Dark Alchemy

by Laura Bickle

  Petra scrunched down in the seat and floored the gas. She looked back in the rearview mirror at a portly middle-­aged man holding a gun. He made no move to pursue her, just stood and watched her retreat. Something about the smile on his face chilled her in the afternoon heat, even after he vanished in a haze of dust.

  The lone raven was a dot in the sky to the north, dissolving into the blue.

  The raven careened dizzily into the sky. Clouds and ground whirled around him. One wing’s primary feathers had been shredded at the edges by birdshot. He struggled to right himself, clawing the air with his talons and feathers.

  Dimly, he knew that he’d lost the other ravens, the other, smaller fragments of his consciousness. But there was nothing for that, now. He snagged an air current sliding down from the mountains that swept him north. Panting, he followed it, letting it push his body forward in the blue.

  A familiar landscape unfolded below him: the sparkling blue eye of the spring and the fringe of golden fields swaying beyond. The air current began to peter out, the raven swept his uninjured wing low to turn into a spiral. He landed gracelessly on the roof of a small house, hopping twice before skidding to a teetering stop at the edge of a gutter.

  The raven bowed his head, beak parted. He shoved his wing forward, examining it, then pulled the feathers through his beak to seal the damage and knit the feathers as whole as he could make them.

  On the ground below, a cat sat and stared up a him, her eyes dilated and black.

  The raven cawed shortly at her, and she meowed. Stiffly, she stalked around the edge of the garden, having agreed to grant him a few moments’ sanctuary.

  Human voices emanated below him.

  “Old ghosts are catching up with us.”

  A bronze woman with long black hair set her briefcase down on the porch floor. The raven crept forward and peered over the gutter. An old man sat in a porch swing, muttering to himself. His eyes were closed, and he seemed to be asleep. The raven recognized him—­the old man from the well.

  The woman paused to kiss the top of his head.

  The old man’s eyes fluttered open. “They’re coming for your friend.”

  “Huh?”

  The old man blinked at her. “Wha?”

  “Never mind,” she said. “I’ll make spaghetti for dinner.”

  “Yup. Gotta do something with that bumper crop of tomatoes.” The old man rubbed his creased forehead. “How long have I been asleep?”

  “Dunno. I just got home. When did you start hitting the bottle today?”

  “I haven’t.” The man stuck out his lower lip like a petulant child.

  The woman opened her mouth to argue, but her attention was captured by the rattle of a truck coming down the road. The shiny pickup stopped in front of the house.

  The raven knew that truck, and he screamed a warning.

  The woman and the old man ignored the bird, staring at the pickup. But the cat heard him. She wriggled under the porch.

  The back of the pickup was full of Sal Rutherford’s men. And Sal himself was behind the wheel.

  “Get inside, Frankie,” the woman growled.

  “I ain’t going nowhere,” he said.

  Sal slid out of the truck and ambled up to the porch. “Afternoon, Miss Yellowrose.” Though his words were civil, they dripped with sarcasm.

  Miss Yellowrose crossed her arms in front of her. “What do you want, Sal?”

  His cold smile faded. “You were at my ranch today. I’ve come to get back what you stole.”

  The woman’s chin lifted. “What the hell are you talking about?” She hefted her battered briefcase. “I’ve been at work all day.”

  Frankie climbed to his feet, swaying. “Maria’s no thief.”

  Sal wasn’t convinced. “I saw your Bronco leaving my barn. Nobody else has a piece of shit quite like that one.”

  “I sold it. ­Couple of days ago.”

  Sal’s mouth twisted. “What’ve you been driving to work, then?”

  She pointed. “Frankie’s Explorer.” She pointed to the green SUV in the drive, now effectively blocked in by Sal’s truck.

  Sal walked over to the Explorer and slapped his palm on the hood. He winced, so it still must have been hot.

  “Who’d you sell it to?” His eyes narrowed in suspicion.

  “Some tourist whose car broke down. I felt sorry for her.”

  “She got a name?”

  “No. She paid cash. She took the title with her.”

  Sal rubbed his stubbly chin. “You don’t mind if we take a look around, do you?”

  “Yeah, I mind. You aren’t the cops. This is tribal land. So get off it.”

  Frankie reached into his back waistband. A pistol shook in his grip. “You heard my niece. Leave.”

  Sal backed off, hands open. “Take it easy, Frankie. I’m just trying to get back what’s mine.”

  The line of silent ranch hands behind him didn’t retreat. They folded around Sal, approached the porch.

  Frankie fired. The raven couldn’t see if he hit anyone; the three men rushed him in a wall of flannel. Before Maria could shout, Frankie was on his belly with a knee in his back, swearing a blue streak. The gun was in the dirt. The two remaining ranch hands stormed into the house. Inside, the raven could hear the thump of furniture being tossed.

  “You can’t do this,” said Maria. “You aren’t a law unto yourself.”

  Sal lit a cigarette, shrugged nonchalantly. “You keep tellin’ yourself that, Miss Yellowrose.”

  “What the hell are you looking for?” she demanded as glass broke indoors.

  “Just a misplaced piece of property,” Sal said, blowing smoke into her face. “Something that I wasn’t quite finished with.”

  His throat under the heel of a ranch hand, Frankie croaked, “You just keep burying those bodies, Sal. Sooner or later, they’re gonna rise up against you.”

  “What did you say?” Sal leaned down and jerked Frankie’s head back by his hair.

  “He’s drunk,” Maria pleaded, trying to force herself between Sal and Frankie. “Leave him alone!”

  “Them corpses are gonna be the end of you,” Frankie growled.

  “Get him up,” Sal said.

  Maria hurled herself at Sal and slugged him across the jaw.

  Sal recoiled, rubbing his face. And returned the favor. The blow flung Maria across the porch, cracking the back of her head on the mailbox. She was unconscious before she hit the ground.

  Sal gestured at the ranch hands. “Leave her here. The old man comes with us.”

  He glanced up then, as if he sensed he was being watched. The raven scuttled back on the roof, clinging to the curled shingles. He did not budge until he heard the sound of an engine and saw the truck leaving down the gravel road.

  “Sig, you’re gonna have to surrender your flea-­infested bed to our guest.”

  The coyote growled.

  “Look, I’m not in the habit of hauling strange men home, but you’re gonna have to deal.”

  Petra dragged Gabriel’s limp body out of the truck into the Airstream. It was like wrestling with a rag doll—­awkward, floppy, and expressionless. She didn’t know where else to take him. She couldn’t take him to a hospital. What on earth would they make of that glow-­in-­the-­dark blood? And she couldn’t leave him at the Rutherford ranch. She had no other choice but to invade Sig’s bed. She hoped that Gabe survived. There was no good way to explain the body of a man with glowing blood in her bed. If anybody cared.

  Besides, she was curious as hell.

  She dumped Gabriel’s unconscious form onto the futon. Petra cast about the trailer for materials to use as a first aid kit. She came up with the bottle of alcohol she’d gotten from the hardware store, the aluminum tape she used to create the spectroscope, the X-­acto knives, and a ­co
uple of fistfuls of cotton.

  Good enough.

  She grasped Gabe’s right arm, pushing the sleeve up. His hand . . . his hand just wasn’t there. Below the wrist, a jagged wound seemed to suggest it had been torn off, but there was no blood. Not even seeping. She turned his arm over, examining it. Was this an old wound, somehow? But he had been whole the last time she’d seen him . . . it made no sense. Perhaps he used a very good prosthetic that she hadn’t noticed? She still bound it up with a towel from the bathroom, wrapping it tightly with aluminum tape.

  Next she unbuttoned Gabe’s shirt, exposing wounds in his shoulder and ribs. It looked like someone had struck him with some kind of a blunt object—­a baseball bat? Thick swelling and contusions had formed over prickly areas that suggested shattered bone. She gently wrestled Gabriel out of his sleeves, feeling as if she were pouring spaghetti into a drinking straw.

  She sat back on her heels. She didn’t know how to deal with wounds like these. Gabriel’s skin was cold and smooth across his well-­muscled chest. In the shade of the trailer, the wounds looked like splatters from a paintball gun, pulsing a shimmering yellow from the edges. It was as if his skin were stretched tight over a great and terrible light, and rends in his skin allowed it to leak out.

  But what captured her attention the most was the scar around his neck. It was white, raised, and as thick as two of her fingers. An old scar. What the hell had happened to him? Had he survived a suicide attempt? Had someone done this to him?

  Wherever Gabriel had been, he’d had a long road.

  She turned on the light overhead. In the artificial brightness, his blood was red and ordinary. Less disconcerting. She opened the windows to give her more light, cranking open the blinds and letting the thin breeze trickle into the Airstream.

  Resolutely, she began to clean the wounds at his shoulder, wiping at them with the cotton and the alcohol. Gabriel’s eyelids fluttered, but he didn’t so much as hiss as she tried to clean that blood from the holes in his body where the swelling had split flesh. She probed as deeply as she dared before her stomach turned. It seemed as if one of the wounds had just missed what she guessed was his axillary artery.

  The next most serious wound was the one that split his ribs. Petra could see the swelling and feel the unevenness of bone. A large chunk seemed to be missing. She pressed an ear to his chest. It seemed the right side of his chest rose evenly, but not the left. When she listened to his breath, it gurgled in his throat. A collapsed lung. Shit.

  “Why do this to you?” she murmured. She was certain that Gabriel was not a good, upstanding citizen. Upstanding citizens did not attempt to make loudmouthed ranch hands disappear. But she thought she saw a glint of something else in him. She couldn’t identify what that was.

  And she likely would never learn, if he bled out on her bed. With renewed determination, she reached for the aluminum tape. If she could drag him upright, maybe she could tape the ribs so that they didn’t move further.

  She worked in silence, swallowing her squeamishness. When she removed his boots, she found that one of them was entirely empty, that his foot didn’t exist beyond the ankle bone. His body felt curiously hollow, and his face remained slack and unconscious. She knew that she should be wary of him. Every scar and wound on his body screamed a warning that he was dangerous. But there was something about him that piqued her curiosity. He was handsome enough, in a somewhat cold and remote way. He wasn’t pretty the way that the ridiculously shaven and airbrushed men in magazines were. He wasn’t shiny. He was solid, real. His jaw was strong, nose a bit too large, hands callused—­well, the one that remained, anyway. She granted herself the small thrill of physical attraction, the first awakening of that dormant sense since Des had died. It was normal to feel that way around an attractive man, she told herself—­purely a physical reaction. Gabe reminded her of stone: flawed and opaque, with scars veining his skin.

  And not fragile. Her eyes traced the wounds. Poor Des had been fragile.

  She blinked away a sudden blurriness in her vision.

  She reached out shakily and laid the flat of her hand on his chest. It was cool under her palm as it rose and fell. She held her hand there until it stopped shaking.

  She should be afraid of him. Everyone else in this town seemed to be.

  But it seemed safe to feel a twinge of fascination for a man who was as close to indestructible as she’d ever encountered. This puzzle.

  She leaned over him, a tendril of her hair brushing his chin. She wondered what would happen if she kissed him. He would never know, locked away in his unconsciousness. But she wondered what it would feel like, if his lips would feel like Des’s mouth. Or if it would summon that terrible heat of grief again.

  Her lips brushed his. His mouth was cool, and tasting him was like tasting frost. The chill prickled against her lips. Something melted. Whether it was his mouth or something in Petra, she couldn’t tell.

  She drew back, her heart hammering. Des always smiled when she kissed him, even in his sleep. Gabriel was smooth and unyielding. She felt immediately ashamed at what she’d done, knowing that she’d crossed a boundary without permission.

  Selfish. It was selfish.

  She slid down to sit on the warm linoleum floor and rested her head next to his shoulder to keep watch.

  Petra dreamed of sunshine and ravens.

  The dream felt like sitting in a car, drenched in late afternoon light, the gold of it pressed against her closed eyelids and warming her face. The shadows of ravens flitted over her, their wings rustling over a low hum. Or it might have been the low hum of an engine.

  But it was the hum of blood, of Gabriel’s body.

  A raven screamed.

  Petra jerked awake. She rubbed her warm cheek, pressed against the futon. She reached up to make sure Gabriel was still breathing, but he wasn’t in bed. Her fingers clawed empty blankets.

  The sound of wings flapping washed over her, some residue from the dream come flaring back. She spun toward the source of the sound. Sig pressed against her hip, growling, his hair standing up.

  Gabe stood in the middle of the floor, a black silhouette against the gloaming western light from the windows. He held his arms outstretched, and a battery of wings flowed to him—­into him. Ravens flew through the open windows, slamming into his body.

  Petra scrambled away until her back hit the wall, drawing her knees up to her chest. She wanted to shriek, but her voice was choked off, as if she’d swallowed some of that terrible darkness gathering before her.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Venificus Locus

  The ravens melted into Gabriel, splitting the setting sunlight and dust motes with the knife-­edges of their feathers. He turned to face her. His eyes glowed with reflected sunshine. His bare chest and hands and feet were whole, no deep dents or missing limbs.

  Petra shrank back from the unnatural shadows and brilliance.

  Gabriel stumbled.

  Automatically, Petra jumped up to steady him. She lowered him to the futon, blinking her light-­dazzled eyes. It seemed he weighed a great deal more now than he had a few hours ago—­as if he had changed from aluminum to lead and promptly passed out. She reached for his throat to take his pulse. Her fingers quaked as she struggled to feel something.

  Gabriel’s hand reached up and grabbed her wrist with his whole right hand, stilling it. His eyes twitched open. “Don’t.”

  “You need treatment of some kind—­” She stared at his hand. It was entirely unmarked, smooth and whole.

  “Don’t.”

  Anger rose in Petra, and she could feel the heat of it in her face. That, and the metallic fear under her tongue. It was easier to cover the fear with anger. “I don’t want a dead man in my house.”

  Gabriel started to laugh, laughed so hard that the movement summoned a smear of blood to his lips. “Too late.”

  Pe
tra wrenched her hand free and started daubing at the wound on his ribs. To her amazement, she could feel that the swelling had decreased. The fracture wasn’t immediately apparent, and the bleeding had stopped entirely.

  She let her hands fall. “What are you?”

  Gabriel turned his head to the window, refusing to answer. “Where are we?”

  “My trailer.”

  He closed his eyes. “You shouldn’t have taken me from the barn.”

  “You would have died.” She was beginning to think that maybe she should have left him, that she’d allowed something very dangerous across her threshold. And once invited in, it might not be so easily convinced to leave.

  “Unlikely. My kind is usually quite . . . hardy.”

  Petra dug into her jacket pocket for the mourning brooch. “Your kind?” She held the brooch in her fist, shoved it under his nose. Her curiosity warred with terror, and she clutched the brooch hard to keep her hand from shaking. “What the fuck are you?”

  “Where did you get that?” he demanded, his voice a low growl.

  “So you know what it is.”

  He turned his head away.

  She flipped it open, jammed it into his face. “Is this a relative of yours? Or is that you?” Her heart hammered with the accusation. It was the most irrational thing she’d ever said.

  He stared at the mourning brooch and reached up to touch it, but his hand fell. He turned his amber gaze on Petra. It seemed that he was weighing her, how much to tell her.

  “Are you some kind of fucking vampire?” The question was ridiculous. Vampires existed only in books for preteen girls. They were about as believable as unicorns and the Tooth Fairy. Her fascination had driven her to the edge of reason. She took a step back, trying to physically reel herself in.

  He licked his lips, eyes dilated black in pain. Pain and something else. Amusement?

  “No. Not a vampire. A Hanged Man.”

  Then he turned his face toward the wall and passed out. She poked him, but he gave no response. She slid her fingers up to his neck and traced the raised scar there.

  “A Hanged Man,” she repeated. That would explain the mark. But no one really survived a hanging . . .