The Final Formula Read online

“There!” a voice shouted from close by.

  I pushed myself back up and saw two men in black fatigues only yards away. The same two men? If they’d survived the blast as well, perhaps it’d been our location within the building that saved us.

  “I found her!” the same man shouted.

  I didn’t know who they were or what they wanted with me, but I wasn’t going to sit here and find out.

  With a grunt, I pushed myself to my feet. The world swam around me, and I stumbled off the stone slab using a partially standing wall to catch myself. No way I could outrun these guys. It’d have to be a potion then.

  I slipped a hand along my ribs to the vials I kept hidden among the folds of my robes. The bodice fit close, the gathered fabric forming a multitude of little pockets, the perfect size for a potion vial. I found nothing.

  The two men advanced toward me. My head clearer now, I noticed that neither moved well. They hadn’t come through the explosion unscathed. Maybe I could make a run for it. I shifted sideways, back to the wall. An opening gaped a few feet away.

  “Stay right there,” the more agile of the pair told me. He picked his way through the rubble, cursing when a loose stone nearly felled him.

  I slipped through the gap and ran.

  At first, I didn’t think I’d escape the debris-laden remains of the Alchemica. I nearly went down twice, but once I reached the street, I did much better. Running warmed my sore muscles, and I stumbled less with each block I put between me and the Alchemica.

  My head pounded, but I couldn’t stop to rest. A block back, the men were still following. They kept up better than I expected. I darted across the street. When I reached the curb opposite, I glanced back. Now three men in dark clothing were following me. Three? Had they picked up a recruit along the way? I increased my pace and turned the corner before they caught up.

  An alley too narrow for cars branched off to my right. A dumpster blocked the far end, but enough space remained for me to squeeze through to the street beyond. I turned and jogged toward the gap, hoping it’d be too small for my pursuers to crawl through.

  The sickening sweet odor of rotting garbage grew stronger the closer I got. Breathing through my mouth helped. I glanced over my shoulder, and my foot slipped in one of the iridescent puddles beside the dumpster. I staggered to the side and smacked into the wall, somehow managing not to land on my butt in the putrid slime.

  “I told you she took this alley.”

  My stumble had cost me. I spun and discovered that the trio tailing me had caught up. Out of habit, the fingers of my right hand drifted to the empty vial pockets along my side. The men fanned out, blocking me in. The third man hadn’t been in the explosion. His fatigues weren’t dirt streaked, and he didn’t limp like the other two.

  I backed toward the dumpster.

  “Where you going, pretty girl?” the new guy asked.

  Wow. Flattery. I was charmed. My fingers itched for a blow tube of Knockout Powder. He wouldn’t be so confident then.

  My back thumped against the dumpster with a metallic clang.

  “Got you cornered.” He was close enough that I could see his overlapping front teeth when he smiled.

  Yeah? “Marigold, dried and chopped.” I pressed my lips together. So much for the witty comeback. On the plus side, my head felt better.

  “What’d she say?” one of the others asked, and all three laughed.

  Jerks. Maybe Knockout Powder was too humane for these losers. How about—

  Something brushed by my hip, and I sidestepped with a gasp. An enormous dog stopped a few feet in front of me, his shaggy black hair darker than the shadows around us. He looked like a cross between a rottweiler and an Irish wolfhound, but bigger. Built for speed, but loaded in muscle.

  Monster Dog growled, and every hair on my body stood on end. No hound I’d ever met made a sound like that. The three men backed away. A strange green glow now lit the alley, making their horrified expressions visible. Definitely not a natural dog.

  I stepped away until my back pressed against the dumpster again. The giant canine snarled, and as one, the thugs let out a scream and ran. For an instant, only the dog and I remained. A soft growl—I swear it sounded almost like a chuckle—and then the hound gave chase.

  Strangely, I couldn’t hear the dog’s tread, though I could see his toenails scrapping the pavement. The thunder of fleeing boots I heard fine. I sagged against the dumpster, alone now. But what if the dog came back?

  I squeezed between the dumpster and the wall. My small size proved advantageous for once. No way that dog could fit in here.

  I huddled against that grimy wall, holding my robes out of the pungent filth, and waited. I couldn’t hear the men or their monstrous pursuer. Did I dare squeeze out the other side? Running footsteps in the alley put a halt to that plan, and I sank lower in the shadows.

  “Hello?” a voice called.

  I leaned to the side. A young man stood a few yards from the dumpster. He bent over to grip his thighs, taking several deep breaths. I must have made some noise because he looked up and saw me. He smiled and straightened.

  “Are you okay? I saw those guys harassing you.” He waved a hand toward the street beyond the dumpster. Perhaps he’d seen them from the other side, but couldn’t squeeze through the gap. He must have circled around.

  He stepped over a thick puddle to stop outside my hiding place. I wanted to ask if that’d been his dog, but didn’t want to shatter his illusion of my sanity by speaking.

  He offered me a hand. “Do you need some help?” I followed his arm upward and met his green eyes.

  Chapter

  2

  “Addie?”

  James leaned close, wearing the same worried expression he’d worn then. I lay on my bed in the little room over the gun shop. James sat beside me.

  “Did it work?” he asked.

  “Sort of.” I sat up and massaged my temples. My head ached.

  “Sort of?” James got to his feet.

  “It returned my memories to just before the Alchemica was destroyed, but nothing earlier.”

  “So, you know what happened to the Alchemica?”

  “I’m not sure. There were guys in black fatigues who tried to abduct me, and—” I looked up, remembering those gray robes. “The Elements were there.”

  “You’re certain?”

  “I saw one of them, when everything was on fire. The Flame Lord stood just feet away from me. I recognized the robes.”

  “But the paper said an explosion in the lab destroyed the Alchemica.” James stared at me as if I’d just suggested that the sun really did revolve around the earth.

  “Maybe, maybe not.” I rose to my feet and walked over to my workbench to disassemble the crude apparatus I’d constructed to brew my potion.

  James joined me. “What now?”

  I kept my hands busy while I thought about it. I still had no idea who’d given me the memory mangling potion or why. Today’s potion had probably taken me back to the moment the other took effect. If that was the case, then my memory loss and the destruction of the Alchemica weren’t connected. Unless I’d learned something I shouldn’t—like the Element’s plans. But the Elements didn’t have access to a potion like that. Hell, they’d probably see its use as beneath them.

  I rubbed both hands over my face. I’d created more questions than I’d answered. How were those men in fatigues involved? Did they work for the Elements? Another alchemist? If so, I was in trouble. As far as I knew, all the Alchemica alchemists were dead.

  “I want to visit the Alchemica,” I said.

  “It’s condemned.”

  “I need to see it. I now know these bands are real, and it’s the only place in the world I know I’ve been to before. It might stir some more memories.” I hoped so. I didn’t know any other memory-restoring potions.
r />   “I don’t think it’s safe for you to go back there.”

  “It burned three months ago. No one is sitting around waiting for the residents to return.” I didn’t have a car; I had to talk James into taking me.

  “You really think it’ll help?”

  He was coming around, but I resisted the urge to smile. “It’s all I have. Please?”

  His shoulders fell, and I moved in for the kill.

  “Supper’s on me.”

  “You want to go now?”

  “Could we?”

  He shook his head, though a smile threatened. “For the record, I still think it’s a bad idea.”

  I snatched up my jacket and followed him out of my workshop and back down the stairs. I stopped beside the alley door while he selected a coat from the rack.

  “We can drive through Mickey Ds,” I said.

  “You sure you can afford it?” He grinned openly now, well aware of how much he ate.

  I didn’t get a chance to comment. Two forms in camo charged down the hall and slammed into James. I jumped out of the way, my hand going for a vial tucked in my front pocket, as they shoved James against the wall opposite the door. I hesitated. It was Brian and Henry—two of James’s three brothers.

  “Outside. Now.” Henry pulled James off the wall and slammed his hands against James’s chest, shoving him into the door to the alley. The doorway I stood in.

  I had time to gasp, and then James slammed into me. My back collided with the door, but it offered little resistance. I windmilled my arms, trying to regain my balance as I teetered on the top step.

  James turned and caught me.

  “Move.” Henry gave James another shove.

  Overbalanced, we tumbled down the steps and landed hard on the lumpy cobbles of the alley, not far from the car with the Hamilton County plates.

  “Addie! Are you okay?” James pushed himself up on an elbow to stare down at me. His legs were tangled with mine, but he’d managed not to fall on me. Barely.

  “Maybe?” His brothers had ambushed us so fast that my brain still hadn’t caught up.

  “Now that’s more like it, James.” Brian joined us in the alley. “That’s what you do with a woman.”

  James sprang to his feet, fists clenched at his sides.

  I climbed to my feet in a slower, more pained motion and gave his brothers a frown. A family resemblance existed between the three of them, though the brothers were broader in build with lighter hair—Henry bordering on blond. Appearances aside, I hadn’t been around them long before I wondered if James was adopted.

  “What the hell are you doing?” James glared at one brother and then the other. “You could have hurt Addie.”

  “George said to keep you out of the shop,” Brian said.

  “And now you are,” Henry added.

  “The collected wit here is staggering.” I brushed the dust from my backside.

  “And this from our Addled Alchemist?” Henry gave me a sneer.

  I crossed my arms. When James first brought me home, I couldn’t speak. Each time I tried, it came out as alchemical nonsense. His brothers had dubbed me the Addled Alchemist—Addie for short. Since I couldn’t remember my name, the new moniker stuck.

  James took a step toward his brothers, but I caught his arm.

  “Let it go,” I said.

  James hesitated, glancing from them to me.

  “Wow, baby brother, she has you trained.” Brian nudged Henry.

  “You know why he takes those alchemy classes?” Henry asked. “It’s so he can understand her pillow talk.”

  James launched himself at Henry before I could even think of moving. He caught his larger brother by the front of the shirt and threw him against the brick wall across the alley—a good ten feet away. Henry smacked bricks with so much force that I expected to see cracks radiate through the mortar joints around him.

  “James!” Brian stepped between his brothers and caught James by the upper arms. Henry slid down the wall to sit at its base, his stunned expression mirroring my own.

  Damn. That took some serious strength. How had James managed that?

  Henry shook his head and pushed himself to this feet using the wall for support. “Freak.” He glared at James as he spoke then turned away and almost ran into me. “Move.” His teeth were gritted so tight it sounded like, “Murve.”

  I couldn’t resist. “That’s the fastest ass-kicking I’ve ever seen.”

  “Yeah?” Henry clenched his fists and took a step toward me. He stood so close, I could smell the onion rings he had for lunch. Brian wrapped a restraining arm around James.

  I pulled a vial from my pocket and held it up to display the lime green liquid inside. “You should thank James. What I’d do isn’t so pleasant.”

  “Enough,” a new voice barked from the back door.

  All four of us jumped like guilty children and turned to find George glaring from the top step. The eldest of the Huntsman brothers, he’d inherited the gun shop from their parents and ran it like a drill sergeant.

  “You two,” he frowned at Henry and Brian, “were suppose to take him to the house and keep him there.” He pointed to the mouth of the alley and the two-story house across the street.

  “And you.” He focused on me. “Inside. I’ve got a customer waiting on those new bullets.”

  “What’s going on?” James asked.

  “They’ll explain.” George met James’s eye and made a shooing gesture.

  James didn’t comment. A glance at me, and he turned and left with Brian and Henry.

  George’s attention shifted back to me. “Move your ass, alchemist.”

  I bit back a retort, deciding that spending less time with him was preferable to a witty comeback. Next time, I promised myself.

  I returned to the attic workshop, annoyed with the delay. Fortunately, I’d finished the bullets George wanted; I just had to pack them in their cardboard ammo boxes. George had splurged on professional printing. I loved how the boxes smelled of fresh ink—like a new magazine. With red letters on a glossy black background, they weren’t fancy, but better than me penning the letters on a plain white box. Packing the bullets shouldn’t take more than fifteen minutes. Though it would have gone quicker if James were here.

  My mind drifted back to the alley, and I remembered how easily James had flung Henry against the wall. Maybe James deserved the wary glances his brothers gave him. And if they knew how strong he was, why didn’t that earn James more respect? They usually treated him like crap—when they acknowledged him at all. I’d been here three months, and I still hadn’t puzzled out this family dynamic.

  Twelve boxes later, I was no closer to a solution.

  The door banged open and George stormed into the room.

  I jumped and dropped half the bullets I’d been holding. They clattered on the plastic table, one rolling off the far side.

  “Where are they?” he demanded.

  “They’d be in the box if some jerk hadn’t startled me.”

  George smirked. My least favorite of the Huntsman brothers, he took particular pleasure in tormenting me. Worse, he actually had half a brain and sometimes he used it.

  I gathered the loose bullets and began to place them in the ammo box I’d been filling.

  “Hand me that one?” I pointed to the bullet that lay near George’s left foot.

  He crossed his large arms and leaned against the wall beside the door. Asshole. No way James could be related to this loser.

  I retrieved the bullet myself and finished filling the box. “There you go.” I stacked the last box on the plastic tray with the others, my task complete.

  “Bring them.” He turned and started down the stairs. “He wants to meet you.”

  “What?”

  He didn’t answer. No surprise.

/>   I struggled to lift the tray with its twelve boxes of ammo and stumbled after him. He never introduced me to the buyers. I suspected he feared I’d be enticed away.

  I managed the stairs without hurting myself or dropping any boxes. When we entered the shop, the man at the back counter looked up and a wave of unease swept over me. He didn’t wear camo or Carhartts like most of the shop’s regulars; he wore a suit.

  His eyes met mine and my feet tangled with the rug. I would have fallen if George hadn’t stepped forward at the last moment to catch the tray. He glared at me for the near miss, but replaced it with a smile when he turned to face the customer.

  “And our special bullets. The ones you called about.” George thumped the tray on the counter, causing the bullets to clink within their boxes.

  The man lifted a box and turned the label toward him. “Heart Seekers?”

  “It’s a play on heat seeker,” George needlessly explained. “Like the missile, but without all the clunky technology. And on a much smaller scale, of course.”

  The man opened the box and withdrew one of the bullets. His fingers looked rough, the nails yellowed and cuticles peeling.

  “Ten seconds?” he asked George.

  George tapped the small print on the back of the box. “Dead in ten seconds or less, no matter where the shot hits.” He pulled out a bag and began stacking the bullets inside.

  “Sounds…dangerous.”

  “It’s designed for animals,” I spoke up. “Human blood won’t trigger the magic.”

  The man’s eyes rose to mine. “I assume you’re the alchemist.”

  I took in his clothing and remembered the car in the alley. He’d traveled over two hours to see my special bullets. “And you’re from the PIA.” I offered my hand, refusing to let him intimidate me. “I’m Addie.”

  He took my hand, smiling now. The dry skin of his palm rubbed against mine before his chilled fingers enveloped my own. “Agent Lawson.”

  I returned the smile and hoped it didn’t look like a grimace. PIA: Paranormal Investigation Agency—or as practitioners of the arcane liked to call them, Pain In the Ass. Once a branch of Homeland Security, they had become an agency in their own right in the last decade. Specifically, an agency to police the magical community. My memory might be full of holes, but I knew the PIA could make life difficult.