Page 48 of Girl, Unseen

But shedidhave one option.

The idea hit her like lightning. Risky, probably stupid, but sometimes those were the only options left.

‘Felix,’ she said. ‘You still have this uniform?’

‘Yeah. It’s in my closet. Why?’

Ella turned to Luca with a grin. She could already see it playing out in her head. A way to get inside, to see this Ezra Crowley up close, to figure out if he was their killer or just another wannabe messiah with too much time and too little sanity.

‘Because I think it’s about time we joined a cult.’

CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE

Channel 4 News droned in the background while the Alchemist measured sodium pentobarbital into a glass vial. Point-two milliliters too much. Start over. The morning anchor's voice carried that fake-serious tone they used for traffic accidents and house fires, but nothing yet about a hot air balloon.

Patience. The elements worked on their own schedule, not humanity's. Air was the most unpredictable of the three so far - unlike earth which accepted or water which embraced. Air required finesse. Calculation.

Sodium pentobarbital left traces that modern toxicology could detect, but only if they knew to look for it. The Alchemist had chosen the compound carefully, calculating dosage against body weight, altitude effects, metabolic rates. Everything is measured to the microgram. The old texts spoke of precision, of careful measurements and exact timing. They would have appreciated modern scales, digital thermometers, gas chromatographs.

The workbench held implements both ancient and modern. Glass beakers next to copper alembics. Digital pH meters beside hand-carved measuring rods. The ancestors would have understood this marriage of old and new - after all, transformation wasn't about clinging to the past but about transcending it entirely.

Channel 4 News switched to traffic reports. The Alchemist leaned closer, studying the helicopter footage for any sign of emergency vehicles or search patterns. Nothing. Channel 7 covered a house fire in Queens. Channel 12 dissected last night's mayoral debate. No mention of missing balloons or pilots in distress.

Perhaps the transformation was still in progress. The air moved at its own pace, like the breath that animated flesh or the wind that carved mountains. The texts were clear on this point - each element manifested according to its nature. Earth crushed. Water drowned. Air simply ceased to be.

The texts said it took five steps to achieve the Magnum Opus, sometimes referred to as the elixir of life. Five steps to shed the prison of flesh and ascend to something greater. The Alchemist had gone furtherthan anyone before, peeled back the veil of God's mistakes to glimpse the true face of creation.

And what a face it was.

Three elements down. Earth, shattered and interred. Water, drowned and purified. Air, soon to be unleashed. Only fire and the final element remained. The Alchemist rolled up a sleeve and exposed skin mottled with chemical burns and handmade tattoos. It was a reminder of how much more there was to go.

The Alchemist's hands trembled slightly, which was a new development. The changes had started after Marcus Thornton's transformation. Small things at first: heightened senses, moments of clarity that bordered on prescience. After Sarah Chen, the physical alterations began. Skin is more sensitive to temperature. Bones that ached with approaching storms. The body becoming something that straddled multiple states of being.

The news switched to a human interest story about a local bakery. The Alchemist changed channels. Still nothing about a missing balloon pilot.

Patience. The texts were clear on this point.Transformation requires perfect timing. Rush the process, and the Work fails.

Soon, there would be no need for instruments or measurements. The knowledge would flow directly, unmediated by crude physical senses. The texts hinted at this - at a state of being beyond mere flesh. The ancients had understood transformation as more than simple chemistry. They knew that to change matter was to change consciousness itself.

But first, the Order needed tending.

The Alchemist smiled at the thought of tonight's meeting. Poor lost souls playing at understanding while real transformation happened right under their noses. They served their purpose though. A perfect blind. Who would suspect that their infantile rituals concealed something far deeper?

The Alchemist needed to be careful, though, because this was the first meeting since the transformation had begun. Were any of them perceptive enough to make the link between their little group and two local deaths? Possibly, but probably not. The other members played at enlightenment, dabbled in mysteries they couldn't comprehend. True alchemy wasn't about theory or philosophy. It required action. Sacrifice.

They were so blind. Even Felix, before his crisis of faith, had missed the obvious signs.

The Alchemist began gathering supplies for tonight's meeting. The Order's rituals were tedious but necessary. They provided cover, created confusion, drew attention away from the real Work. Let the police waste time investigating their amateur metaphysics. The true transformation happened elsewhere, in laboratories and quarries, in reservoirs and empty skies.

The Alchemist pulled on a black hoody and checked the airsoft mask for tonight's meeting. Let the others play their games of enlightenment. Soon, none of it would matter.

CHAPTER TWENTY SIX

Ella stared at the two objects on her desk that two officers had retrieved for her from Felix’s farm. An airsoft mask and a black hoody with ‘#9’ on the back. Exhibits A and B in this circus of crazy.

‘No way, Ell.’ Luca paced their office like a caged animal. ‘Nuh-uh. We are not doing this.’

One hour since Felix Blackwood had spilled his guts and Ella's head was still spinning. Every time she looked at the so-called uniform, her brain tried to reject the reality of what they'd learned.

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