Dark Alchemy (8 page)

“I'm not looking for trouble. I just want to know what you saw. Sounds like it was something bad.” Mike kept his voice low and friendly.

“I—­” The young man shook his head, then looked past Mike's shoulder. His eyes widened in fear. “I didn't see nothin'.”

Petra turned. Four men had walked into the bar. They strode in noiselessly, and that silence followed them as they approached the pool table. They smelled of fresh-­turned earth. Petra didn't recognize three of them. But she recognized Gabriel.

Gabriel flicked a glance at Petra. His face was smooth and unmarked . . . not the look of a man who'd had it bashed in with a fence post only a day ago. A raven fluttered down from the rafters to settle on his shoulder.

He tipped his hat at her. “Ma'am.” Gabriel turned away to look at the young man. “We heard Jeff had too much to drink. We're here to take him home.” His voice was the same rough whisper that she'd heard yesterday.

Mike's eyes narrowed, and Petra saw his fingers twitch toward his sidearm. “Jeff seems pretty sober to me.”

Petra watched Jeff's Adam's apple bob as he swallowed. “I, uh, have had a ­couple of beers . . .”

Gabriel nodded. “And we don't want the boy driving and endangering himself or others. Right, Jeff?”

Mike kept his body between Jeff and Gabriel. “No need to worry. I can take him home.”

Gabriel inclined his head, like a bird looking at something shiny. His face was an otherwise impassive mask. “Jeff?”

Jeff edged out from behind Mike and slipped into the knot of men, head bowed. Gabriel turned and followed the men out of the bar, but he glanced back at Petra. Even in the darkness, he looked whole, and that was impossible. Then he turned and walked out, Mike and Petra following a little ways behind.

“Is that the guy Frankie beat up?” Mike asked. He thought like a cop, Petra observed, searching for a flaw in the story.

“Yeah.”

“Frankie must be losing his touch.”

Gabriel hopped behind the wheel of a pickup truck parked at the curb, and another one of Sal's men rode shotgun. She watched as the remaining two men piled into the back of the truck, Jeff between them. As the pickup started, Petra thought she saw Jeff flinch.

“Will Jeff be all right?” she whispered to Mike.

Mike's hands were clenched into fists. “I hope so. I hope to God that he was just drunk and talking out his ass. Because if he wasn't . . .” One hand reached for his sidearm.

The goth kid had shambled out of the bar, his hands stuffed in his hoodie. He stared at the truck, horror writ on his face as he whispered, “He isn't coming back from there. Not ever.”

That was enough. Petra stepped in front of the truck, heart hammering. She couldn't allow anyone to disappear. Not like her father. The headlights blinded her.

“Let him go,” she said, but was certain that her voice couldn't be heard over the engine.

The driver's side door opened, and Gabriel stepped out. He turned the lights off. In her dazzled periphery, Petra could see that Mike had drawn down on the men in the back of the pickup truck. Mike and Jeff were having an argument.

Gabriel looked nonplussed. “Get out of the way.”

Petra lifted her chin. “What are you going to do with him?”

“We're taking him home.”

“I don't believe that.”

“I don't really care what you believe.” It was said without rancor, only a statement of fact. He stood before her, less than two feet away. His eyes were dilated full and black like the new moon.

“Let him go.”

“This isn't up for discussion.”

“What
is
up for discussion?” Petra pulled hair out of her mouth that had worked free of her ponytail. “I've got some questions for you. Questions about how you seem very hale and hearty after nearly being beaten to death. Questions about your blood—­”

Gabriel's eyes narrowed, and he cut her off. “I'll make a trade. Life for a life. You saved mine. I'll save his.”

Petra nodded. That had worked better than expected. He wasn't totally without honor. “Okay.”

“But, no more questions.” He reached out, laid his finger across her lips. His skin was cold as frost, and she stifled a shudder.

“I can't promise that.” She said it honestly. “I'm a scientist. That's what I do.”

Gabriel's hand dropped, and he seemed to consider. A crowd was gathering behind the windows of the bar.

“Then save them for later,” he demanded curtly.

She nodded, swallowing. She had enough sense not to ask when or where.

Gabriel gestured to the men in the back of the truck. They brought Jeff to him, frog-­marching him as he squirmed. Mike was yelling at them to let him go, but the ranch hands ignored him. It seemed that they didn't much care that Mike was armed. As far as they were concerned, it seemed he could have been threatening them with a water pistol.

Petra grabbed Mike's gun arm. “Wait.”

Gabriel leaned very close to Jeff, speaking low enough in his sepulchral voice that Petra and Mike could hear, but the gawkers could not. “Start walking. Walk out of this town. Walk until you can't walk any more, and then keep walking.”

Jeff nodded, wide-­eyed. He took off at a brisk pace down the road, glancing back at them fearfully as he went.

Gabriel and the other men piled back into the pickup, cranked the engine, and drove off in the opposite direction. Petra noticed that Gabriel had forgotten to turn his lights on, and she wondered how the hell he could see in the dark.

 

Chapter Eight

Mercury

T
he remainder of dinner was a little tense.

“That was monumentally stupid,” Mike told her.

Petra bristled. “Hey, that wasn't—­”

“But I like your style.”

Petra gave him a dirty look.

“Seriously, though . . .” His gaze darkened. “Stay away from those guys. They're bigger trouble than the meth heads.”

Petra glanced around. After the scene on the street, the goth kid had disappeared. He seemed to be able to find as much trouble as Petra did, and she wanted to ask him about it.

“What's the deal with those guys? Why doesn't anyone challenge them? Well, except Frankie. Frankie wants to cave Gabriel's head in.” And his caved-­in head seemed to heal awfully damn fast.

Mike stared down at the tablecloth. “They're Sal Rutherford's men. Sal owns the largest ranch around here, it's been in his family for generations. Those men are his goon squad. They pretty much enforce his will, without question.”

“What do the cops have to say about it?”

“The sheriff's deputies around here are pretty damn useless. The sheriff is Sal's cousin. They let Sal run the county as he wants. For all intents and purposes, Sal's men
are
the cops. Which is why you should leave them alone.”

“I'm not specifically going out and looking for trouble. I feel like I should point that out.”

“Yeah, well, it seems to find you. You should consider moving to the lodge at the Park.”

Petra shook her head. “No.”

Mike blew out his breath in exasperation. “At least there's law enforcement in the park. Anything that happens there is a federal crime.”

“Even if this is the Wild West, I can take care of myself,” Petra said.

“Keep those pistols close. You'd be surprised at how wild it can really get.”

They played rock-­paper-­scissors for the tab. Mike won, but she snatched the bill from the waitress before he could draw his wallet. Mike threw up his hands in mock surrender while she paid, then led her outside and struck off to find his Jeep and pull it around. Petra stood in the buzzing halo of a gaslight, swatting at mosquitoes while she waited for him to return.

“The bugs attack harder when you struggle.”

Petra turned, seeing the goth kid leaning up against the wall, smoking a cigarette. “Oh, yeah?”

“Yeah. The mosquitoes sense the carbon dioxide. If you keep still, they ignore you more.” He blew menthol smoke into the dark. “Or, you could just take up smoking.”

“Nah. I like my lungs.”

The goth kid shrugged. “I never seen anybody stand up to Sal's men like that.” Shy admiration lit in his voice.

Petra extended her hand. “I'm Petra. I'm new.”

“I'm Cal. I'm not.” He shook her hand, ducked his head. “Look, about yesterday, I'm sorry about that. Justin can be a total asshat. It's best to steer clear of him.”

“Yeah. I gathered that.” Petra tried not to look at the purple bruise on Cal's face. Cal turned away into shadow, self-­conscious.

Petra let it drop, gestured with her chin back to the bar. “You believe that guy's story? About the body on the ranch?”

Cal's lips thinned. With the black makeup he wore, it made it seem as though his mouth were drawn on unevenly by a Sharpie marker. “Yeah. I believe him. And I think some friends of mine may have gone missing out near Rutherford's place.”

“Have you called the cops?”

Cal shook his head and ground out the ember of his cigarette butt out in the gravel. “Cops aren't real fond of taking tips from ­people like me.” The corner of his cartoon mouth quirked up. Petra decided that he was different from the other meth heads. Maybe a guppy in a tank of piranhas, pretending to be a piranha with drawn-­on teeth.

Petra stared up at the stars. “Seems like ­people go missing here a lot.”

Cal paused in tapping out another cigarette. “Yeah.” He watched her through thickly lashed eyes. “You missing someone?”

“My dad. Twenty years ago. He came here, but never left. At least, that's as much as I can determine.” She bit her lip. She knew that if she was ever to uncover any information about her father, she'd have to begin asking for help. Asking everyone.

Cal kicked the gravel. “My dad was never around, either.”

Cal glanced up from beneath a fringe of bangs to look at a dog-­eared photograph she dug out of her wallet and showed him. The photo captured her father in happier times—­sitting on the bumper of his prize T-­Bird, arms folded, wearing a dress shirt and necktie. His brown eyes were crinkled in humor, his dark, thinning hair gleaming in the flash.

“I'll ask around about your dad, see if anybody remembers him.”

“Thanks, Cal. I mean it.” Petra's heart warmed toward the boy. “His name was Joseph. Joseph Dee. He'd be about sixty-­five now.”

Cal ducked his head. “Just let me know if you hear any more about any bodies being found on the Rutherford property. Two kids, about my age. Adam has blond hair, and Diana has a tattoo of a blue dragon on her arm. They're inseparable.”

“I will,” she said sincerely. “But with everything I'm hearing about Rutherford's ranch, why would anyone go there?”

Cal fiddled with his cigarette nervously. “The Alchemist sent 'em. The Alchemist doesn't like Sal.” His eyes were large and dilated, but with worry, not drugs.

“Who's the Alchemist?” Petra's eyebrow quirked up.

“He's . . . Stroud is . . .” Cal seemed to struggle to find the right label. “ . . . like my boss.”

Stroud. She'd heard that name at the pawn shop. That was the guy that Stan had called about her compass. Fuck. She decided to be bold. “Stroud. So he cooks the meth?”

Headlights washed over the sidewalk, and Cal retreated into the shadows. “I talk too much.”

Mike bounded down to open Petra's door. He followed her gaze into the darkness. “Something wrong?”

“Nah. Nothing.” She wondered where the poor kid slept, if he had anyone to look out for him. Not this man he called “the Alchemist.”

“Is there any way of looking for that body that Jeff mentioned?”

Mike shook his head. “On Sal's land? Probably not. Remember, the sheriff's department is basically Sal's family. If deputies came out there, they would only find a scarecrow, if they found anything at all.”

“Sounds like a nice little political fiefdom he's got set up.”

He changed the subject then, to the safe topic of park security, perhaps hoping to lure her to the lodge. Petra listened politely, but made no commitment.

Mike drove her home and watched carefully to make sure she'd gotten inside. She waved at him through the door before he took off.

Petra watched his taillights recede into the night. She was convinced that Mike meant well, but she chafed at the notion that she was a little girl who needed looking after. She hadn't had a father since she was a teenager. She didn't need one now.

Sig was home. He was pacing up and down on the ugly patterned linoleum, toenails clicking.

“Do you have to pee?” Petra eyed the open window. She assumed that he could get out the same way he'd let himself in. But maybe he wanted to play civilized and insist on her opening the door for him.

She opened the door, made shooing gestures.

Sig sat down on his rump.

Petra shut the door and locked it. She filled a bowl with water and left it on the floor for him. He slurped greedily from it and continued to pace.

Whatever his problem was, Sig was keyed up. Petra brushed her teeth, washed her face, and crawled into bed. She felt antsy, too. She briefly considered breaking out Maria's dreamcatcher and taking a long drink. She didn't look forward to troubling dreams, but she expected sleep would be long in coming otherwise.

She fussed with the blankets, reached up to turn out the light . . .

. . . and saw a stain on the aluminum window ledge above her bed.

Petra squinted at it. It looked like blood. Not Gabriel's phosphorescent blood, but plain red blood. It smeared down the edge of the glass. She leaned out the window, saw no one.

But there was a smudged bloody handprint on the outside of the Airstream's metallic skin.

Petra lurched back into the trailer and slammed the window shut. Sig whimpered, hopped up to the bed, and put his paws on the sill.

Petra turned off the lights. She let her eyes adjust so that she could see into the darkness without being seen.

“Was there something . . . someone out there, Sig?”

Sig hopped down from the bed and continued to pace. Petra understood. He was on patrol, thinking that there was something out there, in the complete and inky blackness of Temperance.

“Good boy,” she said.

Uneasily, she pulled the blanket up to her chin. Maybe Mike had been right. Maybe she'd sleep better at the lodge. But for tonight, she'd best get used to the idea of trying to sleep with the metronomic sound of Sig's toenails clicking on the floor.

“W
ell. That's interesting.”

Petra peered out of the Airstream the next morning at the burned-­out hole at the edge of the property. It looked like a black stain on the earth. She turned quickly inside to stuff all her valuables in her jacket pockets and stash her tools, guns, and ammo in the back of the Bronco. If someone was trying to get into the Airstream, she wasn't going to leave anything behind in it of more value than the homemade spectrometer. Let the meth heads try to smoke some crystal out of
that
contraption.

Sig trotted out of the Airstream, and she locked the door behind her. He yawned, stretched, and headed toward the sagebrush, where smoke rose in a faint tendril. Petra assumed that he had a den somewhere around here, and that he'd be napping for much of the day. But he paused in the brush, sniffing around the edge.

Petra followed him. The scrub grasses had burned away, and it looked as if there was something silvery embedded in odd squiggles in the ground. This wasn't a meteor crater. This was something man-­made. And intricately so. Maybe something occultish. Scratches and shapes curved around in a circle, though she had no idea what they meant.

She picked up a stick and poked at the edge of the symbol, expecting the glint of metal she saw to be some kind of forgotten steel tool or litter.

But it wasn't. It moved and wriggled away from the stick, like living water.

Petra picked up the stick and squinted at a droplet on it. “Mercury.”

Mercury was poison. And removing it was gonna be a bitch. She wondered if she should contact the property owner or a bomb squad for hazmat removal. She didn't have a phone number for her landlord, just a P.O. box. She fished her cell phone out of her pocket and took a picture of the scene. She hesitated about calling Mike. She knew he'd be down here in an instant, cordoning it off, clucking over it like a good cop. But this wasn't parkland, it wasn't his jurisdiction, and Petra had no desire to be his damsel in distress.

She prodded at the mercury again with the stick. It rolled away, seeming to squirm into the ground.

“Weird,” she grumbled, trying to figure out if there was some gap in the ground it was seeking, and hoping it wasn't going to find its way into the water table as it drained away.

Sig walked to the edge of the circle, lifted his leg, and pissed on it.

“Thank you, Sig.”

He wagged his tail.

She walked to the Bronco, Sig at her heels. He clambered into the Bronco after her, sitting in the front seat like he owned it.

“Is that how these things work? You pee on them, and then they're yours?”

Sig looked patiently out the window, as if that was a monumentally stupid question and he was expecting her to hurry up and drive.

Petra cranked the Bronco's ignition. She half expected the sound of the engine to scare the coyote away, but Sig hung his head out the passenger window as she began to drive slowly down the gravel road. Maybe he had some domestic dog in him, some ancestral memory of letting his ears flap in an automotive-­generated breeze. He seemed happy as the scenery flashed past, his eyes half-­closed, the breeze skimming through his fur.

Petra consulted a map Maria had left for her in the glove box. The county sheriff's office was about thirty miles west.

She could report this thing with the burned mercury on her property. And maybe someone there would also know something about her missing father.

She'd see if they were as useless as Mike suggested.

The drive took her east, on two-­lane roads sparsely traveled by traffic. The dusty ribbon of road stretched into the glare of morning. Bugs hung over from the night splattered on the windshield, smeared around by the old windshield wipers to become iridescent tracks.

The county seat was in a larger town with a railroad passing through it. Petra wound her way through a ridiculous warren of one-­way streets until she found the county jail. It was a small, nondescript two-­story building of 1960s vintage, surrounded by a chain-­link fence with patrol cars parked behind it. The patrol cars were shiny and clean, as if they were rarely driven. Petra parked the Bronco on the street at a parking meter. She left the windows halfway open for Sig and climbed the steps to an entrance marked
LOBBY
.

The lobby was little more than a hallway with vending machines and a few plastic chairs. The place smelled like stale coffee. Along the walls hung portraits of the previous county sheriffs. All of them, including the current one, had the last name “Rutherford.” Below her, where Petra imagined the jail cells were, the sounds of shouting emanated. Petra approached a window covered with clear Plexiglas and rang a grimy plastic button for ser­vice.

A dispatcher came to the window. “Yes?”

“Hi. I was hoping that you could help me. I had someone trespass on the property I'm renting last night. And they burned something close to my trailer.” Petra showed the dispatcher the photo on her phone.