Alchemy: an Adult Dystopian Paranormal Romance: Sector 9 (The Othala Witch Collection) Read online

  I swallowed at the sudden dryness of my throat. Father had always made me swear not to tell anyone of my secret. Of course he’d gone as far as to ensure I never spoke to anyone, period. I’d been confined to the manor, only able to visit his garden under his supervision or with one of his automaton servants. He would have ensured any notes on my creation had been destroyed when he’d wiped the memories of the servants.

  Father wasn’t here now, and the servants wouldn’t even remember my existence, even if they were here. All I had was this man standing in front of me. I wouldn’t tell him about me yet, but I could lead him to some sort of information that would distract him from me. Perhaps he would be more talkative, and I could find out where my father went.

  My hand clutched the onyx cat’s head pendant that hung under my shirt. Not all secrets had to be revealed.

  “There’s a hidden safe in his study upstairs. I think he keeps his special grimoire there,” I said. “You have to know the rune to reveal it.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “And my bet is that they didn’t know it, but you do. Thanks, senhorita. Let’s check it out.”

  He gestured his hand from me to the open door. With my stomach churning, I crossed the room to the narrow stairwell. The wooden steps creaked under my feet as I ascended the stairs, through the open passage, and into my father’s study. Several of the books from the bookshelves were scattered on the floor. The computer monitor that normally sat on my father’s desk lay with its screen cracked. I swallowed hard as the churning grew. These people had treated my home with such casual disregard. I jumped as Bastian stepped out and slid the false bookshelf into place.

  He cleared his throat. “It was like this when I got here.”

  I pressed a hand to my stomach, swallowed and shook my head, shoving down the ill feeling inside me. “It doesn’t matter. It’s just stuff.”

  He was here for the same reason the Council had been. However, he might be able to help me, while the Council would want to lock me up. I pushed the coffee table off the giant rug in the center of the room and rolled it to the side, coughing at the cloud of dust that rose in the air. On the wooden floor, I drew a straight line and crossed it with a diagonal one. Naudhiz, the rune to liberate constrictions. I leaned forward and blew on the symbol. The rune flared to life with a faint blue glow and etched itself into the wood. The rune had already been carved their long before, but had been hidden by my father’s power, along with what was beneath it. The wooden slats of the area shifted down, parted, and slid under the remainder of the floor to reveal a small metal safe. It swung open with a squeak. I pulled out the thick leather bound book with both hands and hugged it to my chest.

  “Huh,” Bastian said from behind me. “Your dad’s clever. I’m surprised he didn’t put that rune on your hiding spot.”

  “Something similar, but it was set to fade incase anything happened to him.” I pushed back the lump in my throat. “I guess like it did.”

  “Yeah, shame and all that.” He held his hands out. “The book, please?”

  I chewed the inside of my cheek. Now that I had it, did I really want to give it to the stranger?

  His smile faded to an annoyed frown the longer I sat there with my death grip.

  The small radio attached to his belt cracked to life with the sound of static.

  “Bastian, we got a problem,” a voice said through the radio. “The Council was watching the house. They’re coming in.”

  Chapter 3

  Bastian muttered under his breath and pulled me up by my arm. I took a step away from him, trying to yank my arm out of his grasp. His strength outmatched mine, and another tug from him caused me to stumble forward. He dragged me across the floor until I found my footing. I jerked away from him with a glare as I clutched the book to me. He pulled out a pistol from under the back of his vest.

  “Change of plan. You guard that thing, and I’ll get us out of here,” he said.

  I shook my head. “I’ll find my own way out, thanks.”

  A pinched expression formed on his face. “Look, senhorita. your dad put up some heavy magic to hide you. You wanna waste all that and get nabbed by the people he was hiding you from?”

  “Maybe he was hiding me from people like you,” I said.

  Shouts echoed from down the hall, followed by gunshots. Bastian’s shoulders stiffened and pressed against the wall. He waved his hand at me to follow suit. I bit my bottom lip and glanced at the door. As much as Bastian’s attitude irked me, Father had been more concerned with the Council discovering me than anyone else. I probably should take my chances with Bastian.

  I scooted to the wall and flattened against it, next to him. The shouts grew fainter. They were headed away from us.

  Bastian breathed a long sigh. “All right. We’re going to try to sneak past them and get out of here. Keep behind me, but stay close.”

  “Wait.”

  Before he could respond, I ran to my father’s large desk, now in a disarray of papers, and pulled open one of the drawers. Inside lay a steel blade the length of my forearm with runes inscribed on it, my father’s athame. Beside it was his wand, a red crystal with two silver snakes winding around it. I shoved both in my belt and snagged a small leather herb pouch from the bookcase as I passed it. This I clipped to my belt.

  Bastian raised his eyebrow.

  “What? You expect me to hide meekly behind you?” I asked.

  He gave a small chuckle. “Fine. Are you ready now?”

  “Lead the way.”

  His demeanor changed as he pushed the door open and stepped out into the hall. His shoulders straightened and his head cocked to one side. He held his gun up and ready to point at the first sign of movement.

  My boots padded across the burgundy carpet with a whisper of sound as I followed behind him. My hand hovered over the athame at my side. It was meant more for rituals than actual attacking, but a knife was a knife. Not that I’d ever stabbed someone. My heart pounded in my ears as I tried to focus on the hallways ahead of us instead of the way Bastian’s pants hugged his butt.

  This is not the time to daydream about those scenes in those romance books, I admonished myself.

  Bastian paused at the next door and leaned close to it with his finger to his lips.

  Really? He thought I was going to ask a question now? He shook his head and continued down the hall towards the front door. Footsteps thudded above us, followed by muted voices.

  I moved closer to Bastian and whispered. “Don’t you think they’ll be guarding the front door?”

  “Doesn’t hurt to check,” he said softly. “Gives me a good idea on their numbers.”

  I shrugged and hung back a little. He positioned himself next to a partially ajar door across the hall and pushed it open more. I leaned against the opposite wall and hugged the grimoire to me, resting my chin on it. I always wanted to meet other people, but this was never the way I imagined. Still, it could be worse than Bastian. At least he was good to look at with those muscles.

  The click of a gun cocking pulled me out of my reverie with a start. Two men stood at the end of the hall with their rifles raised at us. Their faces were hidden by black masks with a white pentacle in the middle.

  “Put your hands up,” the one on the right called.

  I glanced at Bastian who stood frozen with his gaze locked on me. He shifted his attention to the door a few feet behind me. I took a deep breath and raised my hands, still holding the book.

  “Put the gun down,” the same guard yelled to Bastian.

  Both had their guns trained on him. Now was my chance. Forgive me, Father. With a grunt, I hurled the grimoire at the soldier on the left. It flipped in the air and lost some of its momentum, but it still hit the soldier with a loud thunk. He staggered back. The right soldier turned. Bastian lifted his pistol, and a boom exploded from it. The right soldier went down.

  I flung open the door and dived into my father’s favorite sitting room as more shots flew into the air. A sharp pa
in flared in my leg. My cry was cut off when I hit the floor.

  I bit my lip and crawled farther into the room to the armchair and end table. I hauled myself up with a groan and pulled out the athame, stealing a glance at my leg. Rivets of blood ran down from the long gash across my calf. A bitter tang formed in my mouth as my stomach tightened.

  Don’t think about it now.

  With a grimace, I limped back to the open door and hid behind it. Whoever came through was going to get a hunk of metal stuck in them.

  A soldier staggered in and his back turned towards me as he took in the room. I pushed the door from me and lunged at him. My blade glanced off of his shoulder, leaving a jagged cut. He turned my direction with a grunt of surprise. I took a step back. He grabbed me by my hair and flung me against the wall. I slammed into it with my hip on my wounded side. Pain shot to the top of my head. I landed on the floor with a roll, my cat pendant slapping my forehead. The soldier gripped a handful of my hair and pulled me up again.

  “Stay still and I won’t break anything,” he said with a growl in his voice.

  Bastian came into view from the hall and stepped into the room with the other’s soldier’s rifle in his hand. “How about I break something of yours instead?”

  He slammed the butt of the gun into the soldier’s face. The soldier staggered several feet before he collapsed. My weight landed on my wounded leg and a shock of pain flared, sending me tumbling to the ground. I sat up, rubbing my hip and panting. Bastian’s hands wrapped around my waist and he lifted me to my feet.

  He glanced at the blood running down my leg. “Can you walk, senhorita?”

  “I’m not a weak girl.” I pulled away from him, wobbling. I brought my hand against the wall. “I just need a moment.”

  “We need to move. That fight’s got the attention of the people upstairs. The main door’s out.”

  “The kitchen has a backdoor. There’s a servant’s entrance in this room that leads to it.” I pointed to a small oak paneling on the other side of the room.

  “Great. Kitchen it is.”

  “Hold on.” There was no way we were leaving without the grimoire.

  I limped into the hall, stepping over the second fallen soldier where he lay bleeding all over my father’s plush carpet, and retrieved the book. With a wince, I straightened the ruffled and bent pages. Father would have given me a tongue lashing if he’d seen how I’d treated the book. An ache went through my chest at that thought. If I didn’t help him, Father wouldn’t be scolding anyone.

  I hobbled back into the sitting room and over to the servants’ door, ignoring Bastian’s raised eyebrow. The door and latch was built to meld in with the paneling to look like the rest of the wall. It swung open under my touch and I stepped inside. Bastian took my shoulders and guided me back out, positioning himself in front of me.

  “No need in you getting shot if they already found this,” he said. “Close the door behind us.”

  The door shut with a soft click, leaving a dim light for us to guide our way. After what seem like forever of shuffling forward in the musty hall with only our labored breathing as sound, we reached the end. He turned to me. I set the grimoire on a small shelf built into the wall near the door and slid in beside him. My breasts pressed against his chest and his breath tickled my neck. My heart fluttered as well as something in my loins as I fumbled for the latch. I needed to get away from him. When the door swung open, I snatched the book up and stumbled out first. The dustiness of flour drifted through the air, and I coughed.

  Shouts and gunshots echoed from the vegetable garden, rattling the wooden bowls that sat on the counters. I peeked out a window. A few feet away, several Council soldiers stood off against two men crouched behind a group of barrels. Every so often the men would stand up slightly and get a shot off at the soldiers.

  With a muttered curse, Bastian pulled up the rifle and marched to the back door. He crouched down and opened it. With a few quick crab walking steps, he was next to the two. I stooped and stuck a foot out then I yanked it back inside with my fingers digging into the spine of the book. I sucked in a deep breath then blew my cheeks out before I followed, trying to mimic his moves, though I probably looked like a lame duck. Once I made it, I collapsed behind the cover of the barrels with my breath coming out in little gasps. The book slid to the ground as I curled my knees to my chest and pressed my hands to my ears. My heart hammered so hard in my chest it felt like it would burst.

  “How many?” Bastian shouted to the men over the sound of gunfire.

  A man with a wavy brown ponytail glanced over the top of the barrels. “Four.”

  The other man fired his rifle and the shot hit one of the soldiers in the head. “Three now. Not much of a problem.”

  “We have more headed this way from inside, Renato,” Bastian said. “It won’t take them long.”

  Renato’s gaze slid over me. “Who’s the girl?”

  Bastian grinned. “Our jackpot. We just need to get out alive with her.”

  The long haired man let out a burst of bullets, taking two of the soldiers down. He dropped back behind the barrel. “You get out of here. We’ll hold them off.”

  Bastian’s jaw tightened, and he shook his head. “We came here together.”

  “Me and Diego got this. You worry about our mission,” Renato said.

  As if to prove his point, he jumped up and fired several shots at the last soldier, hitting him in the chest. The soldier staggered back and then hit the ground.

  “Come on.” Bastian grabbed me by the wrist and pulled me into the garden.

  Within moments, we were through it and racing across the yard towards the woods. More shots erupted behind us. Bastian’s expression turned grim. My heart sank. How long would his men be able to hold off the soldiers before they came after us?

  Chapter 4

  Bastian had rushed me through three miles of forest only to stop at a decrepit little shack in the middle of a clearing. He grabbed my wrist to tug me toward it, but I hesitated, glancing back in the direction we’d come. My leg had been throbbing since we made the sprint across the garden and had moved to excruciating during our trek. I’d tripped over branches several times and my knees and hands bore the proof of that.

  How long would we stay here before we had to run from the soldiers again? My leg couldn’t take much more weight upon it. If the Council was still after us, we’d be caught for sure. Even then, what did Bastian want with me?

  I all but collapsed in one of the dusty wooden chairs and propped my leg in another, letting out a hiss between my teeth. I dropped the book on the table beside the chairs, causing it to wobble. Bastian peered through the slats of the shuttered windows before sealing them shut. He flipped a switch on the near wall and an overhead light flickered to life. His gaze swept over me, sending a warmth through me.

  “We should probably get you bandaged up,” he said in a soft voice.

  “Good idea, since you caused this,” I grated each word out.

  He raised a finger at me. “I didn’t shoot you.”

  “No, but you and your friends snooping around brought them there.”

  “And if we hadn’t been snooping, you’d still be asleep in that casket or whatever.” His voice trailed off as he moved into the adjoining kitchen.

  “It’s not a casket. It’s a capsule. My father made it to keep me safe.”

  A half-truth was better than a lie. No one needed to know that I was born in that capsule. Father had always warned that others would use my special condition to their advantage if they knew that I was a creation of alchemy. I had to keep it a secret for as long as possible. Judging by Bastian’s aversion to witchcraft, he wouldn’t know enough about magic to guess I was possible.

  He returned with a small white box, a cloth, and a bowl of water. His fingers brush my knee, sending a tingle through me, as he knelt to inspect my wound. The bleeding had slowed and small lines of dried blood were scattered across my calf. He dipped the cloth in the b
owl and began cleaning off the blood.

  “Should I even be doing this?” he asked. “You aren’t undead, are you? An asema?”

  I glowered at him. “You’re brain damaged, aren’t you? You see me breathing, right?”

  “The tales say they breathe as well, during the day. I guess I’ll just have to check tonight.”

  “I’ll still be breathing. I’m not a vampire,” I muttered.

  He nodded to the athame and wand. “But you are a witch.”

  “I am Santiago’s daughter. Did you expect anything less?”

  “Yeah, about that. He’s never been married and there has never been a mention of a girl. He’s pretty important around these parts. Why hasn’t anyone known about you?”

  I shrugged. “That’s not really anyone else’s business.”

  “No, but people like to gossip. Your dad must have wanted to avoid gossip so much that he hid you away.”

  I gritted my teeth and stared at the bandage he wrapped around my wound. Father did try to hide me away, but I managed to get free on occasion. The last time had been for the Spring festival. I’d long to see the parades with the costumed townspeople that I’d heard so much about. I’d only snuck out for an hour or two, but I must have been seen. Someone had talked. Had it been that old man at the bookshop? He’d always seemed so kind, though.

  “Where are they taking my father?” I asked in a voice barely above a whisper.

  “Most likely to Rioj, to the Regent,” Bastian said.

  I shuddered. His voice held an odd coldness when he mentioned the Regent, not unlike my father. Even at the festival her name had been whispered with something akin to fear and hatred. Despite her power holding the barrier between Sector Nine and the vicious ravagers, she still gained so much ire. What would she do to my father?

  Bastian pressed the wet cloth to the scrapes on my hands, causing me to suck in my breath through my teeth. After a few minutes, the stinging across my palms faded. He sat back and tossed the rag back into the water. I stood up to limp towards one of the windows. The throb had lessened to a dull ache that flared when I put a little weight on my leg.