The Final Formula (6 page)

“Sure it is.” I smiled. “Nice to see you again, Rowan.” I pulled the door open and left the room.

“That was completely insane,” James muttered as we started down the hall.

“You mentioned that earlier.” I lengthened my stride to keep up with him. “And who are you to criticize?”

“You weren’t quick enough. He drew power.”

“So you grabbed him?”

We walked into the foyer and I gave the receptionist a smile and a wave. She returned my smile, unaware that I’d left her lord and master immobile in his posh office. James held the door for me, and we stepped out onto the porch.

“For someone whose blood is toxic, you jump into a fight awfully quick.” I glanced over and caught his frown. “What if someone scratched you?”

“I don’t bleed that easily.”

A cool October breeze tugged at my hair, and I pulled my cloak closer. I followed James down the front stairs, our shoes clomping on the wooden steps. He slowed to let me catch up when we reached the front walk. I expected him to speak, but he didn’t.

“And?” I prompted.

He pulled his keys from his front pocket, and they jingled before he closed his fist around them. “There needs to be iron present.”

“Iron? As in cold iron?” I smiled, but he kept his eyes on the sidewalk. “You don’t look like a fairy.”

“Not like that.” His frown deepened, but he didn’t elaborate.

Damn, why did he clam up anytime the conversation touched on his magical abilities? I didn’t get it, and I never would if he wouldn’t talk.

We started across the small paved lot heading for the car. “Will you tell me more?” Waiting for him to talk to me wasn’t working. I decided to try honesty. “Old Magic fascinates me.”

The keys jiggled and he gripped them again. “My blood has an affinity for iron. If it pierces my skin, my blood is drawn to it and will follow it back through the opening.”

“Only iron? What if something else pierces your skin? Say, a finger nail?”

“I don’t bleed.”

“No way.” I stopped by the passenger door. “Are you serious?”

James grunted and bent to unlock my door.

“You’re so tight-lipped about this. Why?”

He opened my door and held it. His fingers tapping the window in what might be annoyance. “I’m not human. That makes some people…uneasy.”

“Not me.”

“Because you’re too curious to know better.”

“Are you implying that I lack sense?”

He finally smiled. “Enough questions. Get in. We need to get out of here.”

“How can you not bleed unless cut by iron?” Talk about some handy magic. “Will you show me?”

“Later.” He gestured at the passenger seat. “We need to go before the alarm is raised. A servant could walk into his office at any moment.”

True. I got in and leaned over to unlock his door.

“How’d His Grace know you were magical?” I asked when James slid in behind the wheel. “Did you let your eyes glow?” I hadn’t been able to see from where I stood.

He fired up the car and began to back out of our parking space. “My strength, I guess.”

I hadn’t considered that. “And speaking of strength.” I hesitated not wanting to insult him. “Was he stronger than you?”

“He appears to know some martial arts or something.”

“You don’t know?”

He concentrated on his driving and didn’t look over. “He won’t get the drop on me again.”

I smiled and leaned over to pat his knee. “I’m sure he won’t. And I’ll quit pestering you about your magic.”

“Uh-huh.” He wasn’t buying that either.

“It was still a foolish risk. What if he’d incinerated you?”

“Hellhounds don’t burn.”

“Seriously? How—”

“Didn’t you say you weren’t going to pester me?” The corner of his mouth twitched upward.

I leaned back in my seat and crossed my arms. “Fine.”

We drove half a block in silence.

“The Flame Lord didn’t destroy the Alchemica,” he said. “Now what?”

Good question. “I’ll think of something.”

“I don’t doubt that.” He chuckled and reached for the radio dial.

I propped my elbow on the armrest and watched the Elemental Offices shrink in the side view mirror. Now what?

Chapter
6

T
he wall clock in my
attic workshop read 1:00 p.m., and I had little to show for five hours of work aside from a clean room. The smell of bleach still hung in the air, and for the first time in months, the tables were uncluttered. Vials of purified ingredients sat in racks, labeled and alphabetized. Clean glassware rested in neat rows on the plastic shelves I’d picked up at the discount store. Even my prized fractionating column sparkled with cleanliness, ready for its next application. If only I knew what that was.

I straightened and rubbed my lower back. I’d only finished half my bullet quota for the day, having procrastinated with the cleaning. I needed to get busy, but I just wasn’t with it. James and I had gotten in late yesterday afternoon, and though I’d gone to bed early, I’d managed only a few fitful hours of sleep. I’d skipped lunch, remaining in my room rather than braving the kitchen. Hunger I could handle; James’s brothers I preferred to avoid. I knew they’d have something suggestive to say about our two-day absence.

In truth, avoiding the Huntsman boys wasn’t the only reason I hid in my workshop. All my leads had run dry, and I had no idea how to recover my lost memories. My future held nothing beyond filling bullets destined to take the lives of innocent animals. I braced my hands on the table and bowed my head. I must have missed something. Some clue. Some formula. Something.

“Addie!” A thump on the door accompanied George’s voice.

I growled under my breath. Why wouldn’t he leave me alone? “I’m busy!” I picked up the syringe and selected a bullet.

The door opened, but I didn’t look up. I clenched my teeth and sunk the needle into the soft plastic of the modified Nosler tip. “If you want these finished by four, you’d better leave me alone.” I depressed the syringe, careful not to overfill the tiny reservoir.

“Which is why you’re going to keep this meeting short.”

Meeting? I looked up.

“Hello, Addie.” Rowan, Lord of Flames and Arrogance, gave me a smile and stepped past George. “So nice to see you again.”

With an undignified squeak, I dropped the bullet and syringe, and took a hasty step back. My butt bumped the wall, leaving me trapped. Rowan stopped on the opposite side of the table, a predatory gleam in his gray eyes. He wore a dark sweater and slacks, but the casual clothing didn’t make him any less intimidating.

“This guy claims to know you and
insisted
,” George waved a one-hundred-dollar bill, “that I bring him to you. Do you really think I’d interrupt otherwise? Gotta get what work I can out of your scrawny ass before you run off with James again.”

I gave George a look that expressed my feelings about him and his reasons for the interruption.

“Considering your vindictive nature,” Rowan spoke up, “I’m wondering how this guy is still alive.” He jerked a thumb in George’s direction.

“I need the job. Ingredients for truth serum don’t come cheap.”

George sneered and hooked his thumbs in the front belt loops of his camos. “Don’t let her fool you. She likes to pretend to be an alchemist, but she keeps getting kicked out of the academy.”

“Academy?” Rowan eyed me.

“Master Boris over on Ninth.” George waved a hand in that direction. “I paid him off to take her back once. He flat refused the second time.”

The corners of Rowan’s mouth curled upward.

I crossed my arms. “He didn’t have a muffle furnace. I had to make my own; it wasn’t very stable.”

“A muffle furnace?” Rowan leaned a hip against the table, and his eyes slid over me. Sizing me up or seeing what it’d take to incinerate me?

I kept my arms crossed to hide my shaking hands. “It reaches very high temperatures. Might be something you’d understand.”

He grinned. “Perhaps.” The jerk clearly enjoyed this. A little game of cat and mouse. Unfortunately for this mouse, the cat had brought a flamethrower.

“Don’t fall for that crap,” George said. “She probably looked it up in some book. She’s all talk.”

Rowan studied me. “Is she?” He lunged across the table and caught me by the upper arms before I could even think of moving. His hands gripped my biceps, and I could feel their warmth through my shirt. I caught a whiff of smoke, and then he jerked my sleeves down my arms. They tore away from the shirt with surprising ease. He’d vaporized the stitching and left the fabric in both the body and sleeves intact—without any singe marks. Holy crap. I had no idea he could wield fire with that kind of finesse.

“What the hell?” George stared at the tattoos on my upper arms. “Are those real?” Observant as always.

“Yes.” Rowan held my shirt sleeves around my forearms, looking very pleased with himself.

“You bastard,” I whispered. Fantastic. George knew I was legit. He’d probably lock me in the basement.

George stepped closer, wide eyes on my arms. “She can’t be the real thing. She’s too incompetent.”

“Incompetent?” I tried to pull free, but Rowan wouldn’t let me go. “I put your little shop on the map, dumbass.”

Rowan snorted. “She’s an alchemist, all right.” He released my right wrist, but held on to the left. “Come along.” He started to pull me around the end of the table.

“I’m not going anywhere.” I dug in my heels.

“What are you doing?” George fisted his large hands and took a step toward Rowan. Anyone else, and I’d be touched by his defense of me. But George wasn’t the altruistic sort. “She’s mine. Get your ass out of here.”

“Excuse me?” Rowan released me and turned to face George.

“Something wrong with your hearing, pal?” George gripped Rowan’s arm above the elbow. “I said it’s time for you to leave.” He gestured at the open door to the stairs.

George might be half-a-head shorter than Rowan, but I suspected he outweighed him. As much as I disliked the guy, I had to give George credit for his dedication to the gym. I couldn’t decide if he wore those black tanks because he liked to show off his arms or because his biceps wouldn’t fit in regular shirt sleeves.

Rowan glanced at the hand on his arm before meeting George’s glare. I got the impression that Rowan wasn’t remotely intimidated. It occurred to me that if these two got into it, my little lab might not survive.

“Hey, Georgie.” I held out my arms in front of me, displaying the sleeves gathered around my wrists.

He glared at me, but didn’t let go of Rowan. “I’m not in the mood for your smartass shit right now.”

Oh, the fun I could have with that line. Instead, I let the sleeves dangle from my hands. “Gee, where did the stitching go? It’s almost as if it vaporized.”

Rowan watched me, a slight quirk at the corner of his mouth.

“Think…about…it,” I said to George, drawing out each word.

George shifted his attention back to Rowan. I suspected the constipated look meant he was thinking, but I could be wrong.

“George, have I introduced you to the Flame Lord?”

Rowan’s half smile became a frown that shifted to me.

“This pretty boy?” George asked. “Bullshit.”

The heavy black watch encircling George’s wrist vanished in a flash of light. George jerked his hand from Rowan’s arm and gripped his bare wrist.

“Pretty boy?” Rowan asked.

George backed away from him, eyes narrowing. “What do you want with my alchemist?”

“As I told you: a word.”

George glanced from Rowan to me, and back again. “See that that’s all you do.” A final glare and he turned and left the room.

I’d never accuse George of being a genius, but I wouldn’t call him a coward either.

Rowan turned to face me, and his dark brows descended over glowing orange eyes. “I wish you hadn’t done that.”

I snatched a vial off the table and held it aloft. It contained chicory root extract, a useful ingredient in several of my formulas, but not much use against a pissed-off Fire Element.

“Back off,” I said.

He took a cautious step to the side, trying to circle the table. “I’m no longer under your spell.”

I assumed he referred to the formula I’d hit him with the day before. “It wasn’t a spell.” I stepped in the opposite direction. “It was a special formula designed to alter your brain chemistry. It left you open to suggestion. Something like chemical hypnosis with full cognizance.”

“I’d accuse you of being a scientist before the magic came back, but you’re not old enough.” He took another step, and I did the same. At the far end of the table sat my newest Knockout Powder application: a small gas grenade.

“How did you find me?” If I could distract him until I got to the end of the table…

“Caller ID. You called from this shop to make your appointment.” He gave up trying to circle the table and started down the opposite side, across from me. “You’re not happy to see me?” His eyes never left mine.

“Not particularly.”

He placed a hand over his heart. “Ouch.” The fitted black sweater looked expensive and so did the tailored pants. He might have put the robes aside, but he would still stand out in a crowd—at least around here.

“I have no intention of telling anyone about yesterday.”

“And yet you blow my cover to the first man I meet.”

“Your cover?”

“Do you think I wear those robes for the fun of it? I wouldn’t be able to leave my house if the world knew my face.”

“If your identity is so secret, why give George the evidence and ash his watch?”

“He pissed me off.” His odd calm did nothing for my nerves.

I lunged for the end of the table. My hand had just closed around the grenade when the pair of windows on the opposite wall exploded. Two dark forms dropped into the room with the clink of falling glass.

Rowan vaulted the table and caught me around the waist. Apparently his slow stalk had been for fun—or the vial of chicory extract really had deterred him. It wasn’t deterring him now, so I tucked it in the front pocket of my jeans.

Two men dressed in black rose from the glass-strewn floor, and a second pair crawled through the shattered windows. I recognized their clothing and gasped. My kidnappers from the night the Alchemica burned had worn the same black fatigues. If not for Rowan’s grip on my waist, I would have bolted for the stairs.

Rowan pulled me against him, my back to his chest. “They here for you?”

I drew a breath, trying to get a handle on my fear. I certainly didn’t want Rowan to see it. “I don’t—”

“We found the alchemist.” The man on the far right raised a hand to his ear, and spoke into a hands-free radio.

My breath caught. They
were
the same men from the Alchemica.

“Guess I’m not the only one you pissed off,” Rowan said, his breath warm against my temple.

A crash sounded from the stairwell followed by raised voices. Oh no, please don’t let them be trashing the shop. I didn’t like James’s brothers, but that’d be a hell of a way to repay them for giving me this job.

All four men were armed, their guns trained on us.

“Hand over the alchemist,” the man with the radio said.

Rowan’s grip tightened on my waist. “No. The alchemist belongs to me.”

I opened my mouth to voice my annoyance when the men’s eyes widened.

“What the hell?” Radio Man muttered.

I suspected that Rowan had done his eye-glow trick.

A faint pop and the radio headset went flying from the spokesman’s head. He cried out and spun away from us, clearing my line of sight to the window. James crouched on the broken seal with a gun of his own. He fired and clipped the man’s gun, knocking it from his hand.

The three remaining men whirled to face him, guns coming up as they turned. I gasped, but James didn’t even blink. He shot three times, the pop from his silenced pistol almost a single report, disarming each man as he had the first. I swear the boy hadn’t even aimed.

“I have five bullets left,” James said. “I only need four.”

I didn’t wait to see what they would do. I armed my grenade and tossed it. It exploded in a white puff of powder before it hit the ground. The men scrambled away from the window as the cloud grew, obscuring my view.

Crap. “I knew it needed greater range,” I muttered. “If I increase the ratio of propellant—”

“Addie, move!” James waved me toward him.

The cloud was drifting our way, gradually filling the entire room.

Rowan shoved me toward James, but I didn’t need encouragement. My backpack, still loaded from my trip to Cincinnati, lay on a chair near the window. I snatched it up on my way past. Rowan took the pack from me and then hoisted me up onto the sill beside James. I didn’t get to comment on the unnecessary manhandling before James picked me up and leaped from the second-story window.

The alley rushed up to meet us and I cried out, wrapping my arms around his neck. James’s shoes smacked the asphalt with an impact I could feel and hear. Our momentum dropped him into a crouch. A pause and he straightened and set me on my feet.

“Are you o—” James started to ask when a thump sounded behind us. We turned to find Rowan rising from a crouch as unfazed as James.

James pulled the gun from behind his waistband and trained it on Rowan. “Leave.”

Suddenly James no longer held a gun, but a ball of white-hot flame. An instant later, he fisted his empty hand. Rowan had vaporized the gun.

“I said, leave,” James repeated, his voice low and devoid of emotion. A glow kindled in his green eyes.

“We don’t have time for this.” Rowan waved a hand at the windows above us, his gaze setting on me. “That looked like a PIA SWAT team. What have you done?”

I glanced up and noticed the ropes dangling from the roof. “They can’t be PIA.” Lawson would have taken me in if the PIA wanted me. “I think they’re the same ones who tried to abduct me the night the Alchemica burned.”

“There!” a voice shouted, and I whipped around to see three more men in black fatigues enter the alley from the street. They skirted the metal trashcans lining the brick wall and started toward us. All three carried submachine guns—MP5s if my gun knowledge could be trusted.

“We found her,” the man in the middle called over his shoulder. When he turned back, he gave me a smile exposing his crooked front teeth.