The Final Formula

by Becca Andre

  The corners of Rowan’s mouth curled upward.

  I crossed my arms. “He didn’t have a muffle furnace. I had to make my own; it wasn’t very stable.”

  “A muffle furnace?” Rowan leaned a hip against the table, and his eyes slid over me. Sizing me up or seeing what it’d take to incinerate me?

  I kept my arms crossed to hide my shaking hands. “It reaches very high temperatures. Might be something you’d understand.”

  He grinned. “Perhaps.” The jerk clearly enjoyed this. A little game of cat and mouse. Unfortunately for this mouse, the cat had brought a flamethrower.

  “Don’t fall for that crap,” George said. “She probably looked it up in some book. She’s all talk.”

  Rowan studied me. “Is she?” He lunged across the table and caught me by the upper arms before I could even think of moving. His hands gripped my biceps, and I could feel their warmth through my shirt. I caught a whiff of smoke, and then he jerked my sleeves down my arms. They tore away from the shirt with surprising ease. He’d vaporized the stitching and left the fabric in both the body and sleeves intact—without any singe marks. Holy crap. I had no idea he could wield fire with that kind of finesse.

  “What the hell?” George stared at the tattoos on my upper arms. “Are those real?” Observant as always.

  “Yes.” Rowan held my shirt sleeves around my forearms, looking very pleased with himself.

  “You bastard,” I whispered. Fantastic. George knew I was legit. He’d probably lock me in the basement.

  George stepped closer, wide eyes on my arms. “She can’t be the real thing. She’s too incompetent.”

  “Incompetent?” I tried to pull free, but Rowan wouldn’t let me go. “I put your little shop on the map, dumbass.”

  Rowan snorted. “She’s an alchemist, all right.” He released my right wrist, but held on to the left. “Come along.” He started to pull me around the end of the table.

  “I’m not going anywhere.” I dug in my heels.

  “What are you doing?” George fisted his large hands and took a step toward Rowan. Anyone else, and I’d be touched by his defense of me. But George wasn’t the altruistic sort. “She’s mine. Get your ass out of here.”

  “Excuse me?” Rowan released me and turned to face George.

  “Something wrong with your hearing, pal?” George gripped Rowan’s arm above the elbow. “I said it’s time for you to leave.” He gestured at the open door to the stairs.

  George might be half-a-head shorter than Rowan, but I suspected he outweighed him. As much as I disliked the guy, I had to give George credit for his dedication to the gym. I couldn’t decide if he wore those black tanks because he liked to show off his arms or because his biceps wouldn’t fit in regular shirt sleeves.

  Rowan glanced at the hand on his arm before meeting George’s glare. I got the impression that Rowan wasn’t remotely intimidated. It occurred to me that if these two got into it, my little lab might not survive.

  “Hey, Georgie.” I held out my arms in front of me, displaying the sleeves gathered around my wrists.

  He glared at me, but didn’t let go of Rowan. “I’m not in the mood for your smartass shit right now.”

  Oh, the fun I could have with that line. Instead, I let the sleeves dangle from my hands. “Gee, where did the stitching go? It’s almost as if it vaporized.”

  Rowan watched me, a slight quirk at the corner of his mouth.

  “Think…about…it,” I said to George, drawing out each word.

  George shifted his attention back to Rowan. I suspected the constipated look meant he was thinking, but I could be wrong.

  “George, have I introduced you to the Flame Lord?”

  Rowan’s half smile became a frown that shifted to me.

  “This pretty boy?” George asked. “Bullshit.”

  The heavy black watch encircling George’s wrist vanished in a flash of light. George jerked his hand from Rowan’s arm and gripped his bare wrist.

  “Pretty boy?” Rowan asked.

  George backed away from him, eyes narrowing. “What do you want with my alchemist?”

  “As I told you: a word.”

  George glanced from Rowan to me, and back again. “See that that’s all you do.” A final glare and he turned and left the room.

  I’d never accuse George of being a genius, but I wouldn’t call him a coward either.

  Rowan turned to face me, and his dark brows descended over glowing orange eyes. “I wish you hadn’t done that.”

  I snatched a vial off the table and held it aloft. It contained chicory root extract, a useful ingredient in several of my formulas, but not much use against a pissed-off Fire Element.

  “Back off,” I said.

  He took a cautious step to the side, trying to circle the table. “I’m no longer under your spell.”

  I assumed he referred to the formula I’d hit him with the day before. “It wasn’t a spell.” I stepped in the opposite direction. “It was a special formula designed to alter your brain chemistry. It left you open to suggestion. Something like chemical hypnosis with full cognizance.”

  “I’d accuse you of being a scientist before the magic came back, but you’re not old enough.” He took another step, and I did the same. At the far end of the table sat my newest Knockout Powder application: a small gas grenade.

  “How did you find me?” If I could distract him until I got to the end of the table…

  “Caller ID. You called from this shop to make your appointment.” He gave up trying to circle the table and started down the opposite side, across from me. “You’re not happy to see me?” His eyes never left mine.

  “Not particularly.”

  He placed a hand over his heart. “Ouch.” The fitted black sweater looked expensive and so did the tailored pants. He might have put the robes aside, but he would still stand out in a crowd—at least around here.

  “I have no intention of telling anyone about yesterday.”

  “And yet you blow my cover to the first man I meet.”

  “Your cover?”

  “Do you think I wear those robes for the fun of it? I wouldn’t be able to leave my house if the world knew my face.”

  “If your identity is so secret, why give George the evidence and ash his watch?”

  “He pissed me off.” His odd calm did nothing for my nerves.

  I lunged for the end of the table. My hand had just closed around the grenade when the pair of windows on the opposite wall exploded. Two dark forms dropped into the room with the clink of falling glass.

  Rowan vaulted the table and caught me around the waist. Apparently his slow stalk had been for fun—or the vial of chicory extract really had deterred him. It wasn’t deterring him now, so I tucked it in the front pocket of my jeans.

  Two men dressed in black rose from the glass-strewn floor, and a second pair crawled through the shattered windows. I recognized their clothing and gasped. My kidnappers from the night the Alchemica burned had worn the same black fatigues. If not for Rowan’s grip on my waist, I would have bolted for the stairs.

  Rowan pulled me against him, my back to his chest. “They here for you?”

  I drew a breath, trying to get a handle on my fear. I certainly didn’t want Rowan to see it. “I don’t—”

  “We found the alchemist.” The man on the far right raised a hand to his ear, and spoke into a hands-free radio.

  My breath caught. They were the same men from the Alchemica.

  “Guess I’m not the only one you pissed off,” Rowan said, his breath warm against my temple.

  A crash sounded from the stairwell followed by raised voices. Oh no, please don’t let them be trashing the shop. I didn’t like James’s brothers, but that’d be a hell of a way to repay them for giving me this job.

  All four men were arm
ed, their guns trained on us.

  “Hand over the alchemist,” the man with the radio said.

  Rowan’s grip tightened on my waist. “No. The alchemist belongs to me.”

  I opened my mouth to voice my annoyance when the men’s eyes widened.

  “What the hell?” Radio Man muttered.

  I suspected that Rowan had done his eye-glow trick.

  A faint pop and the radio headset went flying from the spokesman’s head. He cried out and spun away from us, clearing my line of sight to the window. James crouched on the broken seal with a gun of his own. He fired and clipped the man’s gun, knocking it from his hand.

  The three remaining men whirled to face him, guns coming up as they turned. I gasped, but James didn’t even blink. He shot three times, the pop from his silenced pistol almost a single report, disarming each man as he had the first. I swear the boy hadn’t even aimed.

  “I have five bullets left,” James said. “I only need four.”

  I didn’t wait to see what they would do. I armed my grenade and tossed it. It exploded in a white puff of powder before it hit the ground. The men scrambled away from the window as the cloud grew, obscuring my view.

  Crap. “I knew it needed greater range,” I muttered. “If I increase the ratio of propellant—”

  “Addie, move!” James waved me toward him.

  The cloud was drifting our way, gradually filling the entire room.

  Rowan shoved me toward James, but I didn’t need encouragement. My backpack, still loaded from my trip to Cincinnati, lay on a chair near the window. I snatched it up on my way past. Rowan took the pack from me and then hoisted me up onto the sill beside James. I didn’t get to comment on the unnecessary manhandling before James picked me up and leaped from the second-story window.

  The alley rushed up to meet us and I cried out, wrapping my arms around his neck. James’s shoes smacked the asphalt with an impact I could feel and hear. Our momentum dropped him into a crouch. A pause and he straightened and set me on my feet.

  “Are you o—” James started to ask when a thump sounded behind us. We turned to find Rowan rising from a crouch as unfazed as James.

  James pulled the gun from behind his waistband and trained it on Rowan. “Leave.”

  Suddenly James no longer held a gun, but a ball of white-hot flame. An instant later, he fisted his empty hand. Rowan had vaporized the gun.

  “I said, leave,” James repeated, his voice low and devoid of emotion. A glow kindled in his green eyes.

  “We don’t have time for this.” Rowan waved a hand at the windows above us, his gaze setting on me. “That looked like a PIA SWAT team. What have you done?”

  I glanced up and noticed the ropes dangling from the roof. “They can’t be PIA.” Lawson would have taken me in if the PIA wanted me. “I think they’re the same ones who tried to abduct me the night the Alchemica burned.”

  “There!” a voice shouted, and I whipped around to see three more men in black fatigues enter the alley from the street. They skirted the metal trashcans lining the brick wall and started toward us. All three carried submachine guns—MP5s if my gun knowledge could be trusted.

  “We found her,” the man in the middle called over his shoulder. When he turned back, he gave me a smile exposing his crooked front teeth.

  “It’s the same guys,” I whispered.

  Rowan stepped forward. “By whose authorization—”

  “Mine.” Crooked Teeth raised his gun and fired.

  Rowan dove to the side, bullets kicking up chunks of asphalt where he stood.

  “Move!” Rowan sprang to his feet beside me and pushed me toward the trashcans. More bullets whined down the alley as we squeezed in between the cans and the steps to the side door.

  James didn’t follow us.

  I pushed at Rowan, trying to see back into the alley. “James!” I screamed over the gunfire.

  “Stay down.” Rowan’s warm hands gripped my upper arms and pushed me back against the wall. Bullets riddled the trashcans, setting the empty ones dancing and sending one lid rattling down the alley.

  “Don’t…move.” Rowan let go of my arms and braced his hands against the wall to either side of my head.

  Heat engulfed us. I gasped and hot air seared my lungs. The air grew hotter still, shimmering around us; little bursts of light exploded in the heat waves. It took me a moment to realize they were bullets.

  Stunned, I looked up into Rowan’s face. He’d squeezed his eyes shut; a look of intense concentration laced with anger constricted his features. Several bullets smacked into the bricks to my right and he grunted.

  “Stop! What are you doing?” a voice shouted from the alley. The gunfire tapered off. “He wants her alive. If you kill her—”

  A snarl drowned out the voice, the sound not of this world. James had changed form. Someone screamed and then the scream cut out with an abruptness that turned my blood cold. Oh God, had James—

  Machine gun fire cut through the sudden silence, but it wasn’t directed at us this time.

  “James!” I lunged and almost got free. Rowan caught me around the waist with one arm, pulling me back down behind the trashcans. I gripped his forearm and he growled this time. My hand came away slick with blood. The wall hadn’t caught all the stray bullets.

  “Hold still,” he commanded through gritted teeth. His arm tightened, pressing my back to his chest.

  “Let me go!” I continued to struggle.

  “Why? So you can get yourself shot?”

  “There might be something I can do.”

  “What could you possibly do?”

  The pompous ass. I pulled the lid off the nearest trashcan and swung it back over my shoulder, trying to brain him. Unfortunately, I only clipped his upper arm.

  “Pull out!” a voice shouted from beyond our trashcan barrier.

  “Retreat!” someone else called from the opposite direction. God, they’d surrounded us. A vehicle door slammed, followed by the screech of tires.

  “Did they—” I didn’t get to finish the question as Rowan released me and rose to his feet. I hurried to follow. The alley was deserted except for three downed men.

  James wasn’t one of them.

  “Addie?” James’s low voice carried easily in the silence.

  I whirled to face him. He dropped to his knees, thumping the cobbles. Naked, he slumped forward, hands braced wide and head hanging.

  I hurried over and knelt beside him. “James?” I tentatively touched his shoulder. The coolness of his skin surprised me.

  “You okay, son?” Rowan asked.

  “Yeah,” James answered, his voice soft.

  “Wait here.” Rowan eyed me before he swung my pack over his shoulder and started down the alley. I frowned after him and then turned to James.

  A sheen of sweat covered his pale skin, but he gave me a weak smile. “I think we’re being rescued by the Lord of Flames.”

  “Or kidnapped.” The bastard had taken my pack with my robes and potions. I wasn’t going anywhere without them. Then too, James looked too ill to run. “You sure you’re all right?”

  He glanced at the downed men. “I don’t know,” he whispered.

  Oh God, were they dead? He hadn’t dismembered them as he had the zombie. From where I knelt, I couldn’t see any blood, but he wouldn’t look so stricken if he’d only knocked them out.

  The rumble of an engine made my heart leap. A sleek black Camaro with orange and yellow flames across the hood and front quarter panels swung into the alley. I glanced at the front tag. Etna. Wasn’t that a volcano in the Mediterranean? I snorted as Rowan climbed out of the driver’s seat. And he accused me of breaking his cover.

  James cleared his throat, but before he could speak, an explosion rocked the alley. He sprang into motion, tackling me so quickly, I barely had ti
me to gasp. He pinned me to the asphalt, his body shielding mine. Over his shoulder, I watched the upper story of the shop blow apart. Huge flaming sections of wall spun outward and slammed into the taller building across the alley. Then gravity took over.

  I pressed my face into James’s shoulder and squeezed my eyes closed, bracing for impact. No way those chunks of wall could miss us. The breath froze in my lungs as I waited…and waited.

  “Come on, let’s go,” Rowan said from above us.

  James pulled back and I opened my eyes. Small particles of soot floated to the ground around us. I sat up and found the alley unchanged. No debris. No flames.

  “You ashed it,” I said, stunned.

  “Yes.” Rowan held my gaze, eyes once more gray. The color of ash.

  I’d grossly underestimated the man’s power. Perhaps it was naiveté or, more likely, hubris. I guess they called him the most powerful magic user in the country for good reason.

  I got to my feet and looked up. Fire engulfed the top floor of the shop. A plume of black smoke rose skyward, and what structure remained fueled the flames. I stared at what had been my workshop. Three months I’d struggled to pull together a place I could call my own and in a single blast, I lost it all. Again.

  “Can you stand?” Rowan offered James a hand.

  “Yeah.” James let Rowan help him up, struggling to cover himself in the process.

  Rowan helped him to the car and opened the passenger door. “There’s a gym bag on the back floor. Help yourself.”

  James muttered his thanks and climbed inside.

  Rowan turned to face me, his body between me and the passenger seat. “The vial.” He held out a hand. “In your pocket.”

  His request confused me until I remembered the vial I’d threatened him with in the shop. I pulled it from my front pocket and placed it in his hand.

  “It’s chicory root extract.”

  “Any more?” he asked.

  “No, that’s all.” It was my only vial of chicory extract.

  “Any other potions?”

  I looked up, surprised that he’d caught my subterfuge.

  A slim orange ring encircled his pupils. “Shall I check?”