The Element of Death (The Final Formula Series, Book 1.5) (4 page)

He left the odd lab and cremator behind, and hurried through the door. Rounding the curved wall, he stepped out into the corridor and pulled up short.

“What the hell?” This wasn’t the way he’d come—or was it? James stared at the white tiled walls and freshly painted cement floor. It no longer looked like it had been sitting dormant for decades. It looked like he imaged it would during the crematorium’s early days. Even the mound of dirt was missing at the far end of the hall. Instead, wide double doors took up the space.

It occurred to him that he could see much better than he could before. Wall sconces he hadn’t noticed earlier glowed with a soft light. How, he had no idea. There was no electricity here.

A thump sounded from the room he’d left, and James spun toward the sound.

“Rowan?”

He returned to the room and stopped inside the door. Like the corridor, the room looked like it probably had during the crematorium’s operation. Unlike the corridor, this room was occupied—and it wasn’t Rowan. A man in a white lab coat pushed the same gurney to a stop beside the mortuary drawers. Except the gurney was no longer rusted—nor empty.

“Hello?” James took a step closer, but the man didn’t acknowledge him. Stitching on his coat pocket spelled out a name:
Winters
. Was this the crazy doctor that Rowan had mentioned? The owner of the crematorium, the building’s namesake?

A woman in the long-skirted nurse’s uniform lay on the gurney. A tingle of unease danced across James’s nerves. It was the ghostly nurse he’d met upstairs. He was witnessing a vision from the past.

The man held her pale hand in his own. “This wasn’t suppose to happen,” he whispered. “I’ll make it right, Gertie.” James didn’t need to check for a soul to know she was dead.

The image around him changed. The gurney held another body, but Dr. Winters still stood beside it. He pushed up the man’s sleeve, and with a syringe, injected something into his forearm. Dropping the syringe onto a cluttered cart, Dr. Winters began to push the gurney over to the cremator, then slid the body onto the waiting slab. The man groaned with the movement.

James gasped. He was alive.

Dr. Winters began to push the slab into the flames and the scene changed. Once more, Dr. Winters didn’t seem to move, though his lab coat was filthy and his previously neat hair stood up in gray clumps, revealing a lot more scalp. A different man lay on the slab, this one bound and gagged and clearly wide awake as Winters shoved the slab into the flames.

Another change of scene, and now Winters was completely bald and the person on the slab was a child.

“Jesus, no.” James took a step toward him, but the scene changed before he was forced to watch more.

Winters stood by the mortuary drawers again. He opened a door and slowly pulled out the drawer. James recognized the nurse’s uniform, but it had been years, no—decades since he’d seen her last. Nothing remained except bone and desiccated flesh in a decaying dress.

“I’ve done it, Gertie. I found him. The perfect sacrifice. He was at the cemetery. Can you believe it?” Winters laughed then selected a golden bowl from the cart he’d pushed over beside the open drawer. The bowl contained a heaped pile of ash that James needed no explanation for.

A slight shift of scene, and Winters was standing in the center of the room beside a circle eerily similar to the one upstairs, except this one was drawn in ash. The golden bowl sat empty outside the circle. Winters ran a scalpel along his inner arm.

“With my blood, I call him back.” He allowed the blood to drip upon the ashes.

Winters was a medium? James glanced at the counter full of lab equipment. With the ability to summon and bind souls, Winters was capable of worse things than bottling the essence of powerful emotions.

“His power will be mine, Gertie, then I will wake you!” Winters almost sang the last part.

A crash behind him, and James whirled to find a large blond man standing inside the doorway; his wide collar and flared slacks looked like something from the seventies, and perhaps it was.

“Did you find him? Is he here?” A woman in a red trench coat pushed past him. She stepped into view and a snarl rose in James’s throat.

It was Clarissa. The necromancer who’d held him prisoner only hours ago.

Chapter

4

J
ames tensed, ready to spring,
before he reminded himself that what he was seeing wasn’t really happening…now. Clarissa wore vintage 70s clothing, and she was much younger. Besides, it couldn’t be her. He’d killed her, or rather, his blood had.

“Xander, make him tell me where Carl is,” Clarissa said.

“You’re too late!” Winters cried, his tone gleeful. “You’re much too late!” He stepped into the circle.

A wind stirred the ashes, and they billowed into the air, swirling around the perimeter before coalescing into the form of a boy within the circle with him. The form was so perfect that James could make out the features of his face and even the individual strands of his hair. Winters had summoned the boy’s spirit from beyond, the circle providing a portal into the land of the dead.

“Carl!” Clarissa cried. “Baby, is that you?”

James flinched. Dear God, had this boy been her son?

“If death is what you seek, old man, let me introduce you.” Xander’s blue eyes faded to white.

A rattle from the mortuary drawers, and the nurse rose to her feet. It appeared that Clarissa’s large blond friend was a fellow necromancer.

“Gertrude?” Winters whispered.

She moved toward him, her step so disjointed, James expected her to collapse. Yet she kept lurching forward.

“But I haven’t finished the incantation.” Winters glanced from her to the ash figure of the boy. Had he been attempting to take the boy’s necromantic power to bring back his dead love?

Gertrude continued toward him until she joined him in the circle, dragging one foot across the line as she stepped within. The wind died and the ashes drifted to the floor.

“Gertrude.”

She reached up and wrapped her fleshless fingers around his throat.

Sobbing, Clarissa dropped to her knees beside the ashes.

Winters began to gasp for air.

“Easy.” Xander stopped beside the dead nurse and laid a hand on her shoulder. “Leave a little life in him.”

Another shift of scene, and this time it was Winters on the gurney. Xander and Clarissa were literally up to their elbows in his open chest.

“You got it?” Xander asked.

In answer, Clarissa lifted out his heart. James wasn’t squeamish, but this made the bile rise in his throat. The heart was still beating.

Time skipped forward again, and now Xander and Clarissa stood beside the open mortuary drawer where Gertrude’s body once more lay. In a macabre twist of what they’d just done, they dropped the glistening red heart into Gertrude’s chest.

Xander pushed Gertrude’s rotten rib cage closed.

“Animate her now.” Clarissa giggled.

Xander chucked as well, then pushed the drawer back into the wall before closing the door.

“Locked inside a corpse, he can’t move,” she said.

“Buried alive.”

“Forever.”

“Forever.” Xander brushed a tear from her cheek, leaving a smear of red.

Clarissa fell into his arms. “It’s not enough. It’s not enough!”

“I know.”

They stood that way for a long moment, then he released her.

“Let me gather his ashes.” She took a step toward what remained of the circle.

“No. They’re tainted. Let him go.”

She tried to speak, but choked instead.

“Focus on this one.” Xander pushed aside her coat and placed a hand on her rounded belly.

James stared at the red handprint Xander left on the white dress she wore. She was pregnant. With Neil?

“If he’s half as talented as his brother, I’ll name him my heir.”

Another hiccupping sob, and she pressed her face into his shoulder.

Wordlessly, Xander wrapped an arm around her shoulders and propelled her toward the door.

The scene faded, and the room slowly reverted to its present day form.

James blinked. He’d heard about residual haunting of a location, but he didn’t expect it to be so…chronological. It was almost as if someone wanted to show him the sequence of events that led to Winters’ downfall.

“An explanation,” he muttered, walking over to the bank of mortuary drawers. It had to be the nurse, Gertrude. She’d shown him a glimpse into the past. Perhaps that was why she remained here, paying penance for the harm caused by Winters’ obsession with her.

James pulled out the drawer.

Gertrude still lay on the steel tray, though only her bones were left, wrapped in thin swatches of what had once been white fabric. But those were passing observations. James stared at the blackened, shriveled organ lying among her ribs.

It twitched.

James resisted the urge to step back. He’d read about this in regard to lich making, but he’d never heard of it used as a punishment. “Necromancers are twisted bastards.”

“Indeed, they are,” a familiar voice said from directly behind him. Something slammed into James’s back. A rapid series of thunks accompanied piercing pain along his right shoulder blade. His awareness of the hound faded and his senses dulled. James threw himself to the side, his shoulder slamming against the mortuary drawers before he could turn to face his attacker.

Rowan smiled and held up the staple gun James had seen among the abandoned equipment upstairs. “Got you back.”

James’s jaw sagged, too stunned to speak. Rowan had shot several steel staples into him. Steel contained iron, and Rowan was very aware of what iron did to him.

“Not so cocky now, are you?” Rowan asked.

“Are you
trying
to kill me?”

“Didn’t
you
try to kill
me
?”

James reached over his shoulder, and the tip of his middle finger brushed a staple. He tried to slip a fingernail beneath and pry it out, but it wouldn’t budge. Trying to get better leverage, he gripped his shirt and pulled it away from his skin. The thin cotton fabric ripped, nowhere near strong enough to pull the staples free. James suddenly understood why Rowan had chosen that spot. The staples were sunk into bone.

He dropped his hands. At least he wasn’t bleeding. He wouldn’t bleed until the staples were pulled free, then his toxic blood would follow the iron through the hole in his flesh and become a danger to everyone around him.

James pushed himself off the mortuary drawers. “Look, I’m sorry.”

“You say that now.” Rowan raised the staple gun, pointing it at James’s chest.

James stopped. He could already feel the iron starting to drain him. He didn’t need any more. “What’s wrong with you?”

“Surely, you’re not afraid of a this.” He gestured with the gun then tossed it aside. It landed on the gurney with a metallic clang. “How about this?” Fire lit in Rowan’s eyes and the air ignited, dancing across the space between them.

James stood still as the flames flashed past. They winked out and Rowan arched a brow.

“Why do you look surprised?” James asked. “You know I’m immune to fire.”

“Just wanted to check.” Rowan giggled.

A chill crawled up James’s spine. Rowan didn’t giggle, nor would he abuse his magic like that. James narrowed his eyes, but cut off from the hound, he couldn’t see Rowan’s soul.

“You’re possessed.”

Rowan grinned.

James fisted his hands. “Who are you?” He longed to look with the hound’s sight. He’d never seen another soul actually invade the living. If he had his ability, would he be able to soul-rip the parasite?

“I should thank you,” the spirit riding Rowan said. “You delivered a nearly empty vessel. Dropped him right in my lap.”

Unsettled, James rubbed the gooseflesh rising on his arms. That sounded a bit too much like the bodies left behind after he soul-ripped them. He remembered the way Rowan’s skin had grown translucent within the portal. How close had he come to death?

“Do you know how long I’ve waited for a suitable vessel? I’m so tired of this place.” The voice was Rowan’s, but the inflection was wrong, as if he spoke with an accent. It reminded James of a voice he’d heard before.

“Winters,” James whispered.

“You sound so—” Rowan suddenly doubled over. “James—”

“Rowan, fight him.” James took a step toward him, longing to help. Rowan had a strong will. If anyone could break free—

Rowan abruptly straightened, his orange eyes meeting James’s with a crazy light that had nothing to do with his magic.

“He’s too weak.” Rowan, or rather, Winters chuckled. “But he won’t let me remain long. We’ll need to conclude our business before he grows too strong for me to hold.”

James’s relief that Rowan would recover was tempered by Winters’ insistence that he had delivered Rowan to him. As if Winters had drawn them to the crematorium for this purpose.

“We have no business,” James said. “Leave this man, and I will make your trip to hell a quick one.”

“How will you manage that, grim? You’re cut off from that realm you call home.”

James frowned. “You know what I am.”

“Indeed,” Winters answered. “You are this one’s greatest adversary.” He thumped Rowan’s chest. “You are the soulless one who would steal the heart of magic.”

James stilled. No one except Marian knew about that. Winters had taken that knowledge from Rowan’s mind. Fury overrode thought, and he leapt across the intervening space. He caught Rowan by the upper arms and took him to the ground.

Winters grunted as he collided with the floor. “Careful. You don’t want to damage your friend, or is it…leader.” His eyes took on a far away look as he considered something. “Hmm, yes. Not just your leader—”

“Get out of his mind,” James snarled.

Winters laughed. “What other secrets does he hold?”

James struggled to keep his rage in check. He didn’t want to hurt Rowan.

“Ah, a woman.” Winters chuckled again. “The two of you love the same woman.”

James clenched his teeth so tight he could barely speak. “Get. Out.”

“Addie,” Winters continued, his orange eyes a bit unfocused. He blinked, then started to grin. “Sorry, dead man, she chose your friend here. More than once. The shower memories are especially—”

Rowan tensed beneath him and squeezed his eyes shut; an unintelligible stream of curses left his lips.

“Fight him, Rowan.” James knew his words weren’t much clearer. “Force him out.” Then Rowan could ash these staples, and James would take Winters to hell.

Rowan convulsed beneath him, then went still.

“Rowan?”

A pause, then he started to laugh. “He didn’t want to share that,” Winters said. “Hmm. He fights so hard when I get close to her. What…” His brows rose. “An alchemist?” He whispered the word with a reverence that sent a thrill of fear along James’s nerves.

James’s grip on Rowan’s arms tightened. “What do you want?” He longed to pull him off the floor and slam him back down, but it wouldn’t be Winters he’d hurt.