CHAPTER SEVEN

The killer used to despise the ancients for their love of obscurity. Things could never be explained simply. If the killer wished to bake a cupcake, then it was effortless to find a recipe that listed the exact quantities of the exact ingredients and provide them alongside explicit instructions about how to combine and bake the ingredients to get exactly the dessert one wanted.

But if the killer wanted to know how to summon the favor of an archdemon or manipulate the hearts and minds of others, the killer would come across such gems as ‘the heart of a virgin whose eyes have never seen the sunrise' or ‘the bones of a dog fed honey and milk and slain over an altar of hickory.'

As the killer matured, however, it became obvious that obscurity wasn't what was truly frustrating. It was difficult. The ancients were just as specific with their alchemic recipes and thaumaturgic spells as were bakers and cooks. It's just much easier to find three eggs than it is to find the tears of a mother whose only son has died of cholic.

Of course, not all formulas require such garish substances. One would be surprised how much could be done with ordinary household spices.

But this recipe… this Magnum Opus… required more than just ingredients. It had taken the killer so long to understand, but to obtain eternal life, one needed much more than powder.

Ironically, it was the powder that had taken the killer the longest to understand. The elements were easy enough. Hell, everyone knew about them. All one had to do was read a children's book about magic to know the four elements.

The shapes were even easier, of course. They were the same shapes every infant pushed through holes in a plastic box.

The humors were the most difficult. What exactly was a humor? How did one find a ‘the blackening?' It had taken the killer years of research to learn that the humors could be represented by anything neutral colored in the appropriate way: powders, liquids, gels, paints, confetti… anything would work.

Except it didn't. For years. For decades.

And so, the killer fought and wept and pleaded and demanded and cajoled and bargained with every spirit the killer could contact, every shaman the killer could find, every text the killer could dig up or steal.

Nothing. No answer. Occasionally, some wizened old witch doctor would smugly tell the killer to "follow the instructions," and the killer would need to leave quickly before the desire to throttle the life from them became overwhelming.

But finally, the epiphany had come.

The killer had been treating the ingredients as objects, the steps as a mathematical formula. This wasn't incorrect, but it was incomplete. The objects weren't enough. The process wasn't enough. They were important, but only as symbols of the forces they represented.

The elements represented the forces that governed the universe. Earth was more than a clump of dirt. It was life itself! The primordial energies that birthed existence. Air was not the wind. It was the breath that strengthened life and carried its energy throughout the world. Water was the blood of the world that sustained the earth and made it fruitful. And fire was the furnace that sustained this process throughout time and space.

Similarly, the shapes were the order that could be imposed on those forces by those strong enough and discerning enough to understand and apply that order. The killer had chosen to follow the order set forth in the ancient texts, but it would have been perfectly permissible to choose any shape. A dodecahedron would work as well as a triangle, and had the killer used rectangles instead of circles, they would have worked just as well.

But the humors… that was the key to it all. That was why they had to be represented by neutral items, objects that had no innate spiritual power but instead functioned only to channel the power given them.

The humors were the will that shaped the order that imposed on the forces that, when mastered, granted eternal life.

Nigredo , the blackening, the abolition of self, the abolition of desire, of attachment, of fear, of lust, of everything.

Albedo , the whitening, the arrival of inspiration, of understanding, the illumination of things once hidden.

Citrinitas , the yellowing, the harnessing of eternity, the power of the sun that far eclipsed the limited power of Earth and the life that clung so feebly to it.

Rubedo, the reddening, to infuse oneself with limitless energy, a force that would replenish itself indefinitely, pulling all three of the others together and creating…

"Philosophum lapis."

The killer let those words ring through the air. The name didn't really matter. They served only to identify the power the Magnum Opus unlocked.

But the killer would soon unlock it. For finally, after twenty-seven years of work, the killer had discovered the missing piece, the one never spoken of directly but alluded to frequently among the annals of those most respected in alchemy.

If one was to gain life, one had to take life.

So, the killer had taken a first life and completed nigredo . The killer had taken a second life and completed albedo.

And tonight, the killer would take a third life and complete citrinitas.

The killer took a deep breath and released it slowly. The sacrifice—like the others—was unaware of her purpose. She laughed and smiled and sighed as though her life mattered, as though she had already gained an eternity she would never know.

The killer watched her and waited.