The Alchemist's Flame (5 page)

She laughed. “Even after all we’ve been through, no I haven’t.”

I held the test tube up, eyeing the dark orange powder. The light glinted off the occasional golden flake, and the powder sparkled.

“And that’s the essence of his power?” Elysia asked me. Her white eyes narrowed as she studied the tube I held.

“Yes.” I pushed a stopper into the end of the tube and set it in the nearby rack.

“You can do that with anyone’s blood?”

“Anyone who has power.” I looked up, meeting her eyes. “As soon as I talk with Ian, I’ll start on your antidote, but I need to do this first—before Colby burns something else.”

“I understand,” Elysia said. “After seeing the plane, I think Colby should definitely take precedence.”

“Will this do?” James asked, setting the crucible on the trivet to cool. He removed the tongs, and I leaned over to eye the lightly smoking contents. The white powder was uniform—not a single grain scorched.

“Nice work.” I gave him a smile and selected a vial of dried water lily. Ian did keep my lab well stocked in finely ground ingredients. I sprinkled a little into the crucible, then picked up a glass rod to give it a gentle stir.

“You really are an alchemist,” Elysia said to James.

“In training,” he admitted.

“He’s going to be a good one.” I nudged him with my shoulder, then laughed when he blushed.

Elysia was watching us again, but she didn’t say anything.

“Let’s finish this up,” I said. “The pizza should be here soon.”

Ten minutes later, I had the Extinguishing Dust—keyed to Colby—in a vial. Tightening the cap, I set it on the counter, then jumped as a knock sounded at the back door.

“Must be the pizza,” Elysia said.

James glanced toward the short hall that led to the back door, his eyes glowing. “Nope, not the pizza.”

I gave him a curious glance then went to open the door. Rowan stood on the doorstep.

“Hi,” I said, too surprised to formulate anything more intelligent. I stepped back and gestured for him to come in, then I led the way to the lab.

“Look, I—” He stopped when he noticed James and Elysia.

“I finished the X Dust.” I walked over to retrieve the vial.

“Hey, Roe,” James greeted him. “You’re just in time to help us wash up.” He carried a handful of dirty dishes to the sink.

A faint smile curled Rowan’s lips. “I’ll have to take a rain check this time.”

Elysia watched them with a curious expression, clearly not sure what to think of Rowan.

Rowan accepted the vial from me.

“Be careful how you administer that. I really need to convert it to a liquid.”

“I thought you keyed it to Colby.”

“You’re still a Fire Element.” I shrugged. “It’ll work best on him, but it’ll still work on you.”

“Ah.” He tucked the vial inside his coat. “Thanks for finishing this so quickly.”

“It was no trouble.” I stepped closer. “You won’t consider rescheduling the summit to another time?” I whispered.

“Too much has gone into it. I don’t think I could reschedule even if I wanted to.”

“But Xander said—”

“That he had a task for Neil. A way to prove himself. It could be anything.”

I rubbed my face with both hands, then dropped them to frown at Rowan. “Neil has a grim. Gavin. You remember him. Big guy with the glowing red eyes, completely insane.”

“I remember him.”

“Then why won’t you—”

Another knock sounded at the back door.

“
That
must be the pizza,” Elysia said.

James once more turned his glowing eyes toward the back hall. “I would say you’re right.” He picked up a towel to dry his hands.

“I’ll get it,” Rowan said.

“That’s not necessary.” James followed him into the hall.

I glanced at Elysia and shrugged. “I’ll let them duke it out.” I carried the last of the beakers to the sink.

A few minutes later, James returned with the pizzas, alone.

“Rowan leave?”

“Yes. He said to tell you bye. He was really concerned about Colby.”

“Of course.” I forced a smile. “Let’s wash up and go eat.” Perhaps between the food and the company, I could distract myself from the fact that Rowan hadn’t bothered to say good-bye himself.

I watched the shadows play across the ceiling as another car drove through the quiet street outside my window. I turned my head to check the clock—3:09 a.m. Three minutes had passed since I checked last.

“This is pointless.” I threw back the covers and sat up. No way I was going back to sleep. There were too many problems rattling around in my head. And the only place to solve a problem was the lab.

Five minutes later, I stepped into the lab. I didn’t have to turn on the lights or fire up the gas range.

“Look who’s back,” I said.

Ian glanced up from the test tube he was swirling. “Expecting someone else?”

“Smartass. Where were you last night?”

“I was told to go, so I did.”

“You were pouting?”

He gave me a frown and turned back to his work. “My granddaughter is staying with you.”

“I think there are a few greats in front of granddaughter.” When he didn’t respond, I continued. “Do I want to ask how you know your granddaughter is here?”

“She touches the land of the dead when she sleeps—as all powerful necromancers do. Apparently, no one has trained her to control it.” He sounded annoyed.

“How does that work? She’s more or less stunted.”

“The antidote really didn’t work?”

“It worked, but…” I dropped onto the nearest stool. “It wore off.”

Ian frowned.

“Unless you can give me a good reason to blame her magic, I’m going to suspect it’s something Neil did. According to James, Neil claimed to have designed his potion using his own blood.”

“Then it’s not a version of your Necro Extinguishing Dust. He’s designed it around his own stunted power.”

“That’s what I suspect.”

“So, we’ll need a sample of his blood to reverse it.”

“If I knew where he was, I would definitely take that route. Few things would give me more pleasure than taking a sample—or all—of his blood.”

“Your dark side is showing.”

“I would love to show Neil my dark side.”

Ian’s dimples made an appearance. “And I would love to watch.” His expression turned serious. “Barring draining the little weasel, what do you suggest?”

I shifted on my stool. “The azoth.”

Ian pursed his lips, his expression skeptical. He had a right to be. So far, my success at harnessing the power of the azoth—the universal medicine or universal solvent, depending on how you used it—was hit or miss. I could create a burn salve to heal third-degree burns, but it had to be tailored to the individual. I could also make my Fire Element remedy using my blood instead of Rowan’s, but nothing else I had tried to make with the azoth had worked. Eventually, I got tired of cutting myself and gave up.

“I need to figure out how it works.”

“No success at the library?”

I had done some research on the topic, but the true reason I had been visiting the Cincinnati Public Library was their amazing genealogy department. I had promised Ian that I would learn what happened to his sons. But I hadn’t told him about it because I didn’t want to get his hopes up should I fail.

“I doubt I can find anything in the public record.” I had read everything I could find on Paracelsus. He had supposedly found the azoth in the fifteenth century. According to Ian, Paracelsus
was
the azoth, and I was most likely his descendant.

“We need to cure my granddaughter, and soon. She’s far too powerful to last long stunted.”

I remembered his smile when Ian realized how strong Elysia was. “Do you want to tell me about this curse you placed on your own family?”

“No, but I know you won’t let it rest until I do.”

“True.”

Ian picked up another test tube and swirled it in silence. “I didn’t curse my daughters,” he said without looking up. “I cursed Alexander.”

Alexander Nelson. The Deacon of Ian’s day and the man who stole his daughter.

“In what way?” I asked.

“His purpose for joining our blood was to father an heir with our combined strength. To ensure the Nelson Family dominance in future generations. He didn’t value a daughter.”

“Because she couldn’t pass on the Nelson name.”

“Correct. So I saw to it that our power would only pass to his daughters.”

“And from what Elysia says, I’m guessing you were successful. Impressive. How’d you hit him with it?”

“He enjoyed tormenting me. He frequently took his meals in my tomb. It was a simple matter to slip the potion into his wine while he entertained himself with the women he brought.”

I cringed. It wasn’t enough that Alexander had taken Ian’s daughter as his wife against her will, he also cheated on her in front Ian.

“He must have really hated you,” I said.

“It was a simple thing. Isabelle chose me—and he blamed me for her death.”

“Ah.” Isabelle had been Ian’s wife, but he spoke of her so infrequently that I barely knew more than her name. “But for Alexander to take a young girl—”

“Mattie shared a likeness with her mother. Plus, Alexander was insane.”

“I see.” It was a common affliction among necromancers, especially the powerful. “That’s some impressive alchemy. I assume you targeted the X chromosome.”

“The what?”

Right, modern science was lost on Ian. “Tell me the formula?”

“I don’t remember it.”

I snorted. “Yeah, right.” The guy had a top-notch brain. It was his ethics that were suspect.

“That was nearly 190 years ago. I haven’t used it since.”

I frowned. I didn’t believe him, but I couldn’t speak from experience. Maybe a person did forget formulas after 190 years.

“What are you doing up at this hour?” he asked, clearly changing the topic. I didn’t call him on it. I had learned that Ian wouldn’t back down on things he didn’t want to talk about.

“I couldn’t sleep. What are we going to do about Neil’s grim?”

“Break the alchemy that binds the grim, and take him for my own.”

“No offense, Ian, but no grim for you.”

He looked up and smiled. “I was teasing. We’ll end him.”

“Okay.” I studied him, wondering if he really was teasing. I didn’t need another worry. “But first, we have to find him. I’ve got an idea.”

“I’ve learned to be afraid when you say that.”

“You’re already dead. What do you have to fear?”

“Exactly.”

I rolled my eyes and got to my feet. “The body Gavin currently possesses belonged to Brian, James’s brother. I know where he was before Neil took him. If we found something that belonged to him, we could scry for his body.”

Ian grunted. “Not bad. What’s the catch?”

“He was in a PIA jail cell. And his brothers are still there.”

“His brothers, the Hunters? That could prove useful.”

“How’s that?”

“I would imagine that Hunter’s blood would make a dandy finder’s potion.”

I smiled at the archaic term. A finder’s potion was a generic potion used to find lost items in the old days. They rarely worked, but I suspected Ian had a formula that did. And I could see where Hunter’s blood would make it extremely effective.

“If I can get the azoth to work, I bet I could adapt it to finding a person—without needing something of theirs.” And it would work much better than the compass I usually constructed for such a task.

“Yes.”

“But I’ve seen these guys in action. Collecting a blood sample might be a problem.”

“Only for them.”

I grinned.

Chapter
5

I
stepped out of the portal into a cinder block corridor. The only light was the dim glow from one of the plastic-covered lights in the ceiling. Emergency lighting. The switch by the door would probably turn on the rest of the lights, but I didn’t want to alert anyone to our presence.

We walked along the corridor and I glanced in the first two cells. I couldn’t make out much in the dim light except to determine that both cells were empty. Were magical criminals rare or were they kept elsewhere? I wasn’t that familiar with inner workings of the PIA. I would have to ask Rowan about that sometime.

In the next cell, a shadowed shape lay on the bunk. A thatch of blond hair poked out above the blanket. Henry.

I pointed at his prone form and gave Ian a nod. The portal whispered open and Ian vanished into it. A moment later, it opened within the cell and Ian stepped out. Henry hadn’t stirred.

Ian crossed to the bunk. He reached out a hand to grip Henry’s shoulder, but suddenly, Henry was moving. He rolled off the side of the bed and dropped into a crouch, eluding Ian’s grip. Then he sprang to his feet and ran straight at me.

I gasped and stumbled away, forgetting that the bars of his cell separated us until my back bumped into the cell across from his. I straightened, feeling a bit foolish, when a hand suddenly gripped my throat from behind.

Henry turned to face Ian who had charged after him. Henry ducked his outstretched hand, moving with the eerie grace and speed that echoed James’s animal-like body control. I had seen this side of the Huntsman brothers so infrequently that it still astonished me.

Springing up behind Ian, Henry wrapped an arm around his throat. His biceps flexed beneath the rolled up sleeve of his orange prison coveralls. Henry grinned at me over Ian’s shoulder.

“Dumb move, Addie,” George said from behind me, his hand tightening around my throat.

“Did you really think your pretty friend could get the drop on a couple of Hunters?” Henry asked.

I must admit, I’m disappointed,
Ian’s voice spoke in my mind.

“What the—” Henry didn’t get to finish the statement as Ian reached up and gripped his forearm. A loud pop and Henry screamed.

Still gripping Henry’s arm, Ian slung him aside. He did it with such ease that I jumped when Henry slammed into the bars at the front of his cell. He hit so hard, I expected to see dents in them.

“I expected more of a challenge,” Ian said, tugging his black dinner jacket straight. The portal shimmered open, and Ian turned toward it.

“Don’t move,” George said. “I’ll crush her wind pipe.” His fingers dug into my throat and I gagged.

“Then I’ll kill you both,” Ian said coolly.

“Perhaps, but she’ll already be dead.”

Ian let the portal wink out.

Henry groaned and rolled onto his side.

“What are you doing here, alchemist?” George asked.

“Brian,” I croaked around the pressure on my throat.

“Brian’s dead,” George said, his tone flat. “The suits took him out of here and killed him.”

“Not…PIA,” I rasped. “Neil.”

“What?”

“It would be easier for you to understand her words if you released her,” Ian said.

Was it my imagination or had Ian’s eyes lightened? He could only use his magic when there was something dead to animate, and Henry was moving on his own.

“And deny myself the pleasure of wringing her neck?” George asked. “I’ve waited a long time for this.”

“George,” Henry whispered. “He’s not human.”

“Not anymore,” Ian agreed.

Henry rolled onto his hands and knees. Well,
hand
and knees. He cradled the other arm against his chest.

“He’s as strong as James,” Henry added.

“Stronger, I would wager,” Ian said. “I’ve been dead longer.”

“There’s only one grim,” George said. “He’s a lich.”

“Lich king,” Ian corrected. “But you are incorrect. There is another grim. That’s why we’re here.”

“Neil used…Brian’s body…resurrect Gavin.” My words were a rough whisper under the pressure on my throat.

“Gavin,” George repeated.

I couldn’t decipher the emotion in his voice, if there was any emotion at all. He and his brothers had spent a little quality time with Gavin in the land of the dead last December. James had left them there before he brought them here.

“I need…something of Brian’s,” I whispered. “To scry for Gavin.”

“Why, so you can take him for your own?” George’s grip tightened. “Fucking alchemists.”

“Do you feel that?” Ian asked.

“What?” George demanded.

“On your calf. It’s a pair of black widow spiders—or what’s left of them. I found them beneath your bunk, dead.” Ian’s eyes faded to white.

“Necromancer,” George whispered. Apparently, he didn’t know what a lich king was.

“They haven’t been dead long. Their venom is still potent.”

George snorted. “Dead spiders. Is that the best you got?”

Ian laughed, the sound so devoid of mirth that I shivered.

“Hurt Addie, and I will not only kill you, I will Make you. And like those decaying arachnids I forced to drag their nearly limbless bodies up your trouser leg. I will do the same to you. How long will your Hunter’s spirit survive trapped inside a rotting, immobile torso?”

My breath came in shallow gulps, and not only because of the pressure on my throat. One glance in Ian’s cold, white eyes and there was no denying that he meant every word.

George released me.

I took a hasty step away from the bars of his cell and turned around.

George shook out his pant leg and a pair of dark shapes tumbled out. I didn’t get a chance to see if they were actually black widows before George crushed them with his shoe.

A grunt from Henry, and I glanced over to watch Ian pull him up on his knees.

“What are you doing?” George demanded.

“Getting what I came for.” Ian ran his finger across Henry’s upper lip, through the blood dripping from Henry’s most likely broken nose.

Ian released him and pulled a vial from the pocket of his dinner jacket. With unhurried care, he wiped his finger across the mouth of the vial, depositing the blood he had collected. He capped the vial, then stuck his hand through the bars, offering it to me. He looked over my shoulder and took a step closer, his eyes narrowing.

I turned in time to see George throw something down the corridor.

Glass shattered on the far end and I whirled to face the sound. The pane in the door at the end of the hall sported a fist-sized hole. A siren began to wail and lights came on overhead.

George laughed. “I dug that brick out of the wall a while back. I had been planning to use that to brain a guard, but this will work.”

“Addie?” Ian gripped a bar with his free hand.

The door at the end of the corridor flew open before I could answer, and a pair of PIA agents ran into the hall, their guns aimed at my chest. One man’s eyes went wide. “It’s that alchemist.”

So much for making a run for it.

“Do you want me to—” Ian began.

“No. Get out of here.” I wasn’t going to let Ian hurt these men. They were only doing their job.

“But—”

I looked over at him, still behind the bars of Henry’s cell, holding the vial of blood. “Take that and go.” I lowered my voice. “These men answer to Rowan.” I wasn’t in any danger.

He held my gaze a moment, then nodded. The portal opened and he vanished into it.

“What was that?” one agent asked.

“Don’t move!” The other guy kept his gun trained on me. “Radio the chief,” he told the other guy. “Tell him we have the Flame Lord’s alchemist.”

I gave the guy a glare and raised my hands, palms out and shoulder high.

“Looks like we got a new cellmate,” George said.

I rotated my hand, trying to ease the pressure of the handcuff binding my wrist to the chair I had been sitting in for the last half hour. A couple of agents had tried to play good cop, bad cop with me, but when my half truths failed to give them the response they wanted, they’d left me alone. I suspected I had been left to stew in my anxiety over what they were going to do to me, but I wasn’t too worried about that. My concern walked through the door fifteen minutes later when Director Waylon led a gray-robed Element into the room.

“I believe this belongs to you,” Waylon said waving a hand at me.

“Excuse me?” I spoke up. “I don’t belong to anyone.”

“Thank you for releasing her to me,” Rowan said, ignoring my outburst.

Waylon handed him a small set of keys—the ones to my cuffs, I assumed. “She wasn’t alone,” Waylon said. “Her accomplice got away.”

“I know,” Rowan said, bending over my cuffs. “He called me and told me where she was.”

“So you have no problem with your people breaking into my building?”

“He’s not mine and I do have a problem with what they did.”

The cuff snapped open and I rubbed my chafed wrist. “It’s not—”

“You can explain yourself later,” Rowan said, his tone cold. He handed Waylon the keys. “I’ll take her now.”

Waylon crossed his arms, his frown deepening as he glanced between us. “When are you ever going to let me in, Your Grace? We’re on the same side.”

Rowan stopped beside him and laid a hand on his shoulder. “You’re in deep enough.”

“How about if I study alchemy? Would that make me part of your world? Then maybe I would truly be able to do my job.”

“I would prefer you didn’t study alchemy,” Rowan said. “I have enough alchemists to watch.”

“Ha ha.” I pushed up out of my chair.

“Why did you break into my building?” Waylon asked me.

“I had a few questions for those bozos in your basement.”

“His Grace had only to call. I would have arranged it.” Waylon sounded so beaten down, I almost felt sorry for him.

“His Grace isn’t a fan of my interrogation methods.”

Waylon pressed his lips together, but didn’t comment. Rowan didn’t comment, either, and he maintained his silence as he led me out of the PIA offices to the limo waiting outside. He ignored the cameras and reporters that seemed to magically appear each time he visited the PIA in his robes. He waited by the door until I had climbed inside.

I settled on the white leather seat across from him as the limo pulled away.

“Well?” I said after we had ridden a few moments in silence.

“Come here.” Oddly, he didn’t sound angry, but he hadn’t pushed back his hood, so I couldn’t judge his expression.

“You can ash me just fine from over there.”

“Come here, Addie.”

I frowned.

“Do I need to say please?”

“No, that would just freak me out.” I got up and moved over to sit beside him. “Why aren’t you yelling at me?”

“I’ll get to it.” He reached out and ran a hand along my jaw, tipping my chin upward. His fingers lightly brushed the tender skin of my throat. “Ian said he almost lost you.”

“Ian exaggerates.” I reached up and pushed his hood off his head, so I could see his face. He frowned, a faint ring of orange around his pupils.

“If they had hurt you, I would have burned them. Slowly.”

My heart rolled over and I bit my lip to hold in the smile. He still cared. After he left last night without saying goodbye, I had begun to worry.

“And then I would ash that damn lich for letting you get yourself into that situation.”

I pulled back. “He told you it was my idea?”

“He didn’t have to.”

I huffed out a breath. “Damn it, Rowan. It’s not like I—”

He pressed a finger to my lips. “I told you: I’ll yell at you later.”

“Maybe I want to yell at you now.”

His hand slid around behind my neck, his fingers twining in my hair. “Later.” He pulled me toward him and leaned down to cover my mouth with his.

My hands came to rest on his chest. I really should push him away and put a stop to his usual heavy-handedness. Instead, I slid my arms up around his neck and kissed him back. God, I missed this. I missed him. He had spent most of the last six weeks out of town, meeting with the different Element families, organizing the summit. That is, when he wasn’t with Colby, trying to teach him control. And when Rowan was in town, all we had done was argue about Ian.

“It’s not fair to try to end an argument like this,” I said.

“What’s that saying? All’s fair in love and war?”

“Which is this?”

“I think we’re still hashing that out.”

I leaned back to look him in the eyes. “I don’t like fighting with you.”

“I don’t like it, either.”

“Then stop.”

He frowned. “So, I’m to blame? I wasn’t the one who let that lich sneak me into a PIA holding cell.”

“I wasn’t in a cell.”

“And this is the point you wish to argue?”

“I don’t want to argue at all, remember?”

“You were nearly strangled and ended up detained by the PIA. If I hadn’t spoken for you, you
would
have ended up in a cell.”

“Well, that would make one fewer alchemist you would have to watch.”

Rowan sighed and leaned back.

I considered returning to my original seat when Marlowe, the limo driver, made a quick lane chance that would have thrown me onto the floor. I glanced out the window in time to watch him take an exit. “Where are we going?”

“The airport,” Rowan said.

“Why?” Was there something from the fire yesterday that needed clearing up?

“David and Sebastien are flying in.”

“David. Isn’t he—”

“The European Fire Element. Sebastien is air.”

The Elemental convention. They were starting to arrive.

“Why did you go to see James’s brothers last night?” Rowan returned us to the previous topic.

I sighed. Might as well get this over with. “I was also hoping to find something of Brian’s so I could scry for Gavin.”

Rowan sat up straighter. “You are not going after him.”

“We can’t leave him out there.”

“You will not do this alone—or with that lich. I’ll go with you, or James.”

“James.”

Rowan frowned.

“What? Your magic doesn’t work on a grim.”

“Fine. I’m assigning James to you until this is resolved.”

“You need him. What if Neil gets wind of the summit?”

“James stays with you.”

“I’ve got Elysia. She claims she can summon James if Gavin shows up.”

“Elysia Mallory. The lich’s great-granddaughter.”

“There are a few more greats in there, and she hates him more than you do.”

“Then she has some sense.”

I glared at him. “In other words, I don’t.”