The Final Formula

by Becca Andre

  Twenty-three? I didn’t look much older than that now, but even a short-term acquaintance wasn’t something I could ignore. I took a step closer before I thought better of it. “Who am I?”

  He snorted. “Testing me, I see. Okay, I’ll play along. You’re Amelia Daulton, master alchemist and according to Emil, his most promising protégé.” He spoke the last words in an accurate mimic of Emil’s voice. So accurate that I had to grip the table as the déjà vu made my head spin.

  When I blinked my eyes back into focus, he was frowning at me.

  “Who are you?” I asked.

  He studied me for one long moment, his countenance no longer amused. “Why the—”

  “Who are you?” I repeated with more force.

  “Neil Dunstan.”

  Neil. Another wave of déjà vu washed over me, but oddly, no memories surfaced.

  “Amelia?” He gripped my shoulders.

  “I don’t remember,” I admitted.

  “Don’t remember what?”

  “You. Me. Anything. Nothing before the night the Alchemica burned. Nothing except alchemy.”

  “Are you serious?” Neil straightened, his arms falling to his sides.

  “Very. So you can stop acting all pissy because I don’t remember you.”

  The door opened, and we both turned to face the newcomer.

  “What’s taking so long? You were supposed to revive her and bring her to me.” Agent Lawson stepped into the room.

  “You.” I fisted my hands as his gaze settled on me. He’d set me up, used me to try to catch Emil. It occurred to me that when he’d come to the gun shop, he’d been looking for a man. It’d been Emil all along. I didn’t know what part Neil had played, but I wasn’t about to stand around and find out.

  I snatched up the vial of smelling salts and pulled off the cap in the same motion. An irritant, the weak solution of ammonium carbonate wouldn’t do much…unless it connected with something sensitive. I slung the contents in Lawson’s face and bolted for the door. Neil didn’t try to stop me.

  The same shade of beige colored the hall outside my room, but the worn commercial-grade carpet was a few shades darker. Definitely an office building of some sort, and judging by the elevator at one end, a multi-story building. Perhaps downtown? I didn’t stop to figure it out, but sprinted down the corridor—or tried to in my heeled boots and tight skirt. I didn’t have time to wait on an elevator. I needed the stairs.

  The smell of coffee wafted out of a small break room on my right. A man and a woman stood before a vending machine and looked up as I ran past.

  Footsteps thumped on the carpeted hall behind me, but I didn’t turn to see who it was. Perhaps Neil had decided to come after me, or maybe it was the man or woman from the break room. It wouldn’t be Lawson. An ammonia solution to the face should take him out for a bit.

  The elevator dinged and slid open. I skidded to a halt and gasped as James stepped off the car, followed by a pair of robed Elements: Rowan and Donovan.

  “Addie!” James leapt across the space separating us and pulled me into a painfully tight embrace.

  “Freeze,” a voice said from behind us.

  I looked back and my jaw dropped open. Lawson stood only feet away. Liquid coated his cheeks, but he didn’t even blink as he trained the gun on me. I must have missed his eyes.

  James’s unnatural snarl coated my skin in gooseflesh.

  “James, wait,” Rowan said.

  Without warning, James released me and sprang forward.

  I reached for him. “Don’t—”

  The report of the gun deafened me in the enclosed space.

  “James!”

  He rocked back with the impact, but didn’t go down.

  “Shit!” Lawson scrambled back, raising his gun once more.

  Gray robes filled my peripheral vision to either side.

  “The gun,” Rowan said.

  “I got it,” Donovan answered. Neither sounded that excited.

  Lawson pulled the trigger and the gun clinked. He tried again and again, backing away when James took an unsteady step toward him, then another.

  “James.” A note of admonishment entered Rowan’s tone.

  Without warning, James sprang and caught Lawson by the throat, slamming him against the wall. With one arm, James held him off the floor.

  “She was in your line of fire.” His words were a barely intelligible snarl.

  Lawson choked, unable to respond. His gun clattered to the floor as he used both hands to cling to James’s wrist.

  The people from the break room charged forward, guns leveled on James. More agents? Suddenly their weapons went up in a white-hot blaze of light.

  “Enough!” Rowan shouted. “James, release him.”

  I belatedly realized that James still held Lawson. I couldn’t let him strangle the guy. I stepped forward and gripped James by the forearm. “It’s okay. Let him go.”

  James didn’t respond, though he’d quit snarling. His breath wheezed in and out, but he didn’t seem to notice.

  “James, please.” I tugged at his arm.

  He finally relented, and Lawson slid to the floor at our feet. I pushed James back a few paces to give Lawson some air. James continued to glare at the downed agent, eyes at full glow, but he wrapped an arm around his ribs. A hole marred his shirt on the lower left side of his chest. Through the rent in the fabric, I could see the wound the bullet had left in his flesh. The lack of blood unsettled me. If someone opened fire on a wax manikin, I imagined it would look the same.

  “What’s the meaning of this, Your Grace?” An older man in a gray suit had joined us, several more men and women following.

  “Director.” Rowan dipped his hooded head in the man’s direction, confirming my suspicions that these were the PIA offices. “I came to collect what was taken from me.” To my surprise, his hand came to rest on my shoulder. “She was under my protection. My personal protection.”

  “But she’s an alchemist. She’s human.” The director’s agents gathered behind him, but no one pulled a weapon—or spoke.

  “She’s mine.” Rowan’s tone left no room for argument. His statement grated, but I didn’t want to argue while we had a PIA audience. I’d save it for later.

  The director glanced between us. “I didn’t know,” he finally said.

  Nice. It seemed that the director of the PIA, the man who kept order among the magical, caved to Rowan’s will as quickly as the next man.

  “Bill me for the guns.” Rowan turned away.

  “And the burns?” Waylon asked.

  “There aren’t any.” Rowan turned back toward the elevator and Donovan joined him. James and I hurried to follow. I remembered the time Rowan had incinerated a gun James held. It hadn’t burned him, but I credited that to James’s natural immunity to fire. I guess that wasn’t the case. I’d have to ask how that worked sometime.

  “Wait,” Director Waylon stopped us. “There’s still the matter of the formula—”

  I turned to face him. “What formula?”

  “The Final Formula.”

  “What?”

  “We believe your Grand Master may have found the Final Formula.”

  I remembered Emil’s youthful face and a wave of despair washed over me. I braced a hand against the elevator doorframe. He’d beaten me to it. Emil had found the Final Formula first. My life’s work. The culmination of—

  “No,” I whispered. The sound of my own voice brought me back. I shook my head trying to dispel the foreign emotion. Where had that come from?

  “Addie?” Rowan stepped up behind me.

  The surge of disappointment faded, the emotion so distant it seemed to belong to someone else. Goosebumps rose on my arms. Had I connected to the person I once was? Rowan claimed that all Alchemica alchemists were obsesse
d with finding the Final Formula. Maybe he was right.

  “Your Grand Master didn’t discover the Final Formula?” the director asked.

  “I—”

  A thump sounded, and I looked back to find James slumped in the corner of the elevator.

  “I’ve got to go.”

  “Miss Daulton,” the director said.

  “Your agent shot my friend. He needs medical attention.” I stepped back onto the elevator. “You know where to find me.”

  The director frowned, but didn’t argue. The elevator door slid closed between us.

  I moved to James’s side.

  “Hey.” I gripped his arm. “How bad is it?”

  “I’ll be okay,” he breathed.

  “Your Grand Master?” Rowan leaned against the wall beside the control panel, his face in shadow beneath his hood.

  “He’s alive.” I turned to smile up at James. “Emil’s alive. I saw him outside the club. The PIA gassed us, but he got away.”

  “He abandoned you?” Rowan asked.

  I rounded on him. “He probably expected me to have the Knockout Gas antidote—like any alchemist would—but some asshole took my vials and left me defenseless.”

  The elevator stopped and the doors slid open. Without a word, Rowan exited. I followed, still fuming.

  “Amelia?” Neil waited not far away. He must have run down the stairs to catch us. He walked over and offered me a manila folder. “Your file. Or as much as they’d share with me.”

  I studied it a moment before plucking it from Neil’s hand. “Why give me this?”

  He leaned closer to whisper, “It might help you remember—and then you’ll know why.”

  “That’s cryptic as hell.”

  He smiled and handed me a business card. “Should you need to reach me.” He nodded to the others. “Gentlemen.” Without another word, he stepped onto the elevator and the doors slid closed.

  “Amelia?” Rowan prompted.

  “That’s who they think I am.” I held up the folder.

  He hesitated, then turned toward the lobby doors. “You can explain in the car.”

  It was then that I noticed the silence in the lobby. At least a dozen people were standing around the large room. All were staring at us.

  Donovan held the door and we followed Rowan outside. A flash of light exploded in my face, then another. It took me a second to realize that it was a camera. More flashes followed us down the steps to the waiting limo.

  “Your Grace!”

  “Your Grace!”

  A couple of reporters clamored for Rowan’s attention, then they saw me. With my bare arms in clear view, it didn’t take long before the words Alchemica alchemist were on their lips. Rowan didn’t slow until he reached the car. He stood to the side while we entered, and climbed in last. He never did answer the reporters.

  “Must be a slow news day,” I muttered.

  “It’s always like this when we show up at the PIA offices in the limo and robes,” Donovan said. “I suspect the doorman tips off the media.”

  I sat beside James, and Rowan and Donovan took the seat across from us. The white leather seats and gray carpet gave the small space an expansive feel.

  “Do you need to go to the hospital?” I asked James.

  “I need to change,” he answered in an airy whisper.

  “Can you do it here?”

  “Not enough room.”

  “We’ll be at the office in ten minutes,” Rowan said. He leaned his head back, but didn’t bother to lower the hood. The sunlight filtering through the tinted windows illuminated his unshaven lower face. His lips pressed together in a thin line before he spoke. “I’m very disappointed in you, James. You might have damaged my relationship with the PIA.” He sounded more tired than angry.

  James didn’t immediately respond. When I opened my mouth to argue his case, James gripped my arm. “Addie was between us.” James’s words came out soft and pained. “When he drew his weapon—”

  “No,” Rowan cut him off. “I asked you to wait and you didn’t. You frightened him, and he recognized you for the predator you are. The fault wasn’t his.” Rowan leaned up and the hood slid back off his head. He looked like a man who’d been up all night. His pale skin emphasized the dark circles under his eyes. “You make the rest of us look bad.”

  “But I’m not yours. I’m…Old Magic.”

  Rowan leaned his head back and closed his eyes. “You’re mine.”

  James bowed his head. “Thank you. I’m sorry.”

  Rowan didn’t respond.

  “Rowan, are you okay?” I asked.

  “Headache,” he muttered.

  I met Donovan’s eyes and saw worry reflected there.

  We arrived at the Elemental Offices nine minutes later. It had been a silent trip. James curled in on himself, his breathing shallow. Rowan appeared to have fallen asleep. When the limo stopped, Donovan touched his knee. He straightened without comment and both men pulled up their hoods before climbing out.

  Donovan hung back to help James from the car. James managed without help, but walked doubled-over up the sidewalk to the big Victorian house. I knew bullet wounds weren’t fatal to him, but it really bothered me to see him in pain. Once inside, Donovan quickly ushered him from the room. Rowan exchanged a few words with the receptionist, who’d come to her feet when we entered, then he showed me to the library.

  I recognized the room from my first and only visit to the Elemental Offices. The time I hit Rowan with my truth serum. I hoped he wasn’t remembering the same thing.

  Rowan closed the door and pushed back his hood. “So what did that agent give you?” He led me to the large oval table that took up one side of the room. Morning sunlight shown through the opaque drapes providing plenty of natural light.

  “I don’t think he’s an agent. He claimed to know me.”

  “You didn’t know him?”

  I laid the folder on the table, but didn’t open it. Time to tell him everything—as much as I hated to. “I have amnesia. The burning of the Alchemica is my earliest memory. Beyond that, all I remember is alchemy.”

  “Amnesia doesn’t work like that.” He studied me with shadowed eyes. “Unless it was a potion. Was it?”

  “How would I know?”

  He grunted. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “It didn’t seem pertinent.”

  “And now it does? Why?”

  I didn’t answer. Instead I opened the folder. The first page was a standard database form. The column headers across the top of the page were: name, age, date of birth, and other personal information. Most of fields below them were empty.

  Rowan leaned forward, reading the form along with me. “Amelia Daulton, age forty-two. This is who the PIA thinks you are?”

  I pointed to a line further down the page. “I suspect this is why. She’s the only female master.” Though that couldn’t be right. I was a master alchemist, but I’d never heard of Amelia Daulton.

  I turned the page and found myself staring at a photo of four people: me, Emil, and two young men. One was Neil.

  The caption beneath the photo stated that it had been taken eighteen years ago—one year after magic returned—at the founding of the Alchemica. I looked heavier, but not any older than I did now. Emil looked like a man well into middle age. Nothing like the man I’d met last night. And Neil looked barely out of his teens.

  With a shaking hand, I turned another page. The next picture was taken last spring in front of the still-standing Alchemica. A white-haired Emil stood beside a pudgy, middle-aged woman I knew intimately.

  “Dear God, is that you?” Rowan asked.

  I flipped the folder closed and backed away from the table.

  “I don’t know,” I whispered.

  “Addie?” James stepped up besid
e me and I jumped. As usual, I hadn’t heard him enter. Though it surprised me to see Donovan with him. The big guy could move quietly as well.

  “What’s wrong?” James asked.

  I gestured at the folder, unable to speak. The PIA agents had been right. I was Amelia Daulton. A forty-two-year-old master alchemist. I ran my hand through my loose hair. Why didn’t the name stir any memories? I’d had varying degrees of déjà vu upon hearing both Emil’s and Neil’s names. Yet my own name stirred nothing inside me.

  James studied the contents of the folder, flipping through the pages. “Dear God,” he whispered, just as Rowan had earlier. I bit my lip to keep the hysterical laughter at bay. Kind of funny to hear a hellhound swear like that.

  James raised wide eyes to mine. “You’re forty-two?”

  I took a deep breath, trying to calm myself. “Maybe?”

  He stared at me.

  “Told you I was older than you.” I tried to smile, but the joke fell flat.

  “Twenty-two maybe.” He gave his head a shake and turned his attention back to the folder.

  “I need to find Emil.” I looked at Rowan. “I saw him last night at the club. He didn’t look much over twenty-two either.”

  Everyone took a moment to absorb that. “What do you think happened?” Rowan asked.

  “I think Emil found the Final Formula.” Just as the director suspected.

  “The what?” Donovan asked.

  “The Elixir of Life.” Rowan’s voice softened. “It’s what every alchemist throughout time has searched for. It grants eternal life and youth.”

  All three men looked at me.

  “I think that’s what Neil, the guy who gave me the folder, concluded when he saw me. He’s in the first picture.” I gestured toward the table.

  “You’re immortal?” James asked.

  I shrugged, unwilling to consider that. I hadn’t come to terms with Emil finding the Formula yet, let alone what it meant if I had taken it.

  Rowan turned and left the room. Was he angry? Sick? I could see it in his eyes that his headache was hitting him hard.

  I dropped into the nearest chair while James told Donovan about my amnesia. He flipped through my file, but there weren’t any other pictures and very little information aside from a list of eight formulas that had been registered in my name. As I’d noticed in my prior searches for information, Alchemica alchemists tended to be very secretive.