THE ALCHEMIST
1902—New York
Jack took a minute to accept the applause as his due. It rolled over him, a benediction for all he’d suffered and all the plans he’d worked so diligently to put in place. The lights of the ballroom twinkled and shone, winking at him as the morphine coursed through his veins, clearing his mind. Opening him to the possibilities this moment held.
He lifted his hands, gratified to see the crowd follow his directive as he took control of the room and began the evening’s festivities.
“Ladies and gentlemen, I cannot tell you what it means to me to be here tonight, honoring the Order’s essential work and marking our commitment to the city we love so dearly. I know that for some of us, the past weeks have been a trial. Our newspapers have not always been kind to our esteemed organization or the work that we do to keep our city safe. But tonight we prove the naysayers wrong. Tonight we show that the power of logic and science, the enlightened study of hermetic arts, will always be far superior to the craven wildness of the old magic, which once threatened the very essence of civilization.
“Tonight, on behalf of the Order and their Inner Circle, I am honored to present our tableaux vivants.”
The orchestra started into their first series of chords, a minor-key piece that sounded as dangerous as Jack himself felt, and the attention of the audience only bolstered him more.
“Without further ado, our first tableau, a painting by the esteemed Joseph Wright, The Alchemist Discovering Phosphorous.”
With a flourish of his arms, the curtains on the first of the stages pulled back, revealing the dimly lit scene. Two men sat in the background, leaning over a desk as though doing calculations. In the foreground, J. P. Morgan himself played Wright’s alchemist. His uncle was wearing a false beard and his expression was enraptured over the enormous glass flask held on an iron pedestal. Genuflecting before the altar of science, Morgan was dressed in an ancient-looking robe, tied with a sash.
The audience applauded politely, murmuring with amusement to see who was in the first tableau.
“A charming scene, to be sure,” Jack told them, anticipation racing alongside the morphine in his blood. “But we can do better, don’t you think?”
The crowd murmured and rustled, but he ignored them as he walked over to the tableau. His uncle and the other actors kept their positions, frozen as though they were living, breathing statues. He hadn’t warned them, hadn’t told them what he would do, because he wanted their shock as well.
“Those who live in the shadows of our city, like rats infesting the very structure of the society we have built here, depend upon feral magic. Weak, unruly power. But see what an enlightened study of the occult arts can accomplish.” He lifted his hands and sank into the looseness of the morphine in his veins, and the words he’d practiced in the privacy of his room came from his lips as though he had been born to say them.
The orchestra went silent and the crowd tittered, but Jack barely heard them. He was calling to something bigger, something deeper. Against his chest, the Book felt positively hot.
Suddenly, the chandeliers flickered and the lights wavered. Then, as though they were some sort of fairy creatures, the light from the chandeliers flew toward the dark liquid in the flask his uncle knelt before and set it aglow.
The audience went completely silent as the room went dark except for the glowing flask in the tableau, and then, all at once, they burst into thunderous applause. His blood thrummed, hot and sure. And he had only just begun.