Forbidden Alchemy (Elemental Book 7)

by Rain Oxford

  “She offered to teach me, but she didn’t say what. Finally, she said that I wasn’t strong enough, but that she wouldn’t let me get in her way. Then I was with the others in my dreams. I saw you there, and I knew you were trying to help us, but you couldn’t hear me.”

  “Well, you’re safe now.”

  “No, I’m not. None of us are. You woke us, but she’s still out there, and she’ll get us when she wants to.”

  Veronica only ever ambushed them when they were alone and emotional, which told me she was either watching them, or was somehow drawn to them when they were most vulnerable. She had come to me when I was at the motel, but my friends were asleep. If it weren’t for her magic, Henry would have woken for sure, as he was a light sleeper.

  Ahz was a different matter, of course. He couldn’t tell me about Veronica and he certainly didn’t seem to be afraid of her. When Rita brought him in, he sat on the couch and rocked.

  I thought his fidgeting was a symptom of autism when I first saw him, but after feeling the elementals through him, I realized it was more likely that the energy constantly flowing through him affected him like a permanent sugar high.

  Even though I knew he wasn’t listening, I spoke to him with the hopes that he would get my meaning. “So far, you’ve been trying to help us break the curse. Can you help us find Veronica?”

  He looked up at the ceiling and wrung the hem of his shirt absentmindedly. He showed no indication that he even knew I was in the room.

  I grabbed a pencil and sketchpad out of my desk and crouched in front of him. “Veronica,” I said. “Draw Veronica.”

  His eyes didn’t meet mine, but he clumsily clutched the pencil out of my hand and drew on the sketchpad. It was sloppy, not like his normal drawings, and I got the feeling it was due to negative emotions. However, it wasn’t a face he drew; it looked like hieroglyphs.

  “That’s Sacred. It’s from my world,” Rita said.

  “Then you can read it?”

  She blushed and shook her head. “I was taught some of it when I was an apprentice, but it’s not the language we use daily. The gods speak Sacred. It’s the magic language. I don’t even know how he learned it. My people are born able to speak and write Common, but he couldn’t because he was born here.”

  “So why would he write something in Sacred?”

  She shook her head. “Either it’s a spell, a name, or something he doesn’t want anyone else to be able to read.”

  “Do you know anyone who can read it?”

  “No.”

  Lying. My intuition told me she was lying. I could have asked her where to find a portal to her world, but considering how much she hated the priests there, I didn’t expect them to be helpful.

  Ahz uttered something between a groan and a whine and Rita flinched. When I looked at her, she explained, “He usually only does that when something bad is about to happen.”

  I didn’t look for cover, though. She knew her son better than I did, but Darwin had made that exact same sound when he was extremely frustrated that Henry and I weren’t getting something. Ahz wanted to help us.

  “Do you know what she looks like? Or what she is?”

  “She can’t hurt Ahz.”

  “Probably not, but she still could have contacted him. She appears to be going after all of John’s kids, and she tried to stop us from getting him back to the school. On the other hand, the other children only saw her as someone important to her, so she probably wouldn’t have gone to him in her true form.”

  “Or she might have been overconfident enough to do it.”

  Ahz’s eyes wandered around the room, avoiding mine and Rita’s face. I set my chair in front of the couch and sat across from him. “I know you hate this. I suspect it’ll be dangerous and painful for both of us, but if you can tell me anything helpful about Veronica…” I held out my hand.

  Ahz leaned back as if to get away from me, but then he rocked forward and took my hand. Instantly, I felt his mind. It was more like a mental link between us than an invasion. His emotions were… alien. His desire to be left in peace was clear. He didn’t like people stopping him from drawing, but he was willing to help us save the elementals. He had a bond with the elements and was protective over elementals.

  Unlike in the vision of John, I didn’t see a memory. I felt her. She was ruthless. The drive in her to gain power and crush everyone who opposed her was beyond anyone I had faced yet.

  My natural response was to push Ahz away. However, the sightless chaos he was flooding me with was slowly changing and sharpening, as if he was getting used to me and how to communicate with me. It was also making my skin crawl and my stomach churn.

  He was coloring with markers, which soothed him from his chaotic mind. He sensed her in the room and knew she was talking to him, but he ignored her. Then she touched him, which was a mistake on her part. Her mental wall stood no chance against Ahz’s power.

  She had weaknesses and strengths, but what they were, I couldn’t tell. However, I could tell one important thing; she was mortal. Veronica was not an elemental or mythical creature.

  Rocky’s presence brushed across my mind, but Ahz pushed her away as if she were a minor pest.

  I felt Darwin’s mind desperately trying to contact me and forced Ahz out. He didn’t fight me, fortunately. The room spun as I opened my eyes, but I let Darwin in anyway. He never bothered me unless it was important. The instant his mind connected with mine, his panic flooded in.

  “Devon, come get me. Please come get me.” Even in his head, he sounded like he was staring down the barrel of a gun.

  “What’s happening?”

  “I think I killed him. They’re going to come in any second and find him dead and then they’ll kill my dad and I can’t believe I killed someone and you’ve got to help me, Devon. I always thought death was no big deal, but now that I killed someone, I can’t breathe. And he touched me and now I’m dying.”

  He was panicking and his words were barely intelligible, but I heard his last sentence clearly. “I’ll be there in a few seconds.” I pulled away from him mentally and reached for Henry’s mind. Unlike Darwin, he couldn’t block me, and I felt his discomfort as I invaded his mind. “Darwin needs us right now.” At that moment, I regretted giving up my key, because it took him about five seconds before he appeared in my office, which was five seconds I could have spent protecting Darwin.

  Darwin’s cell was six-by-six and made of stone, with a tiny skylight in the ceiling. Rocky took up most of the room, even though she was pressed against the wall. Darwin was a mess. His shirt had been torn open, exposing dark bruises across his pale skin. He was filthy with blood, sweat, and dirt, and he looked like he hadn’t eaten since he was captured. That wasn’t what bothered me, though.

  He was convulsing, his teeth were clenched, his eyes were rolled back in pain, blood dripped from his nose and mouth, and slits formed across his skin like he was being stabbed by an invisible serial killer.

  He had been touched.

  I stepped over the dead body on the floor to reach my friend. “Rocky, save him!”

  “I cannot. I can heal you to some degree because I am your familiar.”

  “But we share magic. I’ve healed him before!”

  “His contact was more extreme this time.”

  “Then… get a healing potion!” For a moment, I thought she was going to argue, but then she finally vanished and I refocused on Darwin. “Hold on. Rocky is getting help.”

  “Hurts,” he whimpered. He looked at me for a second before shutting his eyes. His pupils and irises were silver.

  “I know.” I had healed him before, when I was still new to magic. However, I had materials that grounded my elemental magic. I didn’t even have water this time, which was an important element of healing.

  But I sure as hell couldn’t do nothing.

  The first time I had done this, trust didn’t come naturally. After Joseph, Regina, and Astrid, my trust was extremely difficult to
earn. Henry had been secretive and threatening when I met him, but he proved his trustworthiness. Darwin didn’t have a disloyal bone in his body. Dishonest, yes. He lied whenever he felt like it. But he always had my back.

  Normally, I would imagine the wounds closing and focus on my desire to heal, but this wasn’t a common injury.

  Instead, I invaded his mind and gritted my own teeth as his pain filled me. Every nerve ending lit with agony until I couldn’t breathe let alone think. This curse was fear manifested with magic. It was absolute hopelessness; a willingness to die just to escape reality.

  Darwin’s mother had felt so much fear that her body couldn’t handle it and her magic created the curse, which was passed to him. He had to suffer the consequences every day, and until he found Amy, his only physical contact was through clothes and gloves.

  His body was flooded with pain, but fear was the problem. He didn’t understand it because he had never known that kind of fear. I shared all of the love and security I could think of. I shared every good moment of my mother before the incident, where she would hug or kiss me, or tuck me into bed when I was barely old enough to remember. I had a nightmare of giant rats attacking me once, and she held me until I fell back to sleep. Darwin had never felt that before.

  His mind and magic soaked up the intimacy that he was missing. His parents loved him more than life, but they wouldn’t even hug him through clothes for fear of hurting him.

  His wounds weren’t closing, even though his face wasn’t as tight with pain. I continued forcing the sense of belonging, trust, and comfort into him. I was slowing down the damage, but Rocky was taking too long. The only hope Darwin had was to take control of the curse. The problem was that despite being brilliant, he had one of the worst cases of learned helplessness that I had ever seen when it came to his own fae magic. “This is your own magic killing you. You’ve learned to control your magic. You need to fight it.”

  Appealing to both his intellect and emotion worked. The pain finally started fading. Henry shoved a wet cloth into my hand, which I used to wipe Darwin’s wounds. Healing required the water element, but not necessarily literal water. Even though I attended Quintessence for two years, I didn’t know everything about magic. I could heal without literal water, supposedly, but it helped to focus my magic on healing and enhanced the effectiveness of my magic.

  When I visualized them closing, channeled my magic into healing, and gently washed the wounds, they finally started to close. Although I felt extremely drained, I didn’t stop until he opened his eyes. He wasn’t bleeding anymore.

  “Thank you,” he said, sounding as weak as I felt.

  I pulled my magic out of his mind and braced myself against the wall.

  “Is he dead?” Darwin asked, referring to the body on the floor.

  “I thought Rocky killed him for attacking you,” I said.

  He shook his head. “He was threatening me. Victor was Reese and Riley’s older brother. He wanted to know why I killed them. I tried to explain myself, but he was overcome with grief. He grabbed me and then tried to help me when it hurt. His death… I felt his death and then he died. I killed him.”

  I turned at the sound of Henry’s breath and saw Henry giving the wolf shifter CPR. “How long has he been unconscious?” I asked.

  Darwin shook his head again. “I don’t know. I was in too much pain.”

  I tried to come up with a lie to make Darwin feel better. Failing that, I worked on a plan to get him out before Ace discovered us, without getting the Mason pack killed. That proved no easier.

  After three minutes of CPR, the wolf shifter suddenly coughed up water. Henry rolled him onto his side, where he proceeded to cough and vomit more water than I thought reasonable. “He drowned,” Henry said, shocked.

  “I felt like I was drowning when he touched me,” Darwin said.

  “So you not only see their destined death… they’ll actually die that way if they don’t let you go. That’s quite a defense mechanism.”

  Darwin glared at me. “That’s not a good thing!”

  “Shifters are tough. He’ll be fine,” Henry said.

  Victor wasn’t quite ready to get up, though. “What happened?”

  “Darwin is half fae. You shouldn’t have touched him.”

  “Is that how you killed my brothers?” he asked Darwin.

  “Can’t you see that he didn’t kill them? He was devastated because he thought he killed you even though it was your fault for touching him,” I said.

  Victor considered this. Darwin quietly thanked me for saving him and Henry for saving Victor. Finally, it seemed to dawn on the distraught wolf shifter that Darwin wasn’t a killer. “If you didn’t kill them, who did?”

  “We can find out if your pack will cooperate.”

  “What do you need?”

  The most pleasant method would be to retrace their steps after they dropped Henry off, but we didn’t have time for the pleasant method. “Show me to their bodies.”

  “Are you sure?” Darwin asked, immediately knowing my plan. “There are easier ways. Less painful, grotesque, and dangerous ways.”

  “Veronica had Remy arrested and we rescued five of the children she took, but I couldn’t get anything useful from them. She has all the advantages. We need your help and we need it now.”

  “You just want me to read books!” he accused.

  “No one can read books and regurgitate the information like you.”

  “Show him the bodies,” Darwin pouted. Victor led Henry and me out, but I heard Darwin whispering to Henry behind me. “Protect him. Don’t let him go too far.”

  My plan was dangerous as hell. It was also fast.

  The den was warm but more basic than Darwin’s. It also had a basement, which was where we were led. It wasn’t a furnished basement, either; it was a concrete, dark, dismal place that would fit in as a crime scene on any movie.

  It was the kind of basement where a woman in a horror movie would creep into in the middle of the night because she heard a noise. And then she would die and everyone watching the movie would say she had it coming.

  That was without the two bodies propped lovingly on workbenches. Riley and Reese were sickly pale and as motionless as statues. I had killed before and had seen my fair share of bodies, but it was still horrible. It was even worse because of the blood all over their bodies and the fact that Reese’s throat had been ripped out. They were still in their bloody, dirty, torn clothes.

  The longer I studied their forms, the more I dreaded what was to come. I grabbed Riley’s wrist because it looked like his death was less brutal, and slipped on my vision ring.

  * * *

  Reese closed the car door and they watched Henry walk into the car rental center before they drove away. “That’s one suspicious cat,” Reese said.

  Riley shook his head. “All cats are suspicious. You know what Mom said; they don’t have packs, so they don’t know how to love.”

  “The little Mason wolf was so sick. I bet the cat bit him. Mom said cat bites are dangerous. Maybe we should check on him since the cat’s gone. He might have been held hostage or something.”

  Riley nodded. “We’ll tell Alpha Ace about it. She’ll know what to do. I find it strange that the alpha-son of the Mason pack was traveling with a wizard, a cat shifter, a kitten, a child, and a human woman.”

  “Late teenage rebellion, maybe?”

  Riley shrugged. They were well outside the city by now, and there were no other cars on the road.

  “Stop!” Reese suddenly demanded, startling Riley.

  Riley slammed on the brake and swerved before stopping in the middle of the road. “What?”

  “Victor!” Reese threw open his door and ran out.

  When Riley spotted the silver wolf on the ground, he put the car into park and ran out as well. He was terrified and confused, praying. Don’t be dead. Don’t be dead. Please don’t be dead.

  Reese pulled Victor’s furry head into his lap. “What’s w
rong, Brother? Did you get hit?”

  “Is he alive?” Riley asked, touching Victor’s body for a wound.

  “He’s breathing.”

  “Thank g---” Riley’s relief was short-lived because Victor suddenly reared up and bit into Reese’s throat. He didn’t even have a chance to make a sound. Riley shouted with horror.

  I couldn’t close my eyes because Riley didn’t close his, and I couldn’t stop the onslaught of his pain and horror. I felt his love for his brother, so it was like I was losing a brother I had known all my life.

  I went into this prepared to feel Riley’s death and pain, not for this. I couldn’t have prepared for this.

  “Victor, no! We’re your brothers!”

  Victor instantly released Reese’s throat, but it was too late. I saw Victor’s eyes for an instant when he lunged at Riley. Riley tried to jump back, only to trip. Victor landed on top of him. As Riley’s head hit the ground, blinding pain caused him to gasp. His head had hit a rock. His vision went dark before he could watch his brother kill him. Considering what he just watched and the complete devastation in his heart, he preferred it this way.

  * * *

  I woke to pain in my chest and face. I opened my eyes and first saw Rocky standing over me. Her eyes displayed fury and I suspected she had slapped me in my unconscious state. “You actively seek ways to burden me.” She dropped a potion bottle on my chest and vanished. She could have healed me easily. She chose not to.

  Then I saw Henry next to me, worried. He held up my ring. “I took it off you, but it didn’t help. You even let go of Riley when you collapsed, but it still didn’t stop.”

  “What was I doing?”

  “Convulsing and shouting in pain. You blew the power.”

  I realized that Ace and Victor were standing by the door with flashlights. Henry helped me up, but the room spun and my vision was cloudy. I reached for the back of my head in the same spot where Riley had hit his head and winced, then checked my fingers. Blood.

  Was that because of the vision or because I fell? I got a much better understanding of Darwin’s curse and promised myself I would never do that again.