Idun's Apple was used in the Moon Palace for initiations and other ceremonies. The woman credited with rediscovering the current formula was rumored to have been more than a hundred and sixty years old. Its secrets were kept by the highest-ranking leaders of the Moon Palace, and Alex might have been the only person alive who knew how to make it. I'm not even sure Grandma Spice knows, he thought.
He had access to all the Moon Palace's secrets, and he had just mentioned Idun's Apple on a whim.
"Obviously, the real recipe will have to remain a secret," he said. "Some of the ingredients and techniques would be impossible to reproduce, but there's a revised formula that will be nearly as effective as the original. If you can get me into your lab tonight, I can make a sample."
Maryann trusted him implicitly—so much so that she had fired two people for him without hesitation. And he's not taking his full cut of our profits, she thought. He's not after the money. This is just who he is.
"Alex, I don't know what to say," she said. She took his hand and pulled him close. "After all this is over, I might be able to find the words." She leaned in to kiss him, but he gently pushed her away.
"Stop," he said. "I've already told you I'm not available. Besides, I need to get to work."
***
In one of the Robinson Winery's R&D labs, Alex looked over the ingredients and equipment laid out on a table. He had provided a list of items he would need, and he was making sure it was all there.
Maryann had come along to watch him work, but she sat quietly in a corner of the lab to give him some room. She watched him intently, realizing she was genuinely starting to fall for him. He's worth a million pampered oil barons, she thought.
At some point, she drifted off to sleep and was awakened by a gentle shake. It was almost eight in the morning, and Alex was standing over her with a cheerful smile.
"All done," he said, handing her a plastic cup containing a pale golden liquid. "Try it."
She couldn't describe the scent of it—it was sweet and vaguely herbal. It smells like sunshine feels on your skin, she thought. She took a sip and closed her eyes, not knowing what to expect. When she swallowed, she could feel it moving through her like a wave, and she felt a rush of energy sweep away any lingering fatigue. She couldn't remember the last time she had felt this good, and she felt like she could run a marathon.
"This is amazing," she said. "You'd expect anything that makes you feel like this to taste awful, but this is great wine. I've never tasted anything like it." Her face broke into a huge smile as she realized they were going to make a fortune.
Before he could answer, he was distracted by the vibration of his phone. He glanced at the screen and frowned when he saw it was Kendall.
"Alex, you need to get over here," Kendall said when he answered. "We've lost a patient, and we have a situation here."
"I'm on my way," he said, pulling off his lab coat. "We'll pick this up later," he told Maryann as he rushed from the lab.
Losing a patient was always a crisis, but it could mean the end of a clinic as new as Woodside. He was at the doors in less than twenty minutes.
It was only eight thirty in the morning, but there were already dozens of people in the waiting room.
He squeezed through the crowd until he got to the reception desk and found Sophie was huddled against the far wall. Her hair was disheveled, her face was red, and her scrubs were torn. There was a bruise forming under her left eye, and she had a split lip.
Kendall stood in front of her with a kitchen knife in her hand and a fierce look on her face. Even without her ability to fight as she once had, she had protected Sophie from the mob.
Between the women and the angry crowd was an old man on a gurney. He was completely still, and his eyes were open and staring at nothing. Alex watched his chest, but the man wasn't breathing.
"Everybody out," he shouted.
Ignoring him, a burly man pointed at Sophie. "That woman murdered my father," he said. "I'm going to get justice." The crowd roared in support and began shouting and cursing. Alex only caught fragments of it.
"A life for a life."
"You're a bunch of quacks. This is malpractice, and we're going to make sure you get shut down."
"Enough talking. We're going to tear this place apart."
It was like a signal. All at once, more than a dozen of the old man's family members surged forward, intent on getting to Sophie.
"Don't take another step," Kendall snapped, waving the knife. "The first person who tries to lay a hand on her is going to lose that hand."
She might not be a trained assassin anymore, but she meant what she said. The crowd stopped just outside her reach, but they were still shouting. Alex saw someone hoist a chair over their head to throw at her, and he knew he needed to act.
"Enough!" he shouted, running into the crowd. With a smooth flow of light punches and kicks, he took down eight of them before they knew what had hit them. They fell to the floor, writhing and howling.
The burly man roared at him. "I'll kill you," he shouted, and then he rushed forward.
Alex spun out of his path and grabbed a handful of fallen acupuncture needles from the floor. His arm blurred, and the man stopped in his tracks. Alex had thrown the needles like darts at precisely the right spots to cause momentary paralysis. A look of confusion swept across the big man's face as he slumped to the floor.
The mob went silent as if someone had flipped a switch. They had never seen anything like that.
"This is my clinic," Alex said to the crowd. "If we're at fault here, the responsibility is mine, and I'll face the consequences, even if it means going to jail. It's still not clear what's happened here, but no one is going to lay a finger on my staff." He turned away from them and looked at Sophie. "Talk to me," he said.
"He came in this morning with his son and a couple others," she said after getting her breathing under control. "He'd fallen and was brought in for emergency treatment. As soon as I started to examine him, I could tell something wasn't right. His pulse was thready, and he wasn't able to speak. I urged them to go to the emergency room." Her eyes never wandered from the old man lying so still on the gurney. "But they said he was in too much pain, and they didn't want the hospital to load him up with painkillers. So, I started to treat him, and then he just stopped breathing."
She swallowed hard, looking up at Alex. "The family went berserk before I could even try to resuscitate him. They said my medical skills were weak, and that I had killed him. I tried to get control of the situation, but they attacked me. If Kendall hadn't been here, they would have killed me."
Her voice was almost monotone, but he could hear a quaver in it, and he wasn't sure if it was sorrow or rage. She had spent most of her life being pampered and prepared for a career in traditional medicine, and she had been sheltered from dealing with real people with genuine problems.
"You killed my father," said the old man's son. Someone had pulled out the needles Alex had used to paralyze him, but he was still unsteady on his feet. "He was fine when we brought him in here, aside from the fall. He'd still be alive if it wasn't for you." He glared at Sophie with tears in his eyes. "You're a murderer. You wear that white coat, but you're just a killer. I bet everything you touch dies. Hell, I hope everything you touch dies. You deserve to feel what we feel right now."