The Alchemist's Flame (22 page)

“If you say so. Good thing I didn’t marry Doug.”

“I think you chose the right man.”

“What man?”

“James.”

“We don’t technically have a relationship yet.”

“Yet?”

“We decided to get to know each other first.”

“Before what?”

“Before giving in to our magical compatibility.”

“Do I dare ask for details?”

“Let’s just say that using my magic feels good and using it with him is…erotic as hell.”

I arched a brow.

“Yeah, it’s twisted.”

“What do you mean?”

“He’s dead.”

I frowned. “That bothers
you
? Why should it even matter. James is a great guy.”

“James is the most noble man I’ve ever met.”

She was right. Noble. That described James perfectly.

“But he’s still dead, and to be romantically attracted to the dead…well, the sane don’t go there.”

“James isn’t zombie dead. He just lacks a heartbeat.”

“Logically, I understand all that, but magically, it concerns me.” She pulled her lip between her teeth and shook her head. “This probably makes zero sense to you.”

“No, I think I get it. What does your heart say?”

“I can’t hear it so well over the other organs.”

I laughed at her candor, but we didn’t get to continue our conversation as Brenda returned. She carried several sheets of paper.

“I take it you found something,” I said.

Brenda smiled and scooted a page across the table to me. It was Alexander’s death certificate. He had died in 1866, the cause of death listed as heart failure.

“And this.” Brenda handed me another page.

Judging by the heading, it appeared to be an old newspaper obituary. “Cool. You found this quickly. More of those already compiled genealogy reports?”

“Yes. I wish all my projects were this easy.”

I scrolled down the list of survivors and children—two sons. I didn’t see any of Mattie’s girls listed. I frowned. Had Alexander had children before Ian’s potion or…what? If Elysia’s line had fallen victim to the potion and produced only powerful girls, then the potion had been effective. And to my knowledge, Alexander wasn’t an alchemist. He could not have undone it on his own.

“Could I ask you to research Alexander’s children?” I asked Brenda.

“How many generations?”

“Just the first. For now.”

She pulled out a pad of paper and made a note. “I can probably have you something by tomorrow.”

“That would be great.” I returned to the article and skimmed through the rest of it. “Oh, wow, here it is. He was interred at Spring Grove Cemetery.” I looked up, meeting Elysia’s gaze.

“So they told the public.”

“True.” I frowned at the article. “But I won’t be able to rest until I know for sure.”

“Road trip?”

“Do you care?”

“Are you going to get in trouble?”

I frowned. “Do you mean with Rowan or just trouble in general?”

She grinned. “Both.”

“I’m going to a cemetery with you.”

“Hm, true. I can handle anything in a cemetery. Now.”

Spring Grove Cemetery was huge. We wandered around for what felt like hours until we found the plot we were searching for. It was easy to find after we located the correct section in the sprawling multi-acre cemetery. The Nelson Family marker was a towering block of granite, the biggest one in the surrounding area. It was quite a contrast to the more humble Mallory marker in the cemetery behind Grams’s house. But the most surprising aspect of this trip was that I found what I was looking for.

“Huh. He’s here.” I stared at the name and dates on the huge headstone: Deacon Alexander Nelson, 1791 to 1866.

“He was Made,” Elysia reminded me.

“True.” I frowned at the headstone. Did he have a mausoleum somewhere? I rubbed my arms through my coat sleeves and looked around. My phone rang and I jumped. Feeling a bit silly, I pulled it out and glanced at the screen. “Rowan.”

“He’s missing you already,” Elysia said.

“Probably.” I gave her a wink then tapped the screen and brought the phone to my ear. “Yes?”

“Where are you?”

“Spring Grove Cemetery.”

“Do I want to ask why?”

“I don’t know. Do you?” I made my tone teasing.

“Addie.” Apparently, he wasn’t in the mood to be teased—or David had been nagging him.

“I found Alexander Nelson’s grave.”

Silence.

“Did you ignite something?”

“Nearly. You went to a cemetery looking for a lich?”

“Elysia is with me.”

“You’re going to be the death of me.”

“Cora tells me that frequently.”

“There may be some truth to that, but not for the reason she thinks.” He cleared his throat. “I called to ask if you would stop by the Offices today. I had promised David and Sebastien that you would discuss alchemy with them. I’m afraid that once the summit gets rolling tomorrow, I won’t get around to it.”

I frowned, uneasy about his mention of tomorrow. How the hell was I going to wrestle Gavin away from Neil?

“No problem,” I said. “I can have Elysia drop me off on her way back to the lab.”

Elysia hopped up to take a seat on top of Alexander’s headstone and grinned at me.

“See you then,” he said and ended the call.

“Did he offer to replace your underwear?” Elysia asked.

“Hey, I was serious about the atomic diarrhea potion. It really exists.”

She smirked, but the expression died as she glanced past my shoulder. I turned my head and saw what made her frown.

A black Mercedes pulled to a stop behind her little compact. The driver’s door opened and Doug Nelson climbed out. For the first time, the sight of him didn’t make me want to head the other way. I was about to call a greeting when the passenger door opened. The words died in my throat as Xander rose to his feet.

Chapter
22

I
watched Xander walk toward us, wishing Rowan had waited until now to call. Xander had never liked me, and now that he had Neil whispering in his ear, this couldn’t end well.

“I should have known,” Xander said, stopping a few feet away. Doug had followed, but he hung back. He didn’t look happy.

“Okay, I’ll bite,” I said. “Known what, Deacon?”

“That a trashy little car parked along the Family plot couldn’t mean anything good.”

“The limo is too well known. I didn’t want anyone to recognize me while I was out slumming.” I gestured at my surroundings.

“You dare to taunt me in a cemetery, alchemist?”

I shrugged. “You expected something different?”

His eyes narrowed, then his attention shifted to Elysia. “Get down from there. I will not tolerate such irreverence.”

“It would only be irreverent if he was really buried here.”

I glanced at Elysia. I had failed to consider earlier that she could actually tell if someone was buried beneath the headstone.

Xander didn’t deny her suggestion. “What are you doing here?”

“Visiting my ancestors,” she answered. “You are aware that we’re distantly related.”

“So your line likes to claim.” He smirked.

“Trust me, I have no desire to claim that, but the genealogy records don’t lie. Did you know that Ian Mallory and Alexander Nelson were brothers? Twin brothers, actually.”

Xander blinked and something about his eyes changed. Had they lightened? If he was about to summon a zombie—

Elysia slid down off the headstone and took a few steps toward Xander. “I knew it,” she whispered, the words so soft that I wouldn’t have heard them if she hadn’t stopped beside me. Her eyes darted in Doug’s direction, then she shocked me by closing the distance with Xander.

I reached in my coat pocket to grip a vial of alchemical mustard gas, and followed her.

“Hello, Alexander,” she whispered.

The hairs on the back of my neck stood up.

“You dare to present yourself without an introduction?” Xander asked, his voice an odd low whisper.

“There is no one to introduce me. All of my line is dead. Cursed. With power. Because of you.”

“Because of my brother.” The words were a hissed whisper, loaded with contempt.

Elysia shrugged, the motion indifferent. “The end result is the same.”

“Who are you?” he breathed.

“Elysia Mallory. Your true heir.”

Xander blinked a couple of times, then stumbled back a step, catching himself on a nearby headstone.

“Father?” Doug hurried over.

“Deacon?” Elysia held out a hand to him. “Are you all right?”

Xander glared at the offered hand before he turned to Doug. “Take me home, Douglas. Finding this riffraff in the Family plot has made me ill.”

Doug’s brow furrowed, but he didn’t protest his father’s statement. He did as told, as always. He escorted his father to the car, closing the door behind him before circling the back of the car to reach the driver’s door. He hesitated, looking up to meet Elysia’s eyes.
Call me
. He mouthed the words, then climbed into the car.

“Oh my God,” Elysia whispered as we watched them drive away. “Ian told the truth.”

If the air wasn’t locked in my chest over the shock I had just received, I would have had a quip for that. “You spoke to Alexander.”

Her wide golden-brown eyes met mine. “He
is
a ghoul master, and he’s using the Deacon’s seat to remain in this world.”

A ghoul master could possess the living, and somehow he had possessed Xander. “In a sense, Alexander is still the Deacon.”

“Yes.”

“Should you have introduced yourself to him?”

“We have to find him, and end him. The easiest way to do that is play to his vanity. Make him want me.”

“That sounds dangerous, and no offense, but Ian took James away from you. How can you go head-to-head with a crazy, super-powerful, undead ghoul master?”

“I think it’s time I sucked up my pride and let Ian teach me a few things—after we confront him about Alexander being his brother.”

I smiled. I wasn’t very happy about Ian keeping that from me, either. “I need to stop by the Elemental Offices first.”

“Then I’ll wait for you at the lab.”

The Elemental Offices weren’t as busy as they had been. I hoped that meant that the rumors about Rowan’s relationship with me had died down. But it probably meant there was a more newsworthy story out there. Even so, I had Elysia drop me off two blocks away. She didn’t need the media following her around, too.

I took the stairs to the second floor, hoping to catch Rowan in this office. I needed to tell him about what I had learned about Xander, and I couldn’t do that in front of David. I wasn’t about to give that man more ammo to use against Rowan.

Leaving the stairs, I hurried down the hall to Rowan’s office. The door was closed—an indication that he was most likely inside. I lifted a hand to knock, but the door swung open before my knuckles contacted the wood. An eight-year-old girl stood on the threshold grinning up at me. Marian, Rowan’s seer.

“You’re late.” She looked like she was holding back a laugh.

“I am?” I returned her smile, though I wasn’t sure what she meant. Rowan had asked me to swing by the Offices when I finished at the cemetery. It wasn’t like I had an appointment time.

“I expected you half an hour ago,” she said. “Roe let me play in his office.”

I glanced up at Rowan standing behind her. He was smiling, but shrugged when I met his eyes. I took that to mean that he, too, was in the dark as to the reason for Marian’s visit.

“I’m sorry to keep you waiting,” I said to her, “but I would imagine that happens a lot. Seeing the future can’t be an exact thing.”

“I’m rarely off by more than a few minutes, and I don’t see the future. I see the path.”

“The path?”

“Yes. The one you walk through life. The paths through the fields are the easiest to see. The grass is only knee-high and the sun is bright.”

“Okay.” I smiled at her imagery.

“Some paths go through the forest and the trees hide them.”

“You can’t see what happens in the forest.” I suddenly had an image of Marian as Little Red Riding Hood, her blonde pigtails covered by a red hood as the sunny path veered into the forest.

“The forest can be a scary place, but not because the Big Bad Wolf lives there.”

The hairs on my arms stood up. Had she read my mind?

“It’s easy to get lost in the forest. The path winds and forks around the trees. That’s what makes the foresters so hard to follow.”

“The foresters?”

“The ones who plant the trees. Like you. That’s where the forest comes from.”

I arched a brow.

“Obviously, you haven’t witnessed Addie’s gardening skills,” James said from behind me. Somehow, I managed not to jump completely out of my skin.

“Fido!” Marian ran to him.

James dropped to a knee and gave her a hug. I guess Marian had been around in my absence, especially if she was calling James by the nickname I had given him. Although she might have plucked that from my mind, as well. If the little girl wasn’t so cute, she would probably scare the hell out of me.

Marian planted a kiss on James’s cheek and looked back at me with a grin. “See, the Big Bad Wolf isn’t so scary.”

I smiled, glancing up at Rowan as he stepped out into the hall to join us. “So James is the wolf in your forest,” I said to Marian.

“Not because he can become a dog, but because he guards the forest.”

“From what?”

“The foresters.”

“So I’m the bad guy?”

“There is no good or evil, there is only the path. But sometimes the path becomes overgrown.”

“So, who gets to drive the lawn mower?”

Marian laughed. “There is no lawn mower. The wolf is a creature of nature, the source of life and death. He calls upon the forest to heal itself. To send the floods to loosen the earth, the quakes to crack the roots, the wind to fell the trees, and the fire to clear the fallen trees.”

“The Elements.”

Marian grinned. “When the paths are clear, more trees can be planted, sending paths in different directions. Anything is possible.”

“The mantra of the alchemist,” I whispered.

“Of course. Who do you think summoned the wolf?”

“Whoa.” I rubbed my forehead. “I think I’m getting a headache.”

“Because you’re thinking too much.”

James laughed and rose to his feet. “You might as well tell her not to breathe, Mari.”

“I know.”

I stopped rubbing my forehead. “I bet you say that a lot.”

She flashed me another cupid-cute smile, then turned to Rowan. “Okay, that’s done. Now I can go play.”

“What’s done?” I asked. “All you did was answer my questions.” In vague and disturbing ways.

Marian shrugged. “I didn’t make the rules.”

“There are rules?”

“There are always rules.” She stopped beside Rowan. “Bye, Roe.”

He dropped to a knee and gave her a hug. “Take care, kid. Tell your grandma hi for me.”

“I will.” She released him and turned toward his office. A chair scraped inside and Gerald stepped into view. Rowan frequently used him to move around the city unseen. Gerald had the ability to create wormholes and bounce anyone across town in an instant. New Magic manifested in interesting ways.

“Marian?” I stopped her as she reached the threshold.

She glanced back; the knowing look in her eyes belonged to someone much older. Someone ancient.

“Are you New Magic or Old?”

She smiled. “That would give too much away.”

“What?”

“I hear that a lot, too.” A final grin, and she walked into Rowan’s office. An instant later, she was gone.

I looked back and forth, between Rowan and James. “Feel free to translate what just happened.”

“She’s right,” Rowan said. “You can’t apply logic to this stuff. Let it sit in your subconscious. One day, it will all make sense.”

“Sure, after they admit me to the loony bin.”

“Anything’s possible,” James said.

I stuck out my tongue. “Behave, Fido, or I’ll go plant more trees in your forest.”

“Which translates to what? Shriveled sticks to trip me up?”

“Until Rowan burns them away.”

Rowan snorted. “Come on. We’ve made David wait long enough. Time to impress him with your brilliance.”

“Hey, sarcasm is my area. How about you stick to burning the shrubbery?”

“As I recall, you’re pretty good at that yourself.” Rowan turned toward the stairs. “I trust your visit to the cemetery was uneventful.”

“Oh.” I caught his arm. I had been so distracted by the tangled tale Marian had woven that I had forgotten why I had run up here in the first place. “Xander and Doug showed up.”

Rowan faced me.

“What happened?” James asked.

“It was the usual slam fest with Xander until Elysia brought up their shared ancestry. Then things got creepy as hell.”

“Go on,” Rowan said.

“Doug was right. Someone
is
subverting his father, and it’s not Neil.”

“Then who?” James asked.

“Alexander Nelson.”

“The original Deacon?” Rowan frowned.

James straightened and his gaze locked with mine. “Ian was right.”

“Yes. Alexander is a ghoul master and he’s very much still the Deacon.”

“Would you care to clarify that?” Rowan asked.

“You missed Ian’s lesson on necromancy the other day. We learned way more than I cared to know.” I gestured at James, including him in the
we
.

“Explain.” Rowan was in full blown Flame Lord mode.

I bit my lip to keep from smiling. This was the controlled Fire Element I knew. I gave him a quick recap of what Ian had taught us.

“And Elysia recognized this…person in Xander?” Rowan asked, his tone incredulous. Rowan tended to take magical things in stride, so if this surprised him, perhaps I was justified in my incredulity.

“She
spoke
to him,” I said.

“Jesus.” James raked a hand through his hair, tousling the dark strands. “She shouldn’t have done that.”

“I mentioned that, but she’s determined to take him down. She’s even willing to let Ian train her.”

“I need to go.” James shrugged off the leather coat he wore, then stopped, his eyes meeting Rowan’s. “Or do you need me to run to the airport?”

“No, go. Cora and Era are meeting the family from Australia. Era insisted. Their Earth brother has the prettiest teal eyes.” Rowan’s voice rose on the last part, imitating Era.

I laughed.

James flashed us a grin over his shoulder and disappeared into the room with the daybed. He had once mentioned that he kept clothes in the closet for his
changes
.

“Teal,” I repeated. “Really?”

“Now I suppose you want an introduction.”

I smiled. “Not really. I prefer gray.”

He gave me a small smile. “I used to have blue eyes—before the magic returned.”

“Really?” I had always thought the Elements had distinctive eye colors. It wasn’t a surprise to learn that they weren’t natural. “Do you have any old pictures?”

“I could probably find some.” We walked toward the stairs.

“Any with tacky hairstyles from back in the day?”

“I was a teen in the seventies. My hair was a little on the long side.”

“So, no mullets?”

“I would have burned those.”

I laughed and slipped my hand in his.

“And these things are possible? With alchemy?” Sebastien stared at me, his wide eyes appeared gold in the lamp light.

“Anything is possible.” I spoke the words automatically, then remembered Marian’s vision. Tuck it away in my subconscious, yeah right.

“Magic cannot be created from nothing,” David said. “Just as energy cannot.”

“The law of conservation of energy,” I said. “Energy cannot be created or destroyed. Magic is another form of energy. You use it to produce heat; I use it to do work.”

David frowned. “You are not uneducated.”

I snorted. “You say that like you thought I was. I’m pretty sure I was involved in a graduate-level chemistry program before the magic returned.”

“You’re not certain—” Sebastien stopped. “Oh, right. The amnesia.”