The Blood Alchemist (The Final Formula Series, Book 2) (5 page)

I stumbled away and thumped my back against the wall of the elevator.

George, the eldest of the Huntsman brothers, watched me through narrowed eyes. The collision hadn’t budged him.

I pushed off the wall and tugged my jacket straight. “To what do I owe the pleasure of your charming company?”

“You can tell us where our brother is.” George leaned close, trying to intimidate me with his size. He spent more time with his weights than anything else, and he had the body to prove it. Not overly tall, he made up for what he lacked vertically in bulk. That might cower some people, but muscle intimidated me far less than a quick mind.

Henry stepped into the elevator with us and the door slid closed.

“What’s wrong?” I asked. “Did your necro buddy renege on the deal?” The last I’d seen of the Huntsman boys, they’d been working with Neil, a necromancer and former colleague from my Alchemica days. “Let me guess, he offered you the Final Formula in exchange for James.”

“The final what?” Henry demanded.

“The Elixir of Life.” George caught both my shoulders and pushed me back against the wall. Like Henry, his face hadn’t seen a razor in a few weeks. “What do
you
know of that?”

I frowned at George’s question. Come to think of it, he hadn’t been in the room when Neil forced me to recite the Formula.

“It just seemed like something he would offer.” I considered the potion vial I had tucked in my pocket. It would work well in this small space. Unfortunately, it would work just as well on me. I’d bide my time. Meanwhile, maybe I could figure out what these idiots were up to.

“What do you want from me?” I asked.

“Why is our brother always with that Element?” George’s hazel eyes narrowed. “Did you give James to him?”

“James doesn’t belong to me. He doesn’t belong to anyone.”

Henry snorted, and George glanced over at him, a faint curl to his lips.

“That includes you guys,” I added.

They didn’t get a chance to respond as the elevator slowed to a stop and the doors slid open, revealing the busy first-floor lobby.

George captured my upper arm in his too tight grip. “Come on.”

“You don’t have to manhandle me. I’m coming.”

He didn’t release my arm, but I didn’t protest. This wasn’t a good place to make a scene. Of course, being dragged around by two good-sized guys in camo didn’t make for a discreet departure. Every head in the lobby turned to stare at us. It didn’t help that my image currently graced the front page of the
Cincinnati Enquirer
.

We hit the exterior door and a wet wind slapped me in the face. The storm had picked up strength while I was inside. I threw up an arm to shield my eyes, stumbling against George before I righted myself.

“Knock it off, alchemist.” His growl wasn’t a bad imitation of James’s.

“Hey, there she is!”

I followed the sound and discovered the remnants of the rain-soaked protesters staring at us.

“It’s the alchemist!” another shouted.

A handful of people arriving and leaving the hospital stopped to stare.

“Thanks a lot,” I muttered to George.

“Keep moving.” He jerked my arm again. The bastard was going to leave a bruise.

The protesters started toward us, muttering words of encouragement to one another. I caught “witch” and a similar sounding word. Wow, these people were really pissed off. Maybe I should offer a public apology for relieving pain and saving lives.

The rumble of an engine preceded a squeal of tires, and George’s big 4X4 stopped at the curb, Brian behind the wheel. He kicked open the door and jumped out. To my utter astonishment, he held a crossbow in hand.

The protesters skidded to a halt, and when he turned the bow in their direction, half their number fled screaming. So much for not causing a scene.

“You guys are utter morons,” I said. “I mean, I always suspected, but wow…”

“Get in.” George shoved me toward the open truck door.

“Hey, let her go!” Era ran toward us.

Brian whirled around, bow coming up.

“No!” I screamed.

The quarrel released with a twang, but Era must have seen it coming and tried to dodge. The quarrel took her through the shoulder. The impact knocked her back and she dropped to a knee.

“Don’t waste the special quarrels,” George said as Brian reloaded the bow.

Era pushed to her feet. Her hand drifted to her shoulder, and the muscles in her jaw tensed, but she showed no other evidence of pain. “I said, let her go.”

George reached behind his back and pulled out a handgun. My blood ran cold. That gun was the same caliber as my bullets.

I gripped George’s wrist. “What are you loaded with?”

“What does it matter?” He caught my wrist with his free hand and squeezed until I released him. “Unless…” His hazel eyes shifted to Era, narrowing. She had doubled over, muttering something I didn’t catch.

I shoved a hand into my pocket, fumbling for the vial.

“Unless she’s magical,” George said.

I looked up, understanding. “You know what my bullets can do.”

“Yeah, I know.” He cast me a glance and sneered.

He knew? I found the vial. Sucking in a breath, I smashed it to the ground at George’s feet. A greenish-brown cloud billowed up. It wasn’t much: a weak, alchemical variation of mustard gas. A cloud to obscure the user and confuse the target while noxious fumes burned the sensitive tissues in the nose and throat. The Huntsman boys began to cough immediately.

Era looked up, her eyes going wide as I ran toward her.

“Run!” I grabbed her arm and pulled her around. My eyes began to water as the cloud enveloped us.

Era coughed, but managed to run beside me. The limo was closer than the hospital entrance, so I steered her toward it.

Tires squealed behind us, and I looked back to see George’s 4X4 swerving away from the curb. The cloud of brown-green gas dispersed in its wake. The truck did a U-turn and barreled back toward us.

“Hurry!” I pushed Era into the limo.

“Marlowe!” I called to the driver, climbing in after Era. “We’ve got company!”

“I see. Hold on!”

I closed the door then fell on the floor as he jerked the limo to the left, leaping away from the curb.

Era gripped the edge of the seat, her complexion pale. I wanted to go to her, but it was pointless to try while Marlowe was driving like a bat out of hell.

He drove through the side streets, seeming to choose direction at random. I wondered what the people outside the car saw. A banged up Volkswagen or something else. Illusions aside, there was no denying that Marlowe was a damn good driver. It might look like he was driving a compact car through these narrow streets, but the limo was anything but compact.

We took an onramp to the nearest interstate, and the swerving lessened. I was able to climb up on the seat beside Era. She sat with her eyes squeezed shut, a sheen of sweat already coating her face. The shoulder of her coat was bloodstained around the quarrel shaft, but not excessively. Or so I told myself. I had no clue, but figured she’d be bleeding a lot more if it had hit an artery or something.

“Era?” I squeezed her wrist, just above her clasped hands. “Hey, you with me?”

“I can’t…feel anything.”

My stomach clenched. “In your hand?” Was it nerve damage or—

“No. I mean, the air. I can’t feel it.” She opened her eyes and her gaze locked with mine. “It’s like before, when everything was so…hazy.”

I swallowed.

“I lost them,” Marlowe called back over the seat. “Where to?”

I didn’t want to take Era back to the hospital. “The clinic. Would you call the manor? Let them know what’s going on?”

Marlowe agreed and I turned back to Era.

“Is that okay with you?”

“Oh God,” she whispered. “What if it comes back? I lost three months!”

“You’ve been shot with an alchemically treated quarrel. It’s just Extinguishing Dust. It knocks out your magic, but it’ll wear off in—”

“Addie, you’ve got to help me.” She caught my hands, her grip so tight it hurt. “You cured me before.” She leaned toward me and the fletched end of the quarrel bumped my shoulder. She gasped.

“Just stay still,” I said. “We’ll be there in—”

A buzzing noise drew my attention to the armrest. Era’s phone. Apprehensive, I brought it to my ear. “Hello?”

“What have you done?” Rowan.

“I didn’t do anything.” Maybe I did deserve his condemnation, but not for this. “James’s idiot brothers showed up at the hospital. They shot Era.”

“What the hell was she doing there? With you?”

“Addie, it’s getting worse.” Era’s voice cut out on a whimper.

“Can we do this later?” I asked Rowan. “Era’s having a bad reaction to the Extinguishing Dust.”

“Shit. Where are you?” Rowan demanded.

I leaned to the side and saw a passing road sign. We were only a few miles from my shop. “Meet me at my place. I have an idea.”

“Addie.” There was a warning note in his tone.

“She’s freaking out. She thinks the loss of her magic indicates that she’s…relapsing.” I pulled in a breath. “I can do this, Rowan.”

A pause. “Fine. I’ll be there in ten minutes.” He hung up without saying goodbye.

I frowned at the phone. “The man really needs to work on his phone skills.”

Era didn’t react to the quip. She squeezed her eyes closed and rolled her head from side to side against the seat back. I took her hand and turned to give Marlowe our new destination. I hoped this worked.

Chapter
4

I
had Marlowe drop me at the front door and directed him to park in the tiny lot behind the shop. That way, he didn’t have to maintain an illusion. A limo wasn’t a common sight in this neighborhood, and at the moment, I preferred to keep a low profile. So far, I’d been failing.

I told Era to stay in the car. The less she moved, the better. I was just here for a formula. I couldn’t do anything about the quarrel, and I didn’t dare try. Elements might heal a lot faster than the average person, but it wasn’t something I was willing to experiment with. I’d leave that to the medical professionals.

I found Ian in the lab, sleeves rolled up and intently watching an old-fashioned copper retort. He might be a necromancer, but he had an outstanding work ethic.

“Ran into a problem,” I said, hurrying to the rack where I kept my finished formulas—the ones I didn’t offer for sale. I gave him a quick recap. He knew about my stint at the gun shop, he just didn’t know that James was a grim.

I selected a vial of amber liquid and returned to my workbench. It was Emil’s formula, the one he’d been selling to mundane humans, claiming it enabled them to temporarily wield magic. I didn’t know if that was true, but I knew it had a powerful effect on the magical—pun intended. But I’d need to dilute it.

A knock on the back door startled me. I tucked Emil’s vial in my pocket before going to answer it.

Marlowe waited on the stoop. The driver’s door and back door stood open on the limo. The rain had slacked off, though a light mist still fell.

“She’s not doing well, Miss.” Marlowe rung his hands, glancing from me to where Era paced behind the limo. Even from the distance, I could see the bloodstain around the quarrel had grown. That concerned me. Shouldn’t her rapid healing slow the bleeding? Or did she keep aggravating the wound? I needed to quiet her to give me a chance to dilute Emil’s potion for her.

“What happened to her before,” Marlowe said, his voice a whisper, “is it happening again?”

“No. She’s just freaking out. I’ll take care of it.”

I rushed back inside, returning to my rack of formulas. I selected a vial of Knockout Powder and a second vial of lime-green liquid—the antidote for the Knockout Powder. I removed the cap and downed the liquid.

“Rowan’s on his way over,” I called, heading for the back door. “Stay alert.”

“I can’t leave this.” Intent on his work, Ian didn’t look up. “Keep him outside.”

I huffed out a breath and headed for the back door. Anything to complicate my life.

No one had moved in my brief absence. Marlowe still waited on the stoop, his expression anxious as he watched Era pace. I didn’t stop to reassure him.

I hurried down the steps and popped off the vial cap with my thumb. With the way she was acting, I might have to move fast.

“Era?” I stepped into her path. “You’re making the bleeding worse. Let’s get back in the car.”

She skidded to a stop, her wide amber eyes on the vial in my hand. “An alchemist. It was an alchemist.”

My blood ran cold. Did she remember?

Abruptly, she turned and ran.

“Era!” I sprang after her. Once she got moving, I’d never catch her. She had at least seven inches on me. Those long legs would outdistance me in no time.

Era glanced back over her shoulder just as her foot hit a patch of oil and slipped out from under her. She slammed into the back of the limo and cried out when the impact drove the quarrel deeper.

I gripped her arm, intent on pulling her around to face me so I could throw the powder in her face.

“No!” She grabbed me by the upper arms, and before I could react, slammed me against the alley wall a few feet from the car. Her fingers dug into my biceps. “I’m not going back.”

Her eyes darted to either side and her grip loosened. She was about to run.

Freed of her grip, I flicked the vial upward and the powder hit her in the face.

Tires squealed behind me, and I spun to face the sound. Rowan’s Camaro slid to a stop beside the limo. The driver’s door flew open.

“Stay back!” I shouted at him. “It’s Knockout Powder!”

Era gasped, jerking my attention back to her. She doubled over, her grip so tight I had to bite my lip to keep from crying out. She started to fall, but I caught her. My back groaned as I struggled to keep her from landing face down on the quarrel.

Fire ignited the world around us, burning away the powder. Suddenly, Rowan was there, catching her around the waist and keeping her upright.

“Era,” he whispered.

She lifted her chin to stare up at him, then her eyes rolled back and she went limp in his arms.

Rowan’s attention shifted to me. “You hit her with Knockout Powder?” Fire still burned in his eyes.

“She was losing it. I was afraid she’d hurt herself.”

Rowan grunted and lifted Era in his arms. “Marlowe!” His sudden shout caused me to jump. “Help me get her in the car,” Rowan said when Marlowe joined him. “We’ll take her to the clinic and get the quarrel removed.”