Page 36

36. The Alchemists

Kerry

“You kept your stepfather out of your testimony at the trial, even though it coulda helped your case.” I raised one eyebrow. “He obviously has some hold over you. Does he hurt your mom to make you do what he wants? Or has he corrupted her into serving him? Did she choose him over you? Maybe he threatens you to make her toe the line? Or is it the other way around?”

Argaud fought, but, like Ms. Chapman predicted, he wasn’t strong enough to resist the wards built into the walls and floor and ceiling. Sweat rolled down his face and dripped onto his yellow jumpsuit.

Definitely getting somewhere . Let’s change tactics.

“You don’t have to answer those questions.” I lifted one shoulder. “Why does Hubler want the miracle worker? Is he trying to collect the bounty that a demon prince is offering for her?”

“Yeah. My stepfather has fame, money, and power, but he wants immortality.” Argaud looked relieved at the change of topic. “An indulgence could give him that. It seems like a fair trade.”

“Do you know why a prince of Hell would want the miracle worker?” Gigi asked.

“Of course he doesn’t.” I made a face. “No one tells a foot soldier like him any secrets, especially not big secrets.”

“Ha!” Argaud took the bait. “I’m not as low in the hierarchy as you might think. The miracle worker knows the location of something the prince desires.”

Gigi asked him what it was, but he didn’t know.

Of course he wouldn’t. A prince would never tell anyone what he really wanted. Might send an underling or rival on a wild goose chase, but he’d never give up the truth. That was a card he’d hold until the final hand was played.

“Who is Samuel Castle?” I asked.

“Tangled with that SOB already, have you?” He smirked. “He’s hardcore, but my stepfather keeps him on a short leash. Castle is his little errand boy, does his dirty work for him. Hubler has to keep his hands clean if he wants to run for president.”

“What kind of leash?” Travis asked.

“Castle has a secret. He’d do anything to keep it from being revealed to certain people. Somehow, Hubler discovered it a few years ago and has held it over him ever since.”

We asked, but he didn’t know the secret because his stepfather had never told him. With more questioning, he said the thrall necklaces appeared in his campus mailbox whenever he asked for them, and he’d told the truth when he’d testified that Travis and Aspen Abernathy were the only thralls he’d made, although my angel had been next on his list until I got too involved. Then he thought it’d be better if I were under his thumb instead.

“Was the harpy only acting like a go-between for you and Hubler, or did she have another job?” That harpy still bothered me.

“She was the prince’s servant.” He looked down and I didn’t trust that. “I suppose she did whatever he asked her to do.”

“Answer directly. As far as you know, what else did the harpy do for the prince?”

“She ferried messages to another nephilim on campus.” Each word seemed torn from his mouth.

“Who?”

“I don’t know.”

“Do you know if there are other traitors - by choice or by force - at the Sanctuary?” When he shook his head, I pressed harder. “At your trial, you said a demon prince was your master. You blamed everything on him. To save your stepfather, right? Makes sense. No warden can interrogate a demon bound in Hell. Is it the same demon prince who wants the miracle worker?”

“Yes.”

“What did they want you to do?” Travis asked.

“Find any record of miracle workers in the Council’s files. Then, about a year or so ago, he told me to find a girl over at the college and put a trace on her.” He met my eyes. “If she ever leaves the Sanctuary, he’ll know it.”

“Any girl?” Gigi cut in. “Or a specific one?”

“Oh, he was very specific. Her name’s Anne Tamang. She’s a muse.”

I thought about that. Who was this girl? And why target her? Muses were one of the rarer classes, and their power could be used both offensively and defensively, making them valuable. Was Hubler looking to make some quick cash selling her?

There’s easier and more convenient prey outside of the Sanctuary, though.

While I was thinking it over, Gigi demanded to know how Argaud had kept all of this out of his trial

“I didn’t.” Argaud shrugged. “The Council knows everything I just told you, except I never mentioned Hubler and they didn’t ask me much about the harpy.”

Clem had said the harpy part was still under investigation. Did she trouble him as much as she did me?

“Is the Council still looking into who the traitor is?” Argaud smirked. “Don’t want to be them when they’re caught. This place will look like a luxury hotel compared to the punishment the wardens will dream up for a turncoat among their own.”

He’s relaxed enough to be talkative and volunteer information I didn’t ask for. Let’s go back to Mommy.

I took a step closer, nudged the table out of the way, and stood right in front of the glass wall.

“Help me now,” I dropped my voice, “and I’ll help your mom and siblings.”

“Hubler’ll just find them again,” he said through clenched teeth.

“Tell me what I need to know to get Gemma back, and I promise I will make them safe.”

“Why would you do that?” Surprise flashed across his face.

“If your information is good, I’ll owe you. I don’t like being in debt to anyone.”

And I know what it’s like to sacrifice yourself to save your mother.

He narrowed his eyes at me, then moved closer.

“Swear to get my family to safety,” he spoke fast and low now, “and I’ll tell you everything I can.”

I’d already guessed how Hubler keeps his wife leashed. Having it proven didn’t make it any less sickening. I mean, who uses kids as weapons? Who turns kids into victims?

Oh, yeah. Sick psychos like Reginald Hubler.

“You trust me to keep my word?” I asked him.

“If you don’t, in twenty-five years, I’ll hunt you down and gut you.”

I half-smiled. He could try.

“I swear it,” I vowed.

He held my eyes for a second, then nodded shortly.

“City of the Future. Somewhere in northern Pennsylvania. Any nephilim he kidnaps for blood goes there first. I’ve never been there, but the property once belonged to my mother’s family. Her father was an architect. I think he built it or something.”

“Does he know you know about City of the Future?”

“Maybe. When he gets to the bottom of a bottle of whiskey, he can’t keep his mouth shut. I don’t know what he remembers afterward.”

“He might learn that you helped us.” I frowned. “Be easy enough for him to figure out with this visit on record.”

“If you take all his livestock and free my family, he’ll have bigger concerns.”

“Besides blood,” I played another hunch, “what else does he use nephs for?”

And a story poured outta Argaud that I could hardly believe.

Seemed Hubler and three of his pals formed a little club and called themselves the Alchemists. Each of them had taken a code name to keep their true identities a secret, then built empires in one illegal trade after another.

When I asked him about the other three men, he said they were just like Hubler: Rich, famous, and powerful men who longed for the secret of immortality and were convinced nephilim could help them find it.

“We’re not immortal.” I knew I was repeating Travis’ earlier words, but I couldn’t wrap my mind around why someone would think that.

“Like Gigi said, you can’t argue with crazy.” Argaud half-smiled. “Somehow, somewhere, they hooked up with a demon prince and he convinced them otherwise.”

“Is it your demon prince?” Gigi stepped next to me. “The same one who has a bounty out for the miracle worker?”

“Most likely.” He shrugged. “If a prince has a long-range plan, he doesn’t allow his competitors to interrupt it.”

“The Diabolical are like predators.” I looked down at her. “Once they stake out a territory - or in this case, a person - they’ll chase away any other evil creature that comes near it. A prince would be twice as ruthless.”

“So what does that have to do with harvesting blood?” Travis tilted his head to one side. “The Alchemists must be using it for more than cocktails. With as many nephs as have been taken in just the last month, they must have barrels of it!”

“They’ve been trying to develop a serum to at least age slower, like we do.” Argaud cut his eyes at Travis. “It’s science mixed with alchemy and dark magic. They conducted some experiments with a necromancer until the Council sanctioned his death about a year ago.”

‘Necromancer’ and ‘a year ago’ bounced around inside my head. Rome had said a necromancer turned Zoe into a zombie about a year ago…

More coincidences? I don’t think so.

“How did they use a necromancer?” Gigi huddled closer to me, like she’d done that day in the Repository, and I knew she was scared. She didn’t let it stop her, though. “Raising dead bodies is the opposite of what they want to achieve, isn’t it?”

“It’s all tied into something living when it shouldn’t.” He frowned. “The process to animate zombies gained their attention.”

“I can understand the seed of that hypothesis.” Travis tapped his fingers on his chin. “If you can bring someone back from the dead, you should be able to find a way to keep someone from dying in the first place. Completely bass ackwards, of course.”

I put the zombie thoughts on hold for right now.

“What’s Hubler’s code name? And do you know the names and code names of the other Alchemists?”

“I only know Hubler is Fire.” Argaud shook his head.

“You got anything else that would help?”

“They’re big into something Hubler calls the Great Experiment,” he said. “I don’t know exactly where the lab is, but it has to be near New York City. His employees there conduct experiments on nephilim.”

“Like what kind of exp—”

“Basic human medicine,” he interrupted Gigi, “combined with whatever ideas they come up with. Bioengineering, DNA restructuring, and transplants mixed with demon grafting and hosting.”

Murder and torture. That’s all those big words mean. Murder and torture.

We went on asking questions for about twenty more minutes until I was sure we’d gotten all we were gonna get from him. Then I thanked him for his time.

“Don’t make me out to be a martyr or a victim or a good guy,” he barked. “We aren’t friends, Harker. I’m helping you in order to achieve one of my own goals. That’s all.”

“You’re right. We ain’t ever gonna be friends, and we both have different reasons for what we’re doing.” I met his eyes. “I can still say thank you.”

Because that’s what she would do. What she would want me to do. How many times had she encouraged me to “hold out a hand instead of cut one off”?

Not that I ever in my life cut someone’s hand off, as I’d pointed out to her.

I turned and motioned Gigi and Travis toward the door. Travis signaled the guard and they left the room, but Argaud called my name and I looked back.

“You’d better remember your promise.” He narrowed his eyes, his voice dark with a threat both of us knew he couldn’t carry out.

“I’ll remember it, and I’ll keep it. My word on that.”

Argaud glared at me for another second, then stepped up to the glass again. He waited until I leaned in as close as I could.

“Hubler has a Divine artifact,” he whispered. “He wears the ring of Solomon.”

While I stood there in shock, Argaud jerked his head in a quick nod, spun on his heel, and headed for the exit.

How in the world did he get Solomon’s Seal?

Shaking my head, I went out my exit, too. Our silent guard escorted us to the reception area, but I had a brainstorm and hesitated before I picked up the pen to sign out.

“Uh, since we’re here, there’s another prisoner I wanna talk to. To follow up on an old case for Rome. Do you mind? I’ll be quick.”

“Long as we’re here,” said Gigi with a shrug, “you might as well.”

Ms. Chapman cleared it with the Guardian, and I went to see a necromancer’s apprentice.