Dark Alchemy by Laura Bickle Read Free Book Online Page A

voice—­amusement and curiosity. Sal Rutherford believed that he was the only one who knew the vulnerabilities of his silent ranch hands. If others knew, his power over them might be diminished. Might.
    â€œLucky drunk took a ­couple of swings at me with one of your fence posts.” Gabe told him the truth. There was no need to lie.
    Gabe walked heavily into the barn, Rutherford following on his heels. The light was lowering on the horizon, sliding through the chinks in the barn in golden slats. Dust motes were suspended in the light like daytime fireflies.
    â€œ Hnh. ” Rutherford seemed to chew on what Gabe had said. He blocked Gabe’s way with the axe. “Where you think you’re going?”
    â€œTo ground.” Gabe paused, fixing Rutherford with his amber gaze.
    Rutherford shook his head. “I’ve got work for you boys.”
    Gabe narrowed his eyes. “Not tonight, dear.”
    Rutherford swung the axe. Gabe raised his arm to block it, and the blade of the axe embedded itself in his palm. Gabe looked serenely over the blade, wrenched it away from Sal.
    He pulled the axe blade from his hand. It was like pulling a paring knife from an apple: no blood, no sign of pain. He cast the axe to the floor of the barn, and it skidded away in the straw.
    Rutherford smiled. “You boys always amuse me. I can shoot you, burn you, stab you, and you’ll remain standing. But whack you in the knees with a baseball bat, and you go down like everyone else. Makes me wonder what would happen if I skewered you, like that Vlad the Impaler guy . . .”
    Gabe was on him in two swift steps. He grasped Rutherford by the throat, lifted him with one hand. Rutherford’s feet kicked up straw dust, and he wrapped his hands around Gabe’s wrist, gurgling and flailing.
    Gabe leaned in close to whisper in the boss’s ear, his breath ruffling the grey hair of the boss’s muttonchop sideburns. “You’d do well to remember that you’ve got more weaknesses than we do. Many more. And there are more of us than there are of you.”
    Rutherford smiled and croaked, “You could kill me. But I have the tree. The Hangman’s Tree is on my land. All it takes is one can of gasoline over that thing and a book of matches, and you’re done. And that’s exactly what the Rutherfords will do if anything happens to me.”
    Gabe dropped Sal, gasping, to the floor. He turned on his heel and walked away, into the field beyond the barn and the sunset. Closing his eyes, he felt the warmth of sun on his skin and the tall grass flickering through his fingers as he walked. He could find his way back to the tree without looking, had counted these steps over and over in his mind for more than a century.
    A lone elm stood alone in the center of the field, gnarled with age and reaching toward the sky with bent and twisted branches. It had been here ever since he could remember, which was a very long time. The cool shadow of it pressed on his face, the breeze rustling through its leaves. Somewhere above, a raven perched, cawing to its fellows. They came here at sunset, the ravens, all to this place. Men like Rutherford called it the Hangman’s Tree. It still bore scars in its lower branches where ropes had scraped away the bark.
    But Rutherford had little idea of what it really was, beyond knowing that Gabe and his men needed it. The Alchemist had called this the Lunaria, the Alchemical Tree of Life. Where its branches stretched to heaven above, its roots reached into the earth in perfect symmetry.
    â€œ ‘As above, so below,’ ” Gabriel muttered. The Alchemist had said it first.
    The ravens gathered in the molten light, cawing to themselves, roosting in the tree by the dozens. Black wings flapped in the leaves, and the Lunaria took on the impression of something more intensely alive than a singular tree, moving, shifting in that pure breeze and cacophony of black