The Catalyst of Corruption (The Final Formula Series, Book 4) (32 page)

Chapter 28

I
held the test tube at
eye level, studying the contents. The rust brown solution was the color of old blood, but perfectly homogenous.

“You're sure that will work?” Neil asked.

“Yes.” I returned the test tube to the rack and began to assemble a syringe. I probably shouldn't have been, but I was really proud of my approach to our problem. I had taken all the morbid facts I had learned about lich making and applied them to alchemy.

“The potion will imbue the blood with the ability to absorb the energy at the moment of death. Your gift will tag that moment.” I had used Neil's blood in the formula, capitalizing on the lich king ability to sense the moment of death.

I submerged the needle into the brown solution and drew it into the syringe. When I looked up, I found Neil watching me. “What?”

“You're amazing.”

I frowned.

“I'm being sincere,” he said. “No one can create a formula like you. No one.”

I wordlessly offered him the syringe. I didn't want his praise.

He took the syringe and smiled. “Does it make me a bad person to admit how much I'm going to enjoy this next part?”

“Nah. You were already a bad person.”

Neil smirked. “Ever the smartass, Amelia. It's so refreshing that you retained that aspect of your personality.”

I arched a brow. “Was that your lame attempt at sarcasm?”

His smile didn't falter. “Come.” He started for the door. “We have alchemical history to make.”

I followed, the unease that had been absent while I worked returned. I was really going to do this.

The cremator was down the hall and already warmed up and ready to go. As I walked into the room, Bart was transferring a bound and gagged Xander from a gurney to the conveyor—or whatever they called the platform that carried the body into the furnace. Xander tried to roll off the far side, but Bart caught him, holding him without apparent effort as he tied him to the conveyor.

I released a breath, aware of how it shook.

Neil glanced at me.

“What?” I demanded. “I might be willing to go through with this, but that doesn't mean I'm happy about it.”

“I'm sure you'll grow callous. You always did.” He turned and walked to Xander's side.

I frowned at his back. How many things had I grown callous to over the years?

Xander shouted something at Neil, but the gag made the words unintelligible.

“Now, now, Uncle Xander.” Neil patted his shoulder. “This will all be over soon. Kind of like my twelfth birthday, where you announced to the guests that I was no longer heir. Talk about clearing a room.”

Xander shouted something else.

“No, it'll be quick and relatively painless,” Neil continued. “Unlike my own father's death.”

Xander twisted against his bonds, trying to get free.

“Bart,” Neil said. “Hold him.”

Bart did as told, allowing Neil to inject the potion into the side of Xander's neck. He dropped the syringe on the conveyor above Xander's head, then waved me over to the side of the cremator.

“Push this button here.” He touched a button on the control panel.

I stared at the button he had indicated. “You're going to make me do this?”

“Consider it a demonstration of your devotion to the project.”

“If I just have to do something unpleasant, then I should point out that I'm here, working with you.”

He gave me a dark look. “Hit the button.” He turned and walked back to Xander.

Why make me hit the button? Did he want to make me his accomplice in this murder? My presence already covered that.

“Alchemical history, Amelia,” Neil called.

I eyed the button. I wasn't doing this to make alchemical history. Okay, maybe a little. But the real reason I was doing this was to save Rowan.

I took a breath and released it. “I love you, Rowan,” I whispered. And he would never forgive me if he found out about this. Would I have to kill Neil next to preserve my secret?

“Amelia, now,” Neil demanded.

Then, too, killing Neil would probably be easier than killing Xander.

I laid my finger on the button, and from out of nowhere, my wrist was seized. My hand was jerked away from the console, and I was pulled backward. My back thumped into a male chest, but before I could right myself, an arm encircled my shoulders from behind.

“I won't let you do this,” a familiar voice said in my ear.

“Ian,” I breathed. Shame that he had caught me doing this, and joy that he cared enough to stop me, warred to be the dominant emotion.

Neil faced us. “Let her go.” His eyes flickered white.

Ian grunted and released me.

“Finish it, Amelia,” Neil commanded.

My gaze drifted back to the cremator console.

“This isn't the way, Addie,” Ian said.

“There is no other way,” I whispered. “The Elements harness the prima materia. It is the source of their magic.” I faced him. “The three common Elements use it in its manifested form, the matter around us. But Fire is different. Fire transforms. And kills its user in the process. To make a true cure, I too must harness that energy.”

Ian frowned. He was a master alchemist. He understood what I was saying.

“Hit the button, Amelia,” Neil called from his place at Xander's side.

“I just want to save Rowan,” I whispered to Ian.

“And this is the only way?”

“Can you think of another way to harvest First Matter?”

Ian held my gaze with eyes so very like his brother's and yet so different. “I cannot,” he admitted. “But that isn't to say that
you
can't.”

“Ian.”

“This isn't who you are.” He leaned over and casually pressed the button.

I gasped.

“But I never said it wasn't who I am.” He gave me a sad smile, then shrugged. “What's one more death?”

A thunk sounded from the cremator, and I turned, my heart in my throat. The door covering the furnace entrance began to slide upward.

“You should have let her do it,” Neil said.

“Why's that?” Ian asked.

Before Neil could answer, Xander screamed against the gag. The cremator door was almost all the way up, the heat, no doubt, beating against the top of his head. Was I really going to stand here and let this happen?

I glanced at the console. There was a big red emergency shut-off button.

A low hum filled the room. The conveyor Xander lay on began to roll forward.

My breath came in short, choppy gasps as I watched Xander move toward the red-hot chamber. He was a bad man. The world would be much better off without him. This was the only way to harvest the prima materia. The only way to cure Rowan.

The syringe lying on the conveyor above Xander's head burst into flame, melting into a bubbling ooze. Oh God.

“No!” Out of nowhere, Doug appeared. He ran to the cremator and grabbed his father, trying to pull him off the conveyor, but Xander had been tied to it. “No!” he screamed again.

Unable to put Doug through watching his father burn to death, I slammed my hand against the shut-off button. The hum cut out, and the conveyor stopped moving.

A growl filled the silence. James stood with Elysia and Livie. Had they all come together from Doug's jail cell? Waylon would be pissed.

James paced forward on silent feet, stalking Neil.

“Stop!” Neil shouted, his white eyes on James.

James did as commanded, lifting his lips in a silent snarl.

Neil smiled and pulled a slender canister from his pocket.

“Sic him,” Elysia said.

James sprang, his powerful leap clearing the distance between him and Neil with ease.

Neil threw himself back. “Change!”

A shimmer of darkness, and James shifted forms in midair. The change threw him off and he landed in a crouch at Neil's feet.

Neil pulled the pin on the canister and dropped it. It was a gas grenade.

White gas billowed up, filling the space around him quickly.

“Grim, inhale.” Neil's voice carried out of the cloud that now surrounded him and James.

I caught the faint odor of Knockout Gas and held my breath, digging in my pockets for the antidote. Had I brought any with me? I couldn't remember.

“Ian, Bart,” Neil commanded, “don't let anyone leave this room.”

My search came up empty. No antidote. The white gas was rapidly filling the room. Lungs burning, I turned and ran for the door, only to find the way blocked by Ian and Bart.

“I'm sorry, Addie,” Ian said.

“Move!” Livie was suddenly beside me, her white eyes on the two liches.

“I cannot,” Ian told her, his tone apologetic. “He soul bound me and, apparently, him, too.” Ian waved a hand at the silent lich beside him. “Neil's a lich king.”

The gas was rolling across our feet, rising as it came.

Livie stepped forward, stopping before Ian. She didn't speak. Like me, I suspected she held her breath. She brought a finger to her mouth, her forehead wrinkling.

“I'm sorry, Livie,” Ian said.

“It's okay, Grandfather.” She held up her finger, displaying a trickle of blood where she had bitten herself. She reached up and shoved her finger into his mouth.

I frowned. Ian had expected her to be a lich king. Was she trying to take him from Neil?

Livie watched Ian, expectation clear in her eyes.

Ian stared at her, his expression one of surprise, then he shook his head. “I'm sorry, but you're not a lich king.”

She pulled in a breath, and he quickly stepped forward, catching her as she collapsed. He looked up, his eyes meeting mine.

I wanted to ask what she was, but I didn't dare take a breath to speak.

“No antidote?” Ian asked.

I shook my head.

He laid Livie on the floor and rose to his feet. “Then breathe. I'll watch over all of you.”

I wanted to demand how since he couldn't even step out of the doorway to let us escape, but I couldn't form the words. Sucking a breath into my starved lungs, the taste of Knockout Gas overwhelmed my senses and darkness swallowed me. My last conscious thought was an awareness of arms catching me before I hit the ground.

 

Ammonia fumes seared my nose
and throat, then my eyes when I opened them. I pulled away from the vial Neil waved beneath my nose. The situation reminded me of the first time I met him—after I lost my memories. I had been gassed by the PIA, and he had been given the task to wake me.

“Enough.” I coughed, pushing myself upright. I glanced around and realized that I had been lying on a steel gurney in a different tile-lined room. This room was smaller than the others, one wall taken up by a bank of mortuary drawers. A place to store bodies, not work on them.

“Did you have a nice nap?” Neil tucked away the vial in one of the deep pockets below his waist.

“Where are the others?”

He waved a hand at the drawers.

“What?” I slid off the gurney, but I didn't get to take a step before he caught my arm. “Let me go. You can't lock them in there. What about hypothermia, or suffocation?”

Neil laughed. “They're fine. This place hasn't been operational in years. I was lucky the cremator still worked.”

His mention of the cremator stopped me.

“It's finished,” he said, seeming to follow my line of thought. “Shall we go examine Uncle Xander's ashes?”

I glanced at the drawers, and his grip tightened on my arm. I couldn't stand the thought of leaving them locked in those drawers—like corpses. “Let my friends go.”

“Not until we're finished.”

“Finished? With what? We don't even know if we captured the prima materia.”

“Then let's go find out.” He tugged me toward the door.

I wanted to protest, but I also wanted to see if our experiment had worked. I spared the drawers a final glance and let him pull me from the room. He was stronger than I was, and more importantly, better armed alchemically. I would bide my time. My friends weren't in any immediate danger—if Neil was telling the truth.

Neil led me back to the cremator room, and I jerked my arm out of his grip as soon as we cleared the threshold. He glanced over, giving me that smug smile before he continued across the room. He knew I was more interested in the result of our experiment than I wanted to admit.

Bart stood just inside the door, making no move or sound as we passed him. How much of the man he had been remained? And if he had once been Deacon, should I be grateful that he appeared to just be a shell of that man?

Ian, on the other hand, stood beside the cremator. He glanced up as we entered, his eyes momentarily meeting mine before shifting to Neil. “You're not going to believe this.”

A frown creased Neil's forehead and he hurried over.

I stopped where I stood and crossed my arms. I had never seen human ashes fresh from the cremator, and I wasn't so certain I wanted to. Did they still hold their shape or was it just a pile of ash?

“What the hell is that?” Neil demanded.

“I've got an idea,” Ian answered, “but it shouldn't be possible.”

My curiosity got the better of me, and I walked over to see what had drawn their attention. To my relief, the ashes were the typical black and gray clumps with larger gray-white chunks that I assumed were bone fragments. But none of that was what Neil and Ian were so excited over. In the center of the remains was a blackened, oblong mass. It looked like…

“Is that his heart?” I asked.

“It can't be,” Neil said. “The heat vaporizes soft tissue.”

“It looks like a heart,” Ian said.

Neil reached out and carefully lifted the object. Bits of ash fell away revealing a glossy black surface. Neil chuckled. “I always considered him a black-hearted bastard.”