Forbidden Alchemy (Elemental Book 7)

by Rain Oxford

  Remington simply turned and let Amari slip glowing blue cuffs on her wrists. She took two steps before stopping. “Just a second,” she said, her authority unmistakable. She was going voluntarily or not at all, and they knew it, so Amari released her arms. With her hands still behind her, she leaned up and kissed me. I returned her passion as much as I dared in front of her father. “Take that bitch down,” she whispered.

  I nodded, and Amari pulled her away with a mumbled apology for not giving her a longer goodbye. It wouldn’t be a forever goodbye like he thought, though.

  “I’m hiring Devon as my private investigator,” she said.

  “That’s nice, but I don’t see how that will help you,” Becky said.

  “You’re governed by human laws as well. That means you have to answer any and all questions he has and show him any and all evidence.”

  That wasn’t true. Many people believed that private investigators were police for hire, except we didn’t need a warrant to search private property. Fortunately, while Becky knew quite a lot about paranormal politics, she didn’t know anything more than the average human did about human laws.

  I was quick to play along with the illegal ruse to save her. “That also means you can’t take the children.”

  They all stopped. “What?” Becky asked.

  “I need to question them as part of the investigation.”

  “You can question them at their homes,” Becky argued.

  “I want them to go home to their families as much as you, but they are evidence, and taking them from the school is tampering with evidence.” I was good at bullshit, and Becky bought it.

  She frowned, knowing she would be partially responsible for the kids being kept from their families. Then she shook her head. “Do what you have to do, then. We can’t let Ms. Hunt go when she likely kidnapped children.”

  It was a dick move on my part, but they were already taken from their homes once, and if they went back, Veronica could just kidnap them again to use as hostages. At least at the school, they were somewhat protected. I favored fighting fire with water, but sometimes, a problem just had to go up in smoke before it could be fixed.

  Unlike Maseré, Hunt did nothing to stop them from taking his child. It wasn’t because he didn’t care. He helped rebuild the council. He was furious, but their relationship was different. He trusted his daughter to get herself out of the situation. If he tried to defend her, she would take that as a lack of faith in her. In fact, she would get herself into more trouble to spite him. It wasn’t a mature response, but she was young and their relationship was damaged.

  Remington could have fought them and won temporarily. She was a lot more powerful than she let on. However, she was composed and quiet so that the students and staff wouldn’t panic or fight. She was known as a spitfire, but she was holding her cool better than I would have.

  I knew Becky, though, and she wouldn’t arrest someone on the word of an anonymous letter. “See reason, Becky. You’re so much smarter than this. Remington Hunt would never harm a child.”

  Her expression was suddenly cold and my intuition fired, but I couldn’t figure out what it was trying to tell me. “I know you love your girlfriend. We will give her a fair trial. If she had a good reason, we will take that into consideration. But you have to know that sometimes, the people we love do stupid things. You do like the bad girls, though.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Amari led Remy out to their SUV.

  Becky stopped to answer me. “Astrid, Clara, Felicity…”

  “How did you know about Felicity?”

  “I’m on the council, Devon. I know everything.”

  Chapter 17

  “What’s the plan?” Henry asked. We watched them drive away with Remy.

  “I need to get the letter that Veronica wrote to---” I cut myself off as he held up the envelope. “How…? Never mind.” Henry’s skills were nothing to scoff at. Morally ambiguous or not, his training in thievery came in handy more than once. “Am I that predictable?”

  “Yes. At least to Darwin and me. You say that like it’s a bad thing, though, and it’s not. I knew you would want to use it for a vision.”

  “Actually, that’s not the only use for it.” I took it carefully. “Someone get me a new, unopened plastic lunch sack. Your fingerprints aren’t on file, are they?”

  “Shit. They will be now.”

  I nodded. “Yep. There could be a dozen or more fingerprints on this, and I have to find the one that’s not accounted for. The chance that Veronica’s prints will be on record is low, but some paranormals have human jobs. Don’t worry; Darwin can wipe yours from whatever records there are. I’ll try a vision first.” Ms. Holland handed me a bag and I dropped the envelope into it.

  Unfortunately, it was challenging to get good fingerprints off of paper, mostly because of sweat, but it wasn’t the hardest material by far. My field print kit (consisting of carbon powder, dusting brush, and tape) wouldn’t be adequate, and my more advanced equipment was in storage. There was a very slight chance it would come to anything, so a vision was preferable.

  Hunt turned to me. “I have no doubt that Remington would leave the school to you in her absence, but since she did not state that, it is up to me. I am making James Murphy the active headmaster as the staff member with the most experience.”

  “That sounds like a good idea to me, but I figured you would stick around in your daughter’s absence.”

  “I only stayed to protect her.” He hated it here, which was why he always sent Flagstone in his stead whenever possible until Remington took over. “Your departure did not cause Quintessence to suddenly become peaceful.”

  “That’s… nice to hear? So you’re not worried about your daughter?”

  “I am. I also trust you like a nephew, and you have never failed Remington before. I am confident in your ability to rescue her… because if you fail, I will not.”

  I heard the threat in his voice. If they hurt his daughter, the council would burn. Veronica was causing a hell of a shit storm for one person. When I catch her, she’ll have a lot of pissed off people to answer to.

  * * *

  Henry and I were in my room an hour later. Using the letter, I tried to induce a vision, despite the shortcomings and risks. I would focus my mind on something, either vague or specific, depending on what I wanted to see. This was vague because I didn’t know what Veronica looked like or where she was when she wrote the letter.

  I envisioned a generic, faceless woman writing this letter as I held it in my hand. I felt my magic trying to fill in the blanks and the vagueness, but after ten minutes, I knew it wasn’t going to work. When I first started learning to control my visions, it could take hours or seconds. This was different.

  Somehow, Veronica could cover her tracks. She could even have been using my siblings against me. “It didn’t work. I can’t rely on my visions this time; I need to break out my investigative skills.” I put the letter away.

  “Research?”

  “Exactly.”

  “But that’s Darwin’s thing.”

  “It didn’t use to be. She’s too powerful to give herself away so easily. Someone that powerful doesn’t just pop out from nowhere, though. Someone knows her. Someone taught her magic. We just have to find her past. Since she obviously hates Remington, maybe Remington knows her.”

  “Then Alpha Flagstone would know her.”

  “Good thinking, but without a description, we might have trouble. You go to him and ask him about anyone who had a problem with Remington in her entire life.”

  “You’re joking, right?”

  “Sorry. Females who had a problem with her, who she didn’t kill.”

  “That narrows it down a little, I suppose.”

  “Meanwhile, I’ll talk to the kids. If any of them saw her, I’ll call you. Mentally, of course.”

  He grimaced. “You wizards. If this were a shifter school, we would have cell phones.”

 
“Darwin is rubbing off on you,” I accused. “Hunt blocked reception for the safety and privacy of the students. On the other hand, when you think of how many movies and books would have been over in ten minutes if they had cell phones, it seems silly.”

  “Like Romeo and Juliet, Cujo, or eighty percent of horror movies made before 1995.”

  “It bothers me that they arrested Remington after finding out the kids were here, but they had no interest at all in seeing the kids or finding out if they were safe. They don’t know they’re my siblings and they think Remington kidnapped the kids, yet they agreed not to take them and didn’t even bother to make sure I wasn’t a danger to them. As far as they know, I could be holding them hostage until Remington is freed.”

  “Becky knows you wouldn’t hurt them,” Henry said.

  “She knows Remy wouldn’t, either.”

  “She wasn’t possessed; her eyes were normal.”

  “What if another one of my siblings is helping Veronica? She had four minions at the school, so it stands to reason she would have others. She could make them influence the council members. I should have read her mind. I’m used to relying on my intuition to tell me when to get into someone’s head, but whenever it comes to Veronica, I’m getting a blank.”

  “Maybe she can block your intuition, or maybe she’s using one of your siblings to do it. The four you caught working for her had various aspects of John’s mind control. Look at Ahz, though. His magic is nothing like John’s. It stands to reason that some of your siblings have completely different powers.”

  “But John was pretty adamant about having children with humans so that his power would manifest fully. He screwed up with Rita.”

  “There’s a twenty-five year age gap between you and Ahz. Maybe Rita wasn’t a mistake; maybe he learned that human blood wasn’t the answer. There could be numerous variations of Arthur’s rare wizard gene that other paranormal blood could bring out.”

  “That makes sense.”

  “Good, because I’m just guessing. I have no idea if magic works that way.”

  “I don’t either. It makes sense if magic works that way.”

  “You’re a wizard; you’re supposed to know.”

  “I wasn’t born into this. I mean, I was, but I didn’t grow up in it.”

  “We need Darwin.”

  I nodded. “In the meantime, let’s try to solve this case with what we’ve got.”

  Suddenly, Dorian appeared on my desk with my lighter in his mouth. He dropped it and vanished.

  I picked it up, reflecting on my earlier thoughts of smoke and fire. Obviously, Dorian was much younger and less experienced than Ghost, and he didn’t share visions of the future with his master like Ghost did.

  “Darwin would state a fact or statistic about cat familiars that would make sense of that,” Henry said.

  “Well, I said we should work with what we’ve got. We’ve got this.”

  * * *

  Henry left. Since I was sure Dorian would watch over Remington, I didn’t want to divide Rocky’s attention to guard her as well.

  After making up a list of questions, I had my recently-freed siblings wait outside my office and come in one at a time to talk to me. Rita and Ahz joined them as well. Although my siblings seemed to believe me that I only wanted to help them, they were skittish and most didn’t want to let me into their minds.

  When I agreed to talk without invading their memories, however, I realized that it was because they were too afraid to revisit those memories. While their bodies had been comatose, their minds had been trapped in the visions. They were terrified of Veronica. As I expected, most of them weren’t reported missing to the wizard council because their families didn’t know about the paranormal community.

  Emerson was the oldest of the group at seventeen. She had visions from a young age that she couldn’t control or understand. They grew so strong that they started causing seizures. Instead of having her committed or hospitalized, her human mother found a vampire to control Emerson’s visions with his thrall. It wasn’t perfect, but it helped.

  When she saw a house fire and ended up saving a family, she started refusing the vampire’s help and her visions quickly got out of control. All she wanted was to use her powers to help people, but her mother said that it came from John, so it was evil. Veronica first ambushed her as she cried in an empty church. She’d been tempted when Veronica said she had siblings, but she couldn’t bring herself to trust Veronica. When Veronica captured her, she used her vision powers to connect to the rest of us.

  “She put me somewhere… dark and wet and cold. She moved me to the school later. I was alone at first, so I made a mental world for myself. When I felt others near me with the same power… I somehow merged my vision/dream into theirs. I don’t know how it happened, really, but our powers started working together. We could suddenly feel more of us who were still awake. We felt how powerful you were and agreed… without words… to warn you and the others.”

  “That explains the visions.”

  “Veronica stopped us from talking to you.”

  “But you never saw her?”

  She shook her head. “No. I saw her as my best friend, who moved away to another country last year.”

  “You should meet our uncle. He can teach you to control your visions without suppressing them. John was evil, but that doesn’t mean you are just because you inherited magic from him.”

  She gave me a sad smile. “Explain that to my mom. He ruined her life.”

  She had no idea how much worse it could have been. My mother spent most of my life unable to function because John wanted to torture his brother.

  Johannes was a year younger than Emerson and had developed the ability to read minds, but not control them. However, he also had intuition that, from what he told me, surpassed my own. His problem was that his mother wasn’t much better than John. John had seduced Johannes’s mother, causing her husband to kick her out on the street. She blamed every bad decision she made afterwards on him. He could sense the worst in everyone around him.

  “What is my worst?” I asked.

  “Fear,” he said easily. “Talking about John, you fear that he’s your father. Talking about Veronica, you fear that she’s too strong for you and will kill your friends.”

  “I’m not afraid.”

  “You don’t think you are, but it drives you to work with us instead of going after her directly.”

  “I don’t know how to find her. That’s why I’m talking to you.”

  “You could find her mind. You might not be able to control her, but you can get her attention and make her come to you.”

  I considered that. It would be on her terms, but maybe I could set a trap.

  “You won’t, though,” Johannes continued. “Fear isn’t a disadvantage. If you weren’t afraid sometimes, you would have been killed. You have the intuition; you know that fear can save your life.”

  “Caution. I think you mean caution.” His posture and tone suggested he wasn’t quite normal, and his subtle smirk told me he had either heard my thought or sensed it.

  He shrugged. “It’s the same thing to me. I can sense when people make choices out of fear or desire. Fear of something negative, or desire for a positive outcome. Veronica acts on desire without fear. She has no fear, and that is how you can beat her.”

  I wondered how he came to be so blasé about someone who had imprisoned him. Intuition was the key to combining Arthur’s mind control and visions, so I imagined it left him feeling incomplete. “Explain that.”

  “You should be glad your intuition isn’t stronger. I’ve only ever met one person in my life that I liked. She had her issues, but she was so honest and open with me.”

  “I was referring to defeating Veronica, not your intuition.”

  “So am I.” Then he stood. “I’ve said enough. I need to return to my room.”

  “You haven’t told me how to stop her.”

  “If I did, you would fail.”
He left without another word.

  Sophia was a timid fourteen-year-old. Her mother had died when she was three from a drug overdose, and she’d been raised by her strict aunt. Her primary goal in life was to repay her aunt by turning out completely different from her mother. Although her mind control was mediocre at best and she didn’t have visions or intuition, her natural skill in magic was exceptional. She could read the minds of wizards and learn how to do all the magic they knew in minutes. Her favorite activity was to sit in a library and soak in the thoughts of people around her.

  “I couldn’t read Veronica’s mind at all. My aunt had a stroke. I was alone in the room with her, begging her to get better. She wouldn’t even wake up. Then Veronica appeared and said she could help me get everything I wanted. I told her I just wanted my aunt to wake up and for things to go back to the way they were. She told me that she could either be an ally or an enemy. Then she left and my aunt woke. She came back to me twice, and I told her both times that I wouldn’t leave my aunt. She said I would regret it.”

  Ten-year-old Tristan was traumatized. He was adopted when he was born and grew up in a perfectly well-adjusted family. There’s been no sign that he was different until a burglar broke in and shot his foster sister. Tristan ordered the gunman to stop and he did.

  “I didn’t mean to…” Tristan trailed off. “I felt weird, like I had a fever, but I had too much energy. I was so angry… I told him to kill himself. I don’t know why I said it… but he did what I told him to do. I killed him.”

  “When did Veronica visit you?”

  “At the police station. They left me in a room with toys so that they could talk to my parents. My sister should have been with me. She had a doll. I brought it with me and wouldn’t let it go. They wanted to take it because her blood was on it, but I told them to get out and leave me alone. They did. Then Veronica appeared. She said she could give me the power so that no one could hurt me again. I told her to go away, but she just laughed at me.”

  “What exactly did she offer you?”