Page 43 of Alchemy of Secrets

There were eleven hours left.

As Holland and Adam left the Watch Man’s bungalow, she noticed a number of people already in costumes. She saw a sexy Little Red Riding Hood holding hands with a wolf, and just before reentering the main hotel, she and Adam passed an angel smoking a cigarette and talking to a red-horned devil.

“So the Watch Man really didn’t say anything useful while I was asleep?” Adam asked.

“No,” Holland said, trying to keep her voice casual. “He just told me how much he loved my father’s films.”

Adam frowned, unconvinced. “If the Watch Man didn’t have any information, then do you want to tell me why you thought coming here was a good idea?”

“It was just a hunch,” Holland said.

Adam continued to watch her warily and accidentally bumped into a couple coming out of their room. “Sorry,” he apologized. Then his eyes were back on Holland, sharp and accusatory. “Why are you lying?”

“I wasn’t lying—” Before the words were out of her mouth, Adam took hold of her hand and pulled her through a door.

Suddenly, she was inside an elegant pink-and-green hotel suite with lots of light streaming through the windows and lingering hints of its previous occupant’s perfume.

“What are you doing?” Holland squeaked.

Adam released her hand and strode across the suite as if it belonged to him.

“How did you even get us in here—” She broke off as she saw that Adam had taken her satchel right off her shoulder. Her chest tightened with panic. She lunged for the bag. “Give that back!”

“Give me the truth.” Adam easily caught her wrists with both of his hands. He pressed them close together, holding her captive in the center of the suite.

Holland tugged against his grip. But Adam didn’t budge. The only thing that moved was his mouth, as if he found her sad escape attempt amusing. “I’m not the one with a ticking clock, Bright Eyes.”

Holland froze at the name. She’d heard him call her this before. But only in her visions. The thought returned to her that she had known him before. That Adam was someone to her that she couldn’t remember.

His hands were warm against her skin. His grip was firm but no longer as tight as it could have been, and though his lips were still amused, his eyes held something else. He looked hurt, as if the idea of her lying to him pained him.

Holland had two puzzles to solve: the mystery of the Alchemical Heart and the mystery of Adam Bishop. And she felt certain she wasn’t going to figure out the first until she figured out the second.

“All right,” she admitted. “I lied. The Watch Man did tell me something while you were asleep.” She paused. “He said you were the devil.”

She waited for Adam to laugh, or to grin, or to say he was flattered. She waited for his beautiful eyes to show a hint of surprise. She waited and waited and waited.

He stood there for an eternity of seconds. Then finally, he said, “I’m not the devil.”

“Then why did it take you so long to say that?”

He looked at her for another impossibly long second. His hands had been warm but suddenly they were very cold. “I swear to you, I’m not the devil, but once upon a time, I was.”

Holland felt her legs going boneless.

And Adam let her go. He dropped her hands and backed away.

Holland heard people out in the hall, pushing noisy luggage and talking too loudly on their phones, living ordinary lives, as she felt another piece of stable ground crumble beneath her feet.

Across from her, Adam didn’t say a word.

He looked at her as if he was afraid she would run. And as if he wanted her to run, as if he wanted to tell her to get as far away from him as possible. And for a brittle heartbeat, he felt more like someone who was haunted by the devil than the actual devil.

“Tell me the story,” Holland said. Her legs were feeling steadier, and a part of her really wanted to run, but she knew she couldn’t leave this room until she heard him out.

Adam ran a hand through his hair. “It’s a long story and you don’t have a lot of time.”

“Then give me the CliffNotes version.”

Adam wandered over to the minibar. He gave it a once-over, looking disappointed, before turning back to Holland and saying, “In this world, every family has a different way of deciding who will inherit. My father told my brother Mason and me that he would bequeath all his magic and abilities to whichever one of us could amass the greatest amount of power and influence. My brother had always been the golden boy, the good one. But everyone knows good isn’t always what gets you to the top.

I haven’t been good, but all my life I’ve managed to come out all right. ”

Adam said the words all right the way someone else might say barely getting by , but Holland had a feeling that Adam’s version of doing all right meant far more than just getting by.

“I wasn’t sure what was going to happen, but then Mason told me he didn’t want to compete with me. He wanted us both to have abilities, so he suggested we work together. And he had an idea of what we could do.” Adam’s smile made its way back, but it was bitter now.

“What was your brother’s idea?” Holland asked, not sure she really wanted to know.

“He said that together, we could become the devil.”

Dread pooled in Holland’s stomach.

“You have to understand, I idolized my older brother, more than I ever did my father.” Adam’s voice was soft, pleading.

Holland reminded herself that he had tricked her before—but he didn’t look as if he was acting this time.

He looked as if he was stripping parts of himself away.

His voice was rougher, and every time his eyes met hers, the look in them was raw.

“Mason promised no one would get hurt. He said we wouldn’t really become the devil; we wouldn’t become evil.

We would just use his name to build an empire. ”

“How?” Holland asked.

“Everyone has heard of the devil,” Adam said. “But most people couldn’t tell you what he looks like, where he lives, or what his favorite drink is. So, Mason had this idea of creating a series of myths about the devil, myths that would lead to us.”

“Like the devil’s sidecar?”

“Exactly. But that wasn’t the first story we came up with.

We started with the story of Natalia West. I’d ask if you remember her, but I know you do, since you wrote about her in your thesis.

” For a second, he looked vaguely impressed.

“My brother and I never made a deal with her, for the record. But we claimed that we did. We started a rumor that Natalia West’s rise to fame was because she made a deal with the devil, and then we started another rumor that her mysterious death was because she didn’t make good on her end of the bargain.

“When my brother first suggested it, I remember the way he smiled at me, like it was all just smoke and mirrors and fun. And I believed him. Mason said we weren’t ever going to kill anyone.

” Adam looked down at his hands, and Holland had the impression he wished he was holding on to a drink.

“Mason said if people believed the devil lived in Los Angeles and had the power to make people famous, then they would come to us. And they did.

“After starting rumors about the devil, my brother recruited people from families with lesser abilities to work for us. That’s how we started collecting favors.

Mason used the abilities of others to get people without abilities or magic through doors they couldn’t open on their own, and once he got people through those doors, they all owed the devil favors. ”

“And what was your role in all this?” Holland asked, although that wasn’t the only question she had; this whole story was making her head spin.

In all her research on the devil, it had never occurred to her that it might just be a man—or two men —using the devil as a persona.

When Adam had mentioned Natalia West, Holland had felt briefly triumphant that she’d figured out the truth, but now she felt as if she’d been tricked, just like everyone else.

“At first, I spread a lot of rumors and set up a lot of meetings. I’d go out around LA, meet girls who were pretty but not beautiful.

Talk to men who were smart but lacked social skills, or excellent actors with unattractive faces.

Then I would tell them I could change all that.

We started by making deals with mostly actors at first. But then my brother wanted people who wielded even more power to owe us favors.

He always wanted more. And he got it, until… our father found out.”

“Wait—I thought you were doing this for your father?”

“We were. But he was not impressed. It was the first time I’d ever seen him disappointed in Mason.

My father said we were no better than petty mobsters and that he was going to find another heir.

The next morning, my father was dead, and Mason had all his abilities.

” Adam shook his head, as if he still couldn’t believe it.

“The worst part is, I didn’t put it together right away.

I thought we’d broken my father’s heart and that was why he’d died.

But it wasn’t heartbreak. It was Mason.”

“Are you sure?”

Adam nodded, anger replacing his pain. “My brother killed my father before he could find a new heir, knowing that by default all our dad’s abilities would go to his oldest son.

And that’s when I tried to end it all. I told my brother we needed to stop this.

I never wanted to kill anyone. I never wanted to hurt anyone,” Adam said, but the rough way he said the word hurt made Holland think that Adam had definitely hurt people.

Holland had the sudden thought that he was going to hurt her, too, if she stayed. This story was the reddest of red flags to ever wave, and yet Holland found she was feeling less inclined to leave. If Adam was telling the truth, then he wasn’t her enemy—his brother was.

“Is this when you had your falling out?” she asked.

“No. Mason was happy to have the name of the devil all to himself. And I didn’t have any of our father’s magic, so I wasn’t a threat. Not until I tried to take away Mason’s abilities.”

“What happened then?”

“It didn’t go well.” Adam’s eyes shot to the hotel room, checking to make sure they were still alone. “You may have noticed in your research that no one has made any recent deals with the devil.”

Holland actually hadn’t noticed this. She’d been so fixated on the past, she hadn’t been paying attention to the present.

But Adam was right. Holland couldn’t think of any recent celebrity deaths she’d attributed to the devil.

And for all her visits to the Roosevelt, she had never seen his brother there until last night.

“My brother still has his abilities. But he’s not able to use them—for now.”

“Why can’t he use them now?” Holland asked.

“It’s nearly impossible to steal an ability from another person. The best I could do was something that would lock my brother’s abilities away. But that all changes if he gets his hands on the Alchemical Heart.”

“You think he’s searching for it?”

“Yes. Even before I made it impossible for Mason to use his abilities, he wanted the Alchemical Heart. He’s always wanted it. Why do you think so many of the people he made deals with couldn’t pay him back?”

“Are you saying the only way to pay your brother back was to give him the Alchemical Heart?”

“For a lot of people, yes,” Adam said, grim.

“But that’s impossible.” Holland felt sick. And then she thought about her dad and how the Watch Man had said the only way for Ben to live was to give one of the devils the Alchemical Heart. But even as she thought that, Holland couldn’t imagine her father making such a foolish bargain.

“Did you and your brother make a deal with my parents?” she asked.

“No,” Adam said immediately. “I never made a deal with your parents.”

“What about your brother?”

Adam frowned.

“Is that a yes or a no?”

“I don’t know,” he said quietly. “Even before our relationship ended, my brother did a lot of things I wasn’t aware of.”

“So he could have done it,” Holland said. “He could have been the real reason why my parents died.”

“I can understand why you would want to believe that, but I meant what I told you yesterday. If you live through today, chasing the answer to this question will only get you killed tomorrow. My brother might not have access to all his abilities, but he’s still incredibly dangerous.”

Holland scowled. There was no universe where she was not going to hunt this answer down, but Adam clearly wasn’t going to help her do it. “Does my sister know about all this?”

“I don’t usually tell this story over drinks.” Adam looked back down at his hands and then he held out her satchel like a peace offering. “If you want to run now, I wouldn’t blame you.”

Holland considered it. Walking away from Adam meant she wouldn’t have to worry about trusting anyone.

But it also meant she’d be alone. Holland didn’t want to do this by herself, and if she succeeded in finding the Alchemical Heart, she could also help Adam stop his brother for good. And she really liked that idea.

Holland flashed back to seeing Mason at the Roosevelt, how he had clearly recognized her, and suddenly Holland wondered if she knew why.

“I was dating someone,” she told Adam. “Last night, he was murdered, and I found out he was only dating me because he’d been hired to look into my family.

I found a gold-and-black folder in his apartment with detailed instructions about how to get close to me. ”

Adam ran a slow hand down his jaw. “Sounds like my brother. The gold and black have always been his calling card. And he doesn’t have problems killing.”

“I still have one question,” Holland said.

“Only one?”

“I’d ask more, but like you said, we’re on a ticking clock. How old are you?”

This earned her a surprised smile. “That’s what you want to know?”

“The math on this story isn’t mathing. Either you look incredibly good for your age, or you haven’t aged in a very long time.”

Adam’s smile widened. “You think I look incredibly good?”

Holland fought the sudden urge to smack him. “You know you do.”

He grinned for another second, before his expression turned serious. “Why don’t we get back to the subject of keeping you alive?” Adam reached for the flap of Holland’s satchel.