The Catalyst of Corruption (The Final Formula Series, Book 4) (23 page)

Unease crawled through my belly. “What do you want?”

“The formula for your burn salve.”

I arched a brow. “Are you serious? That's like a second-band formula.” I waved a hand at the tattooed bands on his biceps, just visible through the sleeves of his robe.

“Not the way you do it.”

Oh. He realized that something else was going on. He didn't know that I was the azoth, and it would probably be in my best interest if his ignorance remained.

“It's blood alchemy. I tailor it to the person. Why do you want it? The Final Formula fixed those burns on your neck.” The burns I had given him the last time we went head to head.

He frowned. “I just want to know it.”

“Planning on undercutting my business? You could always Make the next director the hospital hires. You have the skills now.”

He smiled. “True.” His expression sobered. “The salve.”

“Fine. Do you want me to brew it now? Or just write down the formula.”

He considered me. “You hide a lot in your notes—though I can usually decipher them. Brew it.”

I shrugged off my jacket. “Let's do this.”

My burn salve recipe was pretty basic, and Neil had everything I needed in stock. Since it was blood alchemy, I had to tailor it to someone and was surprised when he volunteered. Though, in this controlled environment, he wasn't too worried about me getting a sample of his blood. The hard part was sneaking in my own when he wasn't looking.

But the weirdest aspect of the whole experience was working in the lab with him. It was so familiar that I was in a constant state of half-dizzy déjà vu. My nose didn't bleed, but it was close. Yet worse than the physical unease was the mental. Damn, this felt… right. And using that word to describe anything about Neil was just so wrong.

“All done.” I offered him the small jar of salve. “Potency only lasts about twenty-four hours.”

He looked up from the notes he was taking, then got to his feet. Without a comment, he stuck his hand over the flickering flame of the Bunsen burner he was using. The muscle flexed in his jaw, but he held it there a lot longer than I would have expected. The flesh had actually blackened when he pulled his hand away.

I held the jar as he dipped the fingers of his opposite hand into the salve, then smoothed it over the burn. Thirty seconds later, the injury was gone.

“Impressive.” He rubbed his fingers across the former burn sight.

“Thanks so much.” I didn't bother to hide the sarcasm. “Your turn.”

He grinned, a mischievous glint to his eyes that made me nervous. “You believed that ash alchemy is the gateway to the prima materia.” He paused, looking at me expectantly.

My pulse jumped. Of course. The prima materia was said to be revealed at the moment of transformation, and death was the ultimate transformation. I suddenly understood the significance of the ouroboros. It illustrated the cycle of transformation—what I had been attempting to tap into.

“Did we think we could use it to bottle First Matter?” It took a real effort to keep my tone level, my expression indifferent.

He chuckled. “Not exactly. More like capture—which proved to be the tricky part.”

“Capture?”

“Yes.” His golden-brown eyes met mine. “You came to the conclusion that the prima materia was not a substance it was—”

That's when it hit me. “An energy,” I breathed. Oh wow. I raked my fingers through my hair, forgetting I was wearing it in a ponytail. “The source of magic.”

He laughed. “Bingo.”

Chapter 20

I
turned away, needing to pace
across the room as everything I had been thinking shifted. Magic, or rather, the energy that made magic possible was First Matter, the prima materia. Of course. The primordial chaos, the substance that held all possibilities had to be an energy.

“Holy hell,” I whispered. “The possibilities.”

“Yes.” Neil laughed.

So that was what we were working on: a way to capture the prima materia. It was the energy that produced magic. I snapped my fingers. “New Magic. It's their power source.” I stopped to consider. “Does it genetically alter them, or are they already altered from some other event in the past that affected an ancestor? Mutations are inheritable, right?”

“I believe so.” Neil grew serious, watching me.

I chided myself. I needed to be careful and not give away something he might find useful. But damn. I wished I had Lydia to discuss this with. She had claimed that the magical were genetically different from the rest of the population. I had read her article in
Genetics
, but it was over my head. She had been working at the Institute of Magical Research. Had they hired someone new? Someone who could help me make sense of her article?

“What are you thinking?” Neil cut in.

“I was thinking about genetics. I'm not as well versed in the topic as I would like.”

He grunted. “Anything else?”

“This is huge. I need to get my mind around it.” I gripped the table, feeling a bit lightheaded. “And through ash alchemy, we can tap into the prima materia?”

“The problem was finding a way to capture the energy. It's not like you can bottle that.”

“True.” It was like radio waves. They were out there, undetectable unless you had a receiver. New Magic users had a receiver.

Although, I wondered why this energy had suddenly become available? Was that part of this puzzle, or something entirely different?

“So how does this tie in to our experiments with Era? You already had necromancer ashes.”

“It was academic.” Neil shrugged. “We'd never experimented with New Magic. Ash alchemy has mixed results on the untalented, but there was no precedent set for New Magic. So, we injected the Air Element with—”

The déjà vu blindsided me this time. I didn't even sense it coming.

 

Neil straightened from where he
had been bent over the Air Element's arm and dropped the now empty syringe on the cart beside the autopsy table she was strapped to. We had hit her with a light dose of Knockout Powder before the injection so she didn't even stir.

“Now we wait.” Neil shucked off his gloves and tossed them on the cart as well. “If this works, she'll be able to sense the bodies in the next room.” Neil's uncle did a good business, and there were five bodies in the morgue awaiting burial.

“She'll be a necromancer,” I said.

“Not a very strong one since we didn't start with much.” Neil waved a hand, indicating that it was of little consequence. “But yes. What will be interesting is whether she will still be an Element.”

I grunted. That was, indeed, interesting.

 

“Amelia?”

I groaned and rolled onto my side. I had been lying on my back on the tile floor.

“Here.” Neil handed me a stiff paper towel. “Your nose is bleeding.”

I took the towel and sat up. My head pounded with the movement, and I reached up to touch the back of my head. “Damn.” A bump was already starting to grow.

“You should really consider taking the Final Formula in the interest of self-preservation.”

I frowned at him. James or Rowan would have caught me. “It doesn't happen that often.” I dabbed my nose with the napkin.

“I've seen it almost every time I've been around you.”

“Because you're usually the cause.”

He smiled. He would find being the cause of my pain amusing. “What was it this time?” he asked.

I pushed aside my memories of Era—God, I had been so indifferent to her plight. “We tried to make Era a necromancer.”

“Yes.” He didn't offer anything else, but his eyes narrowed.

“All we did was give her brain damage.”

He dipped his chin in agreement, but continued to watch me.

“And I called that a success?” I gave him my best puzzled look. It had been a success. Era had sensed Doug's use of necromancy under Music Hall. Of course, there was no way we could have known that when we first gave her the formula. “Why?”

“You never told me, but I have a theory.”

“Go on.”

He hesitated.

I resisted the urge to roll my eyes. “I won't be able to find a solution if I don't grasp the full problem.”

“You had been studying the grim and trying to puzzle out how he was created. Fascinating, but I didn't understand its relevance in isolating the prima materia—then.”

“But you do now.” My heart thumped a quick beat against my breastbone. What had I learned? How did it tie in?

“I speculate that the nature of the prima materia is dependent upon what plane of reality it is harvested from. Look at the difference between Element blood and the blood of the grim.”

“The ouroboros,” I whispered. “One energy transforming into another. Changing, yet remaining the same.”

“To find the First Matter, you must search in the twilight area between the manifested and unmanifested reality,” Neil quoted. “You said that twilight area was the moment of death.”

“Pure First Matter,” I whispered.

“Exactly. But when it's bound to the ashes of its previous form, it becomes contaminated.”

“And because the ashes we used on Era were necromancer, and the two magics aren't compatible…”

“She was damaged, and that damage was your proof,” he concluded.

I frowned. I didn't like thinking about the person Era had been when I first met her, and imagining my past self being happy about that achievement made me sick. “We were trying to find a source of prima materia.”

“And we found one in Element blood.”

“But it was tainted.” I held his gaze. “That's the work you continued. You're trying to purify the prima materia. You're trying to find the Philosopher's Stone.”

Neil laughed. “I practically gave you the answer. I said I was continuing the
Work
. That's spelled with a capital W.”

I didn't need to retrieve any memories to know how familiar this was. Neil always made fun of me for adhering to the ancient alchemical teachings. The quest for the Stone was as old as time. And that quest was called the Great Work.

“But no, I'm not trying to find the
Stone
.” A sneer entered his tone with the moniker. “I'm trying to synthesize a sample of pure magical power, one tainted by neither mortality nor manifested magic.”

“Purified prima materia. The basic building block of the universe.” I smiled. “You just described the Philosopher's Stone.”

“It's not a stone if it's an energy.”

“The Stone is the vessel that holds the energy.”

Neil closed his mouth, a frown forming as he thought about it.

“We'll call it a stone for simplicity.” I winked.

“It would be so much easier just to Make you,” he muttered.

I ignored him, turning my thoughts to what I had just learned. A source of pure prima materia. My instincts had been right. Here was a solution to Rowan's and Elysia's problems. The prima materia was in essence, the magic of possibility. I had always claimed I could do the impossible, but deep down, I knew there were limits. But if I found the Stone…

A smile spread across my face, and I was helpless to stop it.

“I'm guessing you're back on board with the project,” Neil said.

That gave me pause. I was on board, but I didn't want to share the boat with him. Neil was the last person I wanted in possession of the Stone. How would I—

My phone buzzed in my back pocket, and I jumped.

Neil lifted an eyebrow, but I ignored him, pulling the phone from my pocket. My heart rolled over as the fireball image lit up the screen. Worry immediately dampened any other feelings. Rowan wouldn't call me unless something was wrong.

“I've got to take this,” I said to Neil.

He waved for me to go ahead and walked back to his makeshift workbench.

I tapped the screen and brought the phone to my ear. “Hello?”

“What are you doing out alone?” Rowan didn't bother with a greeting.

“I had something to do. Why? What's going on?” I gripped the phone tighter, afraid of what the answer might be.

“Yesterday, you seemed confident you could design a potion to counter Alexander's immunity to my magic.”

Oh. Damn. With one complication after another, and being confident that the Elements were safe at the manor, it hadn't been high on my to-do list.

“Sorry, things got a little busy. I can start on it when I get back.”

“Ian's working on it now.”

“You're at the lab?”

“Yes. Do you need me to come get you?”

The offer surprised me. If Neil wasn't in the room, I would be tempted to remind Rowan that he had broken up with me.

“No. I'll be back in about twenty minutes.”

A beat of silence. “I'll wait.”

I wanted to ask why. Certainly it wasn't just the potion. But I was probably reading too much into it. Of course he wanted that potion. It was the only advantage Alexander had over him. Rowan wouldn't have to cower at the manor anymore.

“See you soon.” I ended the call.

Neil must have been listening, because he turned toward me.

“I need to go,” I said before he could say anything.

“But we aren't finished. We've barely begun. I have samples, ashes. We're so close.”

I frowned. “No. No, this can't continue.”

“Why not?”

“Because…” What was I supposed to say,
you're one of the bad guys
?

“I have more information,” he said.

I was so tempted it was sad.

“I'll show you some of my notes,” he offered. “We can write out a few experiments. Maybe you'll have some suggestions. We can't stop now. We're too close.”

“I'll call you,” I lied.

He frowned, watching me, then abruptly nodded.

A soft sound behind me, and I whirled to find Bart moving past the open door. A moment later, the metal pole clanked as he removed it from the back door. Neil was controlling him.

“Who's the lich?”

“Bartholomew Nelson. He was Deacon in the mid eighteen hundreds.”

I remembered seeing a sarcophagus with that name in Xander's basement. “And this is his reward for his service?”

Neil gave me a wink. “Alexander is a generous guy.”

“Clearly.” I started for the door.

“Until next time, Amelia.”

I ignored him, hoping there wouldn't be one.

 

I walked through the back
door of my lab half an hour later. I stopped just inside the room, marveling at the bizarre sight before me. Rowan had pulled up a stool to Ian's workbench, and the two men were having an animated conversation about something. Perhaps Alexander. After all, Ian was preparing a potion that would leave his brother susceptible to Rowan's magic.

I set down my grocery bag, the gallon of vinegar thumping against the counter surface.

Rowan and Ian looked up, and both fell silent.

“If I was a paranoid person,” I said, “I would ask what the two of you were taking about.”

“You're late,” Rowan countered. So much for learning what they were discussing. I would ask Ian later.

“Blame the bus.”

“Why didn't you have Ian take you?”

“He needed to stay here with Elysia.”

Rowan didn't look happy, but I got the sense that he understood the need for Ian to remain here.

“What gives?” I asked. “Didn't you say that it wasn't your place to tell me what to do?”

“And you said that you wished it was.”

I glanced at Ian who had bent down to eye the line on his volumetric flask as he added a few more drops of water. He was working hard to ignore us, but I caught a glimpse of dimples.

“Rowan.” Before I could say more, Era walked into the room, Doug following.

“He can come,” she said to Rowan, gesturing with her cell phone. She saw me and smiled. “You're coming with us, right?”

“This is such a bad idea,” Doug said.

Era faced him. “No, it's not. Ian even suggested it.” She waved a hand at my lab partner who was paying entirely too much attention to that flask.

“What's going on?” I asked.

“Ian called Rowan this morning and suggested that Blake take a look at those bones,” Era said.

I glanced at Ian, but that flask still had his complete attention. I had a strong suspicion he was playing matchmaker. Again.

“Maybe Blake can find out what that ghost wants us to do with them,” Era finished.

I smiled at the way Era had joined the fight to help Elysia.

“I'm going with you,” Doug cut in.

“Rowan drove the Camaro,” Era said. “Five adults do not fit in a Camaro.”

“I would argue that no more than two adults fit,” Doug said, his gaze sliding to me. “Full-sized adults.”

“Ha ha.” I made a face.

He gave me a grin then pulled a set of keys from his pocket. “I got tired of being at the mercy of others.”

“Is that where you went this morning?” I asked. “To get your car?”

“I needed to clean out the refrigerator and take out the trash. My place was starting to reek.”

I sighed, but refrained from telling him it was a foolish risk. His family hadn't caught him. Besides, Alexander tended to avoid him.