Alchemystic (8 page)

My father nodded, a lighter look in his eyes now that I had acquiesced. “Besides, there’s plenty of work you can do here,” he said, handing me a stack of folders. “Since you love your great-great-grandfather’s old studio on the top floor so much, why don’t you work on these there for the time being?”

“Till when?” I asked. “Not that I mind the break from appointments. I’m just…surprised, is all. How long are we talking?”

“I’m not sure,” my father said, pulling the knife closer to his face, lifting his glasses to examine it more closely. “I will consult with the reverend in the morning.”

He handed the knife back to me before he and my slowly calming mother headed back to the couch. Once they were settled in, he raised the volume of the television once again, both of them falling silent.

The reverend? Why hadn’t he suggested the cops? I could have argued with him about how ridiculous going the religious route sounded, but there was no way I was going to enable all his churchiness. I knew better than to try to sway him from anything religious. There was really no point in arguing with him, anyway.

At least they hadn’t fired me from the family business, or the family, for that matter. Even though it was for the benefit of my mother mostly, feeling sorta grounded at twenty-two sucked majorly. I headed toward the back hall of the building, mounting the stairs farther up as a newly found sympathy for Rapunzel settled over me. Despite the enormous size of the Belarus building, it hadn’t ever felt so claustrophobic.

Alexandra

I
dumped the stack of folders on a huge desk in my great-great-grandfather’s studio. I pulled off my boots and threw my shoulder bag over by my favorite couch; then, despite my adult “grounding,” I tried to be the dutiful daughter by grabbing a handful of the folders and settling in.

Despite my best effort, I found myself too wound up from my earlier encounter to concentrate on the work. Who could pay attention to kitchen renovation costs, contractor billing disputes, and square footage when there were strange knives and disappearing attackers to concern my brain with?

I closed the folders, pulled out one of my notebooks from my bag, and fell to sketching instead. I drew the events of my evening—the shadowy figure in the streets, the strange tattoo on his hand, the knife he had held at my throat. The occasional tear fell on the page as waves of processing emotions ebbed and flowed, but I continued on, lost in the process of it. I started one sketch of what I thought the results of the evening
could
have been, but stopped myself, my mind unwilling to go there.

Instead, I pulled out my laptop and went searching for bits
of inspiration in the designs and architecture of all the buildings I knew Alexander Belarus had built across the city.

My mind must have wandered, because time passed—how much, I didn’t know—but I snapped to when a sound rose up to catch my attention above the clamor of the city seeping in through the French doors I had cracked open across the room to let in a little of the crisp late-September air. A
close
sound, one of footsteps on the metal grates on the fire escape rising up the far side of the terrace.

I leapt up from the couch and quickly padded across the room. I swept up one of my great-great-grandfather’s works as I went—a great stone book, one of the heavier ones I had the strength to lift. It would work for braining anyone stupid enough to try coming in through my window, if I could raise the damn thing over my head.

My heart pounded hard in my throat.
Stupid,
I thought. Had I been careless enough to have been followed home by my attacker? I didn’t think so, but at least I was ready this time. I pressed myself to the side of my window and hefted the book up, my arms already aching. Suddenly I realized the knife in my bag would have been a better choice, but it was too late for that now.

The doors flew open and a single shadowy figure dashed into the room before I could even bring the book down on top of it, which was fortunate for me. A certain blue-haired girl twisted around when she saw me standing there with the massive stone book. She tripped over her own feet, going down with none of her dancer’s grace to help her, landing with a heavy
thud
on the floor.

“Rory…?” I said, relieved. I lowered the stone book. “You know, normal people use the stairs.”

She stood up from where she had landed on the floor, brushing herself off, her breathing a little labored. “When you make some normal friends, let me know.”

I thought about it for a moment. “Fair enough…”

She pushed her messed-up blue bangs out of her eyes.

“Jesus, Lexi,” she said, eyeing the stone book in my hands. “Who were you expecting? Charles Manson?”

I relaxed, lowering the book until it hung at the ends of my arms. “Sorry,” I said. “It’s been a night.”

“I bet,” she said, smoothing down her shirt. “Glad to see you didn’t end it with the murder of your best friend.”

Another sound rose up on the terrace and I spun around. Well, as quick as someone carrying a stone book half her weight could, anyway. I had the book almost over my head when Rory put her hands on mine, easing it back down.

“Easy,” she said. “It’s just Marshall.”

Marshall’s lanky body came into view climbing up the stairs of the fire escape. He crossed over to us at the French doors, his eyes fixed on me, full of terror.

“Relax,” I said. “I’m not going to hit you.”

The terror stayed on his face as he fumbled his way in through the doors, slamming them shut behind him. “That’s not it,” he said, fighting harder for each breath than Rory had. “Heights…Don’t…like them.”

Rory patted him on the shoulder. “Funny for a guy who stands so tall.”

“That fire escape terrifies me,” Marshall said. “It’s just bolts holding it into brick. Don’t trust it. And as to your point, dear Rory, the difference is that if I slip while just standing around, I don’t plummet several stories down, now, do I?”

Rory shook her head and looked at me.

I shrugged. “It’s a fair point,” I said.

Marshall looked at the stone book in my hands, nervous now. “Is that…Were you going to…?”

“Crush our heads in…?” Rory offered. “Yeah. What gives, Lexi? What’s got you so jacked up?”

“Promise me you’ll be less freak-outish to my story than my parents were,” I said, going for my shoulder bag. I fished out the knife with the white carved handle and held it up. “Almost got accosted, raped, and/or stabbed tonight. So there’s that.”

Just saying it out loud had me shaking, rage and fear rising up together as I thought about my close call.

“Holy shit,” Rory said, coming over to me at the couch.
Avoiding the knife in my hand, she came in close and hugged me tight, and with my free arm I hugged her back just as hard.

“Are you okay?” Marshall asked. “Did you call the cops?”

“No,” I said. “I ran until I got here; then my parents were, well…my parents. I’ve been up here the rest of the time. Just trying to process it. Besides, my attacker sort of…disappeared.”

Rory pulled back from me, hands on my shoulders. “Um, what, now?”

I sat down on the couch, put the knife away, and told them the story from beginning to end, showing them the few sketches I had produced—the symbol on the man’s hand, his face, the alley where he should have caught up with me but instead disappeared. Well, flew away was what it had sounded like, but I didn’t share that.

“This is my fault,” Rory said. “If I didn’t get you these classes for your birthday, just trying to get you out of your work head space, you wouldn’t have been out there in this asshole’s path.”

I shook my head. “Rory, are you kidding me? Outside of this whole encounter, these classes are what have kept me from falling into a full-on depression. That whole weirdness is just random, you know? You can’t live all your life in New York City without having at least one criminal act happen to you.”

“True,” Marshall said. “Although, technically I’ve already been mugged, like, three times, which is way above the norm. I guess I look nerdy enough to have a high-paying job or something. I make a great victim.” He put his arms halfheartedly in the air. “Go me!”

Rory laughed, but it was cut short by a cacophony of sound rising up from somewhere in Gramercy Park on the east side of the building—tree branches rustling and snapping, followed by a heavy
slap-thud
. All three of us jumped, turning to face the terrace.

“What the
hell
was that?” Marshall asked.

“The city that never sleeps,” I said, grabbing my boots and heading out the French doors.

We came down the fire escape and hit the bottom of the alley at a run, lights coming on in all the buildings along the edges of Gramercy Park. I stepped out onto the sidewalk, a small crowd of passersby already gathering along the north side of it.

“What is it?” Marshall asked, as we headed up the west side of my block.

“I’m not sure,” I said, stopping once we hit the corner. The gathering crowd stood at the gate peering into the darkness of the park itself. “I think they see something, but they can’t get in.”

I started toward them with Marshall, but Rory grabbed my arm and pulled me back around the corner. It took Marshall a second to notice I wasn’t next to him anymore, and he spun awkwardly in his tracks and ran back to join us, jumpy. “We don’t want to go with the crowd?”

Rory shook her head.

Marshall peeked back around the corner of the black wrought-iron fence. “Do you think they saw me?” he asked, nervous. “That looked normal, right? I mean, people turn around and walk away all the time, right?”

Rory hit him in the arm. “Relax, crazy pants,” she said. “You acting normal would actually
draw
attention.”

“Why’d you stop us?” I asked.

Rory gave a dark smile, then nodded down the block to the south corner before taking off at a slow jog. “I hate crowds. Come on, Lex. You still have your key?”

“Yeah,” I said, breaking into a run after her.

“Good,” she called back over her shoulder.

“What key?” Marshall called out behind me.

I spun, grabbed his arm, and pulled him after me. He stumbled forward but managed to fall in next to me as the two of us watched Rory turn the corner heading around to the south side of the park.

“Gramercy’s a private park,” I said. “One of two left in the New York area, actually. Only the tenants living on the park itself get keys. They charge an arm and two legs if you lose them, but my family’s been here forever, so…”

Rory was waiting for us at the southern gate, which was
unoccupied, straining in the darkness to see into the park. “I can’t see anything,” she said. Her arm flashed out toward me, fingers wiggling. “The key. Give it.”

“We’re not going in there, are we?” Marshall asked.

“Well, I don’t know about
you
, Marsh,” she said, turning to the two of us, “but I am.”

I hesitated, and Rory rolled her eyes at me.

“I want to see what’s going on,” she said, lifting the chain from around my neck where I wore the key. I didn’t resist. “Besides, you
are
a key-carrying member of the privileged. That means you have every right to be in there if you want to.”

“What if my psycho’s in there?” I asked as she slid the key into the modern lock of the ancient-looking gate. “I think I’ve had about all the crazy I can take tonight.”

Rory flipped her blue hair back out of her eyes and gave a toothy grin, adjusting her glasses. “There’s a good chance someone called the cops about whatever made that sound, so I’d say we’re pretty safe.”

The sigh Marshall let out indicated his flustered displeasure with her choice, but before he could actually form words, Rory cracked the gate open ever so slightly and slid her skinny body into the opening, entering the park.

I shook my head, gave him a smile, and slid in following Rory. I heard the sounds of Marshall finally coming after us seconds later, but I had already moved on to searching through the shadows for my best friend. The ample lights outside the park barely penetrated through the trees within it, the swaying shadows in the light fall breeze making it hard to pick out Rory’s figure anywhere. The cobblestones beneath my feet were uneven and had me moving slowly or risk twisting an ankle on the ancient surface that covered most of the paths through the park.

“Where’s Rory?” Marshall whispered as he caught up to me, grabbing onto my arm.

“Not sure,” I said. “And let go of my arm. This isn’t a date.”

“Sorry,” he said, pulling away. “Just nerves. I’m sure the place is lovely in the daylight, but right now it’s super creepy. Don’t worry. I’ll protect you.”

I gave a small laugh. “That’s comforting.”

He laughed, too. “Fine. You protect me, then.”

“Chivalry is dead,” I said with a shake of my head. “Come on.”

I moved with caution toward the far side of the park, continuing my snail’s pace. After a few moments, Marshall grabbed my arm again.

“Is that the sound of a river?” he asked.

“Yep,” I said, not stopping. “And I don’t want to fall in it. That’s why we’re going slow.”