Alchemist Academy: Book 1 (25 page)

I stopped at Verity’s large double door and when I twisted the handle, it opened. I breathed in relief. I only had enough stones to deal with the locks on the cabinet.

I closed the door behind me and passed by the paintings and ornate wood carvings all around the room. I darted to the cabinet behind her desk and pulled out an ice stone, almost pure white with blue specks on it.

I pressed it against the lock and watched it freeze into a block of ice. Then I took out a fire stone, half red and half black. Leaning far back, I pushed the stone onto the icy lock. When the stone touched it, it exploded. Bits and pieces of wood flew all around me, and the cabinet door swung open.

Stones were stacked nicely in egg cartons, filling much of the cabinet. I didn’t think the life stone would be in anything like the other stones. I pulled a few bags from the cabinet and then spotted a wooden box with an alchemist’s circle engraved on it. I carefully pulled the box from the cabinet and cracked the lid.

A green stone with two red lines lay nestled in the velvet lining … a stone I remembered from the metal chair in the warehouse. The building shook again from another explosion. The green stone wiggled in the velvet pouch. Daniel’s screams pierced my thoughts and I hesitated, my hand hovering over the stone. I couldn’t go back once I took this stone.

I plucked the stone from its nest and dropped it in the small black sack.

I let out the breath I’d been holding and stood. The building shook and a few stones rolled out of the cabinet. I thought about grabbing a few more, because everything in the cabinet probably had some value, but I didn’t want to risk taking something when I had no idea what it did. Or even worse, who the stones had been made from.

With the stone safely in my bag, I darted to Verity’s door and slipped through.

I stopped at the double doors leading into the hub and twisted the handle. I spent a minute creeping the doors open enough for a slit of vision between them.

As I’d feared, the hub didn’t have a single student in it. A few teachers were walking around the perimeter, watching the ceiling. I’d have to wait for an escape, or I could try the endless hall. The last time I had gone into it, I had to be rescued by Carly and now it had changed and might be changing again soon. No, I would have to wait.

“What are you doing in here?”

I turned to face a perturbed Priscilla. “Verity sent me to grab something from her office.”

She glanced at Verity’s door. It was the opening I needed. I hurled a freeze stone, which struck the door next to her and ricocheted back, striking her in the neck. She froze with a shocked look on her face and fell to the floor.

Without thinking, I ran to her and pulled her stiff body into the hall. With her stuffed away, I collapsed against the plain door, closing it. How had my life turned so quickly? Priscilla should be frozen long enough for me to make it out of here.

Five minutes passed and I stayed where I was, just in case. The rumblings had stopped and I wondered if the stone I’d created had anything to do with it.

“All students with booster stones, report to the fountain,” Verity announced over the intercom.

I inched the door open until I saw the hub filling with students. Once enough people were standing near the door, I slid out and mingled into the crowd. I spotted Deegan near the hole in the wall, staring up. Then a massive explosion shook the building.

Pieces of the ceiling fell, nearly hitting a few Blues. People screamed and dust settled around us. Streaks of outside light shot into the room, illuminating the dust in their paths. I stared at the ceiling and saw three more stones falling. I knew what they were. We had been breached. Whatever my stone had done above, it hadn’t worked.

“Get the booster stones to me,
now
!” Verity demanded.

I watched stones descending from the roof of the hub. Three stones landed near room five, striking the floor. As they bounced, they turned into humans, a woman and two men.

Utter shock stilled my movements. I blinked three times, making sure I wasn’t hallucinating, staring at the women in the middle.

“Mom?” I whispered.

She couldn’t have heard me, but she turned and we locked eyes.

“Mom!” I screamed, and ran toward her.

“Allie?” She took two steps toward me. Her just voicing my name sent my heart sailing. She knew me, she’d come for me and she was alive. “Allie, you need to—” she started to say, but her last word came out garbled. She reached for her neck and fell to her knees.

“No!” I was too far away to stop it.

Students ran by in a blur, clearing out of the hub. Deegan threw another stone, but the man next to my mom slapped it to the floor and dropped another stone next to them. I ran, caught up to Deegan and passed him. I thought I had a chance of reaching her until the stone hit the floor and exploded in a dust cloud. My last image of my mom before she was engulfed in the cloud was the two men grabbing her and disappearing as quickly as they had come in. I kept running.

I reached the spot where she’d fallen and dropped to my knees, clawing at the dusty floor, breathing in the smoky air around the space she’d occupied. My heart pounded, but my mind hadn’t caught up with my body. I’d seen her disappear, but I searched through the dust surrounding me. She had to be there. I clawed at the dirty stone floor, screaming.

She’s alive!

Dirt filled my nails. I looked to the ceiling at the crack she’d dropped through. She could be right above, staring down at me. I raised my hand, reaching for the light shining through, and someone grabbed my arm.

“We’ve got to get out of here,” Carly urged.

“My mom…”

She pulled on me again, but I shook loose.

Deegan and a few other teachers surrounded us. They looked to the ceiling and to the walls and into the dust cloud, searching for the same person I was. The dust settled onto the floor and kept a low haze. My body was too heavy; I couldn’t move, even as Carly pulled and yelled my name. I felt as if I was in the middle of a jump, floating in the abyss. Everything around me went silent. I saw Carly’s mouth moving and the teachers spreading out as they realized they were gone. All the while I was falling into my personal abyss. Had everything in my entire life been a lie?

“Stones, you fools!” Verity screamed.

I heard her powerful voice and looked to the line where Bridget was holding a stone near Verity’s.

“No!” I screamed to Bridget, but it was too late. She placed her stone on Verity’s.

We were going to jump.

Verity stiffened and the stone in her hand dissolved. She closed her eyes and fell backward, plunging into the fountain. Water splashed out onto the floor. I leapt to my feet, stretching toward the streak of light above.

The floor fell out from under my feet and the whole building shimmered … and the bright light disappeared. I floated, feeling the distance between me and my mom expand. My footing finally firmed up on solid ground. I had no idea where we were, but my mom felt light years away. We could be on the moon or at the bottom of the ocean, but something told me that my mom wasn’t going to find me again anytime soon.

The reality of my situation came at me as Carly yelled. She sounded so distant, her face contorted with fear. I stared at the space where my mother had been.

“Come on.” Carly pulled me away from the dust cloud.

I allowed her to pull me along until I saw Deegan. He was the one who’d thrown the stone at my mom. She had collapsed under whatever horrible stone he’d used on her. I rushed in his direction, but he moved just as fast toward the fountain.

“Verity!” he yelled, not seeing my pursuit.

The water in the fountain splashed around and she lay underneath it all. I skidded twenty feet short of the fountain as the teachers grouped around Verity and pulled her out of the water. Her head rolled around as they lifted her out. Deegan knelt down, guiding her limp body to the floor.

I spotted the skin on the back of his neck, but my hand shook too much and I couldn’t get a stone out of my pocket. He had hurt my mom, and if he’d killed … no, I wouldn’t even think of it. Rage filled me as I stared at the teachers setting Verity’s body on the floor. She hit the floor with a thud and water spread out around her as her clothes drained out on the stone floor.

I forced my gloved hand to steady enough to pull out a stone. Carly stopped pulling on my arm as I moved in a straight line toward the teachers.

“No, don’t do this, they’ll kill you,” she whispered, but she might as well have been speaking to herself.

Carly stopped walking by my side once I got within ten feet of the teachers. Good, I thought. She didn’t need to get involved in this. I had to do it on my own. I couldn’t spend another minute in the Academy knowing my mom was out there.

I slowed down my approach and tried to show actual concern for the fallen Verity. Just a bit closer and I’d have Deegan.

The bald professor was the first to notice my approach, but it was too late for him. I struck the back of his neck with a freeze stone. He winced and slapped the spot like a bee had stung him and he was stuck in that pose, falling to the floor. The teachers froze in shock as great as any stone would have created. I used this second of disbelief to rifle through Deegan’s jacket and grab his large key ring. I was getting out of there no matter where we were in the world.

“Did you just…?” Professor Dill dropped Verity’s head. With surprising quickness, he pulled a stone off his sash. I saw the opaque color of the stone and the bright red streaks. Transfixed by it, I knew something of that color would probably kill or badly injure me. I took a deep breath and stepped back, but being within feet of him, I was an easy target. I mouthed an apology to my mom. I had only just learned of her existence and I had already failed her.

He wound up his arm and I continued to scramble back, keeping my gloved hand up. Just as his hand moved forward, a stone hit Dill’s face. He dropped to his knees, the stone from his hand bounced across the floor, and he reached for his face in a scream. The other teachers reacted, grabbing for their own stones, staring at me with confusion and growing hatred. They didn’t even notice the person who’d thrown the stone until she yelled.

“Suck on
that
!” Jackie roared, and she threw another stone, striking Priscilla.

Priscilla convulsed on the floor.

The bald professor pulled a stone from his sash just as a fist struck him on the jaw. He fell like a stack of cards to the floor, revealing Mark standing behind him. The muscles in his arms flexed and he glared at the pile of professors on the floor.

A woman in a black suit staggered back on her heels. “No, don’t hurt me.”

Bridget stepped over the frozen Deegan and gripped a stone in her hand. “Bitch, how about a nightmare?” She chucked a stone and hit the woman’s face.

The woman screamed and flailed in the air like she was falling from an enormous height.

I gawked at my friends around me. They had just risked everything to come to my rescue. I blinked and glanced down at the keys. They gave me a chance I’d never really thought I had.

Jackie tilted her head in admiration for Bridget. Then she danced around the fallen teachers, splashing bits of water around Verity. She laughed and kicked Deegan the rest of the way to the floor before skipping over to me. “So, what’s the big plan now, buttercup?” She could have been asking me about tea, or what movie we were going to.

“We’re getting the hell out of here.” I held up Deegan’s large key ring.

Jackie clapped and laughed, looking at the elevator door.

“We don’t know where we are. We could be anywhere,” Carly argued.

Bridget let out a long sigh. “Anywhere is better than this place.”

Mark shook his right hand. “I would normally agree with a cautious approach here, but I think we’ve outstayed our welcome.” He looked at the array of teachers lying on the floor around us.

Just then, Verity groaned and Deegan moved a finger.

“What are we waiting for?” Bridget asked.

I didn’t need to hear any further discussion. Running to the elevator door, I fumbled with the key ring, trying to remember what the key had looked like. If I was even a smidgeon smarter, I would have paid attention to Deegan when he used these keys.

I jammed a key into the lock and pulled it back out in frustration and tried another. Failure.

“Come on,” Jackie said.

“I’m trying. There’s like a hundred keys here.” The keys clattered like laughter, as if their single goal was to see me fail.

I glanced back at the fountain. Verity sat up and looked our way.

“The dead just rose. We gotta go,” Jackie warned, fumbling around with her empty sack.

I stuffed in another key, and then another, but none of them fit. I frantically worked down the key ring.

“She’s standing up,” Carly said with fear cracking her voice.

“Deegan’s moving,” Bridget added.

I took a split second to glance back in between keys. Deegan rolled on the ground and Verity had gotten to one knee. She stared at me and stole the breath from my lungs. Her normal look was scary, but her scary look was terrifying. I doubled my speed but fumbled the key and dropped the whole key ring on the floor, losing my place.