The Blood Alchemist (The Final Formula Series, Book 2) (24 page)

“I’m sorry I called you,” I finished. “But I couldn’t see a way out of—”

“It’s okay,” he whispered, and to my surprise, wrapped an arm around my shoulders.

I leaned into him and, after a moment, turned to wrap my arms around his waist. His other arm came around me, and I squeezed my eyes closed. Oh God, I needed this. We sat that way for a long time, my ear pressed to his silent heart.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I never should have left you.”

“No. No, you did the right thing.” I pulled back out of his embrace and rubbed my eyes. Damn, I’d cried a lot today. “You get to go to college.”

“That hardly compensates for losing my best friend.”

I choked on a sob and rubbed the heel of my hand across my eyes. “You never lost me, but I deserved it, so please don’t apologize.”

“Addie.”

“Let’s not go there.”

He sighed, but did as I asked. We sat in silence for a few moments, listening to the wood pop in the stove.

“There is one thing I need to apologize for,” he said.

I glanced over.

“I shouldn’t have kissed you.” He kept his head down, toying with the tarp in his lap.

Oh. I probably should have seen that coming, but with everything else going on, it hadn’t been on my mind. I didn’t want to go there, either, but if we were clearing the air, I had to.

“The fault was mine,” I said. “I never told you that I thought of you as—”

“A younger brother?” he cut in. “Yes, you did. I just chose to ignore it.”

“I think you’re being too hard on yourself. You thought I was twenty-two for the first three months of our acquaintance.”

“Even so…”

“Come on, let it go.” I bumped my shoulder against his. When he didn’t respond, I plunged on. “Have you ever loved anyone before?”

“You mean, aside from my family?” He snorted. “No.”

“It’s amazing you turned out as you did.” I shook my head. “But there’s your problem. Having never experienced love, you just mistook one for the other. Platonic for something else.”

He didn’t speak, so I hurried on.

“One day, you’ll meet someone, and then you’ll see the difference.”

“A girl who accepts me for what I am: a dead man with toxic blood?”

“Any girl who gets to know the real you won’t care about those things. Trust me.”

He pressed his lips together, but if he wanted to add something, he didn’t.

I sighed. “This is one of those things you can’t be told, you have to experience it.”

He looked over, a frown wrinkling his brow. “If you can’t remember your past, how can you know that?”

“Emil’s memory wipe wasn’t clean. I can’t remember people or events, but it’s like the knowledge, the emotions remain.”

His expression moved toward confusion.

“I don’t know how to describe it. My forty-two years of life experience are still here.” I touched my temple. “But it feels as if it belongs to someone else.”

“That’s…disturbing.”

“Maybe a tad schizophrenic.” I made a face.

“But if you took the Formula…”

“No! No. I’m fine with crazy. Not so good with sociopath. Speaking of…” I got to my feet. “We need to do something about your brothers.”

“Like what?”

“I have a plan.” I walked over to the old still.

“Should I be concerned?”

“Possibly.” I pulled a wooden box of scrap parts from a nearby shelf and began to dig through it.

“A formula?” he asked.

“Alchemy is out, so I’m going with the only strength I have left.”

He sat up straighter. “Oh no.”

“Yep, I’m going to do my Fire Element impersonation.” I pulled a jar of moonshine off the shelf. “But with a tad less finesse.”

“My brothers were real dumbasses to take you.” He frowned. “They have me. Why are they still keeping you?”

“I promised to brew them the Final Formula—with your blood.”

James’s eyes widened. “What would that do?”

“I’m—” I remembered what Ian had told me about Paracelsus, whose talents, like opening a portal, sounded necromantic. Maybe it hadn’t been a necromancer he’d taken the power from.

“Addie?”

“Well, I can’t brew it for them anyway.”

“What are you thinking about?” James cut in.

“I’m concerned about Rowan. He’s too much of a liability. If the Extinguishing Dust wears off—”

“They’ll keep him weak.”

“Weak?”

“Lack of food, cold…and blood loss.”

I wondered how often James had experienced just that. And why had he always remained so loyal to his brothers?

“They’ve already started.” I thought about Henry’s butterfly collection comment.

“We need to get out of here. The sooner, the better.” James slipped a finger under his iron collar.

Rowan wasn’t the only one they were keeping weak.

Morning arrived, and though shivering and hungry, I was hard at work in my new lab. It took a great deal of effort to focus on my work and not distract myself thinking about Rowan lying in the next room, helpless and hurting.

George had been surprisingly efficient with the ingredient list, and a few hours later, I had three vials—or shot glasses—of my
formula
. I hated to make Rowan suffer any longer than necessary, but I couldn’t give the Huntsman boys their potion twenty minutes after I started. Instead, I spent the time cluttering up the lab to give it some semblance of verisimilitude. Good thing they didn’t know how long it took to brew the Final Formula.

Brian lounged in one corner, supposedly keeping an eye on me. But when he wasn’t making suggestive remarks about my attire or what he thought I’d been doing with James, he was dozing. I had to wake him to go collect his brothers. The potion was ready for James’s blood.

It seemed only moments before Brian returned with his brothers in tow, Henry leading James, now clad in gray sweatpants, by his chain. They gathered around my cluttered bench eyeing the shot glasses.

“You better have gotten this right, alchemist.” Henry tapped a finger against his knife handle. “Any deceit and the Element dies.”

I looked up at George, but he didn’t countermand his brother. I swallowed. I was taking a huge gamble, but without alchemy, what could I do?

“Here’s how it works,” I said, trying to adopt a confident tone. “It’ll take several days to come to full effect. In the meantime, you will experience some discomfort as your body remakes itself.”

“Define discomfort,” George said.

“Cramps, muscle aches, that sort of thing.” I shrugged.

“Like the flu?” Brian asked. He eyed the glasses with a lot of apprehension.

“Yes, but without the cough and sinus issues,” I answered. “There’s also the added uncertainty of James’s blood. I’ve never used grim blood.”

“His blood doesn’t bother us,” Brian said, his tone smug. “We use it all the—”

George elbowed him, cutting off whatever he was going to say.

I glanced at James, but he kept his attention on the glasses. I’d never asked, but now I wondered how frequently his brothers had tapped into the power of his blood.

“You’re still messing with the magic of the dead,” I continued. “This is borderline necromancy.”

“His blood won’t harm us,” George said.

“You think
that’s
my concern?”

“Get on with it,” Henry added.

“Each glass needs a drop of his blood, then it’s yours to consume.” I laid a wrapped needle and syringe on the counter. I’d found a whole box of them in the little closet near the door.

“That won’t be necessary.” Henry drew his Bowie knife.

“The needle is made of steel. All the formula needs is a drop.” Maybe I should have insisted on drawing James’s blood myself, but I didn’t want his brothers to know I was immune to it. If I could have just found some gloves—

Without warning, Henry brought the knife down on the back of James’s hand where it rested on the counter.

I cried out, then tried to muffle the sound by covering my mouth with both hands. I could envision Henry lopping off a couple of James’s fingers, but when I forced myself to look, I saw that he’d stabbed the back of James’s hand, impaling it to the counter.

“Aw, she cares for you, little brother.” Henry grinned.

James growled low in his throat, the sound surprisingly malicious even without that otherworldly power.

Henry jerked the knife free, getting a grunt from James. Chuckling, Henry used the blood-smeared knife to stir one of the glasses.

Without being asked, James fisted his hand and allowed the blood to drip into the next glass, then the final one.

I offered James a paper towel, giving Henry a glare.

Henry smiled and wiped his blade on his pants leg before sheathing the knife. He caught James’s hand and brought it to his mouth.

I looked away, not wanting to watch Henry lap up his blood. There was just something so wrong about it. A violation that I suspected James had endured for a long time.

“Addie, take a drink,” George said, drawing my attention back to him.

“What?”

“Did you think we’d just drink something you made?” Henry asked.

“George saw the ingredient list; Brian watched me brew it.” It wasn’t my fault he’d slept through most of it.

“She’s not drinking my blood,” James said.

I looked up, silently thanking him for the out. “Besides,” I said to George, “even if it didn’t kill me, you wouldn’t know if it worked. I’ve already taken the Final Formula.”

Henry snorted. “Right. You’re immortal.”

“Yes. I’m also forty-two.”

Henry frowned.

“Brian, drink the potion,” George said.

“Yeah?” Brian picked up one of the glasses. “You sure?”

“You watched her brew it, right?” George asked.

Brian glanced at me, then back to George. “Of course.”

“Then go ahead.”

“It’ll be like tossing back a shot of James’s blood.” Henry made a show of licking his lips.

James stepped away from him, and I hurried to his side, wrapping an arm around his waist. Odd that I’d never seen any evidence of this when I’d lived with them. Of course, James had been permitted to change form at will, so he wouldn’t have needed healing.

Brian tipped up the glass and downed the contents. “Ugh,” he gasped, dropping the glass on the floor and doubling over to cough.

My heart thumped against my ribs. It shouldn’t take effect yet. Not for an hour or more. It needed to reach his intestines before—

Brian straightened. “Damn, that tastes like skunk piss.”

“You’ve drunk skunk piss before?” Henry asked him, and got a finger gesture in return.

Henry reached for a glass. “Now?” he asked George.

“Now we wait.” George eyed me as he spoke.

I huffed out a breath. “I wish you’d said as much. It’s most potent after the blood is first added. We could have waited until you were ready to do the other glasses.”

“Hell with this.” Henry picked up a glass. “He’s fine.” He waved his free hand at Brian. Without further comment, he downed the contents of his glass. “Fuck.” He coughed a few times before slamming the glass down. “You did that on purpose.” He glared at me.

I arched a brow, but didn’t answer. He was right.

“Well?” George asked.

“I feel it,” Brian answered for Henry. He closed his eyes and tipped back his head. It must be the blood. My mixture had no other magic in it.

“He’s right,” Henry said to George. “I feel it, too.”

George studied them a moment longer and then downed his potion. If the taste bothered him, he gave no outward sign.

“I did as you asked,” I said into the silence. “Let Rowan go.”

Henry snorted, but refrained from comment when George frowned at him.

“Take them downstairs,” George said.

I released James and took a step toward George. “But you promised.”

“No, I didn’t.” George met my eyes, and I caught the faint green glow in those hazel depths. I’d seen his eyes do that once before, when he licked a quarrel tip covered in James’s blood. I hoped I hadn’t underestimated the power of that blood. If it gave his brothers an immunity against my mixture, we were screwed.

Henry caught the chain dangling from James’s collar and jerked him toward the door. “Come, dog. Time to return to your kennel. Make sure your sweet-assed bitch trots along behind.”

James fisted his hands, but I caught his forearm, hurrying to keep pace with him. As we stepped out into the hall, I glanced at the closed door to the other bedroom.

Soon, Rowan. Soon.

Chapter
19

“H
ow much longer?” James asked, pacing at the end of his chain.

“Try it now.” I stepped away from the timber where his hasp was mounted, rotating the burning stick so the flames didn’t reach my hand. It had taken forever to char the timber where the large bolts held the hasp in place. The wood was aged and damp, making it hard to burn.

James gripped the chain in both hands and gave it a yank. A quarter inch of space now gaped between the back of the hasp and the timber.

“Try throwing your weight against it.”

“This is so frustrating,” he grumbled. “I could have ripped it out without all the burning if I wasn’t bound in iron.”

“If you weren’t bound in iron, we wouldn’t be doing this.”

He gave me a frown.

I arched a brow, and he finally relented with a snort.

He stepped closer to the timber, then, with a backward lunge, threw himself against the chain. For an instant, the chain stretched taut; then it suddenly gave way.

I pressed my hands to my mouth as the now free hasp hurled toward his face, but James’s reflexes were still lightning quick, and he managed to duck in time. The hasp slammed into the support timber behind him and clattered to the floor.

“I hope my brothers are incapacitated. They’d certainly hear that.”

“They should be by now.” Or so I hoped.

The burning stick still in hand, I walked over to the stairs where the next part of my plan waited. I’d manhandled the old still up the steps, propping it against the sealed doors.

“Let me do that.” James moved to my side and held out a hand for the branch.

“It has a fuse. I can—”

“Yes, but I’m quicker and already dead.”

I exhaled, but passed him the branch. “It’s not that dangerous.”

He raised his brows. Okay, maybe it was.

I moved over behind the support timber furthest from the door and pulled the tarp around my shoulders. Filled with moonshine, I’d made the old still into a crude bomb. I’d positioned it so it would explode into the doors and blow them open. The other option would be to set them on fire and burn our way out, but smoke inhalation would be a factor. Of course, if I’d misjudged and the still blew inward…well, I wouldn’t think about that.

“Ready?” James called.

“Light it.”

He touched the stick to the wick I’d woven with braided strips of fabric from the edges of the tarp. The old fabric ignited immediately, and he dropped the stick and ran back toward me, his chain clanking against the iron collar.

He threw himself over me an instant before a ground-shaking boom left my ears ringing. A flash of heat I felt even through the tarp was followed by a rain of wood pieces and bits of rusted metal. The old still must have been in worse shape than I realized.

As my hearing returned, I heard the crackle of flames. I nudged James. “You okay?”

He sat up and pushed away from me, resting on his haunches. His wide eyes were focused on the stairs.

I turned to look and blinked in surprise. The doors had been annihilated—along with a chunk of the floor above and the walls to either side. I’d literally blown a hole in the side of the cabin.