The Lab Equipment room offered three things, only one of which proved to be of any use whatsoever to anybody.

On a dusty, dark shelf, three beakers kept each other company. One was quickly identified as glucose, and the second was less readily identified as distilled water. The third turned out to be hydrochloric acid. The distilled water and glucose were of no use to Arelia; she overlooked them and gave the beaker of acid to Bishop to hold while she did a quick sweep of the room. There was nothing else of use.

She sat on one of the desks and took out the school map, biting down on the end of her red pen, and looked at the 10:00 haiku written on the back. Alchemy Laboratory. Was there anything like that in the school? When she looked over the rooms, she found nothing with "Alchemy" in the title. She looked up at Bishop, who was shining his flashlight in the jars, beakers, and vials littering the room.

"What's a synonym for 'alchemy'?"

Bishop continued inspecting an unknown animal that had been pickled in a jar. "Ummmm... Chemistry?" he guessed without turning around. Arelia looked back at the school map and found what she was looking for: The Chemistry Lab. It was next door. She folded up the map again and hopped down from the table.

They took the acid into the Chemistry Lab. Wind whistled ominously outside the windows; Arelia mistook it for her radio a moment and drew her gun.

"What's wrong?" Bishop said behind her, putting a hand on her shoulder. She lowered the gun. I must look like a nutcase.

"Nothing," she said after a while. "Sorry." She closed one of the open windows and ran into a table in the dark, her thigh catching the point hard. "SON OF A MOTHER BITCH BASTARD!" Arelia screamed, jumping back and holding her thigh in massive amounts of pain. Bishop blinked at her.

"Ma'am? You all right?" He crossed the room and put an arm around her shoulders while she crouched and held her leg, feeling the dull throb of a pulse against her hand. She groaned and lowered her head for a moment.

"Yeah, I'm fine."

"Colorful mouth you got," Bishop muttered. Arelia stood and released her thigh. "Come from being a Marine?"

"Ex-Marine," she corrected bitterly, and kicked the table leg so hard it splintered. Something rattled as the table rocked from the impact. Arelia frowned. "Shine your light over here, will you, kid?" The police officer adjusted the path of his light, catching in it a disembodied hand lying still on the table. Bishop jumped slightly.

"You really haven't seen much of this town, have you?" Arelia said stiffly, one eyebrow raised. Bishop glared at her as she went about touching the hand. "Relax, it's a statue. It never belonged to anybody." She picked it up off the table and inspected it more closely. "Looks like it's holding something."

After banging it hard against the table failed to produce even a crack, Arelia stopped and set it down again.

"Ma'am?" She looked over at Bishop, who had extended his arm and was holding the hydrochloric acid out to her. She took it and nodded to him, then poured the chemical over the hand very carefully.

The statue sizzled and dissolved until Arelia could pull forth a gold medallion from its dissipated grip. It gleamed in the light and reflected it into Bishop's glasses. Arelia frowned.

"Odd," she remarked.

"What's it for, do you think?" asked Bishop.

Gold in an old man's palm...

Exchange for sage's water...

Well, that much made sense. The medallion had been in the gnarled statue of a hand, and the "sage's water" had been the hydrochloric acid, which had been used in exchange for the gold. What comes next? 12:00...

"Come on," said Arelia. "We're going to the clock tower."