Read The Final Formula for Free Online

crimson lay drying on my dirty skin.
    I stilled, half-expecting… What? It was just blood. James had exaggerated. It wasn’t as lethal as he thought. I squatted and rubbed the back of my hand in the grass. No need to upset him.
    I retrieved the duffle bag from the car and jogged back toward the gap in the fence. Maybe I should have stayed with him. What if he didn’t get the bleeding stopped? If he passed out, I’d never get him out of that basement. I couldn’t even call for help. Neither of us had a cell phone.
    Movement drew my attention, and I looked back. A man sat on his haunches beneath the streetlight I’d stopped beside earlier. I’d almost reached the gap under the fence, but I slowed my pace to watch. What was he doing? He braced his hands wide and leaned over to press his face to the ground. His tongue snaked out and licked the grass—in the same place I’d cleaned my hand.
    “What did you find, my love?” An older woman stepped around the large tree to my right, nearly colliding with me. We gasped in unison.
    “Oh, you startled me.” She pressed a hand to her chest, her wide eyes on me.
    I stared, unable to help myself. I’d never seen eyes like hers. The irises were so pale, they appeared white.
    The man stood, his movements slow and awkward, and turned to face us. I expected him to greet us until his filmed-over eyes met mine. I failed to bite back the scream that bubbled up. Undignified as hell, but to my knowledge, I’d never come face-to-face with a zombie.
    I dropped the duffle bag and stumbled back. A tube of Knockout Powder rested against my palm though I didn’t remember pulling it from my sleeve. The zombie took an uncoordinated step toward me and then another. Through a section of missing jaw, his tongue worked the blood he’d licked from the grass.
    “Are you out for a stroll, too?” the woman asked. “Lovely evening for it.”
    I glanced over in time to catch her wide smile. I’d guess necromancer. And something about that spaced-out twinkle in her odd eyes told me she might not be the brains of the operation. Wonderful. I had all the luck.
    “You want to call off your, um, man?” I asked.
    She looked confused until I gestured at the man in question. “Oh, sorry.” She turned toward the advancing zombie. “Come here, Ethan, and leave the nice lady alone.”
    Ethan didn’t listen.
    “That’s odd,” the woman said. She scratched her head through her short graying-blonde hair, her expression puzzled.
    “What’s that?” I suspected her definition of odd varied a bit from my own.
    “He’s bound. He shouldn’t ignore me.”
    “Are you saying you’ve lost control of your zombie?”
    She pressed her thin lips together as she considered him. “Ethan, stop!”
    He didn’t. Only ten yards away, his opaque eyes remained fixed on me. I took a step back, my shoulder brushing the woman’s, and mentally ran through my inventory of potions and powders. Nothing short of fire or decapitation would stop a zombie. Though what actually animated him stood beside me.
    I turned and blew the Knockout Powder into the necromancer’s face. She collapsed at my feet without a sound.
    Unlike her zombie. He continued to shuffle toward me. What the hell? He shouldn’t still be moving.
    With a scream, I whirled away and slammed into the fence, smashing my nose. My eyes watered and my vision blurred. I laced my fingers through the cold chain-link, searching with my feet for the gap. It should be close. If I could put the fence between me and the zombie—
    On the other side of the fence, a dark shape ran straight at me. I gasped and ducked as it vaulted eight-foot of chain-link with ease. With a huff of breath and no other sound, an enormous black dog landed beside me. The same dog that had come to my rescue the night the Alchemica burned. His head rose, and I met his eyes. His glowing green eyes.
    A throaty groan and we both turned to find Ethan the zombie only feet away. A squeak escaped me,