Moe Eisen led the way back to the neighborhood. His thoughts were full of what he

  could tell Bernard’s grandmother. The fact that the boy’s condition was his fault was

  not lost on him.

  He would have to check his books. He couldn’t remember a case like this. No one

  alive had ever absorbed as varied a mixture as was in his waste tank. And neutralizer

  wouldn’t work after a potion had been used.

  An activated potion spent what was in it. Neutralizer spent ingredients without

  activating them. A potion might last forever depending on what it did, and how it was

  kept. It only lasted for a few seconds once exposed to the curative.

  “What are you thinking, Pa?,” asked Bernard. He looked at the gears moving on his

  hands as he walked.

  “I’m trying to think of a reasonable explanation, but I don’t have the words,” said

  Eisen.

  “I get like that too,” said Bernard.

  “Three years is not a long time, Bernard,” said Eisen. “I’m hoping that I can find a

  cure for you in the first year.”

  “It’s too late for that,” said Bernard. “I’m incurable. When I did the self-check, it

  showed me how it was keeping an eye on things. Even if I don’t use the self-check

  again, the alchemy is using up whatever I got inside.”

  “So there’s no cure,” said Eisen. “That’s going to be even harder to tell your

  grandmother.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” said Bernard. “I’ll tell her. Maybe there’s something out there

  we can use if we think hard about it. This is only the first day.”

  “Are you sure about that?,” asked Eisen.

  “There’s tons of things that cure stuff,” said Bernard. “We need a list, and we need

  to start looking. I think the first place we should start is with the Alvas. They know

  a lot about magic. Maybe one of them will know how to fix me.”

  “They don’t usually help outsiders,” said Eisen.

  “I know,” said Bernard. “I’m hoping this is strange enough that they will jump at the

  chance to help me.”

  “I doubt that,” said Eisen. “I also think we should talk to your grandmother. She

  might not think that traveling will help you.”

  “I’m going to have to do it, even if I have to go by myself,” said Bernard. “Maybe the

  Green Lights can help me.”

  “They have an embassy here in the city,” said Eisen. “Would you like to see if they

  will help you?”

  “We don’t have anything to lose,” said Bernard.

  Eisen had to agree. Bernard’s life was on the line. If the Green Lights could help him,

  that would be excellent.

  The alchemist paused when he saw Raven standing outside of the apartment building

  where Bernard lived. The messenger leaned against a light pole until she saw them.

  Her expression said Bernard was in for some more bad news.

  “Wait here,” said Eisen. He gestured for Bernard to stay in front of a building

  neighboring the one they wanted.

  “What’s going on, Raven?,” asked Eisen.

  “The old lady you sent the medicine to died,” said the girl. She brushed her dark hair

  back from her face. “Her neighbors are up there guarding the body.”

  “All right,” said Eisen. “I have to tell Bernard and take him up there to see what we

  can do. I don’t like this at all.”

  “Old age will do that,” said Raven. She made a gesture to indicate time taking its toll.

  “Bernard will be alone,” said Eisen. He looked at the boy. “He just found out he only

  has two years to live, and now this. It’s bad. He might crack.”

  “He has to know,” said Raven. “There’s no way he can stay here without someone

  paying the rent. I doubt he has a job to earn money.”

  “I know,” said Eisen. “We’ll go up and look around. If the old woman died, her

  neighbors might have stolen anything not nailed down while we were at the Temple.”

  “I have to get back to work,” said Raven. She faded into a shadow between two

  buildings. He thought he heard the flap of a wing, but it could have been anything.

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  Eisen walked back to where Bernard waited. The boy frowned. He knew it was bad.

  The alchemist gathered his wits together.

  “That was Raven,” Eisen said. “She works for Larry Kobach, the alchemist we visited

  before we went down to the Temple. She said your grandmother died. She wasn’t sure

  what happened. Do you want to go up and make sure?”

  “She didn’t know my grandmother,” said Bernard. “We should make sure it was

  Grandma that died and not someone on her floor.”

  “All right,” said Eisen. “Let’s go. If it is your grandmother, I will arrange for her

  burial.”

  “That’s good, Pa,” said Bernard.

  Eisen wondered how much more could the boy take before he broke down. This day

  had turned into the worst in his life. If he ran off and used whatever he had gained

  from the mixture, there was a chance he would burn up. The amount of damage he

  could do if he had something offensive was unsure, but it was there.

  And he was responsible for what happened. He should have sent the boy out the back

  door. He had never expected anyone to burst open the waste tank like the Sharriff had

  done.

  Bernard needed whatever help he could give. Finding a cure was part of that. If they

  had to leave the city, and travel into the badlands, he would do it.

  Before they did travel to other places to find a cure, he would take the boy over to the

  Baldwin embassy to talk with the Green Light in residence.

  Eisen led the way up the rickety stairs inside the building to the floor where Bernard

  lived with his grandmother. He paused on the landing to look around. A crowd

  was at the other end of the hall. Hadn’t they seen a dead woman before?

  “What’s going on?,” Eisen asked as he walked down the hall. Bernard trailed behind

  him.

  “We don’t know,” said one of the men. “The old lady died, but there is something

  stinking up the apartment worse than death. It’s flooding the building.”

  Eisen sniffed the air. He frowned. There was something in the air. He had just thought

  it was his imagination when he had first noticed it. Out where he was, it didn’t seem

  that bad. Inside the apartment, it might be far worse.

  There was no telling how much worse it could be as it flowed through the walls to the

  other places around the apartment.

  “Has anybody gone in to see what’s causing it?,” asked Eisen.

  “We know it’s the old lady,” said the informant. “What else could it be?”

  “It could be anything,” said Eisen. He shook his head. “Clear a path. I’m going to go

  in and open a window. Stay out here, Bernard, until I clear the air.”

  “I should go in too,” said the boy.

  “I don’t want to worry about you suffocating,” said Eisen. “Stay out here until I need

  you.”

  He also didn’t want Bernard seeing his grandmother in a bad state. Clearing the air,

  and making sure the old lady was laid out properly was something he could do

  without involving the boy at all.

  Eisen pulled a cloth out of his pocket. He covered his face with it as he pushed his

  way to the door. He looked at the crowd. Everyone looked at him, no one moved.

  “You might want to step back,” he said. He pushed on the door. A cascade of foul

  miasma rolled out into the hall. He was sure that wasn’t natural. He had been around

  plenty of bodies before and none of them were that bad so soon after death unless

  something else had taken a hand.

  He strode into the room. If he could get air moving through the space, that would help

  the smell. He ignored the sounds of choking behind him. He had warned them to

  move.

  He found a window in the far wall. He tried it. The frame wouldn’t move at all. He

  picked up a paperweight off the nearest table and used that to punch the glass out. He

  looked around for another window to vent.

  He didn’t see the old lady. Someone must have put her in her bedroom. He frowned

  under his cloth mask. He would have to go in there and make sure the body wasn’t

  the source of the smell filling the building now.

  The alchemist went to the door with his paperweight in hand. He looked around. He

  spotted three other doors and a space for a small kitchen. The front room, the parlor,

  took up most of the space he could see and it had a set of shelves full of mementoes,

  two chairs, a couch for visitors, and two end tables next to the chairs.

  He steeled himself to open the door to the old lady’s room. He didn’t want to go

  in there. He also didn’t want Bernard to go in there either. And he doubted he could

  count on the neighbors gagging in the hall to do whatever was necessary.

  Someone should have called the undertaker for Bernard instead of waiting for him

  to come home to find his grandmother dead in their place.

  Eisen opened the bedroom door and stepped back. The room looked worse than

  he imagined it would.

  Bernard’s grandmother had been placed on her bed. The front of her black dress

  had been ripped apart. He frowned as he looked at it. The dress had been pushed

  outward. He could see a corset pushed apart in the same way.

  Her hands looked like mittens. They didn’t look like what he remembered the few

  times he had seen her in person.

  Her gray hair lay in a tangle around her head. She usually tied it up in a bun. Now it

  covered her face.

  The stench came from her. Why was it coming from her? He looked around. He didn’t

  see any other source. Something in the corpse filled the air.

  What should he do?

  He wondered if moving the body outside would lessen the effect. He didn’t want

  to touch the body.

  He couldn’t ask the neighbors to help him. They wouldn’t cross the threshold as long

  as the miasma filled the air.

  He didn’t want to ask Bernard. The boy shouldn’t see his grandmother like this.

  The body moved. Eisen squinted at it. If the grandmother wasn’t dead, she was in

  worse shape than Bernard.

  What should he do?

  He decided he had to open a window in the room. Then he should find a lamp and

  make sure the woman was dead. Then he should leave and wait for the apartment

  to clear out, or see if anyone had a fan of some kind to help clear the air.

  Eisen started for the window on the other side of the room. One blow from the

  paperweight would let the smell out in the city. He kept an eye on the corpse. The

  skin that he could see didn’t look right. He didn’t want to get close to it and trigger

  something else to happen.

  He pulled his arm back when he thought he was close enough to the window to

  smash it open. A groan sounded behind him. He looked over his shoulder. The

  corpse’s skin at her chest bubbled like fat on a hot frying pan.

  He decided that he should get out of the room.

  He ran for the door as the splitting of skin sounded a warning behind him.