Forbidden Alchemy (Elemental Book 7)

by Rain Oxford

  “What does that mean?”

  “I cast magic. Normal people are commoners, not casters. There are also the priests, who are casters that have passed their trials.”

  “This is interesting,” Henry said, “but we have to help Darwin.”

  Darwin was thrashing hard, trying to shake the fog of anesthesia and fight the casts on his forelegs. “Darwin, settle down,” I said. He didn’t acknowledge me.

  “I wonder if it’s not his injury that is making his wolf brain act like this,” Henry said. “Perhaps this is because those creatures touched his skin.”

  “I don’t know how to fix that.”

  “If it’s because they touched him, then it’s probably a mental issue, and you’re the only one who can fix that.”

  I didn’t have time to come up with a better plan. When I approached Darwin, he opened his eyes and tried to bite me. “Calm down,” I said. “I’m going to try to help you, and I hope it doesn’t ruin everything.” I put my hand on his back and invaded his mind.

  His wolf was front and center, snapping and snarling, which was no surprise. He showed no recognition. I focused my mind on tranquility while searching his for the darkness. His wolf was wild with fear and rejected any peace I could offer.

  Although Darwin’s mind was beyond my control, the wolf’s wasn’t. “Calm down,” I ordered, pushing peaceful images into his mind. He finally gave in, and after a moment, he focused on a time where he was sitting beside a creek, enjoying the snow under his fur.

  I separated myself from the wolf’s mind while staying in Darwin’s. I felt him start to surface since his wolf was calm, but his thoughts were overcome with darkness, pain, and despair. He was intentionally closing himself off from that experience because it wasn’t rational, which made my job easier.

  A major part of magic was mental— concentration, visualization, imagination, and willpower. I visualized the memory that was trying to suffocate Darwin as a dark cloud. I imagined a small wooden chest in my hands, which I opened. Then I visualized the dark cloud going into it.

  “Darwin, everything that happened since we left the school from the faraday cage was a bad dream. It can’t hurt you, even in your sleep. When you wake, you will forget it completely and forever.”

  The darkness was fully in the box, so I closed it and pulled out of his mind. I stepped back as his body relaxed.

  “What did you do?” Henry asked.

  “I erased his memory of the shadow pass attack.” I hoped that was what I did, anyway.

  Henry sniffed the air at the same time my intuition told me he was about to shift back. “Cut his casts! Cut them now!” Henry demanded.

  I reached for the only thing I saw— a pair of scissors.

  “Fotakha,” Rita said. The casts around Darwin’s legs disintegrated like they had been through a shredder. An instant later, Darwin’s remaining fur receded and his thin wolf forelegs filled out into his thin human arms.

  In a few minutes, Darwin regained his person form, but the bites on his arm and abdomen remained. He sat up with pain all over his face and clutched his side. “Oh, my kidney! My kidney hurts!”

  Rita rushed forth. “Lie down and I’ll take a look.”

  Darwin yelped and fell backwards off the table. “Don’t yelp at me like I’m the scary one here! You’re a werewolf!” Henry grabbed her by the arms to stop her from going to Darwin. “He’s injured!” she said as if Henry was crazy.

  “He’ll be further injured if you touch his bare skin in his person form.” I searched the cabinet, found a towel, and tossed it to Darwin.

  He stood, wrapped the towel around himself, and studied our surroundings. “Damn it. Did someone sell my kidney on the black market?”

  “No. What’s the last thing you remember?”

  “I…” He thought about it for a moment and kept glancing at Rita. “We were about to pull off my plan to get out of the school. Either it worked, or Dr. Martin is a lot more of a babe than I remember.” He glanced down at himself and ran his hand across his chest, where there should have been a wound.

  Shifters were amazing healers. However, when broken bones and surgical wounds could be healed with one shift, it bothered me that two shifts couldn’t heal two bites.

  “Were you two trying to get me neutered? I appreciate a joke as much as the next bloke, but my mother would never get over it!”

  “Then you shouldn’t worry us like that again,” Henry said.

  He frowned. “Huh? What happened?”

  “We’ll talk about it later. For now, this is Rita, Ahz’s mother.”

  “Oh! We made it, then. Funny… I have this vague impression that you were inside me just a little while ago,” he said to her. “Not that you’re not cute or nothin’, but I have a fiancée.”

  “I need to sit down,” Rita said, overwhelmed. Considering she was an alien who just learned about paranormals today, I wasn’t surprised.

  Considering I just met a magic user who wasn’t from the four paranormal worlds I knew about, I probably needed to sit down, too.

  “I’m happy to explain everything, but we really need your son’s help to save a bunch of people,” I said. Henry got some of Darwin’s spare clothes out of the bag and Darwin covered up.

  “You’re not putting my son in danger!”

  “I wouldn’t dream of it. There is someone else out there, though, who is after John’s children.”

  “Asgard is my child, not John’s!”

  “Well, she’s after him because he inherited some of John’s power.”

  She frowned at me. “No, he didn’t.”

  “When he touches you or looks into your eyes, he can feel your emotions. It’s not exactly John’s magic, but it’s similar.”

  “How do you know that? How do you know anything about my son?”

  “John’s children are in danger from someone named Veronica. I think some of them are calling for help because I’ve been having visions of them.”

  “John didn’t have visions.”

  “His brother did. Like I said, I’m willing to explain everything, but we’re two thousand miles away from a school full of people that desperately need his help. I am a deputy principal at a paranormal children’s school and a trained wizard with the ability to control minds, read minds, and have visions of the future. I also have excellent intuition. I promise to do everything in my power to stop anyone from hurting your son.”

  * * *

  Rita finally relented and took us out to the back of the clinic, where her home was. It was a small, simple house with pictures on the wall, warm colors, and comfortable furniture. The door opened into a hallway. At the end of the hallway to the left were three doors. At the end of the hallway to the right was another door. Across from the door were two open doorways, one to the living room and one to the kitchen.

  We followed a reluctant Rita down the hallway to the kid’s room. Ahz looked up the moment Rita opened the door. He actually met my eyes for a few seconds before looking down at his work. Curled up on his back was a small, tortoiseshell kitten.

  The walls were covered in posters of nature and his own art. The twin bed had blue space-themed bedding. The writing desk against the far wall was covered in artwork and art supplies, as was the floor. He had everything from paints to crayons.

  “How do you communicate with him?” Darwin asked.

  “He’s labeled autistic, but he’s so much smarter than anyone I’ve ever met,” she said defensively.

  “I understand,” Darwin said. “He doesn’t communicate with people in the standard way. That doesn’t mean there’s something wrong with him.”

  “He’s an amazing artist,” Henry said, studying the art on the wall. “That’s communication right there if you can understand it.”

  “He’s a genius in many ways.” I knelt in front of him. The kitten leapt off him and hissed at me. “Don’t mind Loki,” Rita said. “He doesn’t like anyone except Ahz.”

  “Do you know me, Ahz?”
I asked. “Did you call for help? Do you know who Veronica is?”

  He was drawing the school, but it was dark and menacing. There were also a few drawings of a familiar hallway beside him. “That’s under the library of the East. Is there something down there? Is Veronica there? If there’s something you’re trying to tell me, I don’t understand.”

  Without looking at me, he reached out and grabbed my wrist. It felt like an electrical shock, and then I was forced into a vision I couldn’t stop.

  I saw the school, but that wasn’t the information that Ahz was trying to convey. A deep, violent, buzzing vibration thrummed through my body. It was both as painful as fire and disorienting as an earthquake. The sound was worse, though. I could only compare it to a thousand people screaming in my head at once. The pain made me want to kill whatever was causing it. Anything and anyone. Stopping the pain was the only thing that mattered.

  Suddenly, I was back in the room, and my head was throbbing with pain. “What did he do?” Darwin shouted. It sounded like he was several rooms away.

  “Get him some water,” Henry said.

  “Aspirin!” I demanded.

  I was presented with both, but as I wiped blood from my nose, I knew it wasn’t going to be enough.

  “Let’s try some whiskey and coffee,” Darwin said, setting them on the floor beside me.

  I chugged both and felt better immediately. Not great, but better. “Thanks.” Darwin usually knew what I needed even when I didn’t. “Ahz just showed me what the elementals are going through. I think he wants to help them as much as they want to be helped.”

  “Well, I’m not going to let you take my son,” Rita said. He must have understood some of our conversation, because he clumsily climbed to his feet and walked towards her. When he stopped in front of her and looked her right in the eyes, she gaped. “Ahz?”

  “I want to help,” he said. Then his gaze broke from hers, and his head and body wobbled like he couldn’t stand still.

  Chapter 13

  Rita packed some bags quickly, heated us up some leftover food, and left a note for her assistant, Jess, that she had a family emergency that would take a few days. Apparently, Jess was having a spat with her girlfriend and sleeping in the storage room of the clinic, which was why she was available to help Rita when Darwin showed up.

  Loki only left Ahz’s pocket to nap on his back, and Ahz was the only one allowed to touch him. “I think that kitten has more problems than Ahz does,” Rita said. “However, Ahz loves him, so there’s nothing I can do about it.”

  Darwin called his father to clear him with the local wolf alpha. “Yes, Dad, I’m in New Mexico. Yes, I know that’s weird. Yes, I know Mum is worried. Please just let Morris know I’m here so I don’t have his wolves chasing my butt down when they get my scent.”

  “Are you okay with the fae tribes around here?” I asked.

  “We have alliances with them, so as long as I don’t hurt any of them or damage their territory, I’m safe. I’m supposed to announce my presence, but Dad will do that for me.”

  “Did Marcus tell you about his registry?”

  “Yeah, and I’m making a better one— I just don’t have as much time to work on it because I have a real job.

  “Why can’t we go by plane?” Rita asked.

  “Fae are not good with planes,” Darwin said. “I’ve been all over the world; I’ve been in planes hundreds of times, and it’s always unpleasant. From the moment the plane is in the air to the moment it touches down, my body is constantly tense. It’s like I’m having an anxiety attack throughout the entire flight. My mother and I take ships whenever possible.”

  “I thought you were a werewolf.”

  “Wolf. Shifter. I’m not some damned Hollywood puppy. I’m also half fae, which is where I get my charming personality.”

  “It would be better to fly than take the shadow pass,” Henry said.

  “Plus, I’m pretty sure Ahz hasn’t killed anyone,” I said.

  “Why not take him through with a blanket?” Darwin asked.

  “That’s what went wrong last time,” I said. I caught him up on what had happened in the shadow pass, his reaction, and that I had removed his memories for his own good. When I was done, he was quiet for a while before I asked if he was okay.

  “Yeah. Not knowing bugs the shit out of me, but I get why you did it, and you probably saved me.”

  Over a quick dinner/breakfast, Rita wanted to know what the shadow pass was, but I told her I would explain later. I didn’t want to get into demons quite yet.

  “Rita, Ahz, and I can go to the school by plane and rental car,” I said. “Henry, you can drive Darwin back in Rita’s car.”

  “It would be a bad idea to split up right now,” Darwin said. “Getting Ahz to the school as soon as possible is priority, but shit always goes wrong when people split up.”

  Rita accepted this answer. She was still very cautious of us, but she seemed to like Darwin the most because she met him as a wolf first.

  We were fortunate that Rita’s red Xterra was large enough to seat all of us. Ahz got in the far back and drew. I questioned if it was safe and she rolled her eyes. “You try strapping him into a seat. There is nothing on Earth that can keep him in a seat he doesn’t want to be in.”

  For the first four hours, Rita drove and we told her about the paranormal world. She had a difficult time accepting that humans weren’t right about everything. Because she was from another world, she had no problem believing that wizards, vampires, shifters, and fae were real. After all, she had known John. However, she didn’t interact with paranormals, so she thought humans knew what they were talking about for the most part.

  “I did think it was weird that vampires could turn a human into a vampire,” she said.

  “Actually, that’s true. In fact, one of my good friends was shot by his father and the only way to save him was to get a vampire to turn him. He now lives happily in a huge coven.”

  “Tell me more about shifters,” Rita said to Darwin.

  “Well, we’re not all wolves. I’m half fae, half shifter. Henry is a full shifter.”

  She glanced at him for a moment before returning her eyes to the street. “You’re a cat shifter, right?” she asked.

  “Yes. How could you tell?”

  “I didn’t assume you were a shifter, but you really struck me as a cat from the moment I saw you. Cats are guardians on my world. They’re like royalty. Unfortunately, they don’t live in the desert, so the Voska don’t have their protection. That’s to be expected, though.”

  “I am a black jaguar shifter.”

  She looked at me. “You’re a wizard?”

  “Yes, but not all of us are like John. The ability to control minds is extremely unique.”

  “So it’s like witchcraft?”

  “Yes and no.” We told her pretty much everything we could think of, including about the four paranormal worlds. The only thing we left out was the tower, the exact locations of the paranormal schools, and personal information about other paranormals. It was a lot more than we had planned to tell her, but she was extremely curious and my intuition told me that she could be trusted.

  * * *

  Monday, November 28

  The sun was up and we were getting hungry by the time we finished filling Rita in, so we stopped at a diner and got breakfast. Since we were in Texas, I expected the food to be extra greasy and piled high, but Darwin assured me that was a misconception. Ahz ate fruit and vegetables. “He refuses to eat meat,” Rita explained.

  Darwin was a seriously picky eater as well. He ordered pancakes and hash browns with absolutely no seasoning. Despite the fact that he was a wolf shifter, he wasn’t big on meat. Most fae, especially nature fae like his mother, were vegetarians.

  Ahz was unbothered by the no-pets policy and pulled some cat food out of his pocket to feed Loki right at the table. “I don’t think either of them understands cultural norms,” Rita said.

  I asked him if
he could tell us what he needed to bring down the curse at the school. “If you need magical supplies, we can call ahead and have them ready to go when we get there.” Dani was quick in getting supplies when we needed them.

  Ahz pulled a sketchbook and marker out of his mother’s purse. For a moment, I was sure he would draw something helpful. Instead, he drew looping scribbles. It almost looked like a tornado… drawn by a drunk three-year-old, perhaps.

  “Does this have to do with the school?” I asked.

  “It’s chaos theory!” Darwin said excitedly.

  “You can draw a theory?” I asked.

  He rolled his eyes. “I don’t have time to explain nonlinear dynamics to linear-minded people, okay?”

  “Ahz isn’t going to turn out like him, is he?” Rita asked me.

  “I doubt it. Darwin knows his manners; he chooses not to use them sometimes. Of course, it’s usually only to make a point.”

  “The point is that he’s trying to explain what’s going on at the school,” Darwin said.

  “Well, what’s he saying?”

  “I have no idea. I know it has to do with chaos theory, but I already knew deterministic chaos was at work. That’s why we had to get out of there when we did.”

  “Chaos theory is that small changes make larger changes, right?” Rita asked.

  Darwin smiled. “Yeah. I mean, no, but yeah. There are five principles of chaos theory and the one most easily explained is that small initial changes lead to drastic changes.”

  “The butterfly effect,” I said. Before Darwin could answer, I realized Ahz was drawing something else over it. This one wasn’t a loose, loopy design. He was creating deliberate sigils.

  He was drawing the sigils that were attacking the elementals over his drawing of chaos theory.

  “That’s not good,” Darwin said.

  “What’s not?”

  “His drawing refers to other principles of chaos. Basically, there’s a feedback between the magic and the elementals, which is further accelerating the changes. Veronica unleashed this dangerous spell into an inherently adaptive environment. What this means is that as the elementals fight, the magic changes, and then the elementals have to change. The results of this can become incredibly dangerous.”