The Seeking Serum Page 3

  “Just draw us a map or something. Send us in the right direction. We could get to the island and bring back the Silt to stop this.” She left out the part about hunting down her own father, Mezzarix, and putting a stop to his plans to overthrow B.R.E.W., but Gordy knew there was no need for her to say that.

  The ancient woman’s eyes opened, and her lips quivered in what might have been a smile. “No stopping this now,” she wheezed. “It has been . . .” She broke into another fit of phlegmy coughing, burying her face into her blanket. “It has been happening for years and has finally caught up with me.”

  “We could still help Carlisle,” Mrs. Stitser said, patting Ms. Bimini’s hand. “Put a halt to his aging. Wouldn’t you want that?”

  Ms. Bimini’s meager smile suddenly turned sour, and she glared fiercely at Carlisle. For a moment, Gordy thought she might spring from the bed and throttle her son.

  “Don’t fret over him. He’ll hit his mark soon enough. I still have more than a hundred years before I finally catch up. Fortunately for me, I will be long gone before that happens.” Ms. Bimini coughed again, eyes clamping shut in pain. This bout lasted for almost a minute before the old woman was able to catch her breath again.

  Gordy looked at his mom, dread settling in his stomach. “What about Adilene? She drank Silt as well.”

  “So did we,” Priss added, her brow furrowing.

  The three of them had taken a few sips from a vial of Silt when they’d broken into Madame Brexil’s home. Along with rendering them invisible, the Silt could possibly tamper with their age.

  Adilene had swallowed the most—almost an entire vial—when Ms. Bimini, disguised as the young girl Cadence, had tricked her into doing so. What would happen to Gordy’s best friend? No one was quite certain how that part of the Silt worked, whether it added years or removed them. One thing was for sure, though: a slew of horrible side effects took hold of the person once they stopped drinking the Silt, evidenced by Ms. Bimini’s and Carlisle’s current state.

  Ms. Bimini’s exact age was a mystery, but Aunt Priss suspected the woman might be at least a hundred and eighty years old. No one had ever lived that long—not naturally at least. The Silt Ms. Bimini had ingested over the years had made her age the most unnatural thing about her.

  Tobias scratched the back of his head. “Oh, mercy, am I going to have to order more beds and meds for the lot of you? I didn’t sign up to be a nurse!”

  A puttering sound rose from Ms. Bimini’s mouth. Gordy thought she was having another coughing fit, but then realized she was laughing.

  “One sip? One vial?” Her thin shoulders trembled. “Foolish children, you know nothing. My blood is Silt. I am Atramenti. I’ve consumed thousands of sips. More than that—hundreds of thousands.” She scowled at the ceiling, her upper lip curling into a snarl as she wriggled her hand free from Mrs. Stitser’s grasp. “Drained the fountain, we did. We found another source, deep in the dark caves where no light reaches. But that pool ran dry as well. So much so that when the first of my people withered and crumpled to dust, the others believed it was fate—that, with the Silt dying, we were meant to die as well. And when I fought against them, fought for our very existence, they sent me away!” Her eyes glistened with tears.

  Gordy had never heard her speak of what had happened on the island before or the reason why she had been banished from her people.

  Ms. Bimini moaned, the whole bed rattling from her sobs.

  “And you!” Ms. Bimini jolted up, finding enough strength to point an accusing finger at Carlisle. “You gave me to them!” Her once-whispering voice had turned deep and hideous. “You betrayed me!” Her energy spent, she collapsed back onto her pillow, chest rising and falling as though she had run a marathon.

  Gordy felt his heart racing in his chest. What was going on? Carlisle hadn’t moved, but he would no longer look at his mother. No one spoke, not even Tobias, who always had a way with words. He just stood by the door, eyebrows crinkling in confusion.

  Ms. Bimini finally stopped crying and gazed up at Gordy, her expression softening. “Don’t worry about Adilene,” she said. “She didn’t drink enough to experience all this. But she will see some subtle changes. As shall you all.”

  “Changes?” Gordy asked, worried. “Like what?”

  Ms. Bimini chuckled. “One doesn’t drink from the Elixir of Life and leave without wanting more. With power comes a price, and the payment is desire. And from what I know of your precious friend Adilene, she was already willing to pay the price. Oh, stop that!” Her voice rose with agitation as Gordy’s mom prepped the next bag of fluids to connect to her IV. “That does nothing for me but make me disoriented.” Her scowl returned, harsher than before.

  “We have other medicines,” Priss offered. “We can concoct potions to make you comfortable.”

  “I don’t want your magic,” Ms. Bimini said. “I never wanted it. I never should have involved myself with your kind. Go back to your pathetic attempts to save your world and leave us. I need what little time I have left in this life to curse my son.” She closed her eyes, her jaw set in determination. “Alone.”

  Later that evening, Gordy and his mom returned to the basement carrying two trays of food for Ms. Bimini and Carlisle’s dinner. Carlisle sat in the chair, hands folded in his lap, staring at the wall. Ms. Bimini’s bed had been stripped of its sheets and blankets, and the medical equipment had been powered down and shoved into one corner of the room. The ancient woman’s faded maroon pantsuit was splayed out on the bare mattress, but the elderly woman was nowhere to be found.

  “Your mother?” Gordy’s mom waved her fingers in front of Carlisle’s vacant expression. “Where has she gone, Carlisle?”

  And why wasn’t she wearing her clothes?

  Carlisle lowered his eyes and studied his hands. They were calloused and cracking at the knuckles. But they were also arthritic. Gordy wondered if they caused him pain.

  “She couldn’t have just vanished,” Mrs. Stitser said. Then she glanced at Gordy, and they exchanged a knowing look.

  When Ms. Bimini had access to Silt, she frequently turned invisible whenever she fancied it. Maybe she had just been waiting for the right moment to try it again. And yet Gordy didn’t believe that was what had happened. She had been too weak. He felt a chill in his shoulders, goose bumps prickling his skin as though he had seen a ghost. As an Elixirist, he knew there were weird things in the world, but of all the potions Gordy had mastered, he had never known of one that could make someone vanish for good.

  “Is she gone?” Gordy asked Carlisle. “Really gone?”

  Carlisle dragged his tongue across his lips, giving no indication he even understood the question. Gordy glanced at the mattress and the outfit Ms. Bimini had worn throughout her stay in Tobias’s basement. He half expected he’d see gray dust buried under the maroon fabric if he examined it closely.

  “Gordy, come with me for a moment.” His mom pulled him back to the stairs by his sleeve, but they paused halfway up, the wooden boards straining beneath their weight. “We’re going to let Carlisle go free,” she said. “Saturday afternoon, before we travel into the Swigs, we’re going to release him. It makes no sense to leave him here unattended. I doubt Bolter took that into consideration when he decided to abandon ship. In any case, Carlisle can’t stay here.”

  “We’re going to let him go?” Gordy asked a little louder than he intended.

  She held her finger to her lips and fixed him with a stern glare. “We may be forced to relocate sooner rather than later, and there’s no need to keep him prisoner anymore,” she said. “He’s not a threat.”

  Gordy shook his head. “That’s not what I meant. Carlisle’s old. Way old. And if . . .” He swallowed, his mouth dry. “If she’s really gone, what’s he going to do?”

  He felt a little weird worrying about an eighty-plus-year-old man now that his one-hun
dred-and-fifty-plus-year-old mother had . . . well, disappeared, but Carlisle’s situation felt different. He needed assistance and someone to watch over him, especially if he was still aging rapidly. What would happen to Carlisle if he woke up one morning unexpectedly ten years older and unable to walk?

  “If we’re on the move, we can’t worry about transporting a prisoner.” His mom looked away guiltily for a moment. “I don’t want you blaming yourself for any of this.”

  “But it’s not right, Mom.” Carlisle may have once been an enemy, but all that changed the moment he aged twenty years in a couple of days. And since his capture, Carlisle had been nothing but cooperative.

  “What’s right is making sure he’s as safe as we can make him. We’ll see that he has plenty of supplies, anything he needs. But, Gordy, we’re headed into a potion war with a dangerous enemy. These other inconveniences we’ve had this past year—”

  “Inconveniences?” Did she really consider Esmeralda Faustus and Ms. Bimini nothing more than inconveniences?

  “Listen!” She squeezed Gordy’s arm while raising a warning finger. “Mezzarix has control of the Vessel. You have no idea what he’s capable of. Nothing can get in the way of us stopping him.” She closed her eyes and exhaled before rubbing Gordy’s arm affectionately. “If Carlisle remains with us, we’ll be dragging him into the cross fire. Do you understand?”

  Gordy thought for a moment, struggling against the idea, but then finally nodded. When the potions started flying, the real nasty ones Mezzarix was skilled at concocting, Carlisle would be in danger—they all would.

  Gordy ducked down a little to glance back into the room. Carlisle still sat in his chair, hands still folded in his lap, gazing at the floor, eyes unfocused. He wasn’t listening. He might not have even cared.

  Poor guy. Where would he go? Gordy wondered. In any case, he had a few more nights to sleep in Tobias’s musty basement. By Saturday afternoon, Carlisle would be gone.

  Mezzarix and Ravian strolled beneath a cedarwood trellis where baskets of flowers hung from hooks. The warm evening breeze carried with it the smell of brine and perfume. Overripe papayas, like enormous colorful beehives, drooped from tree branches, mere days from splatting along the cobblestone walkway.

  The Atramenti called this place the Palace of Puerulus, and it sat on the southern shore of the island. There were several fresh pools of dark-green water beneath the canopy of palm trees where flocks of a wide variety of birds gathered, many of which paused in their bathing and preening to watch as the two Scourges passed by. The whole island was a paradise, a haven from the outside world, dripping with beauty and serenity.

  And Mezzarix had no need for it.

  After plucking a papaya from a nearby tree, Ravian pressed his thumbs into the flesh, splitting the fruit into two glistening chunks. He took a bite, and the orange juice dripped down his chin and onto his collar.

  “You know? It sort of tastes like soap,” Ravian said, his mouth full. “But like fruity soap. You’ve eaten fruity soap before, haven’t you? My mother used to flog me with a switch whenever she caught me eating soap. Said it would make me go mad if I ate enough of it.” He wiped his mouth with his sleeve. “Little did she know I ate grundles of the stuff. It reminded me of cheese just about to turn. The best kind, really. And look how I turned out.”

  “You are mad,” Mezzarix muttered.

  Ravian knitted his eyebrows. “Mad or brilliant. There really isn’t much difference if you ask the right people.”

  They entered through the palace gates and climbed a flight of steps to a great hall where several long tables and ornate wooden chairs sat empty. At the far end of the room stood six marble thrones encircling a dais where a single bowl of white opal rested at the center. The bowl was empty except for a sticky residue of the Silt that had once filled it.

  A miniature woman with green hair and white eyelashes lounged in the throne second from the left, her painted toes wiggling in the air as she stared at the ceiling.

  “Zelda,” Mezzarix said, stopping next to the dais. “How are things coming with our project?”

  “Finished,” the woman replied in more of a squeak than an actual voice. She swung her legs off the armrest and sat up. “Your recipe was easy to follow, and the Vessel is the perfect mixing bowl. There are so many amazing potions we could make with it.” Her eyes drifted wistfully out of focus for a moment before returning to the present. “Anyway, they’re ready to be sent. All they need is for him”—she pointed at Ravian—“to do the honors.” Then she knelt on the floor, dragging a heavy leather bag three times the size of a standard satchel from underneath the throne. “They’re all in here. Every one of them carved and ready.”

  Mezzarix smiled. “You’ve done well.” He turned to Ravian. “And you’re sure these animals will know where to go?”

  Ravian shrugged, weeding a sliver of papaya out of his teeth with his fingernail. “They’ve always done as they’ve been commanded. Of course, I will have to manipulate their minds a bit, but that shouldn’t be a problem. Not with the Vessel. What sort of creatures should I beckon?”

  Mezzarix frowned. “I wasn’t aware you McFarlands could control anything other than birds.”

  “Well, there are large birds, like storks and cranes and ostriches. There are wee tiny birds, like sparrows and finches. I need to know what you require and where they’re going because climate could affect their flight patterns, and if they have weak constitutions, then—”

  “I get the idea.” Mezzarix cut him off, rubbing his forehead in annoyance. He nodded at Zelda. “How big will be necessary?”

  Zelda curled her lip and then held her hands about two feet apart. “And they’ll need to be able to carry at least a half a pound of weight.”

  Ravian wiggled his fingers. “I think I know a few lovelies for the job. I’ll get started now.” The Irishman took the satchel from Zelda and hobbled away, heading for the water.

  “I also have this one ready to go.” Zelda held up an object wrapped in cloth. Wooden ends poked out from beneath the fabric. “Should I have him send this off by bird as well?”

  Mezzarix took the object from her, cradling it gently, gazing upon it affectionately. “I will send it by other means. This one deserves a proper delivery. I don’t want it simply dropped at the doorstep.”

  Zelda giggled, a shrill, bothersome sort of noise, and Mezzarix closed his eyes, wincing at the sound of it. “And you don’t plan to send it directly to him? We know where he’s hiding.”

  Mezzarix shook his head. “Wanda would never allow him to touch it. I shall send this via an alternate route.” Sauntering over next to her, Mezzarix eased into one of the thrones. “Are you bored, Zelda?”

  “Bored?” she replied.

  “Someone like you, who has always been on the ground causing the explosions, must consider your time away from the action a bit of a bother.”

  “I don’t mind, really,” Zelda said.

  “Come now,” Mezzarix tutted. “I know where your heart lies. And it’s not on this island. Ravian is a coward who works best in the shadows—scheming and playing his role from afar. You, on the other hand, need to stretch your wings, much like his birds.”

  Zelda forced a smile, but her eyes narrowed. “What is it you want me to do?”

  Mezzarix reached beneath his cloak and produced a wooden box containing several glass vials of Silt. There were twelve in all, each containing every ounce of the precious liquid the Atramenti had been able to siphon from the underground fountain.

  “This is all we have,” Mezzarix said. “But it should be enough for you and a few of your choosing to sneak back into the city without B.R.E.W. becoming aware of your presence.”

  Zelda scowled. “Go back? Why would I do that? Once all the Scourges are unleashed, it will be pure insanity.”

  “And that’s why I need someone on the gro
und when they start arriving. You know how they can be after having been cooped up for so many years. You will be my eyes and ears on the battlefield. The one who will spring the trap.”

  She cocked an eyebrow. “You want me to lead the search?”

  Mezzarix pulled another bottle from beneath his cloak. The potion resembled swamp water, only thicker in consistency and with a smattering of tiny, shimmering crystals floating in the mixture. Mezzarix rotated the bottle in his fingers before handing it over to Zelda. “This is also for you.”

  Zelda’s eyes brightened as she inspected the bottle. “What is it?”

  “This has consumed all my energy and thoughts. In my studies of the Vessel, when I realized the limitations facing us in truly unleashing my ultimate plan, I discovered I had the ability to create something on a much smaller scale.” Mezzarix nodded at the potion. “With this concoction, many of B.R.E.W.’s advancements will revert to their original condition.”

  Zelda studied the potion closely, one eye peeking above the bottle. “Are you telling me this will turn the power off?”

  Mezzarix grinned. “To all technology. All scientific marvels will be placed on hold—within a confined area, of course.”

  “How confined?” Zelda asked.

  Mezzarix hummed for a moment, pondering her question. “Oh, eight to ten miles, I suppose. And there are other properties to the potion as well. Ones that will make things easier for us in the long run, including allowing our forces to carry out their assignment in relative peace and quiet.

  “But I need someone to ensure this potion lasts as long as it can, and that is why I’m sending you. Someone with my shared interests. The potion will trigger the technology outage, which will be the signal for the Scourges to begin. And you shall lead them. I would go myself, but I must stay here to prepare for the next phase. This won’t be a simple assignment, but I trust you’ll know how to handle it.”

  “What about the boy?” Zelda asked, her glance flicking to the object in Mezzarix’s hands.