The Alchemist's Flame

by Andre, Becca

  Elysia doubled over with a gasp.

  James laid a hand on her back. “Addie?”

  “You know how these things work,” I told him.

  His brow furrowed, and he wrapped an arm around her shoulders. “Talk to me, Elysia.”

  “Oh God,” she whispered. She gripped her thighs and drew a couple of deep breaths. “I can feel you. I can—” She straightened and turned her wide, golden-brown eyes on Ian. Her hand settled on James’s arm. “He’s dead.”

  “That he is,” I agreed. It looked like my antidote worked. Her power had returned.

  “He’s a lich,” Elysia added.

  “Lich king,” Ian told her, dipping his head in greeting.

  Elysia paled. Ian had told her that he was also a necromancer. A powerful necromancer with the ability to make a lich. A rare and frightening ability few possessed.

  Ian glanced from me to James. “Is someone going to do the honor of an introduction, or do I have to put myself forward?”

  Elysia’s brows climbed a little higher, and I wondered if she had picked up on his faint accent, or if her surprise was a product of his old-world manners.

  “Elysia,” James whispered, his tone urgent. “There’s something I should have told you.”

  “We might as well get it over with,” I said to James.

  He answered me with a frown.

  “Elysia Mallory,” I said. “This is Ian Mallory. I believe he’s your ancestor.”

  “What?” She stared at James before turning back to Ian. “You bastard!”

  I wasn’t sure which one she was yelling at, maybe both.

  She took a step toward Ian, and her eyes went white.

  “Stop!” I stepped between them. I had expected some heated words. I didn’t expect her to go after him. “Let him go.”

  Her eyes instantly reverted to brown, then her glare turned on me. “What did you give me?”

  “An antidote with a few extras.”

  “You gave me Neil’s compulsion potion.”

  “That would be my potion. He stole it from me.”

  “Damn it, Addie,” James said.

  I crossed my arms and met his angry stare. “You were soul bound against your will. Did you really think I would stand by and let that slide?”

  “I told you it was an accident,” James said. “She tried to undo it.”

  “Soul bonds can’t be undone,” Ian said.

  “No shit,” Elysia snapped at him before facing me. “You did this to protect James?”

  “Yes.” I held her gaze. “Why did you bind him?”

  “He showed up behind the bar where I worked. I thought he had been sent to draw me out or something.” She shrugged. “I thought he was a lich and I…over-reacted.”

  “You didn’t know he was a grim when you bound him?”

  “No.”

  “And after you learned what he was, you still wanted to free him?” I found that hard to believe. James possessed a power few necromancers could resist. That’s why I kept him away from Ian.

  “He’s a sentient being with a will of his own,” Elysia said. “I screwed up.”

  “He is a good person.”

  “Absolutely.”

  I smiled and looked up at James. “I like her.”

  “You believe me?” Elysia asked.

  James sighed. “She also gave you some truth serum.”

  “Addie.” Ian didn’t sound happy.

  I glanced over and noticed his disapproving frown. “What? Please tell me you’re not going to lecture me on ethics.”

  Ian gave me one of his flat stares, so I turned to Elysia. “The truth serum and the compulsion potion will wear off in about an hour.”

  “And my magic?” Her brow wrinkled.

  “That part’s permanent. Just stay away from Neil.”

  Her shoulders slumped. “Thank you.”

  I shrugged. “I do have another question, if you don’t mind.”

  “I have nothing to hide.”

  “Why the bad feelings toward Ian?” I gestured at the man standing beside me.

  “He cursed us.”

  “Us?”

  “My female line. His daughters.”

  “What do you mean, cursed?”

  “Every one of them went insane before age thirty.”

  “He cursed you with insanity?” That was possible? I glanced at Ian, but he was frowning at Elysia.

  “No,” she answered. “With power, and he used alchemy to do it.”

  “Is that true?” I asked Ian.

  His gaze shifted to me. “Yes.”

  I blinked.

  Elysia turned toward the door, but James caught her hand.

  “Neil claimed there was more to it.” James’s glowing gaze was on Ian. “Why did you do it?”

  Ian didn’t look at them; he continued to watch me. “Vengeance.”

  “Addie! James!” Era pushed through the curtain and ran into the room.

  “Era? What’s wrong?” James asked.

  She handed him her phone, and I leaned over to find a news feed on her screen. James tapped it, unfreezing the video. The camera panned along the side of a large building. Judging by the jet in the foreground, it appeared to be an airport terminal. The sound was turned down, so I couldn’t hear what the reporter was saying. I was about to ask James to turn it up when the camera stopped on the next jet parked along the concourse. This one had its nose buried in the side of the building and flames rolling along the opposite wing.

  “Jesus,” James whispered. He found the volume and turned it up.

  “…caused the explosion before the plane veered off the taxiway and slammed into the terminal.” The story continued, but my attention was on Era.

  “Era?” I said, my voice falling to a whisper. “Why did you show us that?”

  She looked up, her amber eyes damp. “That was Rowan’s plane.”

  Chapter

  2

  James handed Era her phone and shrugged off his leather jacket. He tossed it aside, then reached for the hem of his shirt.

  “Can you find him?” I asked. “You’ve been to the airport?” James could come and go on any point within the mortal plane, but it was helpful if he knew where he was going. Even better if he had been there before.

  “I’ve been there.” James pulled off his shirt. “But I can soul track Rowan.”

  Right. He had once tasted Rowan’s blood, and that gave him the ability to find him anywhere.

  “I’m coming with you.” I began to gather my vials and stuff them into my shoulder bag. “Ian, box up the finished salve.”

  A nod, and Ian wordlessly complied.

  “Here, give me your clothes,” Elysia said to James. “I’ll bring them.”

  “I’m coming, too,” Era spoke up, pocketing her phone.

  James looked up from toeing off his boots. “You can’t.”

  Era began to speak, but he cut her off.

  “The living can’t travel through the land of the dead—unless you’re a necromancer, or Addie.” He dug out his keys and handed them to her. “You can take my car.”

  Uncertainty creased her forehead, but she accepted the keys.

  James gripped her shoulder before she could turn away. “I’ll find him. Drive safely, okay?”

  “Yes, I—”

  He cupped her cheek. “I’m serious, Er. Rowan will have my ass if something happens to you.”

  She choked on a sob and threw her arms around his neck. A fierce hug, then she released him and hurried through the curtain to the front room.

  James shoved down his jeans and stepped out of them. “Are we ready?”

  I turned to Ian. He ha
d loaded several jars of salve into a cardboard box. Picking it up, he walked over to join me.

  “You’re coming?” I asked.

  “There are hundreds of people on these planes, correct? You will need my assistance.”

  “Thanks.” I made an effort to hide my surprise. Ian wasn’t the altruistic sort.

  I lifted my bag and faced James, only to find a huge black dog in his place. Elysia stood beside him, his clothes gathered in her arms. Maybe she was the reason for Ian’s sudden interest in helping people.

  A dark portal opened and James jumped through. His form changed the moment he crossed the threshold, morphing from the canine into the werewolf-like fusion of his human and hellhound forms. He landed on two feet and reached back to catch the edge of the portal with one clawed hand.

  Elysia hurried after him, not hesitating in the slightest to step into hell with a creature from a nightmare.

  Ian followed, just as unfazed, and I hurried after him.

  James released the portal and stepped away from us. Give me a minute to find him.

  “But he’s in the mortal world,” I said.

  To soul track, I must be in this form. His glowing eyes met mine. And I can only be in this form here.

  For that, I was grateful—though I kept my opinion to myself. James’s true form, as he called this particular mash up, was terrifying.

  I glanced over at Ian and found him watching James. No fear showed on his handsome features, just curiosity. That bothered me. I didn’t want Ian to have anything to do with James.

  “So, Ian,” I said, drawing his attention to me. “When I first met you, you could speak straight into my mind.” Like James did in this place. “What happened?”

  Nothing. Ian’s voice answered in my head.

  I gasped and heard Elysia do the same.

  “It’s just easier with lips and a tongue,” Ian finished.

  “How is it that he has lips and a tongue?” Elysia asked me.

  “The Final Formula,” I answered.

  “The Elixir of Life,” Ian clarified. “Addie brewed it for me in exchange for my lab.”

  “So, alchemy,” Elysia said, her attention remaining on me. It was hard to tell in the dim light, but it seemed her eyes had lightened. Was she using her magic?

  I’ve got him, James cut in.

  A portal opened into the morning light. Shouts, screams, and sirens shattered the quiet of James’s hell dimension. Smoke plumed in the sky, rising from the burning plane that lay mere yards away. James had opened the portal right on the tarmac. The rear door of the plane was open and the slide deployed, but the front of the plane, the first-class section, was buried in the terminal.

  Shit! James leapt through the opening, shifting into the hellhound as he crossed the threshold. I got a glimpse of him running toward the plane, then the portal closed.

  “James!” I took a step forward, though there was nowhere to go. Nothing but endless black plane stretched in every direction. It should have frightened me, but Ian and I traveled through here so often that it no longer made me uneasy—even when James let the portal slam closed in my face. I was more worried about what had made James so anxious.

  “Ian? Can you open another portal?” I asked. “Preferably inside the building.” Rowan would be in first class.

  “Just a moment.” An instant later, the portal opened. A hazy room lit by a single flickering bulb lay before us.

  I assumed we were somewhere in the terminal, but didn’t stick around to ask. In three strides, I was across the tiny room—a janitor’s closet by the look of things—and pulled open the door. The concourse stretched before me, eerily empty of people. A fire alarm wailed from our left, and I concluded that the wreck must be that way. I took off down the smoke-hazed corridor.

  No one tried to stop me as I ran along the deserted concourse. If they had barricaded the area, I hadn’t reached it, or Ian had brought us out inside of it. I soon learned it was the latter when I arrived unhindered at the open area at the end of the concourse. I skidded to a stop, stunned by the scene before me. I could only stare at the smashed windows, missing wall, and the nose of what was at least a 747 buried in the scattered seats that had been the waiting area.

  A couple of men in security vests were searching the gate area, looking under toppled chairs for any additional victims, while paramedics stabilized a few people already loaded onto stretchers.

  “Oh God.” Elysia stopped beside me.

  I glanced over. “Any dead?” I whispered.

  She studied the scene a moment, her brown eyes definitely lighter now. “No. I don’t—” She frowned.

  A stretcher loaded with a bleeding man passed us.

  “Can you sense as far as the plane?” I asked.

  “Yes.” She frowned at the flames licking the roof. “At least, I should be able to.” She shook her head. “Something’s not right.”

  My pulse pounded. “With the plane? Is—”

  “No, with my magic.”

  “Aside from what I assume is a feline in the lower section, there is no death on the plane,” Ian said from Elysia’s other side.

  I sighed and shifted my attention to the group of men in fireman’s coats working on the forward cabin door. The nose of the plane had been shoved upward on impact, and the main cabin door was almost on level with the crumpled floor.

  “Don’t touch me!” Elysia said.

  I looked over in time to watch her step back, Ian’s fingers sliding from beneath her chin.

  “I’m going to strangle that little weasel,” Ian whispered. “What has he done to you?”

  I assumed he was talking about Neil.

  Ian lifted his gaze to me. “Your remedy is wearing off.”

  “Okay, I’ll fix it. But first this.” I gestured at the plane. The firefighters weren’t making much progress on the cabin door.

  “Excuse me, folks.” A man in a security vest stopped beside us. “I’m not sure how you got in here, but we’ve evacuated the area.”

  “Wait.” I opened my bag and began to dig through the contents. “I can help.”

  “What are you—”

  I pulled out a foam-insulted case and opened it. A pair of vials rested inside, the orange liquid in each glowed faintly. My Fire Hazard potions. They would burn through anything.

  “You’re that alchemist,” the security guy said.

  “Yes.” I reached for a vial, but Ian wrapped his cold fingers around my wrist.

  “I think there’s enough fire.”

  “But the cabin door—” I nodded toward the door that so far, the fire department’s crowbars and axes had failed to open.

  Ian watched a moment, then offered me the cardboard box containing the jars of salve. “Please hold this.” When I did as asked, he shrugged off his red brocade smoking jacket, then laid it across the box I now held. Without further comment, he headed for the plane.

  “What’s he doing?” Elysia asked.

  “No idea.”

  Ian joined the firefighters and engaged the nearest in conversation. At least, I assumed it was a conversation until Ian seized the guy by the front of his coat and jerked the crowbar from his hand. He cast the man aside, the motion casual, yet the guy flew about five feet before stumbling to a stop.

  Ian ignored him and turned his attention to the door. He worked his way around the frame, prying at the metal with the crowbar. A few minutes later, the door popped open.

  Elysia grunted, but didn’t comment.

  Thick, black smoke billowed out of the open door, most escaping along the curved hull into the open air above what was left of the wall.

  Ian handed the crowbar to the nearest fireman, then disappeared inside. The firefighters didn’t attempt to stop him; they hurried t
o don their respirators and followed.

  “Hey!” A man in a fireman’s coat approached us. “Get these women back,” he said to the guy in the security vest.

  “She’s that alchemist,” Security Vest said. “What if—”

  “I don’t care if she’s the Flame Lord. This whole area could collapse.”

  A firefighter stepped out of the open cabin door, his arm around a woman in a soot-streaked business suit. The floor groaned beneath they as they crossed the open section, weaving their way through the overturned chairs.

  “We’ve set up a first-aid area up the concourse,” the man who’d tried to run us off said. He gestured at the man helping the woman, waving him toward the hall.

  “Fire,” she said between coughs. “His eyes were on fire.”

  I frowned after her. Had she seen Rowan use fire? Why would he?

  “You two. Move.” The fireman had returned his attention to us.

  Elysia touched my arm. “We can’t do anything here. Should we take your salve to this first-aid area?”

  A whoosh of air and I spun to face the plane. The forward roof of the cabin had vanished in a flash of white-hot flame. Black smoke rolled upward now free of confinement.

  “What the hell?” the man in the security vest whispered.

  Knowing it was Rowan, I pushed the box I held into Elysia’s hands and ran for the cabin door. With the roof gone, smoke inhalation was no longer a concern, and I couldn’t just stand here. Security Vest shouted for me to stop, but he made no move to follow. The floor beneath my feet gave a loud pop, and I suddenly understood why he had stayed behind. He feared the floor wouldn’t hold beneath his greater weight.

  I ducked through the cabin door, then took a hasty step to the side as several passengers and the two remaining firefighters hurried past.

  “Move, move!” the firefighter in the back of the group shouted. He had pulled his respirator off, his eyes wide with fear.

  A snarl echoed in the narrow space, and I turned to face the green-eyed hellhound standing in the aisle.

  “James, what are you doing?” I walked toward him now that the way was clear.