The Alchemy of Forever Read online

  “I know that look. What are you thinking about?” Charlotte, my best friend, asks as she comes through the glass door to the deck. She carries a tray of iced tea, moisture already beading like wobbly diamonds on the outside of the glasses. When I take one, the little droplets fall to the ground and immediately turn to steam.

  I push my sunglasses up into my dark hair and smile at Charlotte. “Nothing,” I lie. “Just enjoying the sun.”

  I can tell no one of my plan to die, not even Charlotte. Cyrus would never let me leave. Not without a fight, and one that I would surely lose. More than anything I want to be free of the man who controls me with his fists, his words, and his iron will—the man who made me what I am.

  Charlotte narrows her hazel eyes at me, but says nothing. After two centuries of friendship, I can’t get anything by her, but I also know she won’t pry. I cherish her understanding and acceptance; it is what I’ll miss most when I leave. That and the sunshine, but I can’t afford to think about what I’m leaving behind if my plan is going to work.

  Moving around the deck, Charlotte offers drinks to our other friends. Jared pulls out a flask to spice up his, looking every bit the pirate he was when I first met him in 1660, a row of studs and hoops trailing up his earlobe like a rocky coastline. Amelia declines, her white-blond hair gleaming in the sunlight and her deep tan a stark contrast to my milky skin.

  When Charlotte approaches Sébastien, his long dread-locks pulled back in a low ponytail, a shy smile flickers across her face. He leans on the orange metal railing that encircles the deck. I notice his fingers grazing hers as he takes his tea, making her shake her head, slightly embarrassed, her copper curls falling forward in her face.

  I have always loved her red hair, which is not so different from the hair she was born with. All of us have had a similar experience: When Cyrus made us Incarnates, we went through periods of trying out different kinds of bodies. Old, young, male, female. But we all found the experience too disorienting, and eventually settled in forms that reminded us of our former selves. I’ve been a different incarnation of myself—brown eyes, long brown hair—for centuries.

  The glass doors open once more, and Cyrus, our leader, joins us on the deck. He’s wearing a well-tailored black shirt that sets off his platinum hair and tall, lean frame. Around his neck is the vial of elixir he used to make us Incarnates. I can’t say he’s not beautiful, though the magic I once felt when looking at him has long since dissipated.

  He sits next to me, regarding me with his icy blue eyes and running his hands through my hair possessively. I shiver but don’t pull away. “I want to discuss Sera’s party,” he tells us. Yes, the party in my honor. Although it would be more apt to call it an execution.

  I sit up, my muscles straining from the effort, and am momentarily dizzy. When my vision clears, I see the hummingbird fluttering around a cluster of lilies, his wings a red blur.

  “It’s going to be at Emerald City,” he announces, and Amelia’s eyes brighten. Emerald City is the most exclusive nightclub in San Francisco. People more important and more beautiful than Cyrus have been turned away at the door.

  Jared lets out a low whistle and pulls his chair closer to Cyrus, the metal screeching against the concrete deck. “Pulling out all the stops, eh?”

  Amelia chuckles, arching her back toward the sun. “It’s not that often that Saint Sera deigns to take a new body.”

  I detect an undercurrent of nastiness, but I don’t let it get to me. She’s right. I’ve been putting off this moment for as long as I could. We get about ten years in a body, even if the body we take is already sick, broken, run down by years of abuse. When we transfer our spirits, the body regenerates. But the energy expended in healing the body is also its doom, leading to organ failure five or ten years down the road. Unlike my friends, I try to stay in a body for as long as possible rather than switching into a new one as casually as I might try on a dress. Even Charlotte has no qualms about killing. It’s the only way for us to stay alive, she says. Why waste this gift?

  “My little darling,” Cyrus murmurs affectionately, pulling me into his lap. I try not to cringe at his touch. “I’m going to miss this body when it’s gone. Only one more week. But don’t worry, we’ll find you another just as beautiful.” Amelia looks away, scowling.

  He does love me, I’ve never doubted that. I’m his touchstone, his only link to his real past, to the body into which he was born. He’s told me as much, crushing me in embraces that leave bruises the following day. Seraphina, I would die without you.

  What will he do when I’m gone?

  Jared and Sébastien will be fine, as long as they continue to follow orders. Amelia will be happier without me—she’s always had a crush on Cyrus. I worry about Charlotte, though. Cyrus has never liked her.

  I met Charlotte in New York in the early 1800s. I bought flowers from her at the market in Five Points and, much to Cyrus’s dismay, struck up a friendship with her. I took her shopping for dresses she could never afford on her own, and she regaled me with stories about her seven brothers. When she did not show up at her stand one morning, I sought her out at her home and found her and her younger brother Jack in the throes of scarlet fever.

  I begged Cyrus to let me save her, and he finally said yes to shut me up. I don’t think he really considered the consequences—that I would finally have an ally, someone who knew my true self. I turned her into a killer so I could have a friend, and I will regret that for eternity.

  The hummingbird approaches the railing, then dips under it, taking off into the sky. I catch Amelia watching it from her perch two seats down. She was an aerialist when Cyrus turned her and used to “fly” for a living.

  Cyrus turns his attention to the group. “Amelia, you’re in charge of the guest list. Under my close supervision, of course.” She beams. “I want plenty of options for Seraphina.”

  Plenty of options for himself, he means. He would pick for me—he always did. He has a type: willowy build, long dark hair, Mediterranean skin. She would be a failed model who had turned to drugs or an aspiring poet with a streak of madness who would never live to see age thirty. I stopped caring long ago what my body looks like; I only care that my new host either doesn’t want to be alive or doesn’t deserve to be.

  I do have one request. “Amelia,” I say, “please don’t invite anyone too young.”

  She smirks at me, but it doesn’t feel cruel. Just matter of fact. “Don’t worry, you can go straight to confession afterward.”

  “Jared,” Cyrus continues, “you’re in charge of security. I don’t want the club staff on this—we need a crew who will be discreet.”

  “Of course, Cy.” Jared nods, pushing his black hair off his tattooed neck.

  The mention of security sends a jolt of nervous adrenaline through my veins. Jared won’t mess around. He knows this is more than a dance party. Someone is going to die.

  I’m trying to control my breathing, which is coming in quick, shallow gasps. I glance down, willing myself to stop fidgeting with the heavy ring on my left hand. Its antique garnet catches the sunlight like a glass of red wine—or blood.

  I asked Cyrus to buy it for me a couple of weeks ago, on a fog-swathed day in Hayes Valley. “It’s a Victorian antique,” the saleswoman had remarked. I silently thanked the other customer who drew her attention just then, keeping her from saying more. Because it was more than just a Victorian bauble. It was a poison ring, with a hidden compartment under the bloodred stone. Not much room, just enough for the tiniest pinch of powder or a single pill. It would be enough.

  Sébastien, who has been silent until now, shoots me a concerned glance. “You okay? You seem tired.” Next to me, I feel Cyrus stiffen.

  “She’s fine,” he says coldly. “Aren’t you?” I can feel the rage burning under his skin. He hates it when anyone else thinks they know how I feel, as though he’s the only one allowed that ability.

  I smile weakly. “I’m just . . . excited.”

&nbs
p; Cyrus sighs heavily and stands up, the sun shining around his platinum hair like a halo. “I think I’m done for the day. We’ll continue this later. Sébastien, I’ll need you to work on the DJ lineup.”

  Sébastien flashes one of his rare smiles, white teeth brilliant against his brown skin. Music is one of the only things he cares about. Music and Charlotte. When I’m gone, I hope he will comfort her—and protect her. Because if Cyrus suspects she had any involvement in my escape . . . well, he’s killed for much less.

  two

  “I think I want coffee. Or maybe pistachio. Or . . . I don’t know, green tea.”

  Charlotte ties her curls in a loose bun on the top of her head. “You can get all of them. An added bonus of switching bodies tomorrow—no need to eat healthy.”

  “True,” I say. “In that case, I guess I should get hot fudge, too.”

  The night before my party is moonlit and clear, warm enough to wear only a light jacket. I link my arm through Charlotte’s and skip as much as my aching muscles allow, pulling her toward Michael’s, my favorite ice-cream parlor in all of San Francisco—perhaps in all the world.

  Although ice cream wasn’t around when I was little, my mother and I used to flavor our cream with fruit and herbs from the garden. We’d make it when my father was away, staying up late and eating it right in the kitchen in our nightclothes. A century later, after I’d complained of missing my mother, Cyrus had fed me my first bite of real ice cream and smirked triumphantly at my delight in it. “See? Why ever long for something from the past when the future brings things that are so much better?” he’d asked.

  “I still can’t believe Cyrus let you out of his sight the night before your switch,” Charlotte says as we turn the corner and walk toward Michael’s. I strain my eyes to see the daily specials written in neon on the window—hazelnut, raspberry swirl, and mint gelato.

  “Yes, well, he has to learn to live without me sometime,” I say lightly. Starting tomorrow, I add silently.

  He didn’t want me to go out tonight—“There’s still so much planning for the party, Sera,” he’d said—but he relented after much begging on my part. He’s never quite been able to resist when I stick out my lower lip. Juvenile, I know, but it does the trick and I needed one last girl’s night with my best friend.

  We walk through the doors of Michael’s, and a cold, sweet smell instantly envelops me. Michael’s looks like it was scooped up in a tornado in the Midwest and plopped down in the middle of San Francisco. Painted wooden cutouts of chickens, cows, and corn line the wall, and a row of rusty tin milk pails hang from the ceiling. We are the only people in the shop other than the girl behind the counter, who has hair the same color as the Blue Moon sorbet, and two little piercings that sticking out of her bottom lip like fangs. She takes a break from whispering into her cell phone to serve us our cones, then instantly goes back to gossiping.

  Charlotte and I sit in our usual spot, two stools facing the front window, so we can watch people walk by.

  “Gerald, 1913,” she says without preamble, pointing to a man in his midforties with a wobbly chin and a healthy outcropping of ear hair. This is the game we always play. Although as far we know we are the only Incarnates in the world, we always wonder if others have found a different route to immortal life, perhaps by a philosopher’s stone that allows them to stay in their original bodies. We watch people on the streets and on TV, deciding who they could be from our past.

  I frown. “No, Gerald had nose hair, not ear hair.”

  “Oh, right,” Charlotte says with a snort, then takes a bite of her mocha-chip ice cream.

  As it’s a Friday night, we watch a steady stream of beanie-wearing teenagers and singles rushing to dates, but no one else looks familiar. These bodies are all new.

  After a few minutes I voice the question that’s been haunting me ever since I made my decision to die. “Do you believe in true reincarnation?”

  Charlotte turns her hazel eyes toward me. “What do you mean?”

  “What do you think happens to people’s souls when they die? Do they just evaporate, or are they reborn into new bodies with no memories of their past lives? And what about our souls? We’ve been around so long, would ours even know how to move on?”

  Charlotte takes a bite of her cone and crunches thoughtfully. “Well, you know what Cyrus says.”

  I do know what Cyrus says. He told me his theory in 1666 while we sat together on a boat on the Thames during the Great Fire of London. As we watched the world burn around us, I confessed that I sometimes considered dying, so I could join my parents in heaven. The flash of anger that came over him was sudden and intense. The flames flickered red in his eyes, and for the first time in my life, I truly feared him.

  “The soul is nothing but a concentration of energy, held together by will, or, in our case, years of practice,” he said fiercely. “Our Incarnate souls are different from human ones. Ours are stronger.”

  “But—” I began.

  He grabbed my arm so tightly that his fingernails drew blood. “There is nothing after this life for humans, but your soul is strong, too strong. If you are killed, Seraphina, your soul will want to leave, yet after years of being intact, it will not know how. You will become a hungry ghost, unable to affect the physical world.” The idea that I could stay on Earth in purely spiritual form terrified me, and I huddled against Cyrus for protection while the city where I’d grown up disintegrated before my eyes.

  But now, as I truly face my own mortality, I have to wonder: How can he possibly know what comes next? Did he say those things just to scare me into staying with him, so he wouldn’t have to wander the world alone?

  “I don’t care what Cyrus says,” I reply, watching as a young couple kisses briefly under a streetlamp outside. “I want to know what you think.”

  Reflected in the window, I see the corners of Char’s mouth turn down. It is rare that we flout Cyrus, even in his absence, and it troubles her to do it now. Still, she answers. “I suppose anything’s possible.” She lowers her eyes and whispers, “Sometimes I hope Jack is still out there somewhere.”

  I touch her arm. “I look for my mom, too.”

  We finish our cones in silence, listening to the electric hum of the freezers and the girl behind the counter laughing happily into her phone, unaware that she’s in the presence of two seasoned killers. Then Charlotte gestures suddenly at something scurrying outside. “Seamus from Ireland, 1878!”

  I furrow my brow. “What, that squirrel?”

  “Yes! He was always hoarding food. And his front teeth were abnormally long,” she says mischievously.

  “You are terrible,” I chide with a laugh.

  “You love me,” she says. Her expression turns serious. “Sera, I know you’re nervous about tomorrow. But it’ll be okay, I promise.”

  A lump forms in my throat, and I don’t look at her for fear that I will accidentally give something away.

  “You’ve done this a million times,” she continues. “Cyrus will make sure your new body is perfect.”

  “But don’t you think it’s wrong?” I press. “Who are we to decide who lives or dies?”

  “It’s what we are, Sera. It’s a choice we all made. I wish everyone could be like us.” What she doesn’t say is, “I wish Jack could have been like us.” It had been hard enough to get Cyrus to make Charlotte an Incarnate. He would never have accepted her brother as well.

  “Mmm” is all I say, not wanting to argue with Charlotte on our last night together. It took me six hundred years to come to terms with death. It is not my place to rush Charlotte. “Let’s go home. I’m in the mood to watch While You Were Sleeping.”

  “Ugh, again?” Charlotte groans.

  “Yes! It’s my favorite.” I push myself onto my shaky legs and wave good-bye to the blue-haired girl. She’s so absorbed in her phone call that she doesn’t even notice we’re leaving until the cowbell over the door rattles loudly.

  “Come back soon!” she shouts as
she does every time a customer leaves.

  The wind has picked up outside, bringing with it the vaguest hint of fall, a smell I’ve always associated with possibility.

  “Okay, fine,” Charlotte relents, crunching through a pile of fallen leaves on the sidewalk. “We can watch While You Were Sleeping. But then can we watch Casablanca?”

  “Ugh, again?” I mimic. She elbows me and we both laugh. I hook my arm through hers again and pull her close. “You never know, Char. Maybe Jack is with us right now.”

  Charlotte raises a red eyebrow and smiles wistfully. “Maybe.”

  We walk back to the house. I lean on Charlotte for balance, and I wish this night, and our friendship, could last forever. But I settle for living in this moment. Because even though it took me six hundred years, I finally know better. Time can’t be cheated, not really. Everything—even me, and one day even Charlotte—must come to end.

  three

  The next morning, the day of my party, I wake to an empty house. I didn’t sleep well. No matter how much I fuss, I can’t get comfortable. The bed’s cool gray sheets match too closely to the sickly pallor of my skin, and my bones jut out through my skin at odd angles now.

  I throw on my white terry-cloth robe and pad through the condo. Its design is modern, all neutral shades, and I fit in too well. In the kitchen I find a pot of hot coffee. Next to it is my mug, laid out by a bud vase holding a single velvety purple morning glory blossom. It is the most colorful thing in the entire place. A note is tucked under the lip of a shiny silver teaspoon. With stiff fingers, I unfold it and see Charlotte’s fine script:

  Good morning, S, I’m out with Amelia. Boys

  are at the club. Let’s get ready together later?

  —Char