The Alchemist's Flame (10 page)

“We were already screwed,” Grams said. “You merely voiced our problems—and in a public setting with an outside party. I think that shows good thinking.”

“There was no thinking. I looked at the smug bastard and saw red.”

Grams chuckled and got to her feet. She stopped beside Elysia’s chair and gripped her shoulder. “You tried. You stood up for the Family. That’s what matters.”

“Too little too late. I can’t even challenge him.”

“Why not?” Olivia asked. “He can’t be stronger than you.”

Elysia hesitated. She still wore her contacts and had asked us not to tell her grandmother and cousin about what Neil had done to her. “He would probably wipe the floor with me. I should have practiced more.”

“Your cousin Curtis might be able to show you a few things,” Grams said.

“Wasn’t he institutionalized last year?”

“He still has his lucid moments.”

Elysia groaned and dropped her head into her hands once more.

“How about some dessert?” Grams asked the rest of us. “Livie made us a lovely chocolate cake.” She gestured at the covered cake pedestal on the counter.

“Sounds divine,” I said.

“Livie, you want to get the plates?” Grams asked.

“Sure.” The girl jumped to her feet, seemingly relieved to address a task less daunting than the Deacon.

Grams moved over to the counter that held the antique cake pedestal.

James pushed back his chair and got to his feet. “Here. Let me.” He picked up the heavy dish and carried it to the table.

Grams frowned at his back, her expression uncertain. She clearly didn’t know what to make of him. She blinked a few times, then turned a grandmotherly smile on me. “After dessert, Elysia can show you the house.”

“Addie wants to get back to the lab,” Elysia said.

“I don’t mind a tour,” I said, not wanting to hurt her grandmother’s feeling. “But only the residential part.”

“And here I thought you were brave.” Olivia gave me a mischievous grin as she set a stack of clean dessert plates on the table.

“Necromancers.” I rolled my eyes.

“Yes, that’s me,” Elysia said, laughing a little as I studied the picture of her as a child—holding a dead bird. Yes, necromancers were an odd lot. Even the ones I liked.

I flipped through a few more pages of the photo album. The binding was old, and the Mallory name had been embossed on the cover, but the pictures inside were only a few decades old. So much for stumbling upon an old family tome that would give me some insight into the fate of Ian’s sons. I closed the cover and returned it to the coffee table where I had first spied it.

“So, your grandmother and Olivia are both cousins? Second or third cousins?”

“Distant cousins.”

“Are they descended from Ian, too?”

She frowned. “Of course, they’re Mallorys. Why?”

I considered blowing off the question, but that would get me nowhere. If she refused to help, I would be no worse off than I was now. And who knew, she might want to know more about her family’s past.

“I told Ian I would try to find out what happened to his sons. They ranged in age from ten years to a few months old when he was entombed. He never knew what became of them.”

“Joseph is buried out back.”

“You have a cemetery in the back yard?” Ian had implied that it was a common practice, but I hadn’t expected Elysia’s family to follow it.

“Come, I’ll show you.”

We returned to the kitchen where Grams was loading the last of the covered food dishes into the refrigerator. Olivia was passing James the clean plates, letting him place them on a high shelf.

“I’m showing Addie the cemetery,” Elysia announced, heading for the back door.

“Cool, can I come?” Olivia asked.

“You still have Mrs. Holsinger to make up,” Grams said.

“Oh, right.” Olivia looked disappointed, but she didn’t argue.

“Go on, James,” Grams said. “You’ve worked hard enough.” She actually smiled at him.

“It was the least I could do.” He returned her smile and hurried after us.

“Do I want to ask who Mrs. Holsinger is?” I asked once we were alone on the back porch.

“My guess is she’s one of the bodies in the cooler. Livie has a flare for hair and make-up, so she tends to take care of that aspect. Though Grams is letting her do more with the embalming process.” Elysia walked down the porch steps. “Livie wants to be a mortician.”

“Ah, I see.” I glanced over at James and he smirked, knowing my aversion to dead things.

We followed Elysia along a cobbled path that led through Gram’s backyard, past a weathered gazebo, to a well-used iron gate that broke up the hedge. She pushed open the gate and held it for us. I stumbled to a stop on the other side. I had expected a set up like Xander’s; I didn’t expect the city cemetery to be on the other side of the hedge.

“Wow,” I said.

Elysia gave me a knowing smile. “The necromancer thing is freaking you out, isn’t it?”

I laughed as she turned my own words back on me. “Maybe a little.”

“They freak me out sometimes, too. Come on.”

The cemetery was a large one, but Elysia knew where she was going. She led us to the oldest section, populated by mature trees and time-worn headstones. A tall obelisk in the center of this section proudly displayed the name Mallory. Elysia stopped beside a large headstone a short distance away.

“This is it.” She placed a hand atop the stone. Two names were carved upon the surface: Joseph Mallory 1815-1897 and Olivia Campbell Mallory 1817-1901.

I smiled. “Olivia was named for her?”

“It’s a popular name that pops up in the Family often. Our Livie is named for her great aunt, her grandfather’s sister.”

“Ah.” I stared at the headstone. “I don’t get it.”

“What’s that?” James asked.

“I’ve been researching Ian’s family for weeks. Rowan even turned me on to a lady in the genealogy department who I suspect is magical, but she can’t find anything. We haven’t even been able to locate Ian’s birth certificate.” I waved a hand at the tombstone. “Or Joseph’s.”

“I’m guessing you’re looking under the wrong surname,” Elysia said, “for him and his father.”

“Right.” I snapped my fingers. “You said that Ian, his wife, and kids were cast out of the Family. But his birth certificate and his children’s would still bear his original last name.”

“I assume so.”

“So, what was Ian’s name before he got kicked out?”

Elysia’s eyes met mine. “Ian Mallory Nelson.”

Chapter
10

I
closed my gaping mouth. “Ian was a Nelson?”

Elysia nodded. “I bet that offers a little insight into the family feud, huh?”

“I’ll say.” A new thought occurred to me. “So Ian was related to Alexander?”

“The Deacon? I’m not sure. I don’t think Alexander was in power when Ian was cast out. And the Nelson Family was huge in those days. A group of six or so brothers settled in America in the early 1700s, originally in Maryland, I think. Ian was one of the first to move to Ohio.”

I frowned. So many questions, but at least I had a starting point now. My eyes drifted to the headstone. I had found Joseph, Ian’s eldest son. A wave of despair swept over me. How sad that Ian had outlived his children.

“Addie?” James stepped up beside me.

“Ian was entombed when Joseph was ten. He never knew the man his son became, the woman he married, the children they had. Yet Ian
outlived
them all. Is that the price of immortality? Eternity alone?”

James took my hand. “You’ll always have me, Ad.”

“No she won’t,” Elysia said, her voice dropping to a whisper. “Your soul is bound to a mortal, remember?”

“I intend to remedy that,” I said.

“How?” Elysia asked.

“Either remove the bond or make you immortal.”

“The bond can’t be removed. Neil already tried that.”

“No, he didn’t. He tried to stunt you.”

She didn’t have a response to that.

“You think you can remove the bond?” James asked.

I looked up, meeting his eyes in the fading light. “Have you forgotten the cardinal rule of alchemy?”

“Nothing is impossible.”

“But even Ian said it can’t be done,” Elysia said. “And he’s an alchemist.”

“He’s a necromancer first. Those teachings are ingrained too deep for him to subvert. I don’t have that problem.”

Elysia looked up at James. “I still want to free you.”

His brow wrinkled.

“But here’s the thing,” I said before James could reply. “I would prefer to leave the bond. It prevents another necromancer from taking him.”

“In theory,” she said.

“You don’t have to rely on mentally unstable relatives to teach you to use your magic—once I return it to you. I happen to work with an incredibly talented necromancer who’s willing.”

“I can’t do that. I just…can’t.”

“I know Ian isn’t exactly a good person, but hasn’t he paid enough?” I gestured at the grave before us. “No one should have to go through what he did.”

“Every time I look at him, I think of my mother,” Elysia whispered. “How, in the end, she couldn’t escape the voices. She climbed into the cremator and tricked me into turning it on. That was twenty years ago, but I still hear her screams.”

I wanted to hug her, but James beat me to it, or tried to. She pushed him back.

“No, don’t pity me. That’s just the way it is. Joseph understood that.” She rubbed her hand along the top of his headstone. “He took care of his sister’s daughters, and their daughters. Then encouraged his own children to do the same, down through the generations. And though Grams married into the Family, and Grandpa died before I came along, she took me in.”

I took Elysia’s hands in my own. “But that stops with you.”

She frowned. “I don’t see why I would be any different.”

“You have something your ancestors didn’t.”

She didn’t look enlightened.

“A master alchemist as a friend.”

She gave me a sad smile. “You think you can remove the curse?”

“Hey, mantra of the alchemist.”

Her smile grew, though it was still sad. “Nothing is impossible.”

“I have no doubt I can cure you.” I hugged her and she let me. A moment later, James’s arms came around both of us.

“You can really make me immortal?” Elysia asked after a moment.

“I found the Final Formula, the Elixir of Life, remember? Eternal life and youth. But one of the ingredients must be collected in the spring, so you’ll have to wait a few weeks.”

Elysia broke the hug. “I’m in no hurry.” Her eyes drifted to Joseph’s headstone and back. “And I’m sure this sounds weird, but immortality isn’t a big draw for me.”

“Me, either,” I admitted.

“Then why did you make yourself immortal?”

“I wanted to prove I could.”

Elysia lifted her brows, then looked up at James.

He smiled. “Addie is a unique individual.” His expression sobered. “You don’t have to do this if you don’t want to.”

“I have no desire to live forever, but the no-aging part sounds pretty good.”

“There’s also accelerated healing.” His attention shifted to me. “If a necromancer’s mental instability is physiological, do you think the Formula will prevent it?”

“I don’t know. The body still heals in the normal way, only faster. I still scar.” I had given this topic a lot of thought. I had once considered giving the Formula to Rowan, but he already had accelerated healing. In truth, he healed a lot faster than I did. I suspected that without it, no Fire Element would survive his first use of Fire.

“Still, it’s something,” James said. “Shall we head back? Maybe we could grab another piece of cake before—”

“Oh God,” Elysia whispered, staring across the cemetery.

I followed her gaze. From this distance and the slight elevation of the land, we could see over the hedge and view the back of her grandmother’s house. It made it easy to see the flames licking the walls and dancing along the porch roof—just outside the kitchen where we had all been gathered not a half hour ago.

Elysia took off across the cemetery and James ran after her. I followed at a jog, afraid of tripping over a low headstone in the failing light. When I reached Grams’s backyard, Elysia stood wringing her hands, James’s discarded clothing at her feet.

The fire encompassed the lower story along the back porch and kitchen door, but the wooden siding of the second story was catching.

“This is my fault,” Elysia whispered.

“What?”

“The Deacon. I should not have confronted him.”

“Would he do something this obvious, on the very day you stood up to him?”

“If he wanted to make me an example.”

I frowned. I didn’t like Xander, but would he really do something like this? I pulled out my phone and dialed 911. Once I had the fire department on the way, I texted Rowan. I had no sooner hit send, than James shouldered his way through the back door, smoke and licks of flame darting into the open air behind him. He held Grams in his arms.

“Oh no,” Elysia whispered. She dropped to her knees as James laid her grandmother in the grass at our feet. Her left cheek was red and blistered, and large holes had been burned in her sweater along her left shoulder and arm, revealing more blisters beneath.

“Her soul is still firmly attached,” James said.

I turned back to my phone, scrolling through the contacts to the lab.

“Ian,” I said when he answered. “I need some burn salve.”

“I just made—”

“No, I need it here, now. I’ll send James to you in a moment.” I met James’s eyes and he nodded.

“What’s happened?” Ian asked. “Elysia—”

“Is fine. Her grandmother’s house is on fire, and her grandmother has been burned.”

A pause. “I’ll have the salve ready.”

I thanked him and ended the call.

“I’ll go get the salve,” James said. “Livie is in the morgue.” He gestured at the other wing of the house—the one that wasn’t on fire.

“I’ll go get her,” I said.

James gave me a nod, then became the hound and jumped into the land of the dead.

“Elysia?” I leaned down to grip her shoulder. “Help’s on the way. I’m going to get your cousin.”

“Okay,” she whispered through a sob.

I gave her shoulder a final squeeze and hurried off. I circled to the other end of the house, figuring there had to be a service entrance of some sort to bring the bodies in and out. I found what I was looking for when I discovered the garage. The door was up, revealing the back end of a shiny black hearse. I found the door that led into the house and pulled it open. A dark hallway greeted me, and I kept the door propped open until I found the light switch.

The wide, unadorned hall stretched back into the house. Several doors lined the corridor, but none stood open, revealing where Livie might be. That sucked. I liked Elysia’s family, but I didn’t want to go poking through their morgue.

“Livie?”

Weird that she had be in here alone, but when you worked out of your home, there was always something to be done. I certainly spent a lot of time in the lab when I was home. Still, it seemed odd for a young girl to be alone with the dead. On second thought, I guess I had that in common with her, too.

A thump sounded from the room on my right. “Livie?” Just as I reached for the door handle, a scream broke the silence. It sounded like it came from the room next door. I moved down the hall and stood outside the closed door, listening. I heard a clatter of what sounded like several small things hitting a cement floor

“Livie?” I gripped the doorknob.

“In here!” Her words were muffled by the closed door.

I turned the knob and pushed open the door.

“This isn’t funny, Ely.” Livie turned to face me, her eyes going wide when she saw who it was. “What—”

A groan drew my attention to the room’s other occupant: an older woman in a pair of dark blue slacks and a camisole top. A matching blazer hung from a small clothes rack in the far corner, and a hairbrush and make-up kit were scattered on the floor. The woman turned toward me, her dead eyes rolling in my direction.

I backed up into the hall. “Uh, Livie?”

“It’s not me.” A note of panic colored the girl’s voice. “I was making her up for tomorrow’s service and she just got up. Ely animated her by blood, though how she got her to hold still is beyond me.” She gave the zombie a disgusted look. “You can stop now, Ely!” she shouted.

“It’s not Elysia,” I said.

“How do you know? Ely has some freaky ass range. She could be in the kitchen and—”

“The kitchen is on fire.”

“What?”

“The fire department is on the way.”

“Grams?”

“She’ll be okay.”

Livie skirted the zombie, not even glancing at it as she hurried toward me. I smiled at her indifference to the thing, then it lunged at her.

“Back off!” Livie shouted and ducked the outstretched hands. She ran toward me, her wide eyes white.

The zombie stumbled back a step and stopped.

Livie joined me in the hall, spinning to face the doorway. Her back thumped against the wall beside me.

“What the hell?” Livie whispered. “It’s just blood animated, but I couldn’t take it.” She drew a shaky breath. “It must be a lich.”

“It’s not.”

Dead eyes watched us, and even from several feet away, I saw the pupils contract and focus.

“Are you sure?” Livie whispered.

“I was.” Hadn’t it been a zombie a few moments ago?

The zombie began to make a noise. A
huh-huh-huh
sound, expelling air in a jerky motion from its dead lungs. Oh God, it was laughing.

“Addie?” Livie gripped my arm.

Great. The necromancer was afraid.

The door to the first room I’d passed began to open—the room where I thought I’d heard a sound. Relief washed over me until it occurred to me that help wouldn’t come from that direction.

An elderly man in the shredded remains of a body bag shuffled out into the hall followed by a second man wearing a hospital gown.

“What’s going on?” Livie sounded on the verge of hysteria.

This time, Body Bag made the laugh sound. His blue eyes met mine with a knowing look that hadn’t been there before. I glanced at the dead woman. She took an uncoordinated step in our direction, her brown eyes glassy and unfocused.

“They’re being controlled,” I said.

“I don’t sense another necromancer.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes. They’re just blood animated.”

“Something is moving from body to body. Controlling them. Watching us.”

“Not possible,” Livie whispered.

Body Bag laughed again.

“Oh, I think it is,” I said.

“Well, yeah it’s possible, but no one’s seen a ghoul master in centuries.”

I had no idea what that was, but that didn’t stop a cold finger of unease from sliding down my spine. “Who was the last?”

“The original Deacon.”

“Alexander Nelson.”

Body Bag grinned at me.