“Since when do you have magic powers?” Rory asked.
“I don’t,” Marshall said, holding up a single finger. “Yet. But I could learn.”
“We’ll see about that,” I said, heading over to the tray on the stone table. I picked up one of those mini Pac-Man cheese wheels from its little net bag and peeled the wax off it. “But you’re right. We should first do what we came down here to do. I also wouldn’t mind plotting out some real defense around here.”
As pissed as I was, I had to admit it was a little exciting to have met another person who—albeit under shifty circumstances—also had some prowess with alchemical transformation. Maybe after we beat him senseless for a bit, I might be able to talk shop with him. That is, if he dared show his face again.
It seemed likely. After all, as far as I knew, we were the only place in town he could “shop” for what he was coming here for in the first place.
The three of us settled in at the main stone table, arranging books from the old library as well as my notebooks and Marshall’s Monster Manual, each of us working for a long while in silence as we snacked.
Eventually, Rory let out a sigh as she went through the pages of one of my great-great-grandfather’s Moleskine notebooks.
“I miss having a gargoyle around,” she said.
“Me too,” I said, flipping through my notes to the ones I had made after the unstable brick-man incident the other night. If I judged my Spellmason prowess by that particularly calamitous experiment, I was a long way off from making any sort of animated stone army. And it was hard to imagine any of them replacing the singular soul-filled Stanis.
“Me three,” added Marshall, and without another word, each of us set to our reading in the hopes of figuring just what the hell I was still doing wrong.
Six
Stanis
Living in constant pain as I simply hung from the two spikes driven through my wings had been difficult at first, but there had been the revelatory moment when the pain no longer mattered.
My body should have ached hanging from chains in the center of the cargo hold, left with just the tips of my clawed feet to support my weight, but all sensation had left my form by then. Even the shaft of light coming from the nearby machine—ultraviolet, they had called it—was barely noticeable, even though it continued to transform part of me into solid stone. When someone shut off the beam, the stone turned back to stoneflesh, the burning pain rousing me from my delirium.
A figure moved among the shadows beyond the light around me, unrecognizable until I heard the voice. The stranger had returned.
“How you holding up there, big fella?” the human asked.
“Holding up . . . ?” I replied, unsure of the expression. At best I guessed that it most likely was one of the “idioms” Alexandra and her friends had promised to teach me about long ago. “You are the one holding me up by the very spikes you personally drove through my wings.”
“You’ll be fine, golem,” he said. “They can patch you up with a little quick-setting cement or something.”
“I do not thing my father will be letting me down,” I said. “I refuse to give him what he asks.”
“I know this hurts you, creature,” he said. “Even if you’re just a construct. I’ve studied what little there is out there in the world about your kind.”
“What could you possibly know of my kind?” I asked. “I am the only one of my kind.”
“You’d be surprised,” he said. “As far as what I do know . . .” The sound of the chain hanging off to my right rang out, and my right wing exploded with a fresh wave of pain as the spike pulled me farther up on one side only, leaving my left foot on the ground. I twisted and turned as I dangled there.
“I know you can be hurt,” he continued. “They’ve paid me to hurt you. To get what they want. So why don’t you save us both the time and trouble and give them what they ask for? They’re going to get it anyway, thanks to me.”
“You will not break me,” I said, still swinging back and forth. “What makes you think you can?”
“I have a few tricks up my sleeve,” he said, and stepped into the circle of light. A blond-haired human stared at me with a dark curiosity, his hand darting into the pocket of the long brown coat he wore. It came free holding an assortment of thin metal vials, reminding me of the kind my maker used to use.
Somewhere off in the darkened cargo hold, a door swung open, and the man turned away from me to see who it was.
I grabbed for him—for them—which only spun me around in place, missing the man completely.
“Now, now,” my father’s voice called from off across the hold, his steps ringing out as he crossed to us. “You would not start this without me, would you? I am paying, after all.”
“Jesus,” came another voice from off in my father’s direction. Alexandra’s brother, Devon. “Save a piece for the boss, will ya?”
The human backed away from me, sliding the vials inside the folds of his coat. “I wouldn’t dream of doing any of this without you,” the stranger said. “Just continuing to wear down his will.”
“Excellent,” Kejetan said. “Do you have everything you need to extract the information I desire?”
“I think so,” the stranger said. “Although it’s getting harder and harder to get the supplies I need to do so.”
“I am not concerned about how you procure them. Only that you do.”
“I’m just saying.” The stranger stepped out of the light, and moments later the full but dim lights of the hold came to life. A tray covered with vials, metal flasks, and an array of various stoppered containers sat against the near wall where the man stood. “Basic theories of economic supply and demand in play here, there might be a slight price increase on this job.”
My father crossed to him. His deformed stone bulk stood towering over the man, who backed up against the wall, craning his head up to meet my father’s face.
“Do not test me,” Kejetan said. “While money is of little concern to me, do not think me the sort to be taken advantage of.”
“I’m not taking advantage,” the man said, sounding almost insulted.
His words were met with a silent stillness from my father. Even hanging where I was, I felt the intimidation of it.
The man’s face fell, his eyes shifting away.
“Okay, maybe I’m taking a little advantage,” he said. “But I’m not kidding about the supply. There’s a risk factor, and the last time, I was nearly caught.”
“Again, not my concern,” my father said, stepping away from him to inspect me where I hung.
The man turned back to his table, placing his hands on several of the vials and flasks. “It will be your concern,” he said, lifting them up one by one, “when the last of the vials is used, and there’s nothing left. Everything I do relies on one master component, Kimiya, mixed with others. And right now, Kimiya is in short supply. No one’s making it anymore. No one knows how. There’s a finite supply available to me, and no offense, I have other clients and customers to think of as well as my own future.”
Devon walked over to him, laying his own heavy, deformed stone hand on the man’s shoulder. “Trust me, pal. If there’s one thing I learned when I was human and doing business, it’s that it’s hard to think about the future if the deal you fuck up today gets you killed. You might want to play nice with his lordship there.”
The fire in the man’s eyes died. “Yeah, sure,” he said. “No worries. Just wanted to make him aware of how hard I’ve been working to help him. No need to get excited.”