Alchemystic

by Anton Strout

  “I think he’s alive,” I said, looking him over. My eyes stopped on his face, which was covered in red. “There’s blood everywhere. You could have killed him, Aurora!”

  Rory glared at me. “Very compassionate of you, Lexi, but he and his friend were both going to eviscerate us, if you remember thirty seconds ago. If you’ve got a problem with me keeping us alive, by all means, please let me know.”

  I sighed. The familiarity of bickering with my old friend was oddly comforting in all this chaos. The sound of commotion rose up on the deck of the ship as a group of men started to form.

  “We need to go,” I said, dragging a still-stunned Rory along with me. “Now.”

  She didn’t answer, but I was glad to see she put up no resistance. After that display, I think I feared more for those men’s safety than ours.

  Twenty one

  Alexandra

  Rory’s brutality on the docks must have messed my head up more than I thought, and I spent another restless night tossing and turning as various gruesome combat scenarios played out in my head, almost all of them ending with our grisly deaths.

  I didn’t want her doing the fighting for us, not if it brought out her inner cage fighter. Yes, I could learn to eventually—hopefully—build an army of gargoyles, but if yesterday’s early experiment with my little brick-and-clay friend was any indicator, that was a long way off.

  The next logical step was to first restore the animated friend I already had—Stanis—as soon as I could, which meant hunting out more information about the missing soul stones and restoring them to the four slots hidden beneath the gargoyle’s chest. The strange and mixed language of my great-great-grandfather’s master tome was becoming clearer to me, but what I really needed time for was deciphering his myriad of notebooks and clues about the stones—the Crown of the Titan, the Eye of God, the Ruler’s Chest, and the Heart of the Home.

  So after another quick morning of rescheduling real estate showings for later, I spent my time searching through my great-great-grandfather’s library for notebooks that tied to the main book or references to the gemstones in question. A barrel or two of coffee helped to stave off my restless night, and after hours of following handwritten notes and book references down a variety of rabbit holes, one passage struck me about the Crown of the Titans, talking about the jeweled crown of the Titans down in Tartarus.

  Tartarus? I was pretty sure it wasn’t a name for an old section of town like Tribeca or Hell’s Kitchen. According to the Internet, the Greeks called it a place where souls were sent to be punished, an abyssal pit set beneath the underworld. I could think of only one soul-draining punishment beneath New York City—riding the subway. But where exactly? There were miles and miles of tracks connecting out to almost all the boroughs. My great-great-grandfather could have worked on dozens of them. I looked back at the rest of the clue. The Crown of the Titans. How many stations were likely to have Greek statues, I wondered. Not many.

  I checked through several of the library’s more historical records, and I had what I was looking for, although the name of it—Herald/Pennsylvania—sounded totally unfamiliar. There were currently Herald Square and Penn Station stops, but it looked like there had once been a previous station that now sat unused from when other subway lines grew around it. Checking it against my smartphone caused my heart to sink. It was an actual station, deep under the heart of the city, but it was long abandoned. Looking up the name in another of Alexander’s notebooks, I lucked upon an old map of the city, full of street names I weren’t sure even existed anymore. Still, the lead was promising, on at least one of the stones, anyway. Thanks to the map, I had a vague idea of how I might find my way to the old abandoned subway station, but I wasn’t going to go it alone. I needed help.

  I rallied the troops via text message (MEET @2, U.S.-N&R), then switched to an older pair of jeans, a worn tank top, and an old beater of a fall jacket before heading out into the city with my great-great-grandfather’s tome strapped across my back in my last-season poppy patent flap backpack.

  By the time I made my way down to the Union Square subway station, I was surprised to see Marshall already waiting for me at the uptown end of the N and R platform, wearing a Miskatonic University T-shirt and a good-sized backpack of his own.

  Three or four trains passed us by while we waited before Rory finally stepped off of one, her massive dancer’s bag draped across her body as usual. Her short blue hair was a mess, and she ran her hands through it to fix and shag it out as she came quick down the platform to join us. I was glad to see she looked far less riled up today.

  “So what’s on the agenda?” she asked.

  “Oh, I don’t know,” I said with a dismissive shrug. “I thought we’d take a day off from beating people to death.”

  “Oh, good,” she said. “Sorry I look like shit. I came straight down from dance class, as quick as I could. If I need to dress up or something, you’re buying me clothes.”

  “You’re fine as is,” I said. “You’re dressed for adventure and I’ll need you nimble.”

  Rory gave me a suspicious look, then took notice of Marshall. “How’d you beat me here?”

  “I texted Marshall first,” I said.

  Her suspicion turned to full-on wariness, her eyes narrowing behind her glasses. “You did? Why?”

  I felt my face going red a little bit. “He’s got experience with this.”

  “With what?”

  “Dungeon crawling,” Marshall said with a proud wide grin.

  “Sorta,” I said. “We’re going under the city.”

  “Really, now?” Rory asked, her expression changing as her face dropped. “Gee, I’m so glad I flew all the way downtown here so fast. I’ve always wanted to meet the mole people and all.” She looked at Marshall and his backpack. “Are we going camping afterward?”

  “No,” I said. “I just thought it best to be prepared. That’s why I texted Marshall. Not that he has real-life experience in these things, as such, but I figured that those ‘dungeon crawls’ he always talks about give him some sort of strange experience in this.”

  “If you were going into a dungeon in a game, you’d bring equipment, right?” Marshall asked her.

  Rory shrugged. “Would I? How would I know? You know I refuse to play.”

  “Yes, and I’ve been meaning to talk to you about that—”

  Rory cut him off before he could finish, patting his backpack. “So whatcha got, Sir Nerdsalot?”

  He looked a little hurt at first, but got excited as he opened up his backpack. “Just some basics,” he said. “PowerBars in case we get hungry, flashlights, compass, a tack hammer, a Leatherman’s tool, fifty feet of rope—”

  Rory held up a finger. “Fifty feet of rope?”

  “What?” he said, defensive. “It’s an adventuring staple! Always have it in D and D. In The Lord of the Rings, Samwise laments forgetting to bring some. Rope is important to have!”

  Rory gave him a look like he was crazed, started to speak, but thought better of it and turned back to me. “And just why are we going under the city?”

  “Because that’s where my great-great-grandfather put one of the soul stones,” I said.

  “Of course he did,” Rory said, rolling her eyes. “Why make it easy on us, right?”

  “Now, now,” I said. “Where’s your sense of adventure?”

  “I think I left it on the docks yesterday.”

  “What docks?” Marshall asked.

  “Long story,” I said, then pulled from my jacket pocket one of the worn leather notebooks I had taken and opened it to Alexander’s hand-drawn map of the city. “It says the Crown of the Titan in Tartarus is jeweled.”

  “Tartarus,” Marshall said without hesitation. “The Grecian underworld. Well, technically that’s Hades, but I suppose this is the best we have to go on.” He peered down the tunnel leading out of the station, looking a little green at the gills.

  I turned to the gated narrow path that led alongsi
de the entrance to the tunnel, staring into the darkness. “Let’s go.”

  Marshall didn’t move, uncertainty filling his face. “So we’re really going down the tracks,” he said. “Down the tunnels. In search of Tartarus.”

  “Yup,” I said, mustering what false confidence I could despite my beating heart. Maybe I was wrong about what my great-great-grandfather had written?

  “Live tracks,” Marshall said, his voice growing smaller. “Third rail all brimming with zap bam!”

  I reached over and gave his arm a reassuring squeeze. “We’re only going to be on the active track line for a little bit,” I said. “This is the N and R line, the Never and Rarely. We’ll be fine. Promise.”

  “Maybe we should wait until nightfall and let our big stone friend do this,” Marshall offered.

  “Scared?” Rory asked with a little more vocal sting to her ribbing, no doubt hiding her own nerves as she adjusted her bag.

  “I’m not scared,” he said, annoyed. “Just being practical.”

  She shook her head at him. “Should have taken me up on those dance lessons when I offered them,” she said, twirling on point, her bag floating out from her body in a perfect arc. “Then you wouldn’t have to worry about stumbling on the tracks. Zap!” She grabbed at him as she said the last word, causing Marshall to jump.

  “Guys!” I shouted before it could escalate further, stopping them both. “Focus. I thought about that, Marsh, but whether it’s night or day, there’s no subtle way to just march a gargoyle down onto the platform here. Don’t worry, though. We don’t need brute force for this. Hardest part is going to be getting off the main tracks, which I just told you is going to be cake.”

  I wasn’t wholly sure I believed it myself, but it seemed to shut Marshall up. I turned back to the open track next to me and waited.

  Movies and television made it look so easy, but timing an inconspicuous entrance into the subway tunnel off the platform was harder than it looked. As trains approached, then left, there was always too much of a crowd exiting from them to make our way surreptitiously, but finally after about ten minutes, the timing worked out and we found ourselves on a near-empty platform as an R train pulled away.

  “Let’s go,” I said, and, without waiting, pushed past the short metal gate that blocked the path leading down into the tunnel.

  I wasn’t too thrilled at the idea of electrocuting myself, either, and stayed close to the outer wall as I went. Between the distant lights uptown at the Twenty-third Street station and my eyes adjusting to the darkness, my vision wasn’t too bad. The markings running down the steel struts of the tunnel’s structure were faint, but the occasional bare bulb hanging about the path on industrial-grade wiring helped me make the writing out, also allowing me to check the notebook.

  “Oh, ladies!” Marshall said a short time later, panicked. “Train!”

  I looked up from my book and peered down the tunnel. The rising glare of lights grew at the far-off Twenty-third Street station as a train pulled into view there.

  “Everyone stay calm,” I said, stopping under one of the bulbs to get my bearings. We were somewhere near the path that led off of the main tracks, I was sure, but I double-checked my notes. The sound of skittering rats somewhere nearby and the stench of rotting garbage did little to help me concentrate, but I studied the map as quickly as I could. “Two markers down. Step lively. Carefully, but lively.”

  All three of us picked up our pace, Marshall pushing past us and taking the lead. I prayed his gangly form didn’t stumble because if he went down we all were going down with him. The train roared back into motion up ahead as it pulled out of the station, its lights growing ever closer to us.

  “This one?” Marshall asked, slapping his hand frantically on one of the supports.

  I double-checked my book. “That’s the one,” I said.

  The honk of the approaching horn rose up, making my ears feel like they were going to burst.

  “Now what?” Rory asked as she slammed into me from behind.

  I studied the spot, but it didn’t make sense to me. “Son of a bitch,” I said, and flipped through the book some more. “There should be a doorway here, but there isn’t!”

  Marshall went wild examining the space. It was easier to see the area now, what with all the light pouring down on us from the approaching train. “There’s just this whole cluster of cross beams,” he said, “but I think there’s an opening I can squeeze into.”

  “Get through there, then,” I shouted, a bit of panic seizing me, and shoved him forward. Marshall squirmed between two of the beams about waist high, disappearing into the darkness on the other side. I grabbed Rory by the strap of her bag and pushed her through, shoving her bag after her. I dove through, catching my backpack with the book in it on a beam, my legs still hanging out onto the tracks. I sucked my stomach in, curled myself forward, and pulled on the steel beam beneath me. The bag slipped free and I sprawled into a flailing pile of limbs.

  The wind generated by the passing train washed over us as we untangled ourselves, and I’d be lying if I didn’t say my heart was beating in time with the wheels on the track.

  “Anyone else’s heart about to explode?” Marshall asked, clutching his chest.

  Rory and I both raised our hands.

  Marshall checked his bag for damage, then reached in and handed me a flashlight, standing. “I want to get away from here, like, now,” he said. “So lead on.”

  We regrouped, and by the time the train had fully passed, we were already heading into a world of older tracks that hadn’t been used in decades, maybe even longer. The dark became far more impenetrable the farther away we got from the main working lines of the subway system, but the added bonus was the change in smells. The rot of garbage gave way to something older, stale, and while not pleasant, either, it was a marked improvement as we made our way deeper under the city. We went on for about twenty minutes with me consulting my great-great-grandfather’s notebook and correcting our course on the fly before anyone spoke again.

  “Not that I’m getting freaked-out or anything,” Marshall said in a quiet voice. “I’m not, really. Just…how much farther is this place?”

  I checked the map, then the ancient rails beneath my feet. “Not much farther,” I said, continuing down the tracks. “We should be coming up on the old station soon. I’m dying to see it.”

  “Why?” Rory asked from farther back.

  “Are you kidding?” I said. “Have you ever seen early pictures of the old city stations? They’re like…cathedrals to transit. They’re gorgeous. Then just imagine my great-great-grandfather’s hand adding to all of its grandeur.”

  Rory stopped and I looked back at her. She angled her flashlight past me and up. “I don’t have to imagine,” she said. “Look.”

  “Whoa,” Marshall added, already seeing it.

  I turned back around and looked for myself. “Whoa is right,” I said. “Holy…”

  I couldn’t finish my words. The tracks opened up into a large stone dome made from thousands of tightly fit blocks, rising high over our heads. I wasn’t sure whether it was a trick of the light, or rather the sheer absence of it, but the magnitude of the space felt like I was standing in an underground football stadium. Two sets of tracks skirted a large central area that was covered with bits of old tumbled columns and long-broken statues. Dozens of carved figures lined the walls, Grecian soldiers easily towering three or four times our height, the grand scale of the place both haunting and awesome at the same time.

  The three of us hoisted ourselves up onto the actual main platform, rolling in the dust of years upon years as we did so.

  Marshall coughed. “This is intense,” he said. “It’s like Raiders of the Lost Ark.”

  Rory dusted herself off, then headed farther down the platform. “Impressive,” she said, “but also daunting. There’s a lot of ground to cover here. A lot of carving to look over just to find a single stone.”

  “Let me consult the
Book of Alexander,” I said, checking over his old hand-drawn maps. “Remember, we’re not looking for the soldiers. We’re looking for the crown of one of the Titans. Let’s check the far end of the platform.” I shone my flashlight in that direction, but the range of it didn’t stretch far enough to light more than thirty feet ahead through the fallen debris.

  We made our way down the platform, working through the rubble along it until we came into view of a series of large, decorative sculptures where the platform ended. My great-great-grandfather’s depiction of ancient carvings. They rose up much higher than the rest, a tangle of ancient figures, Greco-Roman in their carving for sure, but no doubt made by my great-great-grandfather’s hand.

  “There,” I said, pointing my flashlight to one of the central figures. The highest head among them was that of Medusa, her tangled hair of snakes weaving out in all directions, the tip of each adorned with a now-dust-covered gemstone. “Our Titans.”

  “Technically speaking,” Marshall offered, “Medusa wasn’t a Titan. They were deities. She’s a Gorgon.”

  “And that’s not really a crown,” Rory added.

  “You tell Medusa that,” I said. “Alexander’s a puzzler. You think he’s just going to be that obvious in his clue giving?” I stared up at the giant mythological creature. “Jesus, she’s tall.”

  Marshall swung his bag around to the front of his body and rifled through it. “I brought rope, but I don’t think I brought actual rigging or climbing gear.”

  I turned to him. “Can you improvise?”

  He shrugged. “Maybe,” he said, searching up above with his own flashlight. “I just need to figure out how to secure the rope best.”

  “Screw rigging,” Rory said, climbing over the stone barrier originally meant to keep commuters back from it, no doubt. “I can get them.”

  Marshall reached into his backpack and pulled out a leather case that fit into the palm of one hand, handing it to her. “Take this.”

  “What is it?” she said, unsnapping one end of it open. She pulled free what looked like a set of metal pinchers with a thick-channeled handle.