the feet. They both fell to the ground.

  “Is she awake?” I asked.

  “Yes,” Mark said.

  “Let me ask her,” Jackie said and grabbed Alya by the shirt. “Tell us where the scarab stone is.”

  “Please stop,” her dad pleaded. “It’s sacred to our people. It’s what holds our alchemy together.”

  “We need it,” I said. “If we have any chance of stopping her.”

  “There are other ways. There are always other ways,” he said.

  “It’s under the stone marked with a bird,” Alya said, then passed out, blood now trickling from her ears and eyes.

  Rafi got up into a sitting position. “I know where it is. All you had to do is ask. Near the middle of the room, there is a stone marked with a bird. Tap it three times, wait two seconds, and tap it again three times. It will open.”

  “I’ll keep an eye on Rafi,” Jackie said. “Get the stone so we can get the hell out of here.”

  Mark and I searched the stone floor until we found the one marked with a bird. We tapped, waited, and tapped again. The stone rose in the air and Mark pulled it the rest of the way out. Inside sat a wooden box.

  He pulled the box out from the hole as Alya’s dad pleaded with us to not take it. “This feels wrong,” Mark whispered to me.

  “What’s the alternative? We need this to make the stone.”

  “You know the alternative,” he said.

  “That’s not an option.”

  “I agree, so get over yourself and let’s do what we need to do here,” Jackie spoke up.

  “Rafi, how could you bring these people down here?” his dad asked.

  “Oh, what, I can’t help save the world? How many friends have you lost, Dad? How many have just disappeared recently? It’s only going to get worse. The queen’s a vampire on this world and we are her prey. These people have a real chance of stopping her, and if some silly stone we haven’t looked at in hundreds of years can help make that happen, then it’s the right thing to do.”

  “From this moment on, you are no longer my son.”

  “Sorry to break this up, but we’ve got to bounce. And thanks to Allie here, it looks like we’ll be going back to your place,” Jackie said.

  Mark held the box in his hands and looked at the ceiling. “Leo and Jin are still up there.”

  “And Shari,” Rafi added.

  I went to get the glacial water I saw earlier and tossed in the metal shavings and saw dust to consolidate the mixture. In less than a minute, I had the water stone created and I tossed it to the door. The electrical shock ran through it and short-circuited the lock.

  “Wait,” the dad said. “You’re the maker of the stone. It’s going to try and take you, even if you don’t allow it. It wants to be with you. It’s written in the tomes. Be careful, young Allie, things such as that stone can make a person go crazy with greed.”

  “Okay,” I said, but I already knew what he was saying. I’d felt it in my dream, and also when the stone touched me during its creation. I wanted the stone, and that was what scared me into letting my mother take it in the first place. “I’m sorry about this. I’ll find some way to replace it. But I need just one more thing from you . . .”

  I went to the dad and searched through his pockets for another portal stone. It had the same markings on it as the other one. A pair of portal stones.

  “My first wife made those. She was a powerful portal stone maker. If you can take one of the guard’s stones and leave that with me, I’d be grateful.”

  Mark and Jackie went to the guards and pulled out two more portal stones.

  I set the portal stone his wife had made next to him, out of reach, but he knew where it was.

  “Thank you,” he said.

  “And the stone I made should dissolve the rest of the foam,” I said.

  “Can I go with you guys?” Rafi said.

  Jackie snorted. “Sorry, we don’t have room for another wheel.”

  “But I can help you. My name carries weight in these parts of the world. Where are you going next?”

  I sighed, and knew then what I had to do. Another task, sure, but this one felt more of a mercy than the others. “We can’t leave him like this,” I said. “They’ve seen too much.”

  “What are you talking about?” Rafi looked worried.

  Mark didn’t question me as I took the diamond dust and made half a dozen memory stones. With Jackie’s help on the quantities, I made stones that would only take the last couple of days away. While I did that, Mark and Jackie went on a shopping spree of ingredients and set to making all kinds of stones.

  With memories wiped, scarab stone in hand, and a stockpile of defensive stones in our pockets, we left up the stairs and out into the desert shadowed by the pyramid.

  Leo, Jin, and Shari were sitting near each other on the dirt, and got to their feet as they saw us climbing out of the hole.

  “Where’s Rafi?” Shari asked.

  Mark threw a memory stone and struck Shari in the neck. She fell to the ground.

  “We don’t have long before she wakes up,” I said.

  “Are we really going to jump to their house?” Mark asked. “That seems like a terrible idea.”

  “Jin, what’s the next place?”

  “It’s in your neck of the woods. The United States.”

  “Sweet, this freaking country gives me the creeps,” Leo said looking up at the pyramid. “Feels like someone is watching us all the time.”

  “Where about in the states?” Mark asked.

  “It’s the last place we need to go, but it might be the hardest, so we should get it out of the way. The Grand Canyon.”

  “The underground city?” Jackie said with a heavy dose of skepticism. “Why not just take us to the north pole?”

  “I know it’s real; my father took me to these places. He wanted me to have a knowledge of the world around us. So, when I took over the family business, I would know my roots.”

  “Okay, smarty pants, how do we get there?” Jackie asked.

  Jin looked around, as if something might pop up and tell him the way. “I don’t know.
We can’t travel by normal means . . . you guys sure one of these portal stones can’t be controlled?”

  “Yeah, these are just location portals,” Jackie explained.

  “These should take us right to their house,” I said.

  “A little heads up,” Jackie said. “If it’s a trap, I’m going to burn that entire freaking house down.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  The world firmed and our feet landed on the wood flooring of a large room. A moment later, Leo and Jin appeared near us.

  “This is their house?” Jin asked as he looked around the empty grand hall.

  The massive room had intricately carved wood columns running the length of the room. There wasn’t a single window; the only light came from a few gothic-looking sconces.

  “This is just like the portal door room in Italy,” Mark said.

  I agreed and tried to take it all in. They must have known about the room and created this to emulate it. Were they trying to make the philosopher’s stone, or was this used for other stones?

  “This is what was down there when you made the stone?” Jackie asked.

  “Pretty much, but on a much smaller scale,” I said. “How do we get out of here?” I spotted the huge black double doors at the other end of the room.

  Jogging toward them, I felt like a trespasser. A bright flash blasted from behind me and I spun around, grabbing for my stones. Jackie had her cell phone in her hands and was taking pictures of the room.

  “What?” she asked as I stared at her. “I’ve never seen some of these alchemist circles. You think I’m going to miss a chance like this? Freaking Egyptian alchies are tight nit. They don’t share.”

  Rolling my eyes, I faced the double doors and pushed them open. There was a long hallway on the other side. At the end, I spotted another set of doors, with specks of daylight shining through the cracks in the door.

  Mark rushed down the hall and opened it first. The hot air swept in and I held up my hand to block the sunlight as we exited the building.

  A motorcycle zipped down the narrow alleyway. I leaned against the stucco wall to give the man room. When the coast was clear, we ran down the alley, and two-story buildings lined both sides. Near the end of the passage, cars zoomed by and the sound of horns and engines roared through.