Alchemist Academy: Book 1 (7 page)

I rushed to Kerri’s side and examined her leg. It looked as if someone had injected gallons of water underneath her skin. Her chest moved up and down and she mumbled in her unconscious state. This wasn’t right; this wasn’t supposed to happen. It was a mist stone. It was just supposed to create water vapor mist and freak a few people out. It must have made contact with her foot and now her leg was swollen.

“We’d better go,” Mark said.

I stood just as two men rushed to her side, grabbing at her wrist.

“I think she’s in anaphylactic shock,” one of them said. “Does anyone know what she ate?”

An older couple pushed through the crowd.

“Kerri,” the woman said. “Oh my god, what happened?” She plunged to her knees and pulled at Kerri’s arm.

“People, give her some room,” the man said as he stood.

The crowd spread out and I lost sight of Kerri lying on the sidewalk as people moved up in front of me to get a better look at the spectacle.

Mark pulled at me, but I pulled back and turned to him. “Can’t we do anything?”

“She’ll be fine in a little bit. We should go,” he whispered.

He pulled again and I reluctantly complied. We walked through the thinning crowd as people’s curiosity drew them toward the incident.

“What was that stone, Mark? ‘Cause that sure as hell wasn’t mist.”

“I don’t know what happened. It was just a cloud stone. It should have been harmless. Maybe we got the mixture wrong?”

“You sure she’s going to be okay?”

Mark looked back at the crowd. “Yeah, the effect usually only lasts for a short period of time on someone.”

I breathed in some relief. The last thing I wanted was a person’s death on my hands. We cut back onto the road and headed toward our houses. Passing the café from the other side of the street, I saw Kerri sitting on the curb and rubbing her leg.

“That was dangerous, Mark. We could have killed her.”

“I told you these things were dangerous. I’ve seen the things they do to people all my life.” Mark kicked at the sidewalk. “You think I wanted to hurt that girl?”

“No, but if we’re going to keep making stones, we’d better know what we’re making from now on.” I stared at the side of his head for a bit and tried to figure out the best way to approach him. I took a deep breath and decided to just jump in. “I think we should talk to your mom. She’s been trained. I bet she can teach me all kinds of different patterns and recipes.”

“One blunder and I’m no good to you now?”

“Mark, this isn’t something we can trial-and-error with.”

“You could just stop making them.”

I gritted my teeth at the simplicity of the statement. Of course he was right, but I couldn’t imagine ignoring this part of my life now. Mark looked at me with a sideways smile.

“I just think she could help me.”

“Fine, but I won’t let you create a single stone out of my presence. There are some very nasty ones out there that would make that leg swelling look like a holiday.” Mark held his stomach as we walked toward our houses.

I’d seen him from time to time grab his midsection, or rub it. “You okay?”

“Yeah, I just got a little worked up about what happened back there.” He glanced back.

I kept my attention on his stomach until he pried his hands away from it. We didn’t say much for the last few minutes home. We passed my house and went to the next street over to Mark’s house.

“We’ll talk with my mom, but I want you to just follow my lead, okay?” he said as we walked along the sidewalk leading to his front door. He bounded up the few steps and opened the front door. “Okay?”

I nodded and followed him into the house. The house still felt empty, many of the boxes left untouched and sitting on the floor. Mark walked to the dining room.

“Hey, Mom….” He stopped and frowned.

His mom was sitting at the dining room table, but she didn’t move. Her eyes strained to look in our direction. Her hands were lying flat against the table and she looked frozen in place. I don’t think she even blinked. I thought of Ralph, but she didn’t have the glazed-over look; she looked cognitive.

“Mom?” Mark rushed to her side.

“About time,” a voice said from the kitchen.

I gasped at the sound and turned to the man behind it. He was leaning against the counter with his arms crossed. He was wearing a sleek black suit and his black hair was shaved tight to his scalp. His gaze held mine and then went to Mark before he moved away from the counter toward us.

Ms. Duval’s frozen state became more worrisome. She didn’t say a word to the intruder or us, but I saw her eyes shaking in their sockets as if she was under great strain.

“What did you do to my mom?”

“Nothing that can’t be corrected.” The man in the black suit rolled a stone across the table. It contacted Ms. Duval’s hand and melted into it.

She jumped up from her chair. “How dare you paralyze me?” she said as she pointed at the man.

He pulled a chair away from the table and sat down.

Freaked out, I stared at Mark. I wasn’t sure if we should run, attack, or beg for mercy.

The man crossed his legs and motioned to the other chairs. “I don’t mean any harm. The only reason I paralyzed her is so she couldn’t warn you of my arrival. Ms. Duval has been known to hide talent she finds.” He looked at her.

She huffed and crossed her arms.

“There is nothing to worry about,” the man said. “I’m only a recruiter from the Academy. Please, sit down.” He motioned to the chair again.

A recruiter? My curiosity outweighed my fear and I stepped toward the man and pulled out a chair. I spun the chair to face him and sat down. Mark stood next to me and kept a wary eye on the black-suited man.

“Thank you for not causing trouble. My only intention here is to test you. If you pass, you may come to the Academy and learn what it is you were born to do. If you do not pass, I will leave. And trust me, you won’t remember I was even here.” With his gloved hand, he pulled out a pure yellow stone.

I tried to process everything he said, but the thought of a test and going to the Academy swirled around. A whole place where there would be people like me. I wanted to be tested. I wanted to know about this academy. I thought maybe I could learn from Ms. Duval, but what could I learn from an entire academy dedicated to teaching the craft? These stones’ potential seemed infinite and if I could figure them out, I could change the world.

“I found her. This isn’t fair,” Ms. Duval said.

“Really? You think you own her, then?” The man glared at her.

Her eyes twitched. “How did you find her?”

“When a person uses a time stone, it sets off a shockwave my tracker stones simply can’t ignore. I imagine you had her make it for you?”

She jumped from her seat again and glared at Mark. “You took my….”

“It wasn’t yours, Mother. I saved you a lot of trouble getting rid of it.”

“I had a buyer already. We would have been set up for life, Mark. For
life
.”

“Yeah, until the buyer tried to kill us. I probably saved our lives.”

“You know I wouldn’t let that happen again.”

“This mother/son thing is real sweet to watch and all, but I have a job to do here. So, if you can sit back down and let me do it.” The man looked between the two of them before focusing on me. “Okay. Allie is your name, right?”

“Yes.”

“This little tester”—he held a yellow stone between his gloved thumb and finger—“wants to dissolve into the hand of an alchemist and
only
an alchemist. I’m going to place this on your hand, but first I want you to summon as much anger as you can. You see, your anger can hold it back from dissolving. The longer an alchemist can keep it from absorbing, the more powerful they are considered to be.” He cupped the yellow stone in his hand, out of my sight. “Most of the time it dissolves within a second or two. If it never dissolves, you fail and you don’t have the gift at all.”

Mark placed a hand on my shoulder and the nerves crept back in place. I wasn’t as scared as I was nervous about failing the test. This man was from the Academy. I never fit in at school, or at home … anywhere, for that matter. Thinking of a place where I might belong was intoxicating. I could learn how to use my abilities properly, how to mix things in the right way. I didn’t want to ever have another accident like what had happened with Kerri again.

I extended my hand and summoned my cocktail of anger. He took the yellow stone and placed it on my palm. It felt warm at first, then became cold. I strained, keeping the anger fresh, and my hand shook, but I kept the stone steady. The man in the black suit shifted in his chair and stuffed his hand into his pocket, probably to bring out the memory-wiping stone.

If I failed this test, I wanted my memory of it all gone. I couldn’t go back to my stupid house knowing what I knew about the world around me. I hoped he could wipe the entire week away, if I couldn’t go. This was the first chance I had ever had to leave the grasp of Janet and her boy. The man now held a diamond-looking stone in his gloved hand.

“Give it a second,” Ms. Duval warned.

The stone felt heavy and the thought of it not melting beat out some of my anger. Then it melted into my hand. He stowed the diamond stone and leaned back in his chair.

“Alright, Allie. My name is Darius, and I have an important question for you. Do you want to train in the field of alchemy? Do you want to come back to the Academy with me?”

I shook with excitement. How could my world change in so little time? My hands covered my open mouth, and Mark looked down at me with a concerned expression. He didn’t like this stuff. I wasn’t sure why he was so apprehensive about it. Maybe it was because he didn’t have the ability?

“Yes,” I answered. If I could change time without even knowing what I was doing, what would it be like once I knew how to create everything? A sense of power swelled in me like a drug and I wanted more.

“I don’t like this,” Mark jumped in. “We don’t know this guy. How can we can trust him?”

Ms. Duval huffed, but I spoke first.

“This is my decision. I need to know if I can fit in somewhere, Mark. I’m not like you. Everyone doesn’t just love me the second they get to know me. I’m different. I’ve always known that, and now I have some kind of validation. I have these abilities, and I want to learn everything I can about them.”

“When would she be going?” Mark asked.

“Now.”

Mark let go of my shoulder and paced back and forth. He looked like he was having a conversation with himself. Just as I was about to interrupt, he came to a stop in front of Darius. “Mom, I’m sorry.” He extended his hand toward Darius.

Darius furrowed his brow, but his look was nowhere near the utter shock on Mark’s mom’s face.

“No. No, that’s not possible.” She shook her head, her voice a distant whisper, and she seemed lost in her own house.

Mark wouldn’t look at her, but moved his hand again toward Darius. All the times he had watched me make stones . . . he had never directly said he couldn’t. I’d just
assumed
he couldn’t. I didn’t like the idea of him keeping something like this from me, but I couldn’t imagine what his mom felt.

Darius plucked the same type of yellow stone from his bag and placed it in Mark’s hand. The ball dissolved in an instant and his mom let out a screech.

“All these years, you’ve been lying to me?”

“Mom, these damn rocks ruin our lives. I didn’t want anything to do with them. I was trying to save us.” He had tears in his eyes.

“All the things I’ve done for us . . . for you. You don’t even know.” Ms. Duval glared at Darius. “I need to talk to Allie for a minute.”

“We really must get going—”

“I wasn’t asking,” she snapped.

I jerked at her tone and stared at Ms. Duval. She eyed me and then motioned for me to follow her out of the room. I glanced at Mark as she pushed me into the next room.

She stood next to me in what might be considered the family room, but only a few boxes occupied the space. Ms. Duval fidgeted with her hands and mumbled something about time.

“Yes?”

She jumped at my voice and grabbed my shoulders. I pulled back in surprise, but she held me firm.

“I have weeks of stuff to tell you in one minute.” She glanced at the doorway. “Remember how I told you about Mark?”

“Yes.”

“There’s a reason no hospital can help him or diagnosis him.” She moved closer to me and whispered. “I thought I could make him an alchemist and used a stone on him. It hurt him. He knows what happened but what he doesn’t know is how bad it would be if I didn’t use heal stones on him for all these years and now, they aren’t working on him anymore. He’s getting worse but there is a way to help Mark.”

“I’ll do anything.”

“The Academy has something he needs to stay alive. I’ve been searching the whole country to find someone like you who can get into the Academy and do well enough to get one.”

“Get what?”