The Element of Death (The Final Formula Series, Book 1.5) Read online

  “What are you going to do?”

  “Use your blood to sever the soul-binding that tethers me to this last vestige of my mortal life. My brilliant lover saw the potential the moment she realized what you were.” He drove the staple into the bloodied organ. It sizzled like a steak on a hot grill, and a puff of smoke rose. Then the heart burst open, the outer layer crumbling to expose the black interior.

  Winters threw back his head and screamed. The fact that he used Rowan’s voice to do it made it hard to tell who was in pain.

  James sprang across the intervening space and landed in the circle. He gasped in surprise when he realized just what the ashes did. The mortal plane and the next didn’t overlap here; this was the land of the dead. James reached for Rowan, intending to throw him out of the circle.

  Edgar, stop him! Gertrude cried.

  Winters rose to his feet, and fire ignited in his eyes. Flames erupted in the air around them, but didn’t touch James. Damn it, if the circle didn’t kill Rowan, the overuse of his gift would.

  “Too late, grim. The link to my mortal life is gone. This body is mine.”

  James hesitated. If he threw Rowan from the circle, Winters would still have him. James needed his power, the power of a grim, to rip Winters’ soul from Rowan. An idea forming, James bent and picked up the scalpel.

  “What are you going to do?” Winters asked. “Stab your friend?”

  Trying not to think beyond the moment, James ran the scalpel across his palm. It was sharper than he expected, and the blade bit deep. James clenched his fist and let a crimson drop fall onto the ashes forming the circle.

  “No.” Winters took a step toward him, but hesitated when James lifted the bloodied scalpel.

  Another drop of James’s blood fell to the ashes. As it had in the vision, an invisible wind swirled the ashes to life. They began to collect, forming into a figure. But unlike the vision, the ashes blackened. The figure grew taller, now topping seven feet. Shoulders rounded with muscle and ears erect over glowing red eyes, it lifted one clawed hand.

  Little brother? Gavin’s voice was soft, as if carrying over a long distance. Is that you?

  James grinned. It’d worked. He’d summoned Gavin into the circle.

  “Get the parasite,” James whispered.

  Winters screamed and tried to leap from the circle.

  With a snarl, Gavin sprang, slashing his claws across Winters’ back before he could escape.

  James flinched as Gavin’s three-inch claws ripped open the back of Rowan’s T-shirt, but his horror turned to amazement when Gavin’s claws came away coated in a glowing mist. Rowan dropped to his knees, blood blooming along the rents in his T-shirt.

  The mist began to rise from Gavin’s claws, solidifying into a man in a stained lab coat: Dr. Edgar Winters. He started to turn away, but Gavin reached out and caught him by the throat.

  Rowan turned, looking back over his shoulder. “Shit!” Flames flared to life in his eyes.

  “Rowan, wait—”

  The ashes burst into flame. James threw up a hand, shielding his sensitive eyes. When he dropped his arm a moment later, both Gavin and Winters were gone.

  Rowan collapsed at James’s feet.

  “Rowan?” James dropped to a knee beside him, but hesitated to touch. His hand still bled.

  A groan, and Rowan rolled onto his back, pressing his hands to his face. “Are they gone?”

  James closed his eyes, relief making his joints weak.

  Bury them!

  James jerked his head up, recognizing that voice: Gertrude. She was still here, incorporeal and thus invisible to James’s human eyes.

  Movement all around him, it seemed the walls came alive with the spirits of Winters’ victims. Blackened flesh hung from charred bones, and the stench of burnt meat filled the air. The spirits swirled around the room, then vanished into the walls. Once again, the room began to quake. Dirt poured in from the broken walls, and chunks of cement fell from above.

  “Rowan, move!” James caught him beneath the arm with his undamaged hand. He didn’t like to get close to him when he was still bleeding, but didn’t see himself having much choice. Rowan showed no signs of seeking shelter.

  Rowan stumbled along beside him as the tremors continued to shake the room. James guided him to the counter of lab equipment and helped him crawl beneath an open area between two of the lower cabinets.

  The cabinets above the counter bowed outward. Their glass doors shattered, spraying James with tiny shards.

  “James! Get in here!” Rowan pulled his legs against his chest, making room. The space was about four feet long. Enough room for two grown men, but not if one was bleeding toxic blood.

  “I—”

  Rowan reached up and caught him by the front of his shirt and jerked him into the space.

  James clenched his bleeding hand and tumbled into the cramped space.

  Chapter

  6

  The room shook itself to pieces, but somehow the counter remained intact. James kept his fist tucked against his chest, chewing his lower lip until the quaking finally stopped. It seemed to last for hours, but he suspected it was only minutes.

  “How bad are you bleeding?” Rowan’s voice sounded loud in the silence—and tired. James had to go by sound. Without the hound’s night vision, the darkness was complete.

  “I’m okay.” For now.

  “You need to change to make it stop?”

  “Yes.”

  Rowan sighed. “I’m sorry. I can’t even see right now, let alone ionize something.”

  James started to crawl out from beneath the counter, but hesitated. “You don’t need to apologize. I got us into this mess.”

  “I’m just as much to blame. I goaded you into it.”

  “Please. You know my temper—”

  “Yes, I do.” Rowan cut him off. “And I intentionally picked a fight with you.”

  James blinked. “You did? Why?”

  “I just…” He stopped.

  James tensed, not sure what to expect.

  “I just wanted to hit someone. Anyone.” Rowan’s voice echoed as if he’d tipped his head back and spoken into the underside of the counter. “You were convenient.”

  The confession stunned James. Rowan always seemed so in-control. So grown-up. “That’s exactly how I felt.”

  “I know.”

  James opened his mouth and closed it, not sure what to say next. They were too close to the painful center of the matter. Yet oddly, he felt much closer to Rowan. But not close enough to take this conversation further.

  He rose to his feet. A wave of vertigo washed over him, and he gripped the counter until it passed. Damn, he’d lost more blood than he realized, or maybe the iron embedded in his skin compounded the problem.

  “Where are you going?” Rowan asked.

  “I’m trying to see how screwed we are.”

  “Can you see?”

  “My night vision is better than a human’s, but without the hound, I can’t see in total darkness.”

  “You speak of the hound as a separate being.” Rowan scooted around in the small space.

  “No. At least, not a sentient being.” James struggled to find the words. He’d never discussed this with anyone. “But it is…other. I’m still me, just in another form.” He shook his head. “That doesn’t make any sense, does it?”

  “Intuitively. Maybe.” Rowan’s voice was no longer muffled. He must have crawled from beneath the counter.

  James took a careful step away from him, moving toward where the doorway had been. He held his uninjured hand before him, tucking the other against his chest. He moved slowly, but even so, his bare foot collided with something that clanked when he kicked it. He bit back a curse.


  “What was that?” Rowan asked.

  “I’m guessing a ring stand.”

  “Say what?”

  James bumped his fingers against an earthen wall, and followed it to a corner. “I think Winters dabbled in alchemy.”

  “He lived and died long before magic returned.”

  “Alchemy is basically Old Magic, you know. How do you think the first grim was created?”

  The ground rumbled, setting off a clatter of falling debris around them. James clung to the earthen wall. He raised an arm above his head, expecting to be struck, then the rumbling stopped.

  “Aftershock?” Rowan asked in the silence.

  “It was never an earthquake. Gertrude sicced Winters’ minions on us, but they ran out of energy. We need to get out of here before they recharge.”

  “Minions?”

  “Ghosts. The spirits of his victims. Winters was a medium in life. Mediums can summon souls from beyond, and powerful mediums can trap them here.” James moved forward, rounding the end of the earthen wall. “But he wasn’t only a medium. I think he used the ashes of his cremated victims as ingredients in his blood alchemy formulas.” The powder Gertrude had thrown in his face had been alchemical.

  Rowan remained silent and James wondered what he was thinking. He decided not to ask and continued around the corner. Ahead, he could see the faint outline of a mound of broken cinder blocks. He wouldn’t want to step on those with his bare—

  Wait. He could see.

  James hurried forward and dropped to his knees in front of the wall of debris blocking his way forward. A faint line of orange light spilled from a tiny crack near the base of the wall. The other side must be open to the cremator. Maybe the entire room hadn’t caved in.

  “James?”

  “There’s a little light leaking in over here. I might have found a way out.” Fingers still sore from the last digging he did, he gripped a block and pulled it free. Dirt fell and the crack widened, letting in a little more light. He grabbed another block and repeated the process. It was slow going with only one hand, but he didn’t want to chance leaving blood smeared where Rowan might brush against it.

  He tossed a block aside and heard the scuff of a shoe behind him.

  “Let me help,” Rowan said.

  “No, stay back. I’m still bleeding, remember?”

  Another rumble, this one louder, and the walls to either side began to rain pieces of broken masonry. James tensed, ready to assume a fetal position in the corner, then the quaking stopped.

  “It appears the minions are gaining strength,” Rowan said.

  “Perhaps you should wait under the counter until I get the way clear.”

  The last shaking of the room had opened the crack a little wider, and James could easily see the look Rowan gave him. That would be a no.

  Rowan stepped up to the hole and gripped a cinder block with both hands.

  “Seriously, if you get my blood on you—”

  “I understand the risk and I choose to take it.” He pulled the block free and stumbled back as its weight dragged him down.

  James sighed. Rowan was nowhere near well. Gripping another block in one hand, he tugged it free. He didn’t fall over the way Rowan had, but it was becoming clear that his own strength was fading.

  “Once we get some light, maybe I can get those staples out of your back the old-fashioned way.” Rowan set his block aside and returned to the hole.

  “They’re buried in bone.”

  James pulled another block loose and tossed it aside. The hole had grown to about a foot in diameter. A little more, and they might be able to squeeze through.

  “In bone? She knew what she was doing,” Rowan said.

  “Apparently. I was afraid she’d burn you out.”

  Rowan didn’t respond, so James kept working. He wrapped his hand around a brick and almost dropped it. His fingers had gone numb. He needed to break through to the other side soon and find a way to get the staples out. Hopefully, the area would be open once they got through here.

  Rowan cleared his throat. “What I experienced…Was that what it was like when Clarissa had you under her control?”

  James glanced over. That’s what he’d been thinking about? “It was similar, I guess, though I controlled my own actions with respect to how I carried out her commands.”

  “I had no direct control, but I was conscious of every move she made, every word she said, every time she went digging through my memories.”

  James kept his attention on his work, exposing what appeared to be a brick wall around one edge of the hole. He didn’t want to discuss the memories Gertrude had stolen from Rowan’s mind and shared with him. “Clarissa couldn’t enter my mind, though she seemed to get a sense of my emotional state. Mainly, she just forced me to do things I didn’t want to do.”

  It had felt a lot like the time Addie had hit him with the Perfect Assistant Dust. He hadn’t told her at that moment, but he’d sensed her through the blood she’d used. In hindsight, he realized that even then, he’d known that she had more than a passing knowledge of blood alchemy.

  James forced the memory away. Rowan hadn’t spoken, so he glanced over to find him frowning at him.

  “Did she…violate you?” Rowan’s tone was soft, but his eyes were hard.

  It took James a startled second to realize that he referred to Clarissa, not Addie. “Just my will.”

  Rowan nodded, though his eyes never left James’s. “I won’t let it happen again. I’ll inform Xander that if any of his necros—”

  “Xander?” James stopped. Of course. The man in the vision with Clarissa. Xander, her bother. The Deacon.

  “What?” Rowan asked.

  James curled his fingers over the edge of the hole he’d made and pulled. A section of wall broke free and tumbled out of the dirt, spilling bricks at his feet. James jumped back to spare his toes.

  “The spirits of Winters’ victims showed me a vision of the past.” James moved the debris aside, working his way back to the wall. He told Rowan what he’d seen as he worked.

  Rowan didn’t comment until he finished his tale. “You know, if you’d told me that yesterday, I would have scoffed. Now—”

  The building rumbled, the ground beneath their feet quivering.

  Rowan gripped the exposed edge of the brick wall. “We need to get out of here.”

  “Step back.” When Rowan complied, James threw his shoulder against the remaining section of wall. A moment’s resistance and then it gave. He tumbled through the opening, landing hard on his side amid the broken masonry. He groaned then lifted his head to look around. What he found made him want to groan again. The doorway past the mortuary drawers had caved in as well. He looked in the opposite direction and found that the area where the circle had been was buried as well. So much for the pliers.

  “Are you all right?” Rowan stumbled out of the hole behind him.

  James opened his mouth to tell him to watch for blood, but Rowan was already through the hole. “We’re still trapped,” he said instead.

  “I see.” Rowan dropped to a seat on an upturned block. Elbows resting on his thighs, he sat hunched over, head hanging.

  James rolled to his hands and knees. The movement made his head swim, and he stilled, waiting for his vision to clear.

  “Why is it so cold in here?” Rowan asked.

  James realized he was right. Lifting his head, he found a pair of polished shoes a few feet away. He looked upward and discovered the burned man standing over him. James sank down on his haunches, a growl trying to escape his human throat.

  “What is it?” Rowan asked.

  “We have company.”

  “One of Winters’ minions?”

  The burned man lifted his arms. Winter
s is free. The ground began to shake.

  Chapter

  7

  James pushed himself to his feet. He swayed—whether from the quaking floor or the blood loss, he wasn’t sure—then launched himself at the ghost. He landed hard in the spot where the burned man had been, and caught a whiff of charred meat. A chunk of ceiling crashed down beside him, and he threw an arm over his head. Unable to do anything else, he curled up in the rubble, bracing for impact.

  Moments later, the shaking stopped. James lifted his head, surprised that nothing had fallen on him.

  “James?” Rowan called.

  “Yeah, I’m good. You?”

  “Look behind you.”

  James turned. The mound of debris blocking the room’s only exit had parted, exposing the doorway to the corridor. He got to his feet and braced a hand on the side of the cremator to get his balance, the hot bricks warming his palm.

  The way is open. Stop him. The last word was an airy whisper, then it was gone.

  “Did we just get some help?” Rowan asked.

  “I think so. Come on.” James started for the door.

  “What’s the plan?”

  “We find a way to get these staples out of my back, then I take Winters and his girlfriend to hell.”

  It seemed to take hours to make their way to the foyer. James stumbled along beside Rowan, both of them using the walls for support. The building rumbled from time to time, but it seemed that Winters’ minions hadn’t built up enough energy to do more. Or maybe the burned man was running interference.

  Reaching the foyer doorway, James stepped around the wrought iron chandelier, careful not to trip and fall on the thing.

  “I guess the quaking damaged more than the basement.” Rowan eyed the damaged chandelier as he followed James into the room.