Dark Alchemy (9 page)

The dispatcher squinted at it. “Looks like a fire pit.”

“I guess. But there's mercury in it.”

The dispatcher blinked. “Mercury?”

“Yeah. It's hazardous material, poisonous. I, uh, dunno if the bomb squad handles that or . . .” Petra trailed off.

The dispatcher just stared. “Well, I guess you could rinse it off with a garden hose or something.”

“Um, that would be bad. Is there . . . like a local EPA office or something?”

The dispatcher popped her gum and pulled a phone book from under the counter. “It's about two hours away. Here's their number.” She turned the phone book around and pointed to it.

Petra recorded the number in her phone. “Uh, thanks. Is there a report or something I can file on this?”

“Yeah.” The dispatcher gave her a form to fill out. Petra filled it out as completely as she could, categorizing the offense as “vandalism” and “hazardous material spill.” She was pretty sure that the cops should be filling this part out, and there were several sections that she left blank.

“Okay,” the dispatcher said, taking the form. “We'll send somebody out to take a look. They'll call you.”

Petra nodded, but stayed standing at the counter.

The dispatcher chewed her gum slowly. It was pink and smelled like peppermint. “Is there something else you needed?”

“I'm trying to find a missing person.”

“Wow. You sure have a lot of stuff going on. Do you want to file a missing persons report?” She cracked her gum.

“Well, the person I'm looking for went missing in 1995. Joseph Dee. This was the last place I heard from him.” Petra fished her photo of her father from her wallet and slid it under the window.

The dispatcher didn't touch the photo. “Did you file a missing persons report in 1995?”

“I didn't. But maybe someone else did? If he had friends here?”

The dispatcher rolled her eyes. “Just a minute.” She turned around and yelled to the office behind her. “Hey, are one of you guys free for a public records request?”

A deputy in a black uniform lumbered to the desk, holding his coffee. “How can I help you, ma'am?”

“I'm looking for my father. He disappeared in Temperance in 1995. I'm hoping that you can help me find him.”

The deputy took a deep swig of his coffee, stared at the photo. “Ma'am, do you have a date of disappearance?”

“Not exactly. But I think it was in June.”

“Do you have a last known address?”

“No. I was hoping that you could search your records, see if there were any bodies found around that time that match his description.”

The deputy frowned. “Ma'am, records retention law only requires us to keep paper records back five years. Anything that old has likely been destroyed or sent to long-­term storage off-­site.”

Petra's heart fell. It sure didn't sound like he was offering to look. “Do you keep anything on microfiche, or electronic records?”

The deputy stared over his coffee at her. “Do you want to file a missing persons report? That's about all we can do for you.”

“Yeah. Yeah, I do.” Petra was certain that it wouldn't do any good, but was determined to cause them an iota of extra work. Even if it meant them opening a file cabinet or feeding the paper to the shredder.

“Let me get you the form.”

Petra spent fifteen minutes filling out the form on a clipboard in the lobby. In that time, two ­people who asked for records checks for apartment rental applications were arrested on outstanding warrants and taken downstairs to the jail. One of them had a child with her, who was promptly handed off to the dispatcher. The dispatcher dragged a box of toys out from under a table and began trying to calm the crying child with a teddy bear while she juggled the phone to call children's ser­vices.

Mike was right; there were no answers to be found here. She'd have to try elsewhere.

Petra slid the form under the window and walked out, punching the number for the local EPA office into her cell phone. At least they'd know what to do about the mercury. The call rang through to voice mail, and she got about thirty seconds of a message recorded before getting cut off.

 

Chapter Nine

Flight

S
al Rutherford was not happy with Gabe.

In Sal's world, “not happy” often translated to petty brutality or reckless stupidity. Some days were better than others, but Sal was particularly pissed today.

“I told you to take care of that problem with the contract hand. You didn't.”

“I sent him away.” Gabe threw a bale of hay to the floor of the barn loft. Dust puffed up in a cloud that caused Sal to cough and wipe his nose on his sleeve. The watering whites of his eyes were nearly as yellow as the dust.

“I wanted him buried. Gone. Not running his yap to anyone who would listen about there being bodies on the property.”

“You wanted me to kill him and leave another body lying around to be found?”

“I expect you to be discreet about where you bury bodies.”

When Sal got angry, there was no reasoning with him, no half measures or calculated plans. Everything was black or white, dead or alive. And the boss man felt better when things were dead, especially things with mouths.

Gabe reached for another bale. “It's done.”

“No, it ain't. I wanted a body buried.” Sal started toward him, but tripped on a floorboard. He stumbled, swearing, face reddening.

“Careful, boss.” Gabe lifted the bale to stack it on top of the others.

Sal reached down, tearing the offending half-­rotted board up from the floor with a splintering sound. He swung it at Gabe. The plank slammed into Gabe's back in a bright arc of pain. He fell to the floor, gasping.

“Smart-­ass sumbitch,” Sal huffed. “You ain't gonna forget who's in charge of you.”

The board cracked into Gabe's shoulder, his face, his ribs. When his lung collapsed, it brought a gasp of blood to his lips. A trickle of blood bubbled in the back of his throat with a roar in his ears that drowned out the sounds of Sal's swearing and the thudding of the board against his flesh and bones.

The pain was one of the clearest sensations Gabe could remember in a long time. The years had dimmed a great deal of feeling, for him and for all of his men. Many were little more than automatons, now. They slipped through their days in silence, each day the same as the last and the same as tomorrow. There were different masters, over time—­the Rutherfords had both kind and cruel descendants. All had labored under the illusion of control, the belief that the Hanged Men were simply part of their inherited furniture.

Sal was the worst so far. Generations of wealth and entitlement had trickled down into a spoiled child that Gabe had been wary of since he'd been old enough to crawl. As a kid, Sal had been known to try to skin snakes alive and set fire to the tails of squirrels. His enthusiasm for cruelty had not waned over time.

Gabe rolled in the straw, thrusting his hand beneath the hay. From under his sleeve, a mass of black feathers rocketed away from his flesh and landed behind the bales. He hoped Sal took that as a flinch, a reflexive urge to protect his head from the assault, and that he had not seen that little bit of mass split away and flutter into the shadows.

Sal stepped back, mopping his brow. This was more exercise than the rancher had seen in months. Gabe idly wished for a heart attack. But he had no idea who the property would fall to if Sal died, and what would be worse—­Sal, or an invisible developer who would bulldoze the Lunaria to build vacation condominiums?

Gabe glanced up at the ceiling. A raven paced silently on a beam, watching. He let go, releasing the lion's share of his conscious mind into the bird. He often partitioned his awareness among these black fragments of himself, allowing him to see and be in many places at once—­even returning to the Lunaria to help him regenerate. But with concentration, he could force nearly all of his consciousness into one tiny, light vessel.

Now he perched on the beam, watching Sal advance on his own body. He wasn't sure what Sal thought had happened—­if he thought that Gabe had passed out, died, or was simply ignoring him. Either way, it didn't seem to matter.

Sal kicked Gabe's body over the edge of the hayloft and it fell as limply as a dishrag off the edge of a sink, down twenty feet to the wooden floor of the barn. It lay motionless, a dribble of blood sliding from the body's lips to the floor. Shadows scuttled into the dark corners of the barn, shrugging out of Gabe's boots and from under the collar of his shirt—­bits of his memory and limbs splintering away for survival.

Gabe rustled his feathers and flew, sailing out the window in his fragile new body and into the outdoors. The air whistled through his feathers, pulling him on an air current away from the barn.

For now, he was free.

He hoped that he'd have a body to return to when he got back.

“H
ey, thanks for seeing me.”

Petra stood awkwardly on Maria Yellowrose's doorstep with Pearl winding around her ankles. Maria opened the screen door.

“It's good to see you. C'mon in. You're just in time for lunch.”

A yip sounded from the Bronco, and Petra rolled her eyes. Sig pressed his snout through the half-­opened window. His tongue lolled over the edge of the glass, and he made as if he was suffocating. Pearl padded over to the truck to watch the spectacle.

“You got a pet?”

“Heh. I think he found me. He's not exactly tame.”

Pearl jumped from the ground to the roof of the Bronco. She slapped her paws on the windshield, teasing Sig.

“Did you feed him?”

“Yes.”

“Then he's yours. You can let him out.”

“Um. Will Pearl mind?”

“Pearl can take care of herself. Trust me.”

Pearl was spread-­eagled against the windshield, glowering at the coyote. Sig's wet nose pressed against her belly through the glass.

“I don't know if I can trust him.”

“If you're feeding him, he won't wander far. And I'm pretty sure you don't want him pissing on your upholstery.”

While Sig was still focused on the windshield, Petra reluctantly opened the passenger door. Pearl reached down and slapped at Sig's tail; he reeled and yipped at her.

“Sig!”

Sig bounded out. He weaved through Petra's legs and trotted up to Maria's house, where Maria was dangling a tantalizing piece of chicken before him. He delicately took it from her hand like a gentleman.

“Where did he come from?” Maria reached out to rub his ears, and he made awful faces of delight.

“He just appeared,” Petra said helplessly. “And took over.”

Maria cracked a smile. “Frankie would say that you've met your spirit guide. Coyote is a trickster. A powerful friend.”

“I don't believe in spirit guides,” Petra blurted.

“Yeah, well, you may not believe in spirit guides, but all that's important is that the animal does. That's what Frankie says, anyway.”

Sig snorted and trotted into the house like he owned the place.

Pearl glowered at Petra from the Bronco.

“I tried,” Petra said.

The cat jumped down and stiffly followed the coyote into the cottage, tail twitching.

Maria's house smelled like vegetable soup and fresh-­baked bread. Maria ducked into the kitchen and pulled some bread out of the oven. She was wearing jeans and a halter top, her hair braided tightly around her ears. Petra self-­consciously fingered her own out-­of-­control hair. She'd never figured out how to do that properly. Whenever she tried, she always wound up with a lopsided, stringy rope.

Petra sat down awkwardly at the kitchen table, nervously winding her feet around the chair rungs. Pearl followed her, perching on a chair opposite with just her green eyes and grey ears peeping over the top of the table. Sig busied himself with licking random spots on Maria's kitchen floor.

“Thanks for lunch.”

“Anytime.” Maria brought Petra a bowl of delicious-­smelling soup and a slice of piping-­hot bread, then scooted Pearl out of her chair and set her own bowl down.

“What's on your mind?”

“I'm trying to figure out how things work around here, and . . . it's not going so well.” Petra shredded her bread with her fingers.

Maria chased a carrot with her spoon. “Hon, it's the Wild West. It's not like anyplace else.”

“So I'm gathering. I went to the sheriff's department this morning.”

“Oh yeah?” Maria's brows creased.

“I'm trying to find information about my father. He vanished in Temperance in 1995. I thought that was the logical place to start looking.” The soup was hot and delicious on Petra's tongue. “And I also got a gift from a trespasser last night.” She showed Maria the photo of the burned-­out circle on her cell phone.

“That's weird.”

“And full of mercury.”

“Even weirder. The cops weren't impressed?”

“No.”

Maria grinned. “You got bupkus, didn't you?”

“It was a total waste of time, effort, and gas. So I made a bunch of these up at Bear's deli.” Petra reached into her pocket and pulled out a creased flyer that included a grainy copy of her dad's picture. She'd scribbled below it in capital letters with a Sharpie marker:

HAVE YOU SEEN THIS MAN?

JOSEPH DEE—­MISSING SINCE 1995

ANY INFORMATION, CALL 555-­555-­7419

Maria smoothed it out on the table. “I don't know him. But if you've got more of these, I'd be happy to put them up at the family center and around the reservation.”

“Thanks. I appreciate it. I've already papered most of Temperance—­the post office, Bear's deli, and the back wall of the ladies' room in the Compostela.” She hadn't yet worked up the nerve to duck into the men's room, but maybe she could put Mike up to it.

“Maybe somebody knows something.”

“Hopefully, more than the cops.”

“Yeah. They aren't really the law around here. Sal Rutherford is.”

“So I hear. But why is that?”

Maria soaked up some of her vegetable soup with the bread. Her fingernails were painted with a warm coral polish. Petra stared down at her own short, rough nails.

“The Rutherfords run things. Always have, at least since the time the town founder disappeared,” Maria said.

“The alchemist?”

“Yeah. Lascaris. Lascaris was involved in some creepy shit. And not just creating gold and chasing down the secret to living forever.”

“What, then?” Petra leaned forward.

“Monsters.” Maria fixed her with a deadpan look. ­“People have seen all kinds of stuff out here—­phoenixes, ghosts, banshees.”

“You sound like Frankie,” said Petra.

“Frankie isn't always wrong. Even a stopped clock is right twice a day.”

The screen door squeaked open.

“Speak of the devil,” Maria muttered.

Frankie stumbled inside and flung himself into a chair at the table. “I smelled something good,” he slurred.

Maria rolled her eyes, but she stood to ladle out some vegetable soup.

Frankie stared at Petra, rocking on the back legs of his chair.

“Hi, Frankie.”

He didn't greet her, just kept rocking. Petra stared into her bowl.

Pearl climbed up on the table and swatted Petra's cell phone with her paws. Maria removed the cat from the table with an exasperated grunt. “Show the symbol to Frankie. It might shake something out of his metaphysically pickled head.”

Petra punched the button to show Frankie the picture, and he took the phone from her and stared at it. “You got a visit from an alchemist, did you?”

Petra's gaze flicked up at him. “What do you mean?”

He turned his mouth up and down, as if working around heavy words. “That's one of their symbols. Somebody wanted you to know he was there.” He put the phone down, and a white paw reached up from the edge of the table for it. Petra tucked the phone safely in her pocket.

“Great.” Seen enemies, unseen enemies—­what did it matter? Petra turned her attention back to her soup.

“Did you find your daddy, yet?”

Petra looked up at him, nearly dropped her spoon. “What?”

“Your daddy's been looking for you.” Frankie stared up at the ceiling, began to hum.

Petra slid out from behind the table, knelt before Frankie. “Where is he, Frankie?”

Frankie looked at her with glazed eyes. “In the white space of heaven.”

“
Frankie,
” Maria barked.

Petra swallowed. “You don't think he's alive.”

“He's here.” Frankie's eyes glistened, and his lined hands framed his face. “Alive. In the serenity of his own head. Suspended. But his spirit is elsewhere.”

“Jesus, Frankie,” Maria said.

Frankie raised his hands as if in surrender, then got up from the table to go outside. The screen door slammed behind him, and Petra watched him slump into the porch swing, head lolling to one side.

Maria shook her head, and her cheeks flamed. “I'm so sorry. He's just—­”

“He's family. It's all right.” Petra stared after him. “Do you think . . . do you think he's right?”

Maria bit her lip. “I don't know.”

Petra kept her mouth shut. She couldn't believe in anything she couldn't see, touch, and measure. But she was seeing, touching, and measuring some very weird shit.

She helped Maria wash the dishes. Pearl supervised Sig licking the floor and the dishwashing from her perch on top of the refrigerator. Sig eventually tired of cleaning the floor and nosed the screen door open to go out. Maria told her about the best grocery store to go to and which mechanics to avoid. She told her about the chuckwagon lunches on weekends set up at the foot of the mountains and when the farmer's market was on the reservation. This felt normal, and Petra began to feel more grounded. The soap on the dishes and the dishrag in her hand felt real. Ordinary. Comforting.

“And, if you haven't noticed, there are a lot more men than women in town, if you're looking to date men,” Maria said. “There are also some available women, too.”