Brimstone Read online

  “I’ve finished the gas chromotography on the sample that Silas Blackthorne gave me, and have the results for you.”

  Silas Blackthorne? Why was he teaching high school chemistry instead of penning lurid gothic novels?

  “That’s great news, Dr. Smyth. I’ve been anxious to hear from you.”

  “I imagine you have. You say you sat in something?”

  Justin and Dad watched me curiously. “Uh, yeah. It’s a little complicated to explain. Can you give me the information over the phone?”

  “I could, but the results are as complex as your explanation would undoubtedly be. I’ll be in the lab for the rest of the morning. Are you busy?”

  “No. I’d be happy to meet you.” She gave me the building and room number. Justin peered shamelessly over my shoulder. “I’ll be there in half an hour or so.”

  “No hurry.”

  I hung up and faced my audience. “I need to go to the Masterson Building. What street is that on?”

  “I know where it is,” said Justin, eager curiosity lighting his face.

  “Let me put on some shoes.”

  Dad blocked my way to the stairs. He gave me a laser beam look, virtually identical to the ones I got from Gran. “Magdalena Quinn. What are you up to? I don’t buy that you had to take pictures for the yearbook last night.” He transferred a little of the intensity of that glare to Justin. “And I still have questions about what you two were doing on the roof.”

  “I explained that, Dad.”

  “You gave me a load of codswallop.”

  Codswallop? I knew it wasn’t going to help my case to laugh so I forced my face into a concerned frown.

  “Does this have to do with the nightmare you had last night?” he asked.

  I didn’t have to fake a scowl. “Dad.”

  “Your mother is worried about you. And your grandmother says to just let you be, which makes me worried.” We could have stayed at an impasse all day, because I definitely get my stubbornness from his side of the family. “Just tell me this,” he asked, “are you in danger?”

  I paused to consider a lot of evasions. But meeting his eye, I took the chance that he was as much like Gran as I was like him. “I don’t think so, but others are. This is something I have to do, Dad.”

  This much I knew: I was in a race to learn as much as I could about the phantom before it grew any stronger.

  He studied me for another long moment, then shook his head in defeat and stepped back. “All right. Go see Dr. Smyth. We’ll talk more later.”

  “Thanks, Dad.” As I ran upstairs, I heard him ask Justin, “Don’t you have an anthropology paper that’s due next week?”

  “I’m on top of it, sir.” Dad said something else, something that I couldn’t hear despite straining my ears. Justin answered him, “I’ll do my best.”

  He could have been talking about class work, but something told me not.

  Justin and I argued briefly over who should drive; I liked being in the driver’s seat—big surprise—but in the end it came down to efficiency. His car was parked behind mine.

  “What were you and Dad talking about while I went upstairs?” I didn’t waste time once we were on the road. “You weren’t making some macho, keep-the-little-woman-safe pact, were you?”

  He flicked me a glance but otherwise kept his eyes on the road, Mr. Conscientious behind the wheel. “I can’t imagine that any man who knows you would make that mistake.”

  A dogleg of an answer if ever I heard one. I spiked a volley in another direction. “You’re not going to flunk out or anything because I dragged you into this mess, are you? I’m not sure I can afford the karma hit if you do.”

  His mouth turned up in a crooked smile. “I’m not going to flunk out. And you didn’t hold me at gunpoint.” I acknowledged that was true. “Anyway, I wouldn’t be able to concentrate wondering what you’d left out of last night’s drama.”

  “Did I leave anything out?” Sleep had been dragging me down when I’d talked to him on the phone. “I can’t remember.”

  “Just start from the beginning. The long version.”

  I didn’t have time for the long version; Avalon isn’t that big of a town. I had just gotten to Jess Minor going postal, and the Shadow’s malicious delight, when we pulled into one of the university’s big parking lots, virtually empty on Saturday morning. Justin turned in his seat to face me, his square jaw set, one hand still grasping the steering wheel tightly.

  “I wondered about the scratches.” He reached out as if to touch my face, then redirected the movement, pointing to his own cheek instead. “You’ve got a bruise, too.”

  “Yeah.” I held up my hand, knuckles out. “But look! I got in a punch, at least.”

  “Good for you.” I couldn’t interpret his tension, but I thought it might be that he was trying hard to restrain old-fashioned protectiveness. He confirmed my hunch when he asked, as if he couldn’t help himself, “But you’re all right? Your voice still sounds awful. I can’t believe you didn’t mention the almost dying part last night.”

  “I didn’t almost die.” I refused to believe anything different. “Do you think she was really possessed? I mean, her head didn’t spin around or anything, but it was freaky.”

  “Possession is a term with a lot of baggage. Let’s say, ‘Overshadowed.’ ”

  I shivered. I’d started thinking about the whatever-it-was as the Shadow, with a capital S. The word fit. “I’m cool with less implied Exorcist in my life.”

  Justin tapped his fingers thoughtfully on the steering wheel. “I wonder why the Minor one and not the leader? Or one of the boys, who might have easily done real damage to you?”

  I shrugged and reached for the door handle. “Weak-minded but mean. She was the perfect hostess.”

  17

  the Earth Science Building was limestone and granite, surrounded by a green lawn, spreading oaks, and tall pines. Bedivere University nestled just north of the center of town, an old, relatively small private school. A strong emphasis on arts and humanities doubtless accounted for the low enrollment. A shiny new science building was in the planning stages, but I would miss the cozy anachronism of the present one.

  The chemistry lab lay on the second floor, up the stone steps and through a rabbit warren of plaster and paneled hallways. We found the room and peered in. It wasn’t much different from the high school–rows of slate-topped lab benches, each with a sink and a gas spigot. (I’ll bet the college kids were allowed to use theirs, though.) It was bigger, and had more equipment along one wall, as well as a computer workstation where a woman typed diligently.

  “Dr. Smyth?”

  She looked up. “Miss Quinn?”

  “Maggie,” I confirmed. “This is my friend, Justin MacCallum.”

  The professor was about my mom’s age, with some of the same no-nonsense demeanor. Dr. Smyth had flaming red hair and a wildly curving figure not really hidden by her lab coat. She picked up a piece of paper and gestured us over, her expression serious. “Before we begin, I have to ask. Did Professor Blackthorne put you up to this?”

  I blinked in surprise. “No ma’am. I asked him for help.”

  Dr. Smyth subjected me to an exaggerated scrutiny, then clicked her tongue and nodded. “All right then.” She laid the paper on a meticulously neat lab bench. “What you have here, Miss Quinn, is a rather fragrant potpourri of organic compounds, amino acids, and a few minerals.”

  I scanned the list, as indecipherable as the foreign symbols in my dream. A couple of the suffixes rang a bell, though. “Ethanethiol and methanethiol? Those wouldn’t be, ah, putrescine and cadaverine, would they?”

  “No. Those are from the sulfhydryl group.” Dr. Smyth sounded a little pissed, so I tried to prove I wasn’t an idiot wasting her time.

  “Dr. Blackthorne mentioned the thiols. Rotten egg smell.”

  “Yes. And swamp gas and cabbage. Skunk odor, too. Down here—” She pointed to two lines on the printout I wasn’t even going to tr
y to read, let alone pronounce. “Those are the two smelly little buggers that cost me a steak dinner.”

  “You bet a steak dinner on putrescine and cadaverine?”

  “What would you have bet?” she asked curiously.

  “That I might never eat meat again.”

  Justin had been reading over my shoulder. “I’m guessing those names are fairly descriptive?”

  “Oh yes.” Dr. Smyth explained with relish. “Both are released by the breakdown of amino acids during the putrefaction of animal tissue. In small amounts, they are present in living flesh as well, but we only notice them when things die and start to rot.”

  “Nice,” I said, ready to move along. “Sulfur, sulfuric acid …”

  Justin took the sheet from my hands. “That’s green vitriol. It was a standard ingredient in alchemy formulas.”

  “Exactly,” said the professor. “You see why I thought Silas might be pulling my leg. Especially with this one.” She pointed to the list. “Artemisia arborescens L. Tree wormwood.”

  “Wormwood?” I asked. “Where have I heard of that before?”

  “You may have heard of absinthe.”

  “There’s a biblical reference, too,” Justin added. “And C. S. Lewis used it as a name for a junior demon in The Screwtape Letters.”

  That all sounded familiar. “Isn’t it a poison?”

  Dr. Smyth shook her head. “Not this variety. It comes from the Middle East, and was brewed into a medicinal tea.”

  Justin spoke thoughtfully. “In Russian folklore, the literal translation for the plant is ‘bitter truth’ and it’s associated with a spell to open the eyes of deluded people.”

  Dr. Smyth gave him an odd look and I explained, “His thesis.” She nodded like this clarified everything. Maybe to another academic, it did.

  I took the list back. “What’s Cinchona officinalis?”

  “That’s where your fluorescence comes from. Quinine.”

  “Quinine?” Boy, which one of these was not like the others. “Like, for preventing malaria?”

  “Yes. It’s another organic compound. It binds to the blood cells so tightly that the malarial parasite cannot.”

  My mind was spinning, drawing a strange sort of picture. I flipped over the printout and sketched a flat, vaguely bowl-like shape. “Let’s say I’m an alchemist.”

  “Okay,” said Dr. Smyth, in a humoring-the-nutcase sort of voice. “Why are we saying that?”

  What could I say that wouldn’t get us tossed out of her lab so fast we bounced? She already suspected that Professor Blackthorne had set her up. I glanced at Justin, but he was no help. My next accomplice was going to be a much better liar.

  “I’m working on a project.” Dr. Smyth continued to gaze at me, bemused. “A creative writing project,” I said with sudden inspiration.

  The corner of her mouth lifted. I still got the feeling she was humoring me, but she said, “Okay, I’ll bite.” She leaned her elbows on the lab bench and looked at my drawing. “Is that your cauldron, then?”

  “It’s more of a brazier. For a fire, you know?”

  “What is it made out of?”

  “Does it matter?”

  “Certain metals may be reactive with your potion.” She seemed intrigued now. My dad was the same way, a sucker for an intellectual discussion, no matter how off the wall. “I assume that’s where this exercise is headed.”

  I took up the gauntlet. “Say I start a fire, then add sulfur, which burns blue, right?”

  “Yes.” Dr. Smyth gave me a quizzical look. “But what purpose does it serve? It can’t be just for aesthetics.”

  I considered the question. Professor Blackthorne is my favorite teacher, but chemistry is not my strongest subject. “Fire supplies the energy for the chemical reaction, right? What if the sulfur—or brimstone, since we’re thinking like alchemists—is meant to evoke the energy of the earth?”

  “Or of Hell,” Justin added. I frowned at him, but he didn’t back down.

  Dr. Smyth nodded. “Right.” She wrote “Fire and Brimstone” on the sketch and then, “Energy source.” “If we allow for supernatural in your plot, then we allow for Hell.”

  “Can’t we leave that out of the equation for the moment?” I could rationalize alchemy. It was, in its way, a science. “ ‘Hell’ sounds so melodramatic.”

  “Let’s say the power of the underworld for now,” said Dr. Smyth, writing it in parenthesis. “That covers the physical and spiritual possibilities. Now, what are we trying to accomplish with our spell?”

  Their eyes went to me expectantly. I had been chewing on the idea for a while, but it was a struggle to voice. Talk about melodrama. “A curse. We’re trying to curse someone.”

  Justin held my gaze for a silent moment. It was the first time I had acknowledged out loud that this wasn’t a random spirit or undirected supernatural event. The thought that someone could have meant to kill or injure Karen or Jeff was an uncomfortable one.

  “Excellent!” The professor continued with a brisk enthusiasm that drew me back to humor. We bent over the table to watch her scribble notes. “Wormwood—the bitter truth. We want to teach the cursee a lesson. The quinine …”

  “It binds to the blood,” I said. “Binds the curse to the victim.” A thought distracted me: Or binds the servant spirit to the summoner.

  Dr. Smyth continued. “Right. Putrescine and cadaverine. Well, those are harder.”

  “Not really,” said Justin. “Eye of newt, toe of frog. Or whatever else is handy.”

  Dr. Smyth looked at him. “But why? Literary tradition? If the character goes to the trouble of putting this formula together, everything must have a purpose.”

  “A burnt offering,” he suggested.

  “Toe of frog?” she scoffed. “Not much of a sacrifice.”

  I straightened. “Decay is a kind of breaking down. Maybe we’re trying to break down our victim, reduce him.”

  Dr. Smyth tapped the pen. “Seems a bit of a stretch metaphorically.”

  “So is ‘bitter truth,’ ” I protested.

  “That has a folklore precedent. But then, so does eye of newt and toe of frog.” She jotted down “newt & frog.” “But of course, it’s your story, so you can write it any way you want.”

  Didn’t I wish.

  She and Justin squabbled amiably over what icky rotting things could be added, for what metaphorical or alchemical purpose. To Dr. Smyth it was an academic exercise, an amusement, and for a little while, listening to them, I let myself think of it that way, too.

  But I realized what she didn’t. The organic compounds, the nasty ones, didn’t have to be part of the formula. They could be intrinsic to the thing that the spell had called.

  I thanked Dr. Smyth again as we left. “I appreciate all your help.” We stood at the door of her office and I had the printout, with all our notes on it, folded in my hand.

  “Not at all,” she said. “I enjoy an esoteric puzzle, now and again. Good luck with the project.” It took me a blank moment to realize she meant my very fictional fiction assignment. She pushed her hands into the pockets of her lab coat and continued. “The main thing to remember is that the supernatural has rules, just like the natural world. You simply have to figure out what they are.”

  “Right. Well. Thanks again.”

  We turned to go, but her voice called me back before we’d gone more than a few steps. “Maggie?”

  “Yes, Professor?”

  “I’m still curious. This substance that seems to have inspired your story. You never said where you came across it.”

  “The school gym,” I said, because I was out of lies.

  “Hmm.” Her expression was doubtful, but she let it go. “Well, that would definitely convince me to wear flip-flops in the shower.”

  18

  “you’re quiet,” Justin said once we were in the car.

  “I’m trying to banish the mental image of Drs. Smyth and Blackthorne playing McGonagal and Snape in their off-d
uty hours.”

  He chuckled. “I’d like to meet Professor Blackthorne someday.”

  “He’s a trip. I wish he taught English.”

  “It probably wouldn’t be the same.”

  “It would have to be better than what I’ve got. Ms. Vincent has no sense of humor.”

  “I’ll bet that’s hard on you.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Only that you sort of live and die by the wisecrack.”

  I wondered if that was a good or bad thing in his eyes, and how much it mattered to me. “I like to keep my tongue honed to a sharp edge. I never know when I’ll need it in a fight.”

  He navigated the left turn onto Beltline before he spoke again. “Want to get some lunch?”

  “Don’t you have to study?”

  “I have to eat, too.” Taking my silence for assent, he pulled into one of the restaurants on the strip. The Cadillac Grill had been a diner in the fifties. Back when Grease and American Graffiti were hot, someone had refurbished the building to all its Rock Around the Clock glory. Kitschy, but the food was good. We got one of the last tables without a wait.

  I ordered a Coke, a cheeseburger, and fries without looking at the menu. Justin had iced tea and the chicken finger basket.

  “Did they have chicken fingers back in the fifties?” I asked. “And what kind of name is that for food? Chickens don’t have fingers and if they did, I wouldn’t want to eat them.”

  His brows screwed up in the center. “I’m not really supposed to answer when you do that, am I?”

  “No. I’m just showing you how clever I am.”

  “By mocking my food? Not very.”

  The waitress brought our drinks; I took a deep gulp of mine, and settled back in the vinyl seat. “So. What’s your deal? You know practically everything about me, and I know almost nothing about you.”

  He clearly couldn’t decide whether to be amused or not. “What do you want to know?”

  I started with, “How long have you been at Bedivere?”

  After a sip of his iced tea, he answered, “I transferred here last fall. I’m finishing my bachelor’s and taking some grad-level courses.”