Alchemist (6 page)

“Shh!” Darius
spat, raising a finger to his mouth. “Stop it! You’ll piss her
off!”

“Don’t you
tell me to
shush
. I’ve spent
the last day and a half sitting in a boat with you two trying to
track down your psycho ex-girlfriend when I could have been doing
other things!” Terry retaliated, raising her voice.

“Shut up!” Darius
warned, the colour draining from his voice.

But Connor knew
her well enough to know that her anger was false. “She has a
point.” He joined in, speaking much louder than he needed too. “I
should have been at work today but I’ve been wasting my time
looking for that nutter.”

“I thought you
were friends!” Darius exclaimed, gobsmacked.

“Friends? No way!
Faye was always a crazy bitch. I hope the ocean swallowed her whole
and we never see her again.”

Terry found it
hard not to laugh. Steeling herself she said, “Yeah, I couldn’t
have put it better myself. She was a crazy bitch.” Connor was flung
into her as a wave slammed into the side of the boat. They were
showered as the top half broke over the hull.

Wiping water from
his eyes and spitting, Connor said, “I think we got...” A second
wave crashed into the tiny vessel from the opposite direction, this
time tossing them into the loch.

Terry felt herself
sinking. She desperately tried clawing upward but it was no good;
the pull of the vortex coupled with her heavy weight conspired to
drag her down to the depths. Terry was not a great swimmer because
of her metal-calcium bones, but she did not fear water. The
microscopic robots in her blood acted quickly to build her a set of
gills. Though she could now breathe, she hated the sensation of
water in her lungs.

She peered about
as she raced down, desperately seeking Connor and Darius, but she
saw neither. The vortex was unrelenting and she was beginning to
grow dizzy. Growing weary, Terry flung out her hands and threw a
large electrical charge free of her body, the power surging through
her like a lightning conductor.

It only lasted a
few moments, but when she had stopped the vortex had ceased. Terry
looked about as she drifted gently downward through calm waters.
Then she spotted something in front of her, a short distance away.
It appeared black in the poor light of the depths but it was
definitely a body. She pushed herself toward it, swimming hard to
avoid sinking. Her suspicions were confirmed when she drew close.
It was Faye who drifted among the currents, unconscious.

******

Faye screamed as
she threw another wave of water at the glass. Not long after they
had returned to the estate she had awoken in a terrible rage. A
fight had ensued and Terry and Lyle had had to wrestle her into the
holding cell that she now lashed out in beneath the mansion. For
the last half hour she had battered the reinforced walls with
tsunami like waves; again and again; the storm in her heart
raging.

Terry returned
down a flight of steps, drying her hair with a towel. “Is she still
at it?” she asked, as she approached the other three men.

“Yes and she’s
been swearing.” Connor said, scratching his black hair, which had
been plastered against his head. “A lot.” He added.

“What’s she saying
now?” Terry asked, listening to some of the shouting that rang off
the walls of the cell. She did not know the native tongue of the
water elementals.

“The usual.” Lyle
replied as another wave crashed against the perplex glass.

Connor sighed.
“Why is she acting like this? I don’t remember her ever being so
violent.”

“I know.” Terry
admitted, harbouring the same fear. She noticed Darius was standing
away from them by a few feet. “Have you tried talking to her?”

Darius stared at
her with hunted eyes. He shook his head, his expression meek. “She
won’t want to talk to me.”

Terry walked over
to him. “Why not?”

“She’s
crazy...look at her.”

“You were
the
one
who wanted to find
her.” Grabbing him by the arm, she pushed Darius toward the glass
with a hard shove. “
Try
.”

He stared back at
her nervously. Terry could see he was shaking. “Now!” she ordered,
not giving him an option.

Darius turned his
attention to the tank. He hesitated as another wall of water
cascaded over the glass; all that separated him from the crazed
woman he once loved on the other side. Finally taking a deep breath
he shouted. The words he said were lost to Terry, as he spoke in
his native language.

The cell suddenly
fell eerily silent. Darius gazed in, finding Faye staring at him
with icy hard eyes...

Water elementals,
looked almost human in appearance bar their startling pale blue
eyes, pointed teeth and webbed hands and feet. They had a slight,
mottled silver and white pattern that traced their spines - the
ruminants of scales some believed from an earlier evolution. The
species had perfected the art of completely defusing their physical
form into H20 molecules without losing their consciousness or
killing themselves.

“Why were you
following me?” she spat, her hatred raw in her words. They rang off
the high walls and ceiling, giving her voice an even harder
edge.

Darius felt them
cut through him. “I came looking for you to bring you home. I’m
worried about you, everyone is.”

“Liar. You have
come to kill me! You were always jealous of my power!”

“What power? Faye
this has to stop. Please, come home. There are people who can help
you.” He pleaded with tears in his eyes.

“Not until I have
finished here. Let me out of this tank and I promise I will not
kill you.”

Darius whimpered,
shocked by the words of his former lover.

“Faye.” Terry
said, stepping up to Darius’s side. Even she was shocked by what
she had just heard.

“Alchemist.” Faye
said coolly, inclining her chin but there was no kindness in her
voice.

“It’s been a long
time.”

Faye gave a curt
nod and nothing more.

“Do you want to
tell me what’s going on?” Terry asked, folding her arms.

“It does not
concern any of you.”

“Really?” she
began pacing along the edge of the glass. “This week two people
have tried to kill me, your boyfriend here broke into my house and
there have been a number of portals opening from Santerria. And
Darius claims you only came back here six days ago.” She turned to
face Faye. “It’s very strange that you decided to come back now.
I’m not stupid. What is really going on?”

“I know nothing
about what you’re talking about. I came here to destroy
mankind.”

Terry flicked a
glance ad Darius. “So he’s telling the truth then? About that
part?”

“Yes.” She said, a
proud smirk creeping across her face and all Terry could see was
evil.

“Why are you
wanting to do this? What happened back home?” Connor asked.

Faye scoffed.
“What do you mean? Nothing happened. I came here after none of my
brethren backed my cause.” Her eyes fixed on Darius. “But he was
sent to kill me. The others said that they would kill me if I tried
to do what I wanted.”

Terry turned to
Darius questioningly.

The boy was ashen.
“What? No! She’s lying! She’s insane!”

“Why should we
believe him?” Lyle asked, looking at Terry as he drew closer. “We
do not know him and there’s always been something suspicious about
this story since he arrived.”

Darius backed away
a few steps; terrified.

“What about her?”
asked Terry. “She’s clearly mad.”

Her uncle
continued to stare at the ranging youth. “It’s your choice but I
say for now we lock both of them up.”

“What?”

Terry thought
about it for a long moment. “Agreed.”

Darius could do
nothing but shout and scream in terror as Lyle closed on him...

******

Terry brushed her
hair back absently with one hand as she sat lost in thought. She
and Connor had sat in silence in the kitchen for the last fifteen
minutes. Connor gazed at some spot on the table, somewhere just
beyond where his drink sat. Without looking he would occasionally
reach for the glass, taking a small sip before returning the glass
to its former spot. “Darius.” He suddenly said.

“Pardon?” Terry
said, snapping out of her reverie. She had been so withdrawn in her
thoughts that she hardly heard him.

“I was just
thinking about Darius. Do you believe him?”

Terry shook her
head and shrugged, before having drinking some more water. She was
as much on the fence as he was. “I don’t know.”

He smiled. “Yeah,
I’m not sure either. Normally I would side with Faye but...” he
left the thought unfinished.

“She’s
different.”

“Yeah, there’s
definitely something different about her. She isn’t how I remember
her.”

Terry shrugged.
“Maybe it’s just because we’ve not seen her in a long time. I mean,
we were just kids back then. It’s like when you watch a film again
that you’ve not seen in years and when you were younger you
enjoyed, it’s exactly the same but your perception of it
isn’t.”

He smiled again.
“That’s very deep. Are you feeling alright?”

“What? I can’t say
anything like that without being made fun of?”

He laughed,
shaking his head. “No, I wasn’t making fun of you. It just seemed a
heavy thing to say for a Sunday night.” He shook his head again.
“But you don’t believe that do you?”

“No. You’re right,
she’s not the same.”

Connor sighed,
suddenly feeling very tired. “I’m worried that she may have stayed
in her water form too long. You know as well as I do that that can
do things to them.”

“Yeah, but she was
talking strangely for a while before she left. Remember she kept
saying all that stuff about defusing her body into the ocean
completely?”

Connor nodded, his
gaze lost in the distance. “I remember.” He looked back to Terry.
“Do you think that is even possible?”

“I doubt it, when
you consider how big the world is. How can someone possibly be so
connected to the world that they can be everywhere at once? I mean,
the idea itself is just ridiculous.”

Connor lifted his
glass. “Yet you can alter the shape of your body at will. You can
create cells and alter your height at a whim. Have you ever tried
to find out how tall you can get or how many tentacles you can
spawn?”

She shook her
head. “No. Why would I?”

Connor sighed,
shaking his head. “I know but you get my drift.”

Terry gave him a
funny look. “I don’t think it’s fair to compare the two. I can only
take the shapes my body dictates, nothing more.”

“Okay, well what
if she had found a way to defuse? Hypothetically, I mean. But
suppose she had, do you think that would scare her kind enough to
try and kill her?”

“Okay maybe Darius
is right then, maybe she has fallen off the wagon and he was sent
to bring her back. He did say that she wanted to flood the world.
You have got to admit, that is pretty crazy!” she pointed out
before taking another drink of water.

“So you do you
believe him then?” Connor asked, curious.

“No, but I don’t
trust Faye either.”

Connor scratched
his head. “I have an ominous feeling that she would kill him if she
got the chance.”

“Yeah me too.”
Terry said. She could not have agreed more.

Connor checked his
watch. “I better get off anyway. The missus will be wondering where
I’ve got too.” He said, pushing his chair back from the breakfast
bar.

“I’ll phone you in
the morning to let you know if we find out anything else.”

“Cheers.
Goodnight.” He said, walking away with a smile on his face.

She lazily waved a
hand in farewell. “Goodnight.”

After a few more
minutes of contemplation she cleared the glasses away and retired
for the night herself.

Distractions

Terry woke not
long after dawn as the sun caught her on the face. She sat up
pushing back the quilts. Her room was still shrouded in darkness
but the morning sun had managed to push its way through a slither
between the curtains; allowing a marigold finger to touch her
across the face and wake her. Wiping the sleep from her eyes, Terry
clambered out of bed.

She was putting
milk in her cereal when Lyle walked into the kitchen, his
expression grim. “Morning.” She said, fetching a spoon out of the
draw beside her. “Is everything alright?”

He shook his head.
“No, not really.”

Terry dug the
spoon into her breakfast. “What is it?”

Lyle sighed,
looking away for a long moment. When he looked back, she could see
it was serious. “I have just had a long chat with Faye.”

Terry swallowed
her mouthful of cereal. “And?”

“She has told me a
lot of things that have happened since we were last home and the
most grave among them being that apparently your father has
declared war on the Southlands.”

The spoon
clanged against the bowl as it fell free of Terry’s grasp. She
blinked at him, wide eyed. “
What
?”

He held his hands
out to her in supplication. “Terry! Terry! It might not be
true!”

“What makes you so
sure? What happened? What did she say?”

“Apparently there
was a murder. That’s why your father has declared war, according to
Faye anyway.”

“Who died?” Terry
hastened, desperate to know.

“One of your
second cousins apparently, Faye seemed to think it was Micca.”

Terry blinked at
him in confusion. “Wait, Micca? Dad hated Micca. He kicked him out
of the colony, why would he care about whether he died or not?”