by Gigi Pandian
“An officer was injured in the tunnels recently.”
“Max Liu,” Sam said quietly. “I really was sorry about that. It was a lot more work than we thought to move so many boxes to their new hiding place. Someone got suspicious and called it in, I guess. I couldn’t let Max see me. I had to pull the deadfall lever. It was nowhere near the section of tunnel we were using, so I wasn’t worried about him or anyone else finding our shipment.”
“And Zoe Faust?”
“I told you,” Sam said, “she bought that rundown house. Charles must have lied to me about giving up the business. I thought she was going to be his new partner.”
“That’s why you killed him?”
“He had to be stopped, or more people would die. I did what I had to do to take care of Olivia, but I didn’t want any more innocent people to die.”
“The day of Mr. Macraith’s death, what happened?”
“I took some of the tainted herbs—the same ones Anna had taken. I went to his house, making up an excuse that I thought I’d left something. I put the herbal mixture in his coffee. He drank coffee so thick I didn’t think he’d notice.”
“But he did?”
“No. He didn’t. But it wasn’t as poisonous as I thought it would be. I had to follow him to Zoe Faust’s house to finish … To do what had to be done.”
“Why’d you steal from the house? To make it look like a robbery?”
“I know about history. When I saw those antiques and books, I knew they would be worth a lot of money. I was still hurting for money, so I took them. I didn’t think anyone would notice, but then I heard someone coming, and I dropped a couple of things on my way out the back door. I never meant it to look like a robbery, though. I thought Zoe would be arrested and you’d find evidence linking her to Charles. But you didn’t. That made me wonder if I was wrong that they were working together.”
“Tell me about Brenda Skyler. Who you know as Blue Sky. Why did you make an attempt on her life?”
Sam sighed. “That wasn’t my first choice. When it was clear you weren’t going to arrest Zoe, I tried to take care of Zoe like I did Charles.”
My breath caught. Max reached for my hand and gave it a quick squeeze. I needed it more than he knew. I now understood why I had detected a strange odor in my trailer after Brixton found “poison” that was actually the spice asafoetida. I had dismissed the feeling at the time, thinking it was merely an unpleasant mix of scent bottles Brixton had broken. I was wrong. Sam had tried to poison me.
“But she didn’t drink it,” Sam continued. “I didn’t want to hurt Blue, but something had to be done. If I went to jail, who would look after Olivia? She was doing better after the treatment, but the cancer had come back once already.” He laughed and shook his head. “I know Aunt Olivia can be brusque, but she’s a good person. She believes the best of people. She actually believed Blue was paying me enough for me to cover the cost of the airline tickets and experimental treatment for her cancer. And the reason Olivia wears that red shawl all the time is because of its sentimental value. It was given to her by a group of women who knit clothing for cancer patients.”
“So you framed Blue—er, Brenda—to protect your aunt.”
“I knew Blue was hiding something from her past, the way she wouldn’t even use a credit card, so I figured she was the best person to blame.”
“Where are the rest of the books that are still missing?”
“I sold them.”
I groaned. I closed my eyes, images of Dorian trapped in stone filling my thoughts.
“I told you I needed money,” Sam was saying. “I drove a few towns over and sold them to a pawnshop. The guy gave me a decent price for some of the items. I planted the rest at Blue’s house. Like I said, I wished I didn’t have to do it. I’m glad she’s okay.”
Detective Dylan grunted.
“Is that all?” Sam asked. The same strange expression I’d noticed earlier was back on his face.
“That’ll do for now.”
“Good,” Sam said. He swallowed the last of his tea. “Very good.”
“You can get up now.”
“No,” Sam said, “I don’t think I can.”
“Oh no,” I whispered.
Next to me, Max tensed. “What is it?”
“The tea,” I said. “The special tea he asked for. It’s—”
On the screen in front of us, Sam Strum vomited across the table and fell forward, his head hitting the table with an excruciatingly loud smack.
“Poison,” I finished.
thirty-nine
I stayed up with Dorian, waiting for news about whether Sam would regain consciousness and be able to tell us more about where he’d sold the books he’d stolen. The police said they would investigate out-of-town pawnshops, but I didn’t know if that would be soon enough. Dorian was running out of time.
While we waited, we learned that Sam had kept a container of poison disguised as tea, which he’d hidden in his fridge, explaining why I hadn’t detected it when I was at his house. It was what he’d used on Blue and had tried to use on me.
Sam didn’t make it through the night.
It was after midnight when I received a call from Max that Sam had passed away. Dorian limped to the kitchen to make hot chocolate. He was using blended cashews to create a creamy, comforting texture without dairy. While the mixture heated on the stove, he rooted through the fridge, settling on a plate of vegan éclairs he’d cooked earlier that week using whipped coconut milk to create the custard filling. French comfort food.
Sitting in front of the fireplace with Dorian, a cup of steaming hot chocolate in my hand, I watched the light of the fire flicker over the gargoyle’s gray profile. The hardened stone progression was accelerating. Most of his left leg had now turned to stone. The same progression was beginning in his left arm. The fingers of his left hand hung stiffly, as if attached to invisible splints. The plate of éclairs sat untouched in front of him, slowly melting from the warmth of the fire.
“It is over for me,” Dorian said, holding up his stiff hand in front of the fire. “I thank you, Zoe Faust, for trying to save me.”
“It’s not over,” I said. “I don’t accept that. I’ll be back in a minute.”
I found my laptop and brought it back to the living room.
“What are you looking for?” Dorian asked.
“Pawnshops.”
“They will not be open in the middle of the night.”
“No,” I said, “but we can create a list of them. Since we can’t tell the police about the urgency of finding out what happened to Not Untrue Alchemy, I don’t know how soon they’ll look into it. But there’s nothing to stop us from calling shops ourselves in the morning. How many pawnshops could there possibly be?”
As it turned out, there were a lot of pawnshops. I’d done the impossible before, so I wasn’t going to let that stop me. I moved to the couch to get comfortable for a long night.
The next thing I knew, I was lying down, listening to a tapping sound. Not rain. The noise was different. It was the sound of fingers tapping on a keyboard. I opened my eyes, sat up, and stretched. I’d fallen asleep on the couch.
The fire had gone out, but Dorian had pulled a blanket over me. Though the room was dark, I felt that the sun was rising. It was nearly dawn.
“Bonjour,” Dorian said, looking up from his perch at the dining table. “I have created a spreadsheet. There are some magnifique computer programs these days. They have helped me narrow the search to eighty-four pawnshops you should try.”
———
By the time I’d had a tepid bath, drank a fruit smoothie, and taken a walk to clear my head, some of the pawnshops were open.
Since the title of the book was written in Latin on the cover as Non Degenera Alchemia in a script nearly unreadable to most people today, I
wasn’t optimistic about finding a storeowner who remembered the book by its title. But I had to try. I figured if anyone remembered buying a set of rare, old books the previous week, I could follow up and show them a photograph of Dorian’s book.
While I sat at the dining table and made phone calls, Dorian plied me with food and drink to keep me going. Plenty of tea to wet my parched throat, dried blueberries plumped in creamy millet cooked in almond milk as a mid-morning snack, homemade chocolate truffles as a pre-lunch pick-me-up.
It was mid-afternoon before my ears perked up at what I’d heard on the other end of the line.
“You remember the book?” I repeated, standing and motioning Dorian over to me. I put the phone on the speaker setting.
“I know books,” the man said. “Used to be a rare book dealer, back in the day. Now that was a fulfilling job. Strange clients, sure, but in an eccentric way. Not like the creepy characters I see nowadays. One guy even tried to sell me a knife that had blood on it! Can you believe that?”
“Um—”
“I told him, you’ve gotta wash off that blood before I’ll take it. Can’t expect me to be cleaning up other people’s messes.”
“You took it?” I asked. I knew I should have been steering the conversation back to the book, but after a statement like that, the words were out of my mouth before I could think.
“Sure. It was a great knife. Strange that the guy never came back for it. I made me a couple hundred dollars off it.”
“About the books—”
“Oh, right, I got off on a tangent there. Yep, I used to be a rare book dealer, back when you could make a living doing such a thing. I know there are some folks who still do it, but the money isn’t there anymore.”
“Uh—”
“What book was it you were asking about?”
“Non Degenera Alchemia. It looks like a seventeenth-century book. It would have been sold to you with a few other historical alchemy books.”
“Right, that’s why I remembered it. Alchemy. Strange subject. Most books I see on occult subjects are modern books pretending to be old, but these ones were truly antique. Yep, I bought three alchemy books from a young fellow who’d recently inherited them. He didn’t want to get them back; wanted to sell them free and clear.”
“Can you save them for me behind the counter?” I asked, beaming at a wide-eyed Dorian. “I can be there in two hours.”
“Oh, I don’t have them.”
“Wait, you don’t?”
“Nah. Like I said, they were a good find. A couple days ago, someone bought them all. If I’d known there would be other interested parties, I would have held out for more money.”
“I’ll give you a finder’s fee if you help me locate the buyer so I can buy the books.”
“Wish I could help you, but he paid cash and didn’t leave a name.”
Dorian’s wings flew out from the side of his body, knocking over a chair.
“Everything all right there?” the pawnshop owner asked.
“Fine,” I said, staring at Dorian’s shocked face. “Thanks for your help.” I clicked off the phone.
Dorian’s body shook. “Mon livre,” he whispered. “It is truly gone forever.”
“There has to be another way,” I said. “There has to be.”
“I—” Dorian began, but was interrupted by a knock on the door.
“You’d better hide,” I said. “I don’t want you turning to stone. It’s too risky. Go to the basement.”
Dorian’s face registered alarm. “I cannot seem to lower my wings.”
The knock sounded again.
“Zoe?” It was Brixton’s voice. “I’m here with Veronica and Ethan.”
“One second!” I called. “Dorian, I’ll help you down the basement stairs.”
He nodded. I could see the fear in his watery black eyes.
After getting him into the basement, I opened the door for the kids. “Sorry, I was in the middle of cooking. Come on in.”
Brixton raised an eyebrow as they walked inside.
“You went to school today?” I asked them, noticing their backpacks.
“Our parents said it was best if we went back to life as normal,” Veronica said. “Did you hear about what happened to Mr. Strum at the police station?”
I nodded.
“I can’t believe it,” Brixton said. “I mean, if you can’t trust someone like him, who can you trust?”
“It’s like all anyone’s talking about,” Veronica said.
The entitled Ethan hadn’t spoken, walking straight past his friends to the dining table, where he opened his laptop.
“I don’t mean to be rude,” I said, “but I’ve had a long day. Was there a particular reason you stopped by?”
“We thought you’d want to see this, Zoe,” Ethan said.
“We could have texted you earlier,” Brixton said, “but Veronica thought you’d give us some food.”
Veronica elbowed him.
“Coming right up,” I said, laughing at the resilience of youth. I returned from the kitchen with a platter of mini chocolate éclairs to find the three of them sitting around Ethan’s laptop.
Veronica took an éclair and beamed at me. “Show her, guys.”
Ethan turned the laptop around, showing me the screen. The browser was open to the website of an antiquarian bookshop based in Seattle. It showed a photograph of Dorian’s book.
“How did you—” I began.
“Ethan is good at finding stuff online,” Brixton said, not trying to hide a wide grin.
“I get bored during class,” Ethan said with a shrug. “Brixton said this book meant a lot to you, and we heard today that Mr. Strum had stolen your stuff and wouldn’t be able to tell anyone what he’d done with it. I thought I’d make it my project for the day. I found it during fifth period.”
“I don’t know what to say, Ethan,” I said. “Thank you.”
“I hope you’ve got a credit card with a high limit,” Brixton said. “You do, right? For your business?”
“Why?”
“Look at the asking price,” Brixton said, pointing at the screen. It was a figure far greater than I had access to. My elation from moments before disappeared.
“Won’t the police get it back for her?” Veronica asked. She took another éclair as Ethan turned the computer back around to face him.
“They probably can,” I said, looking at Brixton, “but it might take a long time to go through those channels.”
Going through the legal system to retrieve stolen property from an innocent business person was going to be a nightmare. And one that would take far longer than Dorian had. It was going to be hard enough to use what Ivan and I had realized about the book to stop Dorian’s deterioration. I had even less faith that I’d be able to reverse the effects once he’d turned completely to stone.
Brixton’s smile faded. “More bureaucracy? Blue is still in jail, and you don’t get your stuff back? This is totally screwed up. Maybe if we call Max—”
“I doubt there’s anything he can do.” I sat down at the end of the table and put my head in my hands. “But thank you, Ethan. Thank you all for trying.”
“It’s done,” Ethan said, leaning back and smiling. He popped an éclair into his mouth.
“What’s done?” Veronica asked.
“See for yourself, V,” Ethan said, pointing at the screen.
“No way,” she said. “You bought it?”
“Of course I bought it. What else is my dad’s money good for if not to thank the person who saved us from that cell?” Ethan shivered as he spoke of it. “Do you want to drive to Seattle by seven o’clock tonight to pick it up, or should I ask them to send it by express mail?”
forty
It was nearly ten o’clock by the time I got home.
I made good time on the three-hour drive to Seattle, including having the good fortune to avoid the speeding ticket I deserved. Finding the book dealer’s shop was another story, but he generously agreed to stay open later so I could retrieve the book. Ethan paid enough for the book that he really had no choice.
I was thankful for Ethan’s generosity, but I knew I couldn’t accept it. As soon as I got my alchemy lab into proper shape, I’d transmute some lead into gold. Either that or become a much better businesswoman.
Brixton had wanted to accompany me on the drive, but I thought it best not to subject him to my anxious mood and the high speeds I planned on testing out in my old truck. The speedometer went to one hundred, and although I’d occasionally driven fast on the open road, most of the time I’d had the truck it had been attached to my trailer. It was time to test my truck, and it came through.
I slammed the door of the truck and rushed to the house, cradling the book in my arms. I left Dorian doing yoga stretches while reading the newspaper—two forms of distracting movement were better than one. As I came through the door, he was nowhere in sight.
“Dorian?”
“Aidez moi!” The panicked voice came from the kitchen.
I found him standing on his stool, facing the counter. His wings were askew, one of them partially unfurled as stone.
“Can you move?” I asked.
“I am so glad you have returned. My fingers are too stiff to properly stir the batter for these crepes! There are lumps. Lumps!”
I smiled to myself. I’d gotten home in time.
“We have more important things to do than make crepes,” I said. “Get down from there and come with me to the basement.”
With what Ivan and I had pieced together about backward alchemy, I had a much better idea about what I should look for in the book. I didn’t have as many ingredients in my laboratory as I would have liked, nor did I have a full understanding of backward alchemy, but tonight I was going to perform a quick fix. I never thought I’d hear myself say that again, but that was the very nature of backward alchemy’s death rotation: sacrificing one element for another to skip the laborious process of true alchemy.
