The Alchemist's Flame (12 page)

I guessed that was possible, but I felt so uneasy. Something was wrong.

Then I heard it: the light thump of rapid footsteps coming up the stairs.

Rowan slipped an arm around my waist and pulled me closer. The area between us and the doorway had taken on a dim orange glow.

A man stepped into the doorway, his linen shirt and golden hair picking up the small amount of light in the room.

“Ian?”

He did little more than glance at us before running across the living room and into the hall.

I frowned after him. Ian never entered my living area without knocking first. Rowan and I took off after him, reaching the hall as he stopped in front of Elysia’s door. He tried the knob—again without knocking—then took a step back.

I began to ask what was going on when he lunged at the door. He slammed into it with his shoulder, and the door exploded inward, showering the floor with chunks of wood from the frame.

Elysia screamed.

I hurried into her room, but stumbled to a stop inside. It looked like a tornado had gone through. Every drawer in the dresser had been pulled out and emptied. The nightstand leaned at an angle against the wall near the bed, and the lamp was little more than a shattered ruin a few feet away. Elysia had her back to the headboard of her bed, her face pressed to her drawn-up knees and her arms around her head. All the bedding had been stripped away, leaving the mattress bare.

“Leave her alone!” Ian shouted.

The base of the broken lamp shot across the room, aimed at Ian’s head. He lifted his hand and it smashed into his forearm.

“That’s because I’m dead,” Ian said.

Goosebumps rose on my arms as I realized he was talking to someone I couldn’t see.

“No!” Ian jumped onto the bed and gripped the headboard above Elysia, shielding her with his body. An instant later, one of the empty drawers shot out of the dresser and slammed into his back. The drawer splintered on impact and fell away. Ian didn’t even grunt.

Keeping his body over Elysia’s, he twisted to look over his shoulder. I followed his gaze and watched a second drawer begin to wiggle within the frame of the dresser.

“You two, get out of here,” Ian yelled at us.

Elysia whimpered.

“Fight them.” Ian ran a hand over her hair.

“Can’t.” She sobbed and pressed closer to him.

“You can.” He wrapped an arm around her shoulders, his white eyes tracking something I couldn’t see. “Call upon the power in your blood.”

“I’m stunted.”

“No, Neil can’t stunt this. Your blood, child. Call it.”

“What are you talking about?” she wailed.

A pointed strip of doorframe shot off the floor and arrowed toward them. Ian had his head bowed, speaking to Elysia. He didn’t see when it veered to the side, its target clear. Elysia.

Chapter
12

I
gasped, watching the spear of wood streak toward Elysia. It was mere feet away when it vaporized in a flash of flame.

“Get over here, now,” Rowan said.

I glanced up, thinking he had spoken to me, but he had his phone to his ear.

“Why has no one trained you?” Ian asked Elysia.

“Who would train me?”

A growl stood my hair on end, and suddenly, there was a hellhound in our midst. James sprang across the room, snarling and snapping. A portal shimmered open before him and he disappeared into it. A moment later, he reappeared. He raced around the small room, forcing Rowan and me to push back against the wall. I had no idea what was going on, but the poltergeist activity subsided. He pulled open another portal, and repeated the process. When he returned, the room was quiet.

James became human and stepped up to the bed. “Elysia?”

She gave a cry and crawled across the bed to throw her arms around his neck.

“Hey.” He brushed back her hair, revealing a bleeding gash on her forehead. Blood had run down her temple, catching the corner of her eye before rolling on down her cheek like a gory tear.

Ian cleared his throat and rose to his feet. “Are you going to put on some clothes?”

“I hope not,” Elysia said, then pressed her lips to James’s.

“Guess that’s our cue,” I said to Rowan. He gave me a small smile and led the way out to the living room. I flipped on the lamp by the couch, flooding the area with welcome light.

Ian walked out a moment later, and without a word to us, disappeared down the stairs.

“Be right back,” I said to Rowan and hurried after Ian.

I reached the base of the stairs and took one step into the hall when glass shattered in the lab. I hurried forward, envisioning the same ghost attacking Ian now. Perhaps James hadn’t banished it, and all Ian had done was piss it off.

I stepped into the lab in time to watch Ian hurl a second beaker at the far wall.

“Easy,” I said.

Ian spun to face me, fury constricting his features.

I froze where I stood, suddenly uncertain about this man I thought I knew.

“Don’t hurt the glassware,” I said, my voice little more than a whisper. “It did you no wrong.”

He glared at me for a moment longer, then bowed his head. “You’re right. I’m sorry.”

I walked over to him, careful of where I stepped with my bare feet. I didn’t encounter any shards of glass. “I’ve never seen you like this.” I gripped his forearm through his coat sleeve, not ready to brave the brush of his dead skin. “Elysia is an adult. She can kiss naked guys if she wants to.”

“I know. It’s not—” He tugged at his cuff, straightening it.

“Talk to me?”

“He’s dead.”

I arched a brow. “And this bothers
you
?”

“It is unhealthy for her to engage in such a relationship.”

“We are talking about James, right? Anyone who takes the trouble to get to know him would beg their daughter to take him. He is the very best of men.”

“I do not argue his character, but she is a necromancer. Entering into such a relationship with the dead is…not done.”

“James is different. His body is alive. He eats, he sleeps, he even grew to adulthood.”

“He can’t give her children.”

I frowned. “Are you certain?”

“He’s dead. The dead cannot create life.”

“I’ll take your word there, but ultimately, that’s Elysia’s decision. There are lots of couples in this world unable to have children.”

He frowned at me.

“Are you mad because your line would die with her?”

His frown deepened. “Now you lump me in with Alexander. I never sought to further my line. I never even wanted children. Isabelle talked me into it—though I enjoyed them once they got here.”

That might be true, but his earlier fury seemed out of proportion to his concerns over Elysia kissing a dead man. “There’s more to this. What’s really bothering you?”

He turned away and walked to his workbench. Remaining silent, he began to organize a rack of test tubes. I took a seat on a nearby stool and waited.

“She knows nothing about her power,” he said at last.

“She’s stunted right now.”

“No, I’m not talking about her active power. She’s reaching out to the other side and she doesn’t even know it.”

“Is that what happened upstairs? You mentioned the first night she was here that she touches the land of the dead when she sleeps.”

“Yes. She opened a portal in her sleep and attracted attention.” He stopped organizing his glassware. “If her mother died when she was so young, who kept her safe as a child?”

The thought of what happened upstairs happening to a child gave me chills. “She was raised by relatives. Necromancers.” I took a breath. “Joseph’s descendants.”

Ian turned to face me. “What?” he whispered.

I slid off the stool and retrieved my coat from the rack by the back door. “I’ll show you.” I pulled the coat on over my pajamas, then slipped on the rain boots I had left by the back door.

“Show me what?” Ian asked, moving over to me.

“Joseph’s grave.” I considered calling up to Rowan to let him know where I was going, but we would only be gone a few minutes. “Take us to Elysia’s grandmother’s house.”

Ian studied me a moment, then nodded. The portal whispered open behind us.

I stood beside Ian and stared up at Grams’s house. The sun colored the eastern horizon a dull pink, providing enough light to see. The back of the house was a charred ruin, though the fire department had extinguished the fire before it took the whole house. A light wind ruffled my loose hair, bringing with it the scent of damp cinders and loss.

“Elysia thinks Xander did this, in retaliation for her calling him out yesterday.”

Ian remained silent, glaring at the ruined home.

“This way.” I turned my back on the house and led him along the cobbled path to the gate. Ian didn’t comment when I opened the gate into the cemetery. Then too, he had probably known it was here all along.

We walked across the cemetery in silence, the faint light providing enough illumination to show me my way. When we reached the Mallory obelisk, I walked over to the now familiar headstone and laid my hand atop it.

Ian studied the headstone a moment, then walked over to squat beside it.

“It looks like he lived a full life,” I said, my voice soft in the early morning quiet. “And Elysia told me that he took care of Mattie’s daughters, then their daughters, on down through the generations to her. That’s how she ended up here, raised by her cousins.”

“Good boy,” Ian whispered. He reached out to run his fingers over the carved letters.

I swallowed the despair that had lodged in my throat, and walked over to grip his shoulder. “He lived, Ian.” I squeezed his shoulder.

“Why did he never come for me?” Ian whispered. “What horrors did Alex tell him?”

“I’m still working on that.”

Ian looked up, the golden light from the rising sun catching in his eyes. If he still had tears, would they be wetting his cheeks?

“That’s why I’ve been going to the library,” I admitted. “I’ve been researching your family, but I was getting nowhere until Elysia told me that your surname was originally Nelson.”

He rose to his feet, a frown creasing his brow. “What else did she tell you?”

“That’s all. Why? Is there more to it?”

He glanced back at the headstone. “Nothing that matters now.”

Yeah, right. But I didn’t call him on it. “Now that I know what name is on their birth certificates, I should be able to track down the rest of your boys.”

He bowed his head. “Thank you, Addie.”

I shrugged, feeling uncomfortable with his gratitude. “I make no promises. Records that old tend to be tough to find, even with the help of Rowan’s magical librarian friend.”

Ian looked up. “His Grace is helping you?”

I shrugged again. “I asked him to.”

Ian smiled. “Of course. You are indeed the master of the Elements. Speaking of…I had better get you back before one comes looking for you.”

“Good point.”

I returned to my apartment to be greeted by the smell of bacon and coffee. James, Elysia, and Rowan were gathered in my small kitchen. By the look and smell of things, they were busy making breakfast. Had Elysia visited a grocery store at some point?

“Well, look who finally made it back,” James said.

I had forgotten that James would have felt Ian use the portal. “Did you rat me out, Fido?” I made a face at him to take the sting out of my words.

He flashed me a grin and turned his attention back to the oranges he was juicing, his strength making short work of the task.

Rowan looked up from the stack of toast he was buttering. “Where did you go?”

“I told Ian about Joseph, then felt obliged to show him his grave.”

“Joseph?” Rowan asked.

“His eldest son.”

“Brenda finally found something?” he asked about his librarian.

“No, Elysia knew where he was buried.”

Elysia glanced up from the pair of skillets she was manning on the stovetop. “Is there anything left of Grams’s house?” Her tone was soft, her white eyes full of pain.

“There’s a lot of damage, but they got the fire out before it took much more than the kitchen and the floor above it.” I walked over to join her. “Are you okay?”

“Good enough.” She offered me a slight smile. She had pulled her hair up in a high ponytail, and I noticed that the nasty wound on her forehead was gone.

I reached up to run my fingers over the undamaged skin. “Uh…”

“James,” she said, as if his name was an explanation.

“Was that an answer?”

“Did you ask a question?”

I laughed. “Only if monosyllabic grunts count.”

She smiled. “James can heal me.”

I turned to stare at my former sidekick. “You can heal others? Why have you never mentioned this?”

“I didn’t know.” He shrugged his wide shoulders.

“How does it work?”

“The same way my brothers heal me.”

I wrinkled my nose. “Licking an open wound?”

“We discovered it when I blood bound him,” Elysia said, her attention on the skillets. “The cut I made vanished.”

In other words, when she fed him her blood. I made an effort not to let my disgust show. “So you can add magic spit to your repertoire?” I asked James.

He snorted. “Well, my blood isn’t natural.”

Rowan leaned over and muttered something to him.

James laughed. “I don’t know. I suppose I could piss on you.”

“Boys,” I said to Elysia. “They always have to make everything gross.”

Her smile was genuine. “It’ll be fart humor next.”

“Oh God, don’t give them ideas.” I waved a hand at the skillets. “What can I do to help?”

“Set the table?”

I opened the cabinet and took down a stack of plates. “How’s your grandmother?”

“She’ll be okay. They kept her overnight because of her age.” She put down her spatula and turned to face me. “Thank you. If not for your salve—” She gave me a quick hug. “I guess not all alchemists are bad.”

“Not all.”

I completed my assigned task of setting the table, and James came over to help Elysia transfer the skillets’ contents to a pair of serving bowls. I couldn’t help but notice how close they stood and the way his arms came around her to hold the skillet aloft while she scraped it out. The breakfast was too far along for them to have spent much time kissing in her room. Not to mention, her bedroom now lacked a door. Whatever was between them had been there all along. I glanced over at Rowan and he smiled. Was he observing the same thing?

Feeling good for the first time this morning, I rolled up on my toes and kissed him.

“Hey, none of that,” James said, carrying one of the bowls to the table.

I stuck my tongue out at him, but did as told and picked up the pitcher of fresh orange juice. We carried the food to the table, and I stopped behind one of the four chairs and eyed the bounty spread over my table. There were eggs, bacon, potatoes with peppers and onions, and toast. “Elysia, will you marry me?”

“As fickle as you are with your affection? I think not.” She sat down in the chair across from me.

“Want to move in? If you always cook like this, I don’t care if we live in sin.”

She snorted. “I don’t always cook like this, but I saw that you took the trouble to stock your pantry after I complained, so it seemed only fair.”

I scooped up some eggs as the guys took their seats. “I didn’t buy any groceries. I haven’t had the time.”

“Don’t look at me,” James said.

“Era stops at decorating,” Rowan said.

“Huh.” I accepted the bowl of potatoes from James. “It must have been Ian.”

“He’s dead,” Elysia said. “Why would he grocery shop?”

“I guess because he knows you’re here—and I rarely remember to buy food.”

Elysia frowned at the food, but didn’t comment.

“He cares about you, Elysia. Since you showed up, I’ve seen a side of him I’ve never seen. He was
pissed
about whatever happened this morning.”

She frowned. “Why was he pissed?”

I decided not to mention our argument about James. “Something about your lack of training. He said such things wouldn’t happen if you knew how to use your power.”

“Use my blood, he means. That’s dark stuff. Blood bonds are as far as I’ll go.”

“What do you mean?” I took a big bite of my potatoes. Wow, those were good.

Elysia focused on serving herself some eggs, but I caught the glance she cast Rowan beneath her lashes. “I don’t fully know. Lich-making is part of it.”

I frowned, not believing her, but I didn’t press the point. “You still might benefit from what Ian has to teach you.”

“Really?” She gave me a frown. “James told me what he did to you. How can you be this trusting?”

“I understand his motivation. Besides, he did as I commanded even after the compulsion wore off. He helped me of his own free will, then brought me back here and patched me up.”

“Because you have the ability to get him what he wants,” Rowan said. “You need to stop interpreting his motives as something altruistic.”

“I’m not that naive.”

We ate in silence for several minutes after that. I wished there was some way to prove what Ian really was.

“So, what does he want?” Elysia asked.

“To find his daughter and free her. She was entombed by the Deacon not long after he was.”

“How do you know he didn’t do it himself?”

“Maybe I should give him a truth serum.”