The Final Formula

by Becca Andre

  “Shit, he slipped planes,” Rowan muttered. “Where—”

  A scream came from the front of the house.

  Rowan ran toward the sound, and I scrambled to my feet. Dizzy from the choking and the adrenaline, I staggered for the first few strides, but managed to keep my feet under me. I followed Rowan around the side of the house to the front, the snarls growing louder as I ran.

  James had Gerald backed up against the side of a Honda Civic in the driveway.

  “James,” I called, my voice a hoarse croak. I didn’t feel too generous toward Gerald right now, but I didn’t want James to kill him.

  Gerald circled the car putting it between him and James. I tried calling to James again, but he didn’t even glance in my direction.

  Gerald staggered away from the car, keeping James in sight. He backed up the walk and caught his heel on the bottom step. Off balance, he fell across the steps, grunting in pain. “Oh God,” he whispered, his wide eyes still on the driveway.

  I turned my head in time to watch James step out of the side of the Civic. He’d simply walked right through it, as if it wasn’t there. Or he wasn’t. Grim. Ghost dog. I now understood how he’d gotten into the Elemental Offices the night we’d broken in. He could walk through walls.

  “James!” I tried again and produced a little more volume.

  He didn’t glance over, his eyes intent on his target. His large paws fell on the walk, claws gouging the cement without sound.

  Suddenly, a white-hot fireball engulfed James, and I screamed.

  I couldn’t believe it. “You bastard!” I whirled and slammed both hands against Rowan’s chest. He took a step back, but his hands shot out, catching my wrists.

  James leapt from the flames, and the next instant they vanished. Only bare earth remained where the slab of the sidewalk had been. Rowan had incinerated it, not James.

  “Let me go,” I twisted in his hold, but couldn’t break his grip.

  James stopped advancing on Gerald and turned his head to look at us. His glowing green eyes focused on Rowan.

  “Stay back.” Rowan pulled me behind him. I pushed at his back and tried to step around him, but he held out an arm, blocking my path.

  “You’re protecting her?” James asked.

  Startled, I glanced around Rowan and found the boy I knew, sans clothes, kneeling in the grass before us.

  “From me?” James added. His eyes still glowed and his dark hair looked a little wild, but otherwise he appeared himself.

  “Until you regain control, yes.”

  I realized that Rowan had grabbed me to draw James’s attention away from Gerald. That was no small risk.

  James leaned forward, hands braced on the ground, and bowed his head. “He shouldn’t have run.”

  Movement drew my attention to the porch. Lydia helped Gerald up and herded him into the house, stepping past Marian who stood in the doorway, her wide eyes on us.

  I began unbuttoning my shirt and pushed past Rowan, but he was already handing James his coat. I stopped, uncertain.

  “Gerald didn’t exactly run.” My voice still sounded a bit rough, and it hurt to swallow, but it didn’t seem Gerald had broken anything.

  “He can bend space-time and travel between the two points,” Rowan said.

  I turned to stare at him. “He can create wormholes? No freaking way. Let me guess. He’s a physicist.”

  “Actually, he owns a video rental store in Batavia, but I understand he’s a big science fiction fan.”

  I snorted and glanced over at James. He was on his feet, one hand holding Rowan’s jacket around his hips. The glow had left his eyes.

  The two men studied each other for one long moment.

  “You should have told me you were a grim,” Rowan said.

  “Should have told you?” I said. “You freaked out and tried to incinerate him the moment you found out.”

  James’s hand settled on my shoulder and pulled me back. “It’s okay, Ad.”

  “Okay? How is that okay?”

  Footfalls thumped on the wooden porch steps, and I looked over to find Marian approaching us. She walked up to James and tugged on his arm.

  James’s brows rose in question.

  “Come here.” She crooked a finger at him.

  James glanced at Rowan and then me before he squatted down beside her.

  She leaned over and whispered in his ear, cupping her hand around her mouth like any child sharing a secret.

  James suddenly pulled back, his eyes widening. “What do you mean?”

  “I thought you’d know. You don’t?”

  James shook his head.

  She studied him. “You really can turn into a dog.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Cool.” She gave him a grin. She might know what he was, but she didn’t understand.

  “Come, child,” Lydia called from the porch.

  Marian glanced in her direction before she turned back to James. “I have to go. Will you let me know if you figure it out?”

  “Sure.”

  She flashed him another grin then leaned over and kissed his cheek.

  James blinked in surprise. “Thanks,” he whispered.

  Marian turned and ran back to Lydia, leaping across the missing chunk of sidewalk on the way. Her laughter carried back to us before the older woman took her hand and led her inside.

  James rose to his feet beside me. I arched a brow and a bit of color bloomed in his cheeks. What had Marian told him?

  Rowan sighed and ran a hand over his face, stopping to pinch the bridge of his nose. Did he have a headache?

  “I was born in this country,” James said. “I’ve never even been to Europe.”

  Rowan dropped his hand. “I didn’t think it was you.”

  His easy admission threw me. “Then why did you try to incinerate him?”

  “I didn’t.” He looked annoyed that I’d even suggest it. “Grims are said to be the only thing impervious to the power of an Element. I was curious. It turned out to be true. I couldn’t see in him.”

  “See in him?”

  He studied me a moment. “You don’t understand how my power works?”

  “Elements manipulate their element as it exists around them. Though, it’s not technically an element, but a state of matter: solid, liquid, gas, and plasma. I think of it as a matter-specific form of telekinesis.”

  “Not a bad analogy.”

  I thought about that. “And to manipulate your state of matter, you must see in it?” Whoa. “You see the atoms?”

  “I don’t know about that, and it’s more feel than sight.” Rowan shrugged. For a man who was always so decisive, the shrug made me smile.

  “What?” he asked.

  This time I shrugged. “So what do you do? Where does the fire come from?”

  “Fire is different.” Rowan dug his keys out of his pocket and tossed them to James. “You know where the clothes are.”

  “Yes. Thanks.” He gripped the keys in his fist. “Sorry.” He frowned at the grass at his feet.

  “I can teach you control,” Rowan said.

  James looked up, surprise evident on his features—and something else. Hope.

  “But I’m not…like you.”

  “Anyone can lose control. You don’t even have to be magical.”

  James frowned faintly then nodded. “Thanks.” He turned and walked off toward the car.

  “Yes, thank you,” I said once James was out of earshot.

  Rowan’s attention shifted to me. “I wish you’d told me.”

  “Not my secret to tell.”

  Rowan studied me a moment then nodded. “I need to go speak to Gerald.”

  “Are you going to kick his ass?”

  “He thought he was defending me.”

&nbs
p; “By attacking me? I’m not the grim.”

  Rowan’s brow wrinkled and his eyes dropped to my neck. “I’m sorry.”

  Wow. He could apologize for something. Before I could comment, he touched the tender skin of my throat. His warm fingers slid upward to my jaw, lifting my chin slightly while he leaned down for a closer look.

  I took a hasty step back.

  Rowan frowned, though it wasn’t in anger. “Gerald must have thought you were controlling James. The grim is supposed to be a product of alchemy.”

  “What?”

  “You didn’t know that? I thought…” He glanced back at the car.

  “You thought what? That I was using him? Experimenting on him?” I remembered my Perfect Assistant Dust and hurried on. “He’s my friend. He rescued me from those SWAT guys—twice now. He was there for me when no one else was. Hell, you were at the Alchemica. Did you even bother to look for survivors?”

  “I—”

  “No, you didn’t. I saw you. I was lying not fifteen feet from you. You were busy instructing your servant to bring the car around.”

  “Where my phone was—which I used to call the squad.”

  I crossed my arms. “How magnanimous.”

  “You’re very quick to judge—and apparently require no facts to make such an assessment.”

  I wanted to tell him to bite me or something equally crude, but James returned. He’d donned a pair of gray sweatpants, but still held the T-shirt. He hadn’t bothered with shoes.

  “Addie—” James began.

  “I’d appreciate it if the two of you would stay out here.” Without waiting for a response, Rowan turned and walked into the house.

  “He’d appreciate it.” I rolled my eyes.

  “Addie.” James’s brow furrowed in concern.

  I flopped down on the bottom step to the porch. He pulled on the plain white T-shirt, and sat down beside me, though not very close. He gripped his hands in his lap.

  “You okay?” I asked. He didn’t look as pale as he had after the attack on the shop, but then, he hadn’t ripped any souls here.

  “I scared you,” he whispered.

  “I think you scared everyone. You’re one terrifying pooch, Fido.”

  “I’m sorry. When Gerald did his wormhole thing, I couldn’t feel you, and I sort of lost it.”

  “Feel me?”

  “On the mortal plane.”

  “And you left it, too. When you became…something else.”

  He looked up, eyes wide. “You saw that? You shouldn’t have seen that.”

  “I admit, it was disturbing, but I—”

  “No, I mean you shouldn’t have been able to see it. Those bound to the mortal plane can’t see any other.”

  I cocked my head, studying him. “How do you know all this?”

  He lifted one shoulder and let it fall. As always, he went silent when I asked too much about his magic. I thought about what Rowan had said.

  “Rowan said there’s a connection between grims and alchemy.”

  He looked up, surprise absent in his expression.

  “That’s why you study alchemy. You’re looking for a cure.”

  He gave me a bitter smile. “There is no cure.”

  “Tell me what you know. I may be able to—”

  He pushed up to his feet. “I don’t think even you can fix this.” He turned toward the drive.

  Gravel crunched. A teal blue BMW rounded the corner and pulled to a stop beside Rowan’s Camaro.

  I sat up straighter, but didn’t get to my feet. Now what?

  A pair of women climbed out of the car and started for the house. The driver, her brunette hair neatly coiffed, wore a dark blue pant suit. She looked every inch the hard-nosed executive as she studied us with cool blue eyes. The girl that followed was anything but. Blonde and dressed in a rainbow of bright colors, she didn’t look much older than James.

  The brunette continued toward us, her heels clacking on the walk until she reached the section Rowan had destroyed. “What happened here?”

  “A misunderstanding.” I didn’t bother to get up.

  Her eyes narrowed. “You’re the alchemist.”

  “My cover is blown.”

  “Where is he?”

  “If you mean Rowan, he’s inside.” I hooked a thumb toward the house.

  “You shouldn’t use his name. You don’t know who I am.”

  “Since you haven’t bothered to introduce yourself, yeah, you nailed another one.”

  She gave me a glare and climbed the steps beside me. “Come along,” she said to the girl.

  The blonde tore her gaze away from James. “He’s cute,” she said—and not all that softly.

  A blush colored James’s cheeks, and I snorted. I couldn’t help it.

  “I smell cookies,” the blonde continued, unfazed by the reaction her comment had gotten. “Can I have one?”

  The slamming of the screen door blocked out the brunette’s answer as the pair disappeared inside.

  “I think she liked you,” I told James.

  “Addie.”

  “The brunette’s a bitch, though.”

  He snorted and dropped to a seat beside me. “You weren’t exactly friendly.”

  “She started it.”

  “She could be someone important.”

  “And that matters why?”

  He sighed, but didn’t respond.

  I fumed in silence. Someone important, which in the Elements’ world meant someone with magic. The way she’d sneered when she called me an alchemist made that clear.

  My eyes settled on Rowan’s Camaro. Of course, I didn’t have to be without my magic. I stood and looked back over my shoulder at the house.

  “What is it?” James rose to his feet beside me.

  “Anyone coming?”

  He glanced back at the house. “No.”

  I flashed him a grin and then hurried down the walk toward the driveway.

  “What are you doing?” James asked when I stopped beside the Camaro.

  “I’m tired of being defenseless.” I opened the driver’s door. “Let me know when you hear someone coming.”

  James released a sigh, but did as I asked.

  I squatted beside the car and examined the floor around the driver’s seat looking for a trunk release. Rowan had taken the keys, so that option was out. The black interior made it hard to see, so I leaned in for a closer look. It didn’t help that evening approached, taking the sunlight with it.

  Leaning too far, I caught myself on the driver’s door, my fingers slipping into a pocket along the door’s base. A pair of smooth cylindrical objects clinked together with the familiar sound of glass on glass. Curious, I reached in the pocket and found what I suspected: a pair of empty vials.

  “What’s that?” James asked.

  “I think His Grace is cheating on me.”

  A small label clung to each vial. I turned one on its side and squinted at the tiny words. Take by mouth, once an hour, as needed. Unscrewing the lid, I sniffed the contents. Nothing. I pressed my index finger over the opening and inverted the vial. A pale blue droplet now rested on my fingertip. I brought it to my mouth and lightly touched it to my tongue.

  Bleh! The bitter taste lingered. Not the work of an alchemist. Magic brews had a certain bite I’d come to recognize. Only medicine would taste that nasty. Now, what did Rowan need medicine for? He looked fit. Very fit.

  A faint cry rang out and I came to my feet.

  “What was that?” I asked.

  James turned toward the house, his eyes glowing faintly. “This way.” He took off at a jog around the side of the house.

  I pushed the door closed and hurried after him, hoping Gerald wasn’t assaulting someone else.

  Chapter

 
; 10

  We swung wide around a flowerbed and came upon a small side porch. I could hear sobbing through the screen door. James hesitated, his eyes still glowing faintly.

  “What do you see when you do that?” I stepped in front of him and gripped the door handle.

  “Souls.” He met my gaze and the glow faded from his eyes.

  “Oh.” I guess that made sense. He had to see what he took. I couldn’t decide if I was amazed or disturbed.

  I pulled open the door and found myself in Lydia’s kitchen. Sobbing echoed through the room, but it took me a moment to locate the source. The blonde girl sat on the floor before an open oven. A cookie sheet lay nearby, globs of dough scattered around it.

  “Hey, are you okay?” I hurried over to her. Heat radiated out of the oven, and I leaned over to close the door.

  She clutched her right forearm and looked up with a tear-streaked face. “He’ll be so mad. I’m not supposed to use the oven.”

  Okay. I knelt beside her. “Did you burn yourself? Let me see.”

  “Lydia had a tray ready to go in the oven, so I thought I’d help. That’d be nice, right?”

  “Yes, very nice.” I took her forearm and pulled away her opposite hand. An angry red welt marred her arm. A nasty burn, but nothing for a girl her age to get that excited about. James had stopped inside the door. He frowned at the girl, clearly as puzzled by her erratic comments as I was.

  “You’re pretty,” she said.

  I returned my attention to the girl. “Thanks.” I met her amber eyes, wondering where that had come from.

  She gave me a big smile. “Do I know your name? Sometimes I forget.” She touched her temple beneath her short, spiky blonde hair.

  “We haven’t been introduced.” I began to suspect she might have a mental problem. “I’m Addie.”

  “I’m Era. Will you make some more cookies?”

  “Um, how about I make a salve for your arm first?”

  She gripped my arm so tightly it hurt. “You won’t tell him, will you? I’m not allowed to use the oven.”