Alchemy of Shadows

by David L Burkhead

  “Could use one,” I said. “But...”

  “Told you,” Jeff said. He disappeared into the kitchen, returning a moment later with two bottles. I did not have the heart to tell him that the watery stuff he offered hardly qualified as beer. But I took one anyway.

  “Coach Ata,” Jeff said as he sat back on his chair, “has his favorites. They get most of the field time, most of his attention. And when we have an actual game, they play and we collect splinters in our asses.” He took a long pull at his drink. “The thing is, they’re not even all the best players. That boyfriend of Becki’s?” Jeff’s voice dripped disgust.

  I cocked an eyebrow. “You don’t like him?”

  “Oh, he’s all right, I guess.” Jeff shrugged. “Just...Becki can do better than that loser. On the field, though, yeah, he’s big but damn he’s slow. In both senses of the word.”

  “So you don’t like him,” I said.

  Jeff chuckled. “Shows, huh? What does she see in that ox?”

  “The heart wants what the heart wants,” I said.

  “So it does. And sometimes the heart is really stupid.”

  I wondered if he was still talking about Becki. I glanced at the clock. Still rather early. It just seemed later with all that had happened.

  “Look, Jeff,” I said, “I’ve got to run up to my apartment real quick. I’ll be back in a few, okay?”

  “Adrian, I know what you’re doing. You don’t have to...”

  “Becki will kill me if I don’t,” I said.

  “Yeah,” Jeff finished his beer and tossed the bottle at a trash can. It landed within, rattling for just a moment. “She’d do that. Stubborn girl, my sister.”

  “So, I’ll run up, take care of a couple things, and be back down. Becki need not be any wiser.”

  “Sure. Just knock when you get back.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  Back in my room, I checked the ephemeris on my phone. The moon was close enough.

  I know, the positions of the moon and stars shouldn’t have any real effect on the mixing and compounding of chemicals, but they do. I never understood why, I just followed the rules. My best guess is that there’s a large mental, even spiritual, aspect to alchemy. The chemicals, I think, are a link between a magical world and our physical world.

  The widespread human belief in various forms of astrology somehow imprints itself on the processes and makes some work, or not, based on the positions of the sun, moon, planets, and stars.

  It’s as good an explanation as any, I guess.

  I had recently bought a furnace from an online vendor. I removed the ash from a mix of herbs, the salt of the herb, from that furnace. I added the salt to a mix of distillate from another batch of the same mix, the oil of the herb. This would have to steep for another cycle of the moon before I could add it to the nascent elixir.

  I thought for a moment, then divided that elixir into two vials. In the first, I would complete the process as normal. For the second, I decided to make a rush batch. It would not be able to cure large scale damage—like having my bones shattered jumping from a window—nor would it preserve my youth and extend my life, but it would handle much in the way of minor issues. And since I had used most of what remained of my elixir on Darryl, I might have need.

  So into this second vial of elixir I added half of the mix of ash and distillate. The next day would require another round of blood.

  I always hated that about the lesser elixir. I could make it more quickly but that meant the blood draws came equally quickly.

  Before heading out the door and back down to Jeff’s room, I grabbed a six pack of cola out of the refrigerator. One beer to settle Jeff’s nerves had been appropriate. Drinking into the night would not be a good idea. I also pocketed a stoppered vial of sleeping powder. A pinch in Jeff’s drink would let him drift into a natural sleep no matter how much stress he felt. “Sleep, that knits up the ravell’d sleeve of care.”

  I paused for a moment on that thought. Perhaps the Scottish Play was not the best thought to bring to mind.

  #

  I woke on Jeff’s couch the next morning to the sound of thumping on the door. I heard Jeff moving in his bedroom as I sat up and wiped at my eyes.

  The thumping sounded again. I stood up and took a step for the door, then hesitated. Not my apartment. Not my place to answer.

  As if in response to my dilemma, Jeff stuck his head out the door to his bedroom. “Adrian, could you get that?”

  I waved in Jeff’s direction and walked to the door. Through the peephole, I saw Becki, her hand raised to knock again. I opened the door.

  Becki’s hand started to come forward. She stopped. I grinned. My timing had been perfect.

  “Hey, Adrian,” Becki said. “How’s Jeff?”

  “I’m fine,” Jeff said from behind me, his voice sounding strangely distorted.

  I glanced back and saw him barefoot, wearing sweatpants, a toothbrush in his mouth and foam trickling down his chin.

  Becki raised her hands in mock fear. “Oh, no! It’s rabid! Call animal control.”

  “Very funny, sis.”

  “I thought so.” She grinned. “But you’d better hustle if you’re going to make class.”

  “Yes, mother.”

  “And you Adrian?”

  “Thursday, so just got afternoon classes.”

  “Excellent!” Becki held up her hand for a “high five.” Puzzled, I slapped my hand against hers and wondered what she was thinking.

  She did not leave me wondering long.

  “You—” she pointed at Jeff. “—can get to class. You—” she stabbed me in the chest with her finger. “—can take me to the hospital to check on Darryl.”

  I looked at Jeff, who shrugged.

  “Better go along with her or she’ll be just...well, it won’t be pretty.”

  I chuckled and held up my hands. “Fine. Fine. I surrender. But...can I maybe get breakfast first?”

  “No,” Becki said, then smiled. “You’re doing me a favor, so I’ll take you to breakfast. But—” she leaned close and sniffed. “- -Maybe a shower?”

  I laughed. “Maybe.”

  She stepped back out of the doorway.

  I waved back in the direction of Jeff’s bathroom. “Catch you later, Jeff.”

  I heard a grunt from his direction.

  As I started up the stairs I glanced back to see Becky following. I stopped, turned to face her, and raised my eyebrows. “You planning to watch me shower?”

  She grinned. “Don’t you wish.” She sobered. “Seriously, though, if it’s okay, I’ll just wait and once you’re ready we can head straight out.”

  I shrugged. “Fine by me.”

  As I continued up the stairs I wondered what Becki was thinking, or thought she was thinking. Had Chuck been around I would think she intended her flirting to get him jealous. But since he wasn’t …

  Blinding light spilled into the hallway when I opened my apartment door.

  “Still scared of the dark?” Becki said behind me.

  I shrugged. “Forgot to turn them off, I guess.”

  Becki could tease me about being afraid of the dark. What could I say? That I had reason to be? She followed me into the apartment.

  “Sodas in the ‘fridge,” I said as I headed toward the bedroom. “Obviously, I haven’t had time to make coffee or tea.”

  “That’s fine,” Beck said. “We’re going out for breakfast, remember?”

  #

  A brief shower and a quick change of clothes later we headed down to The Monster. On the way out, I slipped a pair of magnesium flares and the vial containing the miniscule remainder of my Elixir of Life into my pocket.

  On the way to the hospital, Becki sat in the passenger seat silently. I had time to think. Why was I staying here? While I was not sure that Shadows were involved in Darryl’s collapse, it was most likely. Every time I had encountered them I had barely escaped. What was the expression? I had to be lucky every time. They only h
ad to be lucky once.

  So, reasons to stay? I did not have a new identity ready, either too young or I’d have too many years to explain on entering college. I had gone underground before, lived without any official presence, but that gets harder with every passing decade. Still, I could do it if necessary. Other reasons? Learn about the Shadows? The one thing I knew about the Shadows was, when I encounter them, I run. Did I really need to know more than that?

  While stopped at a traffic light I glanced across the car at Becki. She sat, her face impassive, but her hands twisted at the hem of her t-shirt.

  “You okay?”

  She shrugged.

  “They think Darryl was using drugs, steroids. What if they think Jeff’s involved? He could lose his place on the team, his scholarship. He could get kicked out of school.”

  “Jeff’s not involved.” The light changed and I pulled through the intersection. “Anybody investigating would find that out pretty quick.”

  She shrugged again.

  I nodded to myself. That wasn’t her worry, just something she told herself to explain her fear to herself. I remembered Becki’s response when I had arrived at the apartment and was struggling up the stairs. I remembered seeing her look up in class and frown at the sound of a passing ambulance. She was just a genuinely nice person who could not stand to see someone hurt. But the happy-go-lucky “nothing bothers me” mask she wore had to make excuses. She just couldn't admit her concern to herself.

  Just like I had to make excuses for why I had not already fled halfway across the country.

  Damn.

  The free lot was full so I pulled into the parking garage, grabbed a ticket and found a space. I followed Becki across the walkway into the hospital proper.

  In Darryl’s room, a nurse was taking blood samples. Darryl lay pale on the bed, no visible change from the previous afternoon. The monitor continued a steady beeping in time with Darryl’s heartbeat.

  I went to open the curtains, which put me behind the nurse and his cart.

  While Becki quizzed the nurse about Darryl’s condition, I let my hand drop from the curtain. Its arc of fall carried it across the top of the cart. A moment later, two vials of blood resided in my pocket.

  No doubt when the nurse discovered he was short, he would shrug and figure he’d been distracted by the pretty girl’s questions and simply not filled the two vials. He would collect two more vials and forget all about it.

  In the course of my life, I had earned a chemistry degree and another in chemical engineering. Neither had been of any use in my practice of alchemy. While both chemistry and alchemy manipulate chemicals, the rules by which they function are entirely different. Perhaps I could learn something using alchemy that the doctors could not with their medicine and biochemistry.

  The nurse completed the blood draw and began to pack up his supplies. He looked down at the vials of collected blood and frowned, shaking his head. He shrugged, removed two more vials from a supply box, and filled them. A moment later, he packed up and left.

  Becki approached Darryl’s bedside. She reached out a tentative hand and took Darryl’s in her own, squeezing slightly.

  “He feels so cold,” she said.

  I frowned and looked up at the monitor. His temperature was a hair under normal. I touched the back of my hand to his cheek. He did feel cold, not the freezing cold of a Shadow’s touch, but much colder than a body at ninety-eight point three degrees should feel. It was like in some way beyond the physical he was drawing the heat and light out of my own body through the contact.

  The mounting evidence added up to the inescapable conclusion that the Shadows were involved.

  I patted Darryl on the shoulder, more for Becki’s benefit than any other reason. It also gave me a moment to think. Normally, it took me from several hours to several days to recover from the touch of a Shadow. But I had never experienced such a severe effect. Had I, no doubt I would be either dead or in the Shadows’ thrall now.

  “Give it time,” I said to Becki. “While Jeff is sure Darryl wasn’t using drugs, Darryl will need time to recover from whatever caused this.” I smiled at her. “In the meantime, worrying over it won’t help.”

  Becki nodded. “I know, but...”

  “But saying it doesn’t help.” I laid a hand on her shoulder. “We do what we can and try to go on with our lives.”

  “What if he...if he...”

  I sighed. “You go on. Life goes on. You hurt. You grieve. And you move on.”

  Becki cast a sideways glance at me, her eyes full of question.

  “I’ve lost people I cared about,” I said softly. I could give her some of the truth, just not all of the truth. “I lost my own parents a...long time ago.”

  Becki snorted.

  “Okay, it seems a long time ago to me.” More than seven hundred years would seem a long time to anybody, but Becki did not need to know that. “So...”

  “I’m sorry,” Becki said. "I didn’t mean to bring up old wounds.”

  I smiled. “It’s okay. Like I said, it seems a long time to me. And you do go on. You never forget and there’s always a place in your heart where they used to be, but others get in there, not filling that place but making their own.”

  “What does that make you? The wise old man?”

  I laughed.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  I was surprised to see Jeff waiting for me after class.

  “Yes?” I asked as he approached me.

  “Thanks for keeping me from going up the walls last night,” Jeff said.

  I waved it away. “Not a problem.”

  I started to walk down the hall and Jeff fell in alongside me.

  “I’d like to pay you back.”

  “There’s no need,” I said.

  “Actually—” I caught the grin on Jeff’s face out of the corner of my eye as we reached the stairs. “—Becki insisted. We’re to meet after practice and you and I are to join her and Chuck for dinner. My treat.”

  I stopped and turned to look at him. “Really?”

  “You know what Becki can be like.”

  I laughed. “She is like a stampede of buffalo, isn’t she?”

  “So...”

  I removed my phone from my belt and glanced at the screen. “So what time?”

  “I’m headed to practice now. So, two hours.”

  I nodded. The school did not yet have their own field so they rented time at the stadium downtown. “I’ll see you there.”

  I spent the next hour and a half in the library. It always helped to give the impression of the serious young student. I could have two or three engineering references around me on the study table, while reading one of the more esoteric volumes from the stacks. If anyone noticed, well I was just taking a short break before diving back into studies, wasn't I?

  Surprisingly, this library had a translation of the writings of Jabir ibn Hayyan, colloquially known as Geber, one of the early workers in alchemy. Much of what it said would be simple gibberish to most people, but for one who had studied alchemy, real alchemy, it contained a wealth of arcana.

  It set me to musing. I was never able to learn what had caused my flashlight to fail when Tanaka had revealed himself as hosting a Shadow. My precipitous leap and fourteen story fall had left the light smashed into ruin. Since then, I had taken to carrying magnesium flares. While past history had shown that I could drive the Shadows away with the light of the flares it seemed to do no more than cause them pain. It did not seem to actually harm them.

  I looked down at the book again.

  Geber's writings preceded the discovery of magnesium by centuries, but the principles should still apply. Extract the sulfur or salt of magnesium, and the mercury or oil of it, and properly recombine them to make the alchemically-purified form of magnesium, Tru-Magnesium. The light produced by burning such magnesium should then be purer in form—True Light, maybe? Perhaps a better weapon against the Shadows.

  Perhaps.

  I jotted a
few notes down in a code that none but another alchemist would understand then stood up and placed the books on a return cart. It was time to meet Jeff and Becki.

  #

  It was a brisk walk to the stadium. Most Americans would whine and complain about its length, preferring instead to drive. I had been used to walking far greater distances. The truth was, finding parking on the campus could be so difficult that it was simply easier to walk rather than drive. They handed out parking permits to anyone who paid for one, far more permits than they had parking spaces.

  I arrived at the stadium in plenty of time. Becki had just arrived. I knew she had just arrived because she was still haranguing the security guard at the gate.

  “My brother said...” Becki drew in a breath to start again just as I reached the entry.

  “Miss, if you would just let me...”

  “Problem, Becki?” I asked.

  “This...this...person won’t let me in.” Becki was wearing a light-blue blouse and tan slacks. A handbag of dark fake leather hung from her right shoulder. She had the dragon broach pinned to the shirt, on the left just below her collar.

  I smiled at the guard, “Jeff Pierce asked us to meet him here along with Chuck...what’s his last name, Becki?”

  “Nylund,” Becki said. “Charles Nylund.”

  “Thank you,” the guard said. “One moment.”

  He looked through the papers on a clipboard.

  “Your names?”

  “Rebecca Pierce.”

  “Adrian Jaeger.”

  The man found turned to a page on the clipboard. “I have your spectator passes right here. If you could sign...” He turned the clipboard and held it out to us.

  I took the clipboard before Becki could. “You see? That old adage about honey and vinegar?”

  “Yeah, well, who wants to catch flies?”

  I signed next to my printed name then handed the clipboard to Becki. She signed as well.

  When the guard asked to look in Becki’s handbag I thought she was going to bristle again but she opened it and held it up. The guard glanced inside then stepped aside and let us enter. At my inquiry he gave directions to where we could observe the last of the practice workout.