The Bonds of Blood (The Final Formula Series, Book 4.5) Page 9

  Suddenly the quarrel vanished in a burst of flame. A second later, the crossbow followed.

  “We’ve played this game before.” Rowan stood inside the door, his orange eyes on George. “Did you really expect a different outcome?”

  George didn’t respond, his wide eyes were on Henry. He had fallen to the floor, and with a hand at his gushing throat, he tried to crawl away. He made it about two feet before he collapsed.

  As it had been with Brian, James felt one of the bonds that held him to the mortal world vanish, but the sensation was much stronger this time. He fell to his knees beside Henry’s still form.

  “You killed him,” George whispered.

  “I also killed Brian,” James said, struggling to hold back the darkness that was encroaching on his vision. “You’re next.”

  George stared at him, and for the first time in James’s life, he saw true fear in his brother’s eyes. A shame James’s threat was a hollow one.

  A burst of heat erupted around James’s throat, and his senses sprang to life. He let the hound rise to the surface and gave George a grin, knowing his eyes were glowing brighter than Rowan’s.

  “Drop the weapons,” James told him, hoping George couldn’t see how close he was to passing out.

  George studied James for one long moment. “If you want to live, James, you know what you must do.” He spun on his heel and sprinted for the bathroom.

  “Shit.” Rowan ran after him, but George slammed the door in his face.

  Rowan vaporized the bathroom door just as he had the other, but not before breaking glass sounded from within the narrow room. A window?

  Rowan braced a hand on the jamb. Was the Fire starting to take its toll?

  Using the hound’s sight, James focused on George’s familiar soul. He must have jumped through the window, because he was moving quickly away from the building.

  Rowan turned and rushed toward the door, a smear of blood across his upper lip. The Fire was getting the better of him.

  “Rowan!” James shouted. He tried to shove himself to his feet, but the blackness that had been haloing his vision swallowed him.

  A hand on his shoulder shook him. “James?” Rowan sounded worried.

  James groaned as the movement awakened the pain in his busted rib. “Stop.” He blinked his eyes and stared up at the ceiling. The fresh bullet hole Henry had put in the plaster was a black eye staring down at him.

  “What happened?” Rowan asked. “Why did you pass out?”

  “You didn’t go after him.”

  “Who? George? No.” The blood was gone from Rowan’s lip, and he didn’t appear to be in pain. Perhaps he had taken a vial of Addie’s remedy. “You didn’t answer my question. Why did you pass out?”

  Wincing, James pushed himself into a seated position. Henry’s body still lay beside him, his life’s blood pooled beneath him and soaking into the dirty area rug.

  “Because I killed my brother.”

  “Don’t say that too loud.” Rowan glanced toward the door. Oddly, they were alone in the room. “I ashed the knife and told Waylon George did it.”

  “I don’t think Waylon would begrudge me.”

  “Perhaps not, but it’s easier this way.”

  James nodded. Gripping his ribs, he prepared to stand. “I need to change. Broken rib.”

  Rowan rose to his feet and helped him up. “You only have one brother left.”

  “Did they catch him?”

  “No.”

  James sighed. He knew that hope had been futile, but he had still hoped.

  “If I hadn’t ashed that second door, I could have—”

  “No. Do not follow George into a forest,” James said, meeting Rowan’s eyes. “Understand?”

  Rowan didn’t look away. “I’ve got my range back.” He referred to the distance he could see into the objects around him. It was part of what enabled him to change the matter around him into a plasma.

  “I believe a rifle can beat your range.” James didn’t want to argue about this with him. “Find me some clothes. It hurts too much to remove these.”

  Rowan smiled.

  “What?” James asked.

  “You. Bossing me around.”

  James twitched an eyebrow. “I’m a grim. You’re an Element.”

  Rowan laughed. “I’ll go see what Waylon has available for you to wear.” He turned and stopped.

  James followed his gaze and saw Ian standing on the threshold.

  “He’s gone,” Ian said, walking into the room. “There was a car parked on a gravel road within the forest. The agents speculate that it was staged there as a getaway vehicle.”

  James had a suspicion that Ian was just repeating what he had heard. He couldn’t imagine him knowing anything about staged vehicles.

  Ian came to a stop beside them and contemplated Henry’s body. When he looked up, his gaze met James’s. “I’m sorry.”

  “For what? That I had to kill my brother?”

  Ian frowned. “You killed him?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’ll get those clothes,” Rowan said, and left them.

  “Why did you kill him?” Ian asked.

  “For a lot of reasons. Mainly because he was a psychopath. Something you can relate to?”

  “Sadly, yes. But my existence didn’t depend on Lex’s.”

  James shrugged, then gritted his teeth against the pain. “I have one more brother.”

  “And what happens when we find him?”

  “That depends on him.”

  Ian frowned, but didn’t comment.

  “What?” James demanded. “My suicidal tendencies don’t please you?”

  “They won’t please Elysia.” He skirted the question.

  It was James’s turn to frown.

  “Of all people, I thought you would have more faith in Addie. She will cure her.”

  James crossed his arms. “You think I’m doing this because I don’t believe Elysia will make it? Maybe I’m learning from your mistake and stopping my brothers before their madness destroys someone else’s future.”

  “If the past is an indicator, then the atrocities will continue. The Hunter bloodline is not a stable one—no matter what the century.”

  James had been ready to continue his rant, but hesitated. “You’ve known Hunters? I thought you were born in this country. Gavin was locked up in his tomb in England then.”

  “I never knew any personally, but Grandfather had met some, before he emigrated to America in the early part of the eighteenth century.”

  James wondered if Gavin had been entombed then. He really knew very little about the early history of the family. Just tidbits here and there—and who knew how accurate they were.

  “What is it?” Ian asked, breaking into his thoughts.

  “I was thinking about how little I actually know about my family’s past.” But he knew where he could learn more. If he could figure out where George had hidden it.

  Rowan walked into the room carrying a wad of black fabric. “Waylon came up with a sweat suit, but he wanted me to tell you not to get any ideas.” Rowan gave him a puzzled look. “What does that mean?”

  “I borrowed an agent’s clothes earlier. Waylon made a joke about hiring me.” James called the hound and slid into his other form. The souls in the room came into focus. He glanced down at Henry’s body, and a shiver ran up his spine as the full impact of what he had done hit home. Henry was truly dead.

  “James?” Rowan prompted.

  He shifted human and rose to his feet. Rowan wordlessly offered him the sweats.

  “Keep them,” James said. He turned to Ian. “I think I know where to find some answers.” He shifted form and jumped into the veil.

  Chapter 8

  James opened a portal and stepped out into his
childhood home. The boards creaked beneath his paws, but a quick glance around revealed no other souls in the building with him.

  He trotted down the hall to his old room, shifting form once he crossed the threshold. Everything was as he had left it the day Rowan had taken Addie and him to Cincinnati. His life had changed so much since then that his days living in this house felt like a lifetime ago.

  Shaking his head, he crossed to his closet to pull on some clothes. He would search the house, then the remains of the gun shop across the street. He hoped the family history hadn’t been lost to the fire.

  The house was a wreck—more than it usually was. Of course, his brothers hadn’t left when he did. And since James had always been the one to clean up, there had been no one here to keep things in order. Fortunately, his brothers hadn’t lived here in a while so the odors had died.

  James soon found himself in the master bedroom. The room had become George’s after their parents were gone. Like everywhere else, the room was a pigsty—though thankfully, an odor-free sty. Dust was the biggest threat now.

  Pulling open a dresser drawer, James began to dig through the contents, tossing aside haphazardly folded socks as he searched. When he got to the second drawer, he pulled it out and upended it on the bed. A few magazines with naked women on the covers tumbled out along with George’s boxer shorts. These must have been some of his favorites. His brothers never bothered to hide their reading material. It wasn’t like they had to worry about their mother finding it.

  The third drawer in the dresser yielded nothing, nor did the drawers in the nightstand. James even pulled all the old DVDs off the shelf in the corner and checked under the mattress. Nothing.

  Where would George have hidden it? Somewhere safe from fire, burglary, and most importantly, his baby brother. George had flatly refused to even let James see the container that held the journal, though he had once heard Henry call it a box. Where would George put—

  “The vault.” That was the one place he would never venture into for fear of his brothers locking him in. The small, steel room had always been held over his head as the ultimate punishment.

  The building that had once housed the family gun shop had been a bank at some point in the past. In the basement stood a large steel vault. If locked inside, James would be in the same predicament he’d been in when collared. Well-made walk-in freezers and mortuary drawers worked the same way. James had the misfortune of experiencing both firsthand.

  Clouds had rolled in, obscuring the moonlight, but with his night vision, James didn’t even need a flashlight to comb through the remains of the gun shop. An attack by some liches working for Neil had almost leveled the place. The upper story was gone, but part of the lower level still stood.

  James picked his way through the rubble until he found the opening to the basement. The wooden stairs were burned away, but that didn’t stop him from jumping into the dark hole. The experience reminded him of the time he and Addie had explored the ruins of the Alchemica.

  Calling the hound so he could see better in the dark, James crossed the space without incident, detouring around caved-in sections until he reached the steel door set in the back wall.

  Scrapes and gouges marked the edges where someone had tried to get in with a crowbar. Probably some scavenger picking through the rubble after the fire. It also looked like they had taken a sledgehammer to the dial on the combination lock, knocking it nearly off. Even if James knew the combination, he wasn’t opening that door—the traditional way.

  Fortunately, he knew someone who had a nontraditional way of opening stubborn doors.

  James stepped out into the lab and was surprised to find the lights off. A glimpse at the clock on the far wall gave the reason. It was 2:30 in the morning.

  A shadow fell across the light in the hall, and a moment later, Ian stepped into the room. He flipped the switch and the florescent bulbs flickered to life overhead. Dressed in a sleeveless undershirt and his usual trousers, Ian must have been lounging in his room, probably reading.

  “Is something wrong?” Ian asked.

  James shifted human and rose to his feet. “I came to see Addie, but I didn’t realize the time.”

  “Where have you been?”

  “Visiting my childhood home. I need help opening a door.”

  Ian’s brows lifted. “And how does a mere door pose a problem to you?”

  “It’s a foot thick and made of steel.”

  “That sounds suspiciously like a bank vault.”

  “It is. Or it was. It’s in the basement of what was my family’s gun shop.”

  “Ah. For a moment there, I feared you had decided on a life of crime.”

  “Rowan pays well. I don’t need to turn to that.”

  Ian smiled. “And what is in this vault?”

  “I think it’s where an old family journal is stored—if it exists at all.”

  “A journal about your family’s history?” Ian’s expression turned serious as he moved closer. “That’s what you referred to when you left earlier?”

  “Yes. But I’ve never seen it—I wasn’t allowed to see it—but if it exists, I think George would keep it in the vault. He knows I would never willingly go in that room.”

  “Why keep it secret from you?”

  “Probably just my brothers being assholes, but I won’t know until I read it.”

  Ian nodded. “Fair enough.” He turned toward the hall and his room. “Let me dress, and I’ll see if your journal is in that vault.”

  James hurried after him. “You have a way to open the door?” Ian had been dead longer. He was stronger than James, but not that much stronger. “Something alchemical?”

  “I don’t need to open the door,” he said over his shoulder. “Unlike you, steel does not stop me from traveling.”

  “Oh right.” James hadn’t even considered that approach. Of course, he never would have thought to ask Ian for help.

  He followed Ian to his room and watched him open his wardrobe and consider the clothing inside.

  “It’ll be just me and you in a burned out basement in the middle of the night. It’s not a black-tie occasion.”

  Ian selected one of his white linen shirts and pulled it on over the undershirt he wore. “I know this world is less formal than mine, but I must meet expectations.”

  James watched him select a coat. At least it didn’t have tails.

  “Do you really think Isabelle would be disappointed in you if you explored an old basement in your shirt sleeves?” James asked.

  Ian turned to face him, pulling on the coat. James expected anger, but Ian was smiling.

  “Yes, I do think she would be disappointed, though I hope she isn’t watching at the moment. You do take informality to its ultimate end.”

  James rolled his eyes. “I can’t help it that my clothes don’t survive my shapeshifting.”

  “But you can help your state of undress once you arrive.”

  “You’re a man and you’re dead. If I make you uncomfortable, don’t look.”

  “Your nudity doesn’t bother me, but I do fear Addie joining us unexpectedly.”

  “I would hear her the moment she rose from her bed.”

  “It still shows a certain lack of respect.”

  James shook his head. “I can’t believe I’m standing here arguing about my clothing choices with a dead man.”

  “Now you know how I feel.”

  James met his gaze, then shifted into the hound. Hopefully, Ian didn’t find naked animals as offensive.

  James held the portal open until Ian stepped out, then jumped out after him. He landed on the soot-covered cement, his paws kicking up a small black cloud.

  “It appears you weren’t the only one unable to open this door.” Ian moved closer to the vault door so the light from his lantern could illuminate the battered st
eel surface.

  James shifted human and rose to his feet. “Good thing it held. If that journal’s in there, I’d hate to lose it.”

  “That isn’t all this vault contains.” Ian frowned at the door. “There’s a body inside.”

  “What?” Had his brothers killed someone and stored them inside? James took a deep breath. The vault wasn’t airtight. “I don’t smell anything.”

  “You wouldn’t. This person has been dead at least a few decades.”

  The hair on the back of James’s neck rose. “Are you sure?”

  Ian lifted a brow, his expression insulted. “Shall we take a look?”

  “I…”

  “I won’t leave you in there.”

  “That wasn’t what—” James didn’t want to admit that was exactly what he was thinking.

  “I like you, James. I always have. I just don’t think you’re a healthy choice for Elysia. If she wasn’t a soul reaper, I wouldn’t have a problem with you courting my granddaughter.”

  James wanted to scoff at the old-world attitude. As if Ian’s approval would have made a difference. And yet, James felt a strong sense of relief that Ian thought well of him.

  “Thank you,” was all he could think to say.

  Ian nodded and turned to the door. “Now that you know I’m not going to lock you inside, shall we?”

  “At least it’s roomier than a mortuary drawer. It was an especially tight fit the time I was locked in one with Elysia.”

  Ian pulled open a portal. “So that necromancer right of passage is still around?”

  “Are you saying you and—”

  “Refrigeration and mortuary drawers were after my time.”

  “Oh. Right.”

  “But we had coffins.” He gave James a wink and stepped into the land of the dead.

  James was a little slow following. It was hard to change form when laughing.

  James stepped out into the vault, pulling in a lungful of musty air the moment he left the land of the dead. He shifted human instantly and involuntarily. That had never happened, but he had never traveled directly into a box of steel. He hoped he wouldn’t have any trouble going out.