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

sudden move threw Rowan off balance, and he staggered to the side before falling to one knee. The joint smacked the cobbles hard enough to bruise. He slumped forward, catching himself on quivering arms. The white T-shirt he wore bore no singe marks, though a line of blistered flesh marred his right forearm.
    James knelt beside him, alert for any sudden moves. “What were you saying about control?”
    “When I get my breath back, I’m going to kick your ass.”
    “Fair enough.” James settled to the ground and watched Rowan a moment to make sure he wouldn’t collapse—or attack him again—then lifted his head to look around. The leaves still burned, but with the lack of wind and diminishing fuel supply, it didn’t look like the fire would spread. The old cobbled drive led to an equally decayed building a dozen yards away. The stone exterior had a Greco-Roman flavor with the columned entryway and peaked roof. James thought the two-story structure a school, then he noticed the smokestack rising another two stories above the building.
    Mature forest encroached from every side, giving the impression that the building had been dropped in the woods. No overhead power lines, no trappings of modern civilization. Just the scent of fallen leaves, damp earth, and crumbling stone. He didn’t even hear any cars in the distance.
    “Where are we?” Rowan asked, head hanging.
    “I don’t know.”
    Rowan lifted his head to look at him. A sheen of sweat coated his face and dampened the edges of his auburn hair. “How could you not know? You brought us here.”
    “I found a thin spot.”
    “What?”
    “A thin place between the mortal plane and the next.”
    Rowan wrinkled his brow.
    Uncertain what the expression meant, James hurried on. “I panicked, okay? It takes less time if I use a preexisting portal.”
    “A natural phenomena?”
    “No. More like a heavy traffic area. A lot of people died here.”
    “Here?”
    James waved at the building.
    Rowan followed the gesture and grunted. “We’re near Cleves.”
    “You’ve been here.” Thank God. Maybe they weren’t that far from the manor.
    “No, I read the words on the portico.”
    Portico? James looked closer at the front of the building, his eyes settling on the decorative porch over the open front door. The weathered letters carved into the stone facing were barely legible. Winters Crematorium.
    “There are urban legends about this old crematorium up on Buffalo Ridge,” Rowan said. “Some crazy doctor by the name of Winters owned the place. Rumor has it that he was convicted of abuse of a corpse, and the place closed down.”
    Disturbing. “Buffalo Ridge? Are we still in Cincinnati?” James wasn’t a native to the area, but Rowan was.
    “West of the city.”
    James frowned, eyeing the building. “But why is the veil so thin here? You take the dead to a crematorium, you don’t use one to make them dead.”
    “You tell me. Death is your element.”
    James wanted to shoot back a smartass comment, but what could he say? Rowan was right. If anyone knew death, it was James.
    Rowan braced his hands on his thighs and bowed his head.
    James studied his face—or what he could see of it. Had he always been that pale? “Are you all right?”
    “No.” A drop of blood fell from his upper lip.
    Anxiety dumped adrenaline into James’s bloodstream, but he had no outlet for it. Nothing to attack, nothing to hunt. Nothing but guilt.
    “I need to get you home,” James said.
    “Not through…that place. I’ll walk.” Rowan kept his head bowed.
    “ Can you walk?”
    “Screw you,” Rowan mumbled.
    James sighed. He hadn’t been trying to insult him. “I don’t suppose you have your phone?”
    “It’s in my car, at the hospital.”
    The hospital? James decided not to ask. “I can go to the manor and let Donovan know where you are.”
    Rowan grunted, head still hanging.
    James didn’t want to leave him here, but it was either that or carry him out of these woods