Chapter 5
Noah had been letting Kizzy take over his brain long enough. He wondered if her rejection had anything to do with her being out of his league, and he had worried about it before. She was probably making three times his salary. Kizzy didn’t seem the type to be attracted to money and power, but then again, he didn’t know her that well yet.
The alchemy idea had intrigued him from the start, and if her reluctance to date him was a matter of salary, well, being able to turn lead into gold would go a long way to proving or disproving that theory. It was time to put his old chem class skills to the test.
He had picked up the last of the items he’d needed on Monday, and he would have all of today to experiment. Then it was back to work on Wednesday.
Finding sources of lead wasn’t the hard part. He’d learned all kinds of things contained lead—bullets, paint, artificial turf, toys, and even candy! Yikes! Yet the amount of pure lead was often negligible. Even reclaiming lead shot resulted in about five percent actual lead after all the other metals and alloys were removed. He had an old Revolutionary War musket ball he’d bought on eBay for some damn reason. That must contain a lot of pure lead. Maybe its use was finally revealing itself.
The heavy pellet sank quickly to the bottom of the chemical bath, and he swirled the beaker around to remove any grime that had attached itself to the lead ball over the centuries. After a quick rinse and a few minutes in the evaporating dish, he determined it was as clean as he could make it.
He transferred it to the crucible, which already contained a few ingredients mentioned in the Latin translation. As a modern science nerd, Noah realized pure gold was not something that could be manufactured. All the gold on earth had been formed billions of years ago when a star went supernova. To think of recreating the big bang in a spare bedroom would stop anyone from attempting the impossible. At least,it should.
However, Noah had seen the impossible with his own eyes many times. He and his entire shifter family were scientifically “impossible.” And this book didn’t look completely scientific. It spoke of magic too. So here he was, armed with a few chemically unstable ingredients, the proper “magical” formula, and his own lunacy.
He had mixed feelings about doing this with his brother in the room. Sure, having another person there for safety was a good idea, but what if they both got hurt?
Just as he lit the Bunsen burner under the clay triangle, the front door opened and Dante’s chipper “I’m home” echoed through the hallway.
With the decision having been made for him, Noah exhaled in relief and leaned back in his chair. “In here!”
Dante appeared in the doorway, holding two grocery bags. His eyes widened as he took in the scene.
“You should put on your safety goggles,” Noah said.
“You should have your head examined! Are you doing what I think you’re doing?”
“Probably.”
“Is this your first attempt?”
“Yup.”
“And you were going to do it without me? Fuck, Noah. We discussed this. What if everything blows up in your face?”
He swiveled on his metal stool, pointing toward the closet. “We have a fire extinguisher.”
“Yeah, a lot of good it will do if you’re dismembered in an explosion.”
“So, what am I supposed to do? Forget the whole thing? That doesn’t sound like me.”
“No. It doesn’t. Just let me be here to watch your back.”
“I guess you want to be blown up too?”
“Hell no. Ma would kill us both…if we survived. Let me just take another look at the Latin text and make sure you’ve done everything right up to this point. Don’t. Move.”
“Okay. I. Won’t.”
Dante hurried to the kitchen to drop off the groceries. When he came back, he picked up the legal pad, scanned Noah’s notes, and scratched his head. “Wouldn’t you have to force lead to give up a couple of protons to make it turn to gold? I don’t see how only the heat from a Bunsen burner can do that.”
“There’s magic involved.”
“Magic? Like the kind in theTeenage Witchbook you had in high school?”
“Maybe. Some of that stuff was handed down over the centuries.”
Dante didn’t snort, snicker, or even crack a smile. He just nodded and picked up the Latin text again.
